back room See SSR.
battlecruiser A large, powerful warship carrying offensive weaponry of the size and power of a battleship but intermediate in size between cruisers and battleships. Typically massing between forty thousand and sixty thousand tons, battlecruisers possess shielding, armor, speed, maneuverability, and defensive capabilities more equivalent to those of a cruiser than a battleship. Naval officers are split on the utility of this type, with some believing that with the killing power of a battleship and the speed of a cruiser, it offers the best of both; others believe that its large guns make it as tempting a target for the enemy as a battleship, but lacking in the armor, shielding, and point defense capabilities of a battleship to defend itself, it thereby combines the worst of both. A battlecruiser is generally under the command of a full captain.
battleship The largest and most powerful type of weapons platform ship (carriers are larger and with their fighter groups, arguably more powerful, but do not mount heavy offensive weapons). Typically massing sixty thousand tons and up, battleships mount large batteries of the most powerful offensive weapons carried on starships and are equipped with the heaviest armor and defensive shielding. The firepower and toughness of a battleship rival those of a battle station. Although capable of fairly high sublight speeds, they are very difficult to maneuver. In addition, their enormous bulk means that under compression drive, they are limited to fairly low c multiples. Accordingly, battleships cross interstellar space almost exclusively by jumping. A battleship is typically under the command of a full captain or a commodore.
Battle Star An award conferred by a fleet or task force commander upon a vessel that has comported itself honorably in direct combat with the enemy. In the days of the saltwater navy, vessels displayed their Battle Stars on the hull or superstructure where other vessels could see them. Union warships display their battle stars by the use of colored running lights on their hull, arranged in the shape of a star, and illuminated when they are not stealthed. Battle Stars come in three grades: Bronze (orange lights), Silver (white lights), and Gold (yellow lights). The Battle Star is a permanent award displayed by the vessel as long as it remains in service. Not to be confused with a battlestar, which is an archaic name for a former type that was essentially a cross between a battlecruiser and an escort carrier, mounting heavy pulse cannon and missiles while also carrying fighters. This type fell into disfavor because of the difficulty in conducting fighter operations while firing guns and missiles through the fighter formations.
bearing The position of an object relative to another object, measured as degrees of angle on a horizontal and a vertical plane, with the two numbers separated by a slash that is pronounced as “mark” when giving a bearing out loud. The zero reference in both planes is the geometric center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Hence, a sensor officer will say that a contact is at bearing two-three-seven mark zero-four-five. Also, a sphere, usually made of some hard metal alloy, used in conjunction with several similar spheres to provide lubrication between a rotating shaft and its housing (ball bearings).
boarding cutlass A sword made of high-tensile-strength steel, in fashion similar to the United States Navy’s Model 1917 Cutlass. It is 63.5 centimeters long (25 inches), weighs approximately 935 grams (33 ounces), and is slightly curved. The boarding cutlass is primarily regarded as a slashing weapon but can be used as a thrusting weapon as well. It is carried by naval personnel for close order battle in confined quarters on ship, particularly in locations where gunfire might puncture pipes or pressure vessels, releasing toxic or radioactive substances, or might cause the venting of atmosphere into space. A boarding cutlass and a sidearm of his choice (either an M-1911 or an M-62) is issued to a midshipman when he is promoted to midshipman first class.
Bravo The second letter of the Union Forces Voicecom Alphabet; a colloquial name for Epsilon Indi III (see).
BuDes (pronounced “bew-dess”) Bureau of Design. The naval office responsible for designing warships and warship power plants. Its most important component offices are OfSpaF (pronounced “off-spaf”), Office of Space Frames, responsible for fabricating the hulls and the interior support structure that gives them strength and rigidity; OfPropSys (pronounced “off-prop-sis”), Office of Propulsion Systems, where the engines and drives are designed; OfHab (pronounced “off-hab”), Office of Habitability, which configures the interiors of the ships, including location and arrangement of compartments and furnishings; and OfSupSys (“pronounced “off-soup-sys”), Office of Support Systems, which oversees life support, plumbing, and similar systems necessary for sustaining life in space. Weapons, sensors, navigation systems, communications systems, and building of the ships after they are designed are all supervised by separate bureaus.
BuPers (pronounced “bew-perz”) Bureau of Personnel. The naval department responsible for managing naval personnel assignments, recruiting, and similar matters.
c The speed of light in a vacuum, commonly stated as “lightspeed,” 299,792,458 meters per second, or 186,282 miles per second. Unless a warship is travelling very slowly (in which case, its velocity is given in meters per second), its speed is generally given as a fraction or multiple of c, for example, .25 c for one-quarter of lightspeed or 325 c for 325 times lightspeed. In common usage, only the number is given. Hence, a tactical officer might inform his captain that a “bogie is approaching at point 25,” or an engineer might advise that the ship “should not exceed 250.”
Ça c’est bon (Cajun French). That’s good. Equivalent to c’est bon in Parisian French.
Cajun A person descended from the French-speaking Roman Catholic residents of Nova Scotia (which they called Acadia) who were exiled by the British at the end of the French and Indian War because of concerns regarding their loyalty to the British crown, and who settled in what was then the French Territory of Louisiana. Most Cajuns spoke their own version of French well into the twentieth century and maintain a distinctive culture to this day. On Earth, Cajuns mostly reside in the Parishes of South-Central and Southwest Louisiana, centered on Lafayette. Cajuns are often referred to by each other and by their friends as “Coonasses.” The word “Cajun” is a worn-down form of “Acadian.”
carrier A large vessel designed to launch, retrieve, arm, fuel, and service fighters and other smaller ships. Large fleet and command carriers can carry as many as two hundred fighters, whereas smaller Escort and Attack carriers as few as thirty. Carriers range in size from 40,000 to 1 million tons. As of January through March 2315, there were rumors that the Navy was currently constructing a new class of carriers massing 2 million tons, with one being built at the Luna Fleet Yards, one being built at Alphacen, and two at 40 Eridani A. These vessels are supposedly to be known as the Churchill class.
c’est pas rien (Cajun French) It’s nothing, think nothing of it. Equivalent to de rien in Parisian French.
Cherenkov-Heaviside radiation The burst of radiation emitted as an object emerges from a jump. So named for its two components: Cherenkov radiation, which is the radiation emitted when a charged particle passes through a dielectric medium at a speed higher than the normal speed for the propagation of light in that medium; and Heaviside radiation, the radiation emitted when a particle travelling faster than the speed of light in a spatial regime in which that can occur (e.g., in n-space) is decelerated to subluminal velocities in our own spatial regime.
Chief of the Boat The senior noncommissioned officer on board any naval vessel. He is considered a department head and is the liaison between the captain and the noncommissioned ranks. Sometimes referred to as COB (pronounced “cob”) and informally known as the “Goat.”
CIC Combat Information Center. The compartment on a warship from which the ship’s operations are controlled, analogous to the bridge on an old seagoing vessel before the functions of that space were split between the Bridge and CIC with the introduction of radar to combat ships in the years leading up to World War II.
&nbs
p; CIG Change in grade. Promotion or demotion. Official orders never state that a person is “promoted to commander.” Rather, they say that the person is “CIG to commander.” A CIG order always states the date, hour, and minute the CIG becomes effective so that there is no question of the relative seniority (and therefore who gives orders to whom) of two officers of the same grade.
Clarke Orbit Synchronous or stationary orbit. An orbit in which the orbiting body remains stationary relative to a point on the surface of the orbited body on the latter’s equator, also defined as an equatorial orbit in which the orbital period is equal to the rotational period of the orbited body. Known as a “Clarke Orbit” because the concept was first described in detail by British science and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in a 1945 article published in Wireless World magazine.
class A production series of warships of highly similar or identical design, designated by the name of the first ship of the series. Accordingly, if a series of heavy cruisers is produced from the same design, and the first ship of that design to be produced is the USS Faget (pronounced “fah-zhay”), then the vessels of that class are known as Faget class cruisers. Vessels of the same class are usually named after the same thing. For example, Faget class cruisers are all named after influential designers of aircraft, launch vehicles, and space vessels: Hence the class contains the Faget, Wright, Bleriot, Langley, Kelly Johnson, Von Braun, Korolev, Caldwell Johnson, Northrup, and so on.
class (Krag vessels) The Krag apparently have a class system similar to the Union’s, producing warships of similar design in series. Because Krag vessel names are, however, unknown, difficult to pronounce, or impossible to remember, the Navy uses a system of “reporting names” for Krag vessel classes. Essentially, when a new class of Krag vessel is identified, a name is assigned to that class by Naval Intelligence. Class names generally start with the same letter or group of letters as the name of the vessel type, with the exception of battlecruisers, the class names of which begin with “Bar” to distinguish them from battleships. In this way, a ship’s type can immediately be determined from its class name, even if the name is not familiar. Examples of class names for each major warship type follow:
Battleships: Batwing, Battalion, Battleax, Baton.
Battlecruisers: Barnacle, Barnyard, Barrister, Barsoom, Barmaid
Carriers: Carousel, Carnivore, Carpetbagger, Cardigan
Cruisers: Crusader, Crucible, Crustacean, Crumpet
Frigates: Freelancer, Frogleg, Frycook, Frigid
Destroyers: Deckhand, Delver, Dervish, Debris
Corvettes: Corpuscle, Cormorant, Cornhusker, Corsican, Cordwood
Comet Colloquial term for the Warship Qualification Badge, a medal, shaped like a comet with a curved tail, indicating that the wearer has passed either a Warship Crew Qualification Examination or a Warship Officer Qualification Examination, showing that he can competently operate every crew or officer station on the ship, perform basic damage control, engage in close order battle with sidearm and boarding cutlass, use a pulse rifle, and fight hand to hand. The Comet was created in the early days of space combat to be the equivalent of the “Dolphins” from the United States Submarine Forces.
compression drive One of the two known technologies that allow ships to travel faster than lightspeed (the other being the jump drive). The compression drive permits violation of Einsteinian physics by selectively compressing and expanding the fabric of the space–time continuum. The drive creates around the vessel a bubble of distorted space–time with a diameter approximately thirty-four times the length of the ship. This bubble in turn contains a smaller bubble of undistorted space–time just large enough to enclose the ship itself. The density of space–time is compressed along the ship’s planned line of travel and expanded behind it (hence the term “compression drive,” which was thought to sound better than “expansion drive” or, heaven forbid, “warp drive”), creating a propulsive force that moves the ship forward faster than the speed of light as viewed from the perspective of a distant observer. This superluminal motion does not violate Einsteinian physics because the ship is stationary relative to the fabric of space-time inside the bubble, and therefore, from the point of view of an observer located there, does not exceed the speed of light. Because the volume of distorted space rises as a geometric function as ship size goes up under the familiar V = πr² formula multiplied by thirty-four (pi times half the length of the ship squared times thirty-four), even a small increase in the ship’s dimensions results in a substantial increase in the energy required to propel it through compressed space. Accordingly, only smaller ship types can move at high speeds or for any appreciable distance using compression drive, which means in turn that major fleet operations and planetary conquests require the taking and holding of jump points so that carriers, battleships, tankers, and other larger or slower vessels can be brought into the system.
compression shear A dangerous phenomenon caused by a compression drive experiencing poor speed regulation, a common occurrence at speeds of less than about 80 c. Compression shear occurs when radical fluctuations in the degree of space–time distortion, caused by a poorly regulated drive, exert variable and rapidly fluctuating force against the “bubble” of normal space–time surrounding the ship. As the small undistorted bubble around the ship must exist in precise equilibrium with the larger zone of differentially compressed and expanded space that surrounds the smaller one, sharp variations, or “shear,” along the boundary rupture the bubble and destroy the ship.
Core Systems The fifty star systems located near the astrographic center of the Union that, although constituting only about 10 percent by number of the Union’s inhabited worlds, are home to 42 percent of its population and 67 percent of its heavy industrial capacity.
cruiser A large, heavily armed, and heavily armored vessel providing an excellent mix of firepower, armor, speed, and endurance. Cruisers are highly powerful and flexible warships that can operate as component parts of large task forces or as the center of small task forces of their own. Cruisers are capable of delivering heavy doses of sustained weapons fire against warships, orbital installations, and surface targets, and can operate without support for more than a year. Most cruiser types mass between 25,000 and 40,000 metric tons and are often loosely divided into the subtypes of light, medium, and heavy. A heavy cruiser is only slightly smaller and less powerful than the smaller classes of battlecruiser.
DC Damage Control. The set of duties and techniques associated with limiting and repairing damage to a ship sustained in space, particularly battle damage. The term is also used to refer to the CIC station used to display damage to the ship and coordinate the efforts of damage control parties, as well as to the person who mans that station.
delta V Change in velocity. Delta is the physics/aerospace symbol for “change,” and V is the symbol for velocity (velocity technically being both speed and direction). Space vehicle maneuvers are typically measured in terms of the delta V necessary to carry them out, as that number immediately tells a pilot whether he has enough fuel and thruster power to complete the maneuver.
destroyer The most numerous type of rated ship in the Navy, destroyers are comparatively small vessels (as measured against cruisers, battleships, and carriers), optimized for speed, maneuverability, and firepower. Known as the “workhorses of the Navy,” destroyers typically mass in the range of 16,000 to 20,000 tons. They are not heavily armored and are not capable of carrying enough stores, fuel, and munitions to operate for long periods of time without resupply, but carry pulse cannons equal in power (though usually fewer of them) to those carried by most frigates. Destroyers are typically operated as escorts to larger vessels as part of a fleet or task force. When a destroyer encounters a ship of greater force, it is supposed to either call upon a heavier vessel with which it is operating or, if none is available, rely on its maneuverability and speed to evade and run away (ELEVES or “elude
, evade, and escape). The CO of a destroyer is typically a commander, although ships in the smaller destroyer classes sometimes have an unusually able lieutenant commander as a skipper.
deuterium separation plant A facility for producing deuterium fuel for fusion reactors. Such plants function by separating naturally occurring deuterium oxide, also known as heavy water, from ordinary water, taking advantage of the two substances’ differing densities, through the use of a series of high-speed centrifuges. Once heavy water of suitable concentration (more than 95 percent) is obtained, the deuterium is then broken down by electrical hydrolysis into elemental oxygen and deuterium. Such facilities tend to be located on water-covered moons similar to Europa in the Sol system because they provide a large supply of relatively high-deuterium water, a shallow gravity well, and some kind of large hard surface (either ice or rock) on which to construct the facility.
droga, merda, porra (Brazilian Portuguese) Bummer, shit, fuck. An exclamation of shock and dismay.
“E” for “Excellence” An award conferred upon a vessel by a Task Force commander or higher authority for conspicuous excellence or achievement in any area of endeavor. The award is displayed by illuminating running lights, arranged in the shape of a large letter “E,” when the vessel is not stealthed. The award is typically made for some demonstration of outstanding proficiency by the vessel and is authorized to be displayed for a limited number of days, usually sixty.
EM Electromagnetic. Usually short for the term “electromagnetic radiation,” meaning visible light, radio waves, ultraviolet, infrared, and similar forms of energy forming a part of the familiar electromagnetic spectrum. Often used to distinguish sensors that detect EM radiation from those that detect other phenomena such as gravitational effects or neutrinos.
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