Annie Plant
Description
The annihilation reactor or "annie plant" is the standard power source of 31st century galactic civilization. It converts a compacted mass of neutrons into energy, which is captured as electricity to power everything from hand weapons to multi-kilometer-long starships.
An annie plant consists of a spherical vessel, usually colored light blue, which houses all its functional components. The plant maintains a powerful gravitational field which keeps its neutronium fuel compressed. The exact method of matter-energy conversion and energy capture is obscure.
Most plants have automated systems which, if a fault is detected, will safely dump the neutronium pile before it has a chance to explode. If these systems fail (or fail to act quickly enough) and gravitational containment is lost, the evaporating neutronium will create a sizeable explosion. The sound of an evaporating neutronium pile is described as "skoom". The spherical vessel that contains the annie plant is incredibly durable, but is vulnerable to anti-tank weapons such as a "Nutcracker".
A less-catastrophic failure mode of an annie plant is simply to exhaust its fuel supply in too short a time, leaving insufficient resources to maintain the internal reaction. This renders the plant unable to provide power. Methods exist to safely "cold restart" a plant that has gone offline in this fashion; the process is referred to (at least in military and ship-contractor circles) as "warbucking" the plant [[[@http:%5B%5B%20http:www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-02-13%7C2003-02-13%5D%5D|2003-02-13]]], jargon likely referring to the relationship between the fictional characters [Warbucks] and the titular "[Orphan Annie]" in Harold Gray's comic book series[1] . .
Notable Examples
Tausennigan weapon platforms such as the Cloak of Untrammeled Dignity are known to mount nearly two dozen 25km annies[2] . In 2821, the Tausennigan Kssthrata constructed a 302 km diameter annie plant. It operated for 15 seconds before experiencing catastrophic failure. It did, however, demonstrate that the annie plant power curve holds true: "bigger is exponentially better". The ancient artifact known in the strip as [[Oisr�]] appears to be an annie plant over 3,000 km in diameter, and close to 1,000 times the diameter of current UNS manufacturing capabilities [[[@http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2012-03-18%7C2012-03-18]]].
Notable Weapons using annihilation technology
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Speculation
There seems to be no upper limit on annie plant size outside of practical construction concerns. The lower size limit is unknown, but no larger than a small bead.
The operating principles of the annie plant are unknown, and Howard has stated that he will never describe (or draw) what goes on inside one.