The Beamrider Network
A Beamrider ship spreads its wide magsail to catch momentum from the particle beam
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The Beamrider NetworkA Beamrider ship spreads its wide magsail to catch momentum from the particle beam
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Interstellar mass beam propulsion network first conceived in the late 20th and early 21st centuries c.e.. The Network uses arrays of mass beam projectors to magnetically accelerate self-manoeuvring 'smart dust' micropellets to near light speed and direct them toward a vessel equipped with a powerful magnetic/plasma sail. The pellets vaporize upon impact with the magsail and transfer their momentum to the craft, accelerating it to a significant percentage of lightspeed. Once accelerated up to cruising speed the Beamrider coasts on a course that takes it into the vicinity of a number of stars, brown dwarfs and free-floating extrasolar planets. Additional mass beam booster stations are built on and around these objects. Using a combination of the galactic magnetic field, onboard fuel and mass beams from the booster stations, the Beamrider is able to curve its course in a great arc back to its starting point which is now used and another booster station to send the vessel back around the arc again.
As the Beamrider passes near each of the booster stations, additional cargo, passenger and resupply pods are accelerated to match velocity with the beamrider and/or are dropped off by the 'rider to be decelerated into the target system. Although the energy required to accelerate/decelerate the pods is considerable, it is far less than that required to constantly boost and decelerate entire self-sufficient spacecraft intended to survive years-long journeys between the stars all by themselves. The Beamrider makes a huge initial investment to boost the main vessel up to speed to take advantage of the much greater savings later.
Beamrider links rarely operate with just a single vessel in the circuit. Rather a great many vessels are boosted up over time so that a constant stream of ships is passing along the network. This ensures that a vessel passes by each station at regular intervals, usually ranging from every six months to every three years on most routes.
The first section of what would eventually become the Beamrider Network was conceived shortly after the discovery of the brown dwarfs Yin and Yang along a rough line between the Sol system and Ross 128 in 280 a.t.. It was not until fifty years later however that construction of the first launchers was begun by the Orbital Alliance in Cis-Lunar Space. The program suffered from lack of funds, since most investment at the time went into the more financially lucrative Nova Terra Project involving the colonisation of Tau Ceti.
While this was going on the Jovian League had detected a brown dwarf, which was named Patala, between Sol and Struve 2398 (the brown dwarf had been discovered several years earlier by CisLunar astronomer ai and named "Nyx" but the Jovian name stuck), and had began constructing a launcher around Triton. The construction of their launchers began in 346, and the launch of the first construction module took place some fifteen years later. It was intended that from Patala the cycle would go to Struve 2398, and from there the search would be made for further brown dwarfs.
The Mars Republic meanwhile was keeping its options open by supporting both projects; Martians were among the crew in both the Orbital Alliance and the Jovian League missions
In 412 a combined cyborgised human and ai Orbital Alliance team aboard the Karl Schroeder reached Yin, twenty-six years prior to the Tsiolkovsky reaching Tau Ceti, and five years before the Jovian-Martian vessel Advance reached Patala. Twelve years later the first segment linking SolSys and Yin was completed by neumann ai and human crew in orbit around Yin, and the following year a construction module launched towards Yang, where it arrived in 476. In 529 the link between Yang and Ross 128 had been completed. In the new solidarity between the CisLunar, Martian, and Jovian superpowers, several joint missions were planned along both cycles. At this time the Nanodisaster began to sweep the solar system.
Records on this point are sketchy, but one thing is certain. The crew and support staff of the beam projection facilities gathered their families and community together and used the beam projectors to launch themselves toward Yin and out of the Solar System.
It was not until sometime later, after control of the Solar System had been regained and the additional interstellar vessels launched, that contact was reestablished with the descendants of the erstwhile colonists and the original construction workers living around Yin, Yang, and Ross 128, and Patala and Struve 2398. During this period the inhabitants of the brown and red dwarf systems had managed to extend their network, and been able to maintain contact with each other, although no complete cycle had been finished. Since it was considered too dangerous to cycle through SolSys several other systems had been planned, including a Procyon link, but these had faced hostile isolationist ai and the projects blocked. The survivors around the brown dwarf systems represented a unique developing civilization (one that would eventually be called the Deeper Covenant) that was now eager to rejoin galactic society while at the same time maintaining the unique culture and identity they had developed while living around brown dwarfs. Even more importantly they desired to continue the great projects that had begun so long ago, but with the help of First Federation technology and ai to accelerate the work. With the resources available to them through the new technologies that contact with the rest of mindkind they set about taking up the work with new vigor, sometimes on their own, and sometimes with the help of idealistic First Federation ai and hu visionaries. The seeds of what would become the modern Beamrider Network and the Deeper Covenant were born.
The modern Beamrider Network extends across approximately a third of explored space and passes near just over a billion stars, brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets. Nearly all of these systems are inhabited by members of the Deeper Covenant.
Modern beamriders are huge vessels, often extending across hundreds of kilometers of space. At the same time they are rather small by modern standards. Even the largest beamriders rarely have a complement of passengers and crew larger than a few hundred people, most of them travelling in biostasis (It is common practice on most ships for passengers and crew to spend 1/3 of the trip awake. Random shuffling of stasis/waking schedules ensures that a traveller will meet at least some new people with each awakening. More than a few people can report that they met their mate or a great romance while travelling aboard a beamrider).
Most of the ships' great size is made up of superconducting cables spread out across space with habitat modules affixed at various points. Most ships rotate to provide "gravity" and habitat modules are attached at points where gravity is at the desired level.
In the past, beamriders employed a variety of shielding methods to protect themselves against radiation and interstellar debris. Shields were initially a combination of magnetic fields and ionization lasers. Also a plasma screen, consisting of a portion of the vapourized incoming mass stream that was allowed to 'slip thru' the magsail was fired ahead of the ship and acted to vaporize particles ahead. As a last resort the ship employed powerful radar to locate larger objects and would then use a combination of magnetic 'tacking' and onboard thrusters to dodge the object in question. At a standard cruise speed of 0.3c there was generally time to manoeuvre at least a little.
While some beamrider ships today rely solely on Empledokcetic shielding, most modern vessels era ships still use magnetic/plasma shields backed up by Empledokcetic shielding to protect themselves.
Standard cruising speed for a beamrider is 0.3c although smaller, faster 'hot beam' vessels can achieve speeds as high as 0.9c.
Throughout most of the history of mindkind the Beamrider Network has provided a constant, if unobtrusive method of travelling between the stars. Although the development of Conversion Drive, reactionless drives and wormholes has diverted some traffic from the network, the majority of systems in the Nexus still make some use of it, if only for recreational purposes. For the majority of isolated solar systems, the Beamrider Network is their main link with the rest of galactic civilization. And the citizens of the Deeper Covenant and some non-extreme hider cultures still make use of it almost exclusively.
