Gravity Drive

From TFC Galactopedia

Gravity Field Coil

New modern theories about gravity space drives are few and far between, as most concepts about the nature of gravity and gravitons was long ago decided and settled in the larger scientific communities of both the Federation and the Empire. Radical hypotheses that challenge the status quo, when they do arise, are largely dismissed out of hand as many consider gravity mechanics to be fully understood. The few proponents who insist otherwise are often derided as simple dreamers unable to face what most other scientists claim to be undisputable fact.

Both Imperial and Federation sources alike have managed to develop gravity technology to a rather crude extent, allowing for the creation of gravity lifts, tractor beams, and repulsor technology, but attempts at creating a gravity space drive useful for interplanetary or even interstellar travel have proven to be futile and impractical. The Yuufusion Imperium, however, is a story quite different. Amazon scientists, in their series of studies which eventually lead to the discipline of ASFLUX physics, learned early on how to solve many of the feasibility and practicality problems involved in making an efficient sublight gravity drive.

Yuufusion starships, both military and civilian, rely on gravity propulsion drives to cross interplanetary distances. Coupled with hyperdrive, Amazon starships are able to successfully traverse interstellar and interplanetary distances and project influences far beyond their established borders for purposes of trade, exploration, diplomacy, or military action. The gravity drive provides comparable accelerations and maneuverability to most ion drives, but require no solid matter exhaust to operate, and are less prone to overheating, burnout, or wearing.

A supermass gravity drive unit

The concepts behind gravity propulsion are more complicated than those which support ion propulsion, but are still relatively simple compared with other technologies which make interstellar and intergalactic community possible. Since all gravity drives were derived from the same discipline of studies spearheaded for ASFLUX physics under the Yuufusion Imperium, they all share a similar proprietary design.

When the gravity engine is activated, gaseous hydrogen is pumped through a magnetic suction turbine (1) and passed into a coolant chamber (2). The chamber reduces the temperature of the hydrogen to 24.26 degrees Kelvin, liquefying it. Temperature is carefully regulated by a series of sensors (3), which ensure hydrogen is cooled uniformly before being shunted into the injection shaft (4). From here, finite amounts of the liquefied hydrogen are pumped into one of a series of of layered rotational centrifuges (5). The number of layers depends on the mass of the vessel or the desired power of the engine. The centrifuges use magnetic accelerators to rotate the compressed liquid around a central turbine at relativistic speeds. This causes a series of bipolar gravitational fields to form, each of which compliments and reinforces the previous field, creating an immense forward force which propels the vessel through space. To insure that the compound gravitational field is not interfered with by other gravity fields, either natural or artificial, a sensor node is placed at the apex of the engine assembly which collects and feeds information concerning the specific gravity conditions prevalent at any given time to a computer controller (7).

Ensuring that a gravity field generator does not become compromised during flight is of paramount importance to Yuufusion flight engineers. Unchecked changes in a compound gravity field can send a vessel spinning wildly of course, or in a worst-case scenario even cause the unit to implode.

Properly maintained and balanced gravity engines, however, will often perform on par with most ion drives, but require much less energy to operate and less space to install. And since the engines require no exhaust port, they can be placed deep inside of a vessel, protected by layers of armor and shielding, with no visible outward sign of their existence. Gravity drives also lack the telltale ionic interferences that accompany the use of ion drives or impulse drives, which can either confuse ship sensors (creating blind spots in certain conditions) or leave an undesired ion trail for a clever enemy to follow. Minute gravity wave disturbances, instead, are the signs of gravdrive use, but more often than not, enemy vessels are not equipped to analyze and track such subtle clues.

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