Fusion Cycler
Some more Harkas developments in Biological Fission Pile design has eventually led to the realisation that a hypothetical (at the time) fusion pile would be far more efficient than a fission pile because of the vastly differing binding energy per nucleon for light elements than for the heavier elements that they were still reacting. Also, they were theoretically (at the time) much safer because they would shut down immediately when not supplied constantly with fuel. As such, this has become a very interesting 'technology' for the species, but it would take them many years to finally produce a design that functions.
The tests they have performed to make fusion 'piles', now called fusion cyclers, function have been extremely harmful to the organisms they used to perform the tests on, and thus could be branded as unethical. They would almost always die because of the high energy levels involved, as a medium inside could achieve temperatures in the millions of Kelvin quite easily, many orders of magnitude hotter than a star. The experiments almost always went wrong, dumping a measure of this plasma inside the host creature, cooking them internally. It is worth noting, though, that when it goes wrong, it is much less damaging than what a fission pile could cause. Although a fusion cycler organ produces extremely little nuclear waste, it can cause neutron activation and embrittlement of the inner walls of such a chamber, though in the worst case scenario they could have a half-life of about 50 years and gradually become safe within one's lifetime, or perhaps that of their children.
In the end, the fusion cycler project was completed. The organism on Jyara - known as the Jyaran Fusion Station 1 - was the first organism ever designed to successfully fuse materials inside itself using its advanced cycler and generate useful, reliable power from this operation. By using hydrogen from the gas giant, the fusion station was a signifiant step towards making this type of organism widely available. However, the most important revelation in the field was still to come.
Within the local sun, there is a large population of Astromoebae which synthesise energy by causing the sun to fuse slightly quicker, by editing the probabilities of quantum tunnelling and massively increasing the probability of fusion. Their ability to both radiate useful nutrients and useful energy while also making fusion reactions far easier revolutionised the field of fusion cycler design. Although astromoebae still require superheated conditions to function, the temperature of the sun is far lower than temperature requirements previously needed for older fusion reactors. It is worth noting that this discovery only came much later, as the harki did not have the means to farm astromoebae from their sun at the time. The new age of astromoebae - fuelled organisms has come very quickly and such organisms have gone through many later developments making them more reliable. Despite all this, however, this type of energy and nutrient supply still paled in comparison to the awesome nature of a then - hypothetical antimatter annihilation reaction organ. Such reactions are the primary power source of hyperionite starships, and if the harki wanted to compete with them they would have to innovate even more.
Fusion cyclers based on astromoebae would function very differently from those using more conventional means. Astromoeba fusion cyclers contain the plasma within an organ that resembles a classical stomach, and stores the plasma inside in larger volumes. In this way, it is easy for the organism to add hydrogen to the reaction mass and to remove any nutrients from it, perhaps by making use of gravity - artificial or natural. The plasma is then cooled down in its equivalent of the duodenum and then digested into the blood. In this way, the organism only needs to consume hydrogen to obtain all the nutrients it needs to function as well as collecting a significant amount of energy through inefficient photosynthesis in the cycler walls, where it absorbs large amounts of photons. The conditions required for this reaction mass to sustain itself are quite sensitive though, as the astromoebae still have their own biological needs. Dead astromoebae are often digested but the host organism allows them to reproduce inside its cycler.
Earlier Designs
Some of the first purposed organisms designed to fuse lighter atoms often would make use of a large tokamak 'ring' of electromagnets. This would require a significant amount of energy to start, so the fusion cyclers normally start before birth and never stop through a creature's life, similar to other organs. If it does stop, it can be fatal. However, they can grow over an organism's lifespan despite being in constant use.
The earlier fusion cyclers must make use of some incredibly powerful magnetic fields to manipulate the atoms inside to achieve the conditions needed for fusion. However, at the time superconductivity was not discovered, mostly because biological organisms cannot withstand such low temperatures easily, which made such a project very difficult. Although they also cannot easily operate at extremely high temperatures such as those required for fusion, they have managed to make many creatures partially silicon based lifeforms, and silicon has a significantly higher resistance to high temperatures compared to carbon based lifeforms.
Although the fusion cyclers are often the only organ in a creature that is made with a silicon based biochemistry, the whole creature requires this material in addition to the normal carbon based lifeform biochemistry. This can significantly increase the complexity of such lifeforms as many different chemicals would have the same uses in different places of the body to maintain compatibility. This information also needs to be encoded into their genome to allow growth and self repair. Because of this, some creatures have been made to use an entirely silicon based biochemistry despite the lack of the correct chemicals used for making their food.
However, this type of plasma manipulation would also allow a creature to incorporate the plasma into other areas of its body, such as usage as a potential ranged weapon, which exists as a part of the body. It could also be useful as a type of shielding system that projects a membrane around the creature and deflects incoming munitions. This would require a significant amount of energy and put a significant strain on the body. The earliest organisms making use of fusion cyclers would not be able to create enough plasma to support these uses, but as the discovery of astromoebae eventually revolutionised the field of fusion energy, the availability of superheated plasma increased dramatically. Initially they would just fire streams of stellar plasma similar to that inside the cycler itself, but weapons would later develop to increase the energy and heat of the streams of plasma even more by creating an immense, instantaneous magnetic field using a sufficiently large capacitor organ. In this way, the creature can 'recharge' its plasma cannon(s) while they are not in use and also to help it with the instantaneous energy demand at such a moment. The capacitor is energised by a large number of cells that act as organic batteries, each fuelled by chemicals such as ATP. Bioships specifically might be benefitted from the use of a type of thruster organelle that can direct such high energy plasma backwards to propel the ship forwards, but this would require a lot of plasma and energy and would certainly come at a cost in other aspects of its body, but produce a massive thrust.
The structures of the walls of such organs would have to be constructed in a way that prevents heat from flowing through, and resists such temperatures. To achieve this, many cells bind to each other using materials that are insulators. The stem cells of such organs would be held inside the organs and the blood itself, as silicon based cells cannot be used in other areas other than those that also use silicon based cells. Normal cells also cannot be used in the fusion cyclers.
There is also often a physical barrier preventing heat from passing through. This might come in the form of some vacuums or materials with a high strength and low density, such as tough shells. In some species, It might also require some active cooling from the rest of the organism to keep it safe when the organism is in highly active conditions.
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