Originally designed for the purpose of tactical assault and surgical bombing strikes, the Lancer packs a lot of whollop for it is for its size, though it is larger than most fighters in use today.
Its original compliment of weapons was quite respectable - four forward facing Hi'ki plasma cannons, 210 cubic meters of storage for munitions and equipment of up to 20 tons. Coupled with its speed and VTOL/dogfighting manoeuvrability, the Lancer could keep the battle-field moving and supplied - able to deliver and airdrop everything from heavy supplies, tanks, armour and personnel from most any altitude and just as easely recover it.
Of particular note is the main gun: 22 meter long aether-magnum (I'll clarify on this concept later) known as the 'avenger', and buried into the form of the Lancer, designers joke that the Lancer was an attempt to mount a craft to an Aether-Magnum, rather than the weapon to a ship - simply as a means to get the weapon airborne.
By all means, it belongs on a starship easily double the size of the Lancer, such as a compact gunship.
While limited to 32 rounds, it is undetectable when firing as it does not pull from the aetheric landscape as most weapons do, giving it a key element of surprise during opening engagements, especially against targets of strategic importance.
Able to punch holes through defensive lines and make especially light work of heavy artillery, its party-piece is to carve defensive lines and fox-holes into the land for infantry or to create massive bank walls of superheated fog and plasma, allowing infantry the time to re-arm with its supplies or board for rapid extractions.
While unquestionably effective when nested away into a landscape or for drops, the Lancer lacked the staying-power and particularly the armour to keep it alive long enough to make it a viable drop-ship for trans-orbital maneuvers, especially against dedicated fighters and particularly in testing against power-frames. For this reason, it may optionally be fitted with four rotary plasma flak guns and 12 anti-fighter missiles for use on priority missions -- though it remains a glass-cannon, relying on sharp intel and extremely skilled piloting to survive.
The Lancer can sustain a crew of two (pilot/navigator) fully for up to 8 months without resupply. Combined with its mobility, mobile armament and keen communications and sensors, it suits the role of a temporary base for action deep inside enemy territory where it can be buried and hidden.
Aether
The Aether is a term used to describe the the near limitless energy offered by Zero-point energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy), and related technologies discovered by the Yamatai Star Empire in YE20.
Aether-generators are the leading energy source and a cornerstone in the SARPiverse, giving rise to faster-than-light travel and nightmarish weaponry the likes of which the universe has never seen.
Aetheric Generators
An Aetheric device is like a faucet that pierce the gaps between dimensions, the branes in order to deliver energy on tap.
If you're confused, it helps to think of aetherics (a nice simple term for aetheric technologies) as a free all-you-can-eat lunch, where 'the house' will let you take anything you want and as much of it as you can for the cost of entry (activation charge) -- but if what you take doesn't fit on your plate or you have left-overs, the house will be angry and the consequences can be catastrophic.
The smallest aetheric generators are the about the size of a lunchbox and can be thought of as very small plates that need refilling quite often. The largest are used in starships and can gather huge amounts of energy to power aetheric weaponry.
The equipment you use determines the power (your plate size) and the efficiency (left-overs that will destroy your device) that your device can use to harness that power.
Basic Aetheric Science
Aetheric technology was actually discovered by accident by enterprising Yamataian garage-inventers and although understood practically, the science wasn't uncovered until quite recently further research was made involving what has been dubbed as aetheric plasma.
Aetheric generators actually work by pulling pairs of gauge-bosons (sub-atomic particles which carry the fundamental forces of nature) out of surrounding space and arrange them inside itself as a special kind of lattice, or spacial sieve which grapples and holds photons like a tiny circuit.
This shape is then compressed and the vibration of that lattice is controlled. Eventually, 'excess' energy from quantum and gauge-fields flows through the lattice as tiny vibrations (amplitude) which are then passed through that circuit from the gauge-bosons onto their captive photons (mediators of electromagnetic force) which can then be tricked into releasing their own energy which can be collected (wavelength) in a variety of ways.
• The more precisely a generator is tuned, the smaller the holes in the sieve can be and the more efficiently it collects energy.
• Similarly, the larger a generator is, the stronger its pull from the aether (all aetheric taps within a given space are competing for energy - like three straws of varying thickness sucking up different amounts of milkshake from a glass).
Aetheric Bomb
Imagine we take a very small plate and pile it up with a huge amount of food - more than it could ever handle without special stabilised conditions - until the plate itself can't handle it anymore.
At the moment of detonation, the computer-assisted stabilisation (artificial precision) is removed and that 'plate' cracks, releasing that huge amount of energy back out into the surrounding space-time.
That is the 'Aetheric bomb', the first true aether weapon, commonly used on starships (for example, the AS-7, used by Yamataian vessels). Aetheric grenades do exist but are quite rare and not at all practical.
A practical example of an Aetheric Bomb would be the Aether-Flechette, a guided faster-than-light aetheric warhead using a combined field system to propel itself. Despite its small size, it maintains a respectable yield of SDR4.
Aetheric Beam weapons
The sale, maintenance and manufacture of Aetheric Beam weapons is primarily controlled by Yamataian government. Any unauthorised use is strictly illegal under Yamataian guidelines. In many nations, it is a felony to operate an aetheric weapon within an atmosphere.
There are many types of aetheric beam weapons but most follow a relatively simple idea of compressing the contents of an aether generator into a high-energy volatile degenerate state (instead of feeding off its energy potential as electricity) then using scalar repulsion to direct the output at a target to violent effect.
As the round leaves the barrel, the gauge-boson lattice carrying the force-potential of the shot stops vibrating and it rapidly begins releasing its photons, rendering the shot visible, usually white or pale blue and then shifting through the spectrum to red as the number of photons rapidly drops.
With no wavelength and no grip on its own photons and an equal number of X and Y gauge-bosons (resulting in a neutral charge), the shot is no longer affected by electromagnetic or scalar fields and aether beams will freely pass through each other with zero displacement or repulsion.
Often, a round can be seen triggering nuclear decay of the gasses it travels through in an atmosphere. The huge release of heat leaves behind a tunnel of superheated plasma giving the illusion of a larger beam and deals secondary damage to targets.
On impact, the effect of an aetheric beam is devastating. At first, the lattice-arrangement is broken and the huge energy potential stored is unleashed. This usually destabilises the nucleus of a physical target, super-heating it. Often a beam will pass cleanly through the target, should it possess sufficient mass and velocity. Despite the damage, this is of course not the intended effect.
The real damage comes from the degenerate-state of the gauge-bosons, triggering matter to collapse on itself. In fact, it can trigger a chain-reaction leading to total annihilation of the target.
Some beam weapons alter the lattice as it leaves the barrel, either further stabilising it into a spherical pellet rather than a beam. While this offers many advantages (reducing its surface-area and so it doesn't leave as much of an observable plasma trail, making evasion more difficult, higher round velocity) -- pellet shots are typically much weaker than beams and lack mass, making them less effective against larger targets such as starships.
An example of a 'pellet' style aetheric beam weapon would be the Aether Gatling Rifle (https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=st ... ling_rifle), a weapon which uses multiple barrels to discharge an extremely high number of shots. While technically weaker, the high number of shots strikes multiple points on a target (rapidly chipping away it rather than directly piercing it) and is much easier to re-aim once firing, unlike an unwieldy particle stream which must be aimed before the shot making the Gatling Rifle more practical in high speed combat.
'Turbo' Aether Plasma
Confined into a tight space, gauge-bosons used in an aether-generators will repulse each other quite aggressively and typically begin mediating aether to photons. If they are denied from arranging themselves properly to collect energy in that compressed state, the repulsion effect will grow exponentially.
An Aether Plasma uses this principle to create thrust. Additionally, the particles left behind will continue to repulse the engine and the thrust it leaves behind, providing additional thrust in chain-reaction. Combined with a subspace accelerator, Aether-Plasma offers very aggressive STL acceleration and manoeuvrability compared to other STL propulsion methods.
What's more is it requires zero fuel: the gauge-bosons used (with the exception of the activation charge) virtual particles which exist for as long as the charge called up from the aether does.
An interesting side-note is that aether plasma is still technically considered a weapon and is such banned from the civilian market since anything passing through the trail can incur significant damage (SDR1 to SDR3) which does wonders to discourage pursuers, especially from close air-combat manoeuvres.
While this all sounds near perfect, 'aether plasma' trails can take weeks to dissipate and the particles dissist, leaving behind an observable cyan or orange wake as the lattice releases its captured photons as its charge drops over time. While beautiful, it removes any possible stealth advantage.
Recent advancements in defences against anti-aether weapons have contributed to its popularity: Aether plasma drives can still function within anti-aether fields (situations where the quantum and gauge-fields are too unstable for a generator to collect from) since the same virtual particles can still be formed though they will lack power for the doubler/tripler function (which depends on a higher amplitude or charge to manifest more particles which results in more repulsion which of cause means in more thrust and therefor more speed).
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?