Element Zero

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Eezo was the first unique invention made by Catgirl Industries, which shaped the form and function of many products afterwards.

—From the CI history holo, 2068 edition

I cannot comment on the creation of Element Zero, its a trade secret, but mixing up Handwavium with hydrogen as a replacement core definitely wasn’t a bright idea. Or a very bright one if I look at the video of the explosion.

—From 'Repairing Handwaved Engines’, Mars bulletin board 2017

Oh, shiny!

—Catgirl after accidentally producing the first batch of Eezo, December 2015

Element Zero

Element Zero or Eezo is a strain of Handwavium that follows the story of the Mass Effect universe. In its natural form its a blue glowing liquid substance. Like its role model it reacts to electrical currents, creating zones of changed gravity. As most Handwaved based substances, its detailed mechanism is unknown, but its said that it generates or repels dark energy to influence the basic workings of physics.

Mass Effect fields can not only propel objects at high and even superluminal speed, it can also create impact barriers, similar to the particle shields of the Warsies. Element Zero is not used up while creating this fields, but needs a constant input of electrical energy.

Eezo does not replicate as easily as some common Handwavium strains and its production seems to be difficult, because Catgirl Industries seems to be always low on their stockpile. It can only be obtained at Catgirl Industries, mostly built into the drones they sell.

Mass Effect field drive

The Mass Effect field drive is a reactionless speed drive, both for sublight and faster than light travel. As all known Fenspace faster than light drives its restricted to a speed of 500c.

Element Zero can be used as the core of a reactionless drive system. The so called ‘Mass Effect’ wraps the target into a shell of Dark Energy, which moves forward at great speed. When energized by an electrical current an Mass Effect core can manipulate the mass of objects within the drives effect. This effect create a speedy drive, which allows the ship or drone to quickly reach the maximum speed, cutting the electricity drops the ship down to normal speed quickly.

While the drive's scalability seem to more restricted than most other Fenspace drives, its also versatile and low on quirks. Catgirl Industries have been pushing for more advanced variants of the drive since the first Eezo drive was built.

It also can be used to create artificial gravity fields within a limited radius. Increased gravity can be inconvenient to people inside, but mass effect fields have never been observed more than 3g or 4g, which limits the amount of damage it can do. It is assumed that this is a manifestation of the slapstick effect.

Drive generations

The Mass Effect drive has been going through several generations since the original Eezo creation in 2015, each of them pushing the limits of the drive a little bit further out.

cruising speed sprint speed field diameter
1st generation 0.10 c 0.12 c 1 meter
2nd generation 0.11 c 0.14 c 2 meter
3rd generation 0.14c 0.15c 4 meter

1st generation

The original Mass Effect drive, developed in winter 2015, was quite limited in its applications compared to other drive systems in Fenspace. Its maximum field diameter is a mere meter and its protective configuration could only project a single circular forcefield surface with a diameter of 90 cm, which can protect the interior of the drive field against kinetic damage from one direction.

While the drive can move forward at up to 12% the speed of light, energy costs increase sharply beyond 10% c. These two speeds are normally called sprint speed and cruising speed by the catgirls.

2nd generation

Unhappy with this, Catgirl Industries continued to focus on a research project to create a better iteration of the drive. In 2017 Catgirl Industries released the first drone with a second generation drive.

This new generation not only pushed the maximum field diameter to two meters, it also included the forcefield protection into the drives engine field, allowing a full 360° protection. The protection is still mostly limited to kinetic weapons. Both sprint speed and cruising speed went up a little bit in the second generation.

3rd generation

When the Little Big Bang Labs were moved to Nostromo, all Eezo related research of Catgirl Industries moved with it.

In winter 2020 the catgirls at the Labs finally produced the first batch of stable and low-quirked 3rd generation Eezo. The 3rd gen drive again doubled the maximum field diameter, it also allows to link up a couple of cores to create a combined larger field.

The drives maximum speed went only up a little bit more, but the drive got both more energy efficient and versatile. Even when combining multiple cores to an unified drive system, the software can reconfigure the shield from the generic spherical shield to a stronger planar shield and back.

The Normandy

The Normandy is a more than 60 meters long and 30 meters wide ship built in 2016 to 2018. Fens visiting the Normandy also report that it contains a single huge Mass Effect core.

This has puzzled some Fenspace Mads for years, how the catgirls managed to build a ship that was beyond the rules of Mass Effect drives.

In 2020, during the Catgirl Industries 5th anniversary party, the catgirls finally admitted that human level AIs with the right supporting firmware could overcome the field size limitations of the drive.

Trivia

  • The energy consumption of the drive peaks quickly when going beyond cruising speed. Most drones built by Catgirl Industries cannot store enough energy for sprint speed for more than a few seconds. Other drones are even limited to lower speeds to conserve energy.
  • Most Mass Effect drives always seem to produce a spherical drive field, even if the drone has a different shape.
  • The forcefields glow bright red when hit by a projectile until they regenerated their strength. They can be overloaded by multiple smaller impacts.
  • Pure gravity generator Mass Effect cores cannot produce forcefields, but can cover a much larger area than the full space drive.
  • Some quirked variants of Eezo were used to build a few vehicles that transcend the normal limits of the drive, e.g. the Pinball of DOOM.

Quirks

  • Funny looking cat! Mass Effect drive fields sometimes produce a static charge during long operations.
  • Fireworks. Mass Effect drives produce a lot of light when the ship engage its drive at superluminal speeds.
  • Game Mechanics. The shields of a mass effect field does not begin to recharge until it got some time without further impacts.