TSS Excalibur

From Egs Mayhem

Current revision as of 18:52, 15 January 2008

A famous warship from the Terran Alliance universe, called in by Teleros to help with the battles in space against the Evil Overlords United, the Excalibur is a heavily modified Sirius class carrier.

Character Information

• Name: Captain John Gates
• Age: 640 (looks like he's in his early 30s though)
• Gender: Male
• Species: Human (genetically modified, see elsewhere)
• Height: 6ft
• Hair: Blonde, short
• Font Colour: Dark Red

Personality: Fond of the "old girl" as he calls the Excalibur, Gates is quite the sarcastic type: it was once said that if put in the room with the leaders of any two powers it would take only 5 minutes for a war to break out. That said, he's very reliable and has centuries of experience as a starship commander.

Command Crew

• Captain John Gates
• Commander Martin Vines (executive officer)
• Lt Tom Eisenhart (navigation)
• Lt Andrew Burton (sensors & coms)
• Lt Tim Anderson (head of internal security, the "Bluejackets")
• Lt Helena Jameson (tactical officer)
• Lt Barbara Dale (engineering)
• Lt Ian Simpson (quartermaster)
• Lt Walter Meyers (hangar crews)
• Doctor-Lt Sarah Farrow (medical bay)
• Father-Lt Bob Fisher (ship chaplain)
• 27 RAI computers are present aboard the Excalibur.

Ship Statistics

• Hull Length: 1136m (excludes weapons)
• Hull Width: 231m (excludes weapons, plasma drive nacelles)
• Hull Height: 107m (excludes plasma drive nacelles, bridge tower)
• Crew: 709
• Maximum Acceleration: 5e5m/s^2
• Maximum FTL Speed: 88e6 lights
• Internal Space: Barracks for ~1000 infantrymen including equipment, APCs etc.
• Hangar Space: Empty upon arrival; normally room for 100 one-man fighters plus crew. Prow hangar contains 2 unarmed shuttles and 4 Viking Dropships capable of unloading a company (100 men) at a time, albeit without vehicles.
• Subspace Sensors: 5000pc maximum range.
• Realspace Sensors: Vary, 132AU maximum range for most.

Weaponry

Note that figures for pulse weapons are given per 0.1 second shot).

• Raven Star Missile Launchers (2.5e20J kinetic energy per missile, 0.99c top speed; 50MT anti-matter warhead).
• Pulse Cannons (5e24J per broadside).
• Gravitic Beams ("encase" pulse cannon beams, designed to punch through enemy gravitic fields and the like).

Defences

The operating mechanisms behind Terran Alliance shields can be found here.
Note that figures for shields are given per 0.1 second incoming shot). Shields also "hug" the hull of the ship.

• Pulse Shields: 2.5e26J (blocks pulse weapons only).
• Meteorite Shields: 2.5e26J (blocks physical objects only).
• EM Field: 6.25e29J (blocks all forms of electromagnetic radiation, eg lasers).
• Lightning Field (expanding bubble of pulse energy, designed to destroy objects it comes into contact with, eg missiles). At 350km, the field has a power of 1MT per square metre. Total power available: 6.44e27J.
• Gravitic Shield (bends light rays etc around the ship).
• Singularity Projector (creates miniature black holes for a fraction of a second).
• Scythe Pulse Cannons: 4.5e12J (per barrel; 4 barrels per cannon; 50,000rpm).

Power Generation

• The ship runs on several Accumulator Cells. These are essentially batteries containing pocket dimensions: a single one contains more energy than the entire universe.
• However, the surface area of the accumulator cells limits the amount of power that can be drawn from the pocket dimension.
• Note that Accumulator Cells are perfectly safe: physical destruction will mean the energy inside is released into hyperspace, where it will go as an almost-unnoticed blip against the background energy levels.
• In case of emergencies, supplies exist for a variety of reactors to be built (fusion, fission and matter / anti-matter).
• Accumulator Cells are sited throughout the ship, wherever possible as close to the system they power as possible.

Propulsion

• The main sub-light engines are a pair of Plasma Generation Drive Nacelles (PGDNs or "pigeons"). These generate enormous amounts of high-energy plasma and, using forcefields, direct them out.
• Due to the design, the ship is fastest moving forwards or backwards, although the tiny manoeuvring jets around the nacelles make it highly manoeuvrable for a ship of its size.
• Inside the ship, a gravitic drive can push/pull on nearby objects such as stars, planets etc to move about in-system. Obviously, the reaction time of this drive is limited (gravity works at lightspeed), and it is ~85% as efficient as the PGDNs.
• A backup PGDN system exists on the main hull should they be forced to jettison the main nacelles for whatever reason.
• The hyperdrive does not actually move the ship faster than light, it merely "rotates" the ship into hyperspace.
• Travel in hyperspace is accomplished by means of the standard PGDNs.
• Note that any matter not protected by a hyperspace shield is dumped out of hyperspace relatively unharmed (minor radiation poisoning at worst): this is called the Anchor Effect. However, there's always the (tiny) chance it emerges within solid matter or a gravity well, with catastrophic results (not for the object it emerges in, due to the peculiarities of the realspace-hyperspace "wall").

Ship Tactics

• Most carriers are used only for patrols and escort duty, as the fighters they carry simply cannot compete against capital ships.
• Due to this, the Excalibur had the rear hangars replaced with pulse cannons, giving it five times its normal broadside firepower - although this is still weak compared to ships of the line of the same hull size.
• Ship battles usually take place at lightsecond ranges, but a peculiarity of pulse energy means that pulse beams do not lose coherency as quickly as lasers: sieges have been known to take place across hundreds of AU, with both sides waiting days for the first shots to reach their targets. The missiles of course can simply fly ballistic towards their targets, only manoeuvring when avoiding enemy point defence guns is needed.
• Most ships are also capable of withstanding a broadside from two sister ships: this means that the key to fleet battles is concentrating your own firepower whilst limiting your opponent's ability to do the same.
• Boarding is rarely seen: ships are coated in a material that disrupt wormholes, shields are a problem for teleporters, and the chance of getting a boarding shuttle across whilst the meteorite shields are down is minute.

Ship Comparison

• A Star Destroyer is 1.6km long.
• The sun emits 3.84e26J of EM radiation a second.
• The estimated kinetic energy of the asteriod that wiped out the dinosaurs is 5e23J.
• The main gun of the Victory class destroyers in Babylon 5 has a maximum energy output of up to 7e21J - 140% the firepower of a mere Alliance Navy frigate's broadside.

Images

• The TSS Excalibur, along with some of the statistics.
• The bridge of the TSS Excalibur and most other large Alliance Navy ships.