Lighthuggers were spacecraft that traveled at just below the speed of light, taking months or years to accelerate to their cruising speed. Although capable of extremely powerful bursts of acceleration (At least 10 g without any inertial suppression), when in transit between stellar systems lighthuggers typically sustained an acceleration of 1 g which would enable them to reach 99% of the speed of light in about 1 earth year.
Generally 3–4 km long, they used Conjoiner drives for propulsion, and were also coated with a thick caul of ice that protected against minor impacts at relativistic velocities and acted as armour against the attacks of other ships. The great size of the lighthuggers enabled them to carry vast numbers of passengers and huge amounts of cargo.
Lighthuggers also possessed a limited repair and redesign capability. They were capable of moving rooms or machinery around within their hulls, or stripping material from one point to repair another. At least some were also equipped with "manufactories", which could build a considerable range of devices, given the relevant specifications.
Their small, point-defense weapons -- ostensibly defensive in nature -- were capable of blasting a 200 kilometre crater in a planet and disrupting weather formations in a fashion similar to a large geological event, such as an asteroid impact or volcanic eruption.
Most lighthuggers were owned or ruled by their crew of Ultranauts, who, because of their long stretches in reefersleep and constant hopping from one star system to another, were mostly divorced from baseline humanity. They were characterized by extreme modifications, often in the form of replacement or mechanical limbs or even holes right through them.
By the time of the Human-Inhibitor War, there existed a fleet of lighthuggers that had been upgraded or built from scratch by the human elements fighting the Inhibitors. These ships were far more advanced than the average lighthugger, and were equipped with dark drives that emitted nothing in any detectable spectrum, miniaturized cryo-arithmetic engines which cooled their hulls to make it nearly indistinguishable — in thermal terms — from empty space, inertia suppression machinery that allowed extremely fast acceleration and deceleration, free-force bubbles which absorbed enemy attacks, camouflage screens that aided concealment, and extremely heavy armaments, including bladder-mines and hypometric weaponry.
Notes
- At the end of Redemption Ark the vast carrying capacity of lighthuggers is demonstrated by Ana Khouri and Triumvir Ilia Volyova as they load approximately 160,000 of the almost 200,000 on the world Resurgam onto the Nostalgia for Infinity.
- The full extent of a lighthugger's manufacturing capabilities is unknown, as they are only ever used in the novels to produce weapons. However, it is implied in Absolution Gap that the shadows' mass-synthesizer technology operated on the same basic principle, and there was little it could not build (up-to and including near-immortal robotic bodies).
- Despite Skade mentioning to Clavain in Redemption Ark that Conjoiners sold their drives primarily to the Demarchists and never directly to the Ultras, Sajaki of the Nostalgia for Infinity claims to Dan that if he blackballed him among the Ultra community he would be stranded in the Epsilon Eridani system indefinitely -- a statement Dan doesn't dispute, despite Dan being an influential man among the Demarchists. This implies that sometime before 2460 Demarchist society either sold or re-purposed their lighthuggers en masse.
List of known lighthuggers
Lighthuggers sorted by name, in alphabetical order.
List in development. Please remain patient as we expand it.
| Name | Ownership | Associated with | Appearances | Notes / History |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollyon | Ultranauts | Forqueray (captain), Roland Childe, Richard Swift, Celestine, Hirz, Dr. Trintignant (expedition to Golgotha) | Diamond Dogs (novella, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days anthology) |
Lighthugger of the Roland Childe organised expedition to the planet Golgotha, with its mysterious and infamous Blood Spire. |
| Bride of the Wind | Ultranauts | Basquiat (captain) | Absolution Gap | Featured briefly during the later events of Absolution Gap. |
| Cockatrice | Ultranauts | Voulage (captain), Weather (former captive) | Weather (short story, Galactic North anthology) |
Pirate lighthugger, pursued the Petronel in the short story Weather. |
| Galatea | Ultranauts | Revelation Space (mentioned only) | Mentioned briefly in Revelation Space during Volyova's personal investigation into the Boris Nagorny case. | |
| Gnostic Ascension | Ultranauts | Queen Jasmina (captain/ruler), Grelier (surgeon/torturer), Horris Quaiche, Morwenna (crew members) | Absolution Gap | Quaiche's original home ship. Destroyed over Hela, where he later decided to settle down and research the moon. Its auxilliary ships included the Dominatrix and Quaiche's own shuttle, The Scavenger's Daughter. |
| Lorean | Demarchists | Alicia (leader, post-mutiny on Resurgam), Alicia's mutineers from the Resurgam expedition, Dan Sylveste and other Resurgam expedition members | Revelation Space | Originally the lighthugger of the Sylveste Institute sponsored expedition from Yellowstone to Resurgam, led by Dan Sylveste. (The ship was christened after his grandfather.) Twenty years before the beginning of Revelation Space, Dan Sylveste's wife Alicia led a mutiny that commandeered the ship and left Resurgam orbit for parts unknown, stranding the rest of the expedition on the planet. |
| Nightshade | Conjoiners | Skade (commander) | Redemption Ark Absolution Gap |
Prototype for an experimental new class of smaller, but apparently more powerful lighthuggers. Despite warnings, Skade attempts to break the light barrier with this ship, with some unforseen effects and consequences. |
| Nostalgia for Infinity | Ultranauts | John Brannigan (captain), Ilia Volyova, Yuuji Sajaki, Hegazi (triumvirs), Boris Nagorny, Sudjić, Kjarval (crew members), janitor-rats (clean-up pets) |
Revelation Space Redemption Ark Absolution Gap |
"Hero ship" of the Inhibitor trilogy. Closely tied to the fate of captain Brannigan and many of its crew members and passengers. One of its shuttles is the Melancholia of Departure. |
| Pelican in Impiety | Ultranauts | Turquoise Days (novella, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days anthology) | ||
| Petronel | Ultranauts | Rafe Van Ness (captain), Inigo Standish (shipmaster), Weather (captive, honorary crew member) | Weather (short story, Galactic North anthology) |
The ship of the main protagonists in the short story Weather. Transporting refugees from Shiva-Parvati. |
| Poseidon | Ultranauts | Verika Adebi (captain) | Diamond Dogs (novella, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days anthology, mentioned only) | Mentioned by its captain in the finale of the novella. |
| Sandra Voi | Conjoiners | Galiana, Nevil Clavain, Felka | Glacial (short story, Galactic North anthology) | The first completed and successful lighthugger. Featured in the short story Glacial and implied to be in development in The Great Wall of Mars. Named in honour of deceased Demarchist leader Sandra Voi by Nevil Clavain. |
| Zodiacal Light | Ultranauts (formerly) Clavain's expedition to Resurgam (later) Remontoire's group (last known) |
Nevil Clavain (captain), Scorpio, Antoinette Bax, Xavier Liu, various crew and mercenaries (human and hyperpig) from Yellowstone, Remontoire (later, while allied with Clavain and co.) | Redemption Ark, Galactic North (short story, Galactic North anthology) | Originally known as the Eldritch Witch. Commandeered from Ultras (with help from H) by Clavain, Scorpio et al, for their expedition to the Delta Pavonis system. Carries combat-augmented "trike" shuttles and Bax's private ship, Storm Bird. |
Gallery
See also
- Flotilla - The fleet of slower-than-light generation starships that preceded the invention of lighthuggers and was used to colonise the planet of Sky's Edge.
- Ramliner - An older type of slower-than-light interstellar starship. Slower than a lighthugger and more reliant on reerersleep due to long travel times.