I recently built a...well, I guess it's technically a ship. Some might call it a crime against space-faring vessels. I was going for something completely different and sort of screwed up during the building process which wound up creating the basic structure for the “field coils”. I shifted gears to follow this new design to fruition and, even though the new variation seemed quite juvenile, the writer portion of my brain decided to throw together a bit of lore for this particular family of ships from the perspective of its newest owner and his experiences with salvaging and retrofitting this orphaned wretch. I'll also be publishing the blueprint for this dreadful atrocity to the Workshop. Rising Dawn There were many things my father taught me while I was growing up. But the one thing that has stuck in my mind more than the others is, “It doesn't have to be a pretty horse to give you a great ride.” I've never been completely certain whether he was referring to our family's short-range transport or my mother; but I choose to believe it was the latter. I have, over the years of my life, owned a wide variety of vessels. From vintage (some would say 'ancient') vehicles that burned hydrocarbon fuels to the latest, top-of-the-line warp cruisers. Some have been gorgeous, some have been hideous. Most have been functional, a few have been...shall we say...'fixer-uppers'. Each and every one of them have had their own quirks, their own personalities, their own eccentricities which made them memorable and unique. The Dawn Jumper is most definitely unique. When I first saw her, she was in a floating junk yard with an erratic orbit that occasionally caused scraps to burn up in the atmosphere. As more junk came in, the older stuff got pushed closer to the planet and a meteoric death. Since the planet was barely inhabited, it almost never caused a problem. Stock rotation through attrition never seemed like the most cost-effective business plan to me. But hey, I bought the Jumper from them, so I guess it has some merit. She was probably a few months from being dragged down when I found her. Her hull was riddled with holes from what the proprietor told me was 'battle damage', but I know micrometeorite impact holes when I see them. The top side of her dorsal and ventral landing pads were peppered along the leading edges. I later learned that the orbit passes through a field of fine asteroids every two or three years. I probably could have talked them down on the price, had I known. But hey, like my dad said, “You live and you learn. You die....and you're beyond caring.” Not all of his anecdotes were inspiring. The ship was originally built by Glacier Beach Orbital Shipyards of Mars as part of their short-lived “Ship Ship” line. The intention had been to build a small fleet of 'warp tugboats' which could ferry or rescue vessels with no FTL capability and take them to wherever they needed to go. The ship line featured one (or two) pairs of inverted landing platforms fore (and aft) of the engineering and command section with a massive set of field coils designed to extend and expand the warp field to encompass the much larger area and mass of any capital ships being hauled. The venture was a complete disaster. The profiles of the ships were likened to everything from gigantic salad tongs for the forward platform pair models to enormous 'space bow ties' for the fore-and-aft, dual platform pair variants. Additionally, the field coils had a tendency to attenuate the warp field under heavy load. There were reported cases where both the platform and the ship docked to it were shorn off and disintegrated in transit. Fortunately, there were no passengers in the seating compartments, which are inside the structure of the platforms themselves, so no deaths were incurred. The field coils themselves look like some monstrous torture device or a phased plasma weapon capable of frying a city from orbit. Luckily, they're far less sinister than they look and, if they are kept within certain operating margins, one can ferry several, small vessels, at warp, with ease. The inverted docking platform can be tricky to deal with. It's not that difficult to dock a ship upside-down when you're in space, but when disembarking, you become subject to the field created by the gravity generator. If you don't watch your step, you can easily 'fall' out into space. I'm not saying that this has ever happened to me, but let's just say that I learned to truly appreciate my suit's jetpack. When I say that the platform is inverted, I mean that literally. It is a mirror image of the platform opposite. Apparently, they were rushed off of a low quality, automated assembly line and were all identical. That's why, when you're in the ventral platform, the passenger seats are on 'the ceiling'. Oh! And as mentioned above, be wary of 'falling' out of the central access corridor into space. If you ever get disoriented and can't tell which side you're on, someone painted one surface green and the other blue. If the grass is beneath your feet, you're on 'the ground'. If the sky is under you, you're falling. I don't know who owned this ship before me, but they have got to have one of the most useless senses of humor ever bestowed on a person. I mentioned before that this particular family of vessels was called the “Ship Ship” line. Well the previous owner decided to christen her....and I'm not making this up....the Ship Ship Ship, or Ship3 for short. There was no way I was going to let that stand. As I was making the calculations for my first warp jump, I noticed that I was just beginning to cross out of the shadow of the planet I was orbiting. What her new name should be was as clear as day. The forward space between the platforms, which I have been using as a makeshift repair bay, has two thrusters that fire out into it. While I appreciate the need to decelerate, the designers probably could have found a better location for them. They even painted yellow 'safety zones' around them...as if anyone would walk in front of a thruster while it was on. There is a red door (one of two on the ship) which leads directly up to the Command & Control center by way of one of the most finicky gravity elevators I have ever encountered. I can never seem to find the sweet spot that makes it work the way it should. I eventually get it to work, usually after becoming incredibly frustrated, and wind up launching myself upward and into the underside of a set of stairs placed directly above the elevator's exit! Who designs a ship like that? One thing I will say in favor of the design, she's got a lot of power. But I guess she needs it, being a tug. There are things she doesn't need and, appropriately, doesn't have. Since she's meant to operate solely in space, she has no landing gear. There are also no real luxuries like constructors and refridgerators and gardens. And there are no weapons. She's not meant for combat. She's a tug. It doesn't bother me since I keep a small vessel docked on a makeshift landing pad on top of the engineering compartment. Let me give you a run-down of what she does have: Gravity Generator x1 O2 Station x1 Passenger Seat x12 (6 are inverted) R.I. Light x9 Interior Light x2 Light x8 Power Generators x10 Cockpit x1 Core Thruster (L) x2 Thruster (A) x2 Thruster (N) x6 Thruster (D) x4 Thruster (S) x4 Running Lights (P) x14 Running Lights (S) x14 Large Fuel Tanks x17 Cargo Box x7 Large O2 Tank x1 Warp Drive Tank x1 Now I will be the first to admit that I am not a great engineer. I know how to do routine maintenance, run power conduits through the ship to consoles on the bridge and I've even gotten pretty good at welding hull patches in a vacuum. I don't even puncture my suit...anymore. I only mention this because I want you to understand that for someone of my skill level to take a ship like the Dawn Jumper from the state she was in when I found her to what she is now is proof that 'a unique fixer-upper opportunity' can give just about anyone a sense of accomplishment. More than anything else about her, I love her sound. Even while simply idling in space with all propulsion offline, there is a rhythm created by all of those generators running that soothes and relaxes me in a way I had never thought possible. For some, floating in space is like returning to the womb. For me, it is her heartbeat which makes me feel elated and sublime all at once. Is she like-new? Not even close. Is she 100% safe? Nope. Is she pretty? No. But she'll give you a great ride!
