FTL Tunneler

It's one of the largest ships ever built. Even makes the Odyssey seem small in comparison.

— Anonymous, 383

An FTL Tunneler, also called a jump ship or a jump carrier, is a large vessel whose primary purpose is to ferry people and materials from one planetary system to another using a Dawson-Sirenko-Mayer Singularity Generator. The earliest of such vessels is the UNS Ulysses, built in the Solar system millenia ago for the Odyssey Initiative. While the initial concept hasn't changed, modern technology has since enabled humanity to construct hundreds of tunnelers while greatly improving their jump efficiency and accuracy. Modern tunnelers are often able to perform many more missions than the ferrying tasks they were initially built for, and most are closer to mobile space stations than to ordinary vessels.

The name of tunnelers is derived from the nature of DSM drives, which open wormhole singularities, or tunnels as most would eventually refer to them by, to provide means of FTL travel. The earliest recorded usage of such term is in 171, when the first mass-produced interstellar vessels built after the UNS Ulysses were launched to explore the Elysian star cluster. These early vessels were often compared to the tunnelers of old who would pave the pay for civilization to follow. As time progressed, tunneler design changed significantly. Nowadays, most follow a towing principle, where the ship itself is composed of an FTL section on the bow and a carrier section at the stern. This carrier section would be used to dock a multitude of ships and modules that would then be towed by the FTL section through the DSM singularities. The main advantage of such design is the more efficient use of fuel, as only the tunneler has to use its engines to tow a large amount of cargo.

Type:

Technology

Discovered:

171 A.P.

Major Users:

Vestan Federation
Enodian Ascendancy
Elysian Security Organization
Unity Concord
Non-Aligned Nomad Fleets
Criminal Underworld

Civilian Tunnelers

Tunnelers are all built around one central component, their DSM drive. As a DSM drive's effectiveness increases with the amount of energy transferred to the colliding particles, tunnelers are built using two design paradigms. Tunnelers dedicated to bulk transportation, such as cargo carriers, are built using as many linear accelerators as they can fit. By using a multitude of accelerators instead of only a pair, the amount of energy used to create a tunnel increases proportionally, giving the created tunnel a longer range and better stability. Unfortunately, the extra room used and the added mass makes these tunnelers rather slow and less comfortable for their crew and passengers. On the other hand, tunnelers focused on passenger transport instead use larger accelerators and more powerful power plants, reaching the same range for a fraction of the weight and complexity. This does, however, significantly increase the manufacturing costs of such vessels. Another side effect of having more advanced power plants is the possibility to host a myriad of other modules to increase the comfort of its passengers, as well as having more powerful engines to reach their destinations faster.

While many different architectures have been developed for optimized use of tunnelers, only one has gained popularity. using what is sometimes referred to as the "tugboat" architecture, the vast majority of tunnelers carry their cargo in a separate section called a rig located at the rear the ship. This rig is often as large or even larger that the ship's frontal section, which houses the engines and power plants, and serves to attach ships and containers to the tunneler. The ship would then "tow" the rig through the DSM tunnels it creates for travel. This means that the DSM drive and the rig must be carefully designed to match their radius, as it would otherwise lead to collision issues when transiting.

Military Tunnelers

Military tunnelers act as mobile bases of operations and are more akin to moving fortresses and naval bases than actual vessels. They are protected from frontal attacks by a plasma shield network, a crude but effective way of destroying any threat. The shield network consists of an array of vents where plasma from the engines and main reactors is dumped in front of the ship. Magnetic fields would then redirect the dispersing plasma to cover the ship's frontal arc. This defensive measure has proven to be nigh-impossible to defeat with conventional means, but has also proven to be extremely difficult to adapt to smaller scales.

Behind their mighty shield lays a vast cluster of support modules and infrastructure such as repair shipyards and barracks to assist the fleet they are carrying. Because of this, military tunnelers are also some of the most heavily armed and armored vessels in existence. This also means that they are ludicrously expensive to build and maintain, with major nations such as the Vestan Federation only fielding a dozen such behemoths. Despite their size, military tunnelers can be surprisingly fast. When not towing their assigned fleet, their massive engines allow them to rapidly relocate to other areas of operation. While this does not allow them to outrun any conventional vessel, it still makes them a very powerful strategic tool.