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With the entry into service of the Theramels, sail ship design reached a point that would never be surpassed by either Empire.
But even as the ships began their service, the technologies which would make them obsolete were beginning to appear.
Most importantly, the sail drive itself was well past the point of diminishing returns. Ever more and larger sails were yielding
smaller and smaller increases in actual performance. Fortunately, an entirely new approach to interstellar travel was already in
the works in the form of the Midspace drive system. Unmanned test rigs had already managed to penetrate Midspace by the time
the Theramel was launched, and development of a full sized rig was already proceeding. The HMS Swiftsure was intended to test
a full scale version of the technology.

Swiftsure was vast by the standards of the time - far larger than the Theramel class. It was also horrendously expensive,
with development costs five times higher than the entire Theramel project.

But the results could hardly be argued with. The Swiftsure's ability to penetrate into Midspace and manipulate the energistic
environment there allowed it to attain speeds vastly higher than any sail ship could hope to.

Whereas the Theramels had a top speed of around 350 c, the Swiftsure was expected to reach speeds of 4,600 c. In
the event, this was never reached; the interaction between field and hull created far greater than expected stresses in
the connecting neck between the hulls in each field lobe, and serious cracking was encountered during early flights.
Although several fixes were attempted non was very effective and the ship was eventually limited to a top speed of 3,800 c
to reduce the problem to manageable levels. This still represented more than a tenfold increase in speed over the Theramel
generation of sail vessels though, and the mass
production of midspace ship would eventually represent the death of the sail ship as an effective interstellar vessel.

Swiftsure's rift generator could be recharged in ten and a half hours using full power. Since her inertial navigation system
could only keep her on track in midspace for twenty four hours, her usual mode of cruising would be to travel on 56.25%
full power (three quarters speed) for one day, then drop out of midspace. She would then spend ten and a half hours
recharging the rift generator and updating her navigational fix before re-entering midspace to resume the cycle.
This gave her an average maximum cruise speed of 2,400 x c.

Swiftsure was designed more as a technology development project than as a practical vessel, but the breathtaking speed
she posessed meant that she was pressed into service on several occasions, usually as a courier. She was not
intended to carry any weaponry, but she did act as a testing platform for some systems.
Swiftsure was launched in 2672, and served until 2684, making 247 flights over this period. The navy collected enormous
amounts of data from these missions, creating a theoretical and practical groundwork which was a vital bedrock for future
development - indeed, some of the data Swiftsure provided is still used in ship design 330 years later!

I didn't post a reply to your earlier ships, but I have to applaud you on your backstory for the universe in which these desgins exist, your logic in developing one from another, and your attention to detail with both the class' history as well as with that of the individual class ship - to say nothing of the novel designs you have created.

Thank you kindly!

I was expecting a more "Traditional" looking ship once you got rid of the sails.

Cool to see how you gave it problems whilst still being a huge increase.

Maybe they will get rid of the hull cracking by intergrating the hull more giving us a more normal looking ship.

They do start to become more "traditional" over the next few generations. Most of the later ships draw inspiration from World War I / II warships.

I'm interested to see that this one has windows. I thought you may have gotten rid of them as you are trying to be mor realistic.

That or only have them in a viewing louge type place so they can still look out.

In a world with so much swine, it's a pleasure to point out the pearls.

BTW, what's coming first - short stories, novel, or screenplay?

I've had a novel in the works for a long time. But it's one of those things where I keep putting it down and forgetting about it
for months, then writing another few pages and repeating. Writing is HARD WORK, which was the last thing I expected!

Please try to keep at it - I for one would certainly look forward to it.

Yeah I enjoy looking at your ships you should finish that novel up.
One of these posts explain the setting of the unverse these ships are set in? I've only skimmed some of them but interested in reading about the universe.

Not thus far... I'll give an outline here if you like.

Basically the timeline spans about one thousand years - from 2000 to 3000. It divides up into several ages.

2000 - 2100 :

The spread into the solar system. There's not a lot to this part; I tried to be sketch on detail here, because I don't really want to
pre-empt whatever will actually happen. Essentially we're looking at the sort of exploration missions we conduct now; manned missions
to Mars and, out to Jupiter. Exploration of the moon, that kind of thing. Toward the end of the century a "near light speed"
drive is discovered. Basically an inertialess drive system that lets a ship boost to 95% or so of the speed of light. The century
ends around the time the first interstellar probe arrives in another star system and sends back its data - discovering a
habitable planet.

2100 - 2350 :

During this period Humans spread to several hundred worlds using near light speed vessels. There is no real mass migration;
ships of this time have crews numbered in the dozens, maybe hundreds at the most. So even the oldest, largest colonies run into
the tens or hundreds of thousands at most.

2350 - 2400 :

Discovery of the sail drive; greatly expanded colonisation efforts. Unfortunately, the expanded exploration led to contact
with an alien species called the Saravan, who just are about the most unpleasant bunch you could imagine. A short war led
to the conquest of humanity.

2400 - 2600 :

For the next two centuries the Human race served as slaves and food animals to the Saravan. Most technology was forbidden;
a culture somewhat resembling medieval Europe was imposed, with education forbidden or limited to most. Earth was relegated
to a legend amongst most; many superstitions about it abounded, along with many religions based around demonising the Saravan
and prophecies of salvation.

Toward the end of this period the Saravan were discovered by a species called the Turgrans. A female dominated culture, the
Turgrans were also expansionist but a good deal more pleasant about it than the Saravan - think the British Empire rather than
an extreme version of Nazi Germany.

The Turgrans were big and powerful... but not big enough to take on the Saravan, quite. Fortunately they had the advantage of
knowing about the Saravan whilst being undetected themselves. They infiltrated many Human worlds (those being the first
they came across), hoping to build some sort of internal resistance. Initially disappointed by the primitive and superstitious
nature of most Humans, the Turgrans then decided to turn this to their advantage. They created a new religion amongst the
Humans, posing as supernatural beings themselves. This was wildly successful - the Turgrans plugged right in to the
salvation fantasies that they Humans had been nursing for centuries, and had the same "magic" technology as the Saravan,
who most Humans thought of as supernatural demons.

When the war finally came the Humans rose up en masse, causing considerable disruption to the Saravan. The Turgrans
attacked at the same time, and the war was on. It succeeded, and the Saravan were all but wiped out.

2600 - 2860 :

After the war the Saravan worlds were more or less divided between the Humans and the Turgrans. This gave Humans a sudden
and truly massive boost in their development; they inherited tens of thousands of worlds at a stroke. Their government was
set as a protectorate of the Turgran Imperium; an Empire, ruled by a Human emperor and aristocracy, but with Turgrans in
overall charge in reality, partly through direct political power but also through their position as religious icons to Humanity.

Unfortunately for the Turgrans that latter role didn't last long. Not everybody went along with Turgran rule, and there were
various small uprisings. Nothing threatening - until one of them captured and killed some Turgrans.

Turgrans had died in the war, of course - but at Saravan hands. Angels killed by Demons was one thing... but Angels killed by
mere Humans? The myth of Turgran divinity was shattered.

The Church survived, though it fractured and lost all political power and most of it's numbers. Relations between the two Empires
stayed frosty... but nobody wanted a war, especially since we would have lost it. And after all they had freed us... the Turgrans
paid reparations - advanced technology, ceded worlds, money.

The Two Empires continued as allies, relations gradually warming. A golden age, this, for both; vast expansion, some of
it bloody but much of it not.

2860 - 3000 :

A scandal in the Human royal family; the Emperor is assassinated, and the younger heir Albert has his older brother Charles
locked up - "mentally unstable" - and claims the throne. A Navy ship suspects the plot and frees the legal heir; the
fleet schisms, and a civil war begins. The war rages for several years; Charles has minority support, and wins planets
by promising them independence once he wins. It works, and he does win... but everybody else wants indepenece as
well, and the Empire fractures. A second civil war is almost fought... but Charles, sick of fighting, dissolves the empire and
representatives of many worlds group together to
create a Federated Republic.

The new Republic continues to be friendly with the Turgrans. The two grow closer and closer over this time, eventually signing up
to a Coalition; many other worlds join, and the Coalition becomes a major (though NOT the largest or most powerful) force
in this section of the Galaxy. If you want a mental image of the Coalition, think of something about on a par with the
European Union.

And that's the timeline. Many, many more details to come...

Thats pretty cool but I don't like the religion bit. I could sort of see how it happened but I Have to much hatred for religion to tolerate it much.

I also find it hard to believe we would be so oppressed as to forget our past.

suppresiion is not even needed. one generation after a certain fall nearly remembers nothing of the times past. Just look at the roman empire. As of 500, nobody really remembered something like it still existed.

The kinds of conditions most people lived under included; total ban on possessing any reading or writing materials, and
any form of data storage. Total ban on and form of education; simply telling your kids about Earth or the past carried a death
sentence for you and them... and informing on a person who was doing so could bring great rewards at a time when most of
the Human race was starving to death.

Repeat for two centuries, and the population was ignorant, superstitious, and desperate. Ripe conditions for a bunch of people
who turned up with technology that looked like magic and wanted to play the role of angels.

For those who don't like religion... the eventual fall of that one was so shocking to most people that religion gained a very
bad name indeed amongst Humans. There are relatively few Human religious types beyond that point.

I like it.

One thing I always thought was important with Sci-Fi is if one world managed to escape a meteor that another world wasn't so lucky on the gap between civilization technologies could easily be 200 million years or so. Which would be neat.

But yeah I look forward to you expanding your cosmos.