Gestler’s Notes: Ship Weapon Systems

The people of New Eden were able to provide my lady with numerous upgrades, however, they are a people entirely incapable of imagining violent intent, either violence directed towards them, or violence directed away from them.  They also fail to understand coercion – I attempted to explain it, and they found the deal in question to be very unfair, rather than grasping the utility of coercion as a tool.

As such, they were not able to provide my lady with any intentional weapons, and there are a number of safety precautions built into most of the devices they have installed.  When I proposed for them to recreate weapons from the books that I have read (unfortunately there are no actual weapon schematics), they refused.  Given that they were providing upgrades to my lady as a gift, I felt that to press further would constitute an attack on my lady’s interests.

However, safety precautions can be overridden, and even the most innocuous devices used for violence.  Lastly, my lady now has the capability to build weapons, limited by raw materials and the size and throughput of her factory.  The main question is which of these potential weapons would actually be useful for inter-ship combat, or planetary bombardment.

Our previous main external weapon system—the engines—are now ineffective.  Lady Zephyr has become too large to enter atmosphere, and against other spaceships, the range is so close as to be highly dangerous.  (I would, however, suggest them in lieu of an actual ramming maneuver.)  There are the shuttles, but they are, of course, much smaller than even Lady Zephyr’s previous size, and their thrusters are correspondingly weaker.

On the other hand, there now is a question of payload.  New Eden’s native technology is run on antimatter, collected from large solar arrays floating on the sun.  We have not brought antimatter production capability with us, nor have we a particularly large supply of antimatter.  Furthermore, we do not have the means to safely store or move said antimatter.  Instead, the New Edenites have built emergency thrusters, capable of violently accelerating Lady Zephyr, albeit only once (then they apparently detach).

However, their external location causes them to be extremely vulnerable, as any damage that causes a loss of containment would cause catastrophic problems.  They are equipped with their own sensors, and the capability of detaching to avoid impacts, and are entirely self-contained.  I propose triggering the detachment, then storing them as weapons within the safety of the hangar.

Without the weight of the ship to move, the emergency thrusters should be capable of reaching extremely high conventional speeds, and providing great damage either conventionally, or with unused antimatter as a payload.  Removal and weaponization also frees up hard-points on the hull for the attachment of future kinetic weapons.

Our more conventional maneuvering thrusters simply provide directional jets of our normal fusion engine.  I recommend using these for defense against boarding craft, and other nearby external threats.

There do appear to be a number of toxins easily created by the manufactory, and I suspect that the easiest/quickest manner of planetary bombardment would be to generate a large amount of some toxin, then use the shuttles to dump it upon the enemy.  Biological weapons are also a possibility, but Dr. Tanaka and Life Support Engineer Reiviki have both claimed ignorance of how to synthesize such a weapon.  (Though before my stay on Lady Zephyr, apparently they found a planet rich in macroscopic bio-weapons.)

The problem with poison and disease is that they are relatively imprecise weapons, and easily countered by hermetic seals and other simple measures.  The other imprecise option is dropping orbital debris (or other heavy things found in the system in question) is still a possibility, though there is still the problem of slowing such an object down as not to ablate away in the atmosphere.  Both engineers have been entirely unhelpful in my requests concerning drones to cocoon orbital debris in a material that can help it survive high-speed re-entry.

An imprecise weapon can be used freely if what you do not wish to destroy is shielded from the effects.  As mentioned earlier, most toxins and bioweapons can be defeated by hermetic seals – to work that the other way, any crewmember in a vacuum suit should be save from the area being dosed in assorted poisons.  Furthermore, when recovering inorganic objectives, it should be fairly safe to enter a bombarded area to retrieve the objective.  Additionally, I believe a vacuum suit can be rigged to dispense fast-acting nerve agents in the general area as a personal self-defense measure.

While my research into toxins thus far has been focused on easily synthesized organic compounds that attack human biological systems, there is some question of heavier chemicals that can be used to physically attack inorganic materials.  Extremely strong acids, digestive enzymes, etc.  With some research, I hope to find some manner of compound that can dissolve vacuum suits and the people within, while not damaging the metal of my lady’s hull, or, ideally, without disrupting technology.  This could be used as a more effective internal defense than venting hostiles into a vacuum, particularly in cases where they are protected by vacuum suits.

Until we have the designs for a relativistic mass driver, manufactured weapons will likely focus on lasers and EM weapons, as well as all types of missiles and drone weapons.  However, I am still weak in such areas, and will require the assistance of the Engineers.

Lastly, there is the question of hand-to-hand combat.  While repelling boarders by venting out air, venting in acid, violent accelerations, directed bulkhead closing, and other ship-based methods seem to be the most effective options, I suspect that there will be cases where the crew would be vulnerable to those same measures.  The obvious course of action would be for the crewmember to disengage from the enemy, and put a bulkhead or two between them and the enemy.  However, there are assorted situations where that can be difficult.  For instance, if you are so close as to be grappled or easily shot in the back as you run, disengagement can be difficult.  As such, once underway, I will begin to instruct the crew in the basics of hand-to-hand defense and escape, as well as methods for retreating while under ranged attack.