2199:CRATE

This page is a 2199 alternative universe article and is therefore not part of the TEP Evolved canon.

The Coordinated Reflux Axial Turbo Encabluator, or CRATE for short, is a driver module found in any spacecraft that can exceed the speed of light.

Although previous iterations of turbo encabulators had to produce their own power via the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive diractance, a breakthrough in 2085 led to the replacement of the traditional pre-famulated amulite base plate with a permanent dutsirium-alloy electret galvanized with a sturdier post-famulated amulite coating. This allowed the LOΔ (lotus-O-delta) windings to be powered directly with an external Inertial Confinement Fusion reactor. This, along with numerous other developments made through a partnership between several leading Urth universities, allowed the CRATE to manipulate fluctuations in the quark field and expand the upper bound of contiguous mass that could be sent in speeds in excess of c (the speed of light; approx. 300,000 km/s) from 3.5 × 10^-19 grams, known as the Hardie Limit, by a factor of e⁷², to 6.5 million metric tons.

Several CRATEs can be wired together by connecting the "down" end of the grammeters with a lurtium-ammulite alloy cable loop to increase the mass limit; however, this practice has diminishing returns, to a theoretical maximum limit of 85 million metric tons. This limit has not been reached yet, as chaining together more than a handful of CRATEs can become prohibitively expensive, and it becomes more economically viable to simply send several smaller ships rather than one large one.

CRATE chaining table

CRATEs	Effective load	Mass limit (millions of metric tons)
1	1x	6.51
2	1.96x	12.75
3	2.84x	18.50
4	3.66x	23.79
5	4.41x	28.67
10	7.35x	47.83
15	9.30x	60.51
20	10.59x	68.91
40	12.64x	82.19
80	13.10x	85.23
Infinite (theoretical)	13.12x	85.35

External links

From the archives: "Turbo Encabulator" - a short introduction to a primitive 20th-century precursor to the CRATE.