RP forum and collaborative fiction community - Daireem

RP Home - Join - Play - The Universe - Encyclopedia - Species - Vehicles - Items - Staff
Expand Active Plots (Alphabetical) - Updated 8/21/2010
Login | Create User | List UsersYou are not logged in.
Page 16 of 21
Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Next
Daireem - Space
AuthorComment
QuantumTroll
Street Fighter/Space Station
9/7/2009 5:45:14 PM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 181
RE: Space Station FREYA

Froderick didn't suggest anything Freya disagreed with.  The elongated shape that was the hallmark of her current design was a convenience that was turning into a hindrance as her bulk increased.  More torque could be applied by simply increasing the lever arm.  The downside was increased space and material dedicated to engine housing and support.  This was all stuff that Freya had designed for herself before.

She smiled.  The vectoring nozzles were a novel idea, and the added level of maneuverability and redundancy at low cost made for a very attractive proposition.

"I think we're on the same page, Mr. Froderick.  Let's talk commission.  I have limited tape, so when possible I prefer to pay in kind.  Room and board while you are here are a given, but is there anything else I can do for you?  A prototype you'd like built, perhaps, an idea tested?"
Froderick
Engineer - Space & Cybernetics
9/8/2009 6:06:55 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 19
RE: Space Station FREYA

Froderick mulled it over.

"Well, to be frank - the opportunity to work on a unique ship such as this... err... I mean yourself... is a reward in itself! The day-to-day of life at a mining outpost can be wearying, so I'm just as happy to consider this a vacation, haha!"

He smiled at the thought. "But if something comes to mind I'll be sure to let you know. It wouldn't do to leave without taking at least a little advantage of your manufacturing capacity, right?"
Kapitein Piet
(Ethical) Space Pirate
9/14/2009 2:12:26 PM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 60
RE: Space Station FREYA

The AI and the human poured their hearts and souls into re-engineering the drive mechanisms of the space station, converting it into a true space cruiser.

The bizarre bulbous construction was lengthened bow to stern, providing improved stability during linear acceleration. A recognizable v-shaped bow emerged, helping to deflect debris and shrapnel at from more important compartments. The stern flared and flattened out, permitting more surface area for the primary thrusters. Wide nozzles appeared in the sides, top, and bottom, for dramatic azimuthal and attitudinal control.

The shell around the hull was supplied with a thicker layer of steel, and the convex extrema were foreseen with twice the transverse stiffeners, to withstand scraping collisions with asteroids and other spacecraft.

The more-or-less random-looking (to humans) distribution of bulkheads, air-tight seals, and vacuum-load-distributing systems, while effective, were replaced with a more comprehensible system of redundant bulkheads with mutex hatches, reinforcement framing, and true cross-compartment leak tubes.

Froderick also managed to apply his specialization in cybernetics to mirror most of Freya's core modules in the positronic circuitboards and holographic chips he had collected in his cybernetics kit. These were wired into place as warm-standby failover units in various areas of the ship, ensuring her cognitive survival in anything short of a total loss scenario.

While these changes were going on, Kapitein Piet and Freya collaborated on a tactical/operational handbook for the ship. It was designed to work for a crew of two - Freya and Piet - to twenty. There wasn't nearly enough room for twenty crewmembers yet, but the future held limitless possibilities.

Beyond the handbook, they also discussed plans in a larger sense. What were they going to do with her new capabilities?
QuantumTroll
Street Fighter/Space Station
9/16/2009 7:04:49 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 181
RE: Space Station FREYA

Froderick's offer to trade his astounding ingenuity for nothing but the chance to exercise it almost worried Freya, but she was quick to accept with a smile.  As work progressed, however, it became clear that Froderick truly relished the novel challenges that she presented him.

The weeks that followed were a transformation for Freya.  Distributing her brains made her feel a little spacey, but it was comforting to know that her mind would continue to exist as long as her newly reinforced body.  Maneuverability was improved at the expense of total thrust, making her feel more like her younger, more nimble self despite the added mass of the intervening years.  

While Piet deferred to Freya's command without a peep, it was clear that he was the more experienced spacer and the handbook was almost exclusively his work. It was this work more than anything that kept him from his bottle.  

Finally the day came when the structural enhancements were complete, the hyperdrive repaired and ready for the maiden flight of its new life.  Freya felt its circuitry humming with the strange energies required to rend space and time, a sensation of knife-edge potential.  The gang was collected in the bridge, the screens showing a map of local space and hypercore statistics.  She decided to involve them in this culmination of their work.

With some trepidation – poorly built ships have been known to sunder completely in hyperspace – Freya said, "Engineer Froderick, confirm hyperdrive readiness. Officer Piet, initiate hyperspace transfer on confirmation."
Froderick
Engineer - Space & Cybernetics
9/16/2009 11:58:09 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 19
RE: Space Station FREYA

"If the sensors are built as reliably as the machinery they monitor, we're in for a treat! I'm showing a 10 to the minus 4 ångström standard error on alpha, beta, and delta frequencies. Gamma is exhibiting some weird spikes, but I attribute that to the high amount of elemental cesium we found in this asteroid field."

Froderick took a deep breath.

"Readiness confirmed, Freya. Your move, Kapitein."
Kapitein Piet
(Ethical) Space Pirate
9/16/2009 12:12:04 PM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 60
RE: Space Station FREYA

"Aye aye, Froderick!" the old man spoke.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

His back straight, his jaw set, and his eyes fixed on the monitors and the dials, he flipped the safety latch cover and depressed the switch without hesitation.


QuantumTroll
Street Fighter/Space Station
9/18/2009 10:21:17 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 181
RE: Space Station FREYA

Mr. Piet's switch closed a connection that allowed the electric field between two voltage sources push a wave of electrons through virgin circuitry.  Ladders and loops of integrated transistors stepped up the power, pushing ever more complex electromagnetic patterns through thicker wires spread throughout Freya's hull.  She felt a mounting electric crescendo that was not quite noise, gradually overpowering all her senses.  This was the shield that would keep her together through the stresses of hyperspace.

Once the shielding was complete, power was cut into the hyperdrive proper.  Within a single nanosecond beat of its central processor, a burst of energy ripped open a hole in space-time to another realm. An instant later, the hole collapsed and Freya was pulled across a chasm of impossibility. The hypervoid screamed insanity at Freya.  She shut her sensors off and the impressions of unreality slowly trickled away. After a few hours, the hyperdrive shuddered back into ordinary space-time, pulling Freya bodily with it. Hyperspace travel was a bit like having a cement block pulling you into an icy vat of champagne, only to have it pull you back out again when you reach the bottom.

After recovering from the jump-shock, Freya looked around her new surroundings, consulting star-charts.  She said, "Bull's eye, guys.  Well done, we're in Mircor system.  Let's cycle the drive, repeat diagnostics, and try to jump back."

Froderick
Engineer - Space & Cybernetics
9/23/2009 5:24:02 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 19
RE: Space Station FREYA

"Hold on just a minute, everybody! There are serious deviations here on the gamma read-outs..."

Froderick fell silent, poring over the data, while Freya processed it as well. Kapitein Piet looked on quietly, relying on the expertise of his crewmates.

Eventually he spoke up, and said "alright, it seems we traveled forward in time by a day or two. This isn't a real problem in itself, but the high gamma spikes - on the order of 10 to the plus 12 ångström - is not conducive to a safe jump. We could end up deviating in any spatial dimension; we might end up turning inside-out; anything could happen. It seems that either the damping filters or low-pass filters (or both) on the Fourier transformer arrays, which we scavenged from the Calamitous, are shot. We will need to find new parts."

Froderick sighed at the disappointment - the hyperdrives were still not functional, after weeks of effort. "What is your analysis, Freya?"
QuantumTroll
Street Fighter/Space Station
9/24/2009 6:37:23 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 181
RE: Space Station FREYA

Freya considered Froderick's analysis and quickly agreed that another jump was out of the question.  They were stuck in the outskirts of Mircor without a functional hyperdrive.  Not an ideal situation, given the high incidence of piracy in that system.

Despite the overhaul, Freya was far from battle-ready – she simply lacked the arsenal required to make a dent in a serious fight.  She said, "It could be worse, we could have been stranded in interstellar space. Do you think we can get the parts we need at Grayson Territories? We're just days away from the asteroid belt."

[ Now we're on track!  Let's be at Grayson Territories in a post or two and then Jara can rejoin Smile .  If Jara is back to her job fighting pirates, then Freya would offer to help take the fight to the bad guys in exchange for the weapons she needs. Freya, the repair- support- and missile-corvette Grin . We could pick up some crew as well - just redshirts without accounts to fill out the crew roster. What say ye? ]
Froderick
Engineer - Space & Cybernetics
9/28/2009 12:37:20 PM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 19
RE: Space Station FREYA

[Excellent!]

Froderick brow was furrowed, but he nodded.
"There should be parts in the ranger yards that we could use. Paying for it will be tricky - don't want to mess up my accounting - but we should find what we need there."

His brow creased more deeply before he continued, "But we'll need to head around this sector here," indicating on a map. "They're heavily patrolled by pirates that have a base there, and often like to siphon fuel and scavenge parts. We don't want to have to deal with them right now. What do you think we should do, Piet?"
Page 16 of 21
Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Next
Daireem - RE: Space Station FREYA
RP Home - Join - Play - The Universe - Encyclopedia - Species - Vehicles - Items - Staff

Affiliates
None right now

Daireem © 2006-Present Clint Blizzard. All rights reserved.
The Furry Trio Message Board™ copyright © 2001-Present Wolf McDog. All rights reserved.
This site is owned by Clint Blizzard.
This site was created by Clint Blizzard and is not maintained very well by Wolf McDog.