G.S.S. Antikythera

G.S.S. Antikythera, was a Metal Prototype, Multi-technology Test Bed built late in the Kamian Succession Wars. It never made it past proofing and was not officially commissioned. However, many of the technologies pioneered would later see use in the Nelson Revision.

Basic Design

Antikythera is laid out and has typical dimensions for a destroyer, but a lower than average beam. She is however packed with considerably more equipment and technology, and boasts a much smaller crew. While a typical destroyer might have a crew of 2-400, Antikythera was initially designed to run with just twelve officers and a cook(less crew than a typical Fast-Attack Ship), and optionally a six-man Verbose Team(Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure Team). Most of the ships systems were designed to be no-maintenance or self-cleaning, reducing the over-all numbers signficantly. As the prototype was expected to experience technical problems, it was fitted out with compartments for 36 additional technicians.

Powerplant

Antikythera's most unique aspect was it's Higgs-Nathan Reactor-based powerplant. Instead of using a nuclear reactor to produce electricity which then powered various systems(many of which created plasma), Antikythera had a matter/antimatter reactor producing large volumes of high-energy plasma. This could then be channeled into systems directly or used to produce electricity. Some systems were power via plasma induction, others used the plasma directly to do work. In a way, the Antikythera was like an old-fashioned steam warships, where steam from the powerplant was used to turn the propellers, for heating, and on aircraft carriers to power catapults.

Engines

N-Space Drive

Antikythera used Very High Performance plasma-ducted Ion vacuum drives which incorporated the then-new component of salting the dry-plasma with materials from the Higgs-Nathan Reactor. This innovation, originally concieved to allow emergency venting of the reactor, would not become standard on most ships until well after the war had ended.

FTL

Antikythera made use of a newly-designed type of warp coil which was powdered via plasma-induction directly from the engineering plant. This was a valuable improvement as it reduced over-all power requirements and reduced the need for super-conductors(one of the chief design goals of exploring Higgs-Nathan technology).

Armament

The designers began with a basic weapon's suite suite: 40 offensive missile launchers, 20 defensive, six torpedo tubes, and a small energy weapon placed in a turret. The turret carried a Fusion Rifle, but the final design was probably intended to use a standard Hybrid Cannon.

This was all a fairly standard compliment for a destroyer. But the goal of the Antikythera was to replace crew spaces with additional weapons. Four dual-type Gallet Gun/Charged Particle Cannons fixed and mounted along the central line of the hull. These were a newly designed fast-firing variant that was more like a Pulse Cannon than a traditional battleship gun. The cannons were actually try-typed, as they also had the ability to siphon and compress plasma from the engineering plant.

Antikythera was further fitted with railguns based on a newly-invented plasma-induction technology. Plasma-inducers let considerably more energy be delivered at less cost, giving the heavy rail-slugs considerable stopping power. Railguns were not then standard issue at the time, but were often fitted to experimental ships.

The most unique weapon aboard was the Ballerina Missile, built specially for the Antikythera and based on the defunct Scion-Sending principle from earlier in the war. The shortfall of the SSM was the requirement of a large, complex, dedicated launch system that was difficult to keep operational on smaller ships. Larger vessels did not need such a weapon, so it fell into obscurity and was eventually phased out all together. The Ballerina took the warhead from the SSM and fitted it to a sophisticated propulsion system, negating the need for a ship-board launcher. Called "the alphabet" the engine used antimatter catalyzed, a linear-drive ion-vacuum system, and injected mercury into the matter stream to provide the highest propulsion. A similar concept was later used on the Star Hammer.

At the time, fission-fragment engines used by most missiles provided good delta-V but low-initial acceleration. This was good for the ship launching them, but bad for the missiles. While a standard missile could reach 80-PSL, it was easy to shoot down. Standard doctrine at the time was to fire a barrage of missiles and hopefully overwhelm any defense(this was best exemplified in the Bedlam system, which could fire as many as 6,000 missiles per minute).

The Ballerina instead made use of a two-stage launch system. Initially boosted by a standard fission-fragment engine, these were re-engineered to deliver a much higher initial burst of acceleration(thus consuming their fuel faster), at which time the specialized ion-vacuum engine took over. By using anti-matter catalyzation and adding signficant mass in the form of murcury, the over-all performance of the engine was able to boost the warhead past 80PSL, and had an over-all rating of 90PSL+. Too fast to be targeted by any existing anti-missile system and indeed too fast to detect by most sensor grids. The warhead could cut through typical shields, and for good measure the missiles were equipped with a shield-frequency modulator.

Ballerinas were much larger

AMCLPPDMBSS Missile

Anti-Matter Catalyzed, Linear-Propulsion, Mercury-Injection Scion-Sending Missile