Faster Than Angels

[Ace3000]

The referenced song title of Part 43.2 was It Must Use Force by Benjamin Briggs.

[FTA|s3_4.0: Part 44.0] Top Speed Dreams

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<22150202-22150226>

Thursday, February 2nd, to Sunday, February 26th, 2215

Angelus R&D HQ, Perth, Australia.

After two whole years in development, two certain groups' projects were in its last stages of completion. Coincidentally, both projects were very similar in terms of their scope and overall functionality.

The former group's project was a limited production hypercar, meant to be a successor to the group's 2205 efforts. Unlike the previous one, there weren't a confirmed set amount of units, instead being produced in small amounts over the year. The decision to conceive the car came from an incident in 2213 where the 2205 hypercar belonging to the leader of the group had been destroyed by a grav-tank. Not wanting to be left without a high-powered machine, he took to developing the new project.

Two years later, it was almost complete. Five prototype test units had been developed, all to the specifications of the final production model, and were in relative amounts of working order. The five prototype test units were all given designations, named after the main isotopes of the chemical element the car was named after. These designations were P¹⁸⁸Ir, P¹⁸⁹Ir, P¹⁹⁰Ir P¹⁹¹Ir.0 and P¹⁹²Ir. Two of the units were not included with certain major mechanics, having been deemed unnecessary due to the structure of the car being more important for the tests than their functionality. One of these units, P¹⁸⁸Ir, was purposed for crash-testing, the other, P¹⁹⁰Ir for structural integrity testing.

P¹⁸⁸Ir and P¹⁹⁰Ir went through their own tests at roughly the same time. It was with these tests that the more intricate details of the naming scheme came into light. Each individual test unit was named to reflect their lifespan. For instance, P¹⁸⁸Ir, the crash-test unit, was named after the main isotope with the shortest half-life. All the other units had also reflected this naming scheme, with P¹⁹²Ir expecting to last the longest.

P¹⁸⁹Ir was one of three test units that were wholly complete and functional, and was developed before the two remaining functional units. This unit served to perform the final mechanical stress and reliability testing, which involved pushing the car and all its technologies, including the shiny new quad-rotor engine, to its limit. In the end, it had only served to confirm the results gathered from the monumental amount of calculations and formulae produced well before the manufacturing process, proving the whole system to be extremely stable and reliable.

The success of P¹⁸⁹Ir's test led to the immediate manufacture of the final two test units, P¹⁹¹Ir.0 and P¹⁹²Ir. P¹⁹²Ir was a lower priority model than P¹⁹¹Ir.0, however. Half of it had to do with the reason why the latter model had a deviation in its designation. The other half had to do with the fact that P¹⁹²Ir was to be developed as the publicity model, to be finally shown off at the upcoming motor show.

P¹⁹¹Ir.0, however, was a more secret test model than the previous four. It was to test even more systems, however, said systems were for a one-off model, never to be directly seen by the public. The first of which was an addition to the quad-rotor powerplant, 4 electric motors providing additional power on top of the car's already plentiful output. Of course, they were developed in tandem with the engine, and had proven their worth.

The main technology to go through final testing, however, was one that was developed in secret. Initially applied to a pre-prototype shell, the new system was developed as part of a separate stream of the same project. Once it was in some form of success, it merged back into the main stream of the project's development, and into P¹⁹¹Ir.0. As according to schedule, it was finally tested once more for stability, reliability and specification matching. Naturally, after the strenuous research and development that went into the technology, it had reached the mark on all three of its testing parameters.

P¹⁹¹Ir.0, despite its function to test the secret systems, had also adhered to the naming scheme devised. Its namesake was the lesser of two naturally occurring and stable isotopes. And, once it had completed its task of testing those systems, had been promoted to the very first "production" model, #0. Said model, however, would not be accessed by the public, instead it was to be used as the personal transport of the founder of the company, who had those secret systems commissioned into a special version of the car for his use.

P¹⁹²Ir's manufacture was completed right at the end of the development cycle, two whole years after the project had begun. Effectively a complete unit save for a few unnecessary systems, the unit was ready to be publicly revealed at the upcoming motor show the company had attended every year since its inception, without fail, even when they were apparently focusing solely and intently on their major project in 2200.

Despite not being a test unit, one last designation was given to the project. Multiple full production units had shared the designation ¹⁹³Ir, so named after the most abundant naturally occurring stable isotope.

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Crinale International HQ, Russia.

The latter group's project was, while still a hypercar, both similar and different to the first's limited production aspect of the design brief. It could technically still be described as a "limited" production model, but it was not intended to be a model released to the public. In other words, it was a model limited to just one, being a commission from the group's owner.

That of course didn't mean that only one was built. Several components each had 1-2 duplicates, including the shell of the vehicle, which underwent similarly stringent durability and crash testing as the test prototypes did. The various other components also underwent specifications testing and stress testing. Of course, there were more tests that had to be performed, owing to the sheer experimental nature of the planned, and eventually, completely manufactured and functioning powerplant.

The engine for the commissioned project was one that fit what was soon becoming the theme of the team. Utilising the technologies from a much more advanced product, and at that point in time the only other one they actively maintained, they fitted the vehicle with two jet turbines. The technology involved made it that the engine itself used up very little fuel, but the main focus on the technology was the turbines' immense power output. The fuel efficiency was just an unintended, yet beneficial, side effect.

The next systems to be tested were the bladed fins attached to the far rear of the car, which acted as airbrakes as well as functioning as what was called a directional stability system. Or, in other words, they acted exactly like an F-Class craft's airbrakes. It seemed, however, that both groups had similar ideas in terms of handling performance in that both of their hypercar projects contained a mechanical airbrake system, combined with torque vectoring in their stabilisers.

However, one thing that the latter singular unit project had over the prior multi-unit one was that they had incorporated one more piece of technology into increasing the handling of their vehicle. All four stabilisers functioned to steer the car directly, not just the front two as was in the other project. Overall, the project was highly experimental in nature, more so than the other project, due to the details of its design brief, and that only a single complete unit was to be developed.

There was one thing to note about their project, though. Despite knowing of the events that kickstarted the production of their rival's new project, they did not know of the product's existence itself, and had thus decided to base its target power output to that of the project's predecessor, explaining the coincidental similarities in both projects' performance. It was unintentional, but the two groups had actually made a product that was a true rival to the other's.