Cubicle Fighter

Cubicle fighters are special small fighter craft designed to be stored in standardized small craft cubicles, often mounted within a larger ship or station. The Planetary League Cubicle Fighter depicted in the illustration was a standardized design, mas-produced by a number of manufacturers throughout Era-1.

These inexpensive craft were widely used by most Planetary League agencies as light defensive fighters. There was also a very active private surplus market for these craft, and a wide array of variants, including many re-purposed versions were widely available.

The Planetary League standard cubicle fighter was designed solely for use in space. Having no landing gear, it could only depart or dock at a standardized craft cubicle. These cubicles were used for a number of small craft, including the also widely used Cubicle Shuttle, a sister craft produced by the same government programs and private manufacturers as the fighter. Docking and deployment was facilitated by robotic arms, and the pylons that connected the main guns to the fuselage had built in grip points for this system.

Ship Size Comparison

Several ships employed by the Planetary League. Note: the expeditionary cruiser’s dimensions are for the main hull, the hull-ring has a diameter of 45 Meters.

Cubicle Shuttle

Space is often at a premium on board a ship, often things have to be made as small as possible to fit into the hull, which is why the cubicle shuttle was created. Designed to fit into a compact storage cubicle when not in use, it can carry a pilot and up to four passengers on short flights, or act as a lifeboat in an emergency. Cubicle Shuttles are a mainstay of light transportation over short distances, and typically make up most of the shuttle compliment of larger ships.

The shuttles stubby wings can telescope for additional lift in atmospheric flight, and are the location of the grip points that allow it to be handled by the robotic arm that is used to pack and unpack the shuttle from a storage cubicle.

The cubicle shuttle’s standard defense package includes a basic point-defense system and a light deflector shield.

PLAS Deep Space Scout Frigate

History

The PLAS Deep Space Scout Frigate is a marvel of automation. Designed to transport a lone scout into the depths of space for extended exploration missions, the earliest versions of this ship saw service starting in GSC 140, but variants of this basic design were in use throughout the remainder of the history of the Planetary League.

First appearance: The Sunset Chronicles / Chapter 1: Exodus

Equipment

The Deep Space Scout Frigate was equipped to support a single scout on missions of indefinite length. This ship could launch salvos of drones, probes and other robotic assistants through a series of ports on the outer hull. These served as additional eyes, ears, and hands for the scout.

Defenses typically included a Pegasus Cybernetics point-defense laser array to deal with micro-meteors and other small obstacles, an Ares Systems medium deflector-shield to protect against larger impacts, and a Danforth-Galactic light anti-capital ship railgun to deal with many of the unknown threats of deep space.

The ship’s wings typically remained folded inside the hull during space flight (to facilitate docking and to present a smaller profile to the hazards of space), but deployed for atmospheric operations. The vertical stabilizer was not retractable, but contained an array of sensors, probes and point-defense systems useful in deep space.

The interior of the DSSF was divided into two decks, with the upper deck used for the scout’s quarters and the lower mainly devoted to storage and life-support. The aft section of both decks was devoted to engineering, and the forward section of the upper deck was the ship’s cockpit with an impressive 2.6 meter high canopy designed for maximum visibility.

PLS Dyson

Named for Freeman Dyson, the PLS Dyson was present when Roman Cisneros made first contact with the Takarrans in GSC 179. Captained by Katrina Williams of the Planetary League Astrophysical Survey, the Dyson served as a temporary home for the remaining Ki’tak and Defendrons when they fled their planet as it was taken over by the Cryptobots. First appearance: The Sunset Chronicles / Chapter 2

The prefex “ICS” in the ship’s designation stands for Ion / Casimir Ship, referring to her main drive and hyperdrive types.

Autonomous Shuttle

Simple and utilitarian, autonomous shuttles are fairly ubiquitous craft within the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns. Their presence also overlaps the empire’s sphere of influence rather extensively. They are not uncommon among the Nomad Armies and Breakaway States that formed around the empire. The primary role of these living ships is to transport cargo and passengers over short distances, usually within a single solar system.

The inner workings of the autonomous shuttle are primarily comprised of a single large, semi-sentient life-form with a level of intelligence similar to that of a trained dog or horse. This “shuttle-beast” is cyberneticly augmented and surrounded with an armored hull. The payload of the shuttle is located within the large fairing that makes up the craft’s nose. These shuttles vary in size from a few meters to tens of meters in diameter.

Autonomous shuttles are not equipped for FTL travel and are relatively slow, short range craft. The shuttle-beast is typically trained to be loyal to a single handler, often based at a space-port or on a capital ship. Handlers and shuttles tend to develop an emotional bond while working together over long periods of time. This encourages the handler to take good care of the shuttles and provide quality maintenance.

Molecular Ramscoops

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Space is not completely empty. Laced throughout the near-vacuum are occasional atoms and molecules of various types, many of which are useful to travelers far from civilization. Many fleets include at least one molecular ram-scoop to collect such molecules for use. Many capital ships include a small ram-scoop on their prow to collect useful materials, but occasionally ships are purpose built to scoop out large swaths of interstellar material. For example, there are several nebulae that contain large quantities of alcohol, and a number of entrepreneurs ply these regions in purpose-built ram-scoop ships collecting it as a rare and expensive luxury good. Many generation-fleets include a scoop-ship as well, in order to add a small amount of useful supplies for the long journey between the stars.

Circuit Ships

Function

Circuit Ships perform a function similar to rest and relaxation, except for robots. Advanced robotic systems have algorithms that function in ways similar to emotions in biological life. A robot’s data can become corrupted after extended operation, so a way for robotic beings to unwind becomes necessary above a certain threshold of complexity.

History

During the early days of the 1000 Years War, the followers of Troniac built the first circuit ships in the service of the war effort. These also included repair bays and temples for the devout to offer their worship to the Computer God. These first circuit ships quickly restored degraded combat bots to full function and substantially improved morale. After the war, circuit ships began operating under the flag of the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns as part of the social reforms that followed that conflict. From there these vessels slowly spread to different cultures that included robots. The first circuit ships in human-controlled space appeared in GSC 215.

Description

Circuit Ships are so named because their decks and bulkheads resemble large circuit boards. Most consist of an open array of such pieces attached to an engineering section where the main power supply and engines are.