Engineering for the Ascendancy-class Flagship is not a single large area like in previous designs, but a group of 27 small rooms, 20 with a Quantum Generator and various control systems, 5 storage rooms, a single Main Engineering room, and a single Chief Engineer's Office hidden among them. These rooms, along with some special systems, protect key sites from unwanted access.
All entrances and exits can be secured using Forcefield-Nested Isolation Doors.
Each room is designed to look exactly the same, with dim blue lighting and soft three-tone blue walls matching the 5th XF flag colors. The floor is an anti-static blue tile, and the ceiling is a darker blue, much like the night, to go with the lighting.
There is a single Quantum Foam Generator which measures roughly 2 meters by 2 meters by 3 meters, with all of its containment and armor taken into account. In addition to a Yamataium casing to protect it from tampering, there are internal force fields to contain the Quantum Foam Generator’s internal workings should something go awry. If something does, however, the other Quantum Generators can pick up the slack and put out additional energy, since they do not run at 100% during standard operation.
The QF Rooms are built around this generator, having a ring of four stations around it. These four stations, amazingly, lack the SPINE interface, relying on telepathy and normal manipulation to be utilized. This is a safety measure, and Technical Sentries aren’t expected to complain much about it, being hands-on people.
Flowing out from the Generator are power lines, which enter the walls just below four hatches to maintenance conduits, which lead to other rooms. There are assorted monitoring and control systems along the walls, as well as assorted toolboxes for different tasks.
Main Engineering is roughly the same size as the other rooms, but more complex. Lacking a centralized power source of its own, there is more room for personnel and monitoring equipment. It shares the same dim blue light, blue tile and dark ceiling as its counterparts, but the ceiling actually shows stars as would be seen from Seijin no Umi at any given time. It is known, therefore, as a quiet and contemplative spot for those Engineers who are not on duty, and as an isolated and focused environment for those who are.
Eight complex monitoring stations surround a single larger station reserved for the Chief Engineer, all of which possess the SPINE interface. The Chief Engineer’s station can swivel 360 degrees to face any personnel in the room from an elevated position.
All stations have their own monitoring equipment and toolkits, and allow manual control of the Room Shifting System, with correct clearance.
The walls of Main Engineering have Nodal Replication and Storage Chambers, which are simply storage devices with a much higher concentration of nodal devices than normally found in the air. Attached to these on one wall is the Nodal Construction Chamber, which can construct objects up to a Power Armor in size at a much faster rate than normal densities of nodal devices allow. This is used to repair or manufacture critical components on site and in a hurry, though other uses can be found upon request or order from a superior.
Note: This unit is able to safely construct consumables, and has been used to synthesize seafood for the Taisho for midnight snacks.
Five rooms are used solely for storage, and each looks the same. These rooms can be controlled by those with proper clearance to move as close to the desired section of the ship as possible, to minimize travel time. This, however, requires active authority on the ship or of registered admiralty. It also requires verification, due to the potential for abuse by enemy or renegade forces.
These rooms are essentially a hollowed-out sphere with storage units on the walls with no gravity inside of them whatsoever, so as to more easily move and transport large amounts of equipment. There are also nets, which are actually an anti-gravity mesh, which can be used to more easily carry bulky items in the external gravity of the ship.
The storage units are multiple shades of blue, the different colors containing progressively more dangerous or critical items and also representing progressively higher access requirements. Dark Blue, for example, is the lowest level of security and requires a Santo-Juni's access rights, while White is reserved for the Taisho herself. So as to properly inspect items being stored, the lighting in this room is brighter than the other Engineering rooms, and equal to that of the Chief Engineer's Office.
Another room is the office of the Chief Engineer, which is designed to be elegant, yet functional. The lighting is increased in this room compared to the others so bureaucracy can be properly done. The walls and ceiling are a light blue, and the carpet the standard Star Army dark navy blue. The Engineer has a great deal of leeway as to how the room is decorated, but standard furnishings include a computer terminal, a cherry desk, a comfortable cloth chair for the Chief Engineer, three normal chairs for visitors, a lockable closet with the 5th XF logo on it, a lockable filing cabinet, and a tactical panel for reviewing ship status at a glance.
The office is often a reflection of the Chief Engineer who occupies it, however, some rooms containing potted plants and order for the Bureaucrat who was appointed to his position, others containing parts strewn about in organized chaos for the hands-on Engineer who worked his way up the ranks.
While each of the 21 Engineering rooms look like cubes from within, they are actually constructed as Yamataium spheres joined by maintenance conduits, secured in a very special frame design.
The rooms, using gravitational control, allow them to temporarily dislodge from the frame of the ship and realign themselves as wished, even rotating before reattaching to the frame. The maintenance conduits are also capable of disconnecting from one room and reconnecting to another, permitting an ever-changing maze to prevent infiltration, and also act as anchor points during movement and rotation of the rooms. One requires either the assistance of the KAMI or the ACS to navigate the ever-changing configuration.
Not only are there external gravity fields on the rooms, but internal as well, so each room can be rotated at a different angle. Not knowing which way is “up” is intended to even further disorient and confuse enemies. Internal and External gravitational fields also shield these rooms from excessive forces on the ship which could cause damage, and from scalar attack.
Configuration can be manually ordered by an officer of sufficient rank, configured by the KAMI, or configured by the IES.
During a mission or when there is reason to believe a threat may exist, the rooms automatically reconfigure every four minutes. It takes less than 20 seconds for the rooms to “reshuffle”.
If an enemy is known to be in a specific maintenance conduit, that conduit can be sealed on one side and connected to open space at any time by the computer or CO.
