Seydon of Arda
Raquor'daan
FLAG
Out of Character Information
Intent: To create a singular work horse vessel, with enough robust function to make it ideal for travel and adventure.
Image Source: LINK + LINK
Restricted Missions: N/A
Primary Source:
Production Information:
Manufacturer: Alland Yards/Bacrana Shipyards/Joraan Drive Systems
Model: AY-T6-DN ‘Prototype Battleship’ / ‘Merchant Frigate’ Star of the Run
Affiliation: Seydon
Production: Unique
Material:
Durasteel
Duraplast
Trimantium (Selective Reinforcement)
Various Carbon Steels
Plasteel
Transparisteel/B’Sant
Various Conductive Metals
Various Plastics
Various Insulate Materials
Steristeel
Desh-Terenthium
Technical Specifications:
Classification: Merchant Frigate
Length: 251m
Width: 36m
Height: 32m
Armament: Low
Defences: High
Manoeuvrability: High
Speed Rating: Very High
Hyperdrive Class: .5
Special Features
Naboo Reconnaissance and Survey Probe (RASP) Launcher w/ Probe Bank
Ric Olie-type Astrogational Guidance System (Olie AGS) Navicomputer
QQ-1453-DR1 Solid Fuel/Ration Converter (SFRC)
B1-TM3 Countermeasures Package
QQ-45H/310T Countermeasures Module
QQ-543N/53R Cap Drain Module
QQ-C1R-C3 Defensive Decoy Module
QQ-4U85 Tractor Shroud
Strengths:
Modern Life For A Modern Girl To Lead: The Star of the Run is in every respect a modern merchant hauler. Refitted and overhauled to support modern contrivances in technology and vessel safety, it boasts enviable speed and defences for a vessel of its size. It’s age lends a rare pedigree; there’s no other vessel quite like the Star.
Easy To Hide And He’s Got It All Figured Out: The Star has a sole goal: make a profit. Not as toothy or brawny as some other vessels of similar tonnage and configuration, it makes up for a demoted weapon profile with a solid collection of countermeasure add-ons.
The RASP Probe Launcher gives the vessel a kind of second-sight, able to transmit additional data to help inform tactical and strategic command decisions, as well as suss out potentially unseen dangers. The Olie AGS allows mid-transit course changes without forcing the Star drop from lightspeed. Pirates and commerce privateers will be hard winded trying to catch up with the fleet Star.
It's Solid Fuel/Ration Converter can, in emergencies, help to replenish or substitute lost fuels and foodstuffs necessary for crew and cargo survival.
Though it sacrifices several munition and cannon hard points, the B1-TM3 is nonetheless a necessary and effective electronic defense wall against missile screens and other guided rocket ordnance.
While the mated QQ-45H/310T chaff and screen deployment system can help further confuse them with ballistic energy packets, albeit with a slower deployment compared to conventional chaff products.
The Cap Drain Module is a buccaneer's bane: a shield against ionic charges generated by electromagnetic weaponry and vessel-disabling connor nets, leaving the Star with power to maneuver.
The Defense Decoy Module is a perfect baiting measure to both lure and throw off pirating raiders, albeit with dubious legality, an able tool for distraction and confusion.
Last and certainly not least, the installed Tractor Shroud can baffle tractor beams for straight-line escape runs, provided it can be deployed in time and the pilot does not drift them outside it's effect range.
Weaknesses:
In A Lonely City: The Star is not spec’d for engagements. Heavier cannons and point-defense-turrets have been cut away or replaced altogether with modules dedicated towards efficient hyperspace transit and realspace navigation. In a ship-to-ship bout with equal tonnage and displacement, the Star is at a disadvantage. She’s meant to fly, saving her strength for cunning rather than out and out gun brawn.
But If You’re Getting Even: Numerous refits, repairs, salvages, and installations of newer technology alongside aged systems makes the Star disagreeable. She keeps her mechanics on their toes, prone to break downs, malfunctions, and damaged parts. That she ticks smoothly on a given day is a result of as much stubbornness as maintenance.
Description:
Minimum Crew: 50 Officers / 700 Hired Hands
Optimum Crew: 100 Officers / 1900 Hired Hands
Armaments:
10 x 10.5cm Dual-Barrel Anti-Fighter Guns
4 x 15cm Dual-Barrel Medium Guns
Hangar: N/A
Passenger Capacity: 30
Cargo Capacity: 7400 tons
Consumables: 1 Year, 2 Months
History:
Joint Ditch Effort
Alland Yards, Bacrana Shipyards, and Joraan Drive Systems each shared similar worries at the close of 26 BBY. The Separatist movement, discontent across the Expansion and Outer Rim, increasing lawlessness reported in Wild Space and the loss of several product vessels of their lines to piracy, were showing their obsolescence and irrelevance against major shipwrights as Kuat Drive Yards. Headed by Alland Yards, the company trio opted to invest in a powerful ship-of-the-line concept to sell to the Republic.
Despite public rebuffs, the office of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine made quiet overtures. Designers and dry dock personnel were thrust into day-and-night production cycles, focused on readying a working example of a potential battleship for the mothballed Republic navy. The result was the prototype AY-T6-DN Dreadnought, Ironwol. After a six months shake down, she was scheduled for further naval trials when, in 22 BBY, the Battle of Geonosis erupted.
Clone War
Civil war bought time and money. The naval trials were swiftly upended and the Ironwol pressed into Republic service. She saw action across a dozen separate engagements, managing to fell over one hundred thousand tons in enemy vessels. Her first refit, 21 BBY, retired her from front line actions for seven months, managing to return in time for campaign work in the galactic north.
Her last battle of the Clone Wars was Coruscant. Faced down with the weight of a fully complimented Subjugator heavy cruiser, the Ironwol was nearly foundered. She inflicted mortal wounds of her own, felling the monstrous battleship, limping away for repairs and drydock. The Ironwol would spend the closing weeks and months of the Clone Wars undergoing a second refit. Emerging from housing in time to join the ascension of the New Imperial Order.
The Reconquest
With the goal of consolidation and erecting an enforced peace, Ironwol was folded into the nascent Imperial Navy, rechristened the Hood, and set into engaging pirate and hold-out Separatist vessels not yet cowed by end of the War. The Hood contributed to the initial Ciutric Offensive, lending her cannons to engagements at Vinsoth, Bimmiel, Fenion, Sheris, and Vardoss.
Her most distinguished hours came with the offensive in the western reach, taking kills in the battle of Feather Nebula, Ord Vaug, and avenging herself on a remaining Subjugator at Halm. Despite successes, rumours of a coming addition to the Empire’s ship-of-the-line hounded the Hood. With her parent companies folded, the Hood depended upon her Imperial commission to remain in active service. Gossip of a new class, with enough firepower to break the skin of a star, travelled through the battle groups.
The Hood participated in the closing shots of Ogoth Tiir. The final battle strangled the last of the Separatist’s most serious hold outs, slaying renegade General Ultho. Her guns slaughtered a handful of corvettes, briefly wrestling with a half-school of converted merchant canoneers before the battle was done. Once more wounded, the Hood put in for repairs. The Clone Wars were at last settled, though it left the Hood’s commission in jeopardy.
‘Peace In Their Time’
Though a proven template, the Hood was still costly. Her construction utilized a great deal of technical resources Naval heads felt were better reserved for the coming Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Alland Yards and their comrades had gone under or been incorporated nationally in the wake of the Empire’s birth. The Hood was a war scab, a punctuating image of the finished Clone Wars. She waited at anchor until her commission ran and was scheduled for break up and scrap recycling.
A miracle at the eleventh hour came from Haj Shipping Lines. Seeking to bolster their star liner fleet, the Hood was bought out cheaply, gutted and refurbished to house their select clientele. Renamed the West Royale, she drew a crowd endeared by propaganda surrounding her military stripes. Through a technical classification as a ‘merchant raider’, West Royale was allowed to keep a contingent of her war time armaments, housing remnants of her former marine squadrons. Most would quit by the year’s end, 19 BBY.
The West Royale’s popularity amongst stargoers would only endure for so long. By 11 BBY, cruise attendance was already long waning and the lustre of war time prestige had faded. Costs accrued making the seasonal planetary cruises pinched and needled at Haj Shipping Lines. In 9 BBY, after spending a year mothballed, the West Royale was towed out for scrapping.
Commerce Raider & The Merchant Navy
The West Royale never reached her break up port. Mid transit, an enterprising collection of mercantile pirates attacked and stole her, sequestering her to secret black ports across the Outer Rim. She was again refitted for raiding engagements, installed with salvaged cannon and torpedo. The West Royale became the Jabiim Typhoon, and began preying upon the Corellian Run.
Her fortunes came and went over the subsequent decade. Pirating saw her exchange a dozen hands, pawned, lost, or taken between rival outfits and their captains. The Typhoon never quite escaped her own shadow from war time, unable to eclipse her old victories and the hard tonnage sank against heavier, mightier cruisers. Her aging credentials became lost behind false transponder codes and numerous assumed identities. ‘Typhoon’ became a nickname, as the designation itself only last for a year itself.
Finally, she was put up in a lot auction to help a gambling captain accrue capital to pay off debts. Once more, enterprising interests caught sight of her sleek, martial lines, drawn by the profile of her long guns. Following a lengthy bidding spree, the Typhoon went with a trading outfit, brought on board to join the Empire’s merchant marines. She was properly christened the Starlantic, given crew and commission, sent to run the dangerous resupply routes between far Imperial outposts. The Starlantic became a noted character in Wild Space following, befriending rogues and Imperials alike. Her captains ran her through numerous trials and battles as pirate forces grew emboldened in the wake of the Battle of Yavin. Her future grew shaken and uncertain a few years afterward, with the Emperor’s demise at Endor.
Crisis Through Crisis
The Empire’s crippling at Endor required decades of effort in the aftermath to cement the fledgling New Republic. The Startlantic opted for neutrality, keeping at arms length, signing on for simple cargo runs. Between Moff warlords, alien border wars, coups, Remnant schemes, and more, she weathered the chaos. Her guns drew both Republic and Imperial blood as necessary, from Thrawn’s assault from the Unknown Regions to the Black Fleet Crisis and the hand over of power to Bothan Borks Fey’la.
Yuuzhan Vong antagonism dogged the Starlantic in her middling years. She again transformed into a merchant fighter, allying with Lando Calrissian’s smuggler outfits to battle and thwart the Vong horde. Cannon and arms were retained long afterward accounts were settled at Coruscant and Zonama Sekot. In the peace years, between war’s end and the assumption of power by Natasi Daala, she underwent her most extensive refit. Decades old systems were either repaired wholly or replaced, beam by beam. For the first time in ages, Ironwol had a second wind. While the new civil war brewed and raged, the Starlantic went about its business. Her footing in the trade lanes and established houses and firms ensured she would not be wanting for work.
The Starlantic turned her sight to breaking over even on every run, and never looked back.
Black Years
The fortunes of the Alliance and the One Sith wars through the galaxy did little to change her tides. Trade was a constant, whether legal or otherwise. The Starlantic took contacts where they would come, evolving as needed to stay afloat. She changed from trader to frigate to smuggler. Always seeking to way ahead of the times, chased aft by war. Many captains adventured with her bowsprit, retiring with fortunes in hand. Many swore to her undying luck. A few, less lucky, consigned her as a wreck waiting to happen.
Then came the Plague.
Not even the Starlantic weathered the troubles untouched. A black death ravaged her crews time and again, sometimes left adrift with only a bare skeleton crew on hand to guide her. The Starlantic became another space hulk. Cold, withdrawn, haunting from world to world, scavenging and murdering to survive. Naval law and custom broke down as the sickness spread. The merchant combines became wasted. Work dried up before the end of the first hundred years of darkness. The Starlantic, refusing to go under, bared her teeth and played the game of survival.
A New Prestige
Eventually, the wasting disease subsided.
Nameless, an old frigate was found lurching down the Hydian Way. It was broken, crippled by innumerable battles done with desperate raiders. Savaged scrap waiting for a decent port to break up her lonely carcass, to recycle its hulling and materials. Yet, her make and beam were sound, a kind of template not repeated in nearly eight centuries. There were stories dyed into the rust of her plate rivets and the repair weld-marks scarring her blaster pocked face. With time, care, and significant investment, she could turn a profit once more.
Eímhín C. Maxwell thought so. An unerring Songwing navigator-cum-captain, the owl sought out a new command following the First Order’s ‘commandeering’ of his beloved sloop. This hulk, with an investment of both a loan and his own coffers, could secure him a proper command and even a vector for revenge against the arrogant Imperials. Managing to cosign the loan with noted bounty killer Seydon of Arda, Cap’n Maxwell rebuilt the grey-haired battleship.
The Star of the Run. First and Only of her line.
