Name: Vitrephosite, “Truelight” Description: Truelight is a hard, synthetic, solid substance composed entirely of a single photonic molecule linked together in a crystalline structure. It contains an immense amount of light inside of it condensed into matter, acting as a much brighter and denser hardlight substance. Most Vitrephosite (Vih-treh-phoh-site) crystals are shaped into particular geometric shapes such as cubes or tetrahedrons, emitting a bright light of the emission spectrum of whatever light source the Vitrephosite was constructed from. To the touch, Vitrephosite is hot but feels glassy like hardlight. Being a type of art form, “Startappers” can carve special shapes inside of a carved piece of Vitrephosite, giving it a three-dimensional appearance; many Xadari carve special runes into it that can read out stories and such. Abilities: Harder and denser than constructed hardlight. Can store a massive amount of photonic energy in its pure form. Can serve as a hardlight “battery” that does not use electricity. When shattered, creates a powerful flash of light radiation, being able to permanently blind people or fry optics. Can be “shaved” apart by a proton beam to create bright beams of light or lasers. Some pieces can be worth much. Limitations: Takes a long time to create due to the density of its photons. Cannot be constructed as hardlight can. It is a permanent material and is forged using special tools. Flavor text: Vitrephosite is a high-value synthetic craft material created by the Xadari species. Vitrephosite is created by filtering sources of light to an extremely fine point and collecting that light and projecting it into solid form, usually light from specific stars or stellar events, some rarer crystals taking even years to create and being worth millions, as well as appearing absolutely stunning. Vitrephosite traces its origins throughout ancient Xadari species in uses as a catalyst in ancient Xadari beliefs in alchemy. Ancient alchemists held belief that starlight in its purest form can perform miracles, and that the starlight of certain specific astronomical objects held special powers. The starlight of Zari Rift, the subspace anomaly in the Xadari home system, was believed to have blessed objects with the power of the Mist, or hyperspace. The starlight of Sirius was believed to be able to transmute objects to a higher state, and so on. As history progressed, this so-called “Startapping” was turned into an artform and a craft trade that involved immense skill, patience, and a keen eye. Vitrephosite is also used as the gem of a marriage amulet or other type of jewelry, containing the photons of the light reflected from their lover’s eyes. Vitrephosite has a purity that is determined by what percentage of its emission spectrum is from the source star; higher purities require more time to create due to the increased focus of a lens to a distant star. The higher the purity, the higher the value the Truelight shard. Lower purities can be created at a higher rate, but risk having its light tainted due to the lesser focus on one star or source. In addition, certain sources of light are of higher value than some; stars bearing significant influence are worth more, or Vitrephosite created from the first observation of a supernova can be priceless and beautiful, as well as Vitrephosite created from the x-ray radiation created from a black hole system (vitrephosite created from non-visible light such as x-rays or radio rays are very transparent). In addition, the geometric accuracy of a piece of vitrephosite can add to its value. Due to its extremely high density, shapes can be forged to more perfectly resemble spheres or cubes, the process being difficult the straighter such lines or the more curved such contours are. Ancient Xadari alchemist texts refer to a hypothetical vitrophosite light source that is said, in the belief of the ancient alchemists, to be able to grant one the power of God and Providence. This shard must be created from the very center of the galaxy itself, Sagittarius A*. Due to the inability to physically access the center and the density of stars in that area, a focus onto the galactic nucleus would take hundreds of thousands of years to create a piece of vitrephosite even the size of a penny. Such a piece, called by ancient alchemists the “Ultima”, would be the most valued of any shard of vitrephosite. Such stories of shards of Ultima existing are usually shrugged off as mythology; yet some believe that somewhere, lies the true shard of Ultima, the one relic of the alchemists long gone. How it works: Vitrephosite is a photonic crystal that, in principal, is similar to holograms or hardlight. Vitrephosite, however, is much denser, similar to the density of a neutron star in photons. This grants it a significant density and weight, similar to certain hard plastics, allowing vitrephosite pieces to store massive amounts of pure light that can be functionally stored and retrieved without the need for any electric conversions. Vitrephosite can be used to power certain lasers that utilize just pure, light energy, and can also be used as a “battery” to generate hardlight from, as vitrephosite can be shaved away using a concentrated proton beam to generate beams of free photons at 100% efficiency. Xadari technology uses this often, however these are only the technical uses of common vitrephosite - vitrephosite can be created from rarer sources of light, allowing certain pieces to be luxury items of high artistic and monetary value. Vitrephosite is created using a special, concentrated lens similar to telescopes of varying sizes. The lens is made of glass smelted from Mana dust native to the Zari system, giving it a deep purple hue and allowing light to pass through it in its pure, original spectrum. Larger lenses are able to create vitrephosite at a higher rate, however its value is usually dependent on its focus. Many stars are very far away, meaning that lenses must be focus and filtered so that only light from one star or other object can be harvested; this lengthens the process of creating vitrephosite, but adds to the value of the piece. The light is collected after filtering into a special device composed of glass prisms and proton field projectors called a “Startap” that slowly shapes the light into pure vitrephosite, requiring constant care and check to ensure that it is of geometric perfection; the Startapper can then manipulate its creation using microscopic proton beams that can inscribe shapes or runes into the 3D structure, or even abstract structures such as datachips. The finished product is collected from a chamber and can be used. Referenced Technologies: N/A Attainability: Semi-Closed [Racial] Tags: Civilian Category: Material
Hey @PrivateNomad so let's get this graded. As neat of a concept it is, I will unfortunately being giving Truelight a fail for several reasons. The biggest issue with this application is the of turning light into solid matter which is, at best, dubious. Even if it could be done, the properties solid light would have aren't discussed anywhere in the application. Nowhere does this application address issues such as it degrading over time, it's fragility, weightlessness, etc. Beyond that, there's some aspects of the application that are a bit questionable or should be changed. The flavor text seems to imply to me that ancient Xadari alchemists somehow had access to this technology. Given just how advanced this sort of technology is, there's no reason why they could've had access to it. Given that Truelight is capable of permanently blinding individuals and frying optics, Industrial may be more suited for this application than Civilian. If Truelight is made of nothing other than light, than there's no reason why Truelight made of non-visible would be very transparent, rather than totally. Also important is that you've messed up the application format slightly. I've gone ahead and cleaned up the format page found here so there is no reason any future applications of yours should have the incorrect format.
