Carbythine (and carbythine amalgam)

(Credit to TrIpTiCuS who did most of the work on this.)

Name:
Carbythine, the third known substance in the order of sub-erchioids, which are substances similar to erchius, sharing traits such as its different phase allotropes but are not true Erchius isotopes. (Also carbythine amalgam)

Description:

A crash landed Viriskon starship cluster forged from carbythine.

A lone cargo ship travelling through space finds itself trapped with a pirate vessel. The pirate’s interdiction drive preventing them from fleeing into hyperspace. The unarmed ship tries it’s best to evade, but most of the concentrated fire still hits, and proceeds to do absolutely nothing. Out of instinct the pirates continue to fire, but the hull of the ship does not appear to take any damage. Before long, the distress beacon of the cargo ship is answered as three corvettes arrive, forcing the pirate ship to flee.

Carbythine is an opaque, glassy mineral with most often a muted green colour, though appears turquoise or cyan at certain angles. It’s lightweight and, in small samples, is very malleable with small nuggets being kneadable like dough or kinetic sand. Larger samples are very hard and are usually very difficult to bend or manipulate.

Carbythine amalgam on the contrary, although similar in colour, appears much like frosted glass, with shapes being blurred behind it if in a thin sheet whereas thicker forms are almost entirely opaque.

Abilities:

• Dispersion: Carbythine can disperse incoming kinetic energy across its surface at an incredible efficiency, rendering many impacts incapable of piercing it. This scales with surface area.
  
  
• Lightweight: For its potential durability, carbythine is remarkably lightweight.

Conditional Abilities:

• Airlock Amalgam: When formed into a carbythine amalgam, the substance can be strapped over openings in space stations and starships as a substitute for airlocks.

Limitations:

• Forging: Carbythine is very difficult to work with due to it’s high melting point and issues with welding. Since it requires a large amount of surface area for its main ability any product crafted for durability made from carbythine must be cast into one large mold.
  
  
• Fracturing: If a kinetic force were to breach a plate of carbythine the entire form would shatter like glass, with microscopic fractures being sent through the entire plate whilst the point of impact is pulverised.
  
  
• Thermal Pass-through: Though thermal weapons like plasma or lasers rarely leave a mark on the material, their energy has an easy time passing through it, potentially damaging fragile electronics and mechanics mounted just behind the armour of a vessel.

How does it work:

Carbythine is by technicality a liquid, only fully solidifying at temperatures nearing absolute zero. It exhibits certain properties which classifies it as a non-newtonian fluid, with the material hardening under stress. However if enough energy is put into bending the material, it will eventually reach a “critical point” where the material shatters as opposed to yielding, sending microscopic fractures throughout the material, significantly weakening the overall structure whilst pulverizing the point of fracture.

This tendency to harden under stress scales with surface area, with each additional square metre considerably multiplying the effective durability of the material. At less than 10^cm carbythine is akin to aluminium foil in durability. At around half a metre squared durability is similar to iron and at more than 2 metres it has already surpassed durasteel. This scaling does experience diminishing returns however, with anything over 5 square metres seeing considerably less increase in durability. According to mathematical calculations you’d need a plate of at least 200^2 meters in order to surpass the effective durability of impervium.

A process of alloying carbythine, known as kerision by the Viriskon, requires the combination of liquid carbythine and mercury into a carbythine amalgam. This carbythine amalgam exhibits one major anomalous property in that anything travelling at a higher velocity will experience it as a completely solid material with anything travelling slowly being able to pass through the material like a dense liquid, despite it being practically solid. These factors can be influenced by the thickness of the material, with thicker shapes reducing the maximum speed it will allow through whilst increasing the viscosity of moving through the material, however even thinner materials have a maximum allowed speed of around 100 m/s. This material has found use in various forms of airlocks as air particles simply bounce off the material whilst people or slow moving ships can move through them effortlessly. It should be noted that carbythine amalgam, regardless of thickness or surface area is comparable to glass in strength.

Flavour Text:

When Viriskon discovered carbythine within their home planet Xrison it was originally regarded as a worthless mineral. It didn’t suit very many needs for them up until the age of enlightenment where R&D became more prevalent and it’s properties were discovered. Once it’s handiness in spacecraft hulls was found many new industries formed around creating ship hulls out of carbythine and the formerly useless mineral became highly coveted. Carbythine is commonly found in places where high levels of carbon are, primarily in aptly named carbon planets. Due to this carbythine is much more common in systems closer to the galactic core and likely inside stars old enough to begin fusing carbon.

Referenced Technologies: Karonium, Critum

Attainability: (Open) Carbythine can be mined from planets bearing high levels of carbon.
(Semi-Closed) Carbythine Amalgam is only produced by Viriskon and the process of making it currently isn't public information.

Tags: [Industrial] [Racial]

Category: [Materials]

Properties:



Weight: 0.12 lbs per cubic inch
Durability: ⬛⬛⬛⬛ (⅘)
Flexibility: ⬛ (⅕)
Thermal conductivity: ⬛⬛⬛ (⅗)
Electrical conductivity: ⬛⬛ (⅖)
Melting point: 4,215 °C (7619 °F)
Average price: 0.22 Px / in^3

 

Attainability and price have been altered.