The Velcior was designed to be a working, military, ship and is a strange combination between Spartan comforts and relatively advanced military systems. This is not to say the Velcoir has anything revolutionary on it, or even new, but several pieces of Elysian technology have been miniaturized in order to be incorporated – most notably its cloaking device, a device which does not come close to the quality of its larger cousins but is still innovative for a Shuttle.

The Shuttle itself is sleek and graceful as most Elysian ships are, with small protruding ‘wings’ on either side and no hard corner or hint of sharpness on it. The color scheme is black with a little dark green.

The Velcior was designed to provide the Elysians with both a personnel transporter and to a degree an interim fighter for until the Elysians developed the miniaturization of their technology needed for such a project. The result was a combination of the two – although leaning very strong on the side of shuttle.

• Organizations Using This Vessel: Elysian Celestial Navy
• Type: Interstellar/Planetary Shuttle
• Class: El-T1-1 Velcior
• Designers: Veritas Orbital Shipyards.
• Manufacturer: Veritas Orbital Shipyards.
• Production: Numerous. Exact numbers pending.
• Crew: 2. A minimum of one operator.
• Pilots: 1 pilot, 1 co-pilot.
• Maximum Capacity: 12 (including crew). There is room in the front compartment for two, room for ten in the back. More could squash in but it is not designed for that. In an emergency around twenty people might fit on board for a short journey – but it wouldn’t be comfortable for anyone.
• Appearance: The Velcior is a smooth and gracefull looking shuttle, its most distinctive feature being the two relatively subtle ‘wings’ which protrudes from its side, no more than 0.75 metres from the main body of the craft – the wings in question flow out of the craft very gently.
• Length: 14 meters.
• Width: 4.5 meters.
• Height: 3.5 meters.

Speed (STL): 0.425c using auxiliary (gravitic) engines. Speed (FTL: Spatial Distortion): .50 to 10,000c using combined distortion system. Speed (Aerial): Mach 4 in atmosphere (With shields). The ship usually hovers over the ground – although if for some reason this system is disabled it will simply rest on the ground – it doesn’t have landing gear but it does have an enforced floor. Its gravitic drive allows for full Vertical Take-Off and Landing capabilities. Speed (Water): Up to 10 knots underwater. It isn’t designed to go under water, it just happens that combining its shields and its gravitic systems it can move relatively well within a liquid environment – although without a certain degree of grace.

Range: The Velcior carries resources for a crew of twelve to survive for fifteen days. A month if the suspended animation cocktail of drugs is used on the passangers. Lifespan: The shuttle is designed to last for at least five years of constant use without a serious overhaul. Refit Cycle: Minor refinements come every six (Elysian) months, or whenever is possible.

• Pilot's Cabin: The Pilot’s Cabin or ‘Flight Deck’ (depending largely on the preference of the speaker, although ‘cockpit’ was not carried over from English to Seraphim) is at the front of the shuttle and is where the pilot and co-pilot sit – the pilot to the right, the co-pilot to the left. Dominating the front of the Cabin is a large screen portraying either the space that would be seen if there wasn’t a hull there, or whatever image the sensors detect which the pilot wish to put on the main screen. Other than this there are several smaller screens spaced around the shuttle. The consoles themselves are your standard physical touchpad system. There is also a SQUID built into the pilot and co-pilots chair which can be used (by a trained pilot/co-pilot) to manipulate the ship as if it was an extension of their own bodies. Beyond having a SQUID system in them the chairs are semi-reclining, comfortable and have seatbelts. The pilot handles navigation and (in most circumstances navigation) the co-pilot handles sensors and weapons. In the back left of the Pilot’s Cabin is a small arms cabinet which contains two Atromos Particle Beam Rifles and two Pestris Pistols.

• Passenger Compartment: The passenger compartment is the central and largest portion of the shuttle and is composed largely of five conjoined chairs on each side. These chairs are comfortable, incorporating foam like divisions between the chairs, and contain a three point inertia reel seat belt. There are three tables which can slide up from slots under the chairs which contain chess. Just chess. There are storage compartments below the chairs and above them – this makes up the majority of the storage space.

• Armoury/Storage: At the back left of the passenger compartment (forming one half of the corridor to the exit there is a metallic cabinet which reaches from the floor to the ceiling. This cabinet is divided into two sections – the top is a simple cabinet, the bottom half is drawers (which are covered by the door). In the top section there are eight Atromos Particle rifles bound to the wall, along with first aid kits and survival kits. In the drawers there are eight Pestris pistols and ten clips of ammunition for all the pistols and rifles in foam casing. Under this there is more storage space where anything can be put in. The code is known to all the crew, but can only be put in with permission of the pilot or co-pilot, unless they are incapacitated.

• Toilet: On the other side there is another equal sized area which contains a toilet. It is a fairly simple toilet. It is not made to work without gravity – there is a tiny gravity generator in the bowl which grants 1g status to all objects within, or just above, the toilet.

• Armoured Hull: The shuttle’s body is composed of the lighter cousin of the super-durable material which makes up the ‘plates’ on some Elysian battleships and the hull of the Concordia – this particular variety altered as so to be lighter (although correspondingly weaker) and easier/cheaper to produce. The hull is 0.20 m thick. Armour rating 3.

• Gravity: Gravity in the shuttle is kept to 0.2g in order to conserve energy. It is generated by graviton generators in the floor.

• Firefighting: In case of fire there is a Fire Extinguisher 🧯 in the Pilot’s Compartment (on the right wall) and the passenger compartment (next to the armoury). The fire eqtuinguisher uses Bromochlorodifluoromethane (a type of Halon) and there is breathing apparatus in a compartment next to it. It is very effective at putting out most fires.

• Internal Compartmentalization: The Pilots Cabin and the Passanger Compartment can be divided by an inch thick airtight door to grant the other compartment a better chance of survival if one or the other gets ruptured or set on fire. They can also be used to protect the pilots – to a degree.

• Life Support System: The Velcior is relatively capable of recycling oxygen through splitting carbon-dioxide, but it does not contain waste recycling capacity. Thus the crews food and drink is stored in packages in the storage compartment (usually in the armoury out of convenience). It is designed to sate hunger and thirst (through the innovative use of behaviour modifying substances in the food and drink), and be very filling as well as nutritious (delicious is accomplished with the same behaviour altering substances). Simply put the food tells you that it’s delicious and even more filling than it actually is. In this way it can sustain the crew for fifteen days (they will survive for eighteen, but there will be no water). However if (for some reason) the passengers are forced to survive on the shuttle then suspended animation will have to be engaged.

• Suspended animation: The suspended animation system is relatively different in that it does not rely on ‘stasis fields’ or Cryonics, but by using a cocktail of chemicals to get the Elysian body to enter a state similar to the of hibernation in which the metabolic rate is greatly reduced.

It does this through partially mimicking the properties of Hydrogen sulfide, binding to cytochrome oxidase and thus preventing oxygen from binding which leads to a dramatic reduction in the metabolic rate. The chemicals involved work both safer and more efficiently than Hydrodgen sulfide did, and also relies on telling the brain to reduce its metabolism as well through messenger chemicals. A combination of these two can put a Plebeian Elysian into suspended animation for a month after having a relatively large meal. It is activated through the use of needles which the pilot keeps in the pilot’s cabin.

• Conformal PSC: The PSC (Psionic Signal Controller) is a form of psionic and telepathic protection, capable of nullifying all such activity. The device can selectively allow channels to permit secure telepathic operation and to maintain communication even under psionic attack.

• Spatial Distortion Generator: This device is in almost all respects a CDD like device, however the Elysians did not feel comfortable using a Yamataian name and so developed their own. They also redesigned it – the end process is almost identical (it’s not as effective and not as power hungry) but it made the Elysians feel happier.

• Shields: The shields of the Velcior are formed through the distortion of space using the SDG. Through distorting space-time, beams and projectiles pass through and around it as if it is not there. It has a rating of 3.

• Propulsion: The Velcior achieves superluminal velocities through the generation of distortions in the fabric of space-time using spatial distortion technology – as embodied in its SDG. It generates these distortions and wraps them to create asymmetric peristaltic fields which drives the ship through space in a fashion not dissimilar to that of a Alcubierre Drive.

• Cloaking device: The Velcior has a small cloaking device which functions through wrapping the ship within what is in effect a ‘pocket universe’ created through its Spatial Distortion Generator.

• Generator: The Velcior’s generator functions on a basis almost identical to that of the Yamataian Aetheric generators. The Elysians however would not like to admit this, but their scientific community has not, as of yet, come up with a name which they can use instead of ‘aether’. And so for the moment they are simply calling it ‘The Generator’. It produces energy by stimulating a greater amount of [http://stararmy.com/setting/zero_point_field.html]Zero Point Energy[/url] to leak into the universe and feeding of this.

• Computer and Sensor Systems: The Velcior uses a relatively basic combined DNA-Digital computer which is capable of advanced navigation and processing sensor data but not much else.

Unidirectional sensors the Velcoir uses radar, ladar and …

• Long-range gravimetric sensors: These powerful sensors sense the presence of ships and other objects through the warping effect their mass has on space-time. While this sensor is not particularly good at getting exact information about the ship, it is extremely good at working out where something is, and the speed it’s moving at. This has a range of 1 LY.

Omnidirectional sensors of the Velcior include

• Variable wide-band imaging clusters: Which grant a clear image of the light spectrum from every angle of the ship.

• Subspace mass sensors: This sensor simply detects mass in subspace, and its passage through that domain. This sensor also functions on the related hyper-space.

These sensors have a range of 0.5 light-years.

• Communications:

The Communication suite on the Velcoir includes Radar, Laser and Hyperspace communication. It is capable of using quantum encrypting in order to render its messages particularly hard to ‘listen in’ on.

• Nose Beam: The front of the shuttle houses a stationary transphased high energy electro-magnetic beam cannon a step or two above those of used as its ‘eyes’.

• Location: The ‘nose’ of the ship.
• Primary Purpose: Anti-fighter.
• Secondary Purpose: Anti-mecha.
• Damage: 2 DR (Armor).
• Range: 900,000 miles
• Rate of Fire: 2 times a second
• Payload: Effectively unlimited, so long as the ship provides power.

These ‘bumps’ on the hull of the ship contain the equivalent of point defense weapons which fire a transphased high energy electro-magnetic beam of significant power.

• Location: One on each wing and one on the rear of the vessel.
• Primary Purpose: Point-defense.
• Secondary Purpose: Anti-mecha.
• Damage: 1 DR (Armor).
• Range: 200,000 miles
• Rate of Fire: 3 times a second
• Payload: Effectively unlimited, so long as the ship provides power.

Zakalwe created this article on 2007/01/01 05:17; Wes approved it on 2007/01/01 13:41.