Lotus Orbiter

As far as ships go, the Lotus is an old one: for untold generations, Lotus-based designs have been renowned in human spheres as dedicated carriers, capable of carrying large crews, heavy loads and retinues of smaller ships across great distances at good speed, and servicing them while traveling or above the destination for extended periods.

The first thing they were known for were their namesake sails, dynamic multi-layered structures which changed in shape, lifting and folding their petal-like vanes to direct the craft. These sails could be propelled from afar by orbital lasers or even mere sunlight for the largest examples, allowing the ship to get to speed without expending any of its own fuel. They also served it well when the Lotus ran under its own power, as they contained the roaring exhaust and hence spared any trailing craft from being immolated in its wake, greatly facilitating docking and allowing the ship to reverse safely while doing so.

Safety was another trademark strength. Every Lotus contained multiple instances of nearly every needed component: it had eight habitat modules, each equipped with its own life support and radiator and held in place by two clamps at opposite ends no matter its position, several antennae all along the habitat ring, making it all but impossible to completely cut off communications, two drives, each attached to its own generator for power and capable of propelling the ship all on its own, and vastly segmented fuel cells, with multiple walls and floodgates to contain any hull breach or rupture as well as allowing fuel distribution so as to maintain the ship’s center of gravity. The rear engine block could be jettisoned to allow operation of the auxiliary drive, which could itself be jettisoned if need be, and if somehow the ship found itself completely dry, the front block could be ejected and its own ion thrusters allowed to operate, powered by a ring of heavy batteries replenished by a unfurled solar panel array.

All of these have allowed the design to survive to the present day, but not without some significant upgrades. Foremost among these is the singularity reactor, capable of converting matter into energy and hence allowing the ship to make full use of its fuel. Its enormous output is essential in keeping up with contemporary traffic, where ubiquitous impellar drives allow one to reach a quarter lightspeed from a standstill in a matter of hours, and even with such power the ship couldn’t manage without warp shielding to contain it and inertial dampeners to keep its passengers from being crushed by the many-thousand g’s acceleration. Yet in true Lotus fashion, the ship does its best not to rely on any of them – magnetic coils have been placed in the reactors so that the ship could revert to using fusion for its needs if the singularity fails, and though the inertial dampeners could be modified to maintain artificial gravity, the feel is still maintained via thrust or centrifuge, without any further application of power.

Such sufficiency and reliability means it still sees massive use; several classes of this design were used to transport scientists and laborers to the Stephara system, and continue to serve as their homes and workhorses while the waystation is under construction. The Meios Habitat Orbiter is itself a Lotus design, with an extended habitat ring to give room for laboratories at the rim where Meiosian samples may be maintained at their world’s gravity.

 

Artist’s Note: This was modified from the original design to accommodate technological developments since agreed upon in the OPaaT universe, and to rectify some of its shortcomings – chief of these being that the habitats lay right against the searing hot radiators and radioactive fusion exhaust when in thrust mode, possibly the worst time for them to be there.