Technology

Introduction

As you would expect the Expanse is an incredibly advanced technology. They have not however evolved all of the tools that might perhaps be expected someone from the twentieth century. Sociological and technical problems have limited progress in some areas, as has the Expanse’s status as a territory undergoing colonisation for some of its history.

Despite these blocks, Expanse technology is certainly advanced and very strange to anyone from the early days of the twenty first century…

Information Technology

Information technology of one kind or another is everywhere. Indeed in many ways the mind is now another piece of information technology, capable of being reprogrammed or augmented by other programs from separate computers. Computer technology is also ubiquitous and extremely cheap, clothing, food packaging, furniture; almost every mundane everyday item has some kind of computer within it somewhere.

Computers which interact directly with humans come in various flavours including old style desk tops, lap tops and palm tops, as well as glasses, gloves, rings and implants. Most interaction takes place either through a holographic interface or directly into the user’s nervous system, creating large amounts of augmented reality. Infomation transfer is also very fast, even over interstellar distances, allowing true teleoperation and the transmission of mindstates.

AI is a mature science however the Expanse cannot create AIs that much smarter than they can create humans. This has given rise to the Gynoid clade, who occupy human like bodies. It has also led to robotic space craft and ground vehicles of varying levels of sophistication, ranging from the size of a fighter to an insect.

Material Science

Expanse Material science is based around materials that are both extremely strong and extremely malleable, usually by the use of ‘smart’ materials capable of reshaping themselves to a particular task on command.

This technology has led to building walls that can open up to doorways on command, items that can remove dents from themselves, self healing gynoids and cybernetics, shape shifting, self repairing clothing and incredibly strong, tough armour capable of withstanding the impact of even fair yield atomic explosion.

The most exotic creation of Expanse material science is force fields, various types of which are used in buildings or in the defence of military vehicles, warships and installations.

Material science is also vital in the creation of the great architectural achievements of the Expanse, beanstalks, vast space habitats and even the first megastructures such as ring worlds now being built by both sides of the Cold War.

Medical Science

Modern medical science has got to the point where one can never expect to die and even if one does, it can not be expected to stick. Transhumanism has made all expanse people biologically immortal (or rather, so long lived so that none have died of old age in recent memory) and all but immune to disease.

Medical technology is also extremely powerful, capable of repairing or regrowing new limbs and organs over the course of a few days and creating full clones of a person to which their mind can be transmitted on the event of death, allowing for an instant technological rebirth back in your own body. The philosophical implications of this have long been discussed but the majority opinion in the Expanse is that this is a true form of immortality.

Power Generation

Power in the Expanse generally extremely available, for civilian uses it is far more than too cheap to meter. Less advanced or more isolated areas tend to employ old style fusion (often monopole enhanced) spun black hole, or antimatter generators but more advanced areas have more user friendly means.

The two primary power generators in the modern Expanse are Mishrandri Generators (known universally as Mish Generators) and Icarus grids. Mish generators work by extracting energy from all near by sources, including space time and concentrating it into useable form, while an Icarus Grid is a large scale super conductive lattice plunged into to a star which beams power (through a process similar to Mishrandri extraction) to where ever it is needed.

Interestingly, many stealth vessels still use antimatter or fusion generators due to the mass of a micro black hole and the detectable effects of a Mish Generator.

Production

Cornucopia Machines and other advanced and automated means of production are very common in the Expanse, rendering the economy around everyday items decidedly post scarcity. Only feed stocks and design information are really required.

Larger and more complex items like space ships and very complex computers are still somewhat scarce, requiring exotic materials and construction techniques that give them a definitive cost rather than a simple government coupon. However all civilised states provide a basic energy stipend for their citizens to live on and acquire whatever necessities of like they wish from.

Most Expanse governments extend this stipend if a citizen places valuable information (freeware programming or fiction for example) in the public sphere, generally on a reward formula based on popularity. Jobs and professions still exist however, mostly based upon the construction of new information and the maintenance of infrastructure.

Transhumanism

Transhumanism is everywhere in the Expanse, without a male sex, it’s entirely necessary to continue to create new generations. Even if it was not so necessary, Transhumanism has always been one of the key ethical principles of the Expanse right back to its founding. It created the seven mainstream clades of the Expanse, the immortality, and so on.

All Expanse people, as a basic ability have perfect eyesight that extends into the infrared and ultraviolet, enhanced sense of hearing, smell, taste and touch, need less food and less water compared to a baseline human. They are far stronger and quicker and do not need to sleep, only meditate for about half an hour every three or four days. This is in addition to the earlier mentioned biological imortality.

Augmentations (both physical and psychological) are also available to help with various jobs and careers, especially the military. Expanse women reproduce both by use of genetic mixing in exowombs but also by Pathogenesis which allows them to become pregnant, at will, with a clone of themselves. In addition to this they have almost total control over all aspects of their reproductive systems.

Transport

Despite all it’s advances in faster than light travel, moving objects faster than light without a vehicle around them remains beyond the Expanse’s means. This is not to say that faster than light travel is not fairly common though. Not only large space ships but drones, fighters and even atmospheric aircraft use faster than light jumps to travel rapidly from one place to another. Atmospheric aircraft usually only make short range jumps however, and space craft are still needed for long distance travel.

Space ships exist in multitude in the Expanse, everything from bird sized drones to multi kilometre long mother carriers and transports. It is a quirk of Expanse FTL that FTL speed is best for small objects over a short distance and larger objects over a long distance. Aircraft can hop to the next system instantly but would take years to cross the Expanse, while a mother carrier can be almost anywhere in a few weeks of travel.

Outside of faster than light flight, Expanse ships tend to use various species of reaction drives for most propulsion, with specialist reactionless motors that pull on the fabric of space time available mostly on specialist stealth vehicles.

Atmospheric vehicles still use rotors or jet engines to stay aloft; though most can do it for far longer than a 21st century aircraft could, capable of staying up for weeks at a time without refuelling if necessary. A few White Flame and Dark Rose military craft do employ anti-gravity drives for atmospheric work, mostly their new generation of gunships.

Weapons and Wargear

Despite all the advances in culture and technology the Expanse has made, war still remains an instrument of national policy. Be it against hostile aliens or fellow humans on the other side of the Cold War.

Expanse fire arms take a number of forms, including particle beams and very hot charged plasma launchers called fusion guns. More commonly however people in the Expanse use hyperkinetic fire arms which combine electromagnetic and charged plasma to launch a projectile at incredible speeds. These are regarded as military weapons in many areas with civilians only being able to get access to basic electromagnetic guns if at all.

For protection Expanse troops tend to wear powered armour made of smart material and covered in a stealth layer that renders it all but invisible to the most common types of sensors including normal sight. More advanced versions of these armours include flight packs and force shields.

The Expanse employs a large number of military vehicles including hover tanks, though gunships (helicopter, ducted fan or jet pod) are used extensively due to their ability to rapidly move about and operate usefully almost anywhere.

A second and growing innovation is the battlesuit. Battlesuits are large humanoid power armour up to 12 feet tall. While various walker vehicles have been deployed in the Expanse before, the battlesuit is by far the most successful, usually used to destroy large numbers of power suited infantry and light vehicles, the battlesuit is now a vital part of all Expanse militaries.

The Expanse also uses robots for many military applications, including small microdrones for scouting and attack, door breaching remotes and even robotic soldiers and space fighters.

Personal Armour types

Impact Armour

Used by police and other paramilitary units, impact armour is armour that resembles normal clothing. It provides some protection against shrapnel and civilian grade weapons, and detonates military rounds before they penetrate the user.

Light Power Armour

Light power armour is used most often by police tactical units and special forces. It consists of a relatively form fitting suit which adds about as much bulk to the user as a suit of normal clothing, though it tends to follow the wearers form like a second skin in order to reduce footprint. Light power armour is used in situations where space is at a premium and speed is essential. It's centre of mass is proof against several hits from most civilian small arms and are highly resistant to shrapnel, though more advanced military stealth armour can prevent penetration of military grade weapons in their centre of mass and head.

Standard Power Armour

Standard Power Armour (or simply power armour) is the kind of suit used by most infantry soldiers. Designs differ between nations, but most share various features in common: they are all but immune to explosive shrapnel (except from advanced directional munitions) and civilian small arms fire across the whole body except on for repeated hits on the limbs or hits to the joints. Military grade munitions require repeated hits to penetrate all parts of the suit, especially the helmet and centre of mass.

Assault Suit

Used by mechanized infantry and storm troopers, assault suits are heavier and use more power than normal power suits, but are faster and have much heavier armour. Assault suits are usually used in the open ground or heavily constructed buildings. They are very heavily protected, and can withstand hits from even heavy military rounds from weapons such as missile guns, payload rifles or heavy automatic weapons. Normal rifle fire requires repeated hits or shaped charge grenades to penetrate it. With civilian weapons only a joint hit will be even minimally effective.

Entry Suit

Entry suits are heavy, power inefficient suits used mostly by marines, espaiters and SWAT units during breaching operations. They are less bulky than assault suits, but more expensive and power intensive, usually only allowing a few hours of operation before needing a new power charge in their energy matrix, and often operating in areas where beamed power or rapid recharge from portable generators is available. Despite their slimmer profile, entry suits are even more heavily armoured than an assault group. They are immune to civilian small arms and only effected by normal military grade rounds that hit the joints. Most entry suits have defense auras and many carry separate shields.

Common Small Arms

Civilian Small Arms

basic electromagnetic weapons firing solid 'ball' rounds or basic penetrators, some of which use guided rounds. Legal in most jurisdictions.

Dart guns carrying knock out poison are a second popular defense weapon, as are electrolasers.

Military Small Arms

Military small arms (usually called hyper-kinetics) are hybrid gauss/electro-plasma weapons firing 5-10 millimeter rounds, usually sub-caliber penetrators which explode inside the target and deploy a spray of monomolecular or near monomolecular wires or shrapnel. Many are coated with reactive incendiary coating (RIC). Military grade rounds are almost always equipped with guidance systems and can track up to 90 degrees off the access of their initial firing path, though this slows the round and can cause problems penetrating armour.

Military grade shotguns also exist, using very high density liquid rounds using small electrical and force fields to control spread and shaping the shot. These are excellent for destroying doors and relatively effective at penetrating armour as the liquid can be reshaped itself into penetrators.

Grenades and Rockets

Grenades and rockets are an important part of expanse wargear. Most infantry squads include a missile gun, a machine gun firing small missiles with various payloads, and some forces (such as the Kwanese Army) deploy payload rifles as their new side arms, firing 25 to 45mm rounds slower than normal small arms rounds but carrying a powerful explosive warhead capable of better penetrating armour and destroying buildings with multiple hits.

Grenade/mini-missile launchers are built into most military small arms. Warheads tend to fire directional liquid 'smart' shrapnel like the rounds of a military shotgun, though thermobarics and large energy explosive rounds are also quite popular, though they may have a hard time penetrating armour.

Energy Weapons

The most common energy weapons portable plasma guns (PPGs) and portable fusion guns (PFGs). Both are heavy, relatively slow firing weapons about the size of a squad automatic weapon or payload rifle but with a much larger bore (up to 100 millimeters). Relatively short ranged, plasma and fusion weapons are excellent at close quarters but are generally stopped by a single layer of armour when hit. This makes them perfect for engaging heavy attackers inside a starships or buildings.

Particle beams are in many ways the opposite of plasma and fusion guns. Long ranged and with excellent penetration, they are generally used like heavy sniper rifles or portable air defense systems. Most Expanse particle beams have a solid penetrator which is launched first then propelled by the PB, shattering armour and then allowing the particle strike to pour into the hole.

Heavy Weapons

There are also many kinds of heavy infantry carried weapons, including mortars, rocket launchers and ATGMs, as well as heavy automatic weapons, usually mounted on remote activated tripods or spider bot mounts.

A new creation by Kwanese troops are very large sniper rifles. These weapons which have a bore up to 60mm are able to destroy enemy aircraft and light vehicles, and even engage enemy tanks from certain angles or against lower tech vehicles even if they are behind buildings or other terrain features.