Andromeda Ascendant
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| Andromeda Ascendant | |
|---|---|
 The Andromeda Ascendant |
|
| First appearance | Under the Night |
| Last appearance | The Heart of The Journey |
| General Characteristics | |
| Class | Glorious Heritage |
| Registry | XMC-10-284[1] |
| Fighters | Slip fighters Combat drones |
| Armaments | AP Cannons Point defense lasers Smart missiles Smart bullets Nova Bombs |
| Defences | High tension armor Battle blades |
| Propulsion | Slipstream |
The Andromeda Ascendant is a fictional starship in the television series Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.
The ship began her life in the Newport News Orbital Shipyards above Earth, where her keel was laid in CY 9768. Construction proceeded without a hitch right through the delivery and installation of the Headwaters of Invention Mark VIII Slipstream engines in CY 9772. The Andromeda is the tenth Glorious Heritage-class heavy cruiser, High Guard ship of the line, from the days of the old Systems Commonwealth. Andromeda and her captain, Dylan Hunt (played by Kevin Sorbo) were frozen at the edge of a black hole for 300 years before being rescued by the crew of the Eureka Maru in CY 10087 (approx 5167 AD).
The ship has an artificial intelligence (AI). Andromeda appears to the crew in three formats: on the two-dimensional monitors; as a three-dimensional holographic projection; and as the android Rommie. In the High Guard, AIs are considered officers as part of their own crew (played by Lexa Doig). An avatar is an humanoid representation of an intelligence, and Andromeda has the above mentioned holographic and android avatars that represent the personality and physical representation of the ship's AI, in this case in the form of a human female. The ship's engineer, Seamus Zelazny Harper (played by Gordon Michael Woolvett), built an android (technically a gynoid) as her second avatar, that can interact with the holographic avatar, and also travel, walk and act outside the ship. The monitor and hologram manifestations are commonly referred to in fandom as "Core" and "Logic", respectively.
The ship is equipped with a slipstream drive for faster than light travel.
Andromeda is somewhat unusual among starships as it is clearly implied that she has an emotional attachment to Captain Hunt. This is a variation on the idea of ship captains being in love with their ships, and an idea introduced by Roddenberry in Star Trek.
Contents |
[edit] General information
- Commission date: 12th day of Kalends, CY 9772, under command of Captain Fatima Novarro.
- Commission ceremony attended by Empress Sucharitkul XII and Admiral Constanza Q. Stark.
- Commanded by Capt. Dylan Hunt from CY 9781 to present.
- Standard crew complement: 4,132 crew members.
- Encounters with the Magog Worldship: first encounter some time between CY 9776-9781, subsequent encounters CY 10087 and 10090.
- Encounters with Route of Ages: CY 10090 (three times total, was lost for an indeterminable amount of time from the crew's point of view from the second encounter).
- Returned to Tarn-Vedra: CY 10090.
[edit] Technical specifications
[edit] Propulsion
In the episode "The Torment, The Release", Seamus Harper, during Dylan's trial, described the Andromeda's engine system[2] (GFG stands for "Gravity Field Generator"):
"The Andromeda, like any other ship, runs on hydrogen and anti-protons, or AP. The hydrogen combines with the AP in controlled reactions to create antimatter/matter reactions, or matter/antimatter reactions; either way it makes no matter, but what it does make in power - for the ship - a few hundred megawatts.
Most of the power is used to power the GFG, which reduces the effective mass to just under a kilogram. A smaller chunk of power is used to accelerate more hydrogen in a dozen magnetoplasmadynamic drives, which impart a thrust - a thrust of a half million newtons or so."
The Andromeda further uses Slipstream drive to travel faster-than-light.
[edit] Armament
[edit] Artificial personnel
- Multipurpose Shipboard Robots
- Wheely robotic units used for basic duties such as delivery and maintenance.
- GUA (General Utility Androids)
- Human sized robots, they perform a wide variety of maintenance tasks including advising and helping crew members in the performance of their duties. They also act as guards. They are seen standing two per door holding force lances guarding the captains office.
- Planetfall Defense (OEBots)
- The Andromeda carries two ground defense robots equipped with an array of large gauss guns. They are used only in the event of a full-scale pitched battle and can be deployed on land or in space, on the hull of capital ships.
- They can fire on large groups of people or focus shots on just one. They can also shoot down ships the size of fighters or as big as a cargo ship.
- The 2 OEBots on-board Andromeda are nicknamed "Tweedle-dee" and "Tweedle-dum" by Rommie ("The Widening Gyre") and their arm-mounted weapon modules can contain 1-3 groups of gattling guns ("The Prince") as well as shoulder-mounted missile tubes (though they open, they are not seen firing).
[edit] Ships carried
- Slip fighters
- Small attack craft which are fitted with point defense lasers for suppressing enemy fire, anti-proton weapons for offense and 2 ELS tubes which fire up to 6 OM-5 offensive and defensive kinetic kill missiles to attack larger space craft or ground based stations.
- The ship can be piloted either from the cockpit or remotely from the Flight Operations Center aboard the Andromeda.
- The primary mission of the slipfighter is to provide combat patrol support for Heavy Cruiser and Atmospheric Attack Craft Carriers. It also flies tactical escort for strike fighters and conducts Suppression of Enemy Defense (SED) operations during interplanetary combat.
- As the name suggests the slip fighter is slipstream capable.
- AM9D Ung Tae drop ship
- A combination armoured personnel carrier, hover-tank and skiff.
- These ships are used to transport troops to the ground, each ship is capable of carrying a platoon of Lancers and basic combat gear, plus provisions for short-term accommodations as shelter.
- The ship is protected with multiple layers of ablative and reactive armor and is equipped with a single direct fire AP gun turret and a deployable 150mm mass-driver cannon for indirect fire support at 1200 rounds per minute.
- The ship is not slipstream capable. It can only travel the distance from orbit in space to the planets surface and back. It is not capable of travelling around a solar system and is not used as a shuttle craft.
- Attack drones
- Autonomous in nature, the drones have been seen to protect her mothership but are inferior to a manned fighter in combat as seen by their easy destruction in several episodes.
- Sensor drones
- Like the attack drones the Sensor drones are autonomous in nature, the drones have been seen used as probes to monitor distant areas outside of Andromeda's sensor range.
- Eureka Maru
- The Maru is a cargo ship by nature, and belongs to Beka, her father and his business partner Sid originally owned the Maru, the Maru is stored in Andromedas landing bay and is frequently used by the crew for various tasks.
[edit] Notes
- Andromeda Ascendant's complete official designation is "Shining Path to Truth and Knowledge AI model GRA 112, serial number XMC-10-182".
- CY = Commonwealth Year.
- AFC = After the Fall of the Commonwealth.
