Starflight

Following the completion of The Skytether- and even for some time prior, the idea of travelling between moons, planets, and inevitably, stars, was of great interest to the Magdorans, both as a new realm of scientific potential, and as a new frontier for growth and development.

## History

Prior to the completion of the Skytether, Magdora's potential for space exploration was limited- between a lack of easily exploited fuels, slightly-above-average gravity, and the particularities of spaceflight itself, only a small number of both manned and unmanned flights were ever deployed, with the former only reaching stable Magdoran orbits, and the latter managing to reach their entire system, by the time alternatives were available. While this only provided a limited amount of information, it was more than enough to support future plans, at the time even including ones for a fleet of "Generation ships", that could potentially colonize the entire star system, and in time, other star systems too. These plans would never be fully finished, however they would serve the basis for the initial Magdoran starfleets.

The first interstellar ship built by the Magdorans would be the Starborne Flock, a Werret-class cruiser, by later definitions, which would also be the first ship capable of *self-gating*. This allowed the ship to near-instantly travel to a number of nearby star systems, where it would establish the first Magdoran interstellar colonies, and later would serve to construct much of the Magdoran's interstellar infrastructure, such as permanent gate installations, communications relays, and navigation beacons.

Once this infrastructure reached the first stages of completion- and later, expansion,- interstellar and interplanetary travel would quickly become a staple of Magdoran life, with all the consequences that came with it.

## Ships

### Ship Design

Magdoran ship design varies heavily between designers and intended purpose, however they generally follow the same rules as an oceanic ship would, when it comes to orientation and layout.

Hull shape, however, does not need to follow any particular rules other than those imposed by the ship's intended duty. For example, atmospheric ships need to be capable of some degree of atmospheric flight, while stealth ships generally have one smoothly shaped superstructure. To this end, a non-atmospheric support ship can effectively be a skeletal structure with thrusters and a control centre attached, as there are few reasons such a design would be undesirable.

One common trait of Magdoran ship design, however, is that of their modularity- bulkhead-defined sections of ships, as well as their equipment, are designed to be able to be easily removed, replaced, or even switched out for other components. While this is often seen as a weakness, as it removes the ability for generic ship hulls to be used in highly specialised roles, it does allow for these generic ship hulls to be used in a wider capacity, with even small shipyards being capable of at least swapping these modular sections around.

### Ship Classification

The officially recognized ship classification scheme classifies ship hull-types by their hull tonnage, intended usage, and any unique features that may be present. Often times, only the broad hull classification sees usage, but when more specificity is needed the full title is used.

Some of the more recognizable classifications a ship might receive are that of "Capital ships" and "Parasite craft", both largely being indicators of a ships independence, or lack thereof.

#### Non-Capital Ships

Ships that fail to meet the capital ship classification are generally small, short-range ships. While the capital ship classification applies to a much broader variety of ship types, non-capital ships are much more frequently seen, particularly in civilian space, however the prevalence of the Gate Network means that civilians still have access to most civilian sectors regardless.

Non-capital ships are generally equipped with a slip-drive, as well as room for supplies to last at least 6 weeks without external assistance. Thanks to their size, non-capital ships are also capable of docking at even the smallest registered Conglomerate starports, and most are capable of landing on terrestrial planets with atmospheres.

#### Capital Ships

Generally, any ship capable of generating its own Gate portal, as well as sustaining its crew for a minimum of 3 months without external assistance is classified as a capital ship, with frigates generally being the smallest class of ship to receive such a title.

Capital ships are often exclusively used by Conglomerate-sponsored groups and other bodies of similar strength, primarily due to the costs of such vessels, with very few ever being truly mass produced- the life of individual capital ships is often planned years in advance, with those that do manage to reach retirement, if ever, being placed in mothball shipyards as opposed to being outright scrapped or sold off.

#### Megaships

Alongside the capital ship classification is the much more elusive megaship classification. This classification only applies to the largest of the large, with many megaships often being described as "void arcologies", from the sheer amount of crew and support systems they require.

In Magdoran space, megaships are an extreme rarity, with the extreme expense of building them often better spent on smaller, gate-equipped capital ships to perform the same duties. The megaships that do exist, however, generally serve the role of mobile spaceports in otherwise completely unoccupied territories, with some even being built solely by pirates. Magdora and Magdora-aligned groups do have access to a number of even more elusive *dreadnoughts* too, but these are even more rare to see, let alone see active service.

#### Parasite Craft

Parasite craft are ships that are wholly dependent on other ships or ports to function fully, typically with no FTL capabilities whatsoever. Parasite craft are often single-seat support ships, such as fighters and tugs, though shuttlecraft are also often described as being parasite craft, despite the frequent inclusion of gravity-slip drives on larger models.

Typically, parasite craft are seen as expendable necessities; Their designs are often simple and lack many redundancies present in larger ships- thus making them both incredibly cheap and easily discarded when they receive excessive damage or maintenance costs,- but perform many duties that could only otherwise be performed by inordinately expensive and limited counterparts on stations and ports.

One relatively common practice relating to parasite craft is that of drone parasites, and other forms of automation. Drone parasites are fully autonomous parasite craft, programmed to intelligently carry out a given task when deployed by a suitable mothership or base, with or without its assistance. Given that the abilities of a drone are often above that of a manned equivalent- largely thanks to more robust and complex machinery and tools, as well as the fact they don't need to account for a pilot's abilities and safety- drones most frequently see use in hazardous environments, such as interstellar mining and combat. Some more developed starports do make use of drone fleets as well, for everything from ferrying passengers and cargo to ship maintenance, construction, and disassembly. Unlike regular parasite craft, drone parasites are significantly more expensive by comparison, with small fleets being monetarily comparable to the smallest and cheapest of corvettes.

## Methods of Travel

The technological advances of the Magdoran Conglomerate allowed for a variety of ways for an individual to travel, each presenting their own pros and cons- as well as limiting how far they could go in a reasonable amount of time.

### Sublight

"Sublight travel" is an umbrella term for any form of travel that does not exceed the typical limitations of more traditional rocketry, and more specifically, does not breach the lightspeed barrier.

Without access to sufficiently advanced technology, the most accessible form of sublight travel is through chemical thrusters- devices that would expel, or ignite, a fuel, and achieve acceleration through the resulting reaction. Less advanced forms of this are somewhat costly, in terms of storing and obtaining the fuel itself, however hydrogen-oxygen fuel is a long-running staple of Magdoran interstellar networks- which can relatively easily be found and refined in flight.

To those who can afford it, however, ucrylium-based fuels and plasma engines are significantly better than OH thrusters, primarily due to the much greater fuel efficiency. For the former, this is nearly identical to the traditional thruster type- however the implementation of ucrylium fuels allows for much more useful energy to be created from the reaction, which while it does make the fuel harder to obtain, does allow for non-FTL voyages to be done by smaller, and subsequently faster, craft. For the latter, this is a natural evolution of older ion thruster designs, which generally allow for pure electrical energy to be used instead of a more traditional fuel, greatly decreasing fuel supply costs, at the expense of needing larger reactor plants- which would already be easily attainable by the time plasma thrusters became widely used.

### Warp

"Warp travel", otherwise known as faster-than-light travel, is an umbrella term for forms of travel that take the traveller at speeds beyond the speed of light. This includes gate travel, as while the user does not necessarily have to accelerate to such speeds through it, they are effectively bypassing the constraints of physical reality through it.

#### Gravity Slip Drive

Outside of gate travel, the most prevalent form of warp travel is through what are known as *gravity slip drives*- colloquially referred to as just *slip-drives-* which effectively create a bubble of altered time-space around a vessel, which can then be moved instead of the vessel itself. These are mechanically similar to the devices used to generate gravitic shielding, and frequently the two are rolled into one. Because they are the same device, though, damage to one usually means damage to the other, which can leave already vulnerable ships unable to flee.

By essentially isolating the vessel from normal space, it is possible to accelerate the vessel to speeds just above the speed of light, without really affecting the ship itself. This method of travel is highly temperamental, though- the ability to create a "slip bubble", and the stability of such a bubble, is influenced by the presence of other bubbles and gravity wells, even the gravitic shielding used by most Magdoran ships. This commonly comes about in the fact that a ship cannot go to warp speeds when it is too close to a stellar body, but it can also force ships to decelerate, in the event two ships get in close proximity while in warp.

## Ship Features

### Defenses

Given the nature of stellar travel, defenses are an integral part of a ship's design, be it from heat and radiation, to micrometeors and debris, or simply military implements.

#### Hull

The most important, and,- save for any emergency systems,- last, line of defense for any ship, great effort is taken to ensuring the outer and inner hulls of a ship can survive as many threats as possible.

##### Outer Hull

The outer hull of a ship, often believed to be the *only* hull of a ship by a layman, is designed to protect the insides from everything that may come from outside of it. The outer hull is generally thicker than the inner, and primarily consists of layered titanium, thermally and electrically conductive materials, and radiation-shielding materials. These three layers are present to protect the ship against kinetic, thermal, electric, and radiation damage, respectively, however additional layers are often added, to suit the ship's expected work environments. Examples of such added layers include ablative kinetic plating, additional thermal layers on the exterior, and "dark" materials to assist with stealth capabilities.

##### Inner Hull

The inner hull of a ship is a second voidtight hull within the outer hull, often with a substantial (in relative terms) gap between the two. Particularly in these cases, the inner hull is suspended within the outer hull by a sophisticated network of struts and pylons, to prevent hull separation in all but the most extreme situations.

The primary duty of the inner hull is to insulate the crucial components of the ship from outside radiation and heat, and to prevent these from leaking out, even from sections within the inner hull. To this end, the inner hull is largely responsible for retaining a habitable environment within a ship- if applicable.

The inner hull is itself not particularly useful as a defense measure, however the gap between it and the outer hull does provide an advantage in itself, as incoming projectiles and debris tend to shatter or malform after the initial impact, enough to severely lower the threat they serve, even against the substantially weaker inner hull. Additionally, in the event of an outer hull breach, this does not immediately risk the crew or cargo, due to only penetrating the outer hull.

With the increasing popularity of gravitic shielding, however, this dual-layer design has seen less and less practice in smaller ships, and in larger ships there are more frequent "thin zones", where the spacing between the two hulls is smaller than on other areas. In both cases though, this is largely for practical concerns, with the expectation that said shielding would account for the loss of protection.

#### Point-Defense

The most common and affordable form of defense, a point-defense system- alternatively known as a point-defense grid- is an array of relatively small weapon batteries scattered strategically across a ship's hull. These are often small turreted lasers, which are designed to melt or otherwise break down incoming threats, namely micrometeors, before they can do damage to a ship. In military applications, and on ships of significant size, these are often supplemented with explosive flak batteries, which are intended to break larger pieces of debris that the ship would not be able to navigate around.

#### Shielding

Powered shielding systems have long been a theoretical subject of interest for the Magdorans, as they could exponentially increase the survivability of any ship they are installed on, and provide an unmatched passive defense against most travel threats. The most commonly pursued forms of these, however, have been largely unobtainable.

What has been obtainable, however, is what is known as *gravitic shielding*. Through the process of pairing gate-drive technology with a gravity slip drive, something originally done due to the mechanical similarities between the two, it became possible to more accurately manipulate the resulting gravity bubble to the point where a "wall" of repelling or attracting gravity can be produced around a vessel. This does not produce a solid, or semi-solid barrier, however instead can drastically decrease (or increase) the energy, kinetic or otherwise, of incoming threats- significantly reducing the effect they inevitably have on the hull, if not completely disabling them.