Starship Armstrong - Season 1

Interlude - Armstrong Technical Specifications

The Armstrong is a modified Generation II Magellan-class Star Cruiser, intended for deep space exploration. The Magellan II is 1,000 meters long from bow to stern and in places is up to 200 meters wide and 200 meters tall. The Armstrong has a crew of 50 and living space and supplies for 200. Approximately 20% of the ship is pressurized and suitable for human habitation without a space suit.

Armaments

The Armstrong's primary mass driver battery has been replaced with an array of ion canons. These ion canons shoot ionized atoms at velocities nearing the speed of light by firing them in a focused high-energy beam. The use of ionized atoms allows the ion canons to temporarily destabilize older configuration shields, leaving the affected ship vulnerable to follow-up mass driver fire or continued attacks with the ion cannons. Although less damaging than mass drivers ion canons are significantly more accurate, allowing for precision targeting that can be used to knock out an enemy ship's weapons or engines, disabling them with minimal casualties.

The Armstrong still has both of it's secondary mass drivers, two large caliber guns capable of firing projectiles at 82% light speed using magnetism. Mass driver projectiles are simple metal slugs, as they impact at speeds that would render an explosive warhead moot.

Mass Drivers hit with a force comparable to a small nuclear detonation. Even targeting a civilian population center with these weapons is a crime for which a Huxley Foundation Captain can lose their commission, and using them in such a way is considered a war crime. Foundation starships do still equip Mass Drivers for use in space combat with other starships.

Shields

The Armstrong has Ion-hardened shielding, capable of remaining coherent under limited ionized bombardment. These advanced shields can easily withstand the weaponry of any starship constructed prior to the arms race of the Reunification Wars, although concentrated fire from more than one ship can often punch through. Very large ships, such as a Star Fortress or a Star Base, might also have weapons in sufficient abundance to overwhelm the shields.

Relativity Drive

The Armstrong has a Generation 5 Huxley Foundation Relativity Drive, capable of bending space and time to create a short cut between two points in space which the Armstrong can then "tunnel" through. The G5 was developed after the Reunification Wars ended, and is the fastest known drive of it's type, capable of a top "speed" of about 1.5 trillion kilometers per hour.

Main Reactor

The Armstrong is powered by a matter/anti-matter reactor that provides 100% energy conversion and can go two decades between refueling. The reactor is capable of powering the ship on maximum possible draw using only 70% of it's potential energy output. Although the reactor has a separate structural integrity field to make it difficult to damage, if the reactor is breached it will explode with the force of the nuclear weapon and take the Armstrong with it. Because of this the reactor is positioned in the core of the ship, where it is hard to hit from space.

Main Computer

The Magellan-class boasts a powerful "learning" central computer matrix, which is the source of the classes's penchant for becoming self aware and absconding with their crew. The longer a Megallan-class is in operation, theoretically, the better it becomes at operating it's systems. The Armstrong has been on active duty for more than a century, dating back to the Reunification Wars, and has become incredibly efficient at operating itself. The Armstrong is especially maneuverable and responsive, even for the agile Magellan-class. Although optimally flown with a human crew of at least 20, the Armstrong is capable of remotely piloting itself if necessary.

Communications

The Armstrong is equipped with an array of different communication systems including the Ansible, a short-range FTL communication system used by both the old empires, a long-range FTL tachyon link as well as T-Net access, both within sufficient range of a tachyon relay station. The T-Net is an interplanetary FTL computer network roughly analogous to the internet. As long as the Armstrong has T-Net access it can communicate instantaneously with any ship or world within Foundation space, and has access to the virtual entirety of human knowledge (with the exception of secrets, classified files, and the like). A simple tachyon link has a longer range than T-Net, but can only be used for basic communications.

History

The Armstrong is now the only Magellan-class starship still in operation within the Huxley Foundation (although many rogue Magellan's are still at large). This makes it the fastest and most maneuverable starship for it's size in the fleet, as newer generation Foundation Starships have less autonomous computer systems which decrease both the chance of the ship awakening and killing everyone, and reaction time. Although, theoretically, a human better at piloting than a centuries old ship is at flying itself could put a new generation ship on manual control and out maneuver the Armstrong. Theoretically.

The current Captain of the Armstrong, Alexandria Littlecrow, was originally assigned to the ship as a First officer during the Reunification Wars. She took command of the ship after the Captain was killed in battle and as a result of her service was promoted to Captain. After the Reunification Wars, like many in the Foundation, Littlecrow found she had lost her taste for war and gladly transferred into the fledgling Exploration Division. The Magellan-class was supposed to have been decommissioned, due to their dangerous habit of going "insane", but Littlecrow used her clout to get the Armstrong reassigned.

The crew of the Armstrong was hand picked by Captain Littlecrow (Dr. Kang looks great on paper). There was a great deal of interest in peaceful exploration after the Reunification Wars, and the Armstrong was a particularly choice assignment, and so the crew represents some of the Huxley Foundation's best and brightest. Exploration Division crew have military-style ranks which are equivalent to those of the Huxley Foundation Starfleet, but the Exploration Division is not considered to be part of the military and their mission is, theoretically, a peaceful one. However, see weapons systems above.