The Hoshikaze 2250 universe splits from our own timeline in the early '80s. During the last years of the 20th century, mankind pushed on to space. In 2023, warp drive was discovered, allowing for far greater acceleration than plasma drives. The Weifeng (Great wind) was the first large-scale cargo ship designed for interplanetary travel. It lived from 2005 to 2023, when in a matter of years, nearly all existing classes were converted to warp drives and plasma only remained for vernier use, as warp engines only thrusts along a single axis. Smaller ships like the Haifeng (Sea wind) were already fielded by the Fengzi State Concern in the late 1990s, catering to Rongxing (Proud star) station and competing with the other nationblocks' ships, like Europe's Orion class and North America's Rising Star class. Ranging from 30 to 100 meters and originally built to reach the Moon and Lagrange Points within the Earth-Moon system at no more than 0.1 g, some were converted to interplanetary travel by adding extra thrusters and tanks. The Weifang was far larger, with its 395 meters overall length. It was designed from the ground up for interplanetary travel, with its centrifuge ring on middleship, its single-axis, two-directions thrusters and small, flush and almost invisible verniers. It was meant to take a 0.2g acceleration forward during half of the travel, then 0.2g deceleration, without turning at mid-point, thus alleviating the need for a laterally strong structure, compensating fot the extra weight in the thruster modules. The ship's 12 cargo bays were basically docking rails and protection layers for housing modular sliding cargo pods, that could hold a great range of payloads, from raw ore to liquid tanks, cryogenic bays or even appartments for conscious passengers. Like in its predecessors, hydrogen from the tanks was used to power a fusion reaction. The propellant gas, including the superheated helium from the fusion, was then channelled to the VASIMR-like thruster units along with the bulk of the reactor's electrical power output. This technology allowed travel from Earth to Mars in matter of months, depending on the planets' respective positions. The first 9-ships batch allowed China to built mining stations and a gas-collecting system on Saturn's rings, allowing for a virtually infinite supply of raw materials for its space development. It was soon followed by Russia's Utrennyaya Zvezda (Morning star) class, as Russia mainly targeted the asteroids belt. American and European heavy freighter programs were trailing behind, plagued by severe engineering issues, and never came to fruition. Then, warp drive was discovered and all Earth governments united their forces under UN supervision for the terraforming of Mars. Weifeng and Utrennyaya Zvezda classes were converted to warp by Kreuzer RaumZeitKrümmungRaketen, inventor and sole manufacturer of the warp modules, which used its ties with Malcolm and Sons Shipbuilding from the Low-Earth-Orbit Alpha station to quickly grab the UN market before their concurent could develop another useable warp device. The Weifeng and Utrennyaya Zvezda respectively became the Iserlohn and Leiseläufer (Silent Runner) classes, which formed the mainstay of the UN's interplanetary freighters fleet for the first half of the 21st century. Other designs were later built by concurrent corporations, when after a 6-years court battle, the UN coerced Kreuzer-Malcolm to release its patent to avoid a blatant monopoly. However, they were never nearly as successful as the Iserlohn and Leiseläufer. It was not until 2068, when ARION introduced the faster and more energy-efficient Atlas-class, that they became to lose their leadership. Even then, these two classes stayed in operation well into the 22nd century. (Model and image made under DoGA-L3 3D package and to slideshow format with PowerPoint)