There are many great types of Sci-Fi stories that have been written and many of these touch on the wonder of being among the stars, or horror as the case may be sometimes. In order for them to do this, there is something that is typically required. Ships, and sometimes lot's of them. Now, in a story where there are different factions it often isn't enough that there's just ships. Each faction must have their own ships that speak to their personalities and, in a sense, stand as symbols of what they are. You would tend to expect a war-focused race to NOT troll around in small unarmed craft throwing nothing around but insults on hailing frequencies. While it may be amusing, it's hardly believable.
In the Sundruntan Galaxy, the galaxy in which my upcoming novel "Drifters: Origins" takes place, there is a wide variety of different alien races beyond the Beast Humans of the Corinthian worlds. You will find the large and powerful Rhynos, the small scrappy Severen, the elusive Elverin, the seemingly calm and collected Kin, and many others.
For this blog entry, I'll begin going into some of the different ship design philosophies that one would find in the Sundruntan galaxy starting with the Corinthian powers. I say powers because unlike most other races in the known galaxy, they are not all unified under a single banner. Without going off on a rabbit trail away from my main point, I can best summarize the situation by saying that a time of turmoil on the densely populated world of Corinth led to a mass exodus. In this mass exodus nearly one fifth of the entire planet's population took to the stars and populated worlds beyond those previously marked for controlled colonization efforts.
The result was the formation of an uncontrolled area of space known as the Frontier that surrounds the entirety of the more established Corinthian inner worlds. Within the Frontier, there are many independent powers and worlds as well as two major ones that are growing powerful enough to threaten the inner colony worlds who have banded together with their homeworld to form the Corinthian Confederation. The two major Frontier powers are the Teresfall Empire and the Black Thorn Pirates.
Corinthian Confederation
The ship design philosophy of the Corinthian Central Government, the governing body of the Corinthian Confederation, is based entirely within the ancient history of their home world. After the War Against Corruption ended, there were two final major wars that took place on Corinth, the First and Second Canine Invasions. In both conflicts, a well trained and equipped Canine military force was led across the Great Eastern River with the goal of annexing a portion of the, then unaffiliated, Fox territories. In the first invasion, the Canine army was able to cross into the eastern Fox territories with little resistance until after they had already begun driving Fox populations out of their scattered settlements and small cities.
A growing number of highly skilled woodsman began independent hit-and-run campaigns against all Canine invaders. King Arlen the First, more commonly known as Arlen the Fool, dismissed the Fox hunters as true threats because they were not equipped with the full armor that his own soldiers possessed and were in far lesser numbers. He was reported to have said that, “The Foxes are too poorly equipped and primitive to pose any real threat,” shortly before a Fox’s arrow found his heart.
The second invasion by King Arlen the Second, Arlen the Insane, began in much the same way, except for one major difference, the Foxes began to organize and rushed to join the resistance in far greater numbers. In the second war, highly skilled Fox hunters operated in small units and proved capable of utterly devastating much larger Canine formations moving through the woods while hardly being seen by their opponents. Even bands of soldiers trained and equipped to hunt Fox hunters within the woods were sorely outmatched.
When Corinthian military planners first began researching past Corinthian wars to determine an overarching ship design doctrine, they found considerable inspiration within these two wars. In both wars, they judged that, while the Fox hunters were outnumbered, it was their greater maneuverability and larger number of weapons that proved their primary advantages. The standard Canine soldier in both conflicts were equipped with swords and shields to compliment their basic armor, while archers were mostly relegated to support roles and had only long daggers for melee combat.
In contrast, Foxes mostly wore light leather or no armor, allowing for more rapid movement than the standard Canine soldier, and were more heavily armed. A single Fox hunter would have been likely equipped with a bow, a large quiver of arrows, a hatchet, a short sword, hunting knife, and a variety of throwing weapons ranging from knives to axes. The overall performance of the Fox hunters led planners to decide on seeking ship designs that were highly maneuverable, heavily armed, and flexible.
However, unlike the Fox hunters, the Corinthian planners decided that all warships should also have the strongest defenses possible to improve survivability against any possible threats. These seemingly contradictory philosophies resulted in what other races term pocket-ships. Ship-for-ship, CCG war vessels are more expensive to produce than the comparable ship types of other races’ navies but, for their size, typically also have much greater firepower without sacrificing speed, shielding, or durable armor. Even while the CCG space fleet has yet to be involved in any full-scale wars, it is generally believed that any single class of CCG vessel would be an even match for a single ship belonging to another race’s navy of the next class size up.
While CCG warships have great flexibility and typically have wide range of energy cannons, missiles, and slugthrower cannons firing explosive shells, they have yet to follow the example of most other races in adopting a standard heavy primary weapon, or super weapon, for their capital ships. Several possible weapons and weapons systems are in consideration after reports of the capabilities of Teresfall Empire warships but none are currently in service.
The most common CCG weapon system is a charged energy cannon capable of firing packets of excited energy that can be set to self-terminate at pre-determined distances. When terminated within their maximum range, any and all remaining energy within the packet explodes violently. These explosions are not only capable of destabilizing enemy shields, particularly when fired rapidly, but are also capable of dealing great damage directly to enemy vessels. The ability to set maximum ranges for individual shots allows CCG vessels to move in amongst or encircle enemy vessels without concern of friendly fire, which would make them exceptionally lethal in any close-range fleet-on-fleet engagements.
Teresfall Empire
After subjugating the pirate factions within Sector One of the Outer Corinthian Territory, Adravious Noroban wasted no time in establishing shipyards for what he viewed as a proper fleet. His ships seem to be similar to Corinthian Confederation vessels in appearance but are more comparable to the ships of other races in size and weapon-to-size ratio allowing for the more heavy use of physical munitions such as cannons or missiles. Despite his aggressive efforts, the bulk of the Teresfall fleet consists of refitted and upgraded pirate vessels that fall under a broad range of types and classifications.
While not much is currently known about the purpose-built warships of the Teresfall Empire, it is believed that larger vessels have powerful rail-gun weapons that fire slugs of unknown composition that explode upon, or after, impacting with shields or ship hulls. All information about this weapon was given by captured Blackthorn Pirates who witnessed the use of the weapon in a border skirmish between their and Teresfall forces. It is believed that the size of the explosion is directly proportional to the force of impact. Also, it is suspected that each individual slug is also equipped with a special kill-charge capable of terminating the slug should it miss its target.
The belief of CCG military planners is that the High Explosive Rail Gun was developed specifically because of the previous lack of physical direct-fire weapons on CCG vessels. This prompted the CCG to refit many of their vessels to include advanced cannon systems capable of impacting these rail gun slugs and causing them to detonate before impacting ships. Although, due to the typical more compact size of CCG war vessels, they are limited in how many shells they can carry without sacrificing an adjacent weapon system. It is also the existence of the High Explosive Rail Gun that prompted the CCG to revisit the idea of designing ships with dedicated capital ship weapons.
According to reports, Teresfall warships do not possess energy weapons capable of firing self-terminating energy packets like CCG warships. It is also theorized that this may be the primary reason for Teresfall warships having a heavier reliance on physical munitions rather than a desire to counter the CCG.
Black Thorn Pirates
Initially, the Black Thorn Pirates had no single ship design philosophy and the pirates under the banner of the Black Thorn were responsible for acquiring and maintaining their own vessels by any means possible. Following the influx of pirates, criminals, and general ne’er do-wells fleeing from Sector One of the Frontier during the formation of the Teresfall Empire, the leader of the Black Thorn, Commodore Biekall, decided to take more active control of their territory and organize into a galactic power to rival Teresfall.
After the conquest and subjugation of shipyards and their supporting worlds, the Commodore decided on a strategy of building a fleet of larger and brutally powerful vessels that would then be supported by existing pirate vessels and dedicated escort ships equipped with fighters. The Black Thorn, unrestrained by moral concerns, are not opposed to weapons technology that other powers would shun such as radiation warheads, chemical warfare, and mass driver weaponry lacking any means of kill-switch technology, in combat or in the subjugation of civilian populations.
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