F5 please, I made a typo.

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The Yukon was one of the first mining/smelting ships commissioned by the Pioneer Commonwealth. The industrial heart of the Commonwealth had been carried over by the colony ship, but the ability to harvest raw materials was unfortunately lacking. Ships like the Yukon were essentially built out of spare parts from the colony ship so that a proper industry could be stoked.

The ship used a thermonuclear engine for propulsion and as it's main power supply. During a burn, the reaction created vast amounts of excess heat which necessitated equally vast radiators. Aside from propellant, the radiators made up the majority of the ship's mass. The ship's propellant, which was mostly hydrogen gas, was gas fed into the reaction and forced out the back to gave the ship it's thrust.

While the ship wasn't burning it's engine, the reactor was still used to for smelting harvested ore into metal. The metal would be stored, and sometimes carried by smaller transport ships, while the waste from the smelting process would be used to restock the ship's propellant reserves.

Most of the actual mining was not done by the ship but actually by a fleet of mining drones and other smaller mining vessels. The Yukon's drones were remotely controlled from the comfort of the spinning habitat ring. In fact, nearly every function on the ship was controlled by operators on the ring. In addition to the drones, the Yukon also boasted an armament of nuclear blasting caps and a pair of multi-gigawatt mining lasers. These proved very important to the Yukon later.

The Yukon is historically notable because it is the first ship of the Pioneer Commonwealth to survive an ancient Berserker Drone. Although it was critically damaged in conflict, as it was not meant for such a s role, the Yukon managed to disabled the Berserker. The valient actions of the Yukon and her crew saved countless lives, and possible the entirety of the Commonwealth. Even more importantly, when the drone was brought back to the Commonwealth's central habitat, the means for constructing a Dark Energy Drive were discovered within the drone's salvaged hull.

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I cannot tell you how much fun I had making this ship. It's been far too long since I made a space ship in Blender. Making space ships used to be my ultimate past time. Doing it again was like the time I found my old Legos in my parent's house.

I've been wanting to build the "Pioneer" universe for a while now. The whole setting has been rolling around in my head for about 2 years now. I guess starting with the history of the Commonwealth is a good idea. Hopefully I'll keep this up. I really want to share this with everyone.

During the designing of this ship I spent countless hours over here: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.php I found it to be an invaluable resource for sci-fi designing. If hard sci-fi is your thing I'd highly recommend visiting that site.