Collapsible space elevator
A variant of the typical space elevator, the collapsible elevator is made from a large number of folding sections, each fitted with an anti-gravity system and explosive bolts. While the anti-gravity system is not used during normal operations, they enable the entire elevator to reduce its weight and inertia to the point where it can be quickly retracted without fatally disrupting the orbit of the orbiting anchor station. Alternatively, the station has sufficient maneuvering thrusters that if need be it can allow the severing to send it off an escape vector to safety if it appears the orbitals will not hold. As an additional benefit, should the worst happen and the elevator be severed the sections can separate and engage their anti-gravity systems. This should greatly reduce the damage done to the world by the collapsing elevator. While this sidesteps most of the issues with a space elevator, there is a far greater startup cost and significantly greater upkeep cost. Furthermore, each time the elevator is furled or unfurled it will incur significant cost in upkeep as the antigravity units sacrifice a great deal of their service life in order to maximize performance and ease of production.
Cellular Forge
The cellular forge is an innovation of the Forge Empire of Callamus.
In its seed form, a cellular forge is a 3m x 3m x 3m metal cube with a resource hopper. Provided raw resources and a design template a cellular forge can produce a wide variety of simple goods, tools, and weapons, or reconfigure itself to better execute a specific task.
Most notably, a cellular forge can replicate itself in either detached or attached configurations. This feature allows a properly fed seed forge to rapidly expand into a basic manufacturing and maintenance complex. In the space of a few days, a seed cellular forge can expand into a facility capable of supporting a tank squadron or a company of skitarii.
The flexibility of the cellular forge comes at the cost of precision, resource efficiency, and economy of space. While they are excellent for producing basic materials, they struggle with more advanced materials and are wholly unsuitable for producing more exotic designs. As such, cellular forges are excellent for the task of supporting initial colonization efforts and forward operations.
Next level Industry
At current time the Trust is reaching its practical limits in a most basic field, the size of its mines, its factories, the arteries of its industry. The most dramatic examples of this is probably Avernus' orbital mines which are the largest of their kind in the Trust, both of which extract an unfathomable amount of raw material every day. However, even if the Trust had the population needed to expand them, they lack the understanding needed to construct them. In theory creating the larger scale is well within the Trust's grasp, Tranth or no Tranth, but it would take time the Trust can ill afford since it would divert away from other research opportunities. As such it is much simpler to use the designs created by Callamus, which had already created the equipment and protocols of required scale. All that the Trust needs do is swap out the less efficient designs with better ones where needed and when the time comes, they will be able to once again expand their industries.
