Triter Zone
The Littlest Space Pirate
- The Liburn -
[ Image Source ]
Affiliation - Empire of the Line.
Manufacturer - Ossein Pirates, now defunct.
Model - N/A.
Modularity - No.
Production - Unique.
Material - Trikiirium armor segments, mirrsteel hull and fittings.
Classification - Frigate of the Line.
Length - 400 meters.
Width - 58 meters (79 meters including sensor antennae).
Height - 43 meters (77 meters including sensor antennae).
Armament -
- 80x heavy blaster cannon, combined equivalent to 30x turbolaser.
- 1x heavy ion cannon/tractor beam assembly.
- 2x anti-starfighter concussion missile launcher.
- 4x boarding harpoon launcher.
- 12x starfighter (1 squadron).
- 2x shuttle.
- 1x hyperwave transceiver.
- 1x cruiser spec sensor package.
- 1x electronic countermeasures system.
- 4x docking ring, with integrated cofferdam and assault tube.
- 4x landing claw.
- Many x escape pod.
Speed Rating - 7.
Hyperdrive Class - 1.
Strengths -
- Fast and nimble for a capital ship of her size.
- Well optimized for point-blank gunnery duels; packs a wicked broadside of 40 guns, port and starboard.
- Equipped with a combined surface artillery-scale ion cannon and heavy tractor beam turret, easily capable of disabling and grappling opponents.
- Assault tubes allow for rapid deployment of boarding parties onto enemy vessels.
- ECM can interfere with enemy targeting systems, requiring most hostile capital ships to close to melee range, where the Liburn excels.
- Has a powerful sensor assembly, equivalent to a warship three times her size.
- Main batteries are casemate-style emplacements, affording only a few degrees of gun traverse; they can only fire on targets port and starboard, with only half of the total gun count available for each.
- Main guns are heavy blaster cannons; while powerful, they have limited range.
- Armor segments, while strong, provide incomplete coverage.
- Has only light anti-starfighter weaponry, relying heavily on its own fighter compliment to provide cover.
The Liburn was originally a prototype frigate under development by the Ossein Pirates, a group of outlaws and freedom fighters who battled corporate exploitation in the Tion Cluster circa 838 ABY. Inspired by ancient warships described in accounts of Daritha Xim's navy, as well as vessels used by the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars, she was to be the first of a new class of vessels, meant to partially replace the disparate mix of stolen and salvaged capital ships operated by the Ossein Fleet at the time.
Liburn was built at secretly refurbished shipyards orbiting Barancar under the noses of hostile corporate interests, screened by allied pirate gangs and colluding civilians. She was financed with the sale of stolen corporate cargo, as well as funds embezzled by Ossein spies within the companies.
Designed by Triter Zone and his mentor, Admiral Krayd Hasperre, Liburn was meant to be a swift commerce raider, but would also be capable of holding her own against corporate battle-wagons. She was heavily armed and armored, with 80 heavy guns, a giant, turreted ion cannon/tractor beam assembly for disabling and grappling enemy ships, and twin hangar bays capable of holding 1 shuttle and 6 starfighters each. Her engines, which would have seemed more at home on a ship twice her size, were capable of boosting the vessel to high speeds, and were attached to an external swivel mount, giving her unexpectedly good maneuverability despite her size; she was no snubfighter, but she could turn and boost more like a corvette than a frigate.
Liburn, though only a prototype, was designed with mass production already in mind. She was specifically engineered to be easy to produce, especially important given the scant resources and primitive outlaw tech shipyard facilities available to the Ossein Fleet. Her structure and systems included as many common and duplicate components as possible; her fore and aft hull segments, for example, were symmetrical, streamlining production by enabling the shipwrights to simply build duplicates. Armor was trikiirium plate, cheaper and easier to acquire than standard doonium; bulkheads and other hull sections were made from inexpensive mirrsteel, which was a popular construction material, meaning that large quantities could be bought and moved without raising suspicion as to its use. Engines, similarly, were standard models used by giant bulk freighters; fitted to the lighter frame of the Liburn, however, and tuned by Ossein engineers, they were more than a match for any military spec drive system.
Weapons for the Liburn ended up being a compromise; when the massive banks of turbolasers Krayd and Triter had originally planned to install proved impractical due to insurmountable cost, logistical and technical issues, it was decided to instead fit batteries of heavy blaster cannons of a type used by surface vehicles. Though not even as powerful as equivalent laser cannons, and not optimized for space combat, they were a far lesser drain on the ship's power systems, were far cheaper to purchase, and were far easier to source and move than heavier armaments would have been. Though singly unimpressive in power and lacking in range, they could be devastating when fired together, forming a withering broadside of 40 guns, 4 batteries of 10, roughly the combined equivalent of 15 turbolasers. Their range deficiencies were also somewhat compensated for by a robust sensor array and ECM system, the latter of which could interfere with enemy targeting sensors, requiring them to close to ranges where the Liburn had the advantage.
The Liburn did of course have certain deficiencies; though fast and in theory well armored, there were gaps in the trikiirium which exposed the mirrsteel beneath; though an excellent building material, this metal did not make outstanding armor. The main guns were also not turreted, with only a few degrees of traverse up, down, left and right; they were effectively useless against anything more nimble than a freighter, unless it happened to fly across their limited field of fire.
Nevertheless, the design was considered more than adequate for its intended role. It was expected that, with expanded supply channels, materials for the construction of up to three Liburn-class frigates a month could be be acquired. Had these vessels ever gone into battle as part of the regular fleet, they would have been a nasty surprise for corporate forces. Unfortunately, neither Liburn nor any of her planned sister ships saw combat before the destruction of the Ossein Fleet.
Liburn was still awaiting her engines and some of her armament when the Ossein Pirates' main force was annihilated in a surprise attack by a mammoth corporate fleet. Upon receiving word of the defeat, the Ossein personnel at the Barancar shipyard hurriedly completed the ship's fitting out, intending to use the vessel to escape and link up with other survivors of the gang. She had just been christened with a bottle of fine syrspirit when corporate security forces stormed the yards, forcing Liburn into her first combat even as she eased down the slipway. Her guns shredded company enforcers in the scaffolds, destroying much of the yard around her in the process before she achieved open space. Unfortunately, she did not get much further; lacking a starfighter compliment of her own at the time, she was unable to fight off corporate squadrons waiting outside, and was brought down by a spread of ion torpedoes. She was subsequently boarded by corporate forces, and became property of Blackrow Hyperlines, one of the major players in the corporate alliance against the Ossein.
Liburn was briefly part of the Blackrow security fleet, fighting against the pirates she had been built for, before the damage inflicted by the Ossein belatedly took its toll. Weakened by years of fighting a costly campaign against a well-armed and popular insurgency, Blackrow had drained its coffers, and found itself unable to repay its debts. The company was liquidated soon after, and Liburn was sold.
The ship passed from one owner to the next over the intervening six years, at times a corporate security vessel, at others part of a system defense fleet, at still others captured by pirates and then recaptured by authorities. In this way, she traveled across the Outer Rim, finally coming into the hands of a Manphan petroleum executive and organized crime boss.
The ship languished for a standard year in the service of this being, who used it as his personal transportation, as well as to intimidate his corporate and criminal rivals. Such was her fate, until one day, a being from Liburn's dim past caught sight of her in the skies over Shanpan Spaceport...
Development Thread - N/A
Intent - To create a vessel which will serve as the catalyst for the creation of the Empire of the Line, as well as Triter Zone's personal command.
Who Can Use This - Triter Zone, and/or appointed members of the Empire of the Line.
