TNH Reactor

This is where the vast majority of the carrier’s electrical energy comes from.

 

–

Table of Contents:

  1. Introduction
  2. Process
  3. Close vs. Far
  4. Build for Its Purpose
  5. Limitations
  6. 2023 September/+ Notes
  7. Conceptual Images

 

–

Introduction:

Being a kilometer+ long dreadnought-class war vessel, The New Horizon‘s (TNH) reactor room is more accurately a reactor district (due to being more than a ‘wing’ of a structure/ship, when counting all the sections that branch off from it) …with relay/repeater (power-continuation) modules (reducing/preventing a gradual decrease in power otherwise resulting from lengthy powerlines) evenly positioned throughout the stretch of the ship. 

The core houses the main ‘battery’ and its attached work-stations. 

The relay-stations elsewhere in the ship are smaller modules/facilities with fewer work-stations.

 

–

Process:

The reactor utilizes cold fusion and fission of photons and subatomic particles to produce various forms of power for all of The New Horizon’s systems, including ammunition for its spectrum cannons (though they come pre-filled for weeks of prolonged combat).  It does not rely on heat or pressure from radioactive/superheated water vapor / steam.  Safe electrical energy is spread from its power converters to the rest of the carrier, where other devices can convert it to mechanical or other forms of energy, as needed.

A breach of the reactor would trigger an automatic instant shutdown due to the way its structure is designed; there would be no need to manually intervene (though emergency personnel would of course begin systematically sealing, inspecting, repairing, and re-commissioning the system, as needed).

Radiation poisoning is also a thing of the past; the reactor processes here are so much more miniaturized and better contained, compared to in the earlier years of this technology.

 

–

Close vs. Far:

The New Horizon is a starship which predominantly uses a relative-FTL drive containing ‘Eezo‘ (not the dilithium crystals which most Starfleet drives were based around, as those became problematic/unreliable in one era) to traverse the distances between star systems, while very seldom also utilizing Mass Relays for more-timely travel between galactic arms (because Mass Relays facilitate jumps which are quicker, more fuel-efficient, and less strenuous on the ship’s supercomputer when it comes to processing long-distance calculations). 

Short/local ‘jumps’ (interplanetary and intra-stellar (between sub-systems in a multi-star system) travel) are performed using some of the energy from its reactor (as opposed to moving into position alongside a Mass Relay). 

Longer/Intermediate ‘jumps’ (intragalactic travel) are usually performed with the assistance of the Mass Relays.
*Mass Relays were discovered and mastered by humans in the late 2100s A.D., and eventually humans learned how to make them themselves.  There is now 1 Mass Relay connecting 34 Tauri to the next-closest colonized solar-system (that system’s name and other details not yet revealed/declassified).

Longest ‘jump’s (intergalactic travel) are possible, but will consume a large portion of the reactor’s available output if not assisted by special Stargates (more powerful than the Mass Relays, and MUCH larger than the Stargates discovered on ETW and used for getting a few humans to/from linked worlds) or Webway channels (which people in 34 Tauri don’t know about, as The Webway is usually reserved for Eldar –and the ancient Reptilian spacefarers who built that thing).

 

–

Built for Its Purpose:

TNH is tasked with patrolling only the 34 Tauri multiple-star-system for the time being, with proposed patrols extending its route to several other stellar clusters in other arms of just the Milky Way galaxy.  This means that it will never need the Mass Relays, and barely touch its potential power.  In other words, its reactor has more than enough energy to handle all of its current duties.

 

–

Limitations:

Though built by Inisfreeans, TNH is kept lower-tech’ (relative to Inisfree), meaning that only Inisfreeans can will it to pass through portals in the Inisfreean fashion; the ship itself does not have a drive or computer system capable of executing Inisfreean portal feats (IOW:  bypassing/surpassing warp-drive Space-bending methods).  Thus, TNH travel is not instantaneous; it takes something on the order of minutes to hours to traverse what any Inisfreean (ICV) can move to within an instant.  TNH can ‘jump’ within seconds of the command being issued, but may remain in-transit for minutes between star systems, and hours between arms of the Milky Way.

  • Thus its casual/cruising/normal (“safe-enough”) warp-speed can be estimated to be ~5 LY per 2/+ minutes; ~2.5 LY/min. 
  • At 2.5 LY/min, it would need 70 minutes to reach Sol/ETW (~175 LY away) from 34 Tauri.
  • For comparison, Starfleet ships (from centuries before TNH’s era) traveling at warp 5.2 were moving at ~140x light-speed; something 140 LY away… would be reached in 1 year.  (Traveling 175 LY would take such a ship, or a ship moving at that speed, 1.4 years to reach.)

TNH’s reactor will provide steady power output the entire time during any jump, though longer jumps and simultaneous energy usage will require a ‘juggling’ of the overall reduction of potential operations.
For example, if TNH is engaged in heavy combat, the energy used by its cannons, shields, tracking devices, and other sensors, may mean that faster or longer ‘jumps’ are not possible until it pauses or reduces some of those other functions.
If it is mid-jump, it may not be able to use its longer-range sensors or all of its cannons at once.
If it must defend itself while in a lengthy ‘jump’, it may be necessary to dim or turn off the lights and other power-consuming nodes across much or all of the ship.

* By comparison, Gray ships can pull energy from Space/ether/void itself,
and Inisfreean ships can pull energy from anything at all, thus they are much less likely to require a reduction or redistribution of any of their power.
TNH is very advanced, but still requires reactor resupplies during RCOHs, and can theoretically end up adrift if left un-replenished for years at a time during frequent complex operations.  It is a spacecraft meant for voyages between nearby worlds, not for Deep Space.

 

–

2023 September/+ Notes:

The starship NCC-1701-D Enterprise was 2,103′ “long” (deep), with nacelles ~814′ “long”.
TNH is ~4,000′ long, with a proportionately longer drive/engine; ~1,628′, separated into numerous sections, rooms, modules, etc., thus more of a district (subset of a city) than a hall or neighborhood; it is multiple neighborhoods / city-blocks worth of space in the carrier.

TNH does not use pulse-drives like Fireflies and most other 34 Tauri interplanetary vessels; it uses actual warp tech’ (albeit one of the most primitive kinds; 2nd-gen’ (1st-gen’ being the one right after a prototype worked reliably)).

Max’ safe/easy speed:  warp1; 670,616,629.384 mph
338.75 AU (the diameter of 34 Tauri) = 31,488,780,000 miles
TNH can go to the opposite side of 34 Tauri in 46.95496446 hrs; 1.956456852 days.
Thus the allotment of ~1 week for its (relatively) “long” jumps within this multi-system.

Since TNH was always destined to end up a gift to humans, it was not made of SRC; it is not invincible.
Persephone, however, always destined to stay one of my ships, was and is.

TNH usually travels at warp .5 (~.304 LS; 203,867,455.332736 mph) so normal (pulse-drive) UAP escort ships can keep up. This is why, while TNH can jump across all of 34 Tauri in <2 days, it “politely” and tactically spends a full week doing so.

Warp reference

Gravity in this carrier is also generated from the power here, some of the power from this reactor always directed to the in-floor gravity-generators built-in standard throughout this vessel.

…

2024 August:

  • “critical” vs. “super-critical”
  • 1 LY = 5,879,000,000,000 miles
  • warp1 = 670,616,629.384 mph
  • 5,879,000,000,000/670,616,629.384 = ~8,766.6 hours; just a bit longer than 1 Earth-year
  • minutes to cross the avg. distance between Milky Way solar systems means at least 2 minutes to travel 5 LY;
    2.5 LY/min, which is 14,697,500,000,000 miles per minute (881,850,000,000,000 mph)
  • 881,850,000,000,000 mph is 1,314,983.7945564070152074020612459x faster than warp1
  • In short, TNH almost always travels below warp1 so that pulse-drive UAP/commoner Spaceships can keep pace with it,
    but once it starts venturing out beyond 34 Tauri… it has the ability to move itself degrees-of-magnitude more quickly,
    thus its “polite” 34 Tauri-crossing time of ~4 days,
    its “easy/safe” 34 Tauri-crossing time of ~2 days,
    and its maximum speed which allows it to get to an adjacent solar system in mere minutes –though it will almost always reserve that max speed for emergencies, utilizing the Mass Relays to move from solar system to solar system.
  • “Polite” speed/s will not at all challenge its reactor/power-supply.
    “Easy” speed/s will slightly challenge its reactor/power-supply.
    “Max” speed will challenge its reactor/power-supply enough to eventually “trip the circuit breaker/s” and even drain the thing entirely.
  • Predominantly moving at “polite” speeds and not battling, TNH will only require refueling every decade or so.
    Predominantly moving at “easy” speeds and rarely battling, TNH will require refueling every several years or so.
    Predominantly moving at “max” speed and regularly battling, TNH will require refueling every ‘float’ or so.
  • Staying at max-speed for more than an hour or so could drain its reactor fuel completely, leaving it adrift.
    This means TNH would run out of fuel/power 10-15 minutes before it reached Sol/ETW, if it was moving at max-speed from 34 Tauri toward that destination.
  • If ever it went to its max-speed within 34 Tauri, it would exit the whole multi-system in less than .13 of 1 second.
    After 1 second of travel at its max speed, moving out from 34 Tauri, it would be at a distance away from the border of 34 Tauri… ~7.5-8x the diameter of the 34 Tauri solar system.
  • In the 21st century, an aircraft carrier’s R-COH took 3-4 years, and the refueling (R) portion involved cutting a big hole in the ship’s hull, swapping out the spent nuclear fuel with new stuff, and then patching the hole.
    Centuries later, obviously, an R-COH has been revised many times, now taking only months, and not requiring any cutting/damage to the hull.  Also, the COH part (replacing now-obsolete components with brand-new ones) is less-often necessary, so every few/several years or so, depending on reactor/fuel-usage during completed ‘floats’, this carrier just gets refueled, not overhauled/updated.
  • Ship-generated gravity can only be “dialed up” to 1G, and down to 0; it cannot be set to repulsion (anti-gravity) mode (excepting via its external forcefield/s).
  • Gravity in TNH is ship-wide; it cannot be set to different levels in different sections/rooms.
  • If this reactor is challenged/drained enough, gravity throughout TNH will be reduced for a time, or even shut off entirely –until power is redirected/restored.
  • Traveling via warp takes far more energy than maneuvering via “impulse” (non-warp) energy.
    TNH can and does maneuver at/via “impulse” most of the time, only barely-challenging its reactor (to jump from world to world, or sub-system to sub-system; within 34 Tauri) after weeks to months in orbit of various worlds, letting their gravity keep it where its Admiral wants/needs it to be.
  • Changing course often means coming out of warp, then using “impulse” to point the ship in a different direction.
    Like terrestrial (aircraft) carriers and other giant ships (cargo ships, oil tankers, etc.), TNH needs a couple/few minutes to completely turn around; any faster than that and it would create centrifugal-based gravity increases those inside would feel, if not be tipped over because of.
  • Yes, like Starfleet vessels, it has inertial dampeners, but remember that Starfleet vessels were designed with top-of-the-line tech’ for their time, protecting their crew from the forces/shaking of regular/weekly “jumps to warp”,
    but TNH was designed for almost always just “parking in orbit”, “jumping” less often (only ~once a month), and almost never “jumping” on its own from one solar system to another, thus its form of inertial-dampener tech’ tends to only be activated before interplanetary and interstellar movements (“jumps”/”warps”).
    In short, when it is orbiting, moving at basically drift/idle speeds, inertia/momentum changes can be felt by people inside it, so it “takes its time” turning gradually.
    It’s a super/Space-carrier, after all; it has little reason to attempt faster/sudden turns, anyway.

 

–

–