Engineering
The Steel Vigil - the latest deep-space starport. (Stellaris)
Zaalans and xeno alike have built starports. These artificial and usually orbital structures are built and maintained for a variety of purposes, though every design must take into account orbital drift, life aboard the usually cramped quarters, and for larger starbases, artificial gravity, which can only truly be achieved using torus designs that orbit a core far away and fast enough.
Starports across Zaalan space are known for their spartan facilities. As the starports must not only be self-sufficient, but also provide relief to passing ships, every nook and cranny must have a purpose. Trade hubs and the torii of larger stations are generally more "wasteful", though outposts, mining facilities and orbital research labs can seldom afford such privileges. There are many station designs - from the Assembly-designed Vigils that guard Zaalan space to clan-state trade hubs and orbital starports. As all starports are designed with defence and logistics of the entire Zaalan race in mind, many facilities and systems are standardized across all starports to allow different clan-states, NGOs, and civilian traffic to access all services regardless of configuration. While the stalwart Vigils and Trade Hubs are the most typical starbases, starports have a variety of purposes. "Gateway" ports orbit the prime star or planet of all claimed Zaalan systems and in non-inhabited systems act as the regional government headquarters. Mining and research hubs, sometimes carved out of asteroids, populate nearly every system. There are many research stations - the 0g environment and relative isolation allows for controlled experiments and to contain possible safety breaches when working on dangerous technology. The biggest starport of all is the Tower of Dawn - the seat of the Assembly and the very first Zaalan station to be placed in orbit, at Lagrange point L4. Its advanced weapon, propulsion and energy generation systems have led the Tona'ak xenos to refer to it as a dreadnaught in waiting, and it also houses the Military Astropath Switchboard, which communicates near-instantly with most important ships and stations in all major clan fleets. Of note is the starbase at Dzhambul-IV, also dubbed the Darkhan Monastery. This giant station, of a technological level unrivalled by any known xeno power, survived the onslaught of the glitched AI Collective that once occupied the system. It contains archives from previous actors in the galaxy that have since shrunken and grown inward, and its technology is far beyond what is currently thought achievable by Zaalan engineers. At such, is it currently being reverse engineered. Technological wonders of the Monastery include proper artificial gravity, antimatter power grids, and practical theories on the development of psionics in Zaalans. Who built the station remains a mystery. |
HSV Spelljammer drifts over Qirbus in the Erden system. (Stellaris)
Since the nullfields that provide FTL travel require interaction with hyperlanes, sublight travel remains the prime way to get around systems.
Cold fusion reactors power most modern FTL ships. Together with impulse engines they provide enough energy to accelerate to 0.04c in a mere 9 days. Ships that do not jump between systems, or that only do short hops, usually have older power systems, albeit fusion reactors are the norm in interstellar travel. Hyperlane-bound ships can therefore provide a constant acceleration only slightly superior to the gravity experienced on Delkhi'i. As ships do not need to decelerate to enter a hyperlane, this means that outward-bound vessels have time to accelerate to 0.04c before activating their nullfields - since at the mean speed of 0.02c, ships reach the nearest null manifolds in 10 to 15 days. Ships can decelerate at the same rate simply by turning 180 degrees and pushing on the opposite direction. Nullfields can be used for that maneuver - it is best practice not to be accelerating while deploying the field, and many ships (and their crews) have been damaged by the fall into nullspace causing impulse engines to stop working and the sudden drop in acceleration - essentially throwing everything inside the ship at 1.5G against the hull! So far, there have been no accidents involving ship/planet collisions; it is believed that such an event would trigger a catastrophic energy that could destroy any world's surface. As a result, defence facilities monitor all incoming traffic for potentially dangerous or hostile trajectories. It is also common practice for all ships to target an orbital coordinate far enough from all worlds and starport facilities. However, there have been hypervelocity ship collisions. The most well known collision remains known as the Bloodbath of Kaunis : the inbound private corvette Bull's Eye fresh out of hyperspace and cruising at 0.04c from one manifold to the next collided against all odds with the outbound merchant vessel Pride of Lombardy. The resulting explosion and debris created a hazard cloud that temporarily blocked off access to the null manifold, though no further ships were destroyed. The threat of using ships as weapons of mass destruction remains real, however; while conventional warfare occurs within and without, the relative ease of "slipping through the net" and destroying an entire world and the surefire retaliation that would follow has so far kept such a genocidal option entirely off the table. To take advantage of the constant acceleration, many ships are built with decks orthogonal to the main direction of thrust. This provides some artificial gravity while the ship is accelerating or decelerating. Nullfield emitters are being tested on some courier ships; they would provide artificial gravity within the ship no matter its acceleration and act as energy dampeners. |
Class-A stars are good candidates for solar power stations. (Stellaris)
Energy generation across all Zaalan worlds is typically achieved through fusion reaction - a massive upgrade from fission reactors and their nuclear waste of a time gone by. At such, the primary fuel that runs Zaalan economies and starships is Helium-3, which can be found in the outer atmospheres of gas giants. The people of the planet Yang Lia, in the Xionian Traverse, have made a fortune mining the small, cheaper gas giants of their system.
A ship's fusion reactor can power hundreds of 0.04c acceleration/deceleration cycles, and therefore seldom requires refueling. Generally, a fusion reactor will only be fueled at the beginning of its life cycle, and be decommissioned before reaching the end of its natural lifespan. There exists a plan to create a Dyson grid around the primary star at Holden. So far dismissed as impractical, the energy harvested from its star by this grid would dwarf current energy generation methods, though it would also require improvements in energy storage technology before becoming useful to the Zaalans as a whole. |
An orbital refinery orbiting the toxic planet Y'riam III. (Stellaris)
Along with nullstones and Helium-3, all sorts of minerals are required to sustain the growth of Zaalan economies and the requirements of the all-mighty Zaalan fleets. These minerals can be found in many systems, and mining stations are found everywhere there are resources to be mined.
Elements such as Aluminium, Copper, Graphite, Iron, and Silicon can easily be found on planets (such as the mining world Omamori) or in asteroid belts. Other minerals, such as Iridium, Nickel, and Titanium (all useful in industrial alloys), Cadmium, Lithium (both crucial in electronic components) and Uranium (used for armour plating and in energy generation) are somewhat harder to find, and require more dedicated mining facilities. Zaalans also require Amberdust which is harvested from stars or found as volatile motes on planetary surfaces. Rare gases and crystalline compounds are also often extracted, and these resources are far rarer in known space, and have been the reason for many wars between early clan-states. The Cartel xenos' space is said to contain a wealth of Amberdust - something that has alarmed galactic intelligence experts on the next move of the glorious Zaalan fleets. |
A food replicator aboard the scout ship HSV Kyrona.
Replicators are a purely Zaalan invention - a contraption that uses special kinds of biopastes and prints them out into eadible food. While the envy of some xenos, replicators are known for producing subpar foods and do not replicate more than their biopastes can be combined into, though the range of recipes available is often astonishing. Replicators deserve a special place in Zaalan warfleets, as they have simplified the issue of feeding troops to an extreme. Using matter compression technologies, the biopastes take very little space and are printed out as needed, providing nutrituous food at very little cost.
The impact of food replicators on fleet logistics mirrors that of industrial holo-replicators, which mass-produce small components on a highly efficient scale. 3D Printing has become the norm, with minor alterations easily possible. |
The Cheimka flagship CSS Tsukira boasts impressive mass accelerators. (Stellaris)
The weaponry and defensive abilities of the mighty Zaalan fleets is varied and powerful. Many ships' hulls are made out of Plasteel - an electric material halfway between steel and plastics, and which is relatively cheap to produce and greatly strengthens ship armour.
Hlinka fleets fighting the AI xeno threat to the south are known to use a mixture of S2S fusion missiles to disable enemy energy shields, as they are improved nuclear warheads with EMP abilities. They also use electromagnetic accelerators and railguns that pierce the thin armour of automated drones. The Hlinka flagship uses a prototype Gauss Railgun - though it has never been tested in actual combat. By contrast, the Cheimka fleets needn't worry about electromagnetic shields. As their main priority is to hold the Cartel xenos and their heavier ships at bay, they mostly arm their own ships with plasma and laser weapons capable of melting armour, as well as disruptor torpedoes that disrupt enemy nullfields and force ships out of hiding. Despite their destructive potential, long-range engagements are essentially pointless. Lasers cannot be detected until they hit, but their diffraction makes them only worthwhile at very short ranges. Kinetic weapons are much slower, and evading them from afar becomes a trivial matter. Instead, engagements must happen at close range. Smaller fleets are known to use what are known as Whirlwind Missiles that swarm and incapacitate ships from a distance. |