Antimatter and the Three Galaxies

[taalismn]

I always wondered where the antimatter used in Three Galaxies power systems came from. Drawing inspiration from the expanded Star Trek universe, the Sten novels by Chris Bunch, and Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn universe, here’s a few thoughts:

Antimatter and the Three Galaxies
“It’s like flying propelled by dynamite....that’s an old chemical explosive to you galactic sophisticates...Oh, there’s plenty of safeguards in the storage, and the reactors, but the stuff is still hair-trigger dangerous. Yet it’s too potent NOT to use, and a good portion of the advanced starfaring cultures won’t do without it, once their starships are sped across the stars by it. Handle it right, and it’s a starfarer’s friend...it’s when it’s used wrong that it becomes a real problem.”

Though FTL drives can be powered by a variety of power sources, antimatter is regarded as the optimal fuel for higher-end and military propulsion. Powerful, compact, and efficient, AM reactors outstrip even the high efficiency fusion powerplants that are power much of the space travel of the Three Galaxies. AM power systems simply take up less space, deliver more power, and can respond more quickly to power demands than other more conventional fuel technologies.
However, while fusion engines can be powered by isotopes of abundant hydrogen that are easy to store(pressurized cryogenic storage being the most common), antimatter is somewhat harder to come by, requiring extra steps to create and store.
Antimatter in the Three Galaxies has three known sources:
*Generated---Using large and powerful particle accelerators, antimatter can be created from existing elements, usually hydrogen(to create anti-hydrogen). These giant facilities are typically placed in desert systems away from inhabited worlds, ideally near another source of fuel, such as a gas giant, feeding massive banks of fusion or fission powerplants, or even solar arrays, that accumulate the large amounts of power needed to create AM. This is the most common means of obtaining antimatter, and is used by the Consortium of Civilized Worlds and the TransGalactic Empire, as well as the more wealthy and technologically sophisticated independent polities. While the CCW permits a few(closely monitored) commercial concerns to produce AM fuels in this manner, AM production is almost entirely government-run in the TGE.
*Natural----Small amounts of antimatter can be found in nature, insulated from contact with normal matter by exotic forms of ‘dark’ matter, or leaking into normal space from dimensional rifts linking to antimatter universes. A few rare ‘hot spots’, usually near energetic cosmic phenomena, are rich in free-floating antimatter. This material can be (carefully) harvested and processed into fuel. Particularly rich source-locations of this sort can become subject to ‘AM rushes’, with those able to control access to them acquiring a virtual monopoly on output. A few lucky independent polities have such natural sources of AM to fuel their starships and interstellar economies.
*Magically Summoned/Created----Magic can be used to create(or draw in) small amounts of antimatter. The United Worlds of Warlock has experimented with using the Annihilate spell on an industrial scale to create and accumulate sufficient amounts of antimatter for use.

The CCW, TGE, Bushi Federation, Naruni Enterprises, and a few of the more advanced smaller star nations(such the Xan Xanti, and the Shemarrian Star Nation) that extensively use antimatter, have all established extensive and comprehensive(and relatively safe) protocols and technologies for storing, transporting, and using antimatter. These methods have proven reliably safe over the centuries, though AM remains regulated as a hazardous substance, and failures of the safety systems leads to loud negative publicity and new cycles of renewed safety reengineering and regulation. In the end, however, few nations that make the jump to using antimatter give it up, and then only in a more powerful alternative presents itself(many of the Elder Species show signs of having gone through any-matter-usage phases, before discovering more exotic sources of power, such as dimensional taps or zero-point energy).
A few nations have the ability to create antimatter, but don’t. The Golgan Republik, though long having the potential, have shied away from AM systems, feeling the presence of antimatter in their space has too much potential for disaster. Only a few small AM production facilities exist in Golgan space, producing small(and heavily monitored) amounts of AM for research and special purposes. The Republik prefers to chug along using larger, but safer, conventional fusion reactors.
There is also a thriving trade in black market antimatter ‘off the grid’ of the CCW and TGE inspectors. Refueling of commercial AM power systems requires special equipment, licensing, and the oversight of special government officials and engineers in most AM-using polities. CCW- and TGE-made AM powerplants and storage pods have multiple redundancies and coded seals to prevent unauthorized persons from stealing safety-sealed AM fuel, and a few of the more sophisicated systems can even ‘slow burn’, ‘denature’, or contaminate the stored antimatter in event of tampering, rendering the AM less potant or entirely useless. EOD teams in AM-using star nations ideally get trained in handling potential AM hazards(ranked up there with nuclear WMDs) and have special equipment for containing antimatter leaks. However, enough codes and handling protocol material have made their way to the black market that many pirates and criminal organizations can handle antimatter. There also exist ‘black labs’ that produce AM illegally and prviously unsuspected(and unreported) natural sources provide enough unregistered antimatter to the galactic market that the authorities have set up special task forces to track down and tamp off the AM traffic. Punishments for illegal antimatter possession and distribution can be quite serious; in the CCW it can result in long prison sentences(and capital punishment if the AM was used in mass casualty events), while the TGE executes AM traffickers.

[jaymz]

Interesting.

[taalismn]

Interesting.

Thanks.
When PhaseWorld first came out, it seemed like everything was antimatter-powered, it apparently being 'cooler' than plain old 'nuclear' power plants, and even less explained. And at first it seemed like it was necessary to power FTL system(unless you were jumping via magi Rift Drive)s, but fusion crept back into the picture.

Come Fleets of the Galaxies, though, and the Golgan ships, even the new state of the art ones, are all powered by fusion, so it's not a necessity.

So I imagine the other major powers have ST Federation-like economies of antimatter. They know how to handle the stuff, but its production is restricted to a number of well-protected plants which send out specialized armored tankers to distribution points where heavily-armored pods and power modules are dispersed to refueling stations and depots. AM production facilities are big power plant farms gathering enough energy to crack atoms and produce their AM mirrors, and they're far away from any worlds they could pollute with the waste from power generation or iirradiate with a plant malfunction.

PFH's 'Night's Dawn' has the CONfederation sharply restricting antimatter because of several incidents of AM planet-killers. Any ship with antimatter propulsion is a potential warship both because of its speed and potential lethal exhaust(technically you can have the plumbing for an AM drive on your ship, but you can't have the AM fuel...the Confederation Navy will look at you funny for the drive installation, but can't arrest you unless you actually have antiprotons aboard).

CB's Sten series had TWO sources of AM; an imperial monopoly on cheap AM that was mined in another universe, and illegal manufacturing.

Or, if you wanna go even more obscure, the old StarHunter TV series had AM as a super fuel that few folks could get ahold of, and AM ships typically had their fuel supply trailing in heavily armored pods behind them to reduce the chance of big kabooms if containment was lost.


Bringing it back around to Phaseworld, I imagine that the Free Worlds League is desperate for AM both to fuel their warships and to arm themselves. Any production facility in their space would become an instant target for TGE agents/forces(adventure hook, anybody?), and they'd be seeking any reliable source of AM they could afford(yet more potential adventuring).

[Mlp7029]

Of course mages could produce it by using a variant of a couple of spells.

[taalismn]

Of course mages could produce it by using a variant of a couple of spells.

That's why I mentioned the UWW using the Annihilate spell. But you'd still need an advanced TW infrastructure to collect, contain, transport, and use the resulting AM in sufficient quantities to support a galactic polity. Given that the new UWW Nexus battleships use both magic and antimatter power, just casting Annihilate a couple of times is NOT going to give you enough of the anti-stuff to sustain power to an interstellar warship.

[glitterboy2098]

especially since the spell normally does not allow you to access the AM in it.. you'd have to have developed a new version. which arguably would actualyl be much more powerful than the normal one, since the normal one restrains the result of the AM hitting stuff so it only destroyes everything in a certain area effect.. instead of going off in a city flattening explosion.

[taalismn]

Vetero-390( Corkscrew Galaxy, CCW Antimatter Production System)
Vetero-390 is a ‘desert’(in that it has developed no worlds capable of supporting life) star system in the Consortium of Civilized Worlds. It lies, along with several dozen other desert systems, along the Aeran-Celestra Hyperspace TradeWay, between two of the Human Alliance’s coreworlds.
Vetero-390 is home to the Vitom Power Farm, an antimatter-production facility run ad maintained by Vitom Dynamics(coporate headquarters on Celestra), which is licensed by the CCW Energy Commission to produce antimatter for both commercial and military power systems.
The single rocky planet in the system, designated Veet-One, has been developed for the production and maintenance of large power farms of fusion and fission reactors, the former fueled by hydrogen isotopes shipped from Veet-Two, and the latter by fissionables mined from Veet-One’s crust.
Sitting in geosynchronous orbit of Veet-One are six massive (17 km diameter) super-collider stations that receive microwave beam energy from Veet-One’s surface, and from solar collector power sats elsewhere in Vetero’s orbit. The super-colliders produce anti-hydrogen which is collected, sifted for any contaminants(such as other particles), bottled in magnetic containment pods, and collected at an orbital warehouse station where armored freighters are loaded up when enough AM has been produced. The ships then are escorted out of the system and to other distribution stations.
Though much of operations are heavily automated, over 250,000 workers with Vitom Dynamics live and work in the system, most concerned with mining, manufacturing, and maintaining the various reactors. The majority of them live in habitats on Veet-Two’s moons, with work shift housing on Veet-One’s surface. Most workers typically work five-year contracts before being rotated to other assignments outsystem.
The CCW CAF maintains a naval base in the system, located on another one of V-2’s moons. This base plays host to two Warshield cruisers and a half-dozen Scimitars at any given time, though it has capacity to dock over ten times that number of vessels.
Vitom Dynamics also has a small fleet of security cutters in-system to discourage pirates. These vessels are little better than patrol ships or Corister-class corvettes.

Solar System(Vetero-390)
Number of Stars: 1
Types of Stars: Blue Giant
Number of Planets: 2
-Terrestrial(Veet-One)---Earth-sized(albeit on the small end) but Mars-like in its aridness and lifelessness, Veet-One is dotted with large reactor farms, constructed from locally mined materials. The planet is also host to several large mines and factories producing new reactor components, power sat parts, and shipping pods. Two large equatorial massdrivers provide cheap material launches to orbit.

-Gas Giant(Veet-Two)---This gas giant provides a supply of hydrogen fuel for the fusion reactors elsewhere in the system. The gas harvesting operation is run from bases on V2’s moons. The largest of the gas giant’s five moons plays host to several domed communities for the workers’ families. The CAF naval base is on another of the moons, from where it monitors interstellar traffic in the local neighborhood.

[pad300]

I think you're overestimating a) the scarcity of AM production, and b) the "safe spacing" needed for AM production.
For a) AM power is used for most of the stuff in phase world. Your postulated AM production limits make it an obvious strategic controlled material; why would any non-gov't actors have it? Why would any non-major power with AM manufacturing have it? Wrt to b), there is just an insane amount of space in a star system. For example, in our solar system, an orbiting production facility been Neptune and Uranus, can be multiple AU away from anything else...

I would suggest that any developed, industrialized system (of the appropriate tech level) will have it's own industrial AM facility. Most likely place is in the same orbit as the inhabited planet, on the opposite side of the system primary (star). Power from a large set of solar collectors... It makes a major strategic issue, like an oil supply. Alternatively a dispersed set of smaller stations. Makes for less of a critical asset, but more a security issue to protect them all.

[taalismn]

I think you're overestimating a) the scarcity of AM production, and b) the "safe spacing" needed for AM production.
For a) AM power is used for most of the stuff in phase world. Your postulated AM production limits make it an obvious strategic controlled material; why would any non-gov't actors have it? Why would any non-major power with AM manufacturing have it? Wrt to b), there is just an insane amount of space in a star system. For example, in our solar system, an orbiting production facility been Neptune and Uranus, can be multiple AU away from anything else...

I would suggest that any developed, industrialized system (of the appropriate tech level) will have it's own industrial AM facility. Most likely place is in the same orbit as the inhabited planet, on the opposite side of the system primary (star). Power from a large set of solar collectors... It makes a major strategic issue, like an oil supply. Alternatively a dispersed set of smaller stations. Makes for less of a critical asset, but more a security issue to protect them all.

True....and with that in mind, Vetero could be an older facility using heavier machinery to make AM. It's the scale of the operation that made the corporation want to move it allot a desert systems that they could pollute at will, and that they could eyeball incoming traffic that much more easily, rather than track a busy settled solar system's worth on traffic.

[Warshield73]

I like all of this, especially the Natural sources I had never even considered that, but as usual we just don't have enough information in the books and have to make up some of the rules. I mean as you said everything in the first 2 books is AM powered even power armor so AM is really common but it's also destructive and at least in theory is hard to make.

Did you make changes to what can use AM, like did you switch Silverhawks to fusion for instance, to make AM less common/available?

I think you're overestimating a) the scarcity of AM production, and b) the "safe spacing" needed for AM production.
For a) AM power is used for most of the stuff in phase world. Your postulated AM production limits make it an obvious strategic controlled material; why would any non-gov't actors have it? Why would any non-major power with AM manufacturing have it? Wrt to b), there is just an insane amount of space in a star system. For example, in our solar system, an orbiting production facility been Neptune and Uranus, can be multiple AU away from anything else...

I tend to agree with this. We have the damage and blast radius for both AM cruise missiles and large ship reactors and none are more than a few miles. Now you can argue that these are not realistic, I have in fact made that argument, but setting aside entire systems for the production of seems extreme and strategically unwise. In the situation you describe AM shipments would be incredibly vulnerable to attack.

I would suggest that any developed, industrialized system (of the appropriate tech level) will have it's own industrial AM facility. Most likely place is in the same orbit as the inhabited planet, on the opposite side of the system primary (star). Power from a large set of solar collectors... It makes a major strategic issue, like an oil supply. Alternatively a dispersed set of smaller stations. Makes for less of a critical asset, but more a security issue to protect them all.

I have always viewed gas giants in inhabited systems as a place for large scale industry and ship construction. You can syphon gas from the planet itself, mine moons that have useful ores, dump waste on moons that are not useful or mined out, and build large orbital works for asteroid mining. I figure any system with large enough ship construction would have it's own particle accelerator (maybe more than one), usually in orbit of one of the closer moons or the gas giant itself for the easy supply of gas. Of course I had them as giant rings around a central core station because you know they look cool and they blow up pretty but that's just me.

True....and with that in mind, Vetero could be an older facility using heavier machinery to make AM. It's the scale of the operation that made the corporation want to move it allot a desert systems that they could pollute at will, and that they could eyeball incoming traffic that much more easily, rather than track a busy settled solar system's worth on traffic.

When I first Read the description for Vetero I didn't think it fir but I like this idea. A deserted system from the early days of AM technology. Maybe the mines are all played out so the industry in the system might be desperate, selling AM to the wrong people.

The idea that a system like this would pollute at will also gives some great options for debris fields and the like. Good place for an adventure.

[taalismn]

In answer to Warshield73's question about power plant availability in my settings?
-AM is the energy of choice for really advanced and compact power plants. A lot of species and polities get along just fine without them, using advanced fusion, but their power systems tend to be larger and shorter-lived. Really powerful zippers like the Silverhawk, In my settings, are only really possible because of compact AM power packs which produce the necessary energy density to power those erg-hungry systems. On the other hand, the family colony cruiser from Thundercloud with its 5-year AM power plant? I am more likely to swap that system for a longer-lived, if bulkier, fusion unit. AM is generally is, or should be, served in polities like the CCW and TGE for high-end military and government applications or licensed groups like the more powerful corporations or courier services. The rest get by on more conventional nuke systems.

I also figured that if you're using lower-tech like large 'farms' of fission reactors to build up the power to create commercially viable quantities of AM, having a desert planet is useful because some older technologies work better in gravity wells, like steam-cooling, so you don't have to waste energy pumping coolant all the way, when gravity can do part of the job. So you're using masses of older tech to produce the more energetic and compact fuel fo the future technology.

[Warshield73]

In answer to Warshield73's question about power plant availability in my settings?
-AM is the energy of choice for really advanced and compact power plants. A lot of species and polities get along just fine without them, using advanced fusion, but their power systems tend to be larger and shorter-lived. Really powerful zippers like the Silverhawk, In my settings, are only really possible because of compact AM power packs which produce the necessary energy density to power those erg-hungry systems. On the other hand, the family colony cruiser from Thundercloud with its 5-year AM power plant? I am more likely to swap that system for a longer-lived, if bulkier, fusion unit. AM is generally is, or should be, served in polities like the CCW and TGE for high-end military and government applications or licensed groups like the more powerful corporations or courier services. The rest get by on more conventional nuke systems.

I also figured that if you're using lower-tech like large 'farms' of fission reactors to build up the power to create commercially viable quantities of AM, having a desert planet is useful because some older technologies work better in gravity wells, like steam-cooling, so you don't have to waste energy pumping coolant all the way, when gravity can do part of the job. So you're using masses of older tech to produce the more energetic and compact fuel fo the future technology.

OK, that makes sense. I think with all the holes in Phase World we often filled them with whatever we were reading or watching. When I first needed to think about AM production for a scenario I had read a book set in the near future that said AM production was easier in 0G. I think it might have been the Space Marine books, don't remember.

As for changing small vehicles we were trying to come up with how much damage a reactor breach in small fighters, power armors and tanks. To myself and my group the use of a chunk of AM to power a PA just didn't make sense. Both fusion and fission reactors can explode if destroyed but they can also be shut down limiting the destruction. Anything with an AM reactor will explode if breached and we don't have damage listing for them.

[taalismn]

Depends on how much AM there is, and the efficiency of the energy capture mechanism. Portable AM systems might contain only a few atoms of AM, with a very effective battery system absorbing and holding the energy from a. slow, periodic erosion of the AM 'matter', rathe than the continual annihilation we see in things like Star Trek's warp drives.

The C.Bunch Sten stories, for instance, had the Empire using explosive small arms ammo that had only an atom or two of AM held per bullet; it was enough to blow a man in half...and Imperial small arms had magazines holding nearly a HUNDRED rounds. I don't recall if they ever used AM magazines as grenades(probably; the whole series was about a special forces operative in a space opera). Still, that bespeaks near idiot-proof levels of safe handling. I dunno; maybe the AM was held suspended in electromagnetically-charged buckyballs.

[Borast]

taalismn - the generating stations are in "desert" systems? Perhaps the word "Uninhabited" might be better?

That being said, "why?"...
M/AM reactions are exceedingly dangerous, yes. However, given that they merely turn equivalent volumes into energy (Gamma / X-Ray / etc.), unless you're talking about serious kilo-tonnage, production can be safely (relatively) created and stored. (Especially if you have monopole technology!)
After all, colliders on Earth right now are creating nanoscopic amounts of antimatter, and the people using them are not sterilising the biosphere around them.
For industrial levels of AM production, simply isolating it a few light hours from "civilization" should be sufficient to protect he people and industries through the system.

I can understand why non-Government agencies may not use it, because the risks involved, and I'm not only talking about an accidental M/AM reaction. A M/AM reaction is all or nothing, where fission and fusion are, not only scalable, but controllable.

Now, for purposes of starship propulsion ... NEVER let a fusion powered ship point it's engine at you...a fusion powered ship *is* a ship killing weapon.
On the plus side, a ship under power is visible from anywhere within the star system.

[taalismn]

Now, for purposes of starship propulsion ... NEVER let a fusion powered ship point it's engine at you...a fusion powered ship *is* a ship killing weapon.
On the plus side, a ship under power is visible from anywhere within the star system.

Fusion REACTION drives, yeah...Kzinti Lesson.
But if you're using a fusion power plant to power a Contra-Gravity propulsion system, it's different. We see illustrations of classic sci-fi space opera ships with glowing thrusters, but no discussion of what a CG-drive really does with regards to environmental hazards to crew and surroundings, like a zone of gravitational warping or sideband radiation release from atomics being torn apart/compressed near the field emitters. I suspect, though, nothing like having Gd's Own Solar Flashlight pointed at you on High-Beam. .
I imagine fusion reactors would still have to dump large amounts of heat, unless they've got some super-efficient means of converting waste heat into usable power, so there might still be some danger if an unwary spacewalker leaned up against the radiators and got cooked.

[glitterboy2098]

i'v generally assumed those glowing thruster looking things are the radiators for dumping heat, and the CG drive itself is reactionless.

[Borast]

i'v generally assumed those glowing thruster looking things are the radiators for dumping heat, and the CG drive itself is reactionless.

In the case of Star Trek, the glow-y things on the rear actually are the propulsion units...and exhaust does exit the ship from them, in many forms. As I recall, neither the UFP or KDF use reactionless thrusters.

For Star Wars, I don't think any of the civs you can encounter in that setting have reactionless tech.

For other settings (B5, Firefly, Stargate, anything streamable, etc.) I'm not familiar enough with the techs (or, in some cases, the show premise) to make any commentary there.

[glitterboy2098]

you realize i was speaking specifically about CG drives of phase world, and not about any of those?
phase world has contradictory info. the CG drives are stated many times to be reactionless yet every ship has these big honking rocket looking exhaust systems. thus my stance. they forego big panel type radiator arrays of the sort we'd have to build IRL in favor of some scifi tech that lets lets them radiate heat with those exhaust looking things.

[Borast]

Yes and no?

I don't think I've seen the back end of any 3G ships in colour.

[taalismn]

Yes and no?

I don't think I've seen the back end of any 3G ships in colour.

Fleets of the Three Galaxies.
Though they don't identify those ships as having CG drives.

And if those are CG drives and those thrusters are really radiators, they must be using some expendable media to carry off heat, given that we're seeing glowing plumes streaming from them.

[Borast]

Yes and no?

I don't think I've seen the back end of any 3G ships in colour.

Fleets of the Three Galaxies.
Though they don't identify those ships as having CG drives.

And if those are CG drives and those thrusters are really radiators, they must be using some expendable media to carry off heat, given that we're seeing glowing plumes streaming from them.

Really?
Darn...makes me wish I could FIND the copy I bought! (It's one of 3 books I know I purchased [2 being from 3G], but can not find.)

[taalismn]

[
Really?
Darn...makes me wish I could FIND the copy I bought! (It's one of 3 books I know I purchased [2 being from 3G], but can not find.)

Yeah, my book collection's like that too. SOMEWHERE I have 'edition x' and 'edition y'.....but it may be under several feet/strata of other books.

[Borast]

Yeah, my book collection's like that too. SOMEWHERE I have 'edition x' and 'edition y'.....but it may be under several feet/strata of other books.

What makes it worse, is in addition to the book shelf, there is two different Banker's Boxes and the "to be read" stack... sigh...

[taalismn]

Yeah, my book collection's like that too. SOMEWHERE I have 'edition x' and 'edition y'.....but it may be under several feet/strata of other books.

What makes it worse, is in addition to the book shelf, there is two different Banker's Boxes and the "to be read" stack... sigh...

Oh yeah, we readers have it -bad-.

[Warshield73]

Depends on how much AM there is, and the efficiency of the energy capture mechanism. Portable AM systems might contain only a few atoms of AM, with a very effective battery system absorbing and holding the energy from a. slow, periodic erosion of the AM 'matter', rathe than the continual annihilation we see in things like Star Trek's warp drives.

The C.Bunch Sten stories, for instance, had the Empire using explosive small arms ammo that had only an atom or two of AM held per bullet; it was enough to blow a man in half...and Imperial small arms had magazines holding nearly a HUNDRED rounds. I don't recall if they ever used AM magazines as grenades(probably; the whole series was about a special forces operative in a space opera). Still, that bespeaks near idiot-proof levels of safe handling. I dunno; maybe the AM was held suspended in electromagnetically-charged buckyballs.

I created a super advanced starship if PW that my PCs boarded and had to destroy, I think I had it created by one of the elder races but I forget which one, but it had a powerplant like this. But, there is no evidence that the current races of the 3G. With that assumption in place anything that can power even a slow FTL, energy weapons, and shields is going to carry at least as much AM as say a cruise missile. Now you could argue that the AM in something like a Ground Pounder is fairly small but not in fighters or even aircraft powered by it.

I love the idea of AM 'bullets' for weapons but again no evidence the races of the 3Gs are at that level.

taalismn - the generating stations are in "desert" systems? Perhaps the word "Uninhabited" might be better?

That being said, "why?"...
M/AM reactions are exceedingly dangerous, yes. However, given that they merely turn equivalent volumes into energy (Gamma / X-Ray / etc.), unless you're talking about serious kilo-tonnage, production can be safely (relatively) created and stored. (Especially if you have monopole technology!)
After all, colliders on Earth right now are creating nanoscopic amounts of antimatter, and the people using them are not sterilising the biosphere around them.
For industrial levels of AM production, simply isolating it a few light hours from "civilization" should be sufficient to protect he people and industries through the system.

I can understand why non-Government agencies may not use it, because the risks involved, and I'm not only talking about an accidental M/AM reaction. A M/AM reaction is all or nothing, where fission and fusion are, not only scalable, but controllable.

I do agree that AM production would be away from inhabited worlds but no reason to think its in systems of its own.

To me this is why fusion or fission drives would be the most common power sources in spacecraft and especially on civilian ones.

Now, for purposes of starship propulsion ... NEVER let a fusion powered ship point it's engine at you...a fusion powered ship *is* a ship killing weapon.
On the plus side, a ship under power is visible from anywhere within the star system.

Fusion REACTION drives, yeah...Kzinti Lesson.
But if you're using a fusion power plant to power a Contra-Gravity propulsion system, it's different. We see illustrations of classic sci-fi space opera ships with glowing thrusters, but no discussion of what a CG-drive really does with regards to environmental hazards to crew and surroundings, like a zone of gravitational warping or sideband radiation release from atomics being torn apart/compressed near the field emitters. I suspect, though, nothing like having Gd's Own Solar Flashlight pointed at you on High-Beam. .
I imagine fusion reactors would still have to dump large amounts of heat, unless they've got some super-efficient means of converting waste heat into usable power, so there might still be some danger if an unwary spacewalker leaned up against the radiators and got cooked.

i'v generally assumed those glowing thruster looking things are the radiators for dumping heat, and the CG drive itself is reactionless.

This might make sense on a certain level, but as we have discussed before, it is now in the canon (DB 13: Fleets of the Three Galaxies) that these are actual reaction, usually plasma, engines. Now I did start a discussion about how CG FTL Drives but in the case of both sub-light and FTL we really have no idea how it works. We have artwork for things like the original CG pack or the Silverhawk PA that seems to show that it is reactionless. When we look at ships and fighters they all have in the artwork and in the MDC descriptions actual engines.

Most sci-fi franchises use some form of reaction drive combined with some sort of magic gravity field. That is Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, etc. Very little explanation, sometimes none, but that is what they have.

Star Gate explains that the field "takes inertia out of the equation" but relies on standard engines for thrust similar to ST with impulse engines. Now Honor Harrington has the most developed sub light and FTL drive I have seen in sci-fi and it is fusion powered thrusters whose effect is greatly enhanced by a "gravity wedge" that allows it to accelerate much faster than just reaction drive on it's own. This was always how I see CG working at sub light.

Babylon 5 never really explained how theirs worked but for those races with artificial gravity fields we see (on ships like the Whitestar, Excalibur, and Minbari ships) we see some sort of reaction engines. Now we do see examples of completely reactionless drives but those are mainly extremely advanced villains like the Shadows. For me this is why most vehicles in sci-fi have the glowy bits, if you watch shadow ships move through space with no visible engine it is CREEPY as all hell. Visually it is just cool to see the engine flare of a Whitestar, Millennium Falcon or Enterprise as it accelerates or blasts off just fits what we think we see. From a story point of view it can also give some interesting ideas like we see in Star Gate or Honor Harrington where a ship uses it's reaction drive without the field for some tactical or emergency purpose.

you realize i was speaking specifically about CG drives of phase world, and not about any of those?
phase world has contradictory info. the CG drives are stated many times to be reactionless yet every ship has these big honking rocket looking exhaust systems. thus my stance. they forego big panel type radiator arrays of the sort we'd have to build IRL in favor of some scifi tech that lets lets them radiate heat with those exhaust looking things.

The description of sub-light CG drives in DB 2 seems to describe a reactionless drive on some level but all the vehicles he created had some sort of thrust, this was especially clear in things like the Scorpion fighter with it's auxiliary engines. Just like with FTL sub-light CG drive is just to poorly defined and it would have been nice if one of the later authors had tried to define it before adding more contradictions with new ship descriptions.

Truthfully this is the big thing that needs to be addressed before any other tech in PW. How can we know what sensors can detect of ships without knowing how the drives work. How can we create actual stealth systems without knowing what effects we are trying to cover for.

I have approached CG sub-light as a hybrid. CG fields on there own can move vehicles at a relatively slow speed. So some ships just have that and it explains the CG packs. Reaction Drives can of course move things all on their own but not as efficiently. Put them together and you have a vehicle with high efficiency, better acceleration, and higher speed. It's not perfect but it fits everything OK.

Yeah, my book collection's like that too. SOMEWHERE I have 'edition x' and 'edition y'.....but it may be under several feet/strata of other books.

What makes it worse, is in addition to the book shelf, there is two different Banker's Boxes and the "to be read" stack... sigh...

Oh yeah, we readers have it -bad-.

I went through a brutal culling of my book shelf and boxes last year just to get out from under what you are talking about here. 3 full boxes of old hardbacks and paperbacks (and DVDs) that I was sure I would never read again and could live without all to half priced books. I still have full shelves, and boxes of them and some of those books I wish I still had. Went looking for one just last week. What's worse I have been buying most of my books on Kindle for the last 5 years so I hate to imagine what my house would look like if I hadn't made that switch.