John Locke
V U L K A N
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To submit a new piece of technology created by Locke and Key Mechanics to be used in later subs
- Image Source: DeviantArt
- Canon Link: N/a
- Primary Source: Repulsorlift, Gravity Well Projector
- Manufacturer: Locke and Key Mechanics
- Affiliation: Closed-Market (Any character can use this if they have explicit permission through, for example, a marketplace purchase)
- Model: Talaria System
- Modularity: No
Production: Mass-Produced. (Anyone.) Characters refer to NPCs & PCs.
- Material: Electronics, Repulsortech
- Can negate the effect of gravity wells in a surrounding area.
- Can negate the effect of natural and artificial gravity wells within an area, allowing ships to jump to hyperspace where they couldn't before.
- Can also prevent ships from being pulled out of hyperspace by gravity well projectors.
- Can't neutralise stronger fields, becoming less effective the farther into a star system you get.
Gravitational and antigravitational technology have been a part of the galaxy for millenia, all the way back to the Old Republic and before. The use of artificial gravity, and of repulsors is integral to almost every ship that exists, allowing them to manoeuvre through planetary atmospheres. Gravity is one of the fundamental forces of the galaxy and the technology to manipulate it is a key one that shapes the galaxy as we know it.
Gravitational technology has been heavily weaponised, and why wouldn’t it be? The ability of a weapon to affect even an opponents molecules, exerting incredible forces to tear them apart is something that any military combatant would want. Weapons like the Gravity Bomb, the Hyperspace Pulsemass Generator and the Goddess Missile are but a few of the more memorable uses of weaponised gravity in the history of the galaxy. It is, though, the non-weaponised use of gravitational technology that is the most ubiquitous, the one that everybody knows. The Gravity Well Projector and it’s Interdiction field.
The use of interdictors is widespread, primarily used to hold a ship from escaping from battle, or to prematurely pull a ship out of hyperspace into your waiting arms. Almost every major fleeting engagement on Chaos makes use of interdictors, pockets of gravity disrupting the hyperspace map, targeted microjumps, preventing escape, revealing stealth, the uses are endless and have been and will continue to be.
Antigrav technology though has lagged behind in its military applications, while we see many uses of microrepulsors in armour, weaponry and cybernetics providing increased movement or damage. However, the applications are rarely taken beyond that point to match the versatility of other gravitational technologies.
According to wookiepedia repulsors “a craft to hover or even fly over a planet's surface by pushing against its gravity” (x). It’s in the name, where gravity is an attractive force, a repulsorlift provides the opposite, a repulsive force. And it is that repulsive force that is the key to this technology.
(source)
The above image is an excerpt taken from Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Incredible Cross Sections and is evidence that repulsors push at gravity, thereby disabling its effect.
While the above is a good start, to make the next step we need to look at the interdiction field, and how it impacts ships in hyperspace. The wookiepedia article states “An interdiction field was an artificial gravity well that disabled hyperspace capability in most starships. It was used to prevent ships from entering hyperspace as well as draw ships out of hyperspace and into realspace. It was able to do this by triggering a hyperdrive's automatic failsafe that triggered when a gravity well was in the path of the ship.” (source)
A gravity well is the effect that all mass has on spacetime, warping it around them, the larger the gravitational source, the greater the warping effect as in the picture below.
(source)
So, a gravity well projector affects space time, warping it to trigger the failsafe on the hyperdrive and prevent ships from using it. However, as previously discussed, a repulsor can push at the force of gravity, effectively negating it. Normally this is a focused field, dedicated to lifting a target and providing them with motion on a planet. The Talaria System however is more akin to the Gravity Well Projector, capable of generating a larger unfocused field that pushes against space-time itself, negating the warping effect which gravity has on it.
That isn’t to say that it is capable of wiping out all the effects of gravity, as with any other situation where two forces collide the stronger force prevails, although weakened. So, the closer to a major gravitational force the ship carrying the Talaria System gets, the less effective it is, past a certain point it the system will no longer be effective. But while it is effective it will allow ships to jump into hyperspace deeper into a system than they would have otherwise been able to.
The other ability of the Talaria system is its ability to counter an interdictor’s gravity well projectors. Where one system warps space-time to prevent ships from jumping, the other counters the warping, allowing ships to jump to hyperspace again.
(OOC: I understand that the system described is powerful, however, it is only powerful within certain criteria, that of its effect on Interdictor fields. Other than that, it would just allow you to jump deeper into a star system, making it fluff for something many writers do anyway. My suggestion is the Talaria System be treated like a Grav Well Projector/ HIMS/Crystal Grav Trap as an extremely advanced piece of technology and as such, if too many are used a drop in the ratings of a ship using it should be used to balance it.)
