H-31 Medusa Heavy Star Fighter

History

First made in YE 8542 (GSC 9457) by Antares Fleet Works, the Medusa Heavy Star-fighter was  designed for use by the various nomad armies, mercenaries, breakaway states, bounty-hunters, and pirates during Era-2.  As such, it's spherical cockpit was originally designed for an Ool-tyr pilot.  After it was picked up by the military of the Midori Republic, a human-pilotable version was mass-produced as well.  The H-31 had a fairly long production run during the later years of the War of the Empires.

Capabilities

The Medusa was heavily armed and armored, but had relatively slow acceleration. The slow acceleration was somewhat mitigated by a superb array of maneuvering jets, backed by sophisticated pilot-assist AI, that made the Medusa one of the most agile fighters in the galaxy.

Stock main armament was two forward-mounted plasma-bolt cannons.  These were augmented with a pair of forward-firing guided-missile launchers, and a pair of rear-mounted mine dispensers. 

The H-31 was built with a gimbaled pilot's seat inside a spherical cockpit, allowing the pilot to maintain a consistent orientation while rolling the craft.  One of the most popular modifications of the H-31 was to replace the armored cockpit with a transparent one, although this traded better visibility for poorer protection of the pilot.  The structure of the Medusa was built symmetrically, so it could easily fly or land "upside-down", because the top and bottom were the same.

The Medusa's spatial compression system was capable of traveling up to 10ly at a time with a compression ratio of about 250,000:1.

The H-31 Medusa could navigate most planetary atmospheres as well as space, and its Whitman-Imperial high impulse ion propulsion system gave it the lift needed to depart most inhabited worlds.

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Seed-pod Fighter

The "Seed-pod" is the most common ship in the navy of the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns.  It initially went into production in the early days of the empire, well before the 1,000 Years war, and saw service throughout the empire's history.   The simple design and low cost of the Seed-pod were key to its popularity and longevity as a design.

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Pictured: the version of the Seed-pod in widest use late in Era-0, through early Era-1.

The economics of the Seed-pod, and its wide-spread use caused it to be continually modified into thousands of variants, including substantial civilian use as a single-passenger transport.  In the Empire's continual contact and conflicts with the breakaway states and the Nomad Armies, the design of the Seed-pod was copied and stolen many times, making it the most common fighter-craft in the galaxy before Era-2. 

Internally, the design of the Seed-pod breaks down into three modular units, the cockpit unit takes up front of the craft, the center position is occupied by weapons, fuel, and special equipment, and the main engines are in the aft.  Each of these sections were made in a variety of purpose-built variants in local factories throughout the empire.

The main variant of the Seed-pod was built as a short-range interceptor without FTL capability.  High acceleration made it agile in dogfights, but the twin plasma-bolt throwers that made up its sole armament had little to offer in the way of firepower.  Light armor and a lack of deflector shields made the survivability of a mission in a Seed-pod poor for most pilots.  But, what it lacked in endurance, range, and firepower, the Seed-pod made up for in sheer numbers.  Seed-pods were cheap and easy to manufacture, modify, and maintain, and this made them a mainstay of the Imperial Navy.

The Seed-pod saw substantial use in all of the Empire's major conflicts, usually swarming in overwhelming numbers to bog down and gradually destroy whatever they faced.

An imperial carrier prepares to launch a large flight of seed-pods.

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Wyvern Space Capsule

The Wyvern Space Capsule was originally made by Astro-Dynamics, inc. and was important to the early exploration and settling of the Solar System.  Production of an upgraded version continued even after Astro-Dynamics was bought by Ares Systems, mid-way through Era-1.  Although it was designed only to make short journeys, and could not take off on its own after landing, it saw wide use as a single-use landing craft, and as an escape pod. 

The Wyvern could seat five, and carried enough provisions for five days at full capacity.  It's construction was as light as was practical, and therefore the Wyvern was virtually defenseless.  Its sole role was to move people through space. 

When humankind first seriously undertook the colonization of space, the Wyvern was the vehicle of choice.  Many early settlers landed on the Moon, and Mars in Wyverns, and their supplies were often delivered in Sorcerer Pods. 

Variants

The Sorcerer Cargo and Logistics Pod was the most common variant on the Wyvern, relying solely on autopilot, and trading in all seating and life-support for cargo space.

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The Stormrunner

Description

Manufactured by Ares Systems, the Stormrunner was first introduced midway through Era-1.  Larger and more capable than the Aurora class, the Stormrunner is slower, with a longer range it can travel before resupply.  

Designed with a generous rear cargo bay, the Stormrunner is customizable with six mounting ports for turrets or other auxiliary equipment. Crew access is through two airlocks on the lower deck of the cockpit section, and the cargo bay is accessible through a large door in the stern.  The rear section has four decks, with the cargo hold spanning two decks.  The cockpit section has three decks, and the mid-section has two decks.  

Designed for versatility, the Stormrunner is typically used for cargo hauling.  Its combination of speed and potential for firepower make it a favorite among pirates and smugglers.  It is also well suited to the role of blockade runner in siege situations.  Like many of the products of Ares Systems, the Stormrunner was built to last.

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Systems+specs

The Stormrunner's standard engines were known as HIgh-Power Propulsive-Ion Engines, or referred to more affectionately by captains and crews as "Hippies".

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Aurora-class light transport

Overview

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This variant, the Aurora-P is designed to ferry passengers.

Captain Briggs:  ‘A fast ship’?  This is the Eon Eagle, son.  She did the Antares Circuit in less than a week.

Johnny Starchild:  Golly!  That’s over twelve parsecs!

Manufactured by Ares Systems, the Aurora class light transport was a mainstay of short-range transportation in the Planetary League during the early part of Era-1.  It filled many roles, from ferrying passengers and cargo within a system, to tugboat operations, to mining asteroids. Most organizations within the Planetary League made extensive use of the Aurora, including the PLAS and the PLIN. Few ships of the time were as versatile, and some individual ships flew as late as the War of the Gods (mid-way through Era-2).

First seeing service before the advent of FTL travel, the Aurora was originally designed for interplanetary missions.  When fitted with five high-power Ion drives, it had better acceleration than most ships its size when unloaded.  Its modular cargo bay was designed to allow for easy modification, and often housed spatial-compression equipment, after that technology was developed. Although it could land on the surfaces of most habitable planets, the Aurora was not intended for extended atmospheric flight, as its boxy lifting body form was not very aerodynamic.

Although the Aurora could be operated autonomously, or by a lone pilot using automation, the most typical configurations had a crew of three, consisting of a pilot, a navigator and an engineer.

Variants

The Aurora had a long history, and was popular both with civilian operators and government agencies. Most Auroras were built either for passenger accommodations or cargo hauling, but over the years a large number of variants were created for this highly adaptable craft.

On outpost missions, an Aurora class vessel typically carried five Tardigrades in suspended animation modules, and flew to its destination on autopilot.  

There was also a fleet-escort variant that was heavily armed and widely used.

There was a mini-tanker variant designed to haul liquids in bulk.

The Rat-King

Description

The Rat-king is a scavenger ship, captained by a small hive-mind of Greys, who stay in a central cabin heavily shielded from radio noise.  They communicate with the rest of the crew through the ship’s computer network, but are rarely seen outside their cabin.  The rest of the ship is patched together from an ever changing and gradually expanding pastiche of salvaged ships, junk robots, asteroids, and any other material that is both easily attainable and not immediately threatening.  The crew is composed of castaways, outcasts and strays, and the ship just slowly drifts from port to port, buying necessities and selling anything of value they can scavenge from the cold depths of space.

History

The Rat-king was first created by a Convergence scout ship that got lost in an ion storm near the frontier of the Planetary League late in Era-1.  Their ship was damaged, their connection to the larger hive mind was severed, and their supplies were running low, so they turned to scavenging.  They found enough materials to survive, but, by the time they reached civilization, the Greys aboard the ship had been out of contact with the Convergence for so long, that it made more sense for them to continue as an independent mind.

Over time, the ship grew larger and larger.  Castaways joined the crew as their escape pods were found, or their ships were salvaged. 

The name "Rat-King" was given to the vessel by the captain of a merchant ship that happened to encounter it in deep space, noting that the vessel's construction had something in common with an intertwined mass of rodents.  Upon returning to port, the captain told his friends about the strange vessel, and the use of the name spread.

During the Great Reckoning, the Rat-king became one of the founding "clans" of the Yatagarasu.

The Archipelago

Description

The Archipelago is not so much a star-ship, as a wandering experiment in neuro-cybernetics.  Inspired by the mad writings of Donneth Vogue, and controlled by the networked, disembodied brains of a few dozen philosophers and scientists from the esoteric and solipsistic Markovian school of philosophy, with no external stimuli other than the ship’s sensors, and no output other than the ship’s systems and a few maintenance drones,  the Archipelago wanders the galaxy as a living monument to its creators’ madness. . .