The Mason Field Drive & Dacer Shield

The Mason Field is generated by the amplification of the interaction of the Alpha and Omega sub-particles contained in the Xanthe crystal when bombared by pseudo electron valents in a charged hydrogen field. Because the Xanthe crystalline structure is hexagonal in shape, the field generated in each plane consists of six lobes which, in the basic generator, are equal in intensity. As these lobes expand, the matter at the focal point of the lobes is transmuted into the Mu state and distributed to the edges of the expanding field. As more and more matter is transmuted, the crystal itself is finally affected to the point where it can no longer sustain the field and the collapse begins.

As the field collapses and the energy of the field decreases, it loses its ability to support the matter in the Mu state and this matter again appears in its normal state. However, as the crystal regains its strength (this time in the opposite phase), the collapsing field transfers most of its energy back into the crystal so that when the field reaches zero state again, the crystal contains almost as much energy as it had at the beginning of the cycle. Another cycle of expansion and contraction of the field will begin using this regained energy, even if no further external energy is applied to the crystal.

This pendulum effect was one of the major drawbacks of the Mason Field when used as a Drive mechanism, as the intensity or speed of the ship could only be increased or decreased a small amount at a time.

Experiments by Evelyn Dacer, daughter of Grace, showed that the intensity of the lobes could be varied by a combination of crystal warpage and lobic discrimination. The result was an attenuation of four of the six lobes (in each plane) and the displacement of the transmuted matter when it reappeared from the Mu state. Further experiments showed that the intensity of the two remaining lobes could be varied slightly causing the direction of the displacement to be changed as much as sixty degrees allowing a ship using the Mason.

A big drawback to the Mason Field Drive was its inability to discriminate between transmuted matter and normal matter (space debris, dust, etc.) at the field edges. This normal matter was absorbed by the drive and caused an increasing inefficiency in the Drive as more and more matter had to be transmuted each cycle. This was circumvented to an extent by the matter scanning devices which detected heavier than normal concentrations of debris and allowed the ship to avoid them, but even on moderately lengthy trips, the Drive had to be shut down to allow this accumulated debris to be flushed from the system. Also, the speed of the ship was restricted due to the range limitations of the matter scanners, as even a small asteroid absorbed into the Drive could destroy the engine and the ship. Naturally, travel through any kind of asteroid belt was limited to hydrogen drive speeds.

At Grace's death, Dacer turned her attentions to the synthetic Gnau crystal and its properties under the same conditions. She discovered the steady state characteristic in which the edge matter was continuously converted normal to Mu state, allowing ships to effectively pass through the debris while it was in the Mu state. Still, this shield only worked for the smaller asteroids and dust clouds, but the development of increasingly powerful matter scanning devices allieviated this proglem, and little effort was devoted at the time to increasing the shield's power. It wasn't until the beginning of the Drove wars that the shield and the matter scanning devices began to be developed to their full extent.

It is amazing that for almost 1 200 years little, if any, investigation was made into the Mu dimension, the medium used today for almost all space leaps.

Source: Alpha Omega Rules