Andromeda Ascendant

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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 Ablative armor Reactive 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 in the event horizon of a black hole for 300 years before being rescued by the crew of the Eureka Maru in CY 10087 (approx 5167 CE).

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 avatar Rommie (played by Lexa Doig). In the High Guard, AIs are considered officers as part of their own crew. An avatar is a 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, which can interact with the holographic avatar and the monitors, 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 FTL (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 captains being in love with their ships, implied for centuries and extensively used by Roddenberry in Star Trek.

1 General information
- 1.1 Technical specifications
- 1.2 Ships carried
2 Notes
3 References
4 External links

[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 is 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] Sensors

The Andromeda Ascendant carries a large variety of sensors, listed here:

PAS-37Q System Search Sensor (Phased Array): An active EM Search system that uses phased arrays of small sensor transceivers to create shapable swaths across any portion of space.

HSS-114D Hyper Spectral Scanner (EO): A hyper spectral scanner that measures target reflections across a continuous spectrum. Suspected camouflaged or obscured targets can be tested with an active EM sensor to improve accuracy in high threat environments.

AIS-117M Advanced Imaging Sensor (Synthetic Aperture/Moving Target Indicator): A combined package that can detect fixed and module targets, as well as fuse sensor that tracks a complete picture of the area of interest. The SA suite is also capable of inter ferimetricimage analysis, which allows the AI node to build a three dimensional representation of visible surfaces to a one nanometer resolution at 24 light seconds.

AIS-117I Advanced Imaging Sensor (Inverse Synthetic Aperture): An ISA system that is capable of long range detections of relatively stationary targets in high noise environments.

ES/A-9R Electronic Support and Attack Measure Suite: A suite which detects active sensor and communications emissions from hostile assets, including ships and missiles. The EA component of the package can be used to jam both types of signals, and in some cases to overload the hostile transceiver and destroy it.

[edit] Size

Length: 1301m
Beam: 976m
Height: 325m
Inertial Mass: 96,408,876kg

[edit] Armament

40 missile launchers, firing 8 rounds per second.^[3]
20 megatons of "direct-hit firepower"^[4]

The Andromeda carries 6 types of missiles and 1 type of bomb to provide sturdy tactical support in dynamic situations. Listed below, they are:

OM-5 Standard Offensive Kinetic Kill Missiles
DM-5 Standard Defensive Kinetic Kill Missiles
PM-6 Star Arrow Smart Anti-Ship Missiles (ASM)
PM-6L Strategic Star Arrow Smart ASM Extended Range Variant
PM-6LII Strategic Star Arrow multiple Independent Kill Vehicle (MIKV) Variant
SAPM-6III Strike Arrow Surface Attack Variant
Nova Bombs

In addition, the Andromeda is also equipped with the following weaponry:

12 Point defense lasers (PDLs) : These are positioned over the ship to shoot down enemy missiles at close range.
12 AP Cannons
6 Radiating Countermeasure Generators
1 AI command and control entity

[edit] Artificial personnel

Multipurpose Shipboard Robots: Wheeled 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, as well as acting as guards. They are seen standing two per door holding force lances guarding the Captain's 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, agile fighter-craft that are capable of slipstream travel. They are usually equipped with PDL's or AP cannons and Electromagnetic Launch System (ELS) missile tubes for accelerating offensive and defensive loads into space.

The ship can be piloted either physically 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.

A typical Glorious Heritage-class heavy cruiser carries the following slipfighter craft load:

76 RA-26 Shrike strike fighters
RF-42 Centaur tactical fighters
AF/A-29 Phoenix atmospheric attack craft

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 traveling around a solar system and is not used as a shuttle craft.

Sensor/Attack drones: Autonomous in nature, there are several different types of Sensor/Attack drones available. These drones carry sensor packages to extend the range of the cruise, as well as being able to crash at high speeds into enemy craft as an attack mechanism.

Andromeda carries the following:

16 ES-115 Oracle heavy sensor/attack drones
8 ES-14 Janus light sensor/attack drones

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 Andromeda's 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-10284".
CY = Commonwealth Year.
AFC = After the Fall of the Commonwealth.