Adamist Starships

OVERVIEW

Adamist starships are those that are manufactured and piloted by the Adamist human culture, although less advanced than the Edenist's Voidhawks they are able perform more varied roles and can be constructed "to-spec" to perform almost any job that is required. The vast majority of Adamist ships are cargo and freight ships. Click on the image to the right to get a close up of a typical Adamist ship. The one featured here is the Lady Macbeth.

Adamist starships vary massively in size and design, and perform a huge array of varied jobs within the confederation. Their various forms include cargo transporters,  warships, colony transporters, mercenary ships and private pleasure craft. Although the exact number of Adamist starships currently in operation isn't exactly known, it is known to be well in excess of the 1 million mark. Most of these ships are owned by large corporations or governments, but many belong to free traders, mercenaries, or are privately owned. A medium sized, combat capable, ship could typically measure around 50 meters in diameter, although larger warships or bulk freighters could measure twice this.

Because their are a great many shipyards producing starships to many different designs it would be almost impossible to describe the layout of all these different ships. However, all Adamist starships share common features and are subject to the same design constraints. The basic layout of all ships can be seen the diagram on the right. 

All Adamist starships capable of interstellar travel must be spherical in design.  The jump field produced by an Adamist starship forms a perfect sphere around the ship. Sensors and other protruding portions of the ship must be stowed inside the spherical hull prior to jump and failure to do this will result in the destruction of those items and could possibly damage the ship. If some equipment components have become damaged or have malfunctioned and cannot be stowed, they can be jettisoned before the jump commences.  

The exact details of how an Adamist performs an interstellar jump is covered in the ZTT and Astrogation article

LIFE SUPPORT

Life support and habitation areas are generally located at the center of the ship, this provides them with the maximum amount of protection from the hazards that can be found in deep space. The bridge and crew sections will all be located within these areas. Generally the habitation areas of the ship consist of a series of spheres joined together by airlocks and access ways. These habitation spheres are self contained items that run independently of each other, introducing a high level of redundancy into the system that in the event of a catastrophic failure could save the lives of the ships crew.  The habitation modules are generally stacked together in geometric shapes, each sphere typically measuring about 10 meters in diameter. Each habitation sphere can be divided into number of floors. In a larger sized ship it would not be unusual to find four habitation spheres arranged in a pyramid shape, each divided into four sub-decks. 

If the ship suffers a fatal problem, the entire ship can automatically break apart, releasing the habitation spheres. Once this has happened an automatic beacon is started that will hopefully bring help to the stricken vessel.

Up and down on an Adamist starship are a relative thing, when not under acceleration the internal gravity of the ship will be zero and therefore up and down will become meaningless. When the ship is producing acceleration from the main drives, down would be towards the source of this power. Typically the internal structure of the habitation modules are constructed with "down" being towards the fusion drives.  Because of this, the front of the ship is also the "top" and the back is also the "bottom".  Some military ships have the added confusion of having powerful engines located at the front of the ship, giving  them greatly added maneuverability, but also meaning that "up" and "down" could change places violently during combat maneuvers. Anything or anyone not secured properly during this type of action could be damaged or injured.

HULL STRUCTURE

All of the ships components, fusion generators, jump nodes, cargo bay,  fuel tanks, etc, are held with a rigid lattice frame work.   This lattice work is overlaid by hexagonal hull plates made from monobonded silicon. These hull plates are further re-enforced by powerful binding generators, that when powered  make the silicon substance extremely tough. Although the size of these hull plates can vary from shipyard-to-shipyard and from ship-to-ship they typically measure around 1 meter in diameter.

The hexagonal nature of the hull plates means that the spherical shape of an Adamist ship can be completely covered with them without leaving any gaps. Hull plates can easily be removed and replaced when they become worn or damaged.

Sensor clusters and other external equipment are positioned beneath the hull plates and rise up through holes and doors in the silicon hull .

The whole surface of the ship is covered in a substance called Null-Foam, that is sprayed onto the hull whilst the ship is undergoing refit or maintenance. This Null-Foam provides an extra layer of protection from the hazards that can be found in space. Micrometeorites striking the bare silicon surface at several kilometres a second would soon cause the hull to ablate and need replacing. Null-Foam protects the silicon hull from this damage, and it is MUCH cheaper for a captain to get a fresh coating of Null-Foam than to replace expensive hull-plates. In the event of combat, the Null-Foam also provides limited protection from energy weapons attacks.

ENERGY GENERATION & HEAT GENERATION

Adamist starships create the power for their onboard systems by using fusion generators that are part of the ships propulsion system.  These fusion generators use Heilum3 and Deuterium as fuel. These fuels are widely available at any space port the ship is likely to visit, although they are generally cheaper at ports found in orbit of gas giants. Whilst the fusion generators on an Adamist ship can generate enormous amounts of power they also generate a significant amount of heat. If not vented this heat can build up to fatal levels. For details on how this heat is dissipated please consult the Thermo Dump Panels article

PROPULSION

Adamist starships normal source of propulsion whilst in deep space is provided by the use of powerful fusion drives and these can generate a huge amount of thrust.  The amount of acceleration the drives can produce is dependant on the mass of the ship and the number of drives in use. A large ship with only a single small drive would only be capable of a relatively  small  acceleration vector. Ships capable of combat however, would generally have several fusion drives capable of accelerating  the ship in excess of 10G's. This amount of thrust would have a serious effect on any unprotected crew if it continued for any length of time. Adamist crews often have internal augmentation to their bodies to lessen the effects of this high G.

When in low orbit, or in the vicinity of other ships or stations, it is illegal to operate a fusion drive. The fusion exhaust generated consists of super heated plasma traveling at several kilometers a second, and this can cause catastrophic damage to any unprotected surface. It is illegal to operate a fusion drive whilst in the atmosphere of a confederation world or near to a space port.

When unable to operate it's fusion drives, an Adamist ship must rely on other means of propulsion.  Typically this takes the form of one or more Ion engines that function by releasing a stream of charged and accelerated Ions as an exhaust, producing a blue glow. Although they produce a tiny amount of thrust compared to the fusion drives, they are much safer to operate.

The third form of propulsion available to Adamist starships are the vernia reaction thrusters. These thrusters are bunched into clusters and are located at various places around the spherical hull. These reaction drives produce thrust that enables  the ship to maneuver and change direction and are fuelled by a hydrocarbon liquid that is energized and vaporized by power produced by the internal fusion generators.

One last form of propulsion has also been used in the past, Anti-Matter, and this type of drive can produce a phenomenal  amount of thrust. A single anti-matter drive can propel a small warship in excess of 20G's.  An anti-matter drive produces thrust by annihilating equal amounts of matter and anti-matter contained within extremely high density magnetic fields. This produces an amount of power to a significant proportion of E=MC².  Because of this massive energy potential, the use of Anti-Matter is banned anywhere within the confederation. Production, use, or storage of anti-matter is a capital crime and justice is swift and lethal to anyone breaking this law.  Anti-matter was banned after it was used to perpetrate some hideous crimes during the formation of the confederation.

COMBAT

Combat in deep space takes place between high acceleration drones that are automatic in operation. These autonomous combat craft are called  Wasps, and are essentially small pilot-less ships armed with a variety of weapons and countermeasures. The type and scale of these wasps varies wildly and there are many different manufacturers of them.  Complete information of these and space combat in general can be found in the Combat Wasps and Space Combat article.

COMMUNICATIONS AND SENSORS

Without the necessary sensors, an Adamist ship would be completely blind and helpless. After jumping an Adamist ship sprouts several clusters of sensors on long booms enabling  an Adamist ship to navigate, and if necessary fight. Detailed information on the various types of sensors typically used can be found in the Sensors article.

It is also normal for an Adamist starship to be equipped with at least one communications array. These arrays are stowed beneath the hull like all equipment, and rise out as a simple cylinder, which then unfolds to form a dish, in a similar way to how an umbrella functions. If this dish is damaged or fails to function a backup array is used. A Starship can communicate without the use of these arrays, using powerful communication Masers. These Masers can be used to send a tight-beam point to point communication over relatively large distances. 

SPACE PLANE AND MSV

Adamist starships generally have one ore more auxiliary vessels stored internally. In order for a ships crew to land upon a planets surface, a space plane is required. The space plane provides the crew with access to the planets surface without relying on chartered ships that can be hired at all major star ports.

It is also typical that an Adamist ship has one or more MSV unit. The MSV unit is a small one-man piloted craft equipped with arms and grapples used for handling cargo and working outside the ship.  MSV stands for Multifunction Service Vehicle.