Quote:Quantum generators might actually make dandy heat sinks, if you just let the physics work so that they can be run in reverse... it'd provide a justification for concealing the ships' infrared signatures, particularly. Anyway, I had been thinking that the scout boats' engines were terran-built, since a mostly-uncontrolled reentry would have melted the original ones and I doubt that there are many Zentradi ships left with any spare parts at all.
Heat management ... this is a big 'un, it is. It all depends on the amount of hard physics we're going with. Are those RCS packs earth-built units reclaimed when they were deemed no longer necessary for the SDF? Or are they overtechnology units salvaged from a wrecked Zentraedi scout, or the SDF's own spare-parts stores?
The stupid thing that IE has done now is wipe out this whole post I was typing up with details on the Zentradi war machine. Recreating it in a style that's not as cool but a bit more comfortable to write...
The EDTO has assigned codenames for each of the designs it's encountered in combat. The standard cruiser design is called a Birdie, because, well, it looks a bit like a giant shuttlecock, the heavier battlecruisers are Beluga(s), and the huge command ship is a Baleen.
The female use line suit (properly called the Nous-Jadel-Rau) looks like it could have come straight out of Sylia Stingray's workshop. It runs off of lightweight batteries - but not for very long, - has quite limited reserves of reaction mass, and has about enough armor to qualify as splinter protection. Rather than a conventional RCS, it vectors the thrust of its single main engine through a set of four hollow vanes, the arrangement of which is responsible for its codename of 'Butterfly'.
Incidentally, the Zentradi have extremely standardized equipment types - the main engines of their suits are the same installation used as RCS thrusters on their capital ships.
Its male equivalent (the Nous-Jadel-Ger) has greater endurance and armor - nearly as much so as lighter terran designs - but the same main drive and nowhere near the agility. Its physical appearance is based mostly off of the cover art of an Anne McCaffrey omnibus called the Planet Pirates, although the design of its 'helmet' is more in line with that shown on her novel Sassinak (which is the second of the three books included in the omnibus). EDTO designation is Beetle.
The male commander-type machine (Quea-Dlunn-Ger) has an actual power plant, two of the heavy 'bazooka' type beam cannons mounted over its shoulders, two main engines, fairly good endurance and quite adequate armor. It also bears a suspicious resemblence to a sleeked-down version of an ADP K-11. The EDTO calls it the Buzzer because its target lock radar happens to have a default frequency setting the same as Terra Skywatch was using for fighter-base communications at the start of the war - meaning that, whenever a suit accquired a lock, the targeted pilot was treated to a loud, raucous snarl from his comm system.
The last type (Quea-Dlunn-Rau) also resembles another suit from anime, the Struggle Suit featured in the later Gall Force films, but its flight systems are so striking that few people would likely notice. It has a pistol-sized beam gun built into either side of its chestplate, but is otherwise unarmed. For flight purposes, it only has about fifty percent more reaction mass than the Buzzer, but fully three times the thrust. Its six engines are mounted on articulated assemblies on the suit's back, and each motor divides its output through six seperately articulated maneuver vanes. For an idea of the system's overall impression, refer to Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. Officially, it was designated the Budgie, but during the war it was almost universally referred to as the Harpy type.
Ja, -n
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."