Bitek starships used exclusively by Edenists, voidhawks are sentient beings who are bonded to their captains at birth via affinity. Whilst growing up both voidhawk and captain can communicate with one another through affinity, and generally have a very loving and affectionate relationship.
Voidhawk above an habitat’s docking ledges.
tNA cover © Jim Burns
Physiology[]
Typical voidhawk lifespan is 110 years. The captain usually outlives his or her voidhawk. This is because the voidhawk's patterning cells degrade faster than they are reproduced once the voidhawk has reached maturity. After this the captain usually remains in a habitat to raise his or her children.
A voidhawk will conduct a mating flight at the end of its life, producing ten eggs, each with a zygote (the voidhawk’s future captain) inside, which it leaves in orbit of a ringed gas giant to mature. Voidhawk mating first happened in the orbit of Saturn. Romulus and Remus were the first Edenist voidhawk bases. After one year the zygote is ejected from the egg and from this moment on raised by its mother and the habitat personality.
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Blackhawks were created by Rubra via retro-engeneering of the voidhawk genome and both kinds of bitek starships share many common features.
Flight[]
A voidhawk body is largely (about 80%) composed of energy patterning cells which give the voidhawk its unique abilities. These cells are used to create a distortion field which enables the voidhawk to accelerate in space, reload its patterning cells, create wormholes to perform swallow-manoeuvres and to sense the emergence point of a starship performing a ZTT-jump. A voidhawk distortion field is also capable of preventing other ships from performing ZTT-jumps. A voidhawk can block ships up to a distance of 100 000 km.
Voidhawks are far superior to the mechanical starships used by the Adamists, although they are far more vulnerable to the effects of radiation. While creating a forward acceleration outside of the voidhawk, the distortion field can produce a counter-effect inside the voidhawk, producing a comfortable one gee gravity for the crew.
A voidhawk can “tailor” a wormhole according to its needs, while wormholes produced by Adamist starships are bound by orbital mechanics. The affinity of a voidhawk can cross distances of up to 30 AU.
Most voidhawks have a maximum range of 12 LY with a single wormhole. This distance is outstripped by the more powerful blackhawks, which are capable of jumps in excess of 15 LY. However at the extreme range of jump capability both the voidhawks and blackhawks (and their linked captains) suffer extreme fatigue from the strain of the jump.