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The Kadeshi Crusade
A Homeworld Fanfiction
by Crobato
Originally posted May 15, 2001
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Appendix
From Jee’nan’s Fighting Ships Journal
Published by:
Kaalel Publications,
Cell Unit 342,
Deck 4,
Mothership, Hiigara
Editor: Jee’nan Kaalel
Assistant Editor: L’jor S’jet
Newstand Copy: 30 Resource Credits
Subscription Fee: 300 Resource Credits for one year, 400 Resource Credits for two years, not including galactic postage and taxes. Taiidan subscribers must check local planetary mail fees and sales taxes.
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Excerpts taken from the Special Crusade Edition—
I. Ships of the Kadeshi Crusade Armada
During the Homeworld Wars, the first contact between the Kushans and the Kadeshi led to the discovery of the Khar’toba sister ship, the Khar’nak within the Great Nebula, called the Gardens by the Kadeshi. That encounter revealed what turned out to be only part of the immense Kadeshi fleet and society that resided in the Nebula.
After the destruction of the Kadeshi fleet, it was assumed that the Kadeshi were completely destroyed. That proved to be not the case. One assumption that proved wrong was that the Needleships were motherships that housed the main Kadeshi population. Critics called this official assumption erroneous, as the Needleships had to be created by much larger structures, which in turn meant a much larger population needed to man such structures. Once you have this organization, there must be a society, a civilization that would back this up.
During the first encounter, five Kadeshi ship types were revealed—the Needleship, the Multibeam Frigate, the Swarmer, the Advanced Swarmer and the Fuel Pod. Scans also detected a Hiigaran transport derelict ship and a derelict carrier. The transport ship proved to be the sister ship of the Khar’toba, and originally brought the ancestors of the Kadeshi to the Nebula. The technologies for the Hyperspace Inhibitor and the mini ion beam cannon were ahead of anything the Taiidan was able to make. Although the Taiidan did develop Hyperspace Inhibitor technology, they required far larger structures and had greater power requirements than the Kadeshi inhibitors. The efficiencies exhibited by the Kadeshi inhbitors revealed that this technology was not derived from the Taiidani. The same argument can be given to the small but powerful mini ion beam cannons, whose power cannot even be matched by the mini ion beam cannons developed by the Somtaaw and Paktu for use on the Dervish Multibeam Frigate. The presence of such high technology implements in a regressive society had analysts looking for answers.
One popular theory was that they were captured from alien ships that ventured and trapped in the Nebula. But that begs the assumption, who were the races of these alien ships, and if they were technologically superior, why were they not able to use their superior know how to escape? The Taiidani documentation of known races also showed that all the known races neither had superior inhibitor nor mini ion beam technology similar to what the Kadeshi were using.
When the Bentusi loaned the design of the Super Acolyte fighter, it opened a clue to analysts of another theory that eventually proved true—that these technologies originally came from the Unbound themselves.
As soon as the Kadeshi left the Great Nebula, they were immediately faced with tactical burdens of their fleet nature. The nature of their fleet had been a defensive one that subsisted on fast raids and piracy. However, such a fleet is inadequate for a full military campaign, and soon as they left the Nebula, the Kadeshi showed the typical Hiigaran ingenuity and improvisation, developing new ship types to face the vastly greater and more complex tactical requirements of a full offensive fleet.
Another assumption that proved false was that the Kadeshi never left their Nebula. This false assumption never disappeared despite the clear and tangible evidence of Kadeshi Multibeam Frigates caught by the Ghost Ship well outside the Gardens.
The Needleship—It was originally believed that the Needleships were motherships of their own. This assumption would prove erroneous. The Needleships as it turns out, was an advanced assault carrier design of immense properortions, designed to house the Hyperspace Inhibitor generators, its power source, a whole battery of offensive and defensive weapons, and strike craft/frigate size ship building facility with hangers. The whole ship had nearly the firepower of a destroyer and yet support a strike force worthy of a large carrier.
During the Crusade, it was revealed that the Needleships themselves had variations in size and capability. The large Needleships such as the ones encountered during the HW, provided the main striking power of the Crusade Armada, but there were smaller Needleships that were seen leading reconnaissance and resourcing task operations. Fleet Intelligence determined that they represent an “Escort” subclass of Needleship.
The most impressive Needleship was the flagship of the Crusade itself, the Khar’nak. The whole Needleship was intentionally built around the Khar’nak derelict ship that brought the ancestors of the Kadeshi to the Nebula. It was designed this way to provide spiritual inspiration for the Kadeshi fleet, in much the same way as ancient kithiid armies bring religious relics in the forefront of armies to inspire them for battle and to bring the blessings of the gods for victory.
The Flagship itself housed a Siege Cannon, another derelict from the ancient Hiigaran Imperial era. The output of the Siege Cannon is a port on top of the Needleship’s mushroom structure. The whole structural needle stalk itself served ingeniuosly as a barrel for the cannon. The cannon had greater power than one used in the Kuun-laan and Faal-Corum, but required a longer recharge time. It was noted however, that the armor around the Cannon proved to be thin and weak, due to the need for excess energy dissipation requirements.
The Multibeam Frigate—They represent the main striking power of the Crusade capital ship fleet, despite the introduction of the Assault Pod. These MBFs are a vital threat to any capital ship fleet and a small pack can devour even a heavy cruiser in less than minute.
The MBFs are based on an ancient Hiigaran frigate design that were adapted to use the mini ion beam cannons. As such it had a simple, functional chassis design. Its drawback is the poor coverage of its cannons. This makes it difficult to use in wall formations. In order to keep its guns at the target, the MBF had to perform a barrel roll. Such a maneuver is unusual for a ship of its class.
To deal with the MBF, the so called G’aas Maneuver was developed, named after its inventor, Four Star Admiral G’aas Paktu, who led the defence of Hiigara against the Crusade. Essentially it is a running, flanking tactic. An Assault Frigate or Dervish MBF engaging a Kadeshi MBF would try to out turn and head for its rear. This would force the MBF to turn to the limits of its agility, but during the manuever, the frigate is temporarily unable to keep its sights on the Assault or Dervish frigate. With the greater coverage of the weapons in Assault and Dervish frigate, the Assault and Dervish frigate would be able to sustain fire upon the Kadeshi MBF.
Another disadvantage of the Kadeshi MBF lies with its vulnerability to strike craft, due to its poor weapons coverage. This however, is typical of any Ion Beam Frigate (IBF) including the Turanic Ion Array Frigate.
Pod Class of Frigates—-This chassis design seemed neither Hiigaran or something the Kadeshi developed themselves. It is speculated that the design was based on a captured transport from an unknown alien race. Whatever its origins are, the Pod chassis proved to be a versatile design.
Improvisation had been the trademark of the Crusade engineers. With no time and limited technological resources to develop all new ship chassis, Kadeshi engineers relied on adapting existing designs. This meant lower cost and easy production at the expense of superior specialization of what a from-ground-up design could deliver.
The main Pod type encountered during the Homeworld Wars was the Fuel Pod. Despite its non combatant nature, the Fuel Pod packs a mean medium cannon that could do severe damage to any opposiing frigate, making it better armed than a Supply Frigate or Hive Frigate. Despite its vulnerability, a pack of Pods could well destroy a Destroyer.
With the introduction of newer, more efficient fighter drives to the Swarmers, the numerous Fuel Pods faced obsolescence. Not wanting to waste existing inventories and a proven design, Kadeshi engineers improvised new types that gave a new lease in life to the otherwise obsolescent Fuel Pod. The better days of the Pod chassis would prove to lay ahead.
a.) Assault Pod—Removing the refuel equipment for the Swarmers, the Pod was fitted with a second medium cannon, doubling the firepower. The result is effectively what experts called a Gunship. The Assault Pod proved to be an excellent backup to the Kadeshi MBFs. The shortage and demand for ion beam cannons also made the Assault Pod a valuable substitute.
Its disadvantage lies in the poor weapons coverage that makes the Assault Pod vulnerable to strike craft. Particular targets of Assault Pods are Gravwell generators that were used often in an attempt to neutralize Swarmer swarms.
b.) Grappler Pod—This is in fact, the Kadeshi Salvage ship, or Salvage Frigate for that matter. Analysts had long speculated for the Kadeshi to pirate transports, they must have a salvager ship somewhere. During the Homeworld Wars, these ships were not found, and only with the Crusade was the mysterious Kadeshi salvager revealed.
The move of the Salvager role from a Corvette to a Frigate seemed unusual for most analysts, but it had its advantages. The Grappler is invulnerable from gravwell frigates. It packs the same formidable medium cannon used in the Fuel Pods, and its extra compartments meant that a boarding crew can be housed. It has strong thick armor that gave it a high survivability rate in battle. The Grappler mainly uses gas to incapacitate the crew of a captured ship. The use of gas has its advantage—the Grappler can decide if they want to kill the enemy crew or capture them just by choosing either poison gas or sleeping gas.
c.) Bomb Pod—One of the more cynical designs, it is really a pod filled with quantum explosives. Intended for suicide attacks, the sheer magnitude of the explosions caused by these ships would send shockwaves that damage or destroy ships in neighboring areas. The Kadeshi has no end to the supply of fanatics willing to pilot such ships. However, they thought that if someone is to make a sacrifice, it must be worth a big bang. This is the reason why the Kadeshi never resorted to using fighter designs for suicide ships, but choose a large frigate chassis instead.
d.) Resource Pod—Another false assumption was that the Kadeshi relied purely on piracy to sustain themselves. However, most analysts relying on their common sense speculated that the Kadeshi were protecting the Gardens because they themselves harvest it like a farmer protecting his fields. The large sophisticated societies that the Kadeshi revealed would have required larger resources than what piracy could allow by several times over.
The Kadeshi do have their own indigenous resourcer, but also would use captured resourcers. The Resourcer Pod was an improvisation to bring a cheap, maneuverable design needed to harvest asteroid belts that were more prevalent outside of the Gardens. It must be noted that the Kadeshi Resourcers were optimized for gas collection, leading to huge, expensive designs, whereas the Resourcer Pod was better suited for resourcing rocky debris and asteroids.
It is observed that the Kadeshi Resource Pod allow for docking and refuel of Swarmers.
e.) Missile Pod—When the Kadeshi developed the Missile Swarmer strike craft, there came a need to provide a frigate that can continually supply these fighters with missile stocks. The Missile Pod is essentially a Fuel Pod that also contains a small assembly line for missiles.
The Swarmer—This fighter is not only the main strike craft of the Kadeshi, it is the most feared weapon, and the most devastatingly effective of all. The huge swarms of these craft rushing towards your ship have become a terrifying symbol of certain death. The Swarmer combines the performance of a Scout, the hide of a Defender and the firepower of a Heavy Corvette in a small package that cost cheaper and faster to make than any known fighter. The unusual structure of the Swarmer, with a spinal cord that ends with a tail, echoes the same structural design philosophy as the Acolytes. This has led for some analysts to believe that the Swarmers, like the Acolytes, were originally from a Bentusi fighter design. However, the Swarmers do not have the same linking technology as the Acolytes.
It is remarkable that of all known races, the Kadeshi never required a Corvette class strike vessel. The enormous firepower of a Swarmer—equal to a Heavy Corvette—would take care of that. But most importantly, the reliance of only a singe strike chassis meant that the Kadeshi had pure advantages of production volume. This meant that the Swarmers could be built in lower costs and faster time than any other fighter. This is also crucial in the light that the thin Needleships do not contain enough ship building capacity to build a variety of ships. The lessons here are now being studied by both Hiigaran and Taiidan Fleet Commands, discarding the entire corvette class with the goal of building a single inexpensive unified fighter of heavy firepower and great performance that can be built by a new class of small inexpensive carriers. A partial implementation of such an idea has already taken place with the Somtaaw’s Acolyte.
The superior attributes of a Swarmer did not come with a cost. The large armament and overpowered engines leave little room for fuel capacity, and the range of the Swarmer is only a third of that of a Kushan Scout This poor range is sufficiently only for a defensive interceptor but not a ship raiding vessel—the Turanic Bandit has almost six times the range. This odd attribute laid a question to most analysts’ minds about the original purpose of the Swarmer, that it was originally primarily a defensive craft.
The poor range meant that Swarmers have to refuel often, and the fuel supply ships known as Fuel Pods have to be drawn closer to the battle front where the Swarmers can dock and refuel. This vulnerability was exposed during the Homeworld Wars, when Kushan strike forces targetted Fuel Pods for destruction, leaving Swarmers drifting in space without fuel.
In view of the poor fuel capacity, the Kadeshi designed a second chassis with a more efficient drive and increased fuel capacity. This would become the Advanced Swarmer. The AS increased the size of the lower pod structure to house even larger armaments and fuel capacity. The more efficient drive and increased fuel only incrementally improved fuel endurance, but some analysts insist that the improvements were insignificant. It seemed that the increased mass of the fighter meant that the Advanced Swarmer drive had to power harder to retain the same level of performance as the standard Swarmer. This increased fuel consumption, negating the advantages of an increased fuel capacity and more efficient engine.
The main advantage of the Advanced Swarmer was the switch to a quadruple cannon array from the standard dual cannon system used in the Swarmer. The smaller cannons sacrifice punch, but double the amount of shells they can throw into space, increasing rate of damage and probability of hits.
Compared to the mass drivers of Kushan and Taiidan fighters, the ones in the Swarmers seemed primitive and inefficient. While they have a superior firing rate over other fighters, they also have a much shorter range, despite their long barrels, considerably longer than the ones used by Kushan and Taiidan fighters. This does not seem to hinder the Kadeshi somewhat, as they prefer to come in close to their targets before shooting. But the poor technological quality of the Swarmer cannons were in contrast to the advancement represented with the mini ion beam cannons used in the Kadeshi MBFs. This further reinforced the suggestion to analysts that the ion beam cannons had an alien origin.
Shortly after the Beast War, an event would happen that would dramatically alter Swarmer evolution and made it the formidable offensive weapon seen in the Crusade. The Kadeshi were able to capture a Somtaaw Acolyte, and with it, access to the technologically advanced highly efficient Bentusi engine, also known as HE. In the grand tradition of technology cloning and copying the Kadeshi had established a reputation for, the drive was adapted to the Swarmer design.
The result was an upgraded, “Super Swarmer” that greatly increased the endurance of the fighter without performance sacrifice. This meant that the Fuel Pods can stay further back from the battle, or even eliminated at all, as the Swarmers now can return directly to the Needleships and assault carriers to refuel. With the surplus of Fuel Pods, the Pods were modified to adapt to new tasks for the fleet. Hiigaran Fleet command never came up with a new designation for the upgraded Swarmers and Advanced Swarmers, and still refer to them by their original name.
As the Crusade went on, the demands laid for the Swarmer became heavier. No longer just capturing mere transports lost in the Gardens, the Kadeshi have to fight full battles against Turanic, Taiidani and Kushan capital ships. Despite the already impressive firepower in existing Swarmers, the Kadeshi religious hierarchy wanted a more powerful strike craft against these capital ships, and they do not have a true corvette. However, they do not have the time and luxury to come up with an all new strike ship design.
With a tradition for resourcefulness, and improvisation a true Hiigaran race is known for, the Kadeshi chose the potentially versatile Advanced Swarmer chassis as the basis for a new line of Strike Swarmers. The large lower pod provided enough space for differing armaments.
The first is the Assault Swarmer. This is basically the AS fitted with the deadly medium caliber cannon used in the Fuel Pod. This gave a little fighter an almost frigate like punch. The design drawback is that the firing rate of the cannon meant that the ship is not as good tackling other fighters than older Swarmers. This requires Assault Swarmers to be escorted by other Swarmers. This is essentially, the first of the Strike Swarmers that filled an attack bomber role for the Kadeshi. Disadvantages of this type includes the higher cost and longer building time than required for an ordinary Swarmer.
The second type is the Beam Swarmer. This is an AS fitted with the mini ion beam canon found in MBFs. The Beam Swarmer was brought about by a change of Taiidani tactics. At first tactics to neutralize Swarmers centered on Gravwells, until the Kadeshi learrned to target gravwells with Assault and Bomb Pods. The Taiidans shifted their defensive tactics to Field Frigates and Defence Fighters, which greatly neutralized the Assault Swarmer’s firepower.
Seeing that ion beams are not affected by Field Frigates and Defence Fighters, Kadeshi engineers placed a mini ion beam cannon in the weapon compartment of the Advanced Swarmer. At a slightly greater cost in weight, the Beam Swarmer proved to be a formidable strike craft, handling the same role as the Beam Acolyte was for the Somtaaw fleet. The ion beam however, made the Beam Swarmer an inferior anti-fighter ship, and other Swarmers are required to escort Beam Swarmer wings. Another problem is its high cost relative to other Swarmers, and like the Assault Swarmer, seemed subjected to the same long production time.
To deal with the problems brought by the Beam Swarmer, a third type was concieved—-the Missile Swarmer. Supplies of ion beam cannons proved to be limited, as demand proved to be high for MBF use. This cut down the production for Beam Swarmers. Along with ion beams, missiles proved to be able to pass through Field Frigates and Defence Fighters. Using technology from captured Turanic Missile Corvettes, a missile rack is placed on the weapons compartment of an Advanced Swarmer and the Missile Swarmer was born. The Missile Swarmer also proved to be capable of its being its own escort, as missiles deal with the fighter opposition surprisingly well.
The disadvantage of the Missile Swarmer is its limited hold. It must return to a new dedicated ship, the Missile Pod, dock with it and reload. Because it needed to reload anyway, the Missile Swarmer used stocks of old Advanced Swarmer Drives instead of the more advanced HE (High Efficiency) Acolyte derived drive. This lowered the cost of the Missile Swarmer and its production time. Nonetheless, there were plans to use the HE drive on Missile Swarmers, but the end of the Crusade came before these were implemented. Despite the ceasefire, it is believed that such ships are undergoing trials. The Missile Swarmer proved to be an effective supplement to the Kadeshi strike wings.
Spy Swarmer—Little is known about this ship, and even after the Ceasefire, the Kadeshi refused to provide details or even acknowledge of its existence. But analysts were speculating that the Kadeshi were using spy ships scouting areas ahead of their main formations. Analysts have taken liberties to portray how a Spy Swarmer would be like.
The ship would be based on an Advanced Swarmer using the HE drive. The weapons are removed for sensory equipment and for more fuel capacity, and it is possible that mimic or cloaking generators may be onboard.
Kadeshi Assault Carrier—Little is known about this type. It is apparently based on the derelict Hiigaran Empire era carrier found in the Gardens. As the Needleship is based building around a hyperspace inhibitor, some compromises have to be made with the ship building and docking capacity of these ships. The Kadeshi also needed something that can produce quicker than a Needleship. The Kadeshi Assault Carrier, which is similar to a Kushan Imperator carrier, filled that gap. Towards the end of the Crusade, the proportion of Assault Carriers to Needleships have grown in favor of the ACs, a reflection of their obvious tactical value.
Kadeshi Heavy Cruiser—As adaptation of the derelict carrier chassis, the Heavy Cruiser was supposed to provide punch to the Kadeshi armada, as the Kadeshi adjusted to the requirements of a fully offensive fleet. However, analysts consider the Kadeshi HC to be inferior to the Taiidani and Kushan HCs like the Qwaar-jet and Avatar, a reflection of the Kadeshi inexperience on building major capital ship design and their reliance mostly on strike craft.
The Arkships—The Kadeshi were originally thought to place their population on the Needleships. But some analysts disputed the original Fleet Intelligence observation that Needleships were motherships, and the bulk of the Kadeshi population had to be in ships even far larger. Two issues damaged Fleet Command’s theory, and they in evitably proved to be true.
The first is that the Needleships had to be built by a far larger structure. Second that structure had to be manned with a much larger population.
Similar to the newly discovered nomadic L’hosh race, the Kadeshi developed huge motherships, each nearly three times as big as the Kushan mothership. Called Arkships, each can hold up to a maximum of 1 million souls, and the Kadeshi after three millenia, made 12 of these ships. The Arkships contain farms for food production, temples for worship, factories for chemical and resource synthesization as well as ship building factories. It is observed that they seem poorly armed for their size.
After the Crusade, Kushan observers cited the slums and poor living conditions in the Arkships, which seemed in a state of deterioration. There was much symphathy for the Kadeshi population, the majority of whom seemed to live in abject poverty. There was speculation that indeed, if Arkships continue to deteriorate, the Kadeshi indeed would need to migrate their population to a planet.
Kadeshi Resourcer—Little is known about this type, but it seemed to be based on a captured Bentusi barge design. The Resourcer seemed optimize for gas collection in the Nebula, and its thick destroyer class hide was meant to resist the dangerous radiation and rock streams in some parts of the Nebula.
Probe Bomb—This is indeed a cheap weapon. This is a one shot probe fitted with quantum explosives that can send shockwaves to damage targets nearby. The Kadeshi often use this to preempt gravwell based enemy defences.
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Excerpts from Page 2: “Interview with Engineer Qu’haar Somtaaw, Designer of the Beam Acolyte.”
Q: When you were aboard the Kuun-Laan, the Bentusi had given you the Super Acolytes but told you that they would remove all knowledge of the craft after it’s purpose was done, what thoughts were running in your head?
A: Well, we know that the Bentusi had advanced computer technology so they could tap into our computer banks and erase the data. We also know they, as the Unbound, had some sort of telephatic power. So we cannot trust that information in our minds and computers. For a while, we have been working on a Beam Acolyte of our own before the Bentusi loaned us the Super Acolytes. However, we had encountered cooling problems when we were trying to adapt the ion beam cannon from the Dervish into the Acolyte chassis.
When we got the Super Acolytes, I took my camera and quickly photograph as much of the internals as we can possibly can in the short time we have. I also got my audio recorder and made a voice recording as we quickly explored the internals. Of particular interest to us was the cooling system.
You see the key in producing power in an ion beam cannon is to keep it cool. The cooler you can keep it, the more power it can generate and sustain. There is no limit of power you can build inside an ion beam cannon, but if you can’t cool it fast enough, the damn thing will blow.
Suffice to say, the Bentusi gave us the amnesia treatment, but the we had the photographs and the voice recordings that provided us with the breakthrough that led to Super Acolytes of our own, the Beam Acolyte. The only thing we could not master is the Beam Modulation technology the original Super Acolytes had, that particularly tuned the Ion beam frequency against the Beast’s defences. But even if we photographed that, we still could not grasp the principles behind it, so that part was clearly unattainable.
Q: Did you ever had the chance to study the Kadeshi equivalent, the Beam Swarmer?
A: Yes we did through a captured example. We also have captured samples of the Kadeshi MBF. The Kadeshi worked out their beam cooling systems long ago and perfected it to a tee. The Beam Swarmer also had a larger weapons compartment that allowed for a larger cooling system to be installed. We did not have that luxury, the space inside an Acolyte was quite compact. We even had to remove the Linking equipment to make room.
Q: Are you satisfied with the performance of the Beam Acolytes so far?
A: Oh yes. The Beam Acolytes have performed magnificently in battle. We were using Beam Acolytes against evolved fragments of the Beast and with pockets of Imperial resistance, but the Crusade was the first real test of the fighter to be deployed in a mass, decisive scale. By then we have an upgraded version that resolved production issues and flight handling bugs.
Q: So what is your next project?
A: We’re developing a pulse ion cannon. As you know, we shoot big beams off the cannons. That sucks when it comes to rate of fire and that’s not good against small, fast fighters. Here, we divide the energy into a rapid series of pulses, sort of like a rapid mass fire cannon, but using ions. We will be soon fielding the prototype into test trials.
Q: You know you are up to the award of the Star of Sajuuk?
A: I am grateful and honored to be nominated by my peers and the members of the Daiamid.
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Excerpts from Page 12, “Interview with Four Star Admiral G’aas Paktu, the brains behind the Baal-Haasim, Hiigara’s first true new Assault Carrier.”
Q: What is an Assault Carrier?
A: Simple. It is a carrier with the firepower of a destroyer. Our previous carrier designs have poor capability against capital ships. Because of this, they have be escorted by large numbers of frigates or destroyers as they go into enemy space. To maintain such a fleet is itself an expensive proposition. If a carrier cannot stay in the front lines, it has to launch its strike craft further behind. More fuel is consumed, there is less endurance over the battlespace, fighters have to take a longer time to return to the carrier. This can be a life and death matter if the strike craft is damaged or has run out of fuel. The effectivity of a carrier is determined by how close we can bring it to the battlespace, and the closer it gets the more danger it will get. We need to counter that threat by equipping a carrier with some firepower on its own.
Q: So when did you think about this?
A: I was a pilot aboard the Mothership when we first encountered the Rancor, which is a Turanic Lord class carrier. Somehow the idea behind the Rancor stayed in my mind when I thought about the feeble protection they have equipped the Imperator and Shaman carriers. They have repeated the same mistake the Taiidans did with their carriers. As usual, I had a lot of opposition with my colleagues who are purists pledged to defend the sanctity and elegance of their concepts, without putting an ounce of common sense that every carrier put into battlespace will inevitably be subjected to capital ship attack. My model of an assault carrier was the Rancor. Whatever problems the Lord class carrier has, it does not seem insurmountable and can be designed around such.
So I approached the Liirhra about whether they can build such a ship and they indeed can. The Paktu Kiithsa agreed and the matter was brought to Fleet Command and the Daiamid. Approval was given for the construction of the Baal-Haasim. The light of the threat from the Kadeshi Crusade was an important factor.
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Page 25, “Interview with a Turanic Royalty, Princess Zha of the House of Khor”
Q: How do you like Hiigara?
A: It’s really a beautiful world. I like so far what I see. I have been in a planet before.
Q: It’s not normal for a teenage girl like you to have your own carrier much less a task force.
A: It’s burden and a responsbility as well. That comes with being royalty, losing your father, inheriting all he had. There were kingdoms and empires when children suddenly had to be kings and emperors. That’s a pretty heavy burden so if you think about it, I got off pretty light. I guess I had to grow up pretty quick. I also had some good advisors It’s a long story and I’m not in the mood to discuss it in length.
Q: I heard that you are a major ship enthusiast?
A: Yes, I like fighters. I custom them as my hobby in my spare time. Having your own carrier is definitely an advantage. I collect some fighters.
Q: Any favorites?
A: I used to have custom Fiirkan. Pretty fast ship, nice to handle. We picked up some surplus Arrows and I had recently test flown an Acolyte and a Blade Mk 6. But my favorite is always the Triikor. It’s got nice looks, and its easy to work at it. I got some Kadeshi Swarmers and they’re awfully fast.
Q: Any plans you have, any relationships you are in?
A: Since this thing is going to be read by a lot of people, I like the opportunity to advertise our services. We can do escort work in the Outer sectors, do mercenary work…. Whatever deed you need, we will do. Having your own carrier and a task force means a lot of bills to pay, so we need to keep working…
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