Of the Past

[Ultimatum]

The Mandalorians had put out a call for vessels. An interesting proposition that had a number of potential meanings. Ultimatum was almost certain that it meant they were planning for war. Of course there could be other reasons, but it struck Ultimatum as peculiar otherwise. Whatever the reason, the AI saw this as a potential for business. Not one normally to think about such things, Ultimatum had decided to focus a little more on expanding LOOM. Thus he had prepared the shipyard for its first production since the massive overhaul that had been part of a trade awhile back.

There was of course the question of how to design the ship. There were so many possibilities that Ultimatum could hardly be expected to simply pull one out of a hat. Instead, the droid decided that perhaps a meaningful ship would be preferred. What stood as important to Mandalorians? Aside from their love of combat and warfare. They tended to be attached to their history, their heritage was important to them. Thus it would behoove him to design a ship that was reminiscent of their heritage. Historically, what was their greatest era? That was a topic of debate, but for what Ultimatum wanted it would be about the Mandalorian War, the time of Neo-Crusaders, world conquering campaigns, and almost defeating the Republic.

He would need to do some research into ship designs of the time period.

 

[Ultimatum]

It took a few hours of work, but he found a few ships on the HoloNet that were Mandalorian in make. He removed those that were of time periods other than the one he was looking for. He further specified based on ships that had played important roles in the war. Or those that had taken part in well known battles. There were quite a few even so, however perhaps one of their most famous battles was the Battle of Serroco. The main ship within the fleet at the time had been a Kandosii Dreadnought. A very interesting design, with a relatively unheard of ability to fire incredibly large missiles.

He would take that ship, it was a sign of what the Mandalorians had been. They had pushed the Republic to its limit, if not for Revan they would have won the War with little difficulty. Even with Revan it had been a true war. This ship had been the largest ship used during that time. Researching the ship brought up some an interesting facts. Its design had been stolen from Fenelar, a now extinct species thanks to the Mandalorians. Its design was generally strong and had only one glaring weakness. The fact that its hyperdrive could be disabled through a simple charge detonation at a certain point. That would need to be altered. But at least he had a design. It would need to be updated and secured, but that would be child's play.

 

[Ultimatum]

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Time was proving the decision to be wise. The Kandosii vessel had nothing very special about it, the materials for its construction were standard and cheap to acquire. Well, they would have been cheap had he been required to pay for them. Many of the metals he had shipped up from Mustafar within his own company and therefore was free. The only cost that he accrued was the maintenance and repair of his ships and droids.

The first ship was coming along nicely. It was merely a model more than anything else. It was completely capable of combat and every function that the line would have even so. He intended this one to be shown to the Mandalorians, but he first wanted to be certain that the weakness displayed so prominently in its original system was repaired in this one. He did not want it to be so easily disabled by any sort of attack. The ship being made was in no way special, not built to be a real dreadnought. Instead it was constructed to be an all-rounder vessel, capable of being outfitted for various tasks as required. It would not be as strong as a specialized vessel, but it could handle most of the necessities, especially in the evolution of battle.

 

[Ultimatum]

The droid watched as the first ship was being constructed. The weightlessness of the metals in space was truly an awe-inspiring sight. Small droids moved sheets and blocks of metal, which would have taken heavy construction equipment to move if they had not been in the void. The construction would not take as long as in some other shipyards, if only due to the fact that this shipyard was run entirely by artificials and therefore there was no need for rests. It would still take time in order to complete construction, after all this was to be a large ship.

Theoretically the construction of this ship would be a good indication of how long it would take to build each consecutive vessel. However in practice the construction tended to become quicker the more often it was done, probably because the controlling computers were able to calculate points where adjustments could be made to create a more efficient pattern. That was how it normally was for the droid, in his experience anyways, it took time for a computer to find a system that worked well. He expected this to be no different. Though, this was the largest vessel he would be mass producing at this time. Perhaps the largest mass produced period. Time would tell.

 

[Ultimatum]

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The majority of the ship was together now. A were week and a half since production began. Ultimatum had decided to have the droids be thorough with this production, just to make certain that the build was of approved quality. He hoped the Mandalorians would like it, speaking of which he had yet to name the ship. He could have just used the design's name, Kandosii, a word that he had learned recently in his studies to mean "ruthless" or "Indomitable". It was a rather good choice of word for what the vessel had been at its time. But now, a kilometer long vessel was practically nothing, nobody was surprised or would even blink an eye at that.

It needed a little more to finish, but now it was about ready for preliminary testing. It wouldn't be much more than structural integrity testing at this time, there wasn't enough complete to allow other tests. But Ultimatum was not complaining, it was coming along quickly enough for his purposes. He looked forward to seeing the finished product and comparing it to the information he had of the originals. He wanted the organics to be pleased with this, not necessary ecstatic but at the very least pleased.

 

[Ultimatum]

The production had slowed somewhat, a slight backtrack had been required after another adjustment had been required. Apparently with the updates of technology and metal had come a potential spot where making the missile tubes slightly smaller would increase hull strength by about one percent. While not an especially large difference, for a ship like this Ultimatum believed that strength of hull was more important. The missile tubes originally produced would have been large enough for nuclear missiles and similarly large projectiles, but now it would be firing smaller missiles, such as capital grade ship concussion missiles.

The drop in size and therefore payload of weapons would be negligible, at the same time the defensive increase would be enough to potentially save the vessel, though truth be told it too was quite small and unlikely to make a difference in the long run. There would be tests, but it was not Ultimatum's priority to make certain that the weaponry systems functioned, those tended to be the most well made systems due to their importance on the battlefield.

 

[Ultimatum]

Fortunately, simulations seemed to show nothing wrong with the current construction, perfectly standard with no immediate strengths or weakness that appeared to make it particularly vulnerable. It was coming along nicely and it would be produced within the timetables he had established. Now he merely had to make certain that nothing happened during production. Aside from that, the rest of the facility was moving about in preparation of mass-producing the ships once the order was given. Ultimatum would give that order when the Mandalorians were prepared for the transaction.

It was nearly ready and he would be making communications with the eventual owners very soon. He looked forward to making a bigger mark, even if the Mandalorians were not his preferred group. Truth be told, while he liked certain galactic powers above other, he was one who was more concerned with the bigger picture. Organics in general were imperfect and he wanted to help all of them. That superseded any and all preference. This was a step towards helping all organics, hopefully.

 

[Ultimatum]

Now that the ship was complete Ultimatum decided it was time to put it through some testing. The structure was not especially pretty to the droid, but then it was not his place to judge what was beautiful. An AI was not the best judge for aesthetic enjoyability, unless of course it was programmed for that. He would not have anything more than simple necessities built onto the vessel, the Mandalorians could make adjustments as they saw fit.

There was of course the issue of testing the shields, he intended on accomplishing that by using the shipyards defenses, which were more than enough for most ships. He would use what information he knew about the ship's weaknesses and have the weapons target them with ion weaponry. He didn't want to put unnecessary scoring on the hull. Ultimatum would then have the computers convert the theoretical damage of a full on turbolaser strike manipulated to fit the circumstance of the shot and decide how much actual damage such a shot would have left if the shot had been a turbolaser.

His greatest concern was the massive hangars. The open spaces made the overall integrity of the hull less than preferable. Of course it allowed for a greater number of starships to be carried, but at the cost of the ship strength, Cost-Benefit was not to the droid's liking. He was going to use this test as a decision on whether to leave it as is or to change the ancient design to be more defensive in design.

 

[Ultimatum]

It was a good thing that the testing had been done with Ion weaponry, the shields had lasted about as long as he had expected, but calculated damage via direct hits to the hull was more so than he had anticipated. The effect that the blasts tended to have on the rest of the hull created an effect where if enough were put in the right places the armored hull was made considerably weaker. The size of those hangars seemed to be part of the issue. He decided they would need to be considerably sized down in order to increase the general strength of ship and thereby make it a more reliable vessel in combat.

This ship would not do then, the adjustments required would be of such a large scale that Ultimatum believed it better to just scrap this ship and build it again. Time was not of the essence, he had a long time ahead of him and there was no need to make a rush job. At the same time he was disappointed that the discovery had not been made earlier the time wasted in construction was not something he was pleased with.

 

[Ultimatum]

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The new ship had been built and its armor tested. As expected, the shrinking of hangars was exactly what was needed to create a considerably more sturdy overall hull. It also had the desirable effect of adding more space for shields and other systems. It was not entirely a win-win scenario, after all the hangars were smaller than before, less fighters then the original design allowed for, but it traded off that for better defense and weapons.

The old ship had been scrapped down and was now going to be used as material in the ships to be built. At the least it proved a point and would continue to serve as it had been intended, if not the first time around then definitely the second. None other than he and those he told would know of that, but it was small pieces of information like that which made his life more interesting. He looked forward to traveling aboard the vessel and its temporary droid crew, he wondered if the Mandalorians would want this 'show model' or would rather wait for the real deals, not that there was truly any difference aside from some aesthetics.