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NSS Alliance Ion engine/nerd swap

Zack

Zack

Inactive Member
Negative Energy Recoil Drive: The NSS Alliance lacked the uber-sensor capabilities of such ships as the Kitsune or the Sakura. To change this a suggestion was made to fit the Alliance with a pair of the controversial Negative Energy Recoil Drives. With space at a premium inside of the ship, it was decided that the Alliance's Eteria series ion engine drives, which were rarely used, could be safely replaced by NERDs which would also be able to provide a quality level of STL drive power in all conditions. Because of production issues the recoil drives are unable to be produced in large quantities by NAM currently and it is unlikely that such modifications will be found in other DD4s.

The negative energy recoil drives use the entire space originally intended for the ion drive systems. They retain the same access points via recessed removable panels in the walls of the deck as well as in the ceiling and floors of the adjacent decks. All panels are grey and marked with ‘CAUTION DO NOT REMOVE' in a special bright yellow ink. The ink will automatically shift between yellow and grey depending on the ambient heat on the back of the panel. The panel itself is also lined with an expanding smart metal which enlarges enough to lock the panel in place when sufficient heat is against the back of the pannel. This warns off and physically prevents the crew from opening the panels when the drive systems are running. Because they do not use conventional exhaust armored panels have been installed over the exhaust ports for the ion drives.


  • Propulsion:
    • The negative energy recoil drive projects negative mass particles ‘forward'. It uses the unique properties of negative mass particles to pull the ship in the direction the particles are projected. Because negative mass particles do not normally interact with traditional mass the exhaust can be channeled through the ship without any ill effects. The unique properties of the negative mass particle (tachyon) allow for the huge mass of the DD4 to be accelerated quickly with a small number of negative mass particles.
    Computing:
    • By precisely controlling the flow of tachyons with tachyon filtering equipment data can be sent back in time several moments. This creates a time loop logic computer system out of the drive's emissions. By combining this system with ship's sensor data, a real time image of the exterior can be generated, negating the lag time of returning sensor actions. Specifically the computer attempts to predict where an object is and the sensors attempt to confirm this. The correct prediction is then sent backwards in time to the ship.

      The process involves manipulating tachyons with considerable inertia. Each manipulation generates considerable heat. Heat output and computer size limits the precognitive abilities of the system, giving it at maximum only a few seconds of lead time with increasing inaccuracy as time before the event occurs increases.

      The primitive time loop logic processor of the negative energy recoil drive is networked with the DD4s D.E.I.M.O.S. combat computer suite. A special software patch is required to ensure a seamless integration between the conventional FTL processing of the DEIMOS and the TLL processing of the NERD.

    Other Capabilities:
    • The negative energy recoil drives installed on the NSS Alliance technically do retain the capabilities to perform all of the other tasks that the drive was originally designed for including FTL shearing weaponry, FTL shearing shields, Sensors, Artificial Gravity, and communications. Because the DD4 already can perform these functions as well as if not better than the negative energy recoil drive, software to run these features was not included in the patch applied to the DEIMOS. Currently no plans are made for adding the capacity to use these features to the drives installed on the Alliance.
 
Wouldn't a tachyon drive have to go on the front of a ship?
 
Tachyons don't react with mass normally so they would be able to pass right through the ship without causing any disturbances. The gravotational constant of the artificial gravity might change slightly from the tachyons but not enough to be noticeable.

From what I understand it really dosen't matter where the drive system is in relation to the ship.
 
(Assuming the possibility of Tachyons :D)

Maybe I'm missing something, but if they are able to pull a whole ship, then I think that they would have very detramental effects to the in between sections of the ship. (I would think crushed soda can. :p)

Also, if Tachyons don't interact normally with regular mass, what governs their reactions?
 
It would be no different than a high powered rocket engine as far as structual effects on the ship are concerned. Replacing the ion engines of the ship also would mean that the new engines are already in a place ment to handle a high stress load. Because tachyons don't interact with normal matter then they can pass through the ship without affecting it in any way.

Tachyons and methods of interacting with them are already cannon in this setting. As for how they are interacted with I imagine the nerd as having a combination of energy fields and special tachyon reaction mass inside of it.
 
Just one question that has been puzzling me:

How does the ship actually generate Tachyons? I know of no way to accomplish such a thing.
 
Uso Tasuki said:
Because tachyons don't interact with normal matter then they can pass through the ship without affecting it in any way.
Click to expand...

So how does it actually pull the ship?
You are saying they interact with special shields/fields generated by the ship?
 
I would assume it generates tachyons in the same way that other ships generate tachyons, just in a larger amount. It would be some weird equation for condensing energy into negative mass I'm sure.

The drive system contains the special energy fields for interacting with tachyons so that is the only place where acceleration is imparted. The tachyons can then exit freely in any direction without imparting additional accelerating to the ship.

Wes said:
Apostrophes are NEVER used for plurals (other ships generate, not other ship's generate). The apostrophe is for possesion (ship's propulsion)
Click to expand...
 
Uso, it would have a effect on the rest of the ship if the drive exhaust passed through it, seeing as the tachyons (in your own approved (and therefor cannon, as you love to point out) writeup for the NERD system) are used to provide artificial gravity. If they a relatively small output of them (relative to the rest of the systems output) can generate 1G gravity on a ship, then the drives entire thrust would crush the crew into jelly and tear the ship apart in a fraction of a second.

edit Also, the "precognitive" abilities of the tachyon system as it relates with the computer and sensors would be limited to the size of the computer, since the tachyons have to travel (unimpeded mind you) over a period of time (and thus distance) for the reverse light cone (i.e. time travel) to be meaningful. At a relatively sedate (keeping in mind the energy of a tachyonic object decreases exponentially with increasing speed, thus creating a very strong tendency for a cascade towards extremely high speeds and extremely small energies) speed of 4c it would cover the entire length of you Rapier-class destroyer in 208.48 nanoseconds (2.084776E -7s), which is not really a far enough "look" into the future for it to be very helpful. Covering the 6km of a Chihuru battleship would take it just 5 microseconds, still not of much use.
 
Using large amounts of slow moving tachyons to generate anti-gravity is one thing. Using a few tachyons moving at extreme speeds to generate thrust is another. A small abount of tachyons used for thrust would generate some anti-gravity but no where near enough to have a noticeable effect on the ship's crew.

I would like to point out that I mentioned the sensors are for real time imaging of the battlefield. A tachyon transmission could also be bounced back and forth inside of the machine, artificially increasing the length. Because each bounce would generate exponentially more heat and the number of bounces to get back to when the information would be useful is directly related to the size of the computer, size really does become the critical factor in how well the computer would perform without stopping a small computer from functioning in its intended capacity.
 
You do realize that the energy (and momentum) of tachyons falls of with increasing speed, right? So you would want a smaller amount of slower tachyons if you are trying to minimize the tachyon density while maintaining power output.
 
Creating slower tachyons means the tachyons will stay with the ship longer compared to tachyons moving at a large multiple of C. If the cost for making the particle is the same then slower ones would be more efficient for artificial gravity.

Faster tachyons would be less likely to be picked up by a sensor system. They are also needed for momentum so you can't emit them in both directions to cancel out the recoil unlike with artificial gravity which isn't trying to move the ship. The engines can also only impart so much acceleration to the ship at one point without destroying themselves, so you don't want to have them imparting to much acceleration. In this case a tachyon moving faster than the ones used for artificial gravity would be preferable.
 
I still feel uncomfortable with this generation of Tachyons ... I can't think of any way that it's even remotely possible.

... I'm going to leave them out of my future technology, since I think it requires too much suspension of disbelief.
 
You also have to keep in mind that whatever device is generating the tachyons cannot create a arbitrarily large quantity of them. It is because the faster they are, the less energy they posses that they are harder to detect, which means a very, very fast tachyonic exhaust would require a massive exponential increase in number of tachyons from slower, more massive tachyionic exhaust.

to Zak: That is because we not even theoretical physisicts know how they can be made in reality. At the current time they are not much more than the mathematical by-product of a few forms of string theory.

Oh, and one other thing, there is just no way this thing is going to be stealthy Uso. When they loose energy, it has to go somewhere, and in this case would in the form of light emitted, making the drive and its exhaust bright as day to anyone looking in its general direction.
 
As far as speed of the tachyons is concerned, it eventually boils down to different speeds and amounts of tachyons being used for different applications. This would be akin to torque vs. acceleration in a car and isn't really a problem with the tech.

Tachyons are currently plausible though un-provable with current technology. Much like super strings. Both are currently canon tech for star army and are used in other submissions. Tachyon sensors have been in use on KFY ships for some time which means a method for producing Tachyons must have already been established in this setting. The Elysians are also using a Tachyon based system in one of their recent submissions and I believe that made it through without anyone questioning the existence of Tachyons. At this point I think the only way to end tachyon based technology would be to prove they don't exist.

As energy is transferred to the ship from the change in velocity of the tachyons it would produce heat and light. Because the engine is inside of the ship, the light can't get out. The argument that because the system would produce light it wouldn't be stealthy is like saying that a starship with a light bulb on it couldn't be stealthy.

Logically, if the tech has already been approved then the question should be if it is reasonable/possible to install onto the DD4 in place of the Ion drives. As it does not go outside of the bounds of what has been previously established in terms of computing/sensory power and STL acceleration (which are the only two features that will be added to the DD4) I don't see any reason why this shouldn't be allowed. Even from the IC standpoint it generates additional role play for the installation and use of the system as well as further distinguishes the Alliance as a non-NDI ship
 
Fixed.

Edit: So aside from people hating on tachyons is there anything that needs to be changed in this submission?
 
RPG-D RPGfix
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