Question about Aurora
Isummon_Durt
Lower MiddleEarth Join Date: 2017-12-09 Member: 234349Members
Lower MiddleEarth Join Date: 2017-12-09 Member: 234349Members
I happened to see that in the room in which I found the Aurora's blackbox, there were many modules covering the walls and that two, (maybe more,) seemed to have been deployed. My first playthrough, I thought that they were reactors of some sort and that Alterra must have their hands on some crazy energy sources. But then, lateer, I found that the- I guess 'drive room'- was elsewhere and proportionately large for the job which it had to perform. And so, not I am wondering, again what those modules were. Were they escape pods? They were in the lower portion of the ship, (the little extension on the bottom,) and we can see what looks like a lifepod being deployed from that area in the loading screen. But I really have no idea. Any answers?
Comments
Odds on, @Skope is right; being removable, data storage of some sort is a likely explanation. The other would be hot-swappable processor modules. Since taking the computer running the ship offline during flight would be...well, let's go with "inadvisable"...it would make sense for the major hardware of the machine to be modular and hot-swappable. That way, if the thing blows a core in flight, you can just pop the bad one out and slot a replacement in until you can refurbish the original.
They could also be the Alterra future version of a UPS battery array.
Of course, it's all blind conjecture, so almost any answer is equally valid.
The crew have to store their deep-space phasegate-building family vacation photos somewhere right?
However, another Idea would be giant powercells.
@scifiwriterguy
While the idea that they were backups for the onboard computer seems most plausible, (since they were stored in the same room as the aurora's black box,) they could very well have been escape pods. There could have been ladders which extended from the ceiling or walls so that Alterran employees could easily climb through the hatches. And as for being too small, I completely disagree with this; and it almost sorta' might not make no sense for the computer terminal to also be placed in the escape pod bay ("If it will make you feel better, you can call me Eddy.") Also, they could also be housings for the Aurora's flight log. If there were 18 modules and two were empty, maybe that could be used to determine the length of the Aurora's journey. Although that could also mean that Alterra is just renowned for their computers gaining sapience and killing everyone on board that they need 17 backups. Speaking of this, maybe reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey was intended? That Alterra would put the document saying "Oh, yeah, sorry that the ship killed everyone else" message in the room from which the computer could be backed up?
This makes no sense. Why would you want to put the reactor room in a separate location from the place where you store your power? Why not just burn it quickly, efficiently, and instantly as it is produced? Also, storing the power cells in the first place which would blow up if the ship crashes is probably one of the stupidest thing for the engineers to do.
In a word? Redundancy.
If I put my power storage in the same place as my generators, if the generators are destroyed, I lose all my power because the batteries are probably going to go up with them. But if I spread things out (or around), then any one accident is unlikely to knock out all of my power supplies. It's the same reason we attach UPS batteries to our computers.
Then if you were worried about disaster and wanted to be sure of effective redundancy, why would you put either the generator or the power cell storage in harm's way? Like I said; if the Aurora were to land anywhere... um... 'sharper', the power cell storage would be one of the first places to get squished at the bottom of the ship. Although I guess that there's some sense in placing it at the 'bottom' of the ship rather than right next to the thing which you're most worried about blowing up; the generator. And then, you don't want your power storage to between the command bridge and the rest of the ship because of really long elevator rides. Although maybe that wouldn't be too bad an idea if you wanted an emphasis on no workers getting within ten meters of the big shiny command console. And also, the Escape Rocket has its reactor between the cockpit and the storage room rather than at the logical back of the ship.
And "harm's way" depends on where you suppose it will be more vulnerable, which is not straightforward and depends on a myriad of factors.
To me it feels like both rooms (generator and "power cell") are very centralized in the ship so I'm not getting the bottom of the ship argument.
In my personal opinion those are space fairing bots. Drones to handle your everyday space needs. And they are stored together to mitigate their loneliness, space loneliness.
We don't know that. The Aurora would need shuttles to ferry people from a planet to the Aurora and back. If the Aurora had shuttles, then they would have needed to be destroyed by the QEP or have a long startup sequence to not have been used to excavate some of the passengers. It is possible that Aurora needs a planetary spaceport to properly land and take off. There is no evidence one way or the other about whether the Aurora is supposed to stay in space.
True, I'm assuming that. It is illogical for a ship with that size/weight, built by a space-fairing society to launch from a planet. Probably from a small moon or space station.
There's this PDA entry about it.
PHASEGATE ANNOUNCED FOR THE ARIADNE ARM: ALTERRA LAUNCHES THE AURORA
The furthest reaches of inhabited space are due to expand, as Alterra Corp launches a newly-constructed capital ship, carrying a phasegate bound for the Ariadne Arm.
The Aurora will travel from spacedock on the edge of Alterra space, making hundreds of consecutive phasegate jumps through nine different trans-gov authorities...
I assume that spacedock means a dock in space. Maybe it was built in a planet, but it wasn't parked on one prior to the mission nor any suggestion was made about landing on any.
I think that if they were drones, they'd be best placed on ground level. If they were exterior drones for repairs, they'd be best placed in hangars along the outside of the ship and would have a little track network running along the hull so that the drones wouldn't fly off into space and could just slide back and forth. Remember! Areal drones are noisy; and so any interior drones would best be ground-based and simply roll around on treads or whatever like R2D2; because remember that Alterra's space and liquid-grade ion drives don't work at all well in a gaseous medium. So the ship would be full of 'buzzzzzzzzzz' and the like. And also, I'm pretty sure that a PDA entry references the laboratory having a drone assigned to it with just rolls around and fetches things, oddly enough.
And I like your pun about getting to the 'bottom' of the ship (argument)
It's obvious that the Aurora cannot land in an atmosphere; or at least it won't be able to take off afterwards. It's only apparent engines are Alterra ion drives and it's not all that aerodynamic. However, as for space-ports, it'd probably sort-of dock with then for refueling; but shuttles would likely be used for all other ventures such as restocking supplies and so forth.
They do have that many cells. Some are just empty.
SInce there are two modules missing, wouldn't that suggest that any empty cells would be immediately removed?