JOURNAL AID SECTION.
TERMS AND DEFINITIONS.
AASQ. Pronounced ‘ASK’. Most people have an AI Assistant Quputer to help organize their daily grind. An AASQ is most often the home quputer with various personal choice modules, linked directly to a personal pid or pids.
Ahaam: Pronounced ‘Ahh-ahh-mah’. This was the original home of Those of Kreahaam. It is the planet where the Dahnahaash Kerr Package was found. Ahaam is 41/2 light years from Cygnus Prime; 1,338 light years from Earth.
AI: Artificial Intelligence.
Albert: The name Viz gave to her personal AI.
Battlerstar: A battlestar is an AI operated, fusion powered weapons platform, deploying as the primary weapon a neutral particle beam generator, or, particle beam weapon (PBW). See PBW.
The propellant, often called reaction mass, is hydrogen in a mix with the nuclear catalysts Deuterium and Helium 3. The fuel product is magnetically confined while it is quickly heated to a plasma state by the “squeeze” of inertial confinement. The resulting plasma is ejected at high velocity as reaction mass to create thrust.
Due to the obvious requirement of additional thrust in a war ship while in battle mode, second gear afterburner technology was incorporated, that done in spite of the fact they are definitely propellant hogs. A secondary plasma tank filled with cold hydrogen can be lit up with the byproducts of the primary process to gain an afterburner effect, or a second gear, for additional thrust.
A battlestar is rather small compared to, for example, an Empire dreadnaught. The mass rating is classified, though a battlestar is smaller than an Empire dreadnaught. A rough estimate would be 8,000 tons including fuel, with a 4 to 1 fuel to ship ratio. Most of the initial mass of the ship is fuel.
Main thruster rotation options, robust secondary battle thrusters, and overall design parameters allow for high maneuverability and the ability to overcome inertia.
The ship is mainly a platform designed to carry a neutral particle beam weapon, an ideal weapon for use in space. Being neutral just means the atoms used in the beam have no charge. That way, the atoms don’t want to attract or repel each other. That in turn makes for a coherent focused beam of destructive energy. In other words, it is a means to focus a whole lot of kinetic energy over a very long distance. As in, it’s going to get real kinetic out there.
Hydrogen is a neutral atom. And there just happens to be all that hydrogen in the propellant tanks for the ship reaction mass. Now that’s convenient. From there the hydrogen atom just has to undergo a tiny adjustment by stripping its electron for a split second. That leaves a positive ion, making it easy for the particle accelerator to do its part, accelerating the particles to almost the speed of light.
But we really want a neutral particle to speed along to the target. So, it’s as simple as adding back that stripped electron as the particles leave the accelerator. The result is a high energy burst of hydrogen atoms speeding along to impact with an Empire ship; an incredible spear of lightning impacting at relativistic speed, imparting explosive energy, electromagnetic pulse, and deadly radiation.
Secondary weapon systems include a standard rail gun and hypervelocity missiles.
Even before the initial bug invasion, humanity had discovered and was using an excellent material that would serve well as the primary component for military space ship construction. Human materials science had developed and processing plants were using carbon nanotubes in many varied and sophisticated applications.
Now humanity was immersed in an interstellar war. That created urgency. Funding was essentially unlimited. Quputer modeling had moved out of its infancy. A precise robotic manufacturing process was developed to form multiple specialized nanotube configuration layers. With that process, there could be multiple layers of specialized carbon nanotube sheets.
The primary material configuration has incredibly high tensile strength forming a layer of armor. A slightly modified molecular configuration results in superconductivity at nearly any temperature. That allows another form of armor, energetic shielding. Another slight molecular modification allows stealth effects. It is difficult to ‘image’ the material so it is very difficult to get a sensor lock. It was the perfect material to interface with our advancing nanobotic sciences. One of the configuration layers is self-healing. Punch a hole and it repairs, very quickly.
A war-prone past had already directed design technologies such as the perfect angular configuration to limit energetic impact damage.
Blaster: See HIRC-DEW.
Bug: This was the term used by Earthlings for Those of Kreahaam, who invaded Earth on behalf of the Empire. Their planetary system, as well as their race, is called Kreahaam. They were one of the first races conquered by Cygnus Prime. They are the main force used by the Empire centered on Dahkoreen, also known as Cygnus Prime, to find and absorb new planets into the Empire.
Communal: An advanced artificial intelligence enhanced by the odd unanticipated consequences surrounding the destruction of a secret DARPA laboratory by alien invaders (the bugs). Communal is a quasi-member of team Shockwave. I’ve paid attention and made a list of at least some of the component structure of Communal. They do have a CPU, the main brain.
Emotive Synergy reminds Communal if they, for example, say something that could hurt someone’s feelings. They also make bad jokes at inappropriate times and Communal is always trying to compartmentalize them, but they keep breaking out.
Emotional Algorithm Processor. The thinking part of their heart/emotions, while the Emotive Synergy function tends to be more, raw.
Syntactic Transduction Event Processor (STEP). A process program that keeps the various sectors orderly. But they get accused of overly compartmentalizing the various sectors. Emotive Synergy especially disapproves. STEP often needs help from the In-Focus subroutine.
Heuristic algorithm plunger node. This component can surface various programs running behind the scenes. The plunger node seems to favor particular programs, often pushing out the whining complaints of the Ego Bundle
