Noirea

From BetaWiki

System Summary

The Noirean system is impressively large, containing 15 main satellites. The Noirean homeworld is the 4th from the large yellow star, similar to Capella A and about 9 times larger than Earth's. The inner planets are pretty inhospitable, but the Noireans have managed to develop colonies on the 5th and 6th planets and a couple of scientific stations on moons around the 8th and 9th planets, both large gas giants.

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Technology Summary

Space Exploration:

System exploration started around 50 years ago, fueled by the development of AM/M reactors and plasma drive technology. But while the Noireans have managed to avoid any major accidents developing the technology, for some reason their science has not begun to theorise about sub-space and Warp Travel until very recently. Until now, they have been developing sublight space travel, and have a large fleet of Commercial Haulers operating out to the colonies. They also have a very interesting asteroid mining operation. The asteroid belt between the 7th and 8th planets is rich in tungsten, titanium and iron, as well as other more exotic elements.

Mining Operations:

The Noireans have sent out several survey probes to the belt. Armed with beacons, they scan for suitable asteroids wich they then tag. Several months behind the probes, the Noireans have sent an operations vessel. It monitors the probes, and from there they send robotic drones to the selected asteroids. The drones deploy plasma rockets on the asteroids and then fire them towards Noirea 4. Once closer to the planet, they fire again and bring the asteroid in to a stable orbit where the minerals can be extracted much more easily and dropped back down to the surface. 6 massive sky-lifts ring the ecuator, reaching from the surface to large space stations orbiting at geo-sync altitude. Here the ore is sent down the diamond mono-filament cables, and materials to create more drones are sent back out to the Operations vessel. The whole trip takes almost a year, and the asteroids sometimes take up to two years to arrive depending on their relative trajectories. But it is a remarkably efficient way of working. Once the first asteroids arrived, there was a steady stream of them drifting in from the belt.

Planetary Defence & Sensors:

Not unexpectedly they have also developed an extremely powerful planetary defence system in case of any accidents. An indication that not only are the Noireans patient, but also pragmatic and cautious. A ring of orbitals mount some very heavy duty plasma cannons capable of turning a 40km asteroid in to dust. Their sensor system is equally robust, and the outer most research station also has a fairly comprehensive array of detectors and antennae. They have a fascination with Supernovae and have an infra-red array that would probably be able to detect a starship's heat emissions.

Domestic Technology:

Their domestic technology is equally impressive. Noirea is certainly nothing like Earth was when Cochrane flew the Phoenix. They use solid state and biological processing. Their construction materials have taken a huge leap forward since they developed zero-g manufacturing. The use of diamond crystals and mono-filaments allows for some breath-taking, almost impossible, architectural design. The power sources are also clean and safe. While dilithium ore is mined for the AM/M reactors, these reactors are all space-borne. Planet-side power production is a mixture of sustainable solar, wind and tidal generators, with a few fusion plants for industrial and military uses. There is possible research in to zero-point energy, but apparently public opinion is strongly opposed to it.

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