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Description
For NationStates; Modeled in DoGa with custom parts and textures. Background from SpaceEngine.

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Pathfinder: A person who goes ahead and discovers or shows others a path or way.

The Nebulous-Class is exactly that; A starship platform that deploys and combines multiple new and upgraded technologies in order to further develop both their use and the future state-of-the-art. Some few of these are so cutting edge as to be facing their first deployment, both untried and largely untested. Normally putting such technologies and systems into field deployment would take many iterations of laboratory, development, and limited field testing but two technologies - one included, one industrial - have made such a 'risky' platform possible for the otherwise risk-adverse Fleet Command. The first is the enormous output offered by the VLEMA located around the core stars of the Republic and their ability to produce a ship such as this in less than half a minute, making both losses and adjustments trivial. Equally important is the widespread adoption of the Eien Node among SDF service members making personnel losses as well as the associated training and integration times a near-non-issue. This risk is also minimized to begin with; Adopting the BUSF model the Nebulous-Class has a crew total of twenty-four with the common seaman replaced by a REDSHIRT.

Built along traditional Saucer & Nacelle lines, the Nebulous-Class has a mildly elongated saucer section that splits along the top to a central rise which is then capped with the banner of the Republic. As usual, this top-most rise is the crew gathering and recreation area with the actual command bridge buried several decks below in its armored bastion. This is in turn surrounded by spacious quarters for the command crew and an Eien Replication Suite; The rest of the ship is a narrow and twisting maze of service and maintenance tubes occupied only by Gen-2 & Gen-3 REDSHIRTS. Escape pods are provided in the case of a crew member who does not have (or cannot have) an Eien Node or the occasional visitor. One might note that there are many more escape pods than there are crew; This is both for quick access and so that, in such a situation, REDSHIRT units can accompany them. A large open shuttle bay is located aft of the crew areas while bays for the ship's own shuttles and fighter complement are built into armored enclosures on the underside of the saucer. WALNUT HNVPPC emplacements are arranged in a half-ring just below the upper and lower surface of the saucer in the two primary offensive batteries while secondary point-defense batteries are fit in here and there across the rest of the ship for universal coverage.

Mounted closely to the aft ventral saucer is the ship's secondary hull or engineering hull, as it is sometimes referred to. At this junction is another of the ship's new features; A smaller secondary sensor array with the useful acronym of HMDA. This is the Holographic Manipulation Detection Array, which is - as suggested - able to pick up and attempt to analyze local manipulations of the holographic boundary. For a full explanation one would need to get very meta but the simple explanation is that the universe seems to be written on paper and that the HMDA is capable of finding different versions of the same book. Below that is the primary VSSA - Variable Synthetic Sensor Array - which can be fine-tuned in any number of ways but cannot be used as an anti-proton cannon, no matter what the Science Officer suggests. The secondary hull does however mount the forward torpedo launchers, which are a new Hybrid Open Cyclone design that integrates TYCS open-bore linegun and Republic Cyclone magazines into a single very high volume launcher assembly. There are secondary dorsal, ventral, aft, and lateral launchers but these do not have the same potential volume of fire.

Linked to the secondary hull by sweeping reinforced oversize pylons are the Nebulous-Class' two drive nacelles. Containing both the Prinze-Iwamoto Space-Warp Drives and the primary waste heat exchanges, they also house the last of the ship's experimental systems: A pair of i'Halalaentariel-Pattern Quantum FrameShift Spindles. These highly experimental faster-than-light drives are both similar to the Space-Warp Drive in that they move the ship through real space at faster-than-light speeds but distinctly different in that they are exponentially faster and project a shield of sorts around the ship. However - and that's a big bold However - they are highly experimental with the testbed NX143 sustaining platform wide damage just in their basic use. As of now Captains are discouraged from using them; They are in place to receive future upgrades as refinements are made. All of these systems are fed power from black-box CIDES power plants build into the pylons and fueled by a big ol' tank of mercury in the engineering hull.

Where are the downsides, one might ask? There really aren't very many; The Republic is edging up to a post-Singularity/post-Scarcity status at a cautious rate but many judge it to be right on the very cusp. As astounding as the various components of the Nebulous-Class might be, they are ultimately a single molecule in the bucket of Republic industrial capacity. The downsides are that many of the systems are unstable or highly unstable and impossible for even the highly skilled crew to repair in the field. In fact these starships are now so complex that the recommended repair path is a return to Republic space and the recycling/re-conversion of the entire ship. Field repairs of the mono-hull and PTU-557 armor shell may render the whole weaker than they were even with battle damage and several systems - the Eien Replication Suite in particular - have components that are not located in this iteration of the universe. Like it or not this is the most likely future direction of Republic starships and the meaty side of their crew; Highly advanced but ultimately disposable.

Description
For NationStates; Modeled in DoGa with custom parts and textures. Background from SpaceEngine.

----

Pathfinder: A person who goes ahead and discovers or shows others a path or way.

The Nebulous-Class is exactly that; A starship platform that deploys and combines multiple new and upgraded technologies in order to further develop both their use and the future state-of-the-art. Some few of these are so cutting edge as to be facing their first deployment, both untried and largely untested. Normally putting such technologies and systems into field deployment would take many iterations of laboratory, development, and limited field testing but two technologies - one included, one industrial - have made such a 'risky' platform possible for the otherwise risk-adverse Fleet Command. The first is the enormous output offered by the VLEMA located around the core stars of the Republic and their ability to produce a ship such as this in less than half a minute, making both losses and adjustments trivial. Equally important is the widespread adoption of the Eien Node among SDF service members making personnel losses as well as the associated training and integration times a near-non-issue. This risk is also minimized to begin with; Adopting the BUSF model the Nebulous-Class has a crew total of twenty-four with the common seaman replaced by a REDSHIRT.

Built along traditional Saucer & Nacelle lines, the Nebulous-Class has a mildly elongated saucer section that splits along the top to a central rise which is then capped with the banner of the Republic. As usual, this top-most rise is the crew gathering and recreation area with the actual command bridge buried several decks below in its armored bastion. This is in turn surrounded by spacious quarters for the command crew and an Eien Replication Suite; The rest of the ship is a narrow and twisting maze of service and maintenance tubes occupied only by Gen-2 & Gen-3 REDSHIRTS. Escape pods are provided in the case of a crew member who does not have (or cannot have) an Eien Node or the occasional visitor. One might note that there are many more escape pods than there are crew; This is both for quick access and so that, in such a situation, REDSHIRT units can accompany them. A large open shuttle bay is located aft of the crew areas while bays for the ship's own shuttles and fighter complement are built into armored enclosures on the underside of the saucer. WALNUT HNVPPC emplacements are arranged in a half-ring just below the upper and lower surface of the saucer in the two primary offensive batteries while secondary point-defense batteries are fit in here and there across the rest of the ship for universal coverage.

Mounted closely to the aft ventral saucer is the ship's secondary hull or engineering hull, as it is sometimes referred to. At this junction is another of the ship's new features; A smaller secondary sensor array with the useful acronym of HMDA. This is the Holographic Manipulation Detection Array, which is - as suggested - able to pick up and attempt to analyze local manipulations of the holographic boundary. For a full explanation one would need to get very meta but the simple explanation is that the universe seems to be written on paper and that the HMDA is capable of finding different versions of the same book. Below that is the primary VSSA - Variable Synthetic Sensor Array - which can be fine-tuned in any number of ways but cannot be used as an anti-proton cannon, no matter what the Science Officer suggests. The secondary hull does however mount the forward torpedo launchers, which are a new Hybrid Open Cyclone design that integrates TYCS open-bore linegun and Republic Cyclone magazines into a single very high volume launcher assembly. There are secondary dorsal, ventral, aft, and lateral launchers but these do not have the same potential volume of fire.

Linked to the secondary hull by sweeping reinforced oversize pylons are the Nebulous-Class' two drive nacelles. Containing both the Prinze-Iwamoto Space-Warp Drives and the primary waste heat exchanges, they also house the last of the ship's experimental systems: A pair of i'Halalaentariel-Pattern Quantum FrameShift Spindles. These highly experimental faster-than-light drives are both similar to the Space-Warp Drive in that they move the ship through real space at faster-than-light speeds but distinctly different in that they are exponentially faster and project a shield of sorts around the ship. However - and that's a big bold However - they are highly experimental with the testbed NX143 sustaining platform wide damage just in their basic use. As of now Captains are discouraged from using them; They are in place to receive future upgrades as refinements are made. All of these systems are fed power from black-box CIDES power plants build into the pylons and fueled by a big ol' tank of mercury in the engineering hull.

Where are the downsides, one might ask? There really aren't very many; The Republic is edging up to a post-Singularity/post-Scarcity status at a cautious rate but many judge it to be right on the very cusp. As astounding as the various components of the Nebulous-Class might be, they are ultimately a single molecule in the bucket of Republic industrial capacity. The downsides are that many of the systems are unstable or highly unstable and impossible for even the highly skilled crew to repair in the field. In fact these starships are now so complex that the recommended repair path is a return to Republic space and the recycling/re-conversion of the entire ship. Field repairs of the mono-hull and PTU-557 armor shell may render the whole weaker than they were even with battle damage and several systems - the Eien Replication Suite in particular - have components that are not located in this iteration of the universe. Like it or not this is the most likely future direction of Republic starships and the meaty side of their crew; Highly advanced but ultimately disposable.