Merge League Voidship

The Voidships were the Merge League's first efforts at asserting a presence in Mergespace. Voidships were constructed around the same principles that the primitive Balian meteorships were a generation earlier, with one key difference: the Voidship is reusable, while the meteorship becomes useless after an initial flight and landing.

Tyranthraxus eagerly takes credit for the design of the Voidships.

Design Specifics

The Voidships are built in a manner similar to common sea and airships; in fact, a sea or airship hull can easily be converted into a Voidship with little difficulty. The specifics of what makes the Voidship fly, and more importantly what makes it capable of flight in space, are magical rather than technological.

Regardless of the variety of hull used in a Voidship, they share four things in common that that, when combined, make the Voidship what it is.

Levistone

This material was once used in airships before the airship engine was invented. It was also used in meteorships. Levistone is, simply, a magic mineral that defies gravity. When it was used in airships, mankind's understanding of this material was crude, at best: a large amount of the stone was necessary to give even the smallest airship sufficient altitude to maintain long range flight. It wasn't until the advent of the meteorship that the Balians discovered that you could amplify the yield of smaller amounts of Levistone with the proper application of high-level time magic. Unfortunately, the Balian method for focusing Levistone energy caused the stone to burn out. Thus the Balian meteorships could operate with just enough Levistone power to escape the atmosphere, but for the rest of their flight they had to rely upon inertia to get them to where they were going.

Tyranthraxus has further refined the Levistone-amplification process. The Voidships operate off of a four-part Levistone core, which cycles the power used from four separate pieces of Levistone as the ship gains altitude. Once spaceborne, the strain on the core is relaxed, and the Levistones are able to recuperate. (see below)

Aero Column

This device is a mast-like structure that runs through the ship, from the lowest to the topmost decks. It is, in effect, an enormous magical wand charged with elemental air energies. It is activated whenever a pilot is seated at the helm (see below), and it generates a constant sphere of breatheable air around the vessel. With this air, the column also sustains magical artificial gravity, as well as survivable pressure and temperature levels. At the command of the pilot, the Aero Column also raises a defensive shield in two parts. The first is a shell of crackling electrical energy that absorbs energy attacks, and the second is a layer of swirling, high-speed wind that bats aside solid projectiles and missiles.

Mana Sails

Large, translucent panels of energy that project from the topmost levels of the Aero Column, the Mana Sails absorb the ambient mana of space and use it to power the ship's magical devices (such as the Column, and the Levistones). The Aero Column typically generates three large panels out above the forward section of the vessel, but more are possible depending on the size of the ship.

Mana Helm

This is how the Voidship is piloted. The Helm is a throne-like chair, upon which a magic user (of any discipline or training, theoretically, though only Merge Mages have had a crack at these devices thus far) sits. As soon as a wizard is seated in the Helm, his/her awareness shifts away from himself and to the vessel; that is, the pilot gains an ambient, clairvoyant awareness of the vessel and its surroundings. By willing the vessel to move, the pilot seated on the Mana Helm activates the Levistones and provides both lift and propulsion. The pilot is also fully in control of the Aero Column and the Mana Sails, activating these as he/she desires.

Analysis

Though innovative, the Voidships were not adopted for military use by the Merge League, in part because of their lack of any kind of weaponry comparable to those possessed by other space fleets in the Web. The conclusion drawn from this experiment is double-edged: while the Mergers did prove that a nation with more magic than technology could assert a space presence, they also proved that they could not field an adequate military presence without some application of technology to their armaments. The Merge League does use these vessels as a means of transport, but for its aerospace military arm it uses the Erd-Sathanai.