Aeschylus
From Ctss
Contents |
General Information
The Aeschylus is considered by many to be one of the finest space vessels currently in service. The Aeschylus is a remake of the old Merinian class star cruiser in shape and size, though the engine, scanning, and defensive systems of the Aeschylus have all been vastly improved. The Aeschylus was commissioned in 2245 and finished in 2264, being delayed for several years due to various changes in the design (which was decided on in 2249) and also whether the government should fund an exploration ship or exclusively make ships of war (this debate started in 2249 and was not ended until 2254). The Aeschylus is 291.3 meters in length, 117.7 meters in width, and 55.3 meters in height, carrying a crew of 217 along with 220 scientists and families. Total, The Aeschylus houses over 930 personal. The ship can run without refueling for 345 days before experiencing a loss of functionality in basic systems, 732 before losing all systems except the engines, and approximately 3 years before all engine systems shut down. The massive cargo hold allows the ship to carry enough supplies to last 10 months before restocking, in addition to the normal cargo space (an area which is 30x30x10 meters) which is generally reserved for research materials gathered during the ship's surveys.
Engines
The Aeschylus has 3 interstellar travel engines and 10 interplanetary travel engines. The interstellar engines require an extreme amount of steam to operate, necessitating the installation of the highly volatile Veritas boilers. As many accidents have been caused from the use of these boilers, the engines are manned and recalibrated on a daily basis. The interplanetary engines, although they also require a large amount of steam power to run, do not require such extreme measures and instead have 4 boilers per engine. In addition to the boilers for the engines, there are 8 boilers for operating the normal ship functions (such as the waste disposal system) and 12 boilers for running the scanners and other scientific apparatuses on the ship, and 10 boilers for running the ship's defenses. As such the engine room of the Aeschylus takes up 10% of the ship's space and 112 of the 217 crew members are assigned engine room duties. On interplanetary engines, the Aeschylus can travel from Earth to Pluto in 5 days. Intersteller engines allow the ship to reach other star systems in a matter of weeks.
Scanners
The ship's primary function is scientific research and scanning and, as such, much of the ship is composed of research labs, long-range scanners, short-range scanners, and a dust-gathering machine. The long-range scanners of the ship gather only basic visual information and require little effort to operate. As such, they are always on. Short-range scanners, however, use a series of interchanging crystals and refined glass for greater visual inspection, sonar, and probes to receive the chemical composition of the subject. The Aeschylus has 64 long-range scanners (allowing for minute changes in direction) and 10 short-range scanners.
Defensive Systems
Although the Aeschylus is an exploration ship, it is equipped with 6 flak guns and 10 medium-range guns turrets. The flak guns fire 244 mm rounds and are located along the sides of the ship to prevent any attempt at boarding. The gun turrets are located 6 in the front, 2 in the back, and 2 on the sides and have a 70 degree arc. The guns are more often used to break apart asteroids or other objects than for assault. They fire depleted uranium shells, though of a significantly smaller grade than standard turrets on battleships.
