Warborg - Star Panther (36 page)

[1]
Originally the aliens were known as Unknown Hostile Aliens or UHA’s. But early on in the fighting as a squadron of human fighters started their strike one of the pilots observed the three segmented enemy ships attacking the base station looked like moths flittering around a light. Another pilot responded they were killer moths. The first pilot quipped; A killer moth must be a Koth. The squadron was wiped out in the ensuing battle, but their command overheard the conversation. The name Koth gained popularity and was eventually formally adopted. The name Koth is a legacy to those brave pilots who made the ultimate sacrifice for humanity.

[2]
Faster Than Light

[3]
Deep space tugs working individually or in groups attach to hard points on unpowered cargo barges. Their specially modified FTL systems generate the FTL field around the barge, and phase lock the fields if working in groups. These phase locked fields are notoriously unstable and susceptible to cosmic ‘noise’.  When the FTL field goes unstable the entire assembly drops back to normal space, while not hazardous it is considered a nuisance as re-establishing the field can take several minutes. These occurrences are minimized as the pilots learn the idiosyncracies of their individual ships.

[4]
LK: Light Klick, one light second. Also commonly referred to as a klick.

[5]
IFF : Identify Friend or Foe

[6]
Hyper-Vel missile: A dumb missile (IE. no in-flight guidance capability)kinetic weapon with no warhead used for close in attack or barrage. Terminal velocity of 50,000 m/sec is achieved with a 500mSec slow burn fusion reaction in the base of the projectile. The projectile is composed of a pressure sintered lithium alloy with a twelve hour open space sublimation time. Standard launchers release one hundred projectiles per second.

[7]
    It is rare in the annuls of history to know exactly when a concept is born. The Gunfighter warship was designated as a fighter class ship in light of it’s single crewman. There was never a manned version of the ship developed due to the rigors of its mission profile. The main and only weapon on the ship was equivalent to a battle cruiser main ion cannon, with the exception being a prolonged cycle recovery rate, ranging from thirty seconds in the early series to less than one in the current models. The Gunfighter ships changed the course of space warfare. Large battle cruiser class ships and transports became unviable. They were easy targets for these quick deadly craft that would appear, fire and vanish inside of a few milliseconds, long before any defensive weapons could react.

[8]
FTL drive systems employ a field that must be generated and balanced against the spacecraft they propel, hence every type of spacecraft will have a unique FTL field shape and density. Once an FTL field is established in normal space it is slightly unbalanced to achieve superlight velocities, to change direction while at superlight velocity the unbalancing is modified. Any change made to the FTL field causes it to resonate. A resonating field can be detected as a subspace distortion. The FTL fields degrade over time and must be regenerated, where as the spaceship does not lose any velocity during a regeneration cycle, this too causes the FTL field to resonate. For more information on FTL systems,
FTL Basic Concepts
by H. Storrs is recommended.

[9]
Shortly after the Auxiliary Cerebral Tactical Medical Transport ship was registered this container type was adopted as the standard. All new warborgs were fitted with it and existing warborgs were retrofitted as their warcraft were replaced. Derivations of this container are still in use to this day and warborgs may visit Earth as they wish. As a side note, due to their pulsating FTL the common vernacular for these containers among the warborg is Buzz Bomb.

[10]
The ‘oven timer’ is slang for a simple spring powered mechanical timer that utilizes a small self contained battery to re-start a ship that has completely powered down. Normally used in drone ships, but can be incorporated into any federation vessel, favored among scout ships and some warborgs.

[11]
Extra Vehicular Activity