How do you imagine the minerals? These are notes from the new scenario I'm beginning this coming monday, to mark my graduation and entry into the real world grown up-type job market. The properties are derived from how the word sounds, the suffix, and how it's used in the game. I don't actually RP Steve's explanation for these minerals...instead I envision them as new alloys, compounds, isotopes, or elements, and the planets that have an abundance of them are simply best suited for their creation.
Duranium: some kind of lustrous substance, with plastic and metallic properties. Dark grey, and having a texture which suggests it is composed to a fibrous crystal weave, rather like the paint on a stealth bomber. Flexible. Probably an artificial alloy of carbon, iron, and some weird metal like Lithium.
Neutronium: exotic matter, absurdly dense. Does not actually exist in pure form outside controlled laboratory settings. Is mechanically joined with other substances (esp. duranium) to alter their properties. It's "natural form" is then the joined form used for shipping and storage, where it takes the form of long extruded white tubes with a faint glow.
Corbomite: jet black and shiny, soft but clearly metallic, like black gold. Corbomite is a new element higher on the periodic table than any yet discovered, but ultrastable, with a very complex electron cloud that gives it a host of new electrical properties. As such, it finds its use in both sophisticated electronics components and cloaking devices. Its chemical and radioactive stability, and its rarity in pure form makes it a valuable medium of exchange.
Tritanium: actually a new isotope of uranium stabilized by some undiscovered nuclear process. When the process is suspended, it irradiates very quickly and glows a violent blue. Its rapid energy release makes it essential for reactors and warheads, as either a catalyst or sparkplug or the primary fuel source.
boronide: a crystal composed of many, many halogens and metals. Is transparent but ever-so-slightly black. It has unusual conductive properties, but fragments easily into a black powder. It is extremely toxic and dissolves in water.
Sorium: Some kind of Hydrogen and electronium matrix which is stabilized through the same process that stabilizes tritanium. Exists in natural form from big-bang remnants. Can be joined with oxygen to make water, which has a slightly bluer tint than normal water for reasons I have yet to explain. This water is the primary fusion fuel in known space.
Uridium: slightly transparent crystal, copper-colored, probably because it has copper in it. The futuristic superconductor. does occur naturally on some planets but must be processed to remove impurities.
Corundium: ruby-red crystal which can be tuned by electric current to focus and transmit only very precise photon bands, making it ideal for the lensing of directed energy weapons
Mercassium: Pink spindly crystal that decomposes into oxygen and lithium, but regrows when exposed to an electric current, making it vital for compact life support systems. For some reason, it is also used in microprocessors.
Vendarite: slate-gray, extremely unstable isotope of plutonium used for rapid fissioning processes.
Gallacite: Modern term for a slurry of radioactive elements used as the primary fission/fusion medium inside of engine components. The balance of these elements is such that they function like a
supercritical reactor which is continually reconstituted by the fusing of sorium.
