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Description
In my story Taming Dragons one of the lead characters Iriid is introduced working aboard a 'Rad Collector'. Rad Collectors are massive ships that spend their time plowing through the accretion disc of a black hole within the vicinity of the Wild Space conrner of the galaxy. As the material in the disc is rich all manner of useful substances these giant vessels feature massive ramscoops that suck in vast amounts of material at a time. Within the bowels of these ships are huge refinery systems that then break the material down into its constituent elements and compounds and then process them before transferring them to a vast array of barges docked to the bottom of the ship. Once a barge is full it detaches and heads out on a preset course to deliver its payload to whomever is waiting.

The forces in and around the accretion disc of course present a great number of challenges including high temperatures and lethal levels of x-ray and gamma radiation. The ships therefore are covered in large amounts of heavy shielding and feature almost no windows. The huge gravitational forces are managed by a series of graviton engines that work to negate the forces placed on the ship by the presence of the singularity beyond the event horizon. Graviton engines however require a lot of power to run effectively and thankfully for the crews of Rad Collectors the refinement processes give off large amounts of energy with most of the waste being belched out of giant chimney stacks towards the rear of the craft.

Description
In my story Taming Dragons one of the lead characters Iriid is introduced working aboard a 'Rad Collector'. Rad Collectors are massive ships that spend their time plowing through the accretion disc of a black hole within the vicinity of the Wild Space conrner of the galaxy. As the material in the disc is rich all manner of useful substances these giant vessels feature massive ramscoops that suck in vast amounts of material at a time. Within the bowels of these ships are huge refinery systems that then break the material down into its constituent elements and compounds and then process them before transferring them to a vast array of barges docked to the bottom of the ship. Once a barge is full it detaches and heads out on a preset course to deliver its payload to whomever is waiting.

The forces in and around the accretion disc of course present a great number of challenges including high temperatures and lethal levels of x-ray and gamma radiation. The ships therefore are covered in large amounts of heavy shielding and feature almost no windows. The huge gravitational forces are managed by a series of graviton engines that work to negate the forces placed on the ship by the presence of the singularity beyond the event horizon. Graviton engines however require a lot of power to run effectively and thankfully for the crews of Rad Collectors the refinement processes give off large amounts of energy with most of the waste being belched out of giant chimney stacks towards the rear of the craft.