Hollow Spark – Bullet Summary

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🧠 Section 01: Cockpit / Flight Deck

Layout & Structure The cockpit is located at the ship’s fore, occupying a curved, forward-facing module with partial armored overhangs. It was originally designed to support a recon crew of three to five, but space allows four to operate in comfort — as long as no one starts throwing elbows during turbulence. A central corridor leads up into the cockpit bulkhead, narrowing slightly before opening into the command deck itself. Ceiling height is just under 2.3 meters at the centerline, dipping lower at the sides due to reinforced bracing.

Stations & Controls

• There are four primary seating positions, each on shock-mounted rails with swivel capacity and hardlock mechanisms for G-load locking. None of the chairs match.
• Pilot Seat (Forward-Left)
• Connected directly to manual flight sticks, thrust trim wheels, and a partially exposed analog dial cluster.
• Surrounding paneling is patched with fabricator-fused epoxy, clearly the result of prior damage.
• Power lines run into the base — capped, but with unclaimed ports for possible upgrades.
• Has a kick-switch on the left marked “INERTIA OVERRIDE (DON’T).”
• Co-Pilot / Systems Seat (Forward-Right)
• Includes nav computation interface, long-range scanners, and manual comms toggles.
• Adjacent to backup sensor override board with physical switches (old-style heat-shielded toggles).
• Screen labeled "Damp Nav. Array" hums faintly. Nobody knows what that means. Yet.
• Tactical/Weapons Console (Rear-Left)
• Dead switchboard for now, but rigged for modular slot-in targeting systems, defense relay, and payload deployment.
• Cable guides and stripped insulation visible. Awaiting install or purpose.
• Engineering & Power Control (Rear-Right)
• Primary interface to power distribution, coolant routing, and backup life-support controls.
• Includes manual reactor isolation levers. Clearly not meant to be touched casually.

Environmental & Construction Notes

• Smell: Cold metal, vacuum lubricant, and old citrus-scented cleaner.
• Lighting: Harsh white strips in the ceiling, with low-red night mode. Half the control backlights flicker intermittently.
• Materials: Alloy frame with retrofitted impact panels and partial anti-flash shielding around sensitive instruments.
• Wear & Tear: Scuff marks on the floor grid. Boot grease, heel scratches, and a dent in the left armrest that tells of a story no one's told yet.

Unique Features

360° Sensor Dome Feed: Projected onto a wraparound upper screen, giving the illusion of total visibility when engaged. Disabled by default to preserve power. Manual Ventilation Flaps: Old, analog air duct controls sit just under the front console. One is marked “jammed on descent, 7.12.24”. Hidden Panel: A sealed maintenance hatch sits under the floorplate between pilot and co-pilot. No label. No key.

Mood & Purpose

This isn't a luxury bridge — it's functional, grounded, and built for hands-on flight. It feels like the kind of cockpit where Mia belongs — one that wants a pilot with grit, not privilege. She’ll sit down, strap in, flick the cracked throttle, and feel like the ship asks for permission but expects defiance.

🛏️ Section 02: Living Quarters

Original Design The Hollow Spark’s living block was originally built for up to 20 personnel, arranged in tight-tier bunk stacks, common lockers, and bulkhead-mounted hygiene stations. Standard issue for recon cutters intended to move special operations teams, nav-techs, or salvage squads. At full capacity, it would’ve felt like sleeping inside a moving air duct. Fortunately, this isn’t that kind of crew.

Current Configuration (Modified for 4 Crew)

The space has been retrofitted, gutted, and restructured to suit a four-person long-haul team. Still pragmatic, still hard-edged — but now survivable. 🛠️ Partition Layout:

• Four Personal Alcoves, spaced evenly along two opposing bulkheads. Each has:
• A single wall-mounted bedframe with shock padding and retractable privacy shroud.
• Reading light, one power outlet, and a narrow shelf inset into the wall.
• A vertical storage locker — repurposed cryo-supply tubes or old EVA gear bays now re-sealed and re-fitted.
• Sound insulation is functional… to a degree. You won’t hear whispers, but you’ll hear arguments.
• Central Walkspace (2.5 meters wide):
• Contains two fold-down utility benches, currently empty. Could become a minigym, tool bench, or meditation corner.
• One ceiling fan, occasionally makes a sad grinding noise. Its persistence implies it may have a name soon.

🚿 Hygiene Niche (Rear Left): Single-head sonic shower, functional, slightly moody. Fold-out toilet stall (wall-sealed when not in use) with real seat — a luxury in deep space. Small mirror with the corner chipped. No sink. Just a dispenser marked “HydroClean v.4.12 (DO NOT DRINK)”. 🌬️ Life Support Interface (Rear Right): Wall panel with basic environmental readouts: CO₂ saturation, pressure fluctuation, filter cycle age. A manual override crank labelled "Cabin Purge" that nobody has dared turn.

Aesthetic & Feel

• Lighting: Warm by default, dimmable. Fluorescent hum under stress load.
• Atmosphere: Still echoey. Like a hospital merged with a maintenance tunnel.
• Smell: Metallic cleanliness over faint ozone. That, and socks. Always socks.
• Flooring: Hard composite plating with padded inserts near bunks. Footlockers clang when dropped.

===Character Potentialv No one's claimed the alcoves yet. No names. No posters. No hidden stashes under mattresses. But that will come. Right now, this space is clean slate territory — a place that will become personal, one scuff at a time. For now, it's quiet, a little cold, and deeply waiting to become someone's home.

🍲 Section 03: Common Area & Galley

Function This is the social spine of the ship — located just aft of the living quarters and directly above one of the ship’s primary thermal routing ducts (providing warmth, plus the occasional ominous groan). It's where the crew eats, sits, argues, plans, patches wounds, and maybe eventually celebrates surviving another day.

Layout & Components

🪑 Central Table Unit

• Hexagonal, bolted to the deck, with worn edges and a melted spot where someone once set a plasma cutter too close.
• Built-in holojack in the middle, non-functional (marked: “Chimes? Maybe someday.”)
• Seating is a mix of two fixed benches and two free-floating stools that lock into floor brackets for acceleration events.
• Beneath the table is a storage hatch — currently empty, but perfect for stashing emergency rations or a deck of contraband cards.

🍽️ Galley Wall

• Left-hand wall holds the cooking and prep area:
• Nutrient recycler: Can process standard protein packs and resynthesize into approximations of food. (Approximation varies wildly.)
• Old gas burner: Salvaged from a surface lander kitchen. Not supposed to work anymore. Still does. Sort of.
• Fold-out prep shelf, knife magnet strip (empty), and a wall-mounted spice rack with exactly three sealed vials: something red, something green, something unlabelled.
• Overhead lockers contain:
• Mismatched metal bowls and mugs
• One unopened bottle of some black-market “crew morale enhancer”
• A defunct coffeemaker that has been bolted in place, possibly as a morale totem

💾 Wall Console

• Small embedded data screen and terminal jack, meant for mission briefings or status logs.
• Currently runs diagnostic bloatware and a digital chess app in constant standby.
• Next to it: a portable comms unit rack, mostly used as a whiteboard.

🔧 Environmental Features

• Lighting: Indirect overhead bars, faded warm tones, one flickers when the engines spool up.
• Flooring: Composite with foam panels near seating, one of which is burned through at the corner.
• Smell: Always a blend of spice powder, cleaning solvent, and someone’s socks from two rooms away.

Unspoken Rules (Once Lived-In)

• Whoever cooks, doesn’t clean.
• Whoever eats the last ration bar, adds it to the “We Need” list on the wall panel.
• Whoever tells a story at the table, gets believed — for now.

Mood

The room carries a certain expectation of noise. Right now, it's still quiet, still waiting — for arguments, for dice rolls on a metal table, for someone to lean back in a chair that wasn’t designed for leaning. This space is going to hear every confession, every terrible pun, and maybe a last will and testament or two. But for now, it’s just clean, tired, and open.

🚀 Section 04: Hangar Bay

Design Purpose

Originally built to support tactical deployment craft — drop-and-gunships capable of delivering small strike teams or making rapid surface insertions. Over time, this space has evolved: it still carries that function, but with modular flexibility. Smuggling? Salvage? Heavy weapons staging? Yes.

~20% of total ship volume — and it feels like it. The hangar has verticality, open scaffolding, and the faint sense that it was never fully finished. Or maybe it was, and has since been un-finished repeatedly.

Layout

🧱 Deck Structure

• Reinforced plating with foldaway tie-downs in a universal grid pattern.
• Central drop cradle for one mid-sized craft or container unit (gunship, drone shuttle, or mobile lab).
• Embedded mag-lock pads for vertical cargo or vehicle stabilization. Reactivate with 6 seconds of sparking and a very strong slap.

🔄 Access & Flow

• Two side hatches: EVA-sized and pressure-sealed. One still bears the burnt logo of a merc outfit — name unreadable.
• Rear bay doors: Originally atmospheric-capable; can seal against hard vacuum. Opens with a groan like an old throat clearing.
• Catwalk access from the internal crew ladderway. Leads to:
• A safety observation platform
• Two tool cages (currently empty)
• One ammo locker with suspicious denting

🧰 Internal Fixtures ⚒️ Modular Rails

• Ceiling and wall mounting tracks allow for:
• Suspended cargo harnesses
• Weapon racks
• Medical stretchers
• Or, very occasionally, hammocks

🔧 Support Equipment

• Auto-loader arms (retracted): Old but strong. Their servos hiss ominously when powered.
• Docking ports: One standard-width port; one offset cradle connector (clearly modified for nonstandard cargo).
• Maintenance console: Built into the portside wall, covered in electrical tape and an empty stim-patch wrapper. Console text scrolls in a language you don’t recognise unless you’ve worked blacksite salvage ops.

💡 Lighting & Atmosphere

• Harsh industrial bars. Two flicker. One strobes occasionally without reason.
• Floorline amber strips for zero-G visibility.
• Scents: Lubricant, rusted coolant, ozone, and old boot rubber. Maybe just a hint of dried blood — that or scorched polymer.

🚨 Hidden Potential

This space is what the Spark uses to earn its keep or fight back.

It could be:

• A launch cradle for a retro gunship
• A smuggler’s false wall hideaway
• A makeshift medical evac bay
• A drone nest, mining pod bay, or even live cargo pen
• The Hollow Spark doesn’t decide what it’s for. It listens. Then it adapts.

⚙️ Section 05: Engineering Bay & Reactor Core

Location & Layout

• Tucked into the ship’s aft lower quarter, beneath the living compartments and behind the central bulkhead. Accessed by two narrow corridors and a vertical shaft ladder with the words “NOT WHILE SPINNING” scrawled in faded paint.
• This is not an engineering deck made for aesthetics or long comfort. This is a place where the air is dry, the lights pulse irregularly, and the temperature shifts with reactor load.

Physical Layout

🔧 Main Core Chamber

• Hexagonal vault, two stories tall, with heat-baffled walls and a grated floor.
• The fusion array is housed in a central rotating magnetic cage, glowing faintly blue when active, sounding like a faraway storm.
• Visible plasma conduit lines run overhead and into the propulsion shafts at aft.
• The capacitor bank—stacked vertically on one side—pings slowly as it equalises charge.
• One side access panel reads "DO NOT ADJUST FIELD TUNING DURING BURN." The panel is dented.

🧰 Engineering Console

• Displays coolant flow, reactor integrity, magnetic nozzle vectoring, and grav-thrust stability.
• Screen overlays flicker occasionally — not from error, just age.
• Manual emergency gravity damper switch is locked in place. You could override it. But should you?

🌀 Subsystems

• Water reclaimer and heat sink assembly runs beneath the floor grate.
• Life support tap siphons power from a stabiliser circuit — another reason no one's allowed to sneeze during reactor cooldown.
• Backup fission cell: Emergency use only. Stored in a locked rack behind two blast shutters and a signed waiver.

🔊 Atmosphere

• Sounds: Deep resonance, high-frequency pulse from the field stabilisers, a light tick when capacitors are full.
• Smells: Metal, ozone, and industrial-grade dust. Possibly cinnamon. No one knows why.
• Lighting: Dim red during power-up cycles; cold white when stable. Emergency strips flicker yellow when core dips below safe output.

🛠️ Tone

• This space begs for tension:
• It might overheat under long burns.
• It might require one of the crew to crawl into the plasma chamber with a wrench and prayer.
• It might, someday, pulse with a frequency Chimes has never seen before.

🕳️ Section 06: Crawlways & Systems Guts – Hollow Spark

General Description Most ships hide their maintenance spaces. The Hollow Spark gave up on that a long time ago. Wiring runs bare, access is open, and when something breaks, you don’t file a report — you grab a wrench and crawl inside.

Layout & Access

🕷️ Maintenance Paths

• A web of narrow crawlways, cable ducts, and vent shafts spreads through the ship.
• Some are wide enough to shuffle through; others demand a flat-back crawl with head turned sideways.
• Every route is tagged with faded stencils — some helpfully accurate, others sarcastically modified.

🧱 Construction & Feel

• Raw alloy walls with scratched black foam insulation.
• Cables hang loose or are bundled with rope, magnetic ties, or scrap fabric.
• Some sections are held together more by habit than hardware.

🔌 Systems & Details

The main power trunk can be followed from the engineering bay to the flight deck — if you’re brave enough to squeeze past a humming hydraulic array.

Includes:

• Fluid lines
• Atmo circulation tubes
• Emergency power feeds
• One breaker panel marked: “Don’t touch. Seriously.”

🎯 Personality & Quirks

Crew graffiti and patch jobs dot the walls — a pressure crack near bunk two is sealed with a playing card and epoxy. Utility strips flicker inconsistently. Some lights only work when no one’s looking.

Sound cues matter:

• Three clicks + hum = normal capacitor cycling
• Four clicks + static pulse = bad news incoming

🧭 Navigation & Lore

• There is no map. Routes are learned by touch, trial, and burn scars.
• Every crewmember has a favourite shortcut. And one they won’t use again.
• Some crawlspaces end at sealed hatches — bolted shut, no handles, marked in unknown glyphs.
• Ask Chimes, and he politely changes the subject.

⚛️ Reactor Subsection: Takeheshi-Smith Subspace Core

Location & Structure Deep in the aft belly of the ship, behind two misaligned bulkhead doors and a cramped access corridor. The reactor itself appears unimpressive at first — a squat, ringed core nestled behind the old fusion chamber. Wrapped in cables and the sharp scent of scorched metal and ozone.

Startup Sequence

🔌 Always the same:

• Fusion igniter hums — slowly, then builds into a high-pitched, rattling pulse.
• Air becomes dense, charged — like lightning about to strike.
• Behind the shielding coils: a flicker of blue-white, like a storm caged in glass.
• Just when it seems like it will tear loose — it locks. Silence falls. Subspace tap engages.

Technology Overview

This is not rare tech — most modern ships use subspace taps for energy.

What makes this one different is context:

• Scarred ship, patched systems, half-spoken rituals — it feels like a gamble.
• You don’t command this reactor. You ask. And hope it agrees.

Functional Details

🔥 The fusion unit burns briefly, only to ignite the siphon.

• Too small to run the ship.
• Once the link stabilises, subspace energy flows — first slow, then steady.
• Powers the ship’s drives, lighting, heating, thrust, and grav systems.

Source & Mystery The energy origin is... vague. Manuals say: “mathematically bound extraphysical reservoir.” Translation: Don’t ask.

Power draw is clean, stable — as long as the proper rituals are followed:

• Coolant flow maintained
• Pressure carefully tuned
• Field cycling kept slow and smooth

Mood & Presence

There’s something uncanny in the core’s symmetry.

• Lights from within in a way that feels... observed.
• The central manifold distorts perception during startup — like something moves inside.
• Not visibly. Not directly. Just pressure.

Narrative Weight

• Not elegant. Not silent. But it works.
• Every time the Hollow Spark pulls forward at 1G, you feel it — like a string being plucked across realities.
• This reactor doesn’t just power the ship.