Class: Type: Battle Carrier Designers: Free State modifications Manufacturer: State Biomechatronics Production: Early production Fielded by: State-sponsored factions

Like the majority of vessels conceived by the Free State, this ship is capable of partial to complete autonomous operation.

Synthetic Intelligences: 1-2 Crew: 2000 Automata (NUv1.0a): Junker Drones:

Length: 1983 m Width: 900 m Height: 500 m Decks: 250

Difference Engine : ~0.3c Hyperspace Fold Drive: 0.5 LY/min Lifespan: 20 years Refit Cycle: Bi-decade refits

See:

Grinder system.

The former Zesuaium-composite hulls have been stripped away, simply due to the difficulty of mass producing the material in the Free State. In their place is a make of energized armor; titanium carbide layered plating reinforced by a Phenolic-Fulleride layered mesh that acts as both a means to absorb energy and release a high-capacity discharge designed to disrupt particle beams, plasma bursts, and even vaporize solid munitions.

The structuring of the outer hull is engineered for flash-welding and riveting, as opposed to the original tightly-linked hull design. While this leaves much to be desired in regards to the armor strength, it allows the rapid repair of damage sections – even in the midst of battle. A mangled plate can be easily jettisoned and be replaced by Junker drones within a matter of minutes, or even seconds, if circumstances allow.

Damage Rating: 50

300 Escape pods. .

Each of these escape pods have been modified with a set chance (roughly 10%) of self-destructing upon launch, in addition to allowing remote detonation by the host vessel. Freespacers are bred, born, and spend their entire lives in space, maintain the belief that the ship is one's home and the crew is one's family; desertion of one's Nodemates is simply unacceptable. By making pods remotely-destroyable it is hoped deserters will think twice before abandoning their allies. Furthermore, even those who hold no ill intentions will be more likely to hold their ground just a little long before abandoning ship.

The Philosopher's Stone is an onboard facility that contains all the essentials for your self-sufficient vessel on the go in today's fast paced universe: electric-fusion smelters, plasma arc incinerators, gas crackers, and most importantly, nuclear transmutation reactors. These reactors are fission-fusion breeder reactors capable of transmutation a wide ray of elements via slow and fast neutron capture. While the effective transmutation conversion rate isn't nearly up to par with either Yamataian or Nepleslian nanofabrication technologies, the device works well efficiently enough provide the rarer metals needed for advanced electronics manufacturing, as well as ensure an abundant supply of fuel for the vessel. Furthermore, these fusion technologies also provide the abundant power consumed by the other ship's systems.

Not a reactor system in itself these magnetohydrodynamic generator converts thermal and kinetic energy into usable power by exploiting the motion of fluids or plasma to generate electrical energy. Since these contain no moving parts and can withstand high temperatures, they can boost the power efficiency of certain systems by a significant fraction without large maintenance requirements.

MHD Dynamos are used on some of the nuclear reactor assemblies of the transmutation facility, as well as the pylons of the Last Laugh system in order to boost energy efficiency by a significant portion. By pumping warm coolant into an MHD generator prior to re-cooling it one can increase the output, or decrease the energy waste in weapon systems by up to two thirds.

The ship carries an Entropy's Shroud Electronic Warfare Suite, which provides interdiction, communications jamming, and sensor cloaking at the cost of being able to maintain the ship's shield while active.

feedback looping phenomena).

SI

Chaos theory dictates to so-called “chaos” in systems are actually the result of not randomness, but by the behavior of quantum wave functions. These wave functions are quantum events that become microscopic events, then macroscopic events; just as atoms are the foundation of matter, quantum wave functions are the foundation of any chance-based event, in a manner of speaking. By comprehending and manipulating these wave functions one can effectively “create” luck, or more accurately, encourage the manifestation of favorable events.

This device is a combined computer-generator unit designed to find and predict how quantum wave functions interact with their environment. By performing subtle changes in the immediate environment the wave functions manifest in, one can manipulate large-scale events with a relatively small expenditure of energy. Due to the inherent difficulty of performing calculations this technology is can only perform calculations for short-term events; one can only change events not even seconds prior. Another problem is the sensitivity to initial conditions; a seemingly insignificant wave function could exponentially grow into a rampant problem, so most of the machine's capacity is consumed controlling these uncalculated aftereffects and preventing them from becoming Big Problems. For this reason significant manipulations may require several minutes until aftereffects normalize, depending on the scale of the changes made.

Examples of potential uses for this device may include: nullifying stray signals to decrease energy signatures, creating minute imbalances in natural energy levels to increase or decrease the accuracy of weapons fire, stalling the failure of ship integrity or overloading of systems, changing the vector of bomb fragments to strike or avoid critical systems, and numerous other small-scale “luck” based events.

The propulsion is two-tiered; firstly is a form of gravimetric propulsion that directly ties into the 'Difference Engine' (hence the pun on its name). A gravitic field is sustained around the vessel and the so-called wave function manipulation uses its capacity for chaos theory calculations to predict and manipulate the way the field collapses, so as to make the ship “fall” in the desired direction.

This system is supplemented by an inertialess drive which like its smaller predecessor, the inertial dampening system, can reduce the stress of rapid acceleration. The device takes things a step further by having the capacity to nullify inertia and effective mass almost completely – not just for the crew, but for the entire ship itself. Together these systems allow the vessel to perform very precise turns with little strain on the superstructure, thereby endowing with the capability to outmaneuver most ships of similar or even smaller size. This will give a crew the superior handling needed to turn spaceborne hazards, such as asteroid belts, debris fields and minefields, into either escape routes of a defensive advantage in combat.

A quick way to get from point A to point B. The Pizza delivery guy used it to get to the party in less than a minute. Unfortunately, the molten cheese burned some dude's chin pretty bad because it was still hot. The fold drive is capable of moving the ship through hyperspace at speeds up to 5 light-years a minute. Time, however, does not move the same for those on the ship as for those in “real” space, which can make a seemingly short trip take a long time.

Since this FTL technology relies directly on the same fields as the Difference Engine's STL propulsion, the two were combined into inter-related propulsion systems.

The ISFC has an excellent combined defense shielding system, relying on an egg-shaped combined spatial and electrogravitational distortion field network to warp space around it and alter the course of lasers, missiles, etc. that are headed for the ship using both dimensional warping and scalar EM interferometry.

The first and primary shield system is the elliptical dimensional distortion. This system folds space using electrogravitational fields, wrapping it around the ship, to render the craft in its own bubble. Objects inside the bubble are protected from both solid and beam weaponry, because the projectiles or beams pass through the curved space and around the ship. The shields are auto modulated by the SI control system. While all frequencies (and planes) are theoretically covered by the EDD shield, the modulation enables extra power to be routed to the bands in which enemy energy weapons operate, decreasing the possibility of a shield overload and rendering enemy energy weapons effectively useless. The EDD draws its power from the KiP-d2400q, or, when necessary, the KFY KiP-2431su. The Divine Comedy's EDD can protect against up to 3.1 YottaWatts worth of damage per five-foot area in either kinetic or energy form.

A second system, officially the FDS (forward deflector shield), but more often called “the spike,” only protects the front of the ship, acting as a giant cone. It protects the ship from collisions during high-speed space flight. The spike adds to the already deadly blade nature of the ship and can be used to facilitate ramming other vessels. As the ship's primary defense against high-speed impacts such as meteors in space, and debris from destroyed starships, the spike is extremely powerful. For this reason, when possible, the ship combines the spike with the EDD shield, providing enough protection to withstand heavy particle cannons and the like.