Selerium

## Overview

**Selerium** is a rare crystalline solid that was originally discovered through deep underground mining operations on Earth at the tail-end of the Earth Resource Wars. Originally hoarded by collectors and mineral enthusiasts, its use for the future of humanity was realized when Earth's atmosphere and climate was rapidly becoming inhospitable for major human populations.

When think tank conventions funded by NASA and billionaire philanthropists yielded no viable results for a fuel source for the hypothesized dimensional tearing model, more absurd experiments began to be conducted in search of a solution. Selerium was a shocking revelation, with its crystalline structure reacting to lasers and induced fusion by generating immense amounts of energy.

Old mines across Earth were reopened, tasked with drilling down to where previous deposits of selerium were found. The rarity of the substance was worrisome, and it became generally understood that more of the material would need to be found off-world if humanity expected to keep its grip on the ability to travel the stars.

As of 6989, selerium has been artificially produced across the Human Sphere in order to provide a theoretically limitless source of fuel for human spacecraft around the galaxy. Natural selerium availability rarely exceeds 1% of the total galactic stockpile of selerium.

## Uses

### Faster-Than-Light Travel

As previously mentioned, selerium is an essential component of achieving FTL for human spacecraft. The Yutani Drive is uniquely designed to be able to use artificial selerium, an advancement that gave humanity the ability to travel from world to world once more.

### Sublight Travel

With selerium's growing availability as more and more fuel processing corporations enter the business, many spacecraft manufacturers redeveloped their sublight engines to use selerium. This has significantly cut costs for the processing of different fuels. It has also shifted the obstacles for increasing the speed of vessels; where once the obstacle was finding potent enough fuel, it was now developing an engine and ship design that could support faster speeds.

The fuel requirements for powering sublight engines are remarkably low when compared to the Yutani Drive, with sublight engines today now utilizing scaled-down versions of the FTL drive that are designed for a more steady output at lower yields. Whereas the Yutani Drive needs a five pound chunk of selerium for a single charge, sublight engines need only 100 grams per day of constant use.

### Power Generation

Understandably, selerium was often the basis of new power plant projects across the Human Sphere due to its innate ability to generate high amounts of energy. It was dangerous but exceptionally worth it if done properly. It is said that selerium power plants are the only things capable of supplying enough energy to support P2P-IC Architecture.

### Shielding

Discovered during the Venkath Onslaught, selerium had more uses than simply generating energy through bombardment of lasers and the initiation of unstable fusion. When electrified and compressed under immense magnetic pressures, selerium emits a field that naturally repels incoming fire, be it kinetic or energy-based. This field is seemingly permanent until broken as long as the shield unit is active, external pressures gradually weakening the field until it dissipates. Ships and more advanced suits of body armour are equipped with shield nets, made up of nodes that project this field outward for full hull or body coverage.

## Common Use

Usage of selerium has a **YES** Common Use policy. Although it's primarily used by humans, aliens are certainly welcome to discover or make use of it for their own purposes.

## Credits

Selerium artwork designed by George Stergiopoulos on ArtStation. You can find the original source here.