Anomalous Materials

An anomalous material is the name given to a group of solid elements that do not act according to the previously determined laws of the universe. There are over 125 anomalous materials that have been identified and catalogued; roughly 100 of these were found naturally and the rest were synthetically produced. Roughly two thirds of anomalous materials yet discovered are proven stable; the remaining third tend to decay over time or may suddenly disappear under appropriate conditions.

While anomalous materials are occasionally termed "elements", this is a misnomer; anomalous materials do not always contain atoms, and may contain other structures which do not appear to follow the laws of the universe. It is understood that they exist in their own physics "bubble" - they follow the laws that exist within their bubble and ignore those of the universe around them. Learning to manufacture such a bubble and properly design the laws contained therein was proved to be the primary challenge in inventing the blink teleporter.

Nearly half of all anomalous materials are available for industrial use, and power things such as field generators, matter manipulators, and psionic senors. They tend to be extremely expensive due to manufacturing costs, but are available to the public. Some companies make their money through the mass manufacturing of anomalous materials, and others, such as Tartarus Incorporated earn their money by searching for and discovering new kinds of anomalous materials.

History

The first anomalous materials were discovered in 2943, in an ancient, ruined ship hull from a forgotten species that the NES (New Earth Ship) Humboldt happened upon during a routine patrol at the edge of the Northern Exclusion Zone. When the Humboldt attempted to fire upon the debris, it teleported approximately 400 meters to the side, seemingly as a defense mechanism. The drew the attention of various scientists and, when studying the ship, discovered the first anomalous material - AM-0001. It was soon found that by applying significant currents of energy over a period of time, the material would form a "field" around itself and "teleport" the contents of said field. While it took over thirty years of focused research for humanity to learn to synthetically manufacture the material, the first "blink teleporters" began their manufacture in early 2974. By this time, a major search effort for other anomalous materials had begun, and a number of other materials had already been discovered.

List of known anomalous materials

AM-0001 (Porting Steel)

AM-0001, occasionally referred to colloquially as "Porting Steel", is This material teleports itself and everything in a field around it when subjected to strong energy input. Commonly used in Blink Teleporters. The distance and direction of the teleportation generally depends on the strength of the applied electricity, the input patterns, and where it is applied relative to the AM-0001 core. In this it is somewhat similar to the Veloxium cores; the difference is that AM-0001 requires much more energy, and is not suitable for sustained use; AM-0001 typical undergoes a "null period" after each electric application, during which time it is rendered inoperable. While this time can be minimized by careful shaping of the core, it seems unlikely that AM-0001 will ever be made efficient enough to serve as a useful replacement for standard warp drive, especially as warp drive continues to improve.

AM-0004

A silver-white material with strong cooling properties that is often used in heatsinks. It allows materials to cool notably faster than normal black-body radiation allows and is thus often used in spaceships. It also happens to be notoriously difficult to produce. This, coupled with the scarcity of materials, makes it extremely expensive, and as a result it is rare to see it in the use of standard firearms. Fortunately, a cheaper alternative exists in the form of SAM-0004c. SAM-0004c is only a little better than standard aluminum in an atmosphere, and would normally be overlooked as too expensive to justify its use. However, SAM-0004c happens to function just as well in a vacuum as it does in an atmosphere, and is over two orders of magnitude cheaper than perfected SAM-0004, being considerably easier to manufacture - and only a few times as expensive as non-anomalous alloys.

SAM-0004b

An unstable variant of AM-0004, with similar properties but a half-life of only 15 hours. Produced by Nadonis and Borran to convince their investor to let them start Mimir Corporation.

AM-0010 (Shieldrock)

AM-0010 is technically a composite anomalous material: It combines three separate types of anomalous material: 0010a, 0010b, and 0010c. When combined in different quantities and kept at a stable temperature (while being supplied large amounts of cold electrical energy, these are capable of producing different types of energy shielding. The actual production of these shields is fairly complicated. The AM-0010 composite must be kept suspended in a chamber filled with at least 99.46% pure argon gas, and kinetic currents applied in these gases (coupled with, to a lesser extent, the shape of the core) create the shape of the shield (typically via use of fans or other anomalous materials). Complicating matters further, impacts on the shield cause the core mass of AM-0010 to begin to heat up gradually. When sufficient temperatures are reached, the shields fail entirely and the core spontaneously overheats; it must be brought back down to stable levels before the core can reform the shield and gradually bring it up to full strength. As one might expect, shield generators are immensely complicated.

To laymen, it's known by a variety of names such as "amten", "AMT", "A. M. Ten", "Tammy's Cocktail", "shieldrock", and others, depending on the region.

AM-0013 (Veloxium)

Main article: Veloxium
Better known as Veloxium, it was some time before it was formally recognized as a true anomalous material. The ubiquity of the material made people believe, for a long period of time, that it was in fact naturally-occurring. However, several theories have arisen, fueled again due to recent events, that it was in fact intentionally planted by forms of higher intelligence to give pre-sentient species eventual warp power, should they ever climb to sentience and escape their homeworlds. (This is actually correct, but unfortunately is unproven in-universe. The Quantums intentionally created small deposits of this material near most planets inhabited by species they suspected would potentially prove to be useful hosts later on in their evolution.)

AM-0018 (Brownbind)

A material that sees much use in medical technology - specifically in synthetic-to-organic grafting. Considered a staple of any surgical operation involving cyborg tech. It has the unsettling appearance of a brown-white translucent mucus, and acts about the same way as well. Forms a perfect bond between almost any two materials, virtually welding them together; the individual molecules snake their way into the molecular structure of their surroundings and make them practically inseparable. Rather difficult to manufacture; it tends to be fairly expensive and is rarely sold or purchased in anything greater than vial-sized quantities. It's typically stored in hydrophobic containers, and the only way to remove it after it is applied is either excessive force, or to lower its temperature to below -122°C (-188°F), causing it to shrink into itself. Originally known as BOSS, for Bonding for Organics to Synthetic Surfaces, it became better known by Mimir Corp's brand name of Brownbind.

AM-0025 (Stellaplex)

A particularly strange material in that it has different appearances from different angles and under different lighting. When bombarded with significant quantities of energy, AM-0025 produces precise interdimensional volumetric rifts (based on form) that presumably link back to its universe of origin. The stronger the energy bombardment, the stronger the rift. However, these rifts are phase-shifted such that the only particles that can travel through are massless particles such as photons, neutrinos, and gravitons. The practical application of this particular material is as a gravity generator, and it has found extensive use in many devices. AM-0025 has been synthetically manufactured for some time now.

AM-0036 (Durasteel)

A cold, dark grey-blue metal, AM-0046 was initially, when discovered, experimented with for potential application in refrigeration devices. Their reasoning was simple: the more energy was poured into AM-0046 at once, the more AM-0046 would remove from itself and the surrounding environment. Unfortunately, it turned out power consumption was simply too high for it to be used in this manner, and was shelved for nearly a decade before Edivius Krieg, a scientist at New Stanford, New Earth, discovered that its true potential lay in the removal of kinetic energy, instead of thermal. As such, AM-0046 has seen frequent application in armor reinforcement. Its high manufacturing cost typically prohibits its use from becoming standard, but it is expected that this should change within the next few centuries.

AM-0041

Occurring "naturally" in a crystalline form, AM-0041 is refined to a fibrous state before being installed in high-powered motor-aligned communication equipment. The orientation of the AM-0041 fibers and strength permit a dual-ended "superspace" rift to form (colloquially known as "hyperspace"), visible only to electromagnetic radiation. This is used to supplement radio waves for faster-than-light communication. It is rumored that the New Earth government's secret project "Chickenhawk" has created a means to channel this ability into the physical domain, permitting true hyperspatial travel; however, these are currently… just rumors. By itself, AM-0041 is incapable of opening a rift powerful enough for anything solid to pass through.

AM-0043 (Hyperaluminum)

In most respects, hyperaluminum looks like and acts like aluminum (hence the name), but has interesting properties that permit it to be used in batteries. When included in thin layers or strips (each has differing effects) in a battery, it can increase conductivity and charge rates, remove small quantities of waste heat, and even increase the total amount of energy stored. Unfortunately, it works best in much larger batteries, and in most cases, the gain is insignificant when using smaller batteries, such as those you might find in weaponry and PDAs. It's still quite useful in buildings, power stations, and ships, but must be handled cautiously. Hyperaluminum has been known to start spontaneous fires if overcharged or improperly installed/contained.

AM-0054

An unusual material that resembles pale green chalk beneath a glossy transparent surface. It has a number of seemingly discordant properties that make it useful in very specific situations. A sphere of the material one inch in diameter (2.54cm) is capable of slowly generating its own electric charge at roughly 12.5 watts, and immediately stores it within itself up to a quantity of 14.5 watt-hours. There are diminishing returns for both larger quantities of AM-0054, and also proximity to other quantities of AM-0054, making it of limited use for electrical generation outside smaller-scale applications.

The most interesting property of AM-0054 is the fact that, when AM-0054 is applied to another material with concussive force, it produces a small sub-universe "bubble" around the secondary material, very very briefly bringing it into its own laws of physics. After much experimentation, it was discovered that if conditions were carefully controlled, it could "clone" a small surface layer of the affected secondary material, essentially causing it to "grow". In 3152 it is beginning to see more widespread usage in repair drone technology, although the expense of manufacturing it will always limit its use to small niche applications.

SAM-0082

SAM-0082 seems to have some interesting effects on electricity - namely, it's better at detecting smaller electrical currents than it is larger ones. It's mostly used in medicine and to read people's thoughts and emotions - a technology that's taken well over a hundred years to perfect. While it is altogether too expensive to use ubiquitously, it is used domestically in certain places, such as Tartarus's VR chambers to determine mission layouts and loadouts. It is not always completely accurate, however; Tartarus keeps manual-input consoles in the VR chambers in the instances where it fails.

Despite being in production for over a century, with plenty of time to research and study, it still doesn't work well at a distance of more than a few meters… except on Tartarus. Some of Tartarus' exotic weaponry seems to be quite capable - like what Taniya used in mission 2. Tartarus is at the forefront - the cutting edge of Anomalous Materials manufacturing and design. At the moment, they keep their secrets to themselves, mostly so that their rival, Mimir Corporation, does not steal their designs. To this end, all CASKET antimatter containment cells are rigged to detonate if the kill-signal is received, with the intent of keeping their products out of enemy hands. It's widely theorized that the Tartarus inmates - the REKT division - are used as guinea pigs to test out these dangerous weapons while they're still in development.

AM-0086 (Jetspray)

Used for routing and accelerating high-energy gaseous and plasma particles. While this produces significant recoil and heat, it makes AM-0086 particularly useful in thruster parts. Unfortunately, its high cost and prohibitive refinement requirements keep it from becoming a widespread technology. Jetspray was developed by Tartarus Inc. in 3116 and is available commercially. There are two main methods of using it. The first is to dip the parts you intend to coat with it directly into a bath - this is often prohibitively expensive for anything larger than plasma firearms. The more common method is to use aerosol cans to evenly spray a coating in the desired area - hence the name "Jetspray". Caution must be taken to ensure that the coating is even on all sides, especially in ship thrusters - a small deviation in the thickness of the coating on one side or the other can have disastrous results.

Quantum Glass

Quantum glass was given its name due to its apparent manufacturing by Quantums at some indeterminable date in the past, and the fact that it has a fairly unique, glasslike appearance. It is somewhat translucent with a thickly-speckled purple hue, and tends to form into crystalline structures when its source liquid is left to its own devices.

Quantum glass is capable of absorbing, concentrating, focusing and expelling energy. These properties make it a very useful material in energy weapons as well as defense to energy weapons. Each crystal can hold a certain amount of charge, with larger crystals being able to contain more energy; when filled, they release all the energy in a single blast and begin recharging. Raw, "wild" crystals typically emit little more than a bright flash of light, while properly shaped crystals can be used to create directed bolts of plasma, making it an even better choice of material to use in weaponry.

Unlike most anomalous materials, Quantum glass is created from combining two anomalous liquids. While each liquid (one red, one blue) is completely inert and safe by themselves, they will form into crystals almost instantaneously when mixed together. The only way to keep this from happening is to keep the liquid in a supercritical state.

It should also be noted that it is unsafe to store liquid Quantum Glass for lengthy periods of time; it has a nasty habit of working itself through any material it can find - including metal - and forming crystals.

((For the love of all that is holy, could a chemist look through this and use words that are actually scientific D: ~Tal))

This material was first encountered during mission 1.

XTG-1091B

This liquid material is used in gravity-manipulating tech such as the Gravity Gun and Gravitic Shotgun
Some of it was stolen by Tartarus from Mimir Corporation in mission 2.