Alien Ships

[Graham Kennedy]

Links added to the Zaketh and Pymara ships. There's no entry for the Tain yet.

I don't really think of them as being like Wraith, by the way. No 'feeding' process or anything like it for one.

[Sonic Glitch]

Links added to the Zaketh and Pymara ships. There's no entry for the Tain yet.

I don't really think of them as being like Wraith, by the way. No 'feeding' process or anything like it for one.

I was looking more at the vat grown soldiers and semi organic ships. Perhaps species 8472 meets the dominion meets the borg?

[Tsukiyumi]

...species 8472 meets the dominion meets the borg?

Meets Abbott and Costello?

[Graham Kennedy]

Janan Ship



The Janan fleet is almost as mysterious as the Janan themselves. The displayed example is one of their largest, most powerful vessel classes and is typical of their design philosophy. The Janan favour large, curved hull shapes - apparently designed for a close fit within the ellipsoidal shape of the midspace drive field for higher drive efficiency. They carry a large red sphere at the rear which is apparently a power system of some sort, possibly a pure zero point device. The armament is something like AMP weaponry, but employs some form of projection system utterly unlike the turrets which the Coalition uses. The design illustrated above includes two very large weapon emplacements on the port and starboard towards the bow, with twenty two much smaller ones located along the spine and underside. At 8,561 metres in length and over a kilometre wide the design is considerably larger than a Coalition battleship, and is regarded approximately as powerful.

One notable feature of the Janan fleet is their employment of subships. Whilst they do use subships, these are generally much larger than those of other powers. A typical Janan fighter craft has a crew of three to as many as eight persons, making them rather slow and cumbersome craft. Whilst they are powerfully armed and protected, their agility is poor and they are not regarded as being effective. The Janan themselves employ these craft sparingly and carefully, indicating that they do recognise this weakness, yet they have never fielded smaller more capable craft despite the fact that they obviously have the capacity to construct them.

With the Janan as poorly understood as they are, it is difficult to explain this weakness. One theory is that their method of decision making seems to rely on significant numbers engaging in communal behaviour - the famous "singing". Although they have been known to operate indiviually in the civilian world, it is possible that a single Janan may not cope well when isolated from that decision making process and placed into a highly demanding and rapidly changing environment like a battle. The three to eight crew complement could therefore represent the minimum number needed to be able to function coherently.

Whatever the reason, the lack of effective fighters and attack craft significantly limit the combat capability of the Janan fleet. Despite their obvious industrial and technological advantages over the Coalition, most analysts believe that they two are approximately equal in capability, with a minority opinion even claiming that the Coalition has some overall advantage.

[Teaos]

If the big red ball is a power unit it is in a rather open location.

[Graham Kennedy]

Nice target, isn't it?

[Graham Kennedy]

[Tsukiyumi]

Holy Moses, that Zaketh ship is BIG!

[Graham Kennedy]

It amuses me no end that the "super cannon" on the Zaketh ship is far bigger than most people's ships.

[Teaos]

Can it really destroy a star?

[Monroe]

I'm a bit surprised so little is known about the Janan if they are a serious threat to the Coalition. Have they had an all out war yet or is it just that they're icy towards each other?

[Graham Kennedy]

They have never fought openly, no. Major powers do war on one another sometimes, but not often. They prefer to maneuver and jockey for position, often for decades or centuries. The Janan and the Coalition are essentially engaged in a cold war... trying to create or destroy political and economic interests, forge and disrupt alliances, that kind of thing.

It's very hard to spy on another species. You can do signal intelligence and such of course, but there's little chance of human intelligence in many cases. With some non-humanoid species you still get spies, by having agents within the culture turn traitor and work for you. But the Janan are very different to us, to most others. They think differently than we do. It's not just that they hide things (though they do), it's more that they do things for reasons that seem sane and logical to them, but make limited or no sense to us. And they understand us no better than we understand them, incidentally.

[Graham Kennedy]

Can it really destroy a star?

To be honest, I haven't decided what it does yet. Don't tell anyone! 8)

[Graham Kennedy]

Gelch Warship



The Gelch are a middle to high end local power located within the Deep Range. They have a heavily militarised culture - reminiscent in some ways of Earth's ancient Spartan society - and offer many of their military units as mercenaries. Their relations with the Coalition are cordial verging on friendly.

Gelch ships use an early single lobe midspace design. They are capable of speeds of around 5 kc and are equipped with shields and high energy plasma cannon. Over the last few decades primitive AMP cannon have been appearing on the larger Gelch warships, greatly increasing their punch. Rumours persist that the Gelch have acquired this technology from the Coalition, which both sides deny.

The vessel pictured is a typical Gelch heavy warship. It is armed with six triple turrets carrying eighteen rapid fire plasma cannon, and two AMP cannon. In the nose twelve torpedo tubes can fire up to 250 torpedoes. Close in defence is provided by thirty light plasma cannon. The ship has twenty launch bays for fighters, with a large landing runway above. The normal fighter complement numbers 500.

In general the Gelch forces fall somewhere between the Deep Range average and the Coalition. Many in the range still use twin lobe midspace or even sailship design; compared to those the Gelch ships are advanced and very powerful units. But they certainly lag far behind the Coalition in military capacity.

[Monroe]

Nice. I'd imagine that the Coalition would be courting the Gelch into joining eventually. They seem to get along or at least have an understanding.