Tachyon Star Bomb
The Tachyon Star Bomb (often abbreviated to T.S.B. or TSB) was a superweapon created via a joint Confederation-Independent venture, aimed at eliminating the threat posed by the Pandoran army.
Technical Details
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The Tachyon Star Bomb was designed to do just as its name describes: to cause the destruction of a star. In order to achieve this, the TSB would make use of a Skip, a very short form of faster-than-light travel, that would allow the bomb to enter into the core of the star from a nearby dispatch point. The bomb would then create several million tachyon parcels, packaging up the core (triggering a core collapse) and capturing around 80% of the star's total energy, before scattering it over several hundred light years.
The parcels themselves would travel at faster-than-light speeds, before the containers broke down and released the captured energy. The distance covered, as well as the resulting yield of each parcel, would be determined by the amount of energy available from the initial detonation of the bomb itself.
Once the containers had broken down, the energy they enclosed would be released into the immediate area. Nearby objects would be damaged by both heat and radiation.
The Honour of the Knights
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The Third Side
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The Tachyon Star Bombs were one of the major components of Operation Sudarberg. Six bombs were built, five final working models and one prototype, intended to be deployed in five key Imperial star systems, hosting massive stars. The delivery system for each of the bombs was to be the ATAF, created specifically for the purpose. The bomblets created from the explosion of the star would be scattered throughout Imperial space, eliminating the Pandoran forced based there.
The bombs were destroyed along with Grendel's Mother in late 2617, when the carrier was boarded and overrun by a number of Pandoran soldiers, who had invaded. The bombs captured the energy output of the ship, scattering it over a short distance and causing the raging between between the Pandoran army and the allied forces gathered in the Coyote system to be abandoned.
With no bombs remaining, Operation Sudarberg was officially a failure.
The Attribute of the Strong
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The prototype model of the TSB was loaded onto a Gloucester Enterprises freighter known as the Elpis' Gift, and taken to a classified location, to hide it from the advancing Pandoran army.
When it became clear to the allied forces that taking down Dragon was their only hope of preventing Earth from being destroyed by the battleship's anti-matter cannon, and that there was limited firepower with which to do it, Elliott Parks, Natalia Grace and the White Knights headed out to the HD 21563010 system to search for the Elpis' Gift, and the bomb.
The TSB was discovered in the freighter's rear cargo hold and was brought back to Sol, to be used against Dragon. As a prototype weapon, the system was lacking the skip drive of the final models and had been created with a spread that was far more concentrated than them (although its yield was far more potent over the short distance).
The bomb was initially fitted into a mobile delivery system known as the Dumb Waiter, and later manually deployed to Dragon by Simon Dodds when the Waiter was crippled during the final battle. The bomb's detonation aboard Dragon captured and transformed both the energy from the battleship's destruction, as well as the anti-matter that had been generated to be fired at Earth. The cluster bomb-like effect had a devastating effect on the Pandoran fleet gathered at Sol, taking down many of the warships close to Dragon and destabilising the jump points of those that tried to exit the system.
Though a prototype, the TSB ultimately fulfilled the ATAF's destiny in helping to end the war against the Pandoran army.
Further Details
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Also See
• Skip / Skipping
Footnotes