Science Today

Gravity Manipulation:
The advance of technology has produced practical methods of gravity manipulation. Gravity manipulation expresses itself in four ways: as artificial gravity, as inertial dampers, as thrusters, and as tractor/pressor beams.

Artificial gravity is built into the deck plates of starships, rendering a natural environment most like that of a planet surface.

Inertial dampers eliminate the extremes of inertia which can pull and push people and equipment as it maneuvers. Although such dampers are imperfect, they do create a normal environment on starships, as well as allowing extreme physical movement on small craft during high-G maneuvers.

Thrusters move vehicles forward without the necessity of reaction mass (as required for rockets). Thrusters work like rockets, but without the requirements for large amounts of rocket fuel. Thrusters (as an aspect of gravity manipulation) are more effective close to masses than in deep interstellar space (that is to say, they push and pull against existing gravity fields in order to create thrust).

Tractor/Pressor Beams are the final aspect of gravity manipulation: they are modified miniature thrusters which use and maginfy the ship's own gravity field to pull (Tractor) or push (Pressor) items smaller than themselves.

Advanced Combat Rifle
A progressive development of the Assault Rifle, the advanced combat rifle (ACR) fires either a high explosive (HE) bullet at 900 meters per second or a discarding sabot (DS) at 1,200 meters per second. A magazine containing 40 rounds of DS and 10 rounds of HE is inserted into the underside of the weapon behind the pistol grip. The weapon may be fired either automatically or semiautomatically (as with the assault rifle).

What makes an ACR different from an Assault Rifle is that the ACR uses ElectroThermal-Chemical (ETC) charges to fire its caseless rounds. This makes the rifle require a battery, normally stored in the butt of the ACR. This battery ignites the charge in the caseless propellant and launches the round out of the barrel.

Standard equipment includes an electronic battlefield sight, which incorporates both light amplification and passive IR, visual magnification, and a laser rangefinder which may also be used as a target painting device. The weapon is also gyroscopically stabilized during firing. A sling is provided along with the weapon, and the muzzle of the rifle includes an integral flash suppressor and an adaptor for launching a RAM shoot-through grenade.

The ACR is the standard weapon for most military forces. The ACR909 is the standard model for all United Federation military and associated forces. It is also the #1 selling ACR to colonist forces. It uses a standard 7mm caseless ammunition, with the standard rounds being discarding sabot covering a 4.5mm tungsten/iridium core for optimum penetration.

Rocket Assisted Munitions
An advancement on the design of grenade launchers, the Rocket Assisted Munition (RAM) is an high explosive (HE) or High Explosive Armor Piercing (HEAP) round similar to a grenade. When loaded and then launched from either a stand-alone lanucher or attachment to a weapon, the RAM round launches and then once 3 meters from the barrel the rocket ignites and the explosives arm. The rocket gives this a range of over 150 meters.

Assault Sub-Machine Gun
The Assault Sub-Machine Gun (ASMG)is a derivative of the ACR, and is basicallly a carbine version. It carries 20 of either DS, HE or Frangible 7mm rounds. The main weapon used by boarding parties in ship-to-ship action, it uses the same ETC technology as the ACR, reducing recoil. During such boarding actions, only the frangible rounds are used, otherwise a hull breach may occur.

Auto Pistol
The auto pistol is the most commonly used automatic weapon. It fires bullets at 400 to 500 meters per second. The weapon is fitted with a magazine that can hold up to 15 rounds of ammunition. Using the same ETC technology of the ACR, the auto pistol is small, inexpensive and quite effective against opponents not protected by armor.

Laser Weapons
Laser weapons fire concentrated beams of energy at their targets and cause damage by their intense light and heat. All laser weapons require a power source either built into the weapon directly or carried in a separate pack. Pistols usually carry their own clips with several shots, while larger weapons like rifles require a pack to be worn on the back by the user, though they may be used continually for several minutes before a new pack is needed.

Most governments do not use laser weaponry smaller than squad based support weapons due to the limitations of size of the packs and the amount of energy required. Larger, vehicle- and spaceship-based weaponry is quite common, as these units have their own power sources to draw from.

Infantry Support Weaponry
The support weaponry, like personal weapons, have not evolved too much that they cannot be recognized by people a millennia ago. While the personal rocket launcher is gone, it has been replaced by the RAM Grenade Launcher, which houses clips of 3 RAM Grenades. Reloading is a snap, especially with a loader. Mortars are still around, though they use a variant of the RAM grenade to give them extreme range on their launchers. A new addition to the support weaponry category is the Light Assault Gun (LAG). These 20mm cannons can either be set up on the ground as turrets or carried by some of the stronger warriors of the day as a personal weapon. They carry 5 round clips of HEAP rounds, and are used mostly against vehicles and entrenched positions. In addition, Light Machine Guns (LMG) are still a favorite support weapon on the battlefield and use the same ETC system as the ACR.

Infantry Armor and Gear
The infantryman wears a uniform made of ballistic cloth, and carries a headset inside their helmet which can connect them to the rest of their squad or platoon, or higher ups for officers and NCOs. In addition to their uniforms, they wear the armor below in combat. They have multi-spectrum goggles attached to their helmets which allow them to see in infrared, ultraviolet, and the dark. These goggles can also give them a map of their current location and possible dangers.

Infantry-based body armor normally comes in two layers. The outer layer is known as Ablat, and it ablates (vaporizes) when hit with something at high speed, absorbing the energy of the impact while doing so. The inner layer is known as Inertial and is basicallly a liquid inside a ballistic fabric. When hit at high velocities, the liquid crystallizes and absorbs the impact. While this will sometimes leave the armor wearer stunned from the blow, it will nevertheless save his or her life.

Battle Dress
The ultimate in individual protection, Battle Dress is an advanced and powered version of combat armor. Battle dress enhances the strength and senses of individuals wearing it with variable feedback personal controls, servopowered limbs, and various kinds of electronic assistance. Battle dress is somewhat bulky, but is roughly man-sized. In addition to the enhanced strength, the suit usually has several pieces of equipment built in, including short range communicators, life support systems, and sensor enhancements.

Fusion Power

Due to the development of "warm" Fusion, ships now travel with a much smaller heat signature, as much of the heat is used in the reaction of the H3 particles. To start the Fusion reaction, a high-intensity laser beam heats up a section of the reactor, after which fuel is pumped in and immediately converted to plasma. Continued bombardment with the laser causes a fusion reaction within the reactor, which is then contained by magnetic and gravity fields. This is the tried and true system of energy production, and almost every settlement has at least a small fusion reactor helping run it.

Force Screens

Force screen technology is the latest defensive tech that most stellar nations have developed. The screen technology creates a shell around the vessel which "screens" out laser and plasma weapons while allowing communications through. The screen, while unable to block quick moving or large objects, does stop small debris and particles from reaching the ship. This allows a ship to be protected while moving at high velocity but still allows for the movement of parasite vessels between ships.

ECM and Chaff

Chaff is nothing new to combat, but nowadays its smart! The old chaff was more or less debris and flares. Now combined with basic AI and electronic countermeasures, the new "smart" chaff moves into the way to stop missiles and torpedoes or cause them to veer off course.

In addition to this, every ship has a small ECM suite which tries to disrupt missile and torpedo tracking.

Armor

The final line of defense in ship-to-ship combat is the ship's own armor. Usually made out of a set of ceramic plates with titanium alloy mesh inside them, this armor is not just set outside the ship's rooms. Instead, between the armor and the interior of the ship is a layer of braces and superstructure which allows for impacts against the armor to be cushioned so they do not cause too much disturbance against the interior of the ship.

Communications

Fast and reliable communication is the lifeblood of empires and stellar nations, the growth of free thought, the needs of the modern economy, and the deployment of military assets. As society has grown, it is increasingly reliant on communications technology to stay in touch. On a planetary scale, communication has been cheap and near instantaneous, as an armada of satellites orbits all developed worlds, dedicated to preserving connectivity for the citizens below.

For communicating across a star system, the limits of the light speed limit make radio and laser communications cumbersome and slow at best. To beat this, we must look towards massless particles, namely the graviton. Instead of propagating at the speed of light, these particles move several times this speed, making communications near a star near instantaneous. The new technology, called a Mass Transceiver, changed the nature of the average system, which could suddenly be administered from a single point. Today most ships and planets use this handy technology.

However, the Mass Transceiver has a single limitation that renders it unstable beyond a certain distance. Because it uses the local star's gravity as a carrier frequency, it is limited to withing the star's gravity well. Anything beyond the comet belt of a system is out of reach for this otherwise wonderous technology. For larger stars this can still be out to 1000 AU, while for smaller ones it may be as little as 10 AU.

Void Space communication relays predate the existence of the Mass Transceiver by a century. From the first contact with Void Spacce, humanity has tried to communicate through it, with varying degrees of success. What would become GNN made the first widely known successful attempt. Scientists quickly found you could not send messages between two gates, as the message would get hopelessly scrambled. So GNN had the idea to send the message from one system through the first gate to a satellite inside Void Space, and then from that satellite to another inside Void Space, and then out the second gate to the awaiting system. These "VoidSats" are the quickest path of information and allow such speed that it makes interstellar nations and commerce possible. Using this system is not instant, but is faster than sending a ship through with the message.

Grid Space
Grid Space is the internet of old, but on a system-wide scale. The invention of the Mass Transceiver allowed such speedy and data-filled messages to be sent that quickly a visual version appeared, and soon after near virtual environs were created.

Beyond the System Grid is the Interstellar Grid. While slower and lower in bandwidth than the System Grid, the Interstellar one allows for systems to communicate relatively quickly and allows for the organizing of information, commerce and government on a grand scale.