Eridonia Archives
(Installation) Hercules MKII-class Mobile Jump Drive Array
One of the largest mobile space-faring structures currently seen in Aquarius, the Hercules MKII-class Mobile Subspace Gate (Jump Drive Array) entered service during the transition to the Imperial Era. The Subspace Gate network linking most systems in Aquarius is facilitated by these semi-static installations. Each Gate contains a massive powerplant capable of providing the immense energy required to create a tear in the fabric of space, allowing essentially any vessel to transit vast distances in the order of hundreds of parsecs, without requiring its own Jump Drive Array.
Class: Installation
Role: Subspace Gate
Mass: 2.4 MT
Length: 2250 M
Max Speed (Impulse Cruise): < 350 M/s
Max Speed (Hyper Cruise): N/A
Max Range (JDA): N/A
Date: 1 I.D.S (4402 A.D)
Origin: Aquarius Imperial Naval Shipyards, Lorentis System
Primary Armour Plating: Nanopolymer-based low-metallic composite construction
Primary Armour Thickness: =< 2.32M (Main), =< 2.2M (Secondary) =< 0.27M (Tertiary & Pressure)
Spinal/Axial Armament: N/A
Primary Armament: N/A
Secondary Armament: N/A
Tertiary Armament: 13x PDS Clusterfire CIWS
Missile/Torpedoes: N/A
Shielding: SI1 Station-class Shield Modulator
Sensors: Control-tower mounted full-spectrum M/LRS, SDD, MLADAR, RADAR, contact tracking array for traffic control and direction and FTL communication relay.
Propulsion: 32x 8-stack Helium-fusion Active Plasma drives (16 front, 16 rear) for precision thrust vectoring
Powerplant: 16x 1.25TW Hercules-Type Octal (Supernova) Helical Cold Fusion Reactor Array
|| Description:
With most first or second generation Imperial designs; it is based on a New Federal Era design upgraded and enhanced for Imperial service. Like its predecessor, the Hercules MKII consists of a control station connected to the Gate Array, which supplies power and control to the automated Gate systems. The control tower also contains a command deck with systems and personnel for traffic control on a scale rarely seen in other installations: the Sub Space Gate must co-ordinate traffic and arrivals/departures for thousands of vessels ranging in size from single-seat civilian craft to multi-million ton Super freighters over 5 Kilometres in length.
As such, the Control Tower hosts extremely powerful long-range sensors, tracking systems and traffic control capabilities. In addition, the primary mast is able to relay FTL communications via subspace, allowing near-instant communication between distant star systems. The important of these Gates, essentially forming the communications and logistical backbone of the entire Aquarius cluster, means they are heavily defended. Though the platform itself has a minor Point-defence system using military-grade hardware, Gates such as these in major systems are never without a significant Navy presence, often including up to a dozen Destroyers or Cruisers making up the System's Gate Defence Fleet.
In the Core Systems, Hercules Gates are often accompanied by Super-capital class vanguards, most often RT-class Dreadnoughts which act both as a border control base of operations for local law enforcement, and as a show of military strength by the Imperial Navy to all new arrivals.
