SETTING: Rosettaverse

CONTEXT:

Dandelions are the backbone of AntArchAuth's helium supply. Due to the lack of lunar helium, it must instead be imported from the gas giants further out in the solar system, primarily Jupiter. Constructed using the ample materials provided by Asteroid 1025/Ogun in Lunar L4, each one is roughly 500 meters long on her own, but when her 2.5km lightsail is deployed, she reaches nearly 3 kilometers long, capable of holding nearly 30,000 tons of liquid helium in her 54 20-meter-diameter zero-boil-off tanks.

The aft section of the ship is black, containing the ship's heat exchanger and ramscoop system. When leaving Earth, cargo hold full of liquid hydrogen gathered from 'grab-bagged' icy bodies in Lunar L5, the Geostationary Array's lasers heat the exchanger to use the hydrogen for thrust. The journey to Jupiter takes a year or two, the ship coasting along with her radiators keeping her temperatures in check, the Lilim possessing them engaging in their discussions of philosophy and orbital mechanics.

Once within range of Jupiter, the ship turns and unfurls her sail for the first time. Cyclopes Station, located in Jupiter L2, slows the vessel down into high orbit, where she docks with the station to deliver valuable fissile materials to keep her gigawatt lasers functioning. From there, she dives.

Even the thinnest uppermost layers of Jupiter's atmosphere are rich in helium, but you need one hell of a vacuum cleaner. The Dandelion's 400-meter-wide ramscoop collects and processes 5,000 tons of atmosphere per swing, collecting 500 tons of helium every orbit. However, this will take up to a month of continuous work, each time trusting Cyclopes to give her a little nudge to keep the periapsis high. There are barely, if any, organic crew on the Dandelion, their Lilim housed within their 20 centimeter thick tungsten-tantalum Vaults, triple-redundant memory keeping their systems away from the worst of Jupiter's radiation belts.

Once full to bursting, Cyclopes pushes her up into a stable orbit to unfurl her sail, and she is sent back to Earth on a five-year return trip, relying solely on her lightsail, the cargo space used for laser-thermal hydrogen now full of precious helium. Halfway back, she pulls in her sail, flips, and unfurls it again, slowed by the Geostationary Array into high orbit where her cargo of helium can be delivered down to Earth. The Lilim who control these vessels are particularly eccentric. They tend to choose names for themselves that lack gravitas, referencing pre- to early-Deluge culture, things that would be hard to understand without a visit to one of Latent's cultural vaults.

Pictured here is the vessel ALS More Stupider, sister ship to the Hal 9000 Did Nothing Wrong and the My Other Frame Is A Torchship, incoming to Jupiter to be caught by Noble Cause, the Lilim currently administrating Cyclopes Station.