I have taken a break from building the past few weeks, (super busy at work and then busy on vacation) but I have progressed on my back story enough to begin to share it. My galactic point of view is based on "low fantasy" that is, attempting to create my fiction while trying to maintain technology and science that is plausible.
I realize that thousands of years into the future there will be technical advances we know nothing of, but I am still striving to tell the story without having to explain things away using "unobtanium" or some such thing. So, without further adieu, here is the beginning of my back story. (All subject to change)
"Lo, There do I see my Father
Lo, There do I see my Mother
and My Brothers and my Sisters
Lo, There do I see the line of my people
back to the beginning
Lo, They do call to me
They bid me take my place among them
in the halls of
VALHALLA!
Where thine enemies have been vanquished
Where the brave shall live Forever
Nor shall we mourn but rejoice for those
that have died the glorious death."
-- 1st Century AD Norse Prayer
In the years following the conquering, harvesting, and subsequent destruction of Terra by the hexapoid race known as Tkrykzkk, mankind found themselves scattered amongst the stars. Many escaped the destruction in crowded "world ships", while countless others found themselves enslaved by the Tkrykzkk to be worked to death or harvested as food. Those who found their way to other planets were regarded as the lowest of the low. Disease and starvation took its toll on the ever dwindling population of mankind.
It would take over a terran-century of living as unwelcomed refugees and outcasts among the sentient races before men found any resolve in themselves to do something about their situation. Mattias Jeger was one such young man. Mattias had it in his mind to carve out a home world for mankind no matter the cost. Though he had never seen Terra, he knew its history from the stories he had read and the first hand account of the elders he spoke with. Men were once explorers and conquerors and he knew they could be again.
Finding a new home world would not be easy as all of the known habitable worlds had been colonized by other races and species. However, stories were told of an uncharted nebulous system that remained so because severe gravitational anomalies and electrical phenomena rendered any ship that entered the system powerless or crushed its hull outright. Any attempts to simply jump into the system by means of hyperspace drives were met with even more devastating results.
In addition, the nebulous characteristics of the system prevented any type of long range scan so although gravitational forces indicated that there was indeed a star within, there was no way of knowing what type or whether any planets existed within. With these conditions the sentient races had deemed the system uninhabitable and simply avoided it.
Undaunted, Jeger spent the next 50 Terran years carefully exploring and charting the system to see what lie within. He discovered that the nebulous field spanned a distance of 212AU and once navigated, opened into a rich star system with three habitable planets and six habitable satellites. Jeger names these worlds after the nine worlds of Norse Mythology,the most ideal of them becoming mankind's new home world and was called Asgard. From there out all human time was recorded as ár Asgard (Year of Asgard.
Mankind began an exodus toward the star that would come to be known as "Yggdrasil". Protected by the systems unique heliosheath which became known as "The Bifrost", men would spend the next 1000+ years áA developing their new home worlds and practiced strict isolationism from the other sentient races.
In the meantime, the Tkrykzkk rampaged across the galaxy conquering world after world coming ever closer to Yggdrasil. Sensing a need to put an end to this threat, the 25th Emperor of Man, Ásgeirr Jeger sent his Leiðangr (fleets of warships) across the Bifrost in 1036áA.
Centuries of isolation, scientific advancement, study, preparation and a oneness of purpose never before experienced in its existence had honed mankind into a resolute, and ruthless, force. The vanguard Leiðangr shattered the Tkrykzkk armada attacking a neighboring system and sent a shock wave of fear through the Tkrykzkk that reverberated all the way back to their queen.
Anchoring the Leiðangr were the Valhalla class of Assault Battle Carriers. Armed with advanced gravitational weapons and FTL propulsion systems, whose capability far outstripped any other seen in the galaxy, the Valhalla became the grim face of death for the Tkrykzkk hordes.
All of mankind's ships are designed with one goal in mind, to place dread into the hearts of its enemies. The Valhalla's lines are reminiscent of a predatory animal and coupled with the amount of firepower it commands through its main weapons, turrets, fighters, bombers, drones and escort ships often wins the battle before any shots are fired.
The design of the Valhalla puts a premium on the preservation of life. The layout places most of the hazards away from crew compartments. The weapon/thrust nacelles are fully enclosed and can be explosively detached individually from the main fuselage in the event of catastrophic damage.
The fuselage forward and aft of the jump core can be detached one from the other at bulkheads and used as lifeboats for the crew. The forward section of the fuselage is more suited to use as a lifeboat as most of the crew quarters are there but the aft portion holds enough emergency supplies for all crew members and all fighter decks can quickly be converted to living quarters to house 1000+ comfortably. The jump core itself can be jettisoned in the event of primary and secondary containment failures allowing the ship to escape using its thruster propulsion.
Primary power:
Twin Ezell-Gaskins D-T Spherical Tokamak Super Reactors. Primarily used to generate the power necessary to achieve a quantum singularity within the Grimm Industries Gravity Jump Drive. Additional power is stored in battery banks and used to power ship systems including life support, weapons and sub-light propulsion.
These reactors are located along the outside edges of the nacelle. In the unlikely event of catastrophic damage and loss of containment, all fusionable material and radioactive gases can be vented quickly via large ejection ports along the outer edges of the nacelles.
Secondary Power:
The Grimm Industries Gravity Jump Drive produces enough energy to charge the ships power banks, located port and starboard adjacent to the weapon/thrust nacelles, to 70% of capacity while maintaining a quantum singularity event.
FTL propulsion:
Faster than light travel is achieved via the Grimm Industries Gravity Jump Drive. This drive utilizes the power of a quantum singularity (essentially an artificial black hole) to create a time-space "bridge" between two known points in the universe.
Theoretically, the jump drive could be used to jump to any position in the universe but by practice, jumps are limited to the zenith or nadir points of the magnetic fields of charted stars. Charted stars because their rotation speed and direction constants about the center of the galaxy are known and can be adjusted for easily. The zenith and nadir points are used as they offer the least gravitational pull in a star system and allow for the least amount of local distortion to create the reentry envelope back into normal space.
The operation of the drive is as follows: Power is generated such that the ships core is able to produce a small quantum singularity. That singularity is fed matter to increase its size while simultaneously being compressed by magnetic fields.
This in turn creates enough energy to generate a Tachyon field which radiates out from the core along a collection grid in the hull of the ship. The tachyons are then used to create a "fold" in space-time and an "envelope" of normal space around the ship for it to pass through the fold. Jumps last from a few seconds to a few minutes depending on the distance traveled. The recommended maximum distance per jump is 25 light years to avoid potential problems with the jump drive though theoretically it would be possible to extend the jump much farther than that.
The power required to generate a singularity necessitates a build up of generated power in addition to active power generation at the moment the singularity is created. The payoff is that the singularity not only produces the Tachyon jump field but, as stated previously, also produces enough energy to replenish the ships main batteries back to 70% capacity.
Generally each singularity is maintained only long enough complete the jump. Maintaining one much past closure of the jump envelope could result in overload of the ships stores or damage to the drive itself up to and including containment breach which could result in an uncontrolled black hole.
Sub-Light Propulsion:
The ships main source of thrust comes from 4-Lincoln Dynamics Pulse XL Ion thrusters and 2-Lincoln Dynamics Magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters. These thrusters are mainly fueled by particles collected by means of 4-gravitomagnetic ram scoops located in pairs at the front of each nacelle adjacent to the weapons arrays.
There are 4 additional ram scoops located fore and aft along the underside of the ship. These, however, are not used to fuel the main thruster but provide fuel for fighters and bombers as well as maintaining life support on the ship.
The Ion thrusters provide the main source of thrust for sub-light operations and are able to push the ship to 0.65c. The mechanisms for these thrusters are wholly located within the outer nacelles.
Located behind each pair of Ion thrusters is a fan-tail structure. The purpose of these structure is to collect some of the expelled ions and recycle them back into the system to increase the efficiency of the thrusters themselves. When not in operation, the fan-tails are used by the Aft Recovery Officers to queue returning fighters waiting to enter the recovery deck.
The Plasma thrusters are used for speeds above 0.65c and can push the ship's non-jump speed to 0.98c. Gases collected by the ram scoops are fed to twin Brickman Galactic Acceleration Chambers located in dome-shaped structure along the top of the vessel. The accelerated and heated gases are then shunted to the exhaust chambers located along either side of the aft landing access doors. They are characterized by a telltale red glow when active.
While in space, both systems can be overcharged to produce speeds in excess of 1.0c. Prolonged overcharging operations can cause damage not only to thrusters themselves but also to the structure of the ship.
The plasma thrusters are also used as the main source of thrust for atmospheric flight and are aided by multiple small directional plasma thrusters throughout the ship (as the ship itself is not an aerodyne). Maximum atmospheric speeds are limited to Mach 1.4 to prevent damage from wind friction.
Flight Decks:
The Valhalla features 3-flight decks. During flight operations, the upper and lower decks are used for recovery operations. Light Fighters are recovered on the lower deck and Heavy Fighters and Bombers on the upper deck. The upper deck and main hangar area is multi-use and capable of docking 9-Light/Heavy Fighters or Bombers, 4-Corvettes, or one Light Frigate.
Gravity:
Artificial Gravity is achieve via thousands of small gravitomagnetrons located throughout the ship. They are small and only exert a miniscule amount of pull on the objects in close proximity but used in concert are enough to sufficient simulate normal force to make habitation on the ship feel like planetary gravity to its inhabitants. Gravitomagnetrons are also installed in the hull of the ship and act as a "Deflector Shield" to protect the ship from objects, projectiles and radiation.
...more to follow
If you survived me blathering on to this point then I have a little teaser to show you that I have in fact been building the ship. This is one of those aforementioned "Halls of Valhalla"
