TNH Engineering

This department’s focus is keeping everything in the ship working as intended.

 

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Table of Contents:

  1. Introduction
  2. Specific Functions the Engineers Facilitate
  3. So how are the maintenance and repair operations for TNH made possible?
  4. Restrictions
  5. Conceptual Images

 

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Introduction:

Ship (or marine) Engineering Officers or, simply, Ship Engineers, are responsible for operating, maintaining, and repairing the propulsion plants (engines) and support systems (such as mechanical and electronic equipment) on board crew, passengers, and cargo seafaring vessels or other watercraft, as well as on offshore structures.  They operate a ship’s engine to control the speed of the vessel, according to orders from the ship’s captain.  Nuclear physicists and related specialists typically handle all reactor maintenance, but ship engineers handle everything else.

 

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Specific Functions the Engineers Facilitate:

  • calibrating RADAR and LIDAR modules
  • checking weapon loadouts and individual weapon parts (such as missiles on fighter-craft)
  • keeping the electrical conduits, breakers, etc. operating nominally (to keep the lights on, doors opening and closing, computers working, etc.) –but those who keep the generator/reactor running are specialists in the Reactor/Powerplant
  • maintaining the reverse-osmosis (and other) machines that produce freshwater (recycle water) and those that create water in another way (which allows everyone aboard to be able to hydrate themselves, shower, do their laundry, clean their vehicles and aircraft, etc.) –and TNH is capable of sending out shuttles or other ships to return with tanks of sea-water for desalination
  • swapping out Spacecraft parts before and after flights/missions; blades, engines, wheels, etc.
  • working alongside Inisfreeans as they supervise the use of special equipment that allows for the electromagnetic “melting” and reforming/reshaping of many different parts and materials of the ship

This means Engineers aboard TNH (and just about any other ship) will be seen making their way through most of the other sections/departments.

 

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So how are the maintenance and repair operations for TNH made possible?

When TNH needs something patched up or replaced, it has three options;

  1. delegate the task to one of its teams of Engineers or others able to complete it right away,
  2. signal an Inisfreean to use her race’s classified method of interfacing with matter to adjust/correct a deformity/puncture, or
  3. wait for dry-dock or resupply from planet-side.

Obviously, the number-one choice out of those options is to have the humans aboard handle the work, which keeps their kind busy and teamed-up enough to continue “growing” and getting along.

Option #2 is the quickest and easiest, but it doesn’t involve the kind of interaction that the TNH social-experiment is all about.

Option #3 involves more of that kind of interaction, but takes too long, and is sometimes unreliable (plus it puts the ship and its crew more at risk; anytime they are closer to a planet, they have fewer maneuvering and return-fire options).

Spare parts (for tools, bulkheads (walls), vehicles, etc.) are stowed in sealed rooms and compartments throughout TNH, but they aren’t enough to replace everything throughout the entire ship, of course.  There will be times when these stores/stockpiles run low; sometimes major damage will have to be taken care of, exhausting some of the items in that inventory.  To continue operating after such shortages, and without having to dock or go planet-side, the solution is to convert already-in-place parts of the ship into the items/shapes newly needed.

Subatomic transmutation (changing molecular and atomic structures by rearranging the ratios of their electrons, neutrons, and protons) facilitates nano-conversion (alterations at the nano-metric scale) to fabricate nearly any material and form (‘shape’) required for the preservation of The New Horizon (TNH).  In other words, special devices allow for just about anything to be converted into anything, so replacement parts can be made from slush-matter (material kept in a fluid state, and consisting of a specific and classified mix of basic elements/ingredients which are easiest to subatomically-transmutate into the majority of what TNH may need) or even pure energy, given enough time and computations.  Typically on TNH, engineers will seal and cordon off any damaged part of the ship, move in as a team in protective suits, and use various transmutation tools to patch up the damaged wall or other component(s).

* The level of transmutation possible with the TNH tools is not as advanced as what Inisfreeans are capable of.  Inisfreeans can will their own ships and bodies to instantly repair themselves with subatomic transmutation, using anything to make anything.  TNH personnel must be trained to use special high-tech handheld and crew-served devices which rely on batteries and cables plugged into TNH electrical outlets.  Those TNH devices can take minutes to hours to complete their tasks, depending on the span and complexity of the damage.

 

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Restrictions:

While some TNH Engineers have fairly-high security-clearances that let them work on the military hardware aboard the carrier, they do not have any opportunities to back-engineer or leave with the high-tech devices that make subatomic (or any) transmutation possible.  Inisfreeans keep those tools “under lock and key”, guarded and monitored at all times.  The Engineers know how to use those tools, but not where they are stored, or the exact mechanisms/principles of them.

 

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