Core

Central hive — Core Temple's core, already eroded by Beasts

Core (Korean: 노심, Nohsim) is an organosilicon compound used by both Humans and Beasts as an energy source. It is semi-permanent and self-regenerating but can be expended when overtaxed. Cores are generators that consume unknown fuel substances and convert it through a mysterious process to produce energy with nearly no by-products or any harmful side effects.

Due to the massive energy that can be harnessed from cores, it is the only effective and efficient way to provide the necessary output for usage access of barriers, particle beams, and even space travel. Conventional sources of energy have been outpaced by the growing excessive demands of newer and more advanced technologies.

The extremely high output of cores can pose the risk of a meltdown. As such, limiters must be applied to restrict the core's output to manageable levels or to match the specific output needed. Limiters can be suppressed to overload the core's power output, which grants increased performance such as firepower, defense, and mobility depending on what is being powered. However, a core cannot remain in this overload state for too long due as it would greatly increase the meltdown risk.

The high energy yield of cores emit a distinctive signature while activate which allows them to be detected and tracked down by specialized sensors.

Background

Humans originally developed core technology, presumably before the start of the Cosmic Century, as a means of primarily providing power for Core Units (Korean: 노심기) which are special machines that depend on being equipped or connected to a core to function properly. While very costly to produce and maintain, the performance of Core Units are vastly superior when compared to its non-core counterparts which are constrained due to reliance on conventional sources of energy.

The initial cores were massive in size that can only be housed by ships, other similarly sized vessels, and static structures/buildings. Humanity was able to miniaturized cores to the scale of mid-sized Core Units which include aircraft/spacecraft, armor suits, and other similarly sized vehicles. Eventually, human-sized cores were developed for dolls and equipment. Despite these advances, humanity failed to miniaturize cores without sacrificing quality output performance. Therefore, the output of most human-made cores is directly proportional to its size. This also meant that small-scale cores did not proved to be as widespread as the original, large-scale models did due to their lack of power. While exploring methods to rectify the problems faced in this technology, humanity discovered the ability to simultaneously use multiple cores for a single Core Unit. This enabled a compensating stop-gap measure to increase performance output at the expense of space.

Beasts were able to somehow acquire core technology from humans, improve upon it, and then incorporate it into their morphology. This led to the appearance of High Rank Beasts in CC 123. The High Ranks possessed human-sized miniaturized cores while still retaining the output of large scale ones. Due to their overwhelming power regardless of size, the Beasts were able to drive humanity to the brink of extinction during the Great War. Humanity compensated from the deficiencies of their current core technology by extracting the cores of Beasts.

Dr. Thor was the first person to be successful in utilizing a high-class, miniature core to power a human-sized Core Unit - A-10. Since humanity still does not possess the technology to efficiently miniaturize cores, Thor transplanted the core of the fallen Cross Eye Beta to A-10. To date, A-10 is the only human-sized unit developed by humanity that is capable of utilizing a high-class miniature core.

Classification

Cores are classified based on the power of its output. A grading system that ranges from C-Class (lowest) to S-Class (highest) is used to represent this power. Since the output of human-made cores are directly tied to its size, most human S-Class cores are used for large-scale activities and can only specialized infrastructure or vessels have the capacity to equip them. On the other hand, Beasts are free from this limitation and can have high class cores despite its miniature size.

Special cores are given a different classification to represent its distinguished status such as the Nova-Class designation given to Avalon's core.

Notable Cores

Black Hole Engine

Main article: Space Travel#Black_Hole_Engine

Black Hole Engine (Korean: 블랙홀 엔진) is a special type of core that is used to power certain human ships and fortresses. Its output is at least on the same level if not greater than S-Class cores. Other than generating energy, Black Hole Engines also act as engines that provide spacefaring ability without the use of Warp Gate technology.

Black Hole Engines helped spur the Space Age that started the Cosmic Century. Unfortunately, knowledge on this technology was lost during the Great War. Due to this, Black Hole Engines are now extremely rare and the remaining units in humanity's disposal are already considered terribly old with no proper maintenance to support it. Core Temple/Avalon, Alcyone, and Odyssey are examples of human vessels that utilize Black Hole Engines.

Blue Flowers have displayed the same enormous energy capacity and warping ability from Black Hole Engines. It is unknown if the Beasts were able to acquire the technology in previous encounters with humans in their conflict.

Quotes

(On Core Temple's energy source)

"This is top secret...C.K.'s energy source was a Nova-Class engine of the floating fortress Avalon from the age of the Great War."

"Along with the Eden, it's the biggest power generator of mankind."

(On Avalon's core)

"Floating fortress with a Nova-Class black hole engine which fought against tens of flowers and billions of Beasts hundreds of years ago"

[ME0-Ch67]