Starship Void Chaser
Uul
"Welcome to my ship, the Tarlen Lekon! In your earth language, it is called the Void Chaser. You are going to be staying here for quite some time, so I recommend you familiarize yourselves with the basics of my ship."The Starship Void Chaser is a mercenary scout ship owned by a venerable Maorian named Uul Se'Corvil. Over the last 250 years the crew of the ship has performed numerous contracts for multiple powers in the Cairn Sector including the Vusinor and Maorian Empires, the Regalti Allied Navy, and the Colony Alliance. The crew has fought off space pirates, destroyed creatures of the void, stood between various factions on the verge of war, and transported various people and items of special importance.
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Name
The full and proper designation of the ship by the RAN is the 'Tesnoloko Tarlen Lekon', which translates to "Scout Ship Chaser of the Void". In Sul's Maorian language, the ship would best be translated to "Zja se Ahran" which means "Darkness Skimmer".
The Ship originally got its name from one of the ship's first crew members, who suggested using the Regalti word 'Lekon' because depending on the Regalti language the word has different meanings, and can mean 'Void', 'Unknown', or 'Knowledge'.
Right: Tarlen Lekon as written in a stylized Regalti script.
Bottom: Zja Se Ahran as written in a stylized Maorian script.
Zha se Ahran
Tarlen Lekon
Abold
"What do the Vusinor call the ship? I call it storage space for my gun collection! But... "Xekunl Korjun" would be the proper Vusinor word for the Void Chaser."
Zipk
Specifications
Full DesignationT.N. Tarlen Lekon
(Naval Scout Ship Chaser of the Void)
Ship Class
Long Range Scout Ship
Manufacturer
Lanthium Launch Alliance
Year Built
134 A.E. (After Exodus)
Owner
Captain Uul
Rarity
One of a Kind
Length
81 meters
Width
60 meters (wings open)
30 meters (wings closed)
Height
19 meters (35 with landing gear down and solar sails fully extended)
Weight
200,000 kilograms (Empty)
450,000 Kilograms (Fully Loaded)
Speed
Mach 1 (Atmosphere)
3% Lightspeed (Space)
Crew
16 to 20
Passengers
12
Cargo
250,000 kilograms
Layout
((Map contains 3 layers and 1 set of pins for each layer.))
Construction
The Void Chaser was constructed in the year 134 After Exodus and officially commissioned the next year. While it is a Regalti design, most of the funding for the ship came from the Maorian Captain Uul and several Vusinor.
Almost the entire ship has been stripped down and upgraded several times over the centuries. Very little of the original ship remains aside from the frame. With the latest upgrades around 40 years ago, the engines were completely rebuilt and the main cargo bay was converted into a weapons bay, now housing a massive railgun.
Frame, Outer Shells, Walls
The frame of the Void Chaser is made mostly of aluminum composites with steel support where necessary. This provides a lightweight but sturdy frame. While stronger and lighter materials do exist, Aluminum and steel can be easily gathered even on lower tech worlds and makes repairing a damaged ship much easier and faster. This is also a way to tell the age of the Void Chaser as most modern Regalti ships tend to be made mostly of Graphene or Titanium.
The Outer shell of the Void Chaser is made of a graphene composite that absorbs extreme heat and light radiation, dissipating most of the energy harmlessly back into space, and adding minimal amounts to the ship's capacitor. This also acts as an excellent insulator, keeping the inside of the ship a constant 23.5 °C with minimal mechanical climate control needed unless the Void Chaser is too close to a star or on a particularly hot or cold world.
The walls and floors inside the ship are made of thin sheets of various metals and synthetic materials and are filled with Graphene Aerogel. This soundproofs the walls of the ship and also allows individual rooms to be climate controlled. This is important on a ship that employs up to five alien species at any given time all with their own temperature preferences. This also makes the walls of the ship nearly as strong as the frame and on certain stress points, it might be even stronger.
Repair Drones
The Void Chaser does not have a dedicated structural engineer on board. The two mechanics Wyorin Zipk and Aran Se'Knoll both have basic structural knowledge of the ship, but if major repairs are required and the ship can't be brought to port, there is technology that helps with that.
The Void Chaser is equipped with a set of all purpose Repair Drones, with the blueprint of the Void Chaser loaded into them. Three of the drones are about the size of a large dog. the rest are smaller and several are micro scale in size. This allows the drones to reach almost any area on the ship to repair it. These drones also double as cleaning machines and keep every part of the ship nearly spotless at all times.
If repairs are needed, the drones will go to the damaged area, and using the Void Chaser plans, will 3D print a new part or print a repair for a damaged part. The drones can use several materials for the printing process and the Void Chaser has dedicated storage space for this material. The new parts aren't meant to last, they are meant to hold up long enough for the ship to get into a port or station for repairs.
Power Systems
The Void Chaser makes use of three different systems to ensure the ship gets proper amounts of power in any situation: An Anti-matter Fusion Reactor, Solar Sails, and a Kerosene Turbine.
Anti-Matter Fusion Reactor
The Fusion reactor in the Void Chaser is capable of generating 200 Mega Watts of power. It works by fusing Helium-3 into Helium-4 and releasing 2 protons and a massive amount of energy. The nuclear reaction is started by injecting several anti-deuterium atoms which obliterates some of the Helium-3, releasing massive amounts of energy, heating the fuel enough to cause fusion. Nearly all of the released heat energy is converted to electricity and stored in several large capacitors. The Helium-4 is sent to be stored for later use by the ship's several dozen smaller thrusters.
Antimatter Injected Fusion Reactors
Solar Sails
The Void Chaser has several large solar sails for gathering energy from nearby stars and can generate 25MW of power on its own. The sails are stored in the ship's tail, and in the wings. They are almost always unfolded when in space and not used when in an atmosphere.
Most of the ship's outer skin is actually photovoltaic in nature, and while the skin collect minimal amounts of starlight in emergencies, its primary use is to absorb light based weaponry.
Solar Sail detail
Kerosene Turbine
Used in emergencies and in areas where nuclear reactors can't be powered. The Void Chaser also has around 20,000 liters of kerosene fuel for running a turbine engine that provides additional thrust and power. The 50MW of power it generates can be routed to the ships electric turbo fans to provide the rest of the thrust required for flight. Turbine engines can only be used in an atmosphere with specific levels of oxygen.
Propulsion Systems
Deep Space Travel: Antimatter Pulse Engine
The Void Chaser's primary engine for getting between planets at great speed utilizes the antimatter reactor. It works by taking the Helium-4 created from the fusion reactor (Several other types of fuel on the ship are also usable) and injecting several nanograms of antimatter in it, causing a miniature nuclear explosion and providing great amounts of thrust.
This reactor can output power in the Terawatt range and can keep the ship accelerating and decelerating at a constant speed between 5-20 meters per second. The ship uses that acceleration and deceleration to simulate gravity utilizing Vusinor technology, an Inertia Converter.
The ship can move at a maximum of 3% the speed of light and takes roughly a month to accelerate to that speed. In the vast majority of star systems, the ship rarely reaches 0.5% the speed of light as it spends half of the trip accelerating and half of the trip decelerating to properly simulate gravity.
Zipk
"Why are there so many different power sources and engines for this ship? The Void Chaser is designed to fly in space, fly in almost any atmosphere, and even float on water. You should be surprised that it doesn't have More alternate power sources and even more different engines!"Space Travel: Ion Engines
For orienting and positioning the ship, the Void Chaser has 3 Ion-Engines and several dozen thrusters. It's propellant is the Helium-4 that is produced from the Fusion reactors. These engines work by using electricity and magnetic fields to ionize and compress the helium gas, then expelling it out the exhaust, giving the ship small bursts of acceleration.
Atmosphere: Electric Turbofans
When in an atmosphere, the ship uses two large electric turbofan engines that keeps the ship flying. The ship can keep itself flying in an atmosphere almost indefinitely off of the power supply. If for some reason the ship is floating in water, it can use the turbofans to provide forward and reverse thrust but this isn't that efficient.
Defenses
Shield Generator
The Void Chaser is equipped with a Shield generator. It works by generating a field of charged particles with a strong magnetic field. Anything that attempts to pass the barrier is obliterated by these charged particles. It's primary purpose is to neutralize micrometeorites and other debris when traveling through space, but it's capacity can be greatly increased in combat. It can vastly slow the speed of metallic projectiles and can cause missiles to spontaneously explode.
Photovoltaic Plating
The outer skin of the Void Chaser is covered in small hex shaped tiles that absorb light. As most lasers fall somewhere within the red wavelength, the solar panels are tinted red, which will disperse and reflect the light harmlessly away. The effect of other light based weaponry can be reduced by up to 90%, and the shield generator can often handle the rest. These defenses are not absolute however, as a large enough laser will still melt right through the ship's armor as if it weren't even there.
Space Battle showing the shield working against an explosive.
Weapons
240mm Tungsten Railgun
The ship's original cargo bay was refitted to house a large railgun that fires with amazing destructive power. It is capable of firing a 120kg sabot at speeds of 120km/s, outputting 860 billion joules of energy in a single shot.
It can take up to 30 minutes to charge enough energy for that single shot, diverting power away from other systems. To add to this, firing the cannon requires the ship's thrusters to be in operation at the time it fires to negate the recoil, or minor injury can occur. The design of the Vusinor Inertia converter can't account for this movement.
Weapon Room
25mm Gauss Cannons
The Void Chaser has 4 smaller cannons, 2 of them also placed within the original cargo bay. These will open in hatches on the top of the ship and two more guns are in compartments on the bottom of the ship. These cannons fire a 184g projectile at 5km/s, outputting 2.3 million joules of energy with each shot. As long as the Void Chaser has ammunition and the fusion reactor is running, these cannons can fire 10 times a second without needing to charge first, but have much less force compared to the main cannon.
Overloading the Antimatter reactor
As a last resort, the Void Chaser's antimatter reactor can be overloaded by injecting as much antimatter into the fusion process as can safely be maintained. The ship can aim its thrusters directly at a threat, and the resulting antimatter explosion obliterates everything in a 10km cone behind the ship. This completely destroys the engines though. The resulting energy also sends out an EMP shockwave in all directions that can disable unshielded systems, including the Void Chaser's own systems.
Fighter Craft
Yotar
"The XF-337 Griffon is a nimble jet with great versatility, if you know how to fly one. Start hitting the flight simulator now or you're only going to be able to keep staring at it."Attached to the weapon bay are 4 XF-337 Griffon Fighter Jets with folding wings. Most of the craft is modular and parts can be switched out in a hurry. The enengines can be quickly swapped out so the fighters can fly in space or an atmosphere. It's possible to convert the craft into a submersible if the proper parts were around.
Each of these fighters is equipped with two 12.5mm auto cannons that fires a 50g projectile at 1km/s, outputting 25000 joules of energy with each shot. These guns are also modular and can be swapped out for different weapons for when the need arises. The fighters are also equipped with an EMP generator, as well as attachment points for any number of different missiles.
Navigation and Communications
Emission Spectra Array
Each of the ship's photovoltaic plates has a small camera installed near the center, and are able to record the emission spectra of stars in its field of view. The ship's computer has on record the spectra lines of twenty five billion of the brightest stars in the galaxy. It uses this data to determine the exact location of the Void Chaser in the galaxy. This is very useful is the ship is ever exploring uncharted space.
Radio Transponder
When determining the ship's location within a star system. The ship is equipped with a transponder that sends out an HF signal at regular intervals. In settled systems, there are always three navigation beacons that recieve these signals then resends them at a slight delay. The Void Chaser then recieves these signals and uses them to calculate its location within a star system. Due to the speed of light, it might take several hours to several days to recieve a signal when entering a new system, depending on location.
Quantum Switchboard
On the Void Chaser is a black box, secret technology provided by the Vusinor. As long as it is powered, the box will keep about three dozen particles inside to within a few degrees of absolute zero, preventing the random flucations of the quantum world from affecting them. When a message is sent, the particles inside the box are charged and vibrate at a specific frequency.
This causes the entangled particles to also instantly vibrate, which are located on a Switchboard World hundreds of light-years away. The switchboard world then takes the signals and sends them to other entangled particles to send the message to its destination. This technology allows almost instant communication anywhere in the universe, though it does have its limitations. The Void Chaser only has a system large enough for two-way text communication.
Sharli
Of course we do have more traditional methods of communication. Not every world has the privilege or ability to use the Quantum Switchboard. Also keeping that thing on takes way too much power!We have a radio transmitter-reciever on board that can send and detect radio signals in almost any frequency. The computer is also calibrated to send and recieve signals depending on the settled system. Depending on distance and the system's technology level, we can communicate with instant video, or spend several hours or days having a two way text conversation.
Life Support
Molecular Harvester
The Void Chaser has an onboard machine to collect and convert matter in nearly any atmosphere. This allows the ship to stay on its missions for such a long period of time. It is usually calibrated to collect its major fuel sources, Kerosene and Helium-3. The Void Chaser can also fly into thicker atmospheres of gas giants to collect both fuel sources much faster. This can also collect Water, Oxygen, and nearly any other liquid or gas once calibrated.
Molecular Conversion Room
Algae Bioreactor
The Void Chaser is equipped with a Algae Bioreactor with several attached machines to filter water. The system can convert up to 25,000 gallons of waste water per day into reuseable water for cleaning and drinking, far more than it needs to. Aside from filtering water, the bioreactor also recycles the air into useable oxygen. The algae in the reactor can also be harvested to supply additional food for the crew and gives the Void Chaser the ability to stay out in space or hostile environments for longer periods of time.
Elya
"You have three choices for food on this ship. You can choose between the awfully textured 3D printed stuff upstairs, try the awful tasting emergency ration blocks in the cargo bay, or you can eat the algae here that's been filtering our dirty water for the last month!""...I hate living in space..."
Algae Bioreactor and Water Storage
Medical Facilities
The Void Chaser is equipped with a Medical bay, with a genetic analyzer, operating tables, surgical equipment, and a large selection of medicine. There are two medical officers aboard the ship, Elya and Raini. Despite their young age and both being Regalti, they handle the medical needs of everyone on the ship, regardless of species. 99% of their job does boil down to drawing blood and doing the necessary lab work, analyzing it to ensure crew health, but they have the skills and tools to perform complex surgeries if needed.
Raini
What are those two rooms to the side? Those contains an advanced Nanite Bed in each room, thanks to our Vusinor friends. We'll put you in there to repair things like missing limbs, damaged organs, burned tissue. You do NOT want to spend the night in one of those things! It isn't calibrated for human DNA yet anyways.
Medical Rooms
Lunchroom/3D Food Printer
On the Command Deck, attached to the lunch room is a Food Printer that will create food from raw materials. In the next room over is storage for the three macro nutrients (Fat, Carbohydrates, Protein), many dozens of vitamins and minerals, flavor and color compounds. It primarily uses cellulose harvested from algae to create the texture of the food. It can Print and then heat up almost any food that can be sucessfully programmed into it. It has an attached oven for manual cooking too.
Lunchroom
The food is said to taste bland though. Some crew members prefer the 3D printed mush to the alternative, somehow even less tasty Emergency Rations. No one likes eating the algae from the bioreactor.
Others try to survive as long as possible on the ship's fresh food provisions and frozen food stored in the cargo bay, but that has only ever lasts a month or so. Each crew member is allotted a small amount of space to bring whatever food they want, but it's never enough for a long mission.
Elya
"Oh yeah, we did have fresh food stored in the freezer but we ran out of that just before we picked you up. All we have left is....Actually, I have something. I was saving it for an emergency, but I guess I'll cook it right now!"Recreation
Kaline's Meditation Room
As designed, this room is an overflow sleeping area, with foldout beds from the walls and floors, able to sleep as many as 24 people. Uul doesn't often transport passengers, so Kaline convinced Uul to let her use the otherwise empty room. From her home country, Kaline brought a table, mats, cushions, and several other furniture items to make it just a little more like home.
All of the Regalti Crew members often come to this room to relax, and the more religious ones meditate in a nearly technology free area. The room is almost entirely quiet except the sounds of flowing liquid from the molecular converter and the quiet humming of the ship's capacitors in the next rooms over. Kaline allows any crew member in there, though she has yet to sucessfully convince any of the Yil or Vusinor to relax and have a cup of tea with her, with the exception of Sharli.
Kaline also set up a shrine for the Fevarik Goddesses Vala and Sevi on one wall, with the God Ventar on the other. While the other species on the ship don't care for religion, many Regalti consider the practice of their religion to be essential, even in this space age. Every month Kaline and Elya will perform a Feather Burning Ritual to honor their gods.
Meditation Room
Kaline
"Hello.""I was just about finished making a pot of Markethi. Would you like to relax for a minute and drink a cup with me?"
Wow this is a really well thought out article! I love the various types of propulsion and energy used depending on the situation. Kudos also to the fact that you thought about the ship starts decelerating half way. This seems like a very good scientific approach to a spaceship :)
Thanks! My Goal was to keep the ship somewhat grounded in reality, so if it were capable of space and atmosphere flight, I figured it would need to be somewhat airplane shaped like the Space Shuttle was, and have to obey the laws of physics like accelerating halfway and decelerating halfway. Glad you liked it!