::Ships::
Tau'ri ships grow into and with the technology the scientists and engineers developed into and for them. They are, like more of the Tau'ri vehicles, living. Powered by sustained fission/fusion cores and solar energy, the ships and the crew have a symbiotic relationship. Because they are living, and part of the Saix Avar ecosystem, the operator has to have both the psionic abilities as well as the genetic coding of the Tau’ri to operate the vessel. Once linked, the operator will have access to the systems through thought alone, without much need for the controls. The ships are sapient, almost sentient, and generally spent time to bond with the crew before being commissioned. Often, a ship will keep the same command and support crew until they pass away, with the large ones generally forming a clan on board that stay with the ship through the generations. The ships also grow, sometimes into entirely different classes of vessels.
Larger vessel, generally cruisers and above, have one or more decks arranged in ever changing maze like patterns, and often even trees, plants and other such world like conditions (ranging from park like to full ecosystem). These decks are used for two purposes. One, for training, as teams would be pitted against each other, in order to keep fit and make sure their hunting skills remain honed as many confrontations end at the ship to ship level. The second is for hunting. Ships often have prey animals in stasis, sometimes even herds reared on board, for food. They release the animals into the maze or environment and take much pleasure in hunting them down if they have the time for such pursuits.
The hull of Tau'ri ships are laced with biomechanical cells that control the regeneration and growth. These cells produce an alloy of Nac'Dah, Trinium, steel, neutronium and a few other trace elements that they used to construct the hull. The alloy, called Deu'tun, is strong, resistant to corrosion, heat and other such weathering agents. The hull and cells are strong energy sinks, connected to capacitors that it channels energy, such as heat and energy blasts, into. This energy is used to increase regeneration even as the hull is degraded.
Ships are filled with small creatures, some biotech, some pure tech, others purely biological. These tend to the ship, repair damage and cleaning and such. Crew members often bond with one or two of these bits that live in the quarters like pets. The bits come in various shapes and sizes, and some are larger than fighters, used to retrieve resources the ship needs. They are often armed, and play a role in defending the ship internally, acting as sentries. All in all, they are much like a normal organism’s immune system in function.
Legend says that the first ship was developed from the bodies of biomechanical lifeforms that used Saix Avar as a burial ground. The Leviat class are the closest to what the original ships looked like. The tales say that the first ship tenders mixed the DNA they retrieved from the body fragments with that of a certain plant, and managed to nurse a Leviat from it. From that first child, the rest of the Tau'ri transportation tech developed. Because the ships are living, there has been much diversification within the fleet since the technology became wide spread, from the small planet centered Juns to the vast array of fighting and shipping vessels.
::Technology::
-Propulsion-
Tau'ri ships use two forms of propulsion, excluding the FTL technologies. Intar engine works by simultaneously generating a field of suppressed inertia within and around the ship and exerting force on it. The second form or propulsion they use is the ion drive. All of their ships have both. These combine and work together to form the sublight drive. It varies slightly from ship to ship, with the Da classes have a modified, somewhat weaker ion drive and a stronger Intar, which doubles as inertial dampeners, while Capitol ships have more powerful ion drives, the Intars managing the finer steering and handling of the vessel.
The Tau'ri have developed four different methods of FTL, each building off the other. The most common and modern FTL drive is the Hyperspace generator, which lets the vessel fly into a layer of subspace outside of real space by generating a hyperspace window and support the hyperspace corridor for the duration of the flight. The larger De' class vessels, Jurin stations and at least two experimental 'Nen class ships also have the riskier Dive engine, that simply connects two points in space through a short tunnel, diving right through subspace, rather than into hyperspace. It is riskier because of the power requirements (the larger the ship, the more power needed, but the smaller the ship, the less power that can be generated) and the risk of becoming lost in space since being off by a fraction of a decimal in the calculations can mean being up to thousands of light years off target. The Jurins normally manage a dive network, a combination of data from psion beacons and mapped space to erect dive vortexes within a few minutes.
Starburst, also known as Stream Riding, is a second, if less precise method of travel. It is the original FTL drive. The ship coats itself with a charge of energy built up in the stream chamber, using it to transcend normal space into an interdimensional space called, rather uncreatively, burst space. The ship rides the currents of energy that fill these spaces until the energy expends the charge and forces them back into real space. Because the currents have varying speeds and resistivity, precise travel is difficult, and it is more of an art than a science, requiring the pilot to know the calculations for speed, velocity, charge, variance and distance while tracking the position relative to the starting point before exiting, while constantly adjusting the speed and charge saturation through a mix of instinct, psion impulses and training. When it's left to the ship, it generally gives its new location as 'somewhere else' (with a bit of annoying pride too) that doesn't help much. It was originally a natural adaption in the first interstellar vessels built. The Starburst is more suited for intrasector travel between system rather than great distances.
Though knowledge of the charge used by the Starburst, they developed the Transphase Engine, commonly called the skimmer drive. It is more of a shield adaption. The ship is enclosed in a shield that causes a partial shift out of normal space, allowing the ship to pass the light speed barrier as long as it was operating. Developments on this drive led to the Hyperspace generator, which allows ships to level normal space, and the cloaking field. The Transphase Drive is, while cheaper in terms of energy requirements, a bit risky as it requires a minimum number of shield generators in a certain arrangement to achieve a critical level of shield coverage and power (shields have to be at least 37.68% full power). If the shield fails in a patch, at best the ship will crash back into phase, causing much damage to the structure and systems, or it just might explode or be ripped... asunder.
Most hyperspace capable ships have, in addition to the hyperspace generator, both the Transphase Engine (being an algorithmical adaption to the shield programing and coding rather than an actual engine) and a burst chamber (being a natural part of the ships DNA).
-Communications and Sensors-
The Tau'ri makes use of a psion net, a telepathic communication network that seems to operate off subspace. Their telepathic skills let them access it with relative ease and it is the basis of their communication systems. They still make use of the traditional radio and other such wave based communications. They also have sensors that operate through subspace, scanning the layers and using the reading to extrapolate information about real space.
A common device is the i'ciojhn (personal psion component/ppc). It is akin to a cellphone/tablet/pc and connects the user to the psionet, slightly amplifying personal capabilities. It can be in many forms, from a pliable form that can mold to one side of the jawline to a jewel like device on the forehead to an unobtrusive band on the wrist.
-Power Generation-
Aside from the living nature of much of their technology, Tau'ri technology differs in the fact that they use little electronics in the normal sense of the word. Most of their power is generated through self sustaining cold fusion and fission techniques, due to the unique biochemical and atomic make up of life and some of the geology on their planets. The roots of several plants are capable of sustaining fusion once given the right activators. They also seed and harvest certain partially organic crystals that can sustain cold fission. They uses these to make Core reactors that provide abundant clean energy for their ships. Recently, they have been mining for a mineral they call Nac'dah, which can be used as a catalytic amplifier in it's energetic form as well as for alloying into the hull in it's stable form. An relatively unstable isotope, Nac'dalah, is used in Jurin class stations to meet the massive power requirements, as well as on some of the larger vessels.
The Sai'ri also harvest plasma from the corona of stars. This goes towards augmenting the power cores of their vessels, as well as providing a 'purer' form of energy to charge their plasma cells. Some ships make spectacular dives directly into the corona in order to gather greater amounts of plasma than the skimming methods commonly employed. Diving is far more dangerous, as the shields have to be modulated to block the radiation and heat while allowing the collectors access to the plasma. One of the potential and proposed applications of Project 'Heaven's Rings' is safer star harvesting.
True to their interest in dimensions, subspace and other such theoretical physics, they have been experiments into zero point energy, the power of the universe itself. Of course, these are still just on paper, and thus far the First Administrators have been refusing to allow practical tests until every theoretical flaw and possibility has been worked out. After all, a mishap could blow up a planet or more.
They also harvest energy from subspace during FTL travel. True, it isn't much, compared to the power requirements of a ship, but they do charge secondary capacitors and allow for other systems such as hull regeneration, bur growth and such will the majority of the power is diverted to the hyperspace generator.
-Cloaking Technology-
The Tau'ri accomplish cloaking through the use of a phase shifter. The device emits a field that partially causes the target object to shift out of phase with this dimension, enough that they cannot be detected through sight or sensors, though the mass is still there. Weapons can be used from under the cloak, but weapons with outputs weaker than the field are partially shifted and lose power, which stronger one interrupt the field, causing brief failures to the field that can be detected as sensor echoes. Curiously, it is easier to cloak smaller objects than big ships, as it requires less power to sustain the cloak. Since it is still relatively new, and has a slight radiation problem in the personal use unit, it isn't in full distribution to field units.
The cloaking technology has three levels of effectiveness.
Aa’y: phase out of sensor range, but still has mass present.
Ta’y: a more complete phasing out, but enough dimensional alignment to fire back or be disrupted slightly by high energy outputs. The cloak is disrupted by the energy field of weapon fire from beneath it.
Wa’y: A total phase out into the other dimension with no way to interact aside from being able to see. Under cloak, normal communications can be disrupted, though transcription codes can account for the disruption of the field. Return communications, however, is impossible without Aa’y or Ta’y cloaked emitters.
-Stasis-
The Tau'ri have a method of placing living organisms in a state of suspended animation. They achieve this is two manners. One is the Buffer, which can reconstruct the creature or person inside, but that method is unsuitable for long term stasis of over two or so weeks, as the records will start to degrade, and the consciousness can only be maintained for so long. The second method is a self contained stasis unit that suppresses the metabolism to a level very near inactivity.
-Weapons Technology-
The most common form of Tau’ri weaponry is pulse weaponry. Basically, it is composed of a power source, a channel, and an amplifier. The power source is more often a crystal core, though plasma cells have been known to be used. The amplifier triples as a focusing unit, out multiplier and an emitter. The unit is most times Nad’dah in either its liquid or crystal forms. It amplifies the energy output as well as controls the power. The channel controls the rate of fire and cycling. Either than channel or amplifier unit can be altered to add a certain ionizing charge, making the energy pulse an ion one instead, making it more effective on electronics. Whether it is a repeater, cannon, turret or otherwise depends on the channel and amplifier. (A phase repeater release a much weaker burst, but due the phased nature, each shot is slightly different, making them more likely to penetrate shields and other energy blocking methods.)
Weapons carried by the troops have a stun setting, which alters the pulse emitted into a frequency that expends the energy as disruptive fields rather than destructive ones. These disrupt the nerve signals in the target’s body, numbing and paralyzing them, incapacitating them a certain levels. The same setting may or may not work on every race, as it depends on their biological physiology.
The Tau’ri also employ plasma weapons. These contain plasma in a magnetic field, launching it at the target. The Shek met gauntlets are a complex mix of pulse and plasma weaponry; employing a plasma charge and a crystal core in its design. A good degree of fine psion control is required to operate it. The amplifier also steals some of its function from the intar, allowing them to ‘fire’ bursts of kinetic energy shock waves (This kinetic weapon is equipped on some ships. Atmospheric use mostly, but is does well in freeing ships from capture or knocking boarding pods or otherwise free.) Similar kinetic weaponry is becoming popular through the forces, as they are easy to utilize once the complexities of the pulse and plasma tie-ins are removed from the device.
While the Tau'ri don't make much use of the laser, they do have Discharged Energy weapons, which are much the same as particle beams. They also have what they call Tracer beams. A mass of nano particles are released prior to the d.e.beams that are keyed into a signal from the target, where engine signature, shield frequency or otherwise, and set to avoid the psion signal of friendlies. This mass 'traces' a path for the d.e.beam to follow, allowing them to hit small enemy targets even if they are in the midst of a dogfight with allies. Tau'ri energy weapons are also charged with an achronic charge. This allows the burst to travel much further without losing cohesion and wasting energy to dispersal.
The Koisis is a smaller scale, focused version of the channel array. A stream like weakening of space time allows destructive radiation to breach the dimensional barrier and invade real space. Due to the nature of the weapon, it bypasses most shields with minimal weakening.
The Tau'ri aren't big on projectile weaponry, but a few years of war taught them that energy weapons aren't the only way to fight. So they came up with the Bur pods and the Confined Energy Module, commonly referred to as quarrel, their take on missiles. The quarrels are, before primed for firing, a small core ranging from the size of a golf ball to two feet across. The central module is an intar drive, targeting system and a containment unit housing in a charge armoured shell. The module is primed by feeding it energy, which the containment field compresses into a pseudo-solid shell around the module. It is a far more powerful weapon than the plasma bomb, though it operates on a similar theory. When the quarrel makes an impact strong enough to cut it's speed to below a critical limit, the containment is inverted, expelling the compressed energy outwards with great explosive force.
Burs are a more literal missile. They are based on a plant from their home world that had a triggered response to fire seeds at surprising velocities. The Bur pods are programmed to grow 'Burs,' which are in effect, drones striped down even further. They are mainly a reactor core and an Intar tied into a communication and targeting sensor system. The hull has the ability to store a high intensity charge within it, allowing it to punch through targets once or twice or burrowing into larger ones. The bur triggers an explosion once the charge is expended, overloading the Intar, though some are armed with nuclear devices. It takes a pod any were from an hour to days to regrow a bur (though large ships with more power and resources can do this faster, and smaller burs develop faster), but Sen' class and higher ships normally have at least one or two waves in reserve so as not to deplete their stock too quickly. While burs generally fly under their own power, they are often launched from accelerator tubes that allows them to reach high speeds without expending their own power.
Burs come in different sizes, from a little less than a foot long to the five foot capital slayers found on battle cruisers and larger class vessels. The Burs also have an alternate form as well. This version, instead of exploding in target vessels, consumes the ship’s material, growing into the ship to cause system malfunctions and hull breaches. These are referred to as Thorns. Burs can be modified to act as beacons and trackers, and some do serve this purpose, finding a hiding spot on a ship then broadcasting a discrete psion signal. Others are housed in a
armored shell and release a
barrage of burrs all at once.
There are also micro or miniburs, ranging from one to six inches long, used against infantry or in defense of facilities. They are also used as bullets in hand held guns, though those are rarely explosive, instead, they return to the gun when their charge is depleted to be recharged. Typically, the burgun only fires them in a straight line, though a targeting module can be installed on the gun.
Quarrels and burs tend to be created through similar systems, both being grown in pods. The quarrels have a faster growth rate than a bur, being smaller in size, but each shot has a higher energy consumption. The Pod weapons system is generally divided somewhere around 66- and 70-30 between Bur and Quarrel pods.
Aside from their energy emission based tech, the Tau'ri make extensive use of biological warfare. A prime example is the Yrr'i pathogen. Composed of what can be considered a cyborg on the nanoscale; the Yrr'i was a potent weapon during the dark ages. A combination of an engineered bacterium and a nanovirus. The Yrr'i have an extremely adaptive ability to devour both inorganics and organics. They have an extreme tolerance for varied environments, and a monstrous reproductive rate, though the genetic code deteriorates after the first few dozen generations.
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A Royal Guard, picture from a concept of the finished Armor and Weapons.
