The Lanethron is a huge cargo vessel – over half a kilometre long, capable of transporting fairly enormous amounts of cargo. Furthermore it is a vessel with considerable defensive and offensive capacity in order to protect itself from piracy or potential military attack – after all cargo needs to be transported in both peace and war. The weapons are thankfully modular - they can be taken off or reduced for times of war.
The Lanethron was designed to serve the Elysian Celestial Empire in peace and war. Largely because there wasn't a cargo ship sufficient before.
Since YE 34, all remaining ships of the class have been mothballed at the Elysian Naval Arsenal.
Organizations Using This Vessel:
Type: Logistics Vessel. Class: El-L1-1a Designers: Veritas Orbital Shipyards Manufacturer: Veritas Orbital Shipyards Production: Ten are to be made for Cycle 01.
Crew: A minimum of one operator. Standard crew is five: 2 pilots, 2 co-pilots, one specialised mechanic. Maximum Capacity: Potentially enormous – thousands – for short journey’s in the central chamber. Appearance: The ship has the fluidic grace typical of all Elysian vessels - and is deceptively graceful for its size.
Length: 810 metres Width: 450 metres Height: 205 meters Decks: 3 (although the vast majority of the ship has only a single deck)
Speed (STL): 0.2 light speed using aux engines. Speed (SDG): .8 to 10,000c using Spatial Distortion Generator. Note: The SGD can still function (although at reduced efficiency) even in the presence of anti-FTL fields. Speed (Hyperspace Fold): ~52,560c (0.1LY/min) Speed (Aerial): Mach 1 in atmosphere (With shields). The ship has full VTOL using its STL Gravitic Drive the ship has landing gear and full VTOL capability.
Range: The vessel has life-support that can support the crew for one year. Lifespan: The vessel is designed to operate for forty-five years with minimal maintenance. Refit Cycle: As and when technology allows.
Cargo Area: The vast majority of the ship is taken up by a single enormous chamber, which stretches almost the full length of the ship and indeed most of its height – 750 meters long, 440 meters wide and 195m tall. This chamber is lightened by LED panels in the ceiling and walls. While traveling the cargo area is usually kept under increased gravity to reduce movement – the amount of gravity depends on the capacity of that which is being transported – up to 10g. In other situations it can produce anti-gravity up to 10 ag, or produce a particularly powerful 0g zone – ensuring that external gravity can’t impact upon it. In addition to this the chamber is filmed with thousands of Graviton Beam Projectors which are capable of ensuring that everything remains stationary or a variety of other tasks. These beams can also allow for incredibly tall columns of cargo or suspensions. One other feature is numerous force-field generators inside the chamber whose purpose is to seal any fracture made in the hull – often working in tandem with the graviton generator to create innovative solutions using the cargo.
The appearance of the interior of the bay – between the LEDs – is that of a pale silvery substance. Often the walls have paintings sprayed on – enormous images hundreds of meters in size.
Access to the cargo bay is either from a door at the front of the ship – connecting to the living compartment. On the other side there is a colossal door which runs much the end of the vessel. The door also incorporates a selective shielding system – incorporating dozens of small generators – to create a system where an object can pass through the shield without atmosphere within the area to escape. The area is not usually kept in vacuum.
The ship uses several sizes of cargo container – 20m by 20m, 10m by 10m, 5m by 5m, 2m by 2m and 1m by 1m. These containers fit together in two fashions – one is that there are troughs on each side of the container into which the protrusions of the other fit – creating a physical lock – and they are sealed magnetically. The bottom one slots into the floor – from where the power for the magnetics is contained. There are the slots for all smaller varieties on the larges ones – thus the 20m one has a slot for a 10m one, four 5 m ones, ten 2m ones and twenty 1m ones.
The containers walls are made of three inch thick titanium boride, containing within the surface the mechanics of the magnetic generator. The container is accessed by two doors which open outwards and which are sealed first physically and then magnetically. The doors are not much smaller than one side of the container.
Corridors:
Bridge: At the front of the vessel lies the bridge – a relatively Spartan affair consisting of two revolving chairs – a panel of buttons and a large screen. The chairs contain a SQUID mechanism which allows the pilot – with some training – to control the ship autonomously. The pilot usually often controls communications. The co-pilot usually controls sensors and other secondary features.
Lounge: For longer journeys the lounge is necessary to break tension. It is actually not a particularly large room – it contains a sofa, a leather chair and two cabinets – one containing board games, the other containing a variety of Elysian Wines. The décor is soothing blue and black and there is a fine music projection system. The crew eats in the lounge – always prepared and artificially delicious meals.
Chapel: For the religious needs of the crew there is a small chapel on board, effectively a prayer stool and an altar – on which is an item placed by an Exarch. The item is thought to bring the crew the protection of God while travelling. The lights are fairly dim and the walls and ceiling are covered with religiously meaningful pictures.
Cabins: There are five separate cabins on the ship, with no particular distinctions between them. They are all relatively spacious, with a single bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers and a writing desk. The color scheme is usually blue – and a certain degree of personalisation is tolerated.
Toilet: There is a single toilet on the ship. It is next to the cabins and is a toilet. It has a hand basin and a mirror.
Showers: There is a single shower on the ship. It is next to the toilet and is a simple cubical. Soap and towels are not provided.
Laundry Room: To the left of the showers there is the laundry room which contains a single machine which does the laundry. It uses specialised micro-bacteria to devour any organic matter (other than that usually found in clothes which are regarded as good) as well as several forms of soap and conditioner. A truly thorough clean (and dry) takes around fifteen minutes.
Shuttle bay: Above the living area is a relatively large shuttle bay, with the capacity to carry three large shuttles. The bay is accessed by a lift from the living area which can also serve to bring additional cargo down to the primary storage area. The doors to the shuttle bay work on much the same way as those in the central cargo area – reinforced door with selective shielding system.
Armoury: On the left of the Showers is the last room of the living quarters – the armoury. Inside this small room are several racks of Atromos Particle Beam Rifles and a dozen Pestris Pistols, along with an assortment of infantry equipment such as Phales, Xiphos and Kopis.
Armoured Hull: The Lanethron has a particularly strong hull – consisting of three metres of Elysian super-hard armour material, layered over this are ablative scales. The non-ablative hull is three metres thick, with 0.5 metre thick ablative scales on top. There are no windows or obvious weak-points on the ships armour – the doors are especially armoured. Thus the Lanethron is particularly hard to damage seriously.
Hull-Integrated Systems:
Graviton Beam Projector (120): These devices are dotted around the surface of the ship – largely on the side and the bottom, around the door. This can allow the ship to a degree to stock itself if left to hover over a depot. It can also be used to damaging effect if multiple graviton beams are focused on a single target.
Emergency Systems:
Blast Shutters: There are blast shutters is several strategically placed areas – largely in order to save the crew if the main cargo area is pierced. In this situation these four inch thick carbon-boride doors slam down at the lift, main access to the cargo area and shuttle bay – effectively sealing the Living Area in. These doors can only be unlocked by the highest surviving member of the crew. This usually goes – Day Pilot, Night Pilot, Engineer, Day Co-pilot, Night Co-pilot.
Damage Control Stations: There are many damage control stations in the main cargo area as well as one next to the entrance to the main cargo area and shuttle bay. Each of these points contain Environmental Suits, arc-welding torches, torches, magnetic pads etc. For actual repair operations it is common to use the internal graviton beams to manipulate your movement and prevent you from being sucked out of the ship if both hull integrity and the internal shield have failed.
Escape Pod: The ship contains a single Escape Pod for the five crew, located next to the bridge. The pod is shaped like a smooth bean, and requires the crew strap themselves to the walls – including the door once it is closed. This is done so the size of the pod can be kept to minimal. It has a four inch thick armoured hull, a Spatial Distortion FTL drive (1000c capable), shielding and Soul Transfer equipment. The ‘Souls’ are kept in a especially armoured area in the center craft – encased in four inch armour – designed to survive the destruction of the pod. The pod is equipped with radio and sub-space radio as well as a homing beacon which is either activated manually or automatically engages after three days.
Cloaking device: For an additional measure of protection the Lanethron is equipped with a cloaking device which functions through warping the ship within what is in effect a ‘pocket universe’ created through the Spatial Distortion Generator. It is a class 7 cloaking device.
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: The Generator is the Elysian equivalent of the CCD – and indeed works upon almost identical principles. It is in effect simply a redesigned model – capable of warping space time for a variety of effects.
Shield Systems: The Lanethron’s primary defense is its combined defense shielding system, using an oval network of spatial and electrograviational distortions to warp space and alter the trajectory of energy weapons, missiles, projectiles and so forth which are headed towards the ship using both dimensional warping and the wave negating effects of scalar EM interferometry.
The most outwards of these, and the main one, is the elliptical dimensional distortion (EDD) shield, which folds space using electrogravitic fields, wrapping the said space around the ship, encasing it in its own bubble. Once in this bubble objects are sheltered from both solid matter weaponry, less solid matter weaponry (such as plasma or a particle weapon), as well as energy weapons (such as a beam weapon), because they simply pass through the curved space around the ship, in effect the ship is not there to hit. The ships are automatically and constantly modulated by the Lanethron’s Computer, covering almost all frequencies and planes, but more energy is channeled to the bands in which the enemy’s energy weapons operate, making it significantly less likely the shields will overload, and rendering an opponents energy based weapons close to useless. The EED extends in to subspace and hyperspace, and provides the same protection their as in normal space.
A secondary shielding system on the Lanethron is the Interdiction Shield, a powerful defense to protect the vessel against some devastating weapons used by potential opponents. The defense came in the form of a refined and modified interdiction field, which prevents hyperspace, subspace, normal space or any of the plethora’s of other dimensions from being warped in any way, in an area surrounding the ship. This effect is far more powerful than the standard Interdiction field. This protects it from Transposition beams, due to Transposition beams warping space, the very thing this shield prevents, and so the area the shield covers is unaffected. This shield also functions against weapons that use other dimensions to function, such as those that travel through hyper-space, draw energy from hyperspace directly on the ship, or require a 'sub-space effect' such as sub-space tunnelling to penetrate shields, or those that use wormhole to carry their projectiles.
Damper Field Generator: The ship protects itself against Scalar weapons through the use of a powerful anti-gravity effect, thus negating scalar effects.
Propulsion: The Lanethron moves its at superluminal speeds through the generation of distortions in space-time using spatial distortion technology, and wrapping them in order to create asymmetric peristaltic fields which drives the ship through space in a similar fashion to that of a Alcubierre Drive. The complexity of the system allows for vast superluminal speeds equivalent to many thousands of times the speed of light. The ship can stop completely or increase to full speed almost instantly due to the lack of kinetic energy in the ship – it simply required deactivating the special peristaltic effect.
The Lanethron is also fitted with a Hyperspace drive when they are required to possess additional speed. These drives function through projecting the ship into another dimension – Hyperspace. The exact physics of hyperspace aren’t understood perfectly, but it is capable of achieving enormous speeds – relative to the normal universe.
For subluminal propulsion, and when the Spatial Distortion Generator needs to be diverted towards shields, the Lanethron uses a Gravitic Drive. This functions by causing the ship to ‘fall’ through space at high speeds, and is a reliable and relatively maneuverable drive.
Life Support System: The ship has a relatively competent Life Support system which can successfully spilt carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen, as well as converting waste into more … useful … products. It can support its crew for one year.
Computer and Sensor Systems: The Lanethron uses an advanced Quantum/Conventional/Biological computer which is capable of imitating an AI and is more than capable of vastly complex tasks needed to control the ship – and also to use the complex gravity and storage systems used by the ship. It is equipped with effectively the basic Elysian sensor package:
Sensors: The Lanethron makes use of the ECN Combined Sensors Array.
The weapons of the Lanethron are modular - not on the default model, and only fully attached in times of war. The standard model is something in between - varying on the ship in question.
The primary weapons on the Lanethron is the Battle Cannon, a smooth bugle on the side of the hull and fires a high-powered transphased plasma pulse - firing a pulse of plasma which is out of phase with the universe so they are capable of penetrating the enemies shields before reverting back to the universe before impacting with the hull - or appearing within the ship, depending on a combination of calculations and good luck.
These ‘bumps’ on the hull of the ship contain the equivalent of turrets which fire a a transphased high energy electro-magnetic beam of significant power.
2 Elysian Shuttle