Melancholia of Departure

The Melancholia of Departure was one of the smaller, vacuum-only shuttles carried aboard its mothership, the lighthugger Nostalgia for Infinity.

It was used by Ilia Volyova and fellow crew members for ferrying supplies and passengers between the lighthugger and the carousels of the Rust Belt in Yellowstone orbit.

Description

TBA

Notes

• The small ship's name is an obvious variation on the "theme naming" seen in the name of its mothership.
• The spherical design of the shuttle, aside from being generally very practical in a vacuum environment, bears a striking similarity to the Aries Ib class shuttles of the Space odyssey series, authored by Arthur C. Clarke and first adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick. Alastair Reynolds is a self-confessed old fan of Clarke's body of work, so the chosen shape might also be a bit of a nod.

See also

• Lighthugger spherical shuttle - The type of vacuum-only shuttle the Melancholia belonged to.

Spacecraft
SHUTTLES AND SMALL CRAFT*
Civilian shuttles/small craft: Trike | Tug | Cutter | Spherical shuttle | Flotilla excursion shuttle
Police shuttles/small craft: Panoply cutter
Individual shuttles/small craft: Melancholia of Departure (spherical shuttle) Remontoire's 'Trident' fighter (outrigger fightercraft)
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ATMOSPHERIC SHUTTLES**
Coalition shuttle | Flotilla delta-winged shuttle Cutter | "Claw" shuttle | Lighthugger orbital shuttle
Individual atmo-shuttles: Scavenger's Daughter | Dominatrix
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INTERPLANETARY SPACECRAFT (LARGE SPACESHIPS)
Civilian ships: Freighter | Liner | Hospital ship | Lighthugger in-system craft
Police and military ships: Deep-system cruiser Demarchist military vessel | Conjoiner ''Moray''-class corvette
Individual ships: Bellatrix | Democratic Circus | High Catherine Nightingale | Storm Bird | Universal Suffrage
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INTERSTELLAR SPACECRAFT (STARSHIPS)
Generation ships - Flotilla ships: Santiago, Islamabad, Brazilia, Palestine, Baghdad
Ramscoop starships - Atalanta
Lighthuggers - List (Sandra Voi, Nostalgia for Infinity, Zodiacal Light, Nightshade, Hirondelle, Petronel, etc.)
Alien starships - Void warren ("Caleuche")
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SPACECRAFT PROPULSION
Antimatter engines | Ramscoop | Conjoiner Drive | Stealth Conjoiner Drive Dark Drive | Inertia-suppression Machinery | Cryo-arithmetic engine
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SPACECRAFT WEAPONRY AND DEFENCES
Magnetic railgun | Boser | Ack-am | Foam-phase Munition | Pin-head munitions Camouflaging screens | Hypometric weapon | Bladder-mine
* - capable only of flight in the vacuum of space ** - double as both spacecraft and aircraft, depending on the need