Project: Cornucopia
The Ryn Nation has become a hallmark of Cooperative―and indeed, Coalition―reconstruction programs in recent times. Their transient nature has led the Ryn to field a substantial fleet of construction, transport, and habitat vessels, as well as requisite defensive forces and administrative craft. The logistics of maintaining such a mobile civilization has been simplified somewhat by the fact that supply fleets follow them wherever they go, bringing the resources necessary to perform their vital construction projects.However, experience has shown that one cannot plan for every eventuality, and much too often the Ryn have found themselves without vital―and often rare―resources or equipment, necessary either to continue their projects or maintain their fleet. While factory ships and machine shops can produce almost any ship component that might need repair or replacement, it is often the most vital systems which are the most difficult to maintain, as many such systems are composed of exotic and rare compounds.
To ensure the Ryn Fleet would no longer find itself stalled by what may very well amount to nothing more than a few grams of some unpronounceable compound or impossibly large element, Coalition scientists, engineers, and technicians pooled their resources to create an industrial equivalent to the medical breakthrough of Panacea:
They sought to craft a Cornucopia Machine.
The end result was a far cry from the proverbial Horn of Plenty, a source of infinite bounty which could bestow upon its master whatever he or she wished for. Instead, the Coalition has pooled a host of existing technologies, designing a system specifically to address the needs of the Ryn.
The Cornucopia-class Consolidated Resource Vessel is capable of producing virtually every chemical compound science has found an artificial means of creating, from synthesizing tibanna gas to mass-producing the heaviest atomic elements. Powerful fusion and fission reactors are used to break down and reassemble subatomic particles into requisite elements; complex mixing vats can combine base compounds and submit them to whatever extremes in temperature and pressure are necessary to initiate chemical reactions; bioengineering and bio-cloning systems allow for the generation and rapid replication of countless forms of biomatter; massive hypermatter annihilators produce the unfathomable quantities of raw energy needed to fuel on-board processes; and a veritable army of Ant Labor Droids tend to the awe-inspiring array of technological marvels housed within the vessel.
The “ship” itself is more free floating space station than starship. The two kilometer long ovoid is host to dozens of sizable docking bays, its outer hull covered in tractor beams and extendable docking arms. A network of tractor-repulsor equipped access chutes are used in conjunction with specialized gravity plating to move resources in bulk throughout the vessel's interior, moving on-loaded raw materials from docking bays and into the heart of the vessel, where the materials in question might go through any number of processes before being presented for transport off-ship as entirely new compounds.
Because of Cornucopia's capacity to produce a number of dangerous and carefully regulated substances (ranging from military grade explosives to powerful biotoxins), the sale and use of these vessels will be restricted to approved Coalition parties only.
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