Oh, This Ghastly ship

[Churba]

Ah, the wonders of open space. The only thing better than space is being IN space, with a Mighty big ship. And that big ship happens to be in the form of the Instigator Class Heavy Cruiser, Though some argue she has shed her title of Heavy Cruiser to become a pleasure cruiser, and with Large staterooms, state of the art computer, Library and entertainment systems, And Well stocked galleys and Lounges.

Of course, without her crew, a ship is dead metal. A crew gives a ship Atmosphere(Of the metaphorical sort, not the oxygen-nitrogen-misc sort), A cause, and a reason to exist.

And so, without further adue, The Dramatis personae, The Iorn men and women of this big durasteel ship -

A Ship is nothing without her Captain, and the Captain of this ship is Honor.
A Tough, Capable woman, Of noble birth Vast Resorces, and a seemingly infinite libido. She's a Hard woman, but this is not to say she's not without softness and kindness, but cross her, and you'll find Your place in the world - the side of the airlock generaly regarded as the Wrong one. The Favorite Niece of the emperor, but still known as somewhat a black sheep of the family, abandoning a promising millitary career to captain two pleasure cruisers, a life of debachery and quasi-legal dealings, smuggling and mercenary activities. Her prices are high and her clients handpicked, but with her skill and experience, she can afford to be choosy.

The nearest thing to a second in command, the driving force behind the ship - or at least, the driver of it - Our dashing, wild, and more than slightly mercenary pilot, Churba. Stripped from the Fighter command of the Emperor's millitary, where his piloting skill only rivaled by his michevious streak a mile wide. His ashtray in the cockpit is made from a No smoking sign he ripped from the wall of the bridge on his first day on the ship. All Charisma knowing humor and sly bad-boy charm, Firing sass, vitriol and one liners past a glass of high class booze and through a cloud of smoke from his longer than normal Cigarettes, don't be fooled. His uniform of Jeans, t-shirts and leather coats, with his smooth swagger of a walk, screams "Casual" but the gunbelt at his waist and low slung holsters on his hips, and his quick, precise movements whisper "deadly". With stones the size of a planet, and boatloads of moxie, He's a fun guy to be around, but deadly to cross.

Our big bird is kept flying with love, Iorn will, and of course, by the mechanic DmentDStuff. A Mechanical and improvisational genius, known To be able to fix anything with little more than Chewing gum, bailing wire, and a hefty supply of Spacer's tape. He's put together and taken apart more things on the ship than anyone in space, and has built and invented many widgets, gidgets, midgets, and other essential items for the crew. Most famous on the ship for commenting once "She may be the captains ship, but they're MY FUCKING ENGINES."

Of course, working the ship's galleys is the ship's cook fireydragon, Named so for the firey chilly often produced from the ship's kitchens, one of the crew's favorites and the environmental systems worst nightmares. Able to cook anything you can think of, and a master of the gastranomical arts.

The ship, she's got a few quirks. Like the ship's ghost, RevChris. He could have been evicted long ago with the advanced Exorcisim technologies avalible, mathamaticly fomulated chants, Psyonic Amplifiers, and Backpack nuclear accelerators, but the crew prefer to have him around, calling him "Good luck" - though he does tend to appear at times to suprise the crew with his constant, raging ghostly boner.

He's most often seen by the ships Sysop and the universe's most priveldged voyouer, lesotheron. Monitoring the security feeds on this vast and sexy ship, he keeps the computer systems running smoothly, and the income on the way in from his sideline selling "Crew gone wild" Holo-disks.

Every ship has its shadier crew, and the two on this voyage are The Sexy Fork and Napalmxmorning, The ships resident Assassin and Ninja Respectively.
Striking from the shadows a specialy, and sexy at no extra charge, it is inadvisable to cross these two. Masters of infiltration, stealth and death, they are legendary through the Gallaxy's underworld, a well deserved reputation, which is why they were put on the payroll in the first place.

BriHahn, the ship's doctor, Patches up the crew's various aches, pains, dings, dents and scratches, with her highly advanced medical bay, Nanite facility, and a less than passing penchant for Hazily legal soldier-boosts. Her skills are second to none, but her array of Surgical tools are sometimes a little suspect - let's just say there's a reason one of her med-bay drawers is labeled "Sexual healing"

Lowky is the poor, put upon ship's laundry officer. Suffers from a Chronic lack of work - with clothes not being mandatory, the laundry business is a slow business. Instead, This officer persues his own questionable hobbies and persuits, though the knowlege of fabric softeners and detergents posessed by this officer is astounding.

Ah, fnyunj. Nobody quite knows what this crewmember does, but its assumed that the role filled is the security officer, with his background in Police interdiction. A grumpy, cynical, and constantly complaining crewmember, but everyone knows they'd rather have this one aboard than not.

Seth Marati is the essential of every crew - the eager young cadet. Like a puppy on crack, he's always there, watching, running around, and urinating on the newspapers.
He'll make it big, someday, but right now, he's just dreaming and trying.

Aboard the boat, we also have a compliment of passengers, Reesa-chan, the Cute young thing, running around and causing mischef, Swordsman3003, WangyJohn, space travel and pleasure connosiers, Kittyboymuffin, the ship's cat, aeridus, a galaxy famous musician, ce6, a helpful bloke, skilled enough to throw in where needed, yet still not part of the offical crew, Slander, the unidentifable thing in the crate with a passion and skill(Not to mention the appendages) for tentacle rape.
Well, It ain't our business to tell their stories, but here's the place to hear them.

So now, we release you into the ship - Have fun, and please, don't step on the mouse-droids.

[BriHahn]

All I can say is, if we have that many crew and passengers, we're clearly on the supersized Firefly-class ship.

[Kittyboymuffin]

Now I'm imagining myself in this situation:

:3

[Honor]

(more traditional Captain's Greeting to follow... this is just informational stuff...)

All I can say is, if we have that many crew and passengers, we're clearly on the supersized Firefly-class ship.

Hon... The Instigator could dock a Firefly.


Excellent (and fun) write-up, Churba... Thank you :-) At some point I'll have to let the other Instigator crew know there's another version of the ship out there... The original is a privateer in a small SCA-like group called "The Corsairs", and a role-playing game (for fleshing out adventures and experience). Some detail below, in case anyone's interested.

My personna/character name there is Tammy McCloud... Her real name is Tamara Tr'kette de la Croix-Alkhalikoi... Something she chose to hide when she went to the Naval Academy, since her mother was the Sector Admiral, her Father was a sub-sector admiral and major shipping magnate, and her uncle was... yeah. By the time she reached the rank of Commodore under her own steam, it had become something of an "open secret". She and her parents remain the favorite NPC patrons of both myself and my players in my Traveller games to the present...

Even in the spin off and other games, the Captain is usually an NPC run by me as well... Both because most of my players are Instigator crew, and don't like the idea of anyone else being Captain, and also because having the "big picture" decisions made by someone else allows them much more interactive role-play opportunity.

Admiral Duchess Sir tammy McCloud is the Deputy Sector Admiral for Deneb, and Duchess of Kennebeck, in the Domain of Petrarch. Her father is Admiral Duke Sir Ashford de la Croix... Subsector Admiral for Petrarch, Duke of Petrarch with feudal rule over six systems, current owner and principal of Orion Shipyards, and one of the premier naval architects in known space. Her mother is Admiral Duchess Sir Tr'kette Alkhalikoi, Sector Admiral for Deneb, Duchess of Antra with feudal rule over eight systems, and current owner and principal of Antra Lines.

The Instigator was purpose designed as a heavy privateer by Ashford de la Croix for the Imperial Letter of Marque program he helped to initiate, and he was her first Captain. The numerous upgrades and "absolutely no corners cut" mentality of her design makes the design prohibitively expensive, even for military use... So she remains a unique one-off class, and is likely to remain so. She incorporates several technologies that were (and some remain) highly experimental and classified, giving her performance well outside what any potential enemy would even hypothetically consider possible.

It's widely rumored that one of de la Croix's primary motivations in designing the Letter of Marque program was to get himself off the Flag Bridge and back into a command chair, and several notable Naval Admirals have followed his lead. The fact that the operating parameters of a privateer allow for... a certain degree of 'freedom' not often found in active service is just gravy.

Captains in the Letter of Marque system must temporarily move to reserve status to maintain the veil of legal deniability they work under, but most every Captain in the program maintains close ties to the Imperial Navy.

Admirals de la Croix and McCloud "share" access to the Instigator, and both return to their active duty posts between "vacations".... Hence the reference to Tammy's "other" ship, the Empress Arbellatra (Traveller canon already has a perfectly boring DN named Arbellatra, but she's my favorite empress, so I guiltlessly stole it... Prestigious ship names are often re-issued. ;-)

All SD (SuperDreadnaught) classes are massive by any reasonable definition of the word, but those designed and built by Orion are practically a class-group unto themselves... If de la Croix had a better semantic reaction to the designation "Monitor", they'd be called such. Were I on my home computer, I could pull up design specifics and even size-comparison illustrations to bore you with... But I'm not. Lucky you. :-)

The Star class SD's are designed and built by Orion - no external licenses have yet been issued, and, in truth, only three or four other shipyards could lay one down if they were. For illustration, the Stars use the same wedge hull principal as the Executer, but is approximately three times her size in every dimension. The first Star class was the Star of Antra, which was a personal gift to Duchess Tr'kette from Emperor Strephon and Duke de la Croix.

The new Empress SDs are well over twice the size and displacement of a Star class... Part of their design mission is to act as a fleet tender for a one-ship strike force... She can disgorge six potent BR (Battle Riders - fully functional Battleships without Jump drives - and extra weaponry, speed, and maneuverability taking up the saved space) and a bewildering array of support craft from fighters to Destroyers and Cruisers. Relatively few star systems are well enough defended, by their own virtue, to discourage an Empress class.

(Incidently, the Empress class isn't the largest ship I've ever designed... Remind me to tell you about the Neptune Class tanker sometime. Obviously, the highly detailed and complicated Starship Design System GDW put into it's SF RPGs is a diversion I enjoy -way- too much...)

So... What do we want to do with this newest incarnation of this ship...?

[Seth Marati]

Great write-up, Churba. I can't wait to see what roles other forum denizens fall into. There's just so much potential for role playing and fanfictionesque (except they'd actually be good) writings. (Also, I'm amused, and a little humbled, by how the eager young cadet is in fact older than the pilot.)

Honor: Do you mean to say you have actual schematics and such for these wondrous flying constructs? I want to see!

[Lowky]

I just got to say those that do bother with clothing need to learn some better personal hygiene. I got more skid marks in the laundry room than a 20th century airport landing strip. And for goodness sake, use the rubber sheets not the good silk ones when playing with your pudding (and an invite to the next pudding party would be nice as well).

wanders off muttering about space time continuum and reversing to C as a way to remove stains.

[Aeridus]

Hooray!

*moves his things into his new quarters, including 10 different musical instruments and a giant box of musically inclined sex toys*

*brings his hammered dulcimer out to the lounge and proceeds to play various Celtic tunes*

[Reesa-chan]

*wanders into the lounge with a teddy in one hand, dragging the cat by his tail with the other, and stops to listen to the music*

[BriHahn]

*comes into the lounge after Reesa* Honey, I wasn't done giving the cat his checkup; can I have him back please?

[Reesa-chan]

But we's PLAYING!

*shows Bri how she's dressed him in doll clothes*

[Lulujayne]

You left me off the ship's manifest Churba *goes all dewy eyed*

[Lesotheron]

*clicks the intercom*

Captain, the ship's systems are all in the green. I've adjusted the atmospheric controls to a slightly higher concentration of nitrous oxide. This should keep some of our surlier crew and guests pleasant for the trip.

Oh, and the last batch of "Crew Gone Wild" Holo-discs sold better than I thought. Your cut is about 23% higher than anticipated.

I'm going to go fix the night-vision on the security camera in Churba's cabin. All of last night's footage was ruined when he turned on the strobe light.

[Xnapalmxmorningx]

*is busy checking over her weapons*

[Xero]

You left me off the ship's manifest Churba *goes all dewy eyed*

-joins lulu-

[Lulujayne]

Not to worry Xero, I've taken it upon myself to run the ships bar and den of ill-repute. We stock the only the finest libations, infusions, chemical and neural enhancements this side of the known universe.

I've hand-picked the finest musicians and entertainers that this galaxy has to offer, and we're open 24/7.

I need a good barman Xero, and good barmen are worth their weight in gold. Perhaps you could be of assistance?

I only have one rule in this fine establishment, anyone who requests "Hotel California," "Stairway To Heaven" or "The Girl From Ipanema" will immediately be thrown out an airlock.

Tonight, everybody, your poison of choice is on the house

[Xero]

Not to worry Xero, I've taken it upon myself to run the ships bar and den of ill-repute. We stock the only the finest libations, infusions, chemical and neural enhancements this side of the known universe.

I've hand-picked the finest musicians and entertainers that this galaxy has to offer, and we're open 24/7.

I need a good barman Xero, and good barmen are worth their weight in gold. Perhaps you could be of assistance?

I only have one rule in this fine establishment, anyone who requests "Hotel California," "Stairway To Heaven" or "The Girl From Ipanema" will immediately be thrown out an airlock.

Tonight, everybody, your poison of choice is on the house

got it lulu

-arms a lolicannon- *bleep bleep*
so time to look pretty
-gives the lolicannon an apron-

we're good then
-gets behind the bar-

[Churba]

Hon... The Instigator could dock a Firefly

You could dock a squadron of the bastards in ONE of the Docking bays.

For illustration, the Stars use the same wedge hull principal as the Executer,

That's Executor, Ma'am, at 19,000 Meters, and the first of the Executor class Star Dreadnoughts. The size comparison would put both the Instigator and the Empress Arbellatra at 57,000 Meters.

[Honor]

Hon... The Instigator could dock a Firefly

You could dock a squadron of the bastards in ONE of the Docking bays.

For illustration, the Stars use the same wedge hull principal as the Executer,

That's Executor, Ma'am, at 19,000 Meters, and the first of the Executor class Star Dreadnoughts. The size comparison would put both the Instigator and the Empress Arbellatra at 57,000 Meters.

Ah... A clarification is in order...

The Executer is nomenclatured a "Super Star Destroyer" (Presumably because it's a "super sized" Star Destroyer... Ol' George may have had any number of strong suits when he wrote those books, but Naval nomenclature obviously wasn't one of them... For anyone who doesn't know, a Destroyer (or DD or "Tin Can") is a very light fleet escort & patrol craft... Terrifying to any civilian or merchant craft, and maybe 99.9% of pirates, but barely an annoyance to a Warship.)

The Star Class I mentioned from my Trav universe is the SD that's three times the size of the Executer. The Empress Class SD's are twice as large as that...

But the Instigator is a Heavy Cruiser... A class that falls on the food chain between (Cx) Cruisers and (BC) Battle Cruisers (although, in some navies, BC and HC are essentially interchangeable.) ...In fact, speaking of said food chain, because it amuses me to generate it, and in the spirit of pretending anyone but me cares... I'll give you, for comparison:

• An Ordered Listing of Armed Craft...
  Type Name(s) - (Designation Abbreviations) Typical Displacement Tonnage
  (In fleet designations, the first four classes are generally considered "fighter screen)
• Figter - (FM - Missile Fighter, FE - Energy Weapon Fighter, FB - Fighter Bomber) - 10-25 TD
• Gunship / Gunboat - (GB, GM) - 50-150 TD
• Patrol Cruiser / Patrol Craft - (PC) - 100-250 TD
• System Defense Boat - (SDB) - 250-500 TD
  (Except as noted, nomenclatures above this level are usually jump (or 'hyperspace') capable... Below this level, usually not... Although J-capable Patrol craft and SDBs are not unheard of.)
  (In fleet designations, the following four classes are considered "screening elements")
• **Escort [really more a role than a nomenclature, typically ranging from SDBs to Escort Destroyers, when used as a nomenclature]
• Escort Destroyer [Sometimes styled "Frigates"] - (DE) - 500-2500 TD
• Destroyer - (DD) - 2500-10,000 TD
• Light Cruisers - (CL) - 5000-25,000 TD
• Cruisers - (CR - Cruiser, CM - Missile Cruisers, CE - EW Cruisers) - 25,000-50,000 TD
  (In fleet designations, the following two classes are generally considered light ships of the line/wall... which is to say barely heavy enough to stand in the "Line-" or "Wall of battle". (Line of battle is the more antiquated term, carried over from the days of wet navies... "Wall of Battle" is the more modern terminology) The age-of-sail Wet Navy would have called them 2nd and 3rd Rate, because of the pay rates of the officers who would typically command them... As opposed to the "First Rate" Capital Ships... The sources of the terms 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rate, to this day... Although, ironically, back then "2nd rate" and "3rd rate" meant "not quite the best", while, today, they tend to mean "almost the worst" or "barely acceptable". This designation shorthand extended to the 5th and 6th rate ships, back then.)
• Heavy Cruisers - (CH) - 50,000-100,000 TD
• Battle Cruisers - (BC) - 75,000-125,000 TD
  (In fleet designations, classes above this level are generally considered "Capital Ships' or 'Ships of the Line/Wall'... The heavy hitters that are designed to stand in the wall of battle and, protected from nuisance attacks by small craft by the 'fighter screen' and 'screening elements', deliver the formidable primary punch of one navy in battle with another.)
• BattleShips / Battle Riders - (BB, BR) - 100,000-250,000... sometimes upwards of 500,000 TD
• Dreadnaughts - (DN) - 500,000-1,000,000... sometimes upwards of 2,500,000 TD
• Super Dreadnaughts - (SD) - generally 2,500,000+ TD
• Monitors - (MM) - So large they're really barely ships... Or, small orbital fortresses that are capable of movement beyond basic station keeping.

The designations are specific to my Traveller Universe, and are based on a blend of Terran historical naval standards, Traveller Canon, and that used in David Weber's luscious Honor Harrington books.

You'll note significant overlap in many of these, and some of each class may well go above or below the listed values... The numbers & information above are very general guidelines. The Navy has no "hard and fast rules" that, say, 10,001 Displacement Tonnes has to be a Cruiser instead of a Destroyer.

For comparison, I'd guess that a Firefly, converted to Traveller specs, would run between maybe 250 and 1000 displacement tonnes.

If I remember correctly, the Instigator is around 115,000. (Although, the number 65,000 keeps inserting itself into my mind, too... It's been over ten years since my Chief Engineer and I designed her.)

Do you mean to say you have actual schematics and such for these wondrous flying constructs? I want to see!

The "designs" are primarily figures and statistics, and basic deck drawings and elevations... Even with computers and my skill level in vector drawing programs, full deck plans and schematics for a ship like Instigator would represent hundreds of hours of work... Which is why full deck plans remain a fond dream for most of my larger designs... But one I jealously guard the hope to fulfill at some point. When I get home (someday!) I'll dig up the drawings I have, though.

[Churba]

The Executer is nomenclatured a "Super Star Destroyer" (Presumably because it's a "super sized" Star Destroyer... Ol' George may have had any number of strong suits when he wrote those books, but Naval nomenclature obviously wasn't one of them... For anyone who doesn't know, a Destroyer (or DD or "Tin Can") is a very light fleet escort & patrol craft... Terrifying to any civilian or merchant craft, and maybe 99.9% of pirates, but barely an annoyance to a Warship.)

I'm getting my info from Here - http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Star_Destroyer

and here

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Executor

But the basic Version is that the proper name for them is a Star Dreadnought, But the common slang for them is a Super Star Destroyer, In the same way that Aircraft carriers are sometimes called Supercarriers, and B-52s sometimes being called BUFFs (Big Ugly fat Fuckers)

But the Proper name for the ship I think you're thinking of (Flagship of the imperial fleet, and Vader's personal cruiser) Is definitely The Executor.

The Star Class I mentioned from my Trav universe is the SD that's three times the size of the Executer. The Empress Class SD's are twice as large as that...

That, I didn't know - I'm only passingly familiar with traveler universe.

EDIT - Also, now that I know what universe roughly we're setting in, I can do a quick personal writeup for Myself.

[BriHahn]

But we's PLAYING!

*shows Bri how she's dressed him in doll clothes*

*eyes the cat(boy) in doll clothes* *eyes glaze over for a moment as naughty thoughts run through her head* *shakes head to clear it* Work... it's time for work now... *mumbles to herself*

I'll tell you what honey; I have some candy in the medlab with your name on if you let me *ahem* borrow Mr. Kittyboy for a half an hour, okay?