Project Genesis
Finalisation of planning stages are complete, entering operational stage.
First Stage, development and production of a Scout class ship to explore systems for a prime colonisation candidate.
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Yriel had arrived on Aranahra [1] from Zavi III but mere weeks ago on a government sponsored research project. He had been chosen on the basis of his excellent construction design and his academic background on basic space ship designs.
A series of interviews progressed rapidly, first a generic academic interview asking him probing questions, basically screening out the chaff. Next a series of tests to separate the truly gifted from the merely intelligent. Lastly a group interview with what appeared to be a mixed group of military types and the people actually involved in the project.
Having signed a dozen secrecy act documents, he was then accepted into the specially provided accommodation (effectively keeping him separate from the rest of the population).
The projects basic objective was the design of a exploration vessel, capable of traversing the void between stars without the need for significant resupply, it would also need to be self-sufficient in maintenance and repairs. The military had also imposed what it thought would be the minimum acceptable armament without imposing too much bloat into the budget.
The government had indicated that it would purchase a pair of such vessels once they were designed and all the faults were worked out, this latter point had been particularly plaguing the Computation guys, who had already told everyone involved that the ships weren't going to be operating independently due to a lack of processing power, but more importantly had been sucking up resources in implementing the mechanics for moving a large object through a rift in space-time.
So Yriel got to work designing the more formal structure of the craft that they were to build. Being restricted to the requirement of military efficiency over Kation self-expression allowed him to think more in terms of what was important for survival than what the customer wanted.
His basic design was as such: Three squashed spheroids in a line, housing the majority of the required features, an Engineering and Power segment, a Computational and the 'Charm' Drive segment and a living section with the required recyclers. Sensors and Weapons were housed on wings in the same plane as the squashed spheroids, two large wings at the back held the lasers and routed power from the power spheroids.
The large wings were also utilised for cooling systems for the massively powerful lasers, with only a small fraction of heat recovered and recycled overheating was a serious issue for warships. Designing the weapon around the cooling systems meant that an idiot captain couldn't fire the weapons and burn the ship to a crisp having had his coolants blown away. After all, all engineers lived by the motto of making the product idiot proof, and that was the reason why his pen lid had a hole in one end. The smaller wings at the front housed the sensors, both passive and active, this information was linked to the computers for a range of tasks, from weapon ranging to scanning a planet and star system for vital information.
Yriel had got this basic design down in about 7 months, by which time the finer parts of the project were starting to intrude on the more advanced sections. It had become obvious that of the things that a project could be, quick and cheap wasn't it, quality was important to all involved, especially the government who were looking for a big project to pay off and push up support for their party and had seemed unusually adverse to cutting corners. [2]
But the Project advanced none the less, and the Kations first IS Craft was born, The
Corsair.
[1] The new name for Zavi V
[2] NEXT turn, elections; Cybernetist scandal etc.