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Introduction
It
has long been a dream of mankind to travel to the stars. Since the
beginning, he has looked up into the night sky and wondered at those dim and
bright points of light. Entire mythologies have been constructed around
the stars, and even when the scientific revolution began to reveal the truth the
urge to actually see them, first hand, was always great in popular story and
speculation. During the 21st Century, when entirely new methods of peering
across the void became common place and planets were discovered visually, the
want to go to these places rose to a new height. And indeed mankind did
make the journey, but in ships that took years, decades even, to reach their
destinations. And that only brought about a dream as old as traveling to
the stars itself -- the dream of traveling faster than light.
The speed of light was the one great unbreakable rule of the universe. No object with mass could travel faster than light, for the faster an object moved, the greater the energy needed to move it. A simple space shuttle, pushed to within a few points of the speed of light, would have already consumed all energy within the universe. There were many theoretical possibilities for going faster than light, but all of them required either technology beyond human capabilities, or energy requirements that were equally unattainable. But all of that changed with time, and the discovery of a material called Ya'Nennis.
The
Discovery of Ya'Nennis
In
the star system of 82 Eridani, a peculiar asteroid was discovered by an
exploration team from the planet Tsevorda. It proved to be the key to the
local Galaxy.
In the early 27th Century, the first of the Core Colony ships from Earth reached its destination. 82 Eridani was long known to have an Earthlike world from remote observation, and so it had become a natural target for colonization. But when the ship arrived, it found that the planet already had inhabitants. Thousands of years before it had been colonized by Humans who had traveled the ArcWays, in the company of the long vanished alien Sivata. When the Sivata had fled, they took with them the secret of activating the ArcWays, and so many Human colonies had been stranded far from Earth. Nearly 12,000 years later, the Lost Colony on Tsevorda was flourishing. Though the Tsevordes had not yet reached into space, they had a high level of technology, concentrated largely in the medical areas. Because of this, the new colonists found that they could retain many of their old technologies, whereas other colonies often had to forgo modern living in the challenge to remain alive on a new world. With the arrival of the Core Colony, Tsevorda was brought into its own space age.
Before long, manned expeditions to nearby bodies were being performed, largely with the idea of procuring mineral resources to aid in the revitalized technological revolution on Tsevorda itself. One family of asteroids of very low albedo was already well known to Tsevorde astronomers. Called the Ye'Harra Group, these bodies orbited 82 Eridani in a long and highly eccentric orbit, largely along the same orbital path. It recent years, it had been theorized that these asteroids, averaging in size of about 3 kilometers, were the remnants of a shattered comet that had migrated in from the Oort Cloud and which had passed too close to the sun, shattering in the gravitational flux. Indeed, as they entered into the inner solar system every 103 years, some of them exhibited faint out gassing. If indeed they were the remnants of a comet, then they had been orbiting thus for a very long time for all of their volatiles to have been evaporated away.
In 2763 (Standard Year), as the Ye'harra group was returning to the inner solar system, an expedition was launched to rendezvous with one of the larger and more isolated fragments. Upon arrival, all of the usual experiments and tests were performed, and it was quickly realized that the comet fragment was not native to the 82 Eridani System. Almost certainly, then, neither were any of the other Group members. Indeed, there were many mineralogical aspects of the body that hinted at its origin as being from a system with a very hot and ultraviolet intensive sun, perhaps an O or B in spectral class. It was an exciting discovery, and many samples were taken. Most prevalent was an unknown mineral that had caught the attention of the explorers. It was an ultra dense material, and exhibited several odd characteristics. In appearance it was jet black, which accounted for the low albedo of the comet fragments.
The exploratory team returned to 82 Eridani after investigating several other fragments, and finding more of the mysterious mineral. Their mission had been a remarkable success. What they did not realize was just how successful it would eventually become.
A
Dream Realized
As was already stated, the theoretical models that allowed for
travel at FTL speeds had already been constructed centuries before, on Earth.
At the time, however, there were various details in energy production and
manipulation that couldn't be solved, simply because the current technology had
been greatly inadequate. Over time, this line of research had borne fruit
as technology advanced. But a single and final problem remained
insurmountable: in order to produce the theoretical FTL propulsion
(described below), a source was needed which could literal change the shape of
local space-time in order to grab hold of and propel a ship at FTL speeds.
In the end, Alexander managed to reconstruct the entire theoretical process of creating the long postulated FTL drive, and the core of the engine was the Ya'Nennis Reaction Chamber. Powered by antimatter and amplified by the Chamber, Ya'Nennis proved to be the missing piece of the puzzle. In 2787 Alexander, through a partnership with other research teams in both the Group and various universities, completed construction of a test vehicle, powered by Ya'Nennis. Standard ion propulsion pushed the ship to a safe distance from Tsevorda (no one wanted the tonnage of Ya'Nennis present on the ship to explode or create huge gravitic shifts in Tsevorda orbit if there were a mishap of some kind), and then the unmanned vessel was remotely sent into faster than light motion.
Or rather, the space surrounding the ship was. The ship itself was merely carried along for the ride.
The
Workings of the Ya'N Engine
1)
Initial Liquefaction Stage: The
Ya'N is slowly warmed and melted. The phase change is a critical point, and must
be handled slowly lest there be unforeseen gravitational surges. It may be
flash-heated to just below the phase change, but this is risky, as the
energy flux might trigger an imbalance within the crystalline structure;
that is, the ship could experience a sudden and catastrophic lateral thrust up
to several G’s (this is a place where engineering
over time will make the drives more efficient, in other words).
On Dwrenwan’s test ship, and the Mk-I engine that followed, this
process was performed every time the ship was ready to go into FTL velocities.
Once at a destination, the crystals were reformed into their natural
state, being self-defeating energy generators.
The reasoning behind this was that the
crystals are naturally gravitic-electronically active. Any electromagnetic
radiation that hits them causes a gravitic surge, and vice versa. This can cause
problems ranging from crystal degradation to catastrophic vessel and crew
damage. So, to 'safe' the ship, the
crystals are returned to their natural form (see step 8).
2) Integrity Verification Stage: When the Ya'Nennis is fully fluid, it is scanned to ensure no crystalline material remains. This is easiest done with an optical scan looking for particulates. If there are no visible crystals (less than 2 millimeters in size) weak magnetic resonance is used, which would trigger a small but detectable gravitational surge in crystalline Ya'N (this is a safety measure that probably was just an eyeball check at first, and which greatly enhances the accuracy of the drive. Liquid Ya'N doesn't have the electrogravitic effect - it needs a crystalline lattice for that).
3) Liquid Placement Stage:
The Ya'Nennis is poured into a morph-box preheated to the Ya'Nennis'
liquid-state temperature. This morph-box is a container constructed from a Smart
Material with variable configuration capabilities, both in number and placement
of sides, as well as angles between sides (Dwrenwan probably made do with a set,
limited number of solid molds he'd pre-calculated as being useful).
4) Super-cooling Stage: The
Ya'Nennis is super-cooled. That means, while still in a liquid form, the
material is chilled to a point below its liquid/solid phase change temperature.
This is a delicate bit, and requires a little time (approximately 40 minutes
Standard) and a lot of precision. Any stray vibration or other
disturbance at this time ruins the effect.
Even in Dwrenwan’s test ship, however, adequate shielding was in
place to prevent this. More modern
engine versions have shielding that makes it almost impossible for any
disturbances to affect the process. The
super-cooled Ya’Nennis converts into a crystalline lattice matching the
morph-box's shape by a weak EM pulse, which disturbs the material in a
predictable manner (Dwrenwan used different techniques to generate a monotonic
crystal in the mold - chilling from one end, and/or injection with a seed
crystal, etc.).
5) Crystal Placement Stage: When
the crystal is formed, it is emplaced into an array of similar crystals within
the Reaction Chamber (this is why it took Dwrenwan so much longer than the later
ships to cover the same distance - this process became automated, instead of
being an issue of craftsmanship). A
large number of crystal containers also allows for FTL course corrections.
In other words, if the ship needs to change its heading by a certain
number of degrees to the port side, more power is generated in the port
crystals, creating a bias in the Ya’N Field, and affecting the ship’s change
of heading.
6) Energy Pulse Stage: The
crystals receive a large pulse of power, in the neighborhood of 20 Tesla and
30,000,000 watts timed to the picosecond. The waveform of the energy matters as
well (all of these are more engineering details which will enhance the drive
over time).
7) Travel Time: Space-time
warps, and the ship slides elsewhere. Note that the most power efficient crystal
forms (those with the greatest 'speed') are unable to handle the heat byproduct
of this process, and are turned to fluid (if not gas) by the pulse, and thus
need to be reformed. However,
larger crystals can handle the pulse without melting, and may well be the form
that Dwrenwan used originally. It's just not as efficient, meaning it's slower.
8) Reformation Stage: Once at the ship’s destination, the crystals are re-melted and then allowed to form back into their natural configuration in a Reformation Chamber. However, just as when the Ya’Nennis is super-cooled, heavy shielding is still required to rule out any stray electromagnetic radiation, which could have disastrous effects. For safety’s sake, this Reformation Stage is performed well beyond the edge of any given solar system, to ensure that habitats or other spacecraft are not affected by any possible accidents.
The
Effects of Traveling In A Ya'N Powered Ship
One of the quirks presented by
near light speed travel is that there are time dilation effects. The
faster one travels, the slower time passes shipboard. To an external viewer, a ship traveling at nearly the speed of light would still take a very
long time to reach its extrasolar destination. To a passenger on that
ship, only a fraction of that time would have passed. The same cannot be
said for travel faster than light. Relativity effects do not apply in this
area of travel that seems to surpass the known laws of physics. This was,
along with the fact of FTL travel itself, one of the true opportunities for
mankind to effectively travel to the surrounding stars.
Also, a traveler on such a ship would be virtually blind to the surrounding cosmos. Save for a very narrow band of vision perpendicular to the axis of motion by the ship, everything else is obscured by the extreme blue and red shifting of EM radiation, caused by FTL speeds. To a normal space viewer, the FTL ship itself is not visible, nor is there any visible effect from its Gravitic Field. However, this super-relative speed creates a burst of radiation that is easily detectible over a wide area. And if the ship is, for some unfathomable reason, traveling into a region with concentrations of interstellar gases, this radiation will ionize the gas and cause them to emit light for a brief time (assuming that the ship itself has some means with which to protect itself from the bombardments of countless interstellar dust grains).
Other
Sources For Ya'Nennis
In the years since its discovery, and mankind's
subsequent move into interstellar space on the scale of a single lifetime, other
sources of Ya'Nennis have been found. Among the locations, the most
notable are the deposits on Ganymede, and the oceanic deposits of Orra. In
all cases, it is geologically obvious that the mineral is not indigenous to
their discovery locations, and yet they are often found completely mixed within
ancient geological layers. On Ganymede, they were discovered when a Mining
Guild survey team began drilling towards the subsurface ocean there.
Ya'Nennis was encountered three thousand meters from the watery layer. On
Orra, Ya'Nennis was discovered on the abyssal ocean floor, in the form of large
concretions. In appearance, they looked almost like geodes three meters in
diameter, sometimes large, often smaller. No satisfactory explanation has ever been found to explain these
deposits, which occur in sufficient quantities to warrant full fledged mining
operations at every site. Only in the 82 Eridani System, and a few others,
has it been discovered in a space-based setting that can be explained by
wandering interstellar debris. And even this theory is fraught with improbabilities.
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ArcBuilder Universe concept © John
M. and Margo L. Dollan 2002
The many properties of Ya'Nennis, and the functions of the Engine,
were originally worked out and refined by John B. Many thanks!