///From the author: these are some of the ships from stories that take place in the Spacers Saga universe, which I designed and modeled in Blender before making infographics on Adobe Illustrator. This is likely to be an ongoing/continually updated series, so buckle up... The only limit here is the speed of light (and maybe not even that!)
Ship size chart
Notes:
In August of 2029, Charles Larsen introduced the world to fusion-powered propulsion. Over the next 300 years, this technology evolved by leaps & bounds, motivated by the human desire to spread out into the solar system to explore and to exploit the worlds therein. By the middle of the 24th century, fusion engines had matured to a point where they were nigh ubiquitous, with thousands of craft of all sizes employing fusion engines to push themselves and their cargo between the countless worlds of Solar Space.
One of the most important roles served by vessels in the solar system of tomorrow is freight carriers. An extensive interplanetary cargo transportation infrastructure had been established by the dawn of the 24th century, with massive multirole cargo haulers utilizing a variety of propulsion systems plying the established space lanes between the major sectors of Solar Space. Among these are the Archangel-class beam rider, the Frontier-class heavy fusion freighter, and the massive Reliable-class plasmadyne cycler. These craft and others like them have done major work to sew the farthest reaches of the solar system together.
Another notable example is the Marathon-class deep space transit system devised by the Interstellar Consortium in the 2230s and ‘40s as a means to establish regular contact between the inner solar system and the Kuiper Belt. By the mid-24th century, the thirteen vessels of this class making regular two-year round trips from Mars to Pluto allowed the merchants who operated them to become obscenely wealthy. On the other end of the size scale is the Ranger-class skiff, which was designed to be versatile in a variety of roles and has been heartily adopted as a retrofitted missile boat and gunship by groups like the Draconists.
Although fusion technology such as that employed by the Frontier-class freighter is the most common type used for interplanetary trips, other types of transportation are far from obsolete. Just as Interplanetary Dynamics and a host of other deep space transport organizations employ such techniques as plasma magnet sails to move their goods between the worlds, the military forces of Solar Space occasionally fall back on a variety of arguably less advanced but no less powerful methods to propel their craft.
One such example was the Tanganyika-class cruiser. Developed during the 2330s and ‘40s as part of the SPACER 300 program which itself emerged as a response to the lessons learned during the Mars-Titan War, the Tanganyikas employed a technique updated from Project Orion of the 1950s and ‘60s. This technology revolves around setting off a nuclear explosion behind the ship and using a special shock-absorbing apparatus to ride the shockwave and push the ship along through space. The particular variety used in the Tanganyika was the “Mini-Mag Orion,” which employs a magnetic field to capture the blast.
The Tanganyika-class cruiser was in many ways a product of military production moving slower than the advancement of technology. Whereas the military aircraft technology of the 20th and 21st centuries advanced faster than society could perceive, the advancement of Spacer Corps spacecraft design in the late 23rd and 24th centuries was often bogged down in endless bureaucracy. But these ships and their fellows from the days of SPACER 300 performed admirably during the Draconist Crisis and the Frontier War, where they often faced off against dedicated “spacer killers” like the highly successful Naga-class battlecruiser.
But the Frontier War also injected adrenaline into the veins of military planners across Solar Space. By the time the Solar Union Treaty was signed in 2398, a new era in spacecraft propulsion had dawned. During the 25th century, as the Union grew in scope and developed a new paradigm for governance in Solar Space, the Union Defense Force employed a diverse array of technologies to defend its interests. One of these was the Nuclear Saltwater Rocket, which revolves around kicking off a barely controlled nuclear reaction and aiming the exhaust plume out the back of the spacecraft for the purpose of forward propulsion.
One of the ships which employed this technology were the Bumblebee-class corvette. These ships emerged from a long and complicated development cycle that was itself a response to the Kuiper War, and by the time they entered service in 2507 they were already all but obsolete. Even still, they served proudly through the Centauri War between the Solar Union and the Martian Federation, where they excelled in flying fast-attack sorties against larger and often more heavily armed spacecraft of the Federal Navy.
But Martian military planners were soaring past the Union in their pursuit of solar dominance, and by the end of the Centauri War they enjoyed a superiority in technology, if not in numbers, with their spacecraft. One example were the Scimitar-class missile cruisers, which employed the latest in deuterium-helium3 fusion engines when they entered service in 2549. Although this class emerged too late to make an impact on the War for the Centauri Cluster, they have served with distinction as patrol craft ever since it ended.
Frontier Wars era
Tanganyika-class patrol cruiser:
Following the Mars-Titan War (2292-2297), the Interplanetary Defense Corps (IDC) drew up the Spacer 300 program in an effort to modernize its forces. The Tanganyika-class cruiser was one result of this program, and was designed to project power across the outer solar system by fielding a fast and maneuverable craft which could engage with peer enemies in space combat. Although it was not explicitly designed with battling the Alliance Armada in mind, this later became a major factor in the vessel’s service life.
These vessels are centered around a single Remora-class mini-mag Orion-class pulsed fission engine which uses the thrust from a small nuclear detonation to propel the ship through space, and are designed for run-and-gun maneuver warfare, in which a number of CIWS laser turrets provide missile defense and close-in “knife fighting” firepower; three high performance ultra-relativistic electron beam (UREB) turrets are used to zap enemy spacecraft from medium range; and three quad-tube missile launchers deploy nuclear saltwater rocket-driven kinetic kill vehicle torpedoes to finish them off from intermediate to long range.
The initial order, processed jointly by the Martian Federal Shipyards and the Ceres Assembly Yards, was for one hundred Tanganyika-class vessels. The first Tanganyikas were completed and commissioned in 2349 and production continued at a rate of roughly ten per year before being cut short only eight years later due to the chaos of the Zharan Uprising (2356-2359), which saw the IDC consolidating its forces to defend against an unprecedented solar system-wide revolution by the artificial population of Solar Space.
Naga-class battlecruiser:
Much like the programs they initiated to outfit the Armada Ground Forces during the 2340s and ‘50s, the Alliance Central Committee placed a premium on two factors when supplying its Space Forces: durability and mass-producibility. The Naga-class battlecruiser is the logical outcome of that line of thinking, in that it embodies the simple ruggedness of classic Armada design in a single 300-plus meter-long package that is packed with enough firepower to stand toe to toe with anything the Spacer Corps throws at it.
The first Nagas rolled out of spacedock at Callisto in the late 2350s, and unlike a number of the IDC vessels of the time they were designed from the ground up to be capable of defeating peer vessels of the other major superpower in Solar Space. Although it took more than a decade, they finally faced their trial by fire during the Frontier War (2371-2381). Nagas and the other major classes of Alliance vessels fought the ICA to a standstill in a series of pitched engagements from 2371 to 2374, during which time they had a rough defeat to victory ratio, in straight-up combat, of 3:5, which made it highly feared by FLEETCOM crewman.
As such, the IDC invested a great deal of money to combat the Naga-class and other vessels in the Armada Space Force, and fielded a variety of weapons systems designed specifically to defeat them in peer combat. As a result, the once-feared Naga-class gradually backslid into a defeat to victory ratio of 2:1 by the time the Zharan Liberation Army engaged in the war in 2379. By 2389 they have been rendered largely obsolete, and are slated to be phased out in favor of the sleeker Amaru-class battlecruiser by 2409.
Marathon-class deep space transit vessel:
As part of its long-term plan to make humanity a multi-star system species, the Interstellar Consortium (ISC) developed a series of short-term operational strategies to either fund or pay back the immense debt incurred by the plan to build and launch the Wayfarer flight to Alpha Centauri. One of the largest-scale of these plans was Project Marathon, which aimed to divert some of the funds set aside for Wayfarer on an almost-as-ambitious program to sew the farthest reaches of the solar system to ICA control.
The plan was simple, albeit huge in scope: they would use the power of matter-antimatter rockets to make the long and arduous journey to Pluto and the other as-yet uncharted worlds of the Kuiper Belt and back, in order to bring the vast array of material wealth to be had there under the control of inner solar system financial interests. Between 2257 and 2263, they built thirteen massive rapid-transit cargo haulers, each named for a different one of the thirteen traditional worlds in solar astrography, and by 2265 had launched two of them on a planned four-year mission to reconnoiter the Kuiper Belt for mining opportunities.
After the success of this first mission, referred to as the “Kuiper Marathon,” the ICA’s Deep Space Affairs Council gave ISC the green light to begin regular trips to and from Pluto and the other worlds of the Kuiper Belt. Over the next century, they sent the thirteen Marathon-class vessels on steady round trip missions to send people and materials out to the outer reaches of Solar Space, and by the time the Frontier War (2371-2381) began Pluto especially had become a major hub of deep space commerce as a result.
Reliable-class interplanetary cargo cycler:
Interplanetary Dynamics (IPD) was established in 2122 by a trio of wealthy asteroid mining magnates, and was initially focused on the development and implementation of a new class of engine: the plasma magnet sail. This technology uses the dynamics between a magnetic plasma field and the solar wind to “sail” between the worlds of the outer solar system in only weeks or months, as opposed to years.
Since launching its first test flight in 2129, the company has grown by leaps and bounds and now operates as a major defense contractor leveraging their shipyards at Europa to build transport craft for the Spacer Corps, in addition to a broad portfolio of other military hardware. IPD's power and influence has increased swiftly as the need for military hardware has risen during the 24th century, so much so that by 2351 they have enough influence to sway elections across the system in order to safeguard their profits.
As of 2389, the company operates a fleet of more than three thousand spacecraft, many of which serve in its capacity as the Spacer Corps primary transport contractor. While a handful of other deep space transport contractors exist, none have the reach and funds of IPD, which has lobbied its way into the halls of power within the Martian Senate and the Confederation Legislative Council. IPD’s Board of Directors even leverages their wealth and power to control the manufacturing port of Europa as a veritable fiefdom.
Archangel-class intrasystem freighter:
As humanity expanded its reach into the farthest corners of Solar Space during the 22nd and 23rd centuries, the wealth of resources to be found there paved the way for a revolution in intrasystem transport. Although fusion drives remained the bread and butter of interplanetary flight, the funds made available by the feverish mining and processing of raw ore in the outer system made it possible to build up an infrastructure for less fuel hungry forms of travel. By the late 23rd century, the first beam riders were in flight.
This type of spacecraft makes use of a relatively simple concept, namely the use of a distant energy source (in most cases, a high-power laser beam fired from an orbital or asteroid station) which is captured by the large mirror held aloft by the spacecraft and used to heat up propellant. This removes the need to carry a power source (such as a fusion reactor) and the additional heavy fuel needed to power it, which in turn shaves precious weight off of the ship’s total mass and frees it up to be used for carrying more cargo.
The Archangels, so named because of the resemblance of their extended mirror arm to an angel’s halo, are the mid-sized cargo vans of the Jupiter and Saturn systems, able to carry more than 130 thousand cubic meters of cargo between the hundreds of inhabited moons and orbitals therein. As of 2349, the Angel of Chryse is serving in the merchant fleet of the Galilean Union, carrying goods back and forth between the moons of Jupiter on routine Hohmann transfer flights which are helping the Union to slowly rebuild from the nearly twenty-year civil war which tore through Jovian space only a few years prior.
Ranger-class multirole cargo skiff:
Callisto-based Nexconn Industries launched its first generation of Ranger-class passenger skiffs in 2229 in the same week that the Interstellar Consortium announced Project Wayfarer. The Rangers were designed to be agile, durable, and versatile enough to fill a wide variety of roles, especially those related to the transport of light cargo and passengers. Unfortunately, this versatility has also made them useful in the hands of more disreputable groups. Chief among these is the naval wing of the Draconist Front.
When the Draconists took over the Callisto Assembly in 2324, they also seized its production lines of military and civilian hardware, including spacecraft. Among the ships captured or produced unauthorized were roughly seven hundred Ranger-class skiffs, which were then retrofitted with illicitly acquired armaments and turned into gunships and missile boats for use in their ongoing crusade to set up a neo-Marxist utopia in the outer solar system. The example above, redesignated as the Punho Justo (“Righteous Fist”), was sent as part of a flotilla bound for Saturn and used in the Draconists’ campaign to capture Titan.
For these and other reasons, some pundits have compared the Ranger-class to the Toyota Land Cruisers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, in that they are a civilian utility vehicle repurposed into an instrument of war by extremist factions bent on revolution. By 2389, though the Rangers are largely obsolete, they remain in service with family-owned transport outfits and outer system militia groups alike, and the class seems poised to last another hundred years before being relegated to history.
Frontier-class modular freighter:
One of the oldest designs currently fielded by any merchant navy in Solar Space, the Frontier-class traces its lineage back to the earliest days of fusion-powered deep space travel. Within only a few decades of Larsen’s Gambit and the revolution in space travel which followed, fusion engine-driven spacecraft were plowing through the uncharted waters of the outer solar system in search of wealth and opportunity. The Frontier-class is merely one of the latest descendants of the storied “torch ships” of yesteryear.
The Frontier-class was designed during the height of the Mars-Titan War (2292-2297) by enterprising Ceresian bureaucrats eager to cash in on the expected shakeup in the postwar order of Solar Space. Many hundreds of Frontiers have been produced since, and their effective mating of dependability and modularity has kept them in high demand among tradesmen, merchant mariners, and mining outfits alike. The example shown here, the MSV-6709 Mar del Plata, is on lease from the Republic of Ceres to the Solar Mining League, which is using it to haul several million tons of ore to processing facilities in the Martian sector.
This ship’s modularity stems from the fact that it is really only a propulsion bus which can be mated to a variety of interchangeable standardized cargo cabs. The Mar del Plata, for example, is currently mated to a C-152 Bonefish cab, which allows it to carry up to forty-eight separate standard containers containing approximately sixteen thousand cubic meters of storage space each. Other styles include the T-148 Jerboa tanker, which carries 18 canisters of fuel, water, or other consumables, and the C-159 Leatherback militarized cargo mover, which is used by the Spacer Corps to move arms and ammunition to combat zones.
Centauri Wars era
Bumblebee-class fast attack corvette:
[Ship modelling: Bien Carlos Manzares; livery design: Megan Miller]
When the Bumblebee class entered service in 2507, it was intended to serve in a patrol and interdiction role, based on lessons learned during the Kuiper Wars still ongoing at the time. During the Centauri War (2525-2552), a conflict between the Solar Union and Martian Federation over control of the extrasolar regions, Bumblebees excelled in frontline service for the Union, racing in and out of engagement areas where the War's space battles took place using their excellent speed and agility.
When the War ended, many of these tried and tested vessels were left high and dry, as their swiftness and biting close-in firepower were suddenly redundant in the postwar era. As a result, most wound up languishing in interplanetary scrap yards, awaiting the great fate that comes at the end of all ships’ service lives. This was considered a tragedy by those who served aboard them, many of whom held the vessels in high esteem for their abilities as combat implements and as homes away from home.
Some, like the Fool's Errand, were salvaged and put to use as merchant vessels, salvage/rescue craft, or a variety of other second-life roles. In the case of the Fool’s Errand, its current crew of five, all of them deep space outcasts of the highest order, has repurposed the craft as a long-haul cargo hauler, with its mighty Gungnir Corporation Mk. XVII nuclear saltwater rocket put to good use moving goods across Centauri space… If they can manage to keep enough nuclear fuel in the tanks to keep her flying, that is.
Scimitar-class missile cruiser:
As one of the major powers in Solar Space, the Martian Federation maintains a fleet of more than forty-two hundred vessels (although nearly a third of these are nominally obsolete or less advanced classes as of 2564, and are maintained by Fleet Command solely to fill out its ranks in the event of war with the Solar Union), each of which is ready to venture out and defend the interest of Father Mars. These vessels are commonly named after bladed weapons as an homage to Mars’ namesake.
Intended to be a ship of the line for the Federal Navy during the Centauri War, the Scimitar-class wasn’t introduced until 2549, only three years before the war ended. As a result, it has instead found a second life as a long-range patrol and interdiction specialist, with several dozen of its class patrolling the trade lanes of Centauri space in the early 2560s as permit enforcement craft and anti-pirate interceptors.
One of these, the MSV Gratuitous Fortune, is on patrol with a cohort from the Centauri Fleet in the outer reaches of the Rigil Kentaurus system in 2564 when a cargo pusher called the Fool's Errand comes on their radar. When the crews of these Martian vessels receive word from the local transference waystation that the Errand has been designated a priority target by Martian Central Command, they are obliged to pursue them The chase that ensues makes up a major plot point in the story of INFINITUM.
More to come, when it's ready...
This is brilliant. You simply must expand on this.