Velok the Younger
When I Was A Young Warthog
"Oops."
Image Source: Here
Intent: An experimental reactor utilizing canon technology. Also, perfect tech can get boring.
Development Thread: Here (22 posts, with opposition comprising 3 PC's and an event ship). If a production version is created, it will involve a sizeable development thread and a new submission, including new limitations and reduced advantages, etc., etc.
Manufacturer: Akure Executive Interstellar/Iron Crown Enterprises
Model: Damocles ZPM-E
Affiliation: Lords of the Fringe, Tion Hegemony
Modularity: No
Production: Limited
Material: Electronics, hypermatter, the absolute quantum vacuum of really tiny things
Description: The ZPM-E is an experimental zero-point/hypermatter power generator derived from the research involved in the retrofitting of the ISD Battle Lance over eight centuries ago. The Lords of the Fringe secured relevant files and half-completed prototypes from the captured station at Styx, once the Sith Empire's premiere starship development facility.
The ZPM-E is scaled for use in large space stations, ships of the line, essential facilities or experimental high-energy applications. Only a handful of prototypes were ever created; fewer exist now, for reasons that would be clear to those familiar with the history of the Battle Lance.
(+) The capital-scale ZPM-E produces more power than a capital-scale hypermatter reactor, an antimatter reactor, a solar ionization reactor, or most exotic reactors.
(+) The ZPM-E requires far less fuel than a pure hypermatter reactor of comparable output. Ceteris paribus, and in a perfect world, it would be far cheaper to operate than a hypermatter reactor, an antimatter reactor, a solar ionization reactor, or an exotic reactor.
(+) As a result, and in keeping with the perpetual-output nature of zero-point technology, the ZPM-E can run for a long, long time, theoretically forever at reduced output.*
(-) ...unless it explodes, utterly wrecking its cost-effectiveness ratios. The Battle Lance incident has been repeated in modern times, though the only ships lost thus far have been Ssi-Ruuvi surplus cruisers. A ZPM-E has an unknown chance of instantly vaporizing its starship, station, or installation, potentially regardless of size. This effect cannot be predicted, prompted, controlled, instigated, forestalled or mitigated; it can barely be measured. ZPM-E modules have operated reliably in the long-term, even when exposed to various technological and Force-based effects designed to trigger the explosion; concontrated weapons fire has slagged them without incident. Other ZPM-E modules have detonated at the worst possible moment, even when shut down and otherwise neutralized.
In short, the Damocles ZPM-E is the ultimate Hail Mary, installed when nothing else will do and the risks of not using it far outweigh the potential reduction of one's flotilla to constituent atoms. Each module is stored thousands of kilometres from anything important. Iron Crown, in effect, has created bombs that will go off...in five minutes, or five billion years. The ZPM-E project is widely considered a colossal mistake by those in the know, and ZPM-E modules generally are not used for anything at all. The reactor's flaws are even more top-secret than the reactor itself.
* 'Forever' is a layman's approximation. Fundamental constants of physics would have to change by a non-negligible amount in order to render the zero-point energy module non-viable, a process estimated to take hundreds of billions of years or however long it takes Ket Van-Derveld to blink.
Primary Source: None
