Materials

Materials are the live and soul of any structure. Be it ships, turrets, stations, everything is influenced by the materials it is made of. Over the course of the time new materials were discovered, each of them with their own properties.

## Iron

Every Faction that is now in space discovered iron ages before they built their first space ships. That is because there are big iron depots in the surface of most planets. It is extremely easy to extract and process iron, which makes it widely used in many fields and for many tasks. Now, every faction has some capabilities to gain and process iron to a certain degree. As Iron possesses a high density it needs a large force to be accelerated as fast as other materials. This got an innovator, inventor and trader called Roth Shlop thinking "If it refuses so hard to get faster, maybe we can use it to slow things down?". After a few prototypes and failed experiments the first successful prototype of an intertia damper was shown to the public in 2165C.E.. It was a major success and spread quickly over the whole galaxy.

Iron oxidates very fast. The result is red-brownish, is a bad conductor, very porous and has many names like "Rust", "Rost, "Loth" and many more. It can also be used to create a combustible mixture, that can be used for civilian as well as military use.

## Titanium

For many years Titanium was the way to go when space structures were considered, until better materials like Naonite were discovered. It is a much lighter material than iron, but also rarer, which makes it more expensive. Furthermore, the procedures and technologies used to extract it are more expensive and complicated than those for iron, which also adds to its price. Titanium also can be found on planet surfaces, but only 10% as often as iron.

When reacting with oxygen its surface gets inert, which comes in handy for some industrial uses, like containers for chemical plants. Alloys made from iron and titanium are way better suited for armor than pure iron, since they safe in weight and are harder to penetrate.

In 2213C.E. the United Worlds of Gurash invented generators that were made from titanium as well as Integrity Generators, but kept silent about their inventions as tensions in the galaxy were rising quickly and they wanted to have an advantage over other factions. During the war the plans for these devices were stolen by spies and slowly started spreading through the galaxy.

## Naonite

In 2300C.E. Naonite was one of the first Materials that were made refinable through the researches that were conducted by the Pan Galactic Republic. It was considered a milestone in space traveling technology. The Ore is radioactive, not to an extreme degree, but it makes certain equipment necessary.

To Mine Naonite it is advantageous to heat it while it is still in the stone, because it is high effort to clear mined Naonite from foreign materials. Heating it in the stone is easier, as it has lower melting temperatures than most of the surrounding stone. However, this holds the risk of detonation, as there could be volatile gases encapsulated within the stone. The molten Naonite needs to be heated during transport, otherwise it would solidify again inside the container.

Naonite is heavier than Titanium, but not as heavy as iron. It is a better conductor than any other material that was known up to this point. This makes it better suited for important systems like generators. What it is not good as, is armor, as the Melvonian Reach had to discover. They fitted some of their ships with different Naonite alloys. For testing they attacked a small pirate outpost. None of their ships returned, as the armor was not properly tested in before and turned out too soft. In 2311C.E. the Salesman and Inventor Zuyac Hupf managed to build a first working prototype of a shield generator. He sold the plans to other traders, so they too would have better protection against pirate attacks. From there it quickly spread in all angles of the galaxy. Soon after he also found a way to build a system to improve the hyperspace range of his ship, which he also made available to everybody who could afford it.

## Trinium

The ability to mine and refine Trinium was a huge milestone in the Research Program of the Pan Galactic Republic in 2320C.E. It turned out to be the lightest Material discovered to this point. It is stronger than any other material that was discovered before, which lead to many factions wanting it in huge amounts. This lead to many smaller tensions within the Republic, but also to a very active black market and mining industry all over the galaxy. The More People got their hands on this new material, the more ways to use it appeared, like Hangars, giant Computer Cores, and many more.

Trinium has to be mined with special lasers that have to emit electromagnetic waves of a very specific frequency. The Frequency can only differ by +- 0.00002%, else the ore would not react in any way to the EM-waves. When mined, the ore has to be cooled to very low temperatures in special containers, because it is highly reactive. The cooling slows down the speed at which reactions happen, while the inner layer of the containers is coated with a special mixture of glass. Part of this glass is Naonite, because it makes the glass inert to reactions with Trinium.

This reactivity also is the cause for many problems in the early days of Trinium-processing. At first, many workers were not aware of the reactive nature of Trinium which lead to many health problems and even deaths in a few weeks. On one day, a worker in a refinery was eating a very fatty piece of food near a small crumble of Trinium. A drop of fat fell on it, causing it to burst into flames, injuring the eating worker and two others. It also damaged a filled container, holding even more Trinium. The whole deck had to be evacuated and sealed immediately. After securing the container and preventing a catastrophe on the station, the company responsible for the station introduced a large number of safety regulations, to prevent further accidents. The workers agreed and word of the "Fat incident" spread quickly, being a warning for all other refinery workers. Soon after, researchers found out, that mixing Trinium into alloys (mostly with Titanium) greatly reduces its reactivity.

## Xanion

Xanion was considered a huge and surprising breakthrough in the researches of the Republic. Many thought that Trinium was the pinnacle of Materials, and they were right, but not in every aspect. While being heavier than Trinium and not as strong, Xanion proved to be way better suited for Computers, Generators and other ship internals. A Group of Researchers used Xanion to achieve the unthinkable: the creation of clone pods. Creating exact copies of living beings. Apart from ethical discussions whether or not to clone, this invention was a blessing to everybody who needed a lot of man power in a short amount of time (like shipping companies).

First tests on Xanion asteroids showed, that the ore is pretty hard to extract. The best way to extract the ore was discovered by accident; vibrations of the installed extraction equipment slowly loosened the pure ore. The first few samples were collected that way, while more extraction tests were conducted. That way it was discovered, that Asteroids which contain Xanion also often container highly volatile gases, which often lead to explosions, destroying mining equipment and damaging research ships. This made the responsible researchers think; how could one vibrate an asteroid from a distance, since docking with the asteroid was considered too time consuming for mining operations. The idea was to use sound, which gets delivered via a stream of accelerated gas. The first working mining tool prototype for Xanion was around double the size of regular mining turrets. The Reason for this was, that the gas needs to be stored under high pressure which leads to cooling being needed. Later iterations of the prototype were reduced to normal standards in mass and size.

## Ogonite

Being the heaviest Material ever discovered, Ogonite was seen as undesirable for a long time. Many thought that it is just heavier iron, and at a first glance this is true. But when the Republic started researches on Ogonite in 2392C.E. they discovered, that it is in fact better than all other known materials. This comes for the price of also being the densest material by far and many dislike it because of this. Many forget its capabilities or they dislike the increased weight more than they like the resulting improvements to the ship. Being so dense, a descendant of Roth Shlop used Ogonite to invent an inertia damper made of Ogonite. It proved to be much better than its iron counterpart, but also harder to produce and more expensive.

Mining Ogonite is simply done by cutting chunks off of the asteroids and storing them in containers, sometimes heating them proves to be beneficial. The main problem lays in refining and finding it. Ogonite is not found in real ore veins or at least the veins are not as concentrated as those of other ores. Therefor much of the cargohold of mining ships is actually filled with other materials than Ogonite, which wastes a lot of space. Miners call this mixture of actual ore and impurities "Drak". Drak makes a long chain of refinement step necessary, including many steps of heating up and cooling down the minerals to different melting and crystallisation points. In between these steps the Drak gets treated with a wide array of chemicals to further split the elements. The amount of energy and the chemicals required make the refinement very expensive. Therefor the result is more expensive than Xanion, despite not being used much.

Ogonite only appears rather close to the galactic center, which made it relatively scarce. After the Calamity it was VERY hard to come by any Ogonite, as it was held back behind the Barrier, making it almost completely impossible to acquire outside the Barrier. Many do not consider this a loss, as it did not find much use and required too much effort in refining.

## Avorion

Not much is known about Avorion. Rumors say, that it appeared when the Xsotan established the Barrier, either as a side effect or by accident. Many consider it to be THE material, even not knowing for sure whether it really exists. Some people say, that a small group of ships carrying a small sample managed to escape the Barrier. It is said that they destroyed each other when a fight over the sample broke out.

For establishing facts about the material it is necessary to cross the Barrier, which is currently impossible.