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The Portable Island Generator (PIG) is designed as an add-on to existing starships to allow water landing functionality and allow easy transfer of crew and cargo between similarly equipped ships.
Starships using their PIG to create a small island |
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It is also kinda a neat party trick. Consider covering the foam plastic island with sand for a beach getaway!
Many starships are designed to land on a solid surface, but not as many are designed to land in a liquid. Even those that do are normally not well equipped to allow transfer of cargo and personnel between ships that have landed in the water. The PIG is designed to solve both of these problems with one piece of equipment by creating a small highly buoyant island around the host ship that both supports the weight of the ship in the liquid and creates surface area that can be physically walked across by crew members.
Additional starships landing in close proximity can easily link together their islands creating a larger structure for the transfer of crew and supplies.
The PIG itself is a single orange cylinder .4 meters in diameter and 2 meters long with intakes on either end for power and mass. A line of retractable flaps extends in a line from ‘top to bottom’ between both ends of the cylinder which cover the excretion portions of the device. A wireless interface and small power supply for the onboard computer system are kept safe inside the waterproof portions of the device.
A user can interface with the device wirelessly by either downloading the system’s interface to their own computer system or using the provided documentation to write their own interface. Basic data about the ship such as center of gravity, specific density of the liquid the ship has landed in, composition of the environment, available power, density of the starship, and when the device is to activate. Manual input is possible, though it is recommended that the ship’s computer handle the number crunching aspects.
To use the PIG, the activate command merely needs to be sent and it will automatically go about building an island around the ship for use. Its onboard computer will handle all necessary math and design elements.
When completed the PIG will automatically shut down. The artificial island should last for several weeks in calm liquids and for a few days in more turbulent ones. Detaching the artificial island is a simple matter of lifting off. The island will break apart if the ship tries to move about to extensively such as takeoff or submerging.
When activated the device extends a series of small, ultra strong tubes in a loose webbing that pump a mixture of nanomachines, hot plastics and gasses out against the ship’s hull and into the liquid that the ship has landed into. The gasses shape the plastic goo into bubbles that adhere to physical objects and quickly dry into a solid foam as they cool off. Sticking to the ship and to itself gives the foam some strength and the plastic’s flexing ability allows it to withstand the stresses of currents in the water. The device also ensures an even distribution of the foam around and under the ship to cradle it and ensure that the ship floats at the proper level.
Towards the upper surface of the foam island smaller bubbles are generated to create more of a flat surface that looks and feels very much like walking across bubble wrap. The surface has some give to it, but people less than 300lbs should experience only around a centimeter or so worth of give making the surface feel more like a gym mat rather than a trampoline. The small bubbles do create a very textured surface with a slight incline towards the ship allowing liquids to drain into the crevices they create then back into the body of liquid the ship has landed in as to not severely impede movement.
While the plastic and nanomachines are stored internally, gasses must either be provided by the ship, pulled from the atmosphere through the front of the device or separated from ocean water. Though the device is capable of doing this itself if stored externally it is also quite possible for a ship to integrate the device into its hull and use an intake system to feed the required mass into the PIG.
In storage mode the device’s nanomachines work to rebuild its supply of plastics and tubing with any liquid mass provided to the intake. This process can only be shut down by completely turning off the device.