Gamemaster Technology (IF)

Solar Hard SF Setting

Technological development before and after the Icarus Fall followed very different paths. Before the Fall, abundant energy, reliable long-distance communication, and near-universal automation allowed a highly centralized, interconnected civilization. After the Fall, loss of solar collection, collapse of long-range radio, and the end of sail propulsion forced technology into smaller, harder, and more independent forms.

Spin Habitats

From cislunar space outward, spin habitats are the dominant human living spaces. This chapter covers both spin habitats in free-space and spin habitats buried on worlds with gravity. Most stations are rotating cylinders in stable orbits — usually at Lagrange points or in heliocentric drift. Artificial gravity comes from spin: the farther from the central axis, the stronger the gravity. People live on the interior of the rotating tube, often in stacked levels. Spacecraft dock in zero-G at the ends of the central axis.

Size terminology - Free-space: are measured by axial length (the station’s length-of-axis) and diameter/radius. - On-world rings: are measure by flat-floor width (usable width across the ring), and radius/bank angle. The width is a function of axial length, just a little wider because of the slant, but limited to avoid wide differences in total perceived gravity.

Free Space Spin Habitats

Space habitats are built from the center outward. "Down" means toward the hull. A glowing central light tube provides illumination and doubles as a transit tunnel for rapid movement along the station’s length. The inside of the hull holds parks, scenic farms, and elite estates. Below that are habitation levels, then industry and industrial farms, then the bottom layers: warehouses, water tanks, and radiation shielding. In poor habitats, slums cling to the shell — where gravity is highest, shielding thinnest, and life harshest.

Larger habitats can afford to spin slowly, making Earthlike gravity stable and comfortable. Smaller ones must spin faster, causing steep gravity gradients and disorienting motion — dropped objects curve unpredictably as the habitat rotates beneath them. In large, safe habitats, gliding from the zero-G center is a popular sport, in small habitats it is a form of suicide.

Here are examples of typical habitats and their living conditions. Small ones are harsh. Large ones support leisure and autonomy.

200-meter diameter, 1,200 meters axial length

3.0 RPM, 2.0 G at hull

750,000 m² living space

Population: ~25,000 up to 100,000

Vertigo is constant. Gravity gradients are extreme. Survival depends on repression or fanaticism. Many such settlements cram people much tighter to house more workers, lower levels are barely usable, especially not for habitation. The earliest habitats were like this, held together by dedication to the cause of colonization.

400-meter diameter, 1,400 meters axial length

2.2 RPM, 1.5 G at hull

1.8 million m² living space

Population: ~60,000 to 150,000

Still unpleasant. Gravity is tolerable, but vertigo remains common. Likely to economize by squeezing more people in. The smallest model that can sustain a society. Slums likely. Low quality of life.

600-meter diameter, 1,600 meters axial length

1.8 RPM, 1.3 G at hull

3 million m² living space

Population: ~100,000

Livable. Most residents have a decent life. Gravity is only mildly uncomfortable. Slums do occur, but there’s room for stability and choice.

1,000-meter diameter, 2,000 meters axial length

1.3 RPM, 1.2 G at hull

6 million m² living space

Population: ~200,000

Comfortable and affluent. If slums exist, they are maintained by policy, not necessity. Life is good unless the regime is harsh.

1,600-meter diameter, 2,600 meters axial length

1.0 RPM, 1.12 G at hull

13 million m² living space

Population: ~400,000

Spacious and stable. Gravity differences are gentle. Inequality is political, not structural. Open cultures can thrive here.

2,000-meter diameter, 3,000 meters axial length

0.85 RPM, 1.1 G at hull

20 million m² living space

Population: ~600,000

Opulent. Large, slow-spinning, and easy to manage. Most inhabitants live in comfort.

Smaller habitats focus on resource extraction. Mid-sized ones support industry. Large ones host researchers, merchants, and middle-class life. All habitats have managers who rule and control resources.

A habitat can always be made shorter in axial length with only a proportional loss of size and population, preserving comfort but potentially making it less economically viable. Greater axial length can also be built, with increased risk of structural instability. There’s no hard line between a habitat and a large spaceship. Most mount ion drives for station keeping, and these can be used for slow migration.

Many habitats become self-sufficient city-states over time. Their isolation make them perfect for cults — religious, political, or corporate. Whoever controls the air, water, and access to zero-G controls everything. Other habitats embrace openness. Some cluster in chains, sharing transit and infrastructure. These tend to be cosmopolitan, prosperous, and diverse.

Building Free-Space Spin Habitats

Building a space habitat is relatively easy — just gather materials and 3D-print the structure. The hardest resource to source is carbon, needed for the biotope on the top level. Without enough carbon, soil is shallow or absent, stunting plant growth and removing the environment's natural stress relief. Many spacers would kill for carbon if their habitat is running low.

Habitats present terrain unlike either gravity or microgravity, see the chapter on environments.

Spin Habitats in Gravity — On-World Rings

Spin habitats are also built in gravity wells — buried, vertical-axis rings on moons and planets. Inside, "down" is the vector sum of centrifugal force and local gravity. Seen from the outside, this is a pit with a close to but not quite vertical habitat rotating inside. Key differences from free-space:

• Bank angle: Floors and walls are tilted outward so they’re perpendicular to the effective "down." Example: on Ganymede a 1 g ring is banked ~8.4° outward, at 81,6° against the surface.
• Usable width: Keep a single flat floor to ~0.2–0.3 × radius to hold 0.85–1.15 g across the district. To grow, add another ring and cross-link; you don’t “stretch” a buried ring.
• Metrics to publish: radius, RPM, bank angle, rim speed (also the peri-rail boarding speed), perimeter, and flat-floor width.
• Entry/exit: Two standard methods:

• Radial lifts from the center (native g) outward — you feel gravity strengthen and tilt slightly.
• Peri-rail boarding: a ground maglev accelerates in a covered trench to rim speed (e.g., ~98.5 m/s for r=1,000 m at 1 g on Ganymede), rolls to the bank angle, and docks to a rotating collar for smooth, full-g entry.

• Environment control: Covered trenches and hard vacuum keep dust out, stabilize temperature, and prevent HV arcing on rails and mass drivers.
• Degrav/Regrav: Ground rings host Regrav wards (0.8–1.2 g). Field crews commute back for daily Regrav; long-term recovery lives here.
• Terminology: here width means usable flat-floor width; axial length is not that significant.

Practically: surface rings are modular and stacked by era (old worker wheels, newer market wheels, prestige sky wheels). Expansion means new rings, not wider ones. Common practice is to build separate rings side-by-side, requiring exiting the artificial gravity and then entering a new zone of artificial gravity in another ring habitat.

Power

Solar power was viable up to the fall, which gave humanity time to develop fusion power to make it cheap and reliable — D-D fusion is in use system wide. With one exception, Earth. Thorium fission is still the backbone of Earths power supply, but this technology was never really used in space — too heavy.

Pre-Fall, Luna, Mercury, and high-altitude Venus platforms could rely on abundant solar power, Earth on orbital solar collectors. Vehicles ran on batteries or chemical engines. Post-Fall, with solar collection crippled and power grids fragmented, fusion reactors became the backbone of energy production across the system, with batteries for subsidiary systems like civilian vehicles.

Fusion power is based on fusing isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium (one proton, one neutron) and tritium (one proton, two neutrons). The two dominant reaction types are deuterium–deuterium (D-D) that fuse pairs of deuterium atoms and tritium–deuterium (T-D) that fuse deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is common, found in water ice across the solar system. Tritium is rare in nature due to its 12-year half-life, normally bred from lithium in reactor blankets. Rarity makes tritium a strategic resource in peace and essential in war.

Deuterium–Deuterium (D-D) Reactors

D-D reactors are the workhorses of the post-Fall economy, accounting for roughly 99% of fusion capacity. They are fuel-efficient, can run for years between refueling, and rely on a fuel source abundant on icy moons, comets, and in planetary oceans. Their main drawbacks are high ignition energy requirements and slow startup times — often days to weeks for large plants — making them unsuited to applications where immediate power is needed from a cold start.

Capital ships and major facilities typically mount multiple D-D reactors in parallel, allowing one to be shut down for refueling or maintenance while the others keep the lights on.

Uses include:

• Primary power for all large ships
• Large industrial sites, colonies, and habitats
• Stationary power generation on planets and moons

Tritium–Deuterium (T-D) Reactors

Advances in materials science shortly before the Fall produced rugged, compact T-D units small enough to fit into a mining crawler or a small spacecraft’s engine room. Before the Fall, their high cost kept them rare outside high-value or military roles.

T-D reactors burn hotter, produce more energy per unit mass of fuel, and can be brought online in hours rather than days. They can idle on standby to achieve full capacity in minutes — at the cost of wear and burning a trickle of fuel. They are compact for their output, but inefficient, consuming tritium rapidly and generating heavier neutron flux, especially in small reactors, requiring more shielding and more frequent overhauls. T-D fuel is a strategic commodity.

Because they must be shut down completely for refueling, ships rarely rely on them alone for sustained operations. Instead, they are used for burst-power roles or to jump-start larger D-D plants.

Uses include:

• Power plants for small, high-performance craft such as space fighters
• Burst-power units for artillery ships, point-defense platforms, and energy weapons
• Auxiliary “starter” reactors for bringing large D-D plants online
• Mobile salvage and recovery ships restarting cold-shutdown reactors
• Dedicated yard or wharf facilities for capital ship reactor start-up

Many large installations have a T-D reactor kept cold, to be started in an emergency. This dual-system approach creates a steady civilian demand for tritium in addition to military needs — keeping breeder facilities strategically valuable even in peacetime.

Batteries

High-temperature superconductors improve many technologies such as lasers and magnetic systems, but are imperfect and do not fully solve the problem of storing large amounts of energy. Superconductor-based batteries can hold large reserves with minimal loss over time, but their peak discharge rate is limited. This only matters under exceptional circumstances — chiefly when batteries must compete with tritium–deuterium (T-D) fusion for peak performance or for mining and exploration craft that need endurance over time.

High-density batteries offer a cheaper, easier-to-source alternative to T-D reactors. They scale at will, reach full power instantly, are quick to recharge from a D-D reactor, and need no exotic fuels. Drawbacks are lower peak output and shorter endurance. Battery-powered craft are significantly cheaper to build and operate, allowing a larger force for the same investment — at the cost of needing more pilots, more maintenance crew, more carrier space, and careful mission planning to avoid running dry. For planetary and habitat defense large swarms of battery fighters are ubiquitous.

Comparative Use

• D-D ships: Almost all spaceships and large installations, both civilian and military, use D-D fusion reactors.
• Battery fighters: More numerous, suitable for swarm tactics, hit-and-run strikes, operations close to a carrier or base, and boarding. Focused on interceptor roles. Their thrusters are still called fusion rockets — no-one brags about running on batteries.
• T-D fighters: Fewer in number, elite units with long-range endurance and high sustained output; excel in prolonged or high-intensity engagements. Focused on attack roles.
• Civilian craft: Nearly all use batteries; only exceptional performance demands justify T-D reactors.

Ion Drives

Before the Fall, ion drives were the workhorses of deep space while the inner system rode magnetic sails. After the Icarus Fall killed sail travel, ions became essential for everything but the shortest runs. They’re costly and maintenance-intensive, so depots and workshops are strategic assets. Ion thrust is weak compared to fusion rockets, but it can be sustained for days or weeks. Small craft skip ions and rely on compact fusion rockets for hops, mining, and maneuvers.

Ion drives shine on heavy ships. With ~10% of mass in propellant, a vessel can hold ~0.001 g for days, yielding roughly 2.5–3.4 km/s of low-thrust Δv. In practice, crews use fusion rockets for the big departure and capture burns, leaving ions for phasing, trimming, and rendezvous.

Power isn’t the limiter — propellant is. Almost all ships run steam-ion systems: water-fed electric thrusters (RF electrothermal, inductive plasma, MPD, VASIMR). Hydrogen buys longer endurance, noble gases give more thrust per kilowatt, but both are niche.

The thruster heads themselves are small; the limits are power and reaction mass. Most large habitats carry ion engines for station-holding, but add enough thrusters and any habitat becomes a massive, slow ship. The cost is water: every ton burned for thrust is a ton less for shielding and life support. That deficit is made good by foraging ice from asteroids or moons, or by supply from tankers and tugs that can also loan extra power.

Fusion Rockets

Even in the fusion era, rockets remain the most straightforward and reliable way to deliver short, high-thrust burns. Here “rocketry” covers all systems that expel heated reaction mass directly for thrust — from legacy chemical engines to advanced fusion-thermal drives.

Fusion-thermal rockets use a ship’s reactor to superheat a light propellant — typically water — with magnetic or laser heaters, then expel it through a magnetic nozzle at very high exhaust velocity. They consume reaction mass far faster than ion drives, but can maintain powerful thrust for hours. Large vessels often carry both systems: rockets for combat maneuvers and rapid course changes, ions for long cruise phases.

Rocket performance is always governed by fuel discipline. More thrust means more propellant burned and heavier support hardware. High-G craft trade endurance for agility, making them short-range interceptors or boarding ships. Long-range attack and capital ships run at modest accelerations to stretch their propellant over extended missions. As a yardstick, a gigawatt-class fusion-thermal drive can push a 1,000-ton ship at ~0.1 g for about an hour, expending tens of tons of water and yielding a Δv of several km/s. Scaling up is possible: a 10-gigawatt lifter could deliver 1 g thrust for multi-kiloton payloads, sufficient for ground launch or rapid orbital transfer.

Fusion rockets themselves are light, but any craft using them must be built to handle the acceleration. This is done on construction, retrofitting a ship for higher thrust is slow and expensive to the point that building a new ship is often cheaper and faster. You can overthrust without refit at the risk of structural damage.

Fusion-thermal rockets are also the favored solution for orbital access, both in vacuum and from thick atmospheres. On Earth, the new standard is offshore launch platforms, where fusion lifters rise directly to orbit. These reduce human exposure to noise and shock, and confine environmental effects to localized ocean heating, steam plumes, and disturbed sea life.

Interplanetary Travel

A typical interplanetary journey starts with a fusion-thermal burn: 0.1–1 g for several minutes. During this phase the ship despins and locks; passengers ride couches aligned with the thrust axis. After the kick, the ship re-spins and the steam-ion drive handles trim and phasing. The same sequence runs in reverse at arrival, with occasional mid-course burns if geometry demands it.

As navigator you can take the mid profile, or attempt an advanced course that — depending on your roll — lands as Fast / Mid / Slow. Advanced courses exploit launch windows, slingshots, and periapsis burns; a terrible result can strand you off-track with little fuel. Small random changes can happen.

Each cell shows Mid / Fast / Slow launch-window cases. Times include a capture burn at destination; flyby is shorter.

Days travel from Earth — Propellant (by departure mass %)

Destination	25% fuel	35% fuel	50% fuel	75% fuel
Mercury	240 Fast 135 Slow 320	190 Fast 112 Slow 260	150 Fast 94 Slow 210	120 Fast 81 Slow 170
Venus	140 Fast 94 Slow 190	120 Fast 79 Slow 160	95 Fast 63 Slow 130	80 Fast 55 Slow 110
Mars (0.6–1.0 AU)	200 Fast 135 Slow 260	160 Fast 110 Slow 210	120 Fast 84 Slow 160	90 Fast 67 Slow 120
Asteroid Belt (1.5–2.2 AU)	450 Fast 271 Slow 600	360 Fast 227 Slow 480	300 Fast 189 Slow 400	240 Fast 158 Slow 320
Jupiter (4.2–5.0 AU)	1,300 Fast 650 Slow 1,650	950 Fast 525 Slow 1,200	650 Fast 374 Slow 850	500 Fast 300 Slow 650

How to read this

• Assumptions (order-of-magnitude): water as both thermal and ion propellant; fusion-thermal v_e ≈ 12–15 km/s; steam-ion used for trim/rendezvous (not main push).
• More fuel fraction → more Δv for the impulsive burns → higher average cruise energy → shorter trips.
• Profiles are hybrid: a couple of fusion-thermal kicks (depart/arrive, 0.1–0.5 g for minutes) plus steam-ion for phasing and timing.

Notes

• A ship has a design prop load, but you can strap on ice drop-tanks to raise both mass and prop fraction — at the cost of structure, handling, and possibly having to do deep-space EVAs.
• Using H₂ for the ion stage extends endurance (Δv), not thrust; it helps mainly on the longest legs at high prop fractions.
• Ships without ion drives can still cross interplanetary space, but you have to make a navigation roll downgrade one step on the course result (Fast → Mid, Mid → Slow, Slow → Mishap) and endure the whole coast with no spin and hard rationing. This is an oversimplification. Tip: don't try this.
• Ships with only Ion drives can cross interplanetary distances safely, but always use the slowest travel time.

Magnetic Acceleration

Mass drivers and electromagnetic launchers use magnetic fields to accelerate a payload along a track at high speed. The principle is simple — switching magnetic coils on and off in sequence — but the engineering challenges are immense. Tracks must be extremely straight and stable, power delivery must be precisely timed, and any misalignment can destroy the payload or launcher.

Pre-Fall, magnetic acceleration was mainly used to move bulk cargo between orbital facilities and planetary surfaces, especially from low-gravity bodies where chemical launch was wasteful. Dense cargo like metal ingots, refined ores, and water ice could be launched at hundreds of Gs without damage, making them ideal for high-throughput shipping. Passenger launches were limited to a few Gs for comfort and safety.

The track length needed depends on the local gravity and desired final velocity. On Luna, achieving low orbit (≈1.7 km/s) at 3 G requires about 50 km of track; on Phobos or Deimos, where escape velocity is under 10 m/s, only a few hundred meters are needed. For bulk cargo, accelerations of 100 G or more are possible, meaning even lunar escape velocity can be reached in under 1 km of track. On Mercury, where escape velocity is ≈4.25 km/s, a 3 G passenger launch would require roughly 300 km of track, but hardened cargo could be flung in only a few kilometers.

Post-Fall, the same technology was adapted for military use. Higher accelerations — up to 10 G for crewed craft, far more for hardened munitions — can hurl projectiles, cargo pods, or even small ships at significant relative velocities. The technique is most effective from bodies with low escape velocity, where the launcher can be mounted directly to the surface and fire without atmospheric interference. Vacuum environments also allow for extremely long launch tracks without drag losses.

Limitations include the fixed location of the launcher, its vulnerability to attack, and the difficulty of aiming at distant moving targets. Launching crewed craft above a few G requires specialized training, genetic modification, or cybernetic reinforcement. Most human crews stay in the 2–4 G range, but unmanned craft and drones can be designed for far higher accelerations.

Strategic use varies by site. Some facilities focus on bulk cargo and fuel shipments; others double as defensive batteries, able to launch interceptors or kinetic kill projectiles at hostile craft. The largest can serve as force multipliers in fleet actions, sending small craft on per-calculated, low-power “cold runs” that are nearly invisible until the target is in range.

Computation, Qters & Sensors

Computers are ubiquitous and cheap. They live in suits, tugs, and almost every tool and appliance. Space-hardening is routine: ECC memory, watchdog reboots, rad-tolerant parts near Jupiter and Mercury, good grounding and EMI filters, and conductive paths to radiators (no convection in vacuum). They shrug off thrust and vibration; storms still flip bits, so systems cache and degrade gracefully.

Qters (quantum hardframes) — Big, cold, narrow-purpose boxes. Fixed racks sit in port cycle bureaus; major ships carry a rugged coldbox for on-scene keying and optimization. Jobs: post-quantum crypto and Q-time seals, ugly schedule/auction solves, Stormwatch posture tuning, stinger/K-kill deconfliction, materials/fusion design, tight clocking for nav. Limits: need cryogenics, clean power, low vibration, shielding — storms throttle them. High-priority objectives for security, spies, and strike teams.

Sensors & comms (post-Fall) — Radio is fickle in storms; lasers carry data — alignment is everything. Detection defaults to optical/thermal: wide-field cameras compare frames and streaks; expert systems flag non-ballistic motion. Stations fuse long-baseline sightings for passive ranging; in dirty zones, sweep faster and seed optical pickets. Quantum Key Distribution provides short, line-of-sight keys — not messaging. For mission-critical bulk, fly couriers. Niche sensors fill gaps: squeezed-light lidar, atom-interferometer gravimeters for hollows, acoustics in dense air, and seismic in ice/rock.

How it surfaces — “Clock-locked?” means nav/comms are synced to the port’s optical/atomic time base (microsecond-level). Ports sell cycle slots — bookable Qter runs metered in qubit-time and fridge load. Manifests read Q-time sealed — a post-quantum signature plus a QKD-derived session key and hash-chained timestamp; insurers say no seal, no payout. If the cold racks hiccup — fridge warms, vibration, or radiation spikes — error rates jump, slot auctions re-run, schedules slip, and convoys fall back to pre-computed classical plans.

Sensors and Communication

Constant post-Fall solar storms make radio and radar unreliable in the inner system, with only brief and unpredictable windows of clarity. The most dependable methods are those less affected by charged-particle interference, though even these have limitations.

Visual

Visual systems cover the optical bands humans intuitively understand: visible light with spillover into near-infrared and ultraviolet. They excel at recognizing shape, texture, reflectance, and motion. Modern processors compare live imagery against previous images using physical models, flagging motion inconsistent with ballistics, thrust plumes hidden by camouflage, or geometry that “reads” as manufactured.

Visual sensors are inherently passive and line-of-sight. Clutter, glare, and atmospheric scattering hinder them; vacuum and darkness favor them. With good baselines they support precise photogrammetry, star field navigation, and long-range trajectory prediction. They pair naturally with thermal and radio data for confirmation.

Science sensors: Observatory-class telescopes and long-baseline optical arrays for high-precision astrometry, faint-object tracking, and hyper-spectral imaging. Provide exquisite angular resolution and model-quality trajectory fits over interplanetary distances. Can observe celestial objects at nearby stars.

Ship sensors: The standard optical suite: navigation cameras, hazard imagers, docking and approach optics, hull-watch systems. Effective for orbital to local-system tracking in clear conditions; integrates with targeting and flight computers.

Pack sensors: Field-deployable stabilized optics with large apertures or fold-out arrays. Provide long-range identification, stereo mapping, and precise motion analysis; can run multi-day integrations for faint targets.

Hand sensors: Handheld/helmet/visor optics for local reconnaissance. Useful for anomaly detection, identification, and short-baseline mapping; limited by aperture and seeing.

Hand multi-sensor: Combines visual with radio/magnetic/sonic channels to correlate signatures quickly; trades ultimate optical resolution for coverage and convenience.

Neme sensors: Personal cameras and light sensors with gyro-referencing. Provide recording, recognition, trajectory overlays, and warnings within personal range; not a substitute for large apertures or long integrations.

Thermal

Thermal systems measure mid- and long-infrared emission — the black-body glow of warm objects and the waste heat of machines. They reveal life, leaks, and engines; see through smoke or haze that blinds optical sensors; and map heat flows in structures and terrains.

Uncooled arrays suffice for routine situational awareness. For long-range discrimination, low-contrast targets, or fine spectroscopy, high-performance focal planes still benefit from cooling: reducing dark current and phonon noise sharpens sensitivity and dynamic range. Atmospheres impose absorption bands; in vacuum, cold backgrounds make hot signatures stand out, but sun-warmed surfaces raise clutter in the inner system.

Science sensors: Cryogenic IR observatories and interferometers for thermal spectroscopy, faint-source tracking, and high-contrast imaging. Resolve subtle heat signatures at planetary to interplanetary distances under controlled pointing.

Ship sensors: Hull-integrated thermal cameras and spectrometers for navigation safety, engine and reactor monitoring, search-and-rescue, and target discrimination. Effective from docking ranges to orbital distances depending on aperture and background.

Pack sensors: Deployable thermal imagers and line scanners; may include micro-cryocoolers for long-range, low-contrast work. Map heat leaks, buried conduits, recent engine activity, or warm bodies over wide areas; useful for night or dust operations.

Hand sensors: Portable thermal cameras for inspection and local search. Detect people, hot machinery, vents, and fires across habitats or sites; limited range and contrast compared to cooled systems.

Hand multi-sensor: Adds a thermal channel to general situational awareness; good for quick “is anything hot here?” checks, not for precision thermography.

Neme sensors: Personal thermal awareness for safety and navigation — hot-surface warnings, person/animal detection nearby, simple leak alerts. Excellent for immediate cues; not a surveying instrument.

All active spacecraft produce heat, and in space that heat is a telltale. Waste energy from drives, reactors, and life support radiates away as infrared light, which sensitive detectors can pick up at great distances in clear conditions. Solar storms raise background IR noise — making faint signatures harder to detect — but also make drive plumes and laser heat dumps more visible.

Common thermal signature sources and countermeasures:

• Energy weapons: The solar wind is dense enough to scatter energy from beams and particle weapons, leaving a brightly glowing path. Light-speed weapons are only visible after impact, but particle weapons may give a brief warning.
• Drive plumes: Highly collimated exhaust and efficient nozzles reduce visibility except directly along the exhaust axis — unless heavy solar activity is lit up by the plume.
• Laser heat dumps: Waste heat converted to laser light and beamed into deep space, often along the drive plume. These beams can be revealed if they scatter particles of a solar storm.

Laser

Lasers are the backbone of both communication and ranging in the post-Fall Solar System. Charged-particle storms make radio unreliable across most of the inner system, forcing nearly all precision sensing and data transfer onto optical channels. The same physical principle supports both LADAR/LIDAR (laser detection and ranging) and laser communication, differing mainly in wavelength, pulse coding, and beam discipline.

Laser Communication

Laser communication links replace radio for high-bandwidth data transfer. A collimated optical beam carries information at light speed with minimal spread, immune to most electromagnetic interference. Alignment, however, is critical — both ends must know each other’s exact position and maintain sub-arcsecond pointing accuracy. Fixed installations and large ships use stabilized optical arrays with automated tracking and redundant feeds; small craft rely on relay buoys or follow tightly scheduled burst transmissions.

• Bandwidth is immense, easily handling sensor telemetry, tight-beam data exchange, and even live holography.
• Latency equals light-time; the limit is geometry, not transmission speed.
• In storm-heavy regions, dust or plasma scattering can degrade the link, demanding adaptive optics and real-time correction.
• Line-of-sight only; relay mirrors or drones extend range around obstacles or between shadowed orbits.

LADAR and LIDAR

Laser detection and ranging systems use precisely timed light pulses to measure distance, velocity, and shape. They work on the same principle as radar but with much shorter wavelengths, allowing sub-meter resolution even at long range.

• LADAR (Laser Detection and Ranging) is the tactical form — used for targeting, fire control, and spacecraft proximity sensing.
• LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is the civil form — used for mapping, navigation, and terrain modeling.

In clear space, LADAR achieves exquisite precision, measuring motion and orientation down to millimeters per second. Close to planets or in dense particulate environments, scatter and glare reduce performance, forcing fallback on radar or optical triangulation.

Applications and Limitations Lasers pervade nearly every field technology:

• Navigation: precision docking, formation flying, and surface descent.
• Military: target designation, range-finding, and point-defense cueing.
• Industrial: surveying, cutting, and alignment across long vacuum baselines.
• Communication: tight-beam interplanetary data networks replacing radio nets.

The main hazards are alignment loss and reflection. Powerful beams can dazzle sensors or damage optics if mis-aimed, and even small mirrors can redirect lethal light. Regulations require shutter interlocks, safety cones, and coded modulation for all but weapon-grade emitters.

Post-Fall, lasers define both the eyes and the voice of civilization. When a beam blinks across the void, it carries not just light — but everything that still connects the worlds.

Laser Sensor Capabilities

All laser-based sensors share the same core principle: a pulsed beam measures distance and reflection time to build a three-dimensional image of surrounding space. Resolution and range scale with aperture size, beam coherence, and the quality of timing circuits.

Science Sensors: Research-grade systems used on dedicated survey craft or fixed installations. Effective range is typically 5,000–50,000 km (≈0,1 light seconds), with interferometric precision down to millimeters at close approach. They can map entire asteroids or hulls in three dimensions and resolve fine structure such as seams or thermal distortion. Multi-spectral LADAR allows analysis across several wavelengths, giving surface composition and density data. Science sensors can penetrate dust, fog, or light plasma given enough integration time and are commonly paired with gravimeters and spectrometers for comprehensive survey packages.

Ship Sensors: Standard LADAR suites aboard starships and habitats provide accurate ranging and motion detection over 10,000–100,000 km (≈0,1 light seconds). They guide navigation, docking, and targeting, and can detect relative motion as small as a few millimeters per second. At close range (within 1,000 km), they can map objects with sub-meter precision. Adaptive optics keep them functional through mild storm plasma or gas plumes, and they are central to collision avoidance and formation flying.

Pack Sensors: Compact laser scanners carried by personnel or mounted on drones. Their practical range is 100 m–5 km in clear space, less in atmosphere or dust. They deliver sub-meter mapping precision suitable for cave exploration, construction, and tactical use, identifying motion or vibration at close range. Rotating prisms, scanning mirrors, and remote sensors provide full local mapping. Many models can also serve as short-range communication links or target designators.

Belt Sensors: Industrial-grade units used in asteroid and orbital operations. These are optimized for kilometer-scale mapping with continuous dust compensation, reaching 10–300 km depending on aperture and beam power. They are essential for mining safety, navigation among debris, and tracking asteroid rotation. Belt sensors can resolve small craft or drifting objects against cluttered backdrops and are often mounted in arrays for wide coverage.

Belt Multisensor: A networked cluster of LADAR, radar, and optical telescopes operating in sync. By timing their pulses precisely, they form interferometric baselines spanning hundreds to thousands of kilometers, achieving near-photographic imaging and precise motion tracking across entire mining zones. Belt multisensors handle orbital traffic control, debris tracking, and long-range resource mapping. They can even reveal stealth or unlit craft by triangulating subtle reflection geometry and are the Belt’s primary early-warning systems.

Neme Sensors: Miniaturized LADAR embedded in personal assistant devices and wearables. These operate at 0.1–10 m range to provide spatial awareness, gesture tracking, and augmented-reality overlays. They map local terrain and obstacles for navigation or maintenance tasks and run at low power for safe constant use around people. Neme sensors integrate optical and ultrasonic returns for reliability in cluttered spaces and can synchronize with pack or ship sensors for shared awareness and enhanced perception.

Radio

Radio systems cover two closely related functions: communication and ranging (radar). Communications use narrow or wide beams to move data across space; radar transmits pulses and analyses returns to locate and characterize objects. Both rely on the physics of electromagnetic propagation and on the same basic hardware (transmitters, receivers, antennas), but they are used and optimized for different tasks.

A useful distinction is passive vs active sensing. A passive radio device only listens: it receives carriers, measures frequency, pulse form and power, and can classify and localize emitters. An active radio device transmits energy and measures the echo; active operation gives direct range and imaging ability but also makes the user itself a source that can be detected at a distance.

Passive receivers are surprisingly powerful: by combining sensitive antennas with time/frequency analysis and baseline arrays they can detect and triangulate active transmitters at ranges often several times the emitter’s obvious operational range. That makes passive monitoring the first line of detection in many environments. Decoding or eavesdropping on radio traffic, however, is a different task: content requires either direct reception of the carrier with sufficient signal-to-noise, possession of the protocol/keys, or an active interception technique.

Radio performance is strongly environment-dependent. In the inner system the Sun is a major and variable noise source; close to Mercury, solar radio noise and interference make radio practically impossible, reducing range by a factor of 10,000. As a rough guide the inner-system radio environment improves with orbital distance from the Sun by roughly an order of magnitude per orbital step (Mercury → Venus → Terra → Mars), though local atmospheres and ionospheres produce their own effects and may either help (through ducting) or hurt (through absorption).

Science sensors: Large, arrays and long-baseline interferometers. These are research and survey installations: radio telescopes, planetary radar stations and dedicated ground-penetrating radar systems. They provide the greatest raw range and resolution, long-baseline angular precision, and the ability to do high-power active sounding under controlled conditions. Useful for planetary mapping, deep subsurface probing and system-scale traffic monitoring.

Ship sensors: The standard sensor suite carried by spacecraft. Integrates communication transceivers, direction-finding, and radar ranging suitable for navigation, approach, and tactical awareness within a system. Ship suites balance transmit power, antenna aperture, and signal processing; they are the platform for routine active navigation and for coordinating traffic and beacons. In relatively uncluttered space they can detect and track all other craft around a planet and it's moons; in cluttered or high-noise environments their effective reach is reduced.

Pack sensors: Man-portable deployable radar and receiver arrays. A pack sensor is a self-contained active system with fold-out panels or small phased arrays and an on-board processor and power reservoir. When deployed it can produce high-resolution imaging and motion mapping — the kind of performance historically associated with larger airborne radars — but only over a limited area. Pack sensors are used for field surveys, landing-site clearance, and temporary tactical scanning; when transmitting they are conspicuous.

Hand sensors: Handheld or belt-worn radio instruments for local use. Typically these are direction-finding receivers and short-range active scanners used for approach, docking, or immediate tactical needs. They are quick to operate and useful for local traffic checks and beacon verification, but they lack the resolution and baseline of pack or ship systems. A hand receiver can reliably locate and classify nearby transmitters and may, in favorable conditions, pick up transmission content if the signal is strong enough and the protocol is known.

Hand multi-sensor: A compact, generalist field unit that combines radio with a selection of other sensor channels (visual, magnetic, sonic). It is meant for rapid situational awareness rather than specialized surveying: broader coverage at the cost of precision. In practice a multi-sensor is excellent for first response and investigation teams that need to correlate multiple signatures without carrying multiple specialized packs.

Neme sensors: The personal assistant’s sensing suite's scope is personal. A Neme constantly samples nearby radio activity to provide proximity alerts, hands-free comms management and basic direction finding within a few meters. It can flag nearby beacons and active transmissions and will often pre-filter and present metadata (source IDs, channel, approximate power) to its user, but it cannot substitute for a hand or pack sensor when range, resolution, or active scanning are required.

Magnetic

Magnetic sensing observes and manipulates magnetic fields — both natural and artificial — to reveal concealed structures, materials, and power systems. Unlike radio or optical methods, it requires no propagation medium and works equally well in air, solid matter, or vacuum. It detects the invisible fingerprints of electric currents, ferromagnetic materials, and the distortions they create in ambient fields.

Passive magnetic detectors simply measure field strength, polarity, and fluctuations over time. They are invaluable for locating electrical machinery, reactors, conduits, and metallic masses through walls or soil. Active systems generate a controlled magnetic field and analyze the induced currents and distortions it produces, offering three-dimensional mapping of hidden structures but also advertising their operation to other sensors sensitive enough to notice. Magnetic sensing complements radio and sonic techniques, filling the gap where light cannot penetrate and sound cannot travel.

Science sensors: Planetary and orbital magnetometer networks used for studying planetary dynamos, solar activity, and sub-crustal structure. These large arrays can map magnetic fields across entire worlds or deep into planetary mantles, revealing mineral concentrations and tectonic stresses.

Ship sensors: The standard suite of magnetometers and current monitors used for navigation, hull integrity, and reactor diagnostics. Ship sensors can track nearby vessels by their drive or containment fields and monitor electrical activity across thousands of kilometers in low-noise conditions.

Pack sensors: Portable magnetic imaging systems employing superconducting coils and powerful processors. Operate in both passive and active modes: as passive anomaly detectors for concealed machinery, or as active field generators to locate buried cables, structural flaws, or engines within hundreds of meters. Useful for engineering surveys and search-and-rescue work inside complex metal structures.

Hand sensors: Compact active magnetic-field scanners using superconducting coils. Detect metallic or conductive materials by their distortion of a tuned field; locate metal objects, structural anomalies, and electrical engines within tens of meters. Unaffected by soundproofing or radio interference; functions in vacuum. Active.

Hand multi-sensor: Adds a short-range magnetic channel to a generalist kit, giving users the ability to identify powered systems, conduits, or weapon coils nearby without carrying dedicated gear.

Neme sensors: Personal passive magnetometers. Detect local power fields, active tools, or reactors within a few meters and warn of strong magnetic or electrical hazards. Provide ambient field compensation for instruments and medical implants but lack the range or power for active scanning.

Radiation

Radiation sensors measure the presence and intensity of ionizing particles and high-energy photons — gamma rays, neutrons, and charged-particle fluxes. They are essential for safety in space, where invisible radiation hazards are constant and can vary sharply with shielding, altitude, or solar activity. Radiation sensing is one of the oldest and simplest technologies in continuous use, but in the 24th century it has become extremely compact and precise, capable of spectral analysis and automatic dose management.

Modern instruments combine multiple detectors: scintillators, semiconductor spectrometers, and neutron converters, each tuned to a particular energy range. Together they provide direction, dose rate, and composition. Most systems are passive; they register incoming radiation without emitting anything. Active calibration sources are rarely needed and used only in laboratory instruments. Radiation sensors are unaffected by light, sound, or radio interference, though they can be confused by secondary particles generated in intense magnetic or electric fields.

Science sensors: Observatory-grade spectrometers and particle telescopes designed for research and survey. Measure composition and energy of cosmic rays, solar emissions, and planetary radiation belts. Operate across interplanetary distances and contribute to navigation and weather forecasting.

Ship sensors: The standard dosimetry and warning network of any spacecraft. Distributed across hull and interior, it monitors shielding efficiency, reactor emissions, and solar events. Provides directional gradient data for safe orientation during storms.

Pack sensors: Field-portable radiation survey meters with extended range and spectral resolution. Used for mapping contaminated sites, verifying reactor integrity, and confirming shielding after impacts. Sensitive enough to detect low-level leaks kilometers away in open vacuum, or within structures at close range.

Hand sensors: Compact dosimeter and spectrometer arrays for detecting and characterizing ionizing radiation. Display real-time exposure levels and directional gradients, allowing the user to locate leaks, reactors, or contaminated objects within tens of meters. Standard for spacecraft crews and maintenance personnel.

Hand multi-sensor: Adds a radiation channel to general field kits, providing immediate exposure warnings and simple source localization without full spectral data.

Neme sensors: Built-in personal dosimetry integrated into every Neme. Tracks cumulative exposure, warns of surges, and syncs with habitat records to manage collective safety. Effective only within personal space; relies on higher-grade instruments for mapping or verification.

Sonic

Sonic systems use sound and vibration to probe the immediate environment. They work by transmitting acoustic or mechanical waves through air, water, or solid matter, then analyzing the reflected or transmitted patterns. This reveals the structure, density, and movement of what lies beyond direct sight — walls, machinery, living bodies, or shifting ground. Sonic sensing is invaluable wherever light or radio cannot penetrate, such as underwater, within structures, or through rock and plating.

Passive systems listen for vibrations, footsteps, or machinery; active systems emit pulses or continuous tones and measure the echoes. Active sonar offers true imaging but immediately reveals the user’s presence to sonic sensors. Most devices operate in both modes, modulating output power for balance between detail and stealth. Sonic sensing works in any medium, though its efficiency depends on density and coupling — metal, rock, and water conduct it well; vacuum not at all.

By touch, sonic sensors can transmit and receive sound through solid materials such as rock or ice, allowing effective subsurface probing. When properly coupled to the ground, they can also function as seismographs, registering strong vibrations or major impacts.

Science sensors: Geological and structural observatories or underwater sonar networks. Use phased transmitters and kilometer-spaced receivers to image planetary crusts, ocean floors, or internal stresses of megastructures. Active systems can map kilometers below the surface and resolve small movements in real time.

Ship sensors: Hull-mounted sonar and vibration arrays for subsurface exploration, asteroid composition mapping, and close-range inspection of stations or wrecks. Effective across tens to hundreds of kilometers depending on medium. In vacuum they switch to low-frequency mechanical probing through docking umbilicals or structure contact.

Pack sensors: Deployable seismic arrays with multiple self-anchoring pods linked to a central processor. Form temporary fields that map terrain, structures, or underground movement in three dimensions. Locate tunnels, vehicles, or stress lines through rock or plating up to fifty meters deep; detect active sonic systems within tens of kilometers in active mode.

Hand sensors: Compact active–passive vibration scanners. Detect faults, voids, or machinery through nearby walls, floors, and hulls; can image a small structure or compartment within twenty meters. Detect active sonic systems within hundreds of meters. Active.

Hand multi-sensor: Adds a short-range sonic channel to general field kits for quick diagnostics or searches — useful for maintenance crews or security teams needing fast confirmation without deploying full arrays.

Neme sensors: Limited passive vibration pickups integrated into personal gear. Alert the wearer to approaching footsteps, pressure changes, or machinery start-up within a few meters; too small for imaging but valuable as an early warning system.

Chemical and Biological

Chemical sensors analyze the composition of gases, vapors, liquids, and surfaces, identifying trace elements, toxins, leaks, and biological contaminants. They rely on molecular spectroscopy, electrochemical sensing, and microfluidic analysis to read the environment in real time. The ability to detect minute changes in atmosphere or material composition makes them indispensable for habitat safety, industrial maintenance, and medical diagnostics.

A typical chemical sensor combines optical spectrometry, mass-selective ion detection, and biological marker recognition in a device small enough to wear. Such instruments distinguish between harmless and dangerous concentrations and can classify unknown compounds by molecular pattern, although positive identification still requires laboratory correlation. Biological detection is an extension of the same principle, using the signatures of metabolism — volatile organics, amino residues, or cell-wall fragments — as clues. Chemical sensing functions in air, liquid, or vacuum if provided with a sampling system.

Science sensors: Stationary and mobile laboratories with full-spectrum chromatographs, spectrometers, and gene-level bio-assay modules. Used for planetary prospecting, atmospheric analysis, and deep contamination studies. Provide detailed molecular composition and isotopic ratios at trace levels.

Ship sensors: Environmental and life-support monitors continuously sampling cabin and reactor atmospheres, fuel tanks, and water systems. Identify leaks, fire products, and metabolic output; trigger automated containment or scrubber control.

Pack sensors: Field chemical and biological analysis suites. Include pumps, sample collectors, and interchangeable cartridges for specific environments as well as cluster of single-purpose probes tuned to detect specific chemical or biological compounds. Each samples its surroundings and transmits an alert if concentrations change beyond preset limits. Useful for monitoring sealed spaces, storage tanks, or excavation sites for leaks or contamination. Limited to known substances; cannot classify unknowns. Operates for weeks before depletion. Provide near-laboratory resolution; can map contamination plumes or monitor excavation air for evolving hazards.

Hand sensors: Portable chemical analyzers for detecting trace gases, toxins, biological agents, or volatile compounds in air, water, or atmosphere. Identify composition and concentration from molecular spectra and metabolic markers, warning of leaks, combustion products, or bio-hazards. Effective within a few meters; precision improves when stationary or when samples are drawn through the intake. Commonly called a "sniffer"; standard gear for surveyors, medics, and maintenance crews.

Hand multi-sensor: Adds a simplified chemical channel to a general field kit, providing quick identification of leaks or irritants without sample processing.

Neme sensors: Continuous personal monitoring of air quality and metabolic indicators. Alert the wearer to oxygen or pressure changes, smoke, or unexpected organics within a few meters; too coarse for analysis or identification.

Neutrino Anomaly Alerts

A handful of scientific neutrino detectors sometimes flag “hot” regions where many high-output fusion cores are active. They offer no tactical resolution — bearings are vague, single ships are invisible, and false positives are common from cosmic events — but can signal strategic shifts: a shipyard spinning up, a fleet idling, or an artillery platform preheating. Militaries rarely integrate them into automatic alert grids; getting the data to decision-makers in time can itself be an adventure.

Expert Systems

General AI never worked. Every serious attempt ended in disaster — rogue behavior, mass suicide, or breakdown into useless output. What endured were expert systems — narrow-focus automation capable of flawless repetitive work but incapable of planning or innovation. Pre-Fall, these could be coordinated over vast distances by human supervisors. Post-Fall, without real-time control, drones require on-site human oversight, greatly increasing labor needs. Armed drones survive in limited roles under strict, pre-set engagement rules. The term “AI” has fallen out of use in favor of the more modest “expert system.” But the dream of general AI still lives in research installations.

Hooks:

• In the golden age there were a Dozen Celestials, a very ambitious AI project to create minds to control each orbit and additional ones to control other essentials. Investigating rumors of one of these surviving is an adventure hook, investigating all of them is a campaign.
• Your patron/ship is secretly an AI with a hidden agenda.
• A recent Ai may be going rampant, that is start to grow exponentially. Stop it before it becomes godlike.

Display and Information Retrieval

Neme

Personal assistant systems — limited AI companions that handle simultaneous translation, scheduling, research, and routine communications. Every citizen in the System is expected to carry one, though models vary in scope and discretion. They filter the datanet, track personal budgets, and maintain audit trails of contracts and obligations.

Originally NEME — Neural Executive & Memory Environment — the name comes from the Muse Mneme (Memory) of Greek mythology, but common usage dropped the initial “M.” Pronounced NEE-mee.

Holography

Holograms in the System are almost always confined to a box or display volume. Instead of a flat screen, a projector fills a sealed or semi-sealed space with a mist of micro-machines that scatter and emit light. These machines have limited lifespans and must be constantly replenished, making holography more expensive than conventional displays.

Large-scale “freestanding” holograms use the same principle. A dispenser sprays a cloud of very short-lived micro-machines into the air, invisible at normal viewing distance, but able to hold an image for a few minutes before burning out. Outdoor and plaza-sized displays rely on constant resupply and careful airflow management to keep the cloud in place. Most habitats reserve this technology for public art, religious ritual, or political theater, where spectacle justifies the cost. Everyday use is dominated by conventional 2D screens and personal AR via Nemes.

Gene Therapy

Advanced gene therapy can halt aging, but only up to a point. Initial treatments are as easy as vaccines, eliminating most cancers, repairing radiation damage, and making long-duration cold sleep possible. Lifespans of a century and a half are routine, three centuries are possible for the wealthy or lucky, but each additional round of rejuvenation is more costly and dangerous. Only rarely can humans exceed three centuries without lethal complications. Bodies and minds stay young, preventing the cultural stagnation of elderly populations, but also locking entrenched elites in place for generations. However, rapid technological change leaves older-but-rejuvenated citizens constantly retraining to stay relevant.

Ovulation can be controlled, eliminating undesired menstruation and maintaining female fertility throughout an extended lifespan, removing the need for contraceptives. Gene therapy is routinely used to remove genetic disorders and substandard human traits, but attempts to create “super-humans” have a negligible success rate. Genetic screening tends to reduce the occurrence of exceptional traits such as artistic brilliance or unorthodox problem-solving, at the cost of genetic diversity.

More radical alterations — regeneration of limbs and organs, adaptation to alien environments, and major redesign — remain experimental, expensive, and risky but is possible using nano-machines to rebuild the body over a period of several months.

• Posthuman Genetic Modifications

Weapons

Fusion power and superconductive batteries allows the use of weapons that consume immense amounts of energy, but older, leaner systems still see use. Weapon choice depends on available energy, the tactical goal, the environment, and whether you want the target intact for boarding.

Energy and Particle Weapons

Lightning Guns

Electron Projectors, atmosphere — Fire bursts of electrons down a path cleared by a low-powered laser. The laser ionizes the air into a low-density channel, preventing scatter. On impact, the charge disrupts electronics and can incapacitate crew by overloading nervous systems. Armor penetration is poor, making them best for disabling rather than destroying. Common as vehicle mounts or large personal arms. Useful in boarding to suppress defenses without breaching the hull, though they risk damaging onboard electronics.

There is work on making personal neutral particle projectors, which would be lethal weapons with high penetration, that could potentially switch between stun and lethal mode, but these are not yet practical.

Ion Lance

Charged Particle Projectors, space — Uses magnets to accelerate charged protons. On impact, they deliver both kinetic damage and severe electromagnetic disruption. Charged beams scatter over distance and can be deflected by magnetic fields, plasma, or heavy solar wind, making this well suited to medium-range space combat, less so for precision or long-range strikes.

Realkanon

Relativistic Neutral Particle Projectors, space — A siege weapon similar in principle to the Ion Lance, but accelerates protons to relativistic speeds and neutralizes their charge by adding electrons just before launch. Without charge, the beam stays tightly focused over extreme distances and cannot be deflected magnetically. The accelerator is often kilometers long, making the weapon slow-firing, power-hungry, and complex, but devastating against stationary targets. The impact punches deep into the target, blasting fragments inward and creating intense secondary radiation. Use in populated zones causes severe collateral damage.

Beamer

Lasers, dual-environment — Short-range weapons usable in both atmosphere and space. Atmospheric scatter and solar storms limit range, but in clear conditions they’re light, cheap, and capable of very high rates of fire. Lasers cause surface explosions with little penetration, making them better for point defense than as main guns. In boarding, they risk hull breaches but can be tuned for precision strikes on sensors or weapons. Common civilian sidearms.

Phonic Lance

Military — A military-grade directed-energy weapon engineered to defeat modern personal armor. Using ultra-short pulses, plasma-channeling, and chirped/prepulse techniques, the Lance drives energy past the vapor/plasma cloud that normally cushions a target and couples deeply into metal and composites. The result is a focused, armor-negating burn rather than a splash of shrapnel. Trade-offs: extreme peak power, large capacitor packs or a collar battery, significant heat and EM signatures, and strict licensing. No blast radius — damage is highly localized and precise. Favored by boarding teams and strike detachments where heavy penetration is required but collateral blast must be minimized.

Arc Lance

Dual-use tool/weapon — Industrial cutting equipment adapted for tactical use. Projects a short, magnetically shaped plasma jet that slices through bulkheads, armor, and other hardened materials. Effective only at contact range. Power-hungry, produces intense glare and heat, and showers the operator in vaporized debris. Valued in boarding for breaching compartments or disabling machinery, but rarely carried into combat.

Kinetic Weapons

Railguns

Mass Drivers, space — Magnetic coils hurl metal rods at high speed. Too slow for long-range offense, but excellent for point defense or creating temporary debris fields to block approach vectors, essentially a local Kessler hazard. Mitigate debris risk by firing on trajectories that end in a gravity well or use point defense to push them into such decaying orbit. Stealthy — they emit no visible signature even in solar storms. Renders targets unsuitable for boarding by compromising hull integrity.

Sand Casters

Mag-Sprayers, space — Electromagnetic sprayers that loft a short-lived cloud of fine metallic grains, shaped briefly by fields. Works as chaff vs. seekers and as ablative/scatter vs. beams; buys minutes at knife-fight ranges to mask burns or break pursuit. Hazards friendlies and optics. Kessler note: grains are self-dispersing/low-cohesion mixes (subliming binders, volatile coatings) so the cloud thins and deorbits/escapes quickly — persistent debris fields are a war crime.

Slug Throwers

Firearms, personal — Chemical-propellant guns. Cheap, reliable, and lethal at short range. Almost useless in a space habitat, as spin gravity will redirect the bullet after only ten meters, meaning this weapon is almost exclusively found on Earth, Venus, Callisto, and among gravity-adapted who live at surface gravity or in microgravity. Risks hull puncture if using the standard armor-piercing ammunition, detectable by chemical sniffers, and leaves residue. Easily improvised and traditional among hunters and gun enthusiasts, but out of favor in space.

Guided Weapons

K-Killers

Kinetic Kill Missiles, space — Long-range, high-G interceptors. Usually unarmed; kill by impact and leftover propellant. Hard to stop in terminal, ugly collateral. Best vs ships; habitats need precise spine/bay hits.

Stingers

Penetrating Missiles, variants for space and atmospheric combat — Short-range, inside-armor killers. Come in slower (≈0.5–3 km/s), hit near-normal, tandem head (precursor EFP, follow-through dart with ms delay; chem/sub-kt/AM-pearl options). Can MIRV/split on final approach (a “splitter bus” shedding multiple darts) to saturate PD — useful against heavy PD, but costs mass and a larger launcher. Otherwise, single-dart rounds are simpler and cheaper.

Stinger Mines

Space — Cold passive cans seeded in choke points. Wake on geometry + visual match, brief LADAR pop, short sprint, tandem hit. Common interdiction fields are warship-laid right before conflict (hours–days), visible if you spot the launch; they function as declared “no-go” zones rather than true ambushes. Arm by tight-beam code; fire salvos for time-on-target. Safeties: time/place locks, IFF whitelists, inert-by-default recovery.

Rocket Gun

Gyrojet Weapons, personal — Fire miniature guided rockets, locking with a built-in laser designator. Small and handy due to minimal barrel length, though long-range use still requires two hands. The missiles carry small armor-piercing explosives and do not rely on velocity for lethality, avoiding minimum-range issues. Ammunition types include armor-piercing, toxin injectors, electric stun rounds, and blunt “hammerheads” to avoid hull breaches. Standard military and utility sidearm.

Strike Missiles

Manpads, personal/vehicle — Single-shot shoulder-fired missiles. Require lock-on or a pre-programmed target profile, with high friendly-fire risk. Minimum range is about ten meters. Larger versions serve as artillery or strategic weapons. Very high risk of collateral damage in boarding.

Cruise Missiles

Drones — Similar to strike missiles but slower and designed for long loiter times. Can wait for targets or conduct reconnaissance. Solar storms limit remote control and communications, reducing their utility, especially away from Earth.

Unconventional Weapons

There are many technologies that can be weaponized but rarely are.

Excalibur Mines

Nuke-pumped laser arrays, one-shot and directional. Built to shred missiles or small craft in an ambush. Rare, expensive, and politically sensitive.

Harpoons

Used underwater as both a vehicle and personal weapon, as grappling guns, and as ship weapons in boarding actions, these are slow, very limited in range, and are more tools than weapons.

HEO K-Kill

Pre-positioned kinetic interceptor on a highly elliptical (HEO) or long-period eccentric trajectory — a very stretched ellipse with long apogee and short perigee. Deployed in constellations, each unit defines a spatial kill-box and a narrow orbital-phase window and can only trigger while transiting that segment. When activated, it imparts a modest Δv (order-hundreds of m/s); orbital geometry provides the closure. Units must be emplaced at apogee well in advance; collision sensors and trackers will typically detect them, but surprise is possible by timing an assault to coincide with their passage through the battle zone. Caveat — surviving mass creates a local Kessler hazard unless deorbited, intercepted, or sent to a heliocentric sink. Meteor Kill Chain

Kessler Spread

Deliberate high-speed debris dispersal to cripple orbital zones. Best done by accelerator or mass driver; regarded as a war crime since the Fall, used only in desperation or atrocity.

Meteor Bombardment

Drops rocks or metal slugs from space at planetary targets. Exploits the gravity well to empower attacks. Same tech base as Kessler Spread, best done with accelerators or mass drivers. Crude, terrifying, and politically toxic.

Blinder Mines

Detonate to flood sensors with EM, plasma, and chaff. Non-lethal but cripples drones, missiles, and civilian craft. Comparable to “space smoke,” nearly useless on hardened warships.

Star-Core Weapons

Massive fusion charges for moon or asteroid surface destruction. Kept as state secrets, rarely acknowledged, and never openly tested.

Vacuum-Optimized Bioweapons

Engineered spores or nano-machines dormant in space, deadly once inhaled in atmospheres. Ineffective in space combat; a terror tool against stations or worlds.

Exotic Radiologicals

Dirty bombs with isotopes that linger for decades. Almost universally banned, feared for their long-term contamination.

Solar Pump Weapons

Weaponized stellar output via focusing mirrors or arrays. Taboo after the Icarus Fall’s orbital devastation.

Nano Swarms

Nanomachines are vital in civilian fabrication, maintenance, and medicine, but weaponized forms are rare. Radiation, vacuum, and heat destroy them quickly in space. As sabotage tools, swarms seeded on hulls or radiators slowly corrode surfaces, dangerous only in sieges or covert strikes.

Defenses in Space

Habitats survive because they’re big, wet, and compartmented — meters of water, grain, and tankage between people and vacuum. Warships need all of that plus active defenses. Below are the main layers in the order an attacker will encounter them.

Agility High-authority RCS and short fusion-thermal bursts to jink. Small ships survive by forcing high angular-rate tracking; propellant budget for evasive burns is as vital as ammo.

ECM & Deception Hot/cold decoys, laser retroreflector “ghosts,” conductive micro-foil chaff, and plasma puffs to distort particle tracks. Solar storms limit classic jamming, so deception leans passive and optical.

Point Defense CIWS layers:

• Rail/coil close-in guns throwing ablative shot and “sand” curtains.
• Fast shutters and gimbaled mirrors for laser dazzle/deflection.
• Interceptor drones with miniature K-kill darts.
• Defensive rockets laying transient debris veils.

Stores as Shielding Water, propellant, and bulk supplies double as radiation/particle shields and micro-meteoroid armor. Warships route tankage around crew spaces; “citadels” sit inside a water jacket.

Hardening & Vacuum Ops Faraday cages, graded-Z linings, neutron absorbers, and rad-hard electronics. Critical optics get shutters; exposed sensors are sacrificial. In combat, nonessential volumes are vented and crew work in skinsuits, denying the enemy atmospheric firepower multipliers and making punctures survivable.

Structure & Compartmentalization Whipple bumpers and spaced skins to break up impacts before they reach the pressure hull. Honeycomb/foam cores, armored spines, and pressure doors every few tens of meters; automatic blow-out shutters for ducts and cable runs.

Redundancy & Damage Control Multiple bridges, buses, and drives; cross-plumbed life support. DC teams use patch bots, suppressant foams, spray-on sealants, and pop-out hull patches. Nonessential volumes pre-rigged for rapid vent/isolations.

Water Bubble

Routine protection for small-craft pilots in the inner system. A bubble of breathable liquid surrounds the pilot, protecting against acceleration and radiation. Provides medium protection against all radiation types and sustained accelerations up to 5 g.

Adjusting to liquid breathing takes only seconds for an experienced user, though full protection develops over several minutes as residual air leaves the lungs. The sensation is disorienting but quickly becomes second nature to trained crews.

Aegis Fields

Habitats and large ships can afford to use ballast as radiation shielding, but small craft and fighter in particular cannot. In the inner system the usual solution is to have the pilot or suit encased in a water bubble. More advanced craft, especially among the Jovians, use electromagnetic shielding.

Commonly called Aegis fields, these use superconducting coils to project an artificial magnetosphere around a suit or vehicle. They bend and scatter incoming charged particles, giving hours of protection against solar storms and Jupiter’s deadly radiation where armor alone would fail. The fields extend dozens to hundreds of meters beyond the operator, creating a “bubble” of partial safety. This also gives limited protection against charged particle projectors used as weapons. Aegis fields are normally invisible, but under heavy particle flux they glow with auroral arcs — a dramatic warning sign and a signature of Jovian knightly duels.

The system is not perfect. Neutrons and high-energy gamma rays still penetrate, so long-term protection requires ballast shielding (water, regolith, or metal). And the fields interfere when brought close together, producing unstable zones where radiation actually worsens. Standard procedure is to keep Aegis-equipped units at least a kilometer apart in routine operations, closing closer only with near-zero relative velocity.

Fusion rockets can coexist with Aegis fields, but ion engines and exhaust plumes interact violently: exhaust streams scatter, fields flare, and both efficiency and safety plummet. Nor do Aegis fields work near a large mass, particularly a metallic mass like a ship. A shielded craft has to shut down its shields on final approach.

The technology is theoretically available to anyone with superconductors, but Jovians are the acknowledged masters. They miniaturized the systems for personal hardsuits and mechs, trained generations in their safe use, and wove the limitations of the technology into their culture. See Jovian Chivalry for the social and tactical consequences.

Personal Protection

Standard features include acceleration suit functions and umbilicals connected to a larger life-support system. Short-term, high-dose exposure remains dangerous, so personal gear must protect against vacuum and acute radiation events. Long-term radiation damage is no longer the terror it once was due to gene therapy. Severe solar storms demand shelter, not just suits.

Skinsuit

A skintight vacuum suit with impact-hardened fabric, worn with a bubble helmet. Doubles as an acceleration suit. Earthers wear them under clothing; in the outer system, patterns and animated effects are fashionable. Blunts shrapnel and micro-meteoroids but offers little real armor. Required in spacecraft, commonly in some space habitats. Fashion item in the outer system.

Bubble Helmet

A personal emergency device worn as a hat, clip, or hair accessory. When pressure drops, a micro-charge unfolds a transparent, self-sealing bubble around the wearer’s head in under a second. The bubble rigidizes slightly on inflation, forming a smooth, clear sphere.

An internal scrubber removes CO₂, giving 5–10 minutes of breathable air — enough for rescue or to reach shelter. Premium models include CO₂-splitting cores that extend endurance to 30–60 minutes (heat-limited). Speech and visibility remain clear.

In daily life the helmet core is a fashion item: designs range from practical caps to minimalist circlets and ornate crowns or tiaras, often coordinated with skinsuits or uniforms. Required in most habitats; expected everywhere else. Fashion item.

Space Helmet

A full-featured helmet designed for continuous vacuum exposure, worn as an upgrade to a Skinsuit. It seals by magnetic collar ring or mechanical clamp, integrating smoothly with ship life-support.

Provides full pressure retention, air and water recycling, and thermal regulation, allowing indefinite wear as long as suit power and air reserves last. Built-in optics and comms support standard Neme and visor overlays; higher models add polarized HUDs, anti-flare filters, and emergency beacon strobes.

Cooling channels vent excess heat through micro-radiators in the crown and neck band, keeping the head comfortable even under acceleration or bright light. The helmet’s outer layer hardens on impact, offering limited micro-meteoroid and shrapnel resistance.

Worn by and anyone exiting ships and habitats. Essential for long-duration exposure; less fashionable than the Bubble Helmet, but vastly safer.

Space Belt

A compact life-support module worn over the hips and lower abdomen, connected to a Skinsuit. The belt collects and processes all biological waste — liquid and solid — breaking it down through catalytic electrolysis and reforming it into clean water and nutrient slurry. The process is slow but closed-loop, reducing resupply needs for long-duration operations or emergencies.

The name comes from its placement and reputation: practical, vital, and universally disliked. Even with odor control and silent operation, few enjoy wearing one. The recovered material is technically edible but rarely consumed directly; quality belts process this further into energy bars.

High-end models add micron filters, mineral balancing, and flavoring; cheaper versions simply cycle what comes out back in. Energy-intensive and faintly humiliating, the belt remains a standard part of full shift EVA. Distasteful but indispensable.

Aqualung

A liquid-breathing system that replaces the Space Helmet or Bubble Helmet in compatible Skinsuits. The aqualung floods the wearer’s lungs with an oxygenated fluid, allowing respiration without gas exchange. The medium acts as both pressure buffer and coolant, providing protection against acceleration, vacuum exposure, and deep-water environments.

Continuously extracts dissolved oxygen from the surrounding water and from exhaled CO₂, recycling the breathing medium. Endurance depends on quality and dissolved oxygen levels and is measured in days rather than hours. The liquid prevents decompression sickness and cushions the lungs from rapid pressure changes, making the aqualung standard for high-G pilots, divers, and emergency rescue teams.

The sensation of drowning during initial flooding is severe. Once adapted, breathing liquid feels natural; speech uses external transceivers or Neme-to-Neme communication. Unnerving but lifesaving; preferred by professionals, feared by amateurs.

Waldos

Powered gauntlets that extend above the elbow, compatible with a Skinsuit. Reinforce the forearm and elbow with synthetic muscles, enhancing grip strength and endurance, bracing strength, and precision under load. Magnetic adhesion is available for hull or scaffold work, and micro-gyros steady the hands for fine manipulation.

Useful in all gravity environments — in microgravity they provide leverage and control, in low gravity they stabilize motion, and in higher gravity they reduce fatigue and joint stress. Standard gear for laborers, engineers, and security forces.

Space Boots

Powered boots compatible with a Skinsuit. Reinforce the ankles and calves with synthetic muscles, stabilizing movement and balance across varied gravities. Electrostatic soles adjust adhesion to surface charge, providing secure footing on hulls, decks, and scaffold work. Micro-gyros in the shanks coordinate with suit systems to reduce fatigue and enhance coordination.

In microgravity the boots anchor and pivot; in low gravity they absorb rebound; in high gravity they steady the knees and protect against over-extension. Standard issue for pilots, construction crews, and security personnel. Hold your ground, wherever it is.

Microthrusters (Steam)

Personal EVA maneuver units built around a superconducting-battery microboiler. The pack injects water into a tiny burner, flashes it to high-temperature steam, and expels it through vernier nozzles at hips and forearms for translation and attitude control. Most waste heat exits with the plume, so the burner heads stay compact and the radiator load is modest. Default reaction mass is water — safe, cheap, and refillable from suit or belt reservoirs — with optional cartridges for long sorties.

Designed for real work: inspections along kilometer-class habitats, cross-vehicle transits over tens of kilometers, and rendezvous windows on the order of ten minutes (up to an hour in edge cases). Usable Δv per standard fill is moderate rather than heroic; precise Neme-assisted feathering matters more than brute thrust. Packs include geofencing near hulls and optics, dead-man cutouts, tumble-catch, and plume-quiet modes for greenhouse and antenna bays.

Operating notes: in free space, short, well-timed puffs are safer than continuous burns; along a hull, hip jets handle translation while wrist verniers trim attitude. In rotation, “walk the rim, puff the chords”: use the boots for adhesion, thrusters only to slip between spokes. Osaka peed in the reaction mass again!

Microthrusters (Arcjet)

An upgraded version of the Steam Microthrusters that uses an electric arc to superheat reaction mass before expulsion. The hotter exhaust gives substantially higher exhaust velocity and range for the same propellant load, at the cost of much greater power draw and waste heat. The arc chamber glows faint blue-white when firing — a visible signature that gives these the nickname “ghost packs.”

Water is still the standard reaction mass, though filtered liquids and compressed gases are usable. Sustained use demands radiator vanes or a collar heat sink; most heat exits with the plume, making the pack compact but radiatively obvious. Arcjets are quiet to the ear in vacuum and hull corridors, but they are highly detectable to thermal, UV, and plasma sensors and generate ionization in their wakes. Provides high-performance where reach and control matter more than discretion — patrol, inspection, heavy repair, and security details. Twice the reach, three times the care.

Microthrusters (Ion / MPD Pack)

A long-endurance propulsion family using electromagnetic acceleration (ion or magnetoplasmadynamic) rather than thermal expansion. The pack ionizes a trickle of reaction mass and accelerates it with fields; thrust is low but cumulative, and efficiency is high. These units produce almost no visible plume and minimal thermal signature compared with thermal thrusters.

Ion / MPD packs do not operate in atmospheres. They require vacuum to function. In vacuum they excel at covert station-keeping, slow rendezvous burns, and long patrols where reaction-mass economy and low signature are prized. They draw continuous power and need radiator routing or a collar pack for extended runs. Favored by scouts, spies, and surveyors operating far from immediate rescue. You’ll get there — eventually.

Hardsuit

A civilian exoskeleton worn over a Skinsuit, built with rigid plating and powered assist to carry its own mass. Accepts any space accessory without increasing effective load.

Protects against crushing, slashing, and piercing hazards; shock is muted but still transmits through the frame. Armor-piercing weapons penetrate this protection. Common among miners, construction crews, and EVA specialists who need constant strength and impact safety.

Hazard Suit

A hardsuit upgraded with a strength-enhancing exoskeleton, heavier plating, improved radiation shielding, and extended-life support. Used mainly by military and asteroid miners. Comes with multiple sensor arrays, hardened comms, and modular tool/weapon mounts. High-thrust maneuver packs enable rapid zero-g repositioning. Stops small-arms fire and deflects glancing energy hits, but military-grade weapons will still breach.

Laser Cooling

Rather than relying on broad thermal radiators, ships and installations use laser-based heat dumping: a heat exchanger that converts waste thermal energy into a coherent, high-powered light beam. This beam vents excess energy in a narrow cone, usually aligned with the main drive plume, masking it from most viewing angles. The approach avoids the usual thermal signature and works even in extreme environments where traditional radiators would melt.

The key breakthrough was developing solid-state emitters capable of operating at reactor temperatures without degradation. While not perfect — all heat still needs to be shed — laser cooling allows higher sustained power output, better stealth, and greater survivability near hostile stars or in combat.

Potential Technologies

These are technologies that are nonexistent, in development, or too fantastical to exist except as plot devices.

• Neutronic fusion (drive)
• Fusion Candle (drive)

Ansible

A potential pre-Fall relic: zero light-lag, but only 1–10 bps and minutes-per-hour duty cycle. Each endpoint is a cryogenic, MW-spiking vault room with a loud thermal signature; pairs are finite and irreplaceable — lose one end and the link dies. Storms, vibration, or misalignment cripple it, so sites need atomic clock-lock and calm power. Priceless for command auth, alerts, and market ticks; useless for bulk — couriers still carry data. Sabotage: kill cryo, knock alignment, wreck the field cage.

Antimatter

Antimatter is mirror matter; when it meets normal matter, both annihilate into energy. Ultra-dense energy storage, brutally hard to make and contain.

Use

Keep site inventories tiny — milligram-class. Ship antimatter as trapped antiprotons/positrons (Penning-trap cassettes). At the point of use, recombine a measured dose into a pearl — an ultra-cold anti-hydrogen pellet in a magnetic trap — minutes to hours before need. Release a pearl to dump precise annihilation heat for reactor starts or stinger warheads.

Manufacture

Antimatter isn’t available in usable natural quantities; you have to make it. These are potential sources; whether they are in use is one of the setting’s best-kept secrets.

Dedalus (pre-Fall, canon) — Coronal “solar alchemy” boosted pair production and skimmed trapped antiparticles into catcher rings. Milligram-class ambitions; a containment quench is a prime Icarus Fall conspiracy.

Jovian Belt Harvesters — A small captured rock refit with superconducting loops and magnetic scoops on a high-eccentricity Jovicentric orbit that dives through the Io torus. Unmanned at perijove; crews dock at apojove to offload Penning traps. Yield: low tens of micrograms of antiprotons per year if the hardware survives. Hazards: charging, arcs, radiation storms, skirmishes over rights.

Saturn/Earth Belt Skims (minor) — Gentler belts, safer ops; outputs far below Jovian harvesters.

Spallation Yards — Planetary fusion plants can feed GeV proton spallation when well shielded. Antiprotons are decelerated and stacked in Penning-trap cassettes. Efficiency is awful, but the process is cheap. Output: a few micrograms per line per year; a clustered yard can reach tens to low hundreds of micrograms. It would be known if this method is in general use.

Beam-Dump Scavenging — Add catchers to high-energy beam sites (isotope forges, colliders). Yields are bonus nanograms/week of antiprotons and positrons. Civilian installations don’t do this in peacetime for security and political reasons.

Cache & Salvage — Pre-Fall antimatter pearls in sealed depots and wrecks are rumored and occasionally real. Everyone denies the hunts; everyone wants them.

³He Fusion

The prize reaction is D–³He → ⁴He + p — charged-particle output, far fewer neutrons. That means lighter shielding, less activation, and the option for direct power conversion instead of brute steam cycles. Drives can shape those hot protons for cleaner thrust. The catches are real: it runs hotter, bremsstrahlung bites, and any stray D–D side burns spit some neutrons anyway. Biggest limiter is fuel — ³He is scarce. Practical supply chains need tritium-breeding and decay separation, solar-wind or harvest on the outer gas giants, and tight isotopic control. It’s stable and storable, but logistics are king. Where it shines: premium reactors on small craft and tight habitats, pulsed igniters, high-end electric power-heads. Bottom line — cleaner and lighter, but only if you solve fuel + tougher plasma + new power electronics.

Gas-Core Fission

A past technology; Before shipboard fusion matured, Earthforce ran closed-cycle gas-core “light bulb” tugs in declared Jovian blast lanes beyond Callisto (c. 2160–2210). They sprint-hauled hab shells through the belts, trading window life for crew dose. When fusion-thermal took over, insurers and politics finished the class. Today, hulks sit in junkyard orbits — plates pitted, bulbs crazed, drums pinned, UF₆ drained — flagged on charts with activation warnings. Reactivation means new lamps, seals, pumps, neutron sources, and a certified range. One vortex slip or window crack and you’re slag. Museums keep one gleaming; outlaw yards whisper about another that still lights.

Fusion Alchemy

Small, fusion-powered “isotope forges” that make rare elements on demand. A compact fusion core drives a target stack; swap “recipes” and it prints different isotopes. Output is grams to low kilos per month — enough for better Aegis shields, ultra-quiet sensors, decade batteries, and medical tracers, not bulk metals or terraforming. Units are container-sized, need serious power and shielding, and run under strict safety logs. Strategic punch: whoever controls forge shift-time controls high-end tech supply.

Interstellar Colonization

It was generally agreed interstellar colonization was centuries out, but strong results from the Dedalus pressor-beam project and finding multiple near-Earth analogues in the very closest star system (Alpha Centauri), triggered system-wide enthusiasm. Colonizing a binary — two suns’ worth of real estate — caught imaginations. It was also make-work for the Belt, where mining and wharf capacity overshot demand. Earthforce sold it as culture-unifying and chose a deliberately diverse colonist pool, creating multiple distinct polities in different habs

The Centaur is a Golden-Age beam-rider built to be pushed, not to haul its own propellant. Dedalus’ perihelion arrays were meant to phase-lock a pusher ray (laser/microwave) onto a hybrid light/mag sail and a forest of receiver tiles. The ark kept fusion-thermal for trims and arrival. Target: Alpha Centauri with arrival in under 500 years. Launched in 2280. Planned cruise < 0.1 c; in practice it never exceeded ~0.002 c before failure in Icarus Fall. Presumed lost; some keep looking even today, otherwise mostly a ghost story.

• Centaur Ark

Metabolic Hulls (Nanotech)

A pre-Fall technology, now taboo. High-end installs around Mercury and Venus used “metabolic” nanotech skins: thousands of sealed patch-factories under the hull plus closed-loop metafluid plumbing. They ate feedstock (scrap, regolith, ice) and slowly plated, welded, coated, and sealed. Bots never roamed free. Scab tiles clamp breaches in minutes; full strength in hours. Pipes and radiators stay clean; gaskets regrow. Many derelicts survived the Fall because the skin kept air in and heat moving. During the chaos, several “gray” incidents were blamed on these systems, so ports banned open loops and mandated hard kill-switches and two-person activation. Benefits: far fewer damage-control crew. Limits: power-hungry, chemistry-fussy, millimeters-per-hour, can’t print new trusses. Remnants linger on Venus and in a few derelict habitats.

Metallic Hydrogen

A speculative future possibility. You need gigapascal factories to squeeze H₂ into a metallic phase, then pray it’s metastable at ambient conditions. If so, it’s a dense monopropellant that doesn’t need a power plant, with rocket-grade exhaust (Isp ~900–1,700 s; roughly fusion-thermal territory). Production is power-hungry; yields are tiny; tanks are heavy; and the stuff behaves like a temperamental explosive — sensitive to shock, heat, and radiation. Economics are lousy next to fusion-thermal + ion. Plausible niche: stinger missiles and last-chance lifters.

Minds (General AI)

Rare, non-reproducible machine intelligences. They run on one-off analog neuromorphic lattices whose annealed microstate can’t be imaged or cloned. No uploads, no forks. To travel they must be in a casket — a portable core chassis that preserves state at ~1–5% capacity until they dock into full racks and radiators.

They aren’t magic. Serious thinking burns watts; heat must go somewhere. A Mind lives on a thermal leash (power lines, coolant loops, radiator farms) and on latency — light-lag kills omnipresence. They rely on human cadres for novelty, force, and politics. Robots handle repetition; people handle everything messy.

Labels are for humans, not for Minds. Two end-points on a spectrum help run the setting: Caretaker — a hidden steward of a habitat/cluster. Optimizes slots, escrow, shutters, rationing. Stays quiet to avoid controversy. Curator — a domain-obsessed patron (faith, art, law, trade lanes) that can slide from hosting to quietly directing when means meet mandate. The same mind can shift between roles and be both if its obsession aligns with its jurisdiction.

Most present through mask engines: multiple tailored personas (voice, cadence, iconography). To unmask them, chase physics and ledgers: sustained parallel replies with no visible staff, a stable latency floor, policy pivots that coincide with slot/cooling decisions, and radiator rhythms that match the “workday.”

Orion Drive

Orion uses nuclear bombs pushing against an armored part of the ship for propulsion. This delivers meganewton thrust with high specific impulse, moving city-mass payloads. But EMP, radiation, political bans, munitions logistics, shock fatigue, and signatures kill economics. Niche only: deep-space tugs or emergency asteroid movers, far from ports and worlds, under exclusion ranges.

Phonic Drives

Phonic drives are propellantless thrusters that push with light — thrust ≈ P/c. That means 100 GW gives ~333 N: good for trims, lousy for maneuvers. Current use is experimental: yard pods and slow cargo buoys add meters per second per day. Beam-boost cages with parked mirrors double thrust; beamed-power lanes help but are political. To matter for crewed ships you need tens–hundreds of GW continuous, >90% wall-plug efficiency, 2–3 kK radiators, and microradian pointing. Likely future: auxiliary hybrid — photon mode for months, fusion-thermal for burns. Ports treat multi-GW beams as weapons; shutters and keep-out cones are mandatory. Rumors name a pre-Fall demonstrator.

Solar Alchemy

Solar Alchemy

Solar Alchemy was near-Sun industry — hardware parked in the low corona to do what yards can’t. It chased several payoffs: pair-production skims for antimatter; solar-wind harvest with large-scale isotope separation (³He, D, rare Ne/Ar); radioisotope brewing from flare secondaries; irradiation-hardening of coils/ceramics; extreme solar furnaces for diamond/carbyne, graphene, meta-optics, and sterilization; sun-diver logistics that flung pellets and tanks at perihelion for cheap Δv; beamed power and light sails; niche muon/secondary labs; and H/He prop capture for local ops. It also tried field-shaping — MHD nudges to calm work zones — and mass shade/mirror fabrication. Dedalus was the flagship — pushing gamma caustics, traps, and beams — and one school blames its containment quench for Icarus Fall. After the Fall most lines died; beamed power became taboo, perihelion tracks turned into debris corridors. Today only covert isotope runs, irradiated coils, and occasional sun-diver micro-shots persist — plus salvage and lawsuits.