Anatomy of a Starship

The Basics
The majority of starships derive their main power from the interaction of an atom of matter, and an atom of antimatter of equivalent type. In order to generate more useful power this process is managed within a matter-antimatter reaction chamber containing a precisely engineered dilithium crystal. The reactant materials are injected into this chamber to meet and annihilate each other, giving off vast amounts of energy. As a whole assembly, this forms the famous warp core that operates as the primary powerplant of most interstellar craft.

Process
All Starfleet starships will operate on a similar pattern. Deuterium is stored as a super-fluidic slurry in a large tank. This is also used to provide fuel for the impulse reactors. Antideuterium is kept separately in a series of magnetically stabilised pods. From these sources, reactants are passed to injectors that are mounted at either end of the elongated warp core.

The actual reaction chamber - the MARC - is a long pressure vessel tightly wound with magnetic constrictors. The magnetic fields are used to restrict the flow of reactants to an extremely thin corridor to where it meets a dilithium crystal in a mobile armature assembly. Dilithium is a particular type of lithium that contain subspace particles, and serve to moderate the resulting reactions. The warp core itself is a strict vacuum within the chamber to avoid unplanned annihilation events, a hazard that can see a warp core obliterate itself and the surrounding ship. However, the effective pressure in the vessel is tremendous, and created by the magnetic constrictors, rising up to thousands of kilopascals in full operation.

This process, of course, sees the temperature in that small cylinder of space rise tremendously, while the temperature of the annihilation by-products register temperatures seldom seen outside of solar interiors. This requires an advanced cooling system to keep the magnetic constrictors, and the dilithium armature, from experienced degraded performance, or even structural failure. The coolant system can take a number of forms, but is typically arranged with a liquid cooling medium distributed among the magnetic constrictors, and performing a heat-exchange with an internalised coolant system operating within the dilitihium armature.

The Blood Vessels
The moderated reaction, plus a typical oversupply of deuterium, creates a stream of plasma, which is directed outward in two right-angled streams. Twin Power Transfer Conduits convey these plasma streams from the core. The PTC can be envisioned as a sort of aorta in the context of the overall plasma management system, carrying away a vast amount of energy in the form of plasma. It is not normally possible for the PTC to be removed from the warp core outside of extensive yardwork, as a PTC that becomes unstepped from a core in operation will almost certainly destroy the vessel in question.

The 'warp plasma' carried away by the PTC needs to be smoothed into a consistent frequency and phase in order to be useful. The warp matrix, which occupies a position in the secondary engineering hull in Starfleet vessels, receives and intermixes the warp plasma into a form that can be fed through the nacelles effectively. Electro-Plasma System taps are placed on the PTC to draw off the necessary power, which is then fed through EPS manifolds. The end result is a lower-energy, more stable EP that is at 120hz, six-phase (180hz eight-phase for certain high-energy systems, like the navigational deflector or science equipment), down from the 1012-1020hz generated by the warp plasma.

From the primary EPS manifold, the electro-plasma is conveyed around the ship, usually through trunks that loop around the ship. These are normally in well protected bulkheads, accessible for maintenance by jeffrey tubes. Quick-response force field generators are present on most modern systems, that are designed to activate in the event of a sudden pressure loss, so that any spillage of EPS is directed outward through the hull (inasmuch as possible, crewed workstations are not placed directly between trunks and the nearest hull plating). A series of smaller manifolds distribute from the trunk into capillary-like small conduits, delivering specific energy requirements. In some instances, a further step-down in power sees a return to safer electrical current, such as those used in living quarters.

The Risks
When things go wrong in the warp drive system, they tend to go catastrophically wrong. Indeed, an extensive part of the day to day routine of any crew is doing their best to keep the tremendous fundamental forces of their warp core in check. Anything that sunders the protective pressure vessel leads almost invariably to a loss of vessel with all hands. It can further lead to serious harm in surrounding space; the breach-in-orbit of the USS Cheron’s warp core over Delta Vega in 2303 led to an ecological disaster that took the better part of two decades to resolve. It is for this reason that in-system craft are not allowed to use warp cores, while inter-stellar civilian craft typically have their antimatter tanks drained before entering orbit around populated and/or M and L Class worlds.

The EPS system as a whole is also fraught with risk - the power demands of modern systems force the use of electro-plasma, but it too has its own containment issues. In starship combat, frequently casualties arise not from the primary effects of weapons fire, but from the secondary explosions of cored electro-plasma trunks. A blow that severs a PTC is liable to bring the whole ship to a shuddering halt, in addition to likely killing no small part of the secondary hull crew as bulkheads and forcefields fail under the assault of unconditioned warp plasma.

The Basics
The computer system at the core of any modern starship has come a long way. From early analog, to primitive digital, to microprocessors, to early quantum computing, monotronic cores, the familiar duotronic systems, and latterly the tremendously powerful isolinear systems. But there has always been, somewhere, a Computer Core, even if sometimes at ground control.

In the 24th Century, the most common type of core systems are the Type-III and Type-IV duotronic system. Each of these are capacious devices, occupying multiple decks and typically taking a secure position in the heart of the primary hull. While individual logic units are not necessarily large, the many redundancies, the operator rooms, coolant and heat venting systems, as well as specialised power management systems for ensuring both continuity and quality of power provision.

The Process
In Starfleet, the duotronic core system is run by the ship Computer Systems Director, who works in the Science Department, answering to the Chief Science Officer. They are a technical specialist rather than a line officer, and wear blue. There are typically three control centres - one for Core Operations, one for Power Management, and one for managing the MajelOS system. A fourth workshop for module maintenance efforts is also available.

The difference between monotronic, duotronic, and tensor comes largely from the change in the superposition states that may be passed into the logic units - monotronic uses a vector array, duotronic uses a two dimensional vector array, and the isolinear employs a tensor field. In this way, cochrane field equations are handled almost natively.

The Eyes
Sensors

Motion
There are three distinct modes of mobility employed by starships, with only exotic edge cases outside of this. Warp drive, for interstellar travel; impulse drive, for interplanetary travel; and thrusters, for fine adjustments, orbital changes, and docking. Of these three, only thrusters can be said to truly alter the actual realspace velocity and kinetic potential of the starship. By contrast, warp drives employ subspace fields to move via shifting spacetime frames around the ship, while impulse engines exploit a mix of both approaches.

Crawling
All starships will have a number of thruster engines mounted around their hull, usually in quad-mounts arranged symmetrically to allow for fine control in all axis.

Walking
The Impulse Drive is a process of deriving translational change via passing high energy plasma through driver coils (a close derivative of warp coils). Due to effects such as the cochrane field reducing net mass of the ship during impulse burns, the actual kinetic energy gain by ships is minimal. The use of thrusters to gain orbital velocities and vectors is thus often done seamlessly in concurrence with impulse burns to arrive at planets.

The majority of all starships employ separate "impulse reactors", which are typically colocated fusion reactors, to generate the necessary plasma for the engines. This allows impulse to operate independently of the status of the warp drive system, and the warp core. In the event of a failure of primary power generation, impulse reactors can support many shipboard functions, and the impulse manifold is capable of redirecting its output directly into the electro-plasma system.

Running
By use of a powerful cochrane field to alter spacetime frames fore and aft of the starship, a warp drive effectively propels a starship at speeds far in excess of lightspeed. To generate this field, warp plasma is injected through warp coils, where the subspace-active material of the verterium-cortanide coils is activated and envelops the ship in a cochrane field.

The Pulmonary System
Dealing with life support.

The Exoskeleton
Armour SIF Deflectors Navigational Deflector

The Teeth a.k.a. Punchy-Stabby Bits
Phasers Torpedoes Targeting Computer

Sundry
Transporters Shuttle bays Replicators