Anya Venari
Star Queen Tirathana VII
Name: Ashira’s Crown (Formally) Anya’s Hat (Slang)
Image Source: Corris Studios for Empire: Peripheral Wars
Intent: To create defences and protection for the city of Santaissa. This will provide both firepower and protection by way of an energy shield scaled to defend the city.
Classification: Planetary Defence
Location: 3 bases on the mountains surrounding Kaeshana’s capital, Santaissa.
Affiliation: Kaeshana Confederation, Omega Protectorate (by extension).
Population: Each of the three bases are roughly equal in size and compliment. Each of them has:
- One Captain General commanding.
- Two High Captains as subordinates.
- 15 other officers and NCOs.
- 5 Angelii.
- 100 gunners and maintenance personnel.
- 30 soldiers.
- 20 technical/support personnel (medics, cooks etc)
Defenses: Each of the three bases is well provisioned with weaponry. Each of them has:
- 1 x Tempest Cannon
- 5 x Ballista Weapon Emplacements
- 10 x Javelin Weapon Emplacements
- 1 x Shield Projector
- Military grade bunker construction, blast doors and underground hardening
Points of Interest: In addition to the above defences, each fortress contains the following:
- Landing zone capable of landing up to 100 metre vessel. This is separated from the base and the distance covered by a short tram network.
- Smaller landing pad for up to four shuttles or starfighters.
- Internal elevator, power, water purification and air filtering systems.
- Stores of supplies, spare parts and ammunition to survive a siege of three months.
- Emergency escape gate to the lower mountains.
- Military grade fortification, hardening and defences.
Description: Ashira’s Crown consists of three separate military bases: Ruby, Emerald and Sapphire. The bases are laid out in an irregular triangular pattern dependant on the geography surrounding Santaissa. In addition to containing a massive Tempest cannon, these bases can resist land assaults using their garrison and the weapon emplacements contained within.
Each base is situated in the mountains above Santaissa, and access to these bases is either via a steep road through the hills or via the onsite landing pad.
Each base contains a shield projector which, when combined, cover the entire city and surrounds of Santaissa from the air. This does not provide protection at ground level as the projectors are high above. It takes five minutes to activate the shield, and the shield can be powered indefinitely if required by rerouting power from other areas. If one base’s generator is lost, the power of the defence shield is reduced but not broken. When all three are combined, only the most concerted capital ship bombardment can overwhelm the generators, but if the projectors are disabled the weakness of the shield increases greatly.
The bases are each powered by hypermatter reactors hollowed and expanded into the inside of the mountains they sit on. This gives them considerable protection even without a shield.
The Tempest cannons each base has are able to fire once a minute, and can fire through the shield, due to the calculations allowing the section of shield being fired through to temporarily drop. Usually the cannons are fired so each base fires 20 seconds apart, keeping up a semi-constant firepower.
One weakness in these defences is the lack of any Starfighter hangers or capacity. Though a handful of fighters can land in the open, there are no facilities to repair or refuel them on site.
History: Kaeshana’s rapid modernisation has not come without dangers. Sitting on the edge of space near the Fringe and still occasionally prey to raiders and pirates, the planet needed defences. The Tirathana Skyport, the Eldorai fleet and rearmament of the military were key steps to rectifying this. However Kaeshana still remained vulnerable to an enemy which penetrated orbit.
Thus Firemane, working with the Star Queen, began developing a fortress to defend Kaeshana. It was quickly discovered that a ground level defence would be useless because of the mountains encircling the city, but also that the mountains were too far spaced for a single base to be effective. Thus three bases were proposed, named after the gemstones Ruby, Emerald and Sapphire. Three is an important number to the Eldorai, and the name Ashira’s Crown was a reference to this. Each of these bases were armed with the best weaponry and defences that Firemane could provide, and were constructed to withstand direct and indirect attack.
The fortresses are not popular with many Eldorai, seeing them as an imposition of off-worlder technology on Kaeshana. Even those who accept their necessity for defence bemoan the harsh lines and unaesthetic look of them. Others still bemoan the shield’s periodic testing as interfering with the weather and wildlife. Such concerns have been noted but ultimately dismissed. For this, some have started calling it contemptuously ‘Anya’s Hat’, after the current Queen.
Though not tested in battle, each fortress is a powerful defence for the city and demands respect from any prospective attacker.
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