Hey everyone!
So it’s time again for another art and lore dump! :D
I’m currently working with 3 artists right now on 3 different art projects and this is just one of those so I’m just FROTHING at the mouth to get these pieces out!!!!!
First off, because this is a HUGE post, I wanted to first credit and give my utmost and sincere thank you to the artist behind this amazing work! Thank you so much to Sir_Lazz on bluesky for this!! :D
Fair warning, this gets quite rambly, I really really tried to make this a tl;dr (as evidenced by the numbered topic system) but it ended up in one of my usual rambles anyways so I’m afraid you guys are going to have to put up with another one of my long winded posts ;(
Well, without further a do, let’s get right into it ahhhhhhh:
1. The GUN has come a long way since the beginnings of space travel a millennium ago, with a myriad of ship designs that differ depending on their role. Despite that, every single ship ever designed still has to follow certain conventions set about by the physical limitations entrenched in the universe!
These rules (for FTL capable ships, and STL ships in general) are as follows:
A. Warp travel is made possible by the formation of warp ‘bubbles’, which must be maintained during the entirety of a ship’s FTL journey. These are generated, maintained, and controlled by ‘warp rings’ utilizing highly complex and energy-intensive gravitic control systems. Warp rings must be situated near the absolute furthest ends of the ship, so as to generate a bubble large enough to encompass a whole vessel. However, as seen in the Endeavor and Astrid, there can be some wiggle room for error which allows warp rings to be situated a bit closer to a ship’s center.
B. When in warp, collisions and impacts with objects and debris is still possible, thus necessitating a forward impact shield to protect the rest of the ship.
C. Artificial gravity as we may traditionally recognize it is currently not a thing in the setting due to (as discussed in earlier chapters) the highly energy intensive nature of gravity manipulation, and the diminishing returns seen in all available modern methodologies. As a result, gravity manipulation systems are usually only used for things that explicitly need it, like warp bubbles and specialized lab or industrial equipment where the fine-tuning of specific gravity environments are required for their operation. This results in spin gravity being one of the few means of reliably generating gravity, with anything from ships to stations and entire cities relying on this method of gravity generation.
D. Heat still needs to go somewhere, so — as seen in the Orchid of Neptune back in Chapter 158 — the name of the game is radiators, Radiators, and MORE RADIATORS! :D
This is rather broad strokes, but these rules govern the fundamentals of ship design, and force designers to work with and under said rules! :D
2. The ships you see in this artwork are exploratory variants of 2 classes of warships: a cruiser, and a heavy cruiser. I will touch upon the entire ship classification system down below after this tl;dr!
3. The GUN’s primary space-offensive weapon systems can be summed up into 4 distinct categories:
A. Kinetics (magnetically accelerated, chem-rails, and chemical propellants; the latter two being near to obsolete),
B. Direct-Energy Weapons (i.e. ‘Lasers’),
C. Plasma (in the form of torpedoes and lances),
D. Nuclear (Casaba howitzers, conventional, etc).
4. Kinetics and DEWs are the namestays, Plasma weaponry is often more finicky and specialized (with plasma-based offensive systems requiring an active electromagnetic field to maintain its form lest it just fizzles out; hence the need for a self-contained ‘topredo’ with an EMF generator, or a ‘lance’ where the ship itself generates the EMF to deliver plasma straight to a target), while Nuclear is ironically much more commonplace and reliable than even plasma.
5. Missiles are a given, but because of the various types of warheads available, I consider it more of a warhead delivery platform rather than a distinct weapon ‘system’. Though they are quite prominent, as seen by the various silos and launch systems peppered on both ships.
6. Let’s talk about the ships themselves then. The Endeavor is a purpose-built exploratory variant of a typical Grace-class cruiser, known as the Ryland Class. It's often used as a generalist (see the full ship classification breakdown for more info) as is the case with its mainstream variant. It possesses no spinal cannon, relying solely on its nearly 100 meter long railguns, various DEW Laser Focusing Arrays, plasma lances, as well as a healthy complement of missiles as its primary offensive systems instead.
7. The Astrid is an exploratory variant of a tried and tested Ramayana class Heavy Cruiser, known as the Hanuman Class. These Heavy Cruisers are often the primary backbone of the LREF, utilized heavily in both the LREF’s Expeditionary and Response Element, as well as the Scouting and Reconnaissance Element. This is primarily due to its generally robust, tried and tested, heavily reliable and somewhat overpowered power plants, coupled with a cooling system that’s quite overkill by many standards (it literally has 8 stacked radiator fins which are capable of extending further than the warp ring boundary, though they’re retracted DURING warp). So while lacking in the stealth department (the thing GLOWS in thermals), it has more than enough baseline power to spare. This results in a very capable spinal cannon that runs its entire length, more than triple the amount of DEW Laser Focusing Arrays and Railgun Batteries as its Ryland Class partner, and of course, an egregiously large sensor suite. This sensor suite — the Articulated Variable Position Sensor Array, or AVPSA — clocking in at just over 100 meters in diameter, is capable of anything from deep space scans, tracking, and even close-in planetary scans from orbit whose resolution and detail would give even a dedicated scouting ship a run for its money. In short, Hanuman Class punches above its weight class, is massively useful as a platform for both martial and exploratory endeavors, whose only real deficit is found in its maneuverability, passive defense systems (armor), as well as its stealth systems. Though speaking of passive armor… you’d be hard pressed to get close to this thing with drones, fighters, or even missiles with just how many CIWS and point-defense laser arrays this thing possesses.
Alright this is about where I realized that my tl;dr is now as long as my usual posts so I think I’m just going to continue like this now sorry guys ;(
8. The Hab-Ring configuration is something quite synonymous with ships larger than 1000 meters in size. Below this, and you’d find ships that you’d be more used to seeing in hard sci-fi, with ‘rings-on-stick’ configurations, or no rings visible at all. However, this Ring-in-Structure configuration, or ‘Self-Contained Structurally-Integrated Centrifugal-Habitation Design Configuration (SCSICH)’, is only made practical at ships of this size due to considerations made for the rate of rotation of rings at these sizes (thresholds for human tolerance at certain spin rates), the ability for the ring to be integrated into the ship at all without it turning into just a mobile mini-station and thus coming at the cost of its actual practicality in combat, amongst other things. So yeah! That’s the story behind this ring configuration. Though the added bonus of this is that the ring is more ‘tucked away’ and generally ‘safer’ than the “rings on spokes” configuration seen in most massive civilian liner ships, as well as being significantly more armored… again, it’s a military ship, so a lot of the design philosophies here are made with potential military engagements in mind rather than comfort and efficiency.
9. Oh! It’s a dual ring configuration too I forgot to mention (you can see this in the little engineering diagram between the two ships!). The reason why this is the case is simple! If you had 1 big ring in the middle, you’d block the spinal cannon. So yeah, this was done to more or less allow for the spinal cannon to run the entire length of the ship. Though in the case of the Cruiser, it was done simply because the designs on Heavy Cruisers showed that it worked, plus routing vital systems through the actual central line of the ship is far more efficient, safer, and maintenance friendly than having a big ring in the way ;(
10. There’s going to be some BIG questions as to an elephant in the room, I know. That being the Impact Shield itself. With all the guns pointed ‘forward’, as well as the spinal cannon, that must be a bit of a design oversight right? Well, not really! There’s many ways that this has been addressed throughout history! From collapsible/foldable shields, to something else entirely that’s now the doctrinal solution to this ‘issue’. They’re simply jettisoned prior to a battle! Afterwards, they’re collected and re-attached. Sure, there’s always the risk of enemy sorties targeting the detached shields, but this would risk diminishing their offensive capacity to engage with the fleet in question, amidst other things. Besides, if you focus all your attention on the shields, you’re not really gaining any immediate tactical victories, especially since if the other fleet has a tender on standby (which rest assured, there WILL be tenders somewhere in the backline), spare shields would just be on the way anyways XD Again, it’s a big trade-off, but it’s just the name of the game for contemporary space battles in the setting. And it provides for A LOT of fun scenarios! :D
11. Oh yeah! There are also doors for shuttles and smaller craft to enter, dock, or connect with the ship. The cruiser has one, whilst the heavy cruiser has three.
12. Let’s talk about some of the fun parts of the design, one of the big modifications for these exploratory variants: the expanded external cargo section. Situated between the two ‘sections’ of the ship, in the middle of the rings, is an external and modular cargo pod area! There are of course big internal hatches to access said pods from the inside, but the pods (or cargo containers) themselves are capable of simply being attached and removed from the ship easily! Moreover, this is where a lot of the personal ‘touches’ of the Captain and crew come in. Most of these little (well, I say little, but they’re kinda huge…) cargo containers typically wouldn’t have much at all painted on them. Usually just serial codes, numbers, maybe a logo here and there. But crews of LREF ships have the unique privilege of painting their states’ flags onto them! So you’ll see a huge myriad of flags painted on these, reminiscent of the pre-Planetary Unification Charter space exploration missions and probes! :D
I think that’s about it for the ‘cliffnotes’ XD
Now we get into some more space rambles and worldbuilding that I’ve been dying to explain.
So! I promised you guys on Point 2 that I’ll be getting into the GUN’s ship classification systems.
Here it is:
So the EAF (Exo-Atmospheric Forces, the space navy), and the LREF (Long Range Expeditionary Forces), both use the same ship classification system. Though the LREF may have a few extra quirks here and there. Ship classification in the GUN is determined by several factors, but ultimately governed by one rule of thumb: Length. This is because of how integral overall length is to certain weapons platforms and power systems, the most notable of these being the spinal cannon. Spinal Cannon capability — the integration of a ship with a rail gun that spans the entire length of a vessel’s hull — is often cited as THE delineator however, as it’s with this delineation that two main classifications of ships are born:
1. Multi-Role Vessels (MRVs)
2. Spinal Cannon Capable Vessels (SCCs)
These are ostensibly hull classifications, with MRV and SCC hulls built to divergently different specs. The former is built more as a platform for multiple weapon systems, specialized weapon systems, or specialized sub-systems dedicated to niche forms of space warfare. Whilst SCCs… are effectively just built AROUND a big gun XD People often say it’s like designing a ship for a gun, but that hyperbole is somewhat rooted in reality XD
Now, as mentioned above in the failed tl;dr, combat vessels are capable of fielding multiple forms of weapon delivery systems:
A. Kinetics (magnetically accelerated, chem-rails, and chemical propellants; the latter two being near to obsolete),
B. Direct-Energy Weapons (i.e. ‘Lasers’),
C. Plasma (in the form of torpedoes and lances),
D. Nuclear (Casaba howitzers, conventional, etc).
However, it’s only with the cruiser that all of these systems are presented in their full generalist potential. MRVs are smaller, with different combat roles that you’ll see soon!
Moreover, all GUN ships are equipped with FTL warp systems, as it’s part of the whole doctrine for a fleet to be able to independently warp, without relying on any big tender to warp the smaller vessels.
Anyways, here are the ship classes!
Corvette: The smallest category of ship, the corvette is effectively a ship meant to perform multiple niche roles in a fleet that requires speed, maneuverability, and rapid movements. For starters, it's excellent as just a dedicated anti-drone and anti-bomber/fighter warfare screen. It's fast, nimble, agile, capable of closely matching the speeds of smaller vessels and with far more powerful and varied weapon systems that it can easily deal with any larger bombers or drones that might be difficult for a larger vessel's point-defense weapons and drone screens to deal with. It's also used for harassing the enemy fleet, but this is highly variable depending on the fleet composition of the enemy fleet. Their size is generally around 50 - 150 meters in length.
Destroyer: These ships are the next step up and generally perform highly specialized roles. Namely, a lot of them have been relegated to e-warfare systems, as a lot of them can be deployed enough to set up what's known as a local network screen. Capable of silencing the radio-emissions of an entire fleet if present in large enough numbers, and capable of messing with an enemy's drone and missile tracking systems, they're ships that have effectively been designed to just deal with the rigors of modern electronic warfare. In addition to this, they're capable of deploying drones that are dedicated to messing with an enemy fleet's communication systems and any networking systems too. Their sizes range anywhere between 100 - 225 meters in length.
Frigates: The next step up, and generally considered as a great "generalist" platform. Not a generalist ship mind you, but a generalist platform, in that they can be fitted to deal with a great many tasks, and fitted to fit into a great many niches. Namely, they're capable of being fitted with a great number of missiles, and used in "hedgehog packs", basically an idea of simply overwhelming an enemy fleet with so many missiles that their point defense and countermeasures simply cannot deal with them. Hedgehogs, since well, loads of missiles sticking out of them XD. Another role for them is simply to include as many railgun, laser focusing array, or even plasma torpedo launchers as possible. They're usually around 300 - 500 meters in length!
Light Cruisers: These are ships generally known as just "turbosized frigates". In that they're capable of hosting just a single weapons system, but lots of them, but unlike frigates, they have the addition of having a cruiser-grade powerplant. Their hull is however, not as tough as their cruiser cousins, and as a result they're capable of being more agile and maneuverable, sometimes even almost capable of matching a frigate's speed and agility. Effectively a frigate on steroids, with more space for guns and power. Also capable of deploying the plasma lance. Their size is generally around 700 - 900 meters in length. Funnily enough, the usage of light cruisers have waxed and waned over the years. Some say it’s superfluous, and it’d be better to have more frigates thus increasing engagement flexibility and fleet movements, whilst others say that light cruisers provide that extra bit of bite that one might want from what is effectively a frigate with an oversized power plant.
Cruisers: These ships were thought up as the greatest generalist of the fleet. With their larger hull size they're capable of accommodating not just one weapons platform, but multiples (this includes an absurd number of missiles, should the mission profile demand it). They can house laser focusing arrays, plasma torpedoes, plasma lances, and even kinetic batteries. Their hulls are tougher than light cruisers and they're seen as the workhorse of both the LREF and EAF. The reason why they're capable of handling so many more weapons types is simply because of their larger size allowing for more modularity and more complexity with their internal design. It's large enough to just slot entire modular systems inside, large enough to house all of the complex systems required to run them without the systems interfering with each other from sheer proximity. Indeed, it's a lot of times about size now, as well as the size of its powerplant. Their sizes are generally around 950 - 1400 meters in length.
See, the reason why a lot of these weapons platforms were created was actually because of a sort of growing concern within the UN that if they meet an alien species, they might not have specialized in one weapons platform exclusively. As a result, they need to be able to deal with whatever threat is thrown at them at any given time for any chance encounter, such was born the 4 major weapons platforms, and so too was born the multi-platform capable cruiser.
Though one could also argue that the internal arms race and desire to innovate also resulted in this but I digress XD
Also generally speaking, you'd start to see spin-gravity ships starting up at around the light cruiser to cruiser range given their size allows for a dedicated habitation module that has spin gravity. But that only allows for parts of the ship to have spin gravity, not all of it. A good chunk of engineering and weapons are scattered around the ship and can't rotate.
Alright let's get into the spinal cannon capable ships now! :D
Heavy Cruisers: Also known as pocket battleships, not because of any pre WWII treaty mind you but simply because they're literally just that. The smallest hull frame you can affix a spinal cannon to that works. Heavy cruisers are effectively a big space gun. Because you still rely on a cruiser-grade powerplant, but souped up. It's a cost effective means of still having the firepower of a battleship's spinal cannon, without paying for all of a battleship, and without maintaining a proper battleship. Heavy Cruisers find particular popularity in peacetimes as there's less incentive to maintain loads of battleships, when you can simply have the same firepower in a smaller, more affordable, more cost effective package. They're generally around 1500 - 2000 meters in length. The spinal cannon taking up a good kilometer or so of that, with the rest of that length dedicated to the systems that more or less are required to keep it functioning.
A lot of times a fleet is built around a battleship's spinal cannons.
However, heavy cruisers allow you to also build more of these spinal cannons at a fraction of the cost.
But surprise surprise, things change with time!
In the present, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Heavy Cruiser that resembles the ‘glass cannons’ of old. The preconception was indeed true in the past, these ships really were a spinal cannon at the expense of everything, requiring a fleet to be expertly adept at picking up at where the heavy cruiser is weak at, as it sacrifices all of the benefits of a proper full sized battleship. You'd have to compensate for this by amping up the makeup of your fleet with more smaller ships, and with more dynamic tactics to account for the loss of a battleship's just extreme presence.
However nowadays, improvements in power generation and various other subsystems have made it so that the battleship power plants of old are now more than capable of being put inside of a Heavy Cruiser frame.
So they really are just pocket battleships now XD
Conversely, they now have an excess amount of power generation, owing to the battleship-comparable powerplants providing more power than what an ancient Heavy Cruiser may need.
Battlecruisers: This... never went anywhere, and is a dead class of ship. They existed, and kind of just went nowhere. A ship that's supposed to be somewhere between a heavy cruiser and a battleship, it was supposed to have the spinal cannon, and additional traditional cannons, at the expense of its armor and other associated defense systems, sort of taking glass cannon to a whole other level. It never took off. They were supposed to be around 2500 - 3000 meters in length.
Battleships: The pride of the navy, the literal crown jewel of any fleet, and what a fleet is built around. Take everything from the heavy cruiser, and ramp it up by 10 fold. The battleship has a single spinal cannon, and then some. It is covered in traditional cannons of kinetic and laser weapons, and has point defense systems that would make any opposing enemy tear up at how many missiles and drones it would take to overpower and overwhelm it. Its hull is thick and its inertial dampeners are so powerful to the point where you'd need another heavy cruiser to puncture it. It's slow in normal space of course at sublight, but its warp speed is still the same as any other ship in the fleet. Its powerplant is one that could power an entire hab-station, perhaps not an Oneill cylinder, but a good sized hab station and then some. Battleships are around 3000 - 4000 meters in length.
Carriers: Effectively divided into drone-motherships, and true carriers, these ships carry a lot of strike craft that are meant to overwhelm an enemy's defense screens and harass the enemy by generally getting up close and hitting them with high-yield plasma bombs that would otherwise be too expensive and too impractical to fire at long range. These ships require a lot of networking infrastructure and generally also rely on the destroyer complement of the fleet to act as additional relays to ensure communication between the carrier's systems and the drones and/or bombers are active and reliable. These ships are controversial. They work, yes, but, a lot of the times their presence can be nullified by good enough fighter and drone screens and are just really expensive to maintain. Their active networks also act as a huge target for enemy e-warfare to deal with. Their size? Well there's many types of carriers, so anywhere from 500 - 2500 meters in length, depending on the model you're talking about.
Some people I’ve talked to have mentioned how my setting’s space combat has put a full reversal on the whole carriers replacing battleships thing, with battleships and big guns once more taking center stage instead of the carrier XD
The engagement distances, sheer proliferation of point defense systems, and toughness/size of ships involved in combat probably don’t help with the decline of manned fighter/bombercraft in space XD Though again, drones ARE certainly an option… but with missile swarms also a thing, you really gotta think of the economic considerations of what you’d rather do—
I’M RAMBLING AGAIN SORRY!
Let me finish this before I go crazy.
Dreadnaughts: 10,000 meters in length. Never finished. It was designed to be the ‘ultimate’ line breaker vessel for the final extrasolar war. However, the war was won before the ship could be finished. As a result, legislators were quick to clamp down on the project, redirecting industrial, materiel, and economic/industrial potential away from it and towards humanitarian aid and the rebuilding of the extrasolar states involved in the conflict.
It wasn’t explicitly necessary to do that, mind you. But it was purely a political move, an attempt to fully shift towards an air of peace and reconciliation.
A dreadnought being completed during that era was just not good optics.
But all is not lost.
That dreadnought is still around! Now repurposed as the LREF’s mobile command center! :D
Ok I think we need to cap it here ^^;;
We’re at 4000 words.
I have a lot more to talk about with regards to how warp works and the GUN’s bunny-hopping warp movements because of space debris but AHHHHHHH there’s just a bit too much right now ^^;
But there’s just 1 more thing I wanted to say! I’ve always imagined and worldbuilt the GUN as a soft sci fi setting wearing a hard sci fi coat. That’s always been my intent and philosophy with the GUN from day 1 and I hope it shows with both the lore and artwork here today! :D
Thank you for reading if you’ve made it this far!
And again, huge and massive thanks to sirlazz on bluesky for this piece!! :D
Artist Reference: Sir_Lazz from Bluesky