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ASYMMETRIC FIELD PROPULSION |
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The predominant form of propulsion in the federation uses a set
of driver coils to force an asymmetry in space-time, the ship travels
through this curved space, and is propelled by the forces in the
asymmetry, as long as the field is continuously produced around the ship
the ship slips through space, when enough energy is applied the ship is
able to distort space sufficiently for it to travel above the speed of
light, (when compared to light outside of the curved field). This form
of propulsion is called asymmetric field propulsion and is widely used
for propulsion purposes at near light speeds, and nearly always used for
propulsion above the speed of light.
It is this kind of propulsion that can be found in nearly every
ship in the federation, and nearly always (as some craft rely on fusion
flame) the primary propulsion system. Asymmetric field propulsion allows
speed unattainable by conventional drive physics, the cost is that such
systems are notoriously bulky, they require very powerful energy
sources, also the actual driver coils themselves are massive objects,
and all the auxiliary systems such as thermal management, control and
coordination, and fuel sorting further consume volume, and complicate
ship systems. But until other technologies these systems have become
indispensable on federation starships.
The component that is responsible for this drives ability is the
driver coil(s), or driver core, which is made of an artificial material
that is so essential for this technology that it has become named after
it, driver coil material (DCM). This material allows conversion between
the familiar energies such as light, heat and electricity, into the
realm of gravity generation, and as result spatial distortion.
The ship generates a curvature that forms outside of the ship,
this curvature is responsible for the propulsion of the craft in warped
space, also the curvature of space means that although the ship from the
outside seems to travel faster than light, the way space curves around
the ship means the craft never crosses this limit. The
field is only in effect well away from the ships interior, if this was
not so the ship would destroy itself as unusual forces were generated on
the matter by the curved space. The precise engineering of the driver
coils, a process that can only be understood by powerful computers,
causes this effect to occur far from the ship’s hull. However matter interacting with this curved space causes problems, in the case of an interstellar hydrogen atom, or dust particle, the forces and curvatures generate such forces that they are converted into radiative energy, this is rather useful as nothing small will ever reach the hull, and the energies released by the matter do little to disrupt the propulsion fields. Bigger
lumps of matter do cause problems these interference with fields and
generally either survive through them, endangering the ship, or are
converted into energy, which may disrupt or collapse the field, for this
reason larger objects are swept from the crafts path, sensors systems
can either detect their mass, (though the limits to these sensors mean
that changing course rather than moving the object, as these sensors
pick up big things), or detect them optically when they are in the
fields. Ships
also have to be careful with objects or other craft that use this
propulsion, while it is relatively easy to match propulsion fields, so
no nasty effects are experienced, when approaching a moving craft, a
careless docking craft will risk collapsing either his own propulsion
field, or destabilizing the larger ship. The
generated field also poses problems for sensor readings, as outside the
ship is appearing to travel faster than light, if it was not for the
fact that the curved space helps intermediate between the craft and
outside space then no useful electromagnetic based readings could be
made, however some information about the surroundings can be conveyed to
the craft even while under field propulsion, this improves with lower
speeds, or larger areas of curved space, but the light is likely to be
compressed or altered in wavelength. The
flight performance of the ship can also be affected by gravitational
wells, which act to disrupt the propulsion field, for this reason the
early tests of this system had to be held far from the wells of stars
and planets. A common practice in warfare is to disrupt the target ship
by collapsing the propulsion field using a strong polarized gravity
source, or a ‘graser’, this either forces a traveling vehicle to
drop back to normal space, or stops it getting away using its field
propulsion system. The
speed at which a ship can travel depends on the amount of spatial
curvature it can produce, which in turn relies on the supplied power.
With fusion technologies speeds of up a few kilo-c (a kilo-c being a
thousand times the speed of light) can be reached, with antimatter
technologies speeds far higher than this can reached as the available
power increase drastically, speeds of up to millions of multiples o the
speed of light can be attained, though nearly all engines like to run at
speeds less than this. The
fundamental limit to this technology relies on how much curvature the
coils can generate with a given amount of energy, building bigger coils,
and more powerful engines will only make a ship go so much faster before
a limit is reached. Speeds of up to 10^24c have been attained for very
brief times (less than a billionth of a second), with specially adapted
drive technologies, but these systems can not be used for sustained
flight, as damage develops in the driver coils, and this must be
repaired before flight can again be made. Asymmetric
field propulsion has led ultimately led to understanding the
requirements and the mechanisms to two new technologies, in one field
hyperspace, and in the other free terminus wormhole creations, these two
fields offer new drive systems, though for the foreseeable future these
technologies require vast amounts of energy, and so only a few ships
will carry these next stage devices.
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