Everest-class Dreadnought
Overview
A massive Warship based on the design of the Berlin-class Cruiser, the Battleship SSV Everest was built in 2153 as a purpose-built flagship for the Systems Alliance navy. As the number of ships in the navy expanded, it necessitated the construction of a sister ship, SSV Elbrus in 2155. Battleship Elbrus, in command of the 2nd Fleet, would go on to play a crucial role in the First Contract War of 2157. A second sister ship would be launched in late 2157, SSV Fuji. A 4th Battleship, SSV Rainier, would be layed down in 2163, with completion scheduled for 2165. However, humanity would gain an embassy on the Citadel in 2164 and officially be recognised as a member of the galactic community. Part of that involved signing the Treaty of Farixen. A peace-time treaty that restricted the number of Battleships each race in the galaxy was allowed to have. Understanding that humanity could only build a maximum number of 8 Battleship, construction of SSV Rainier was put on hold. As the First Contract war showed the inferiority of the Everest design. Everest, Elbrus and Fugi would then become testbeds for advancements in ship technology.
With the Treaty of Farixen harking back to the World War 1 era limitations on the construction of Dreadnoughts, it took no time at all for the old 20th century term for Battleship to catch on as a colloquial term for modern Battleships. Eventually, completely replacing the name.
In 2179, plans for the design of a new Kilimanjaro-class Dreadnought started. These Dreadnoughts would be built from the ground up. Based on 15 years of technological improvement, this new class of Dreadnought was said to be one of the most power class of warships in the galaxy. No longer needed, the incomplete hull of SSV Rainier was transported to a shipyard on Titan, where she would have been cannibalised for the construction of SSV Kilimanjaro, however, Rainier never arrived at Titan. Though rumours of the ship being hijacked in transit by the pro-human terrorist organisation, Cerberus, did circulate, the official status of the incomplete Dreadnought's location is unknown.
Hull and Superstructure
From stem to stern the Everest-class has a length of 888 meters, a beam 296 meters and a height of 145 meters.
It's hull is composed of 110 centimeters of high-density, ablative ceramic composite armour plating. These plates are hung from scaffolds around the ship's interior pressure hull and consist of several layers of armour separated by baffles
Though it does provide protection against kinetic based weapons, the ablative armour is also highly effective at negating the penetrative effects of directed energy weapons such as lasers. The armour boils away when heated. The vaporised armour material scatters directed energy weapon beams. Rendering them ineffectual.
The ship's exterior is lined with strips of pure ceramic as part of her Defused Radiator Array (DRA) radiation system. While cruising, the ship radiates the excess heat of internal operations through these stripes. Making a Everest-class Dreadnought appear striped on thermographic sensors. In some cases, the DRA stripes have been known to glow red- or white-hot. Leading to their nickname "War paint" or "Tiger stripes."
The DRA isn't as effective as regular radiation panels, but if a strip is damaged, the ship only loses a portion of it's radiation capabilities, rather than the entire array.
The superstructure of a Everest-class Dreadnought is centred around her two main guns, which run 90% of the ship's total length. Effectively making her a gun with thrusters. The long, thin ship maintains her rigidity through a heavily reinforced spine that runs between the main guns. On each side of the main hull are the large, angular "wings" that give the vessel her overall wedge shaped. These wings protect the ship by deflecting impacts to her vulnerable broadside. They also house the deployment tubes for auxiliary craft, the docking tubes and the broadside guns, which all run through it. The back of the wings hold the ship's thruster nacelles.
Kinetic Barriers
The Everest-class was also equipped with Heavy Ship mass repulsive kinetic barrier generators. These shields can withstand a direct impact from the main gun of another Everest-class Dreadnought without damaging the vessel.
Kinetic barriers consist of hundreds of tiny mass effect field emitters that cover the ship's exterior hull. When an object with mass approaches the ship above a certain velocity, it triggers the barriers' reflex system. Generating a localised repulsive mass effect field, deflecting it.
Kinetic Barriers are limited by the amount of stress they can withstand. Sufficient enough kinetic energy can overload the shield generators. Resulting in the temporary deactivation of the system.
Power and Propulsion
The Everest-class Dreadnought was powered by a Nuclear Fusion Power Plant, with Hydrogen fuel cells providing backup power wherever the Plant was offline.
The ships were the first starship to utilise a Mass Effect drive core. The worked by introducing an electric current to a core of the rare mineral, element zero. This then generated a dark energy mass effect field that could manipulate the mass of a volume of space time. A positive current increased mass and a negative current decreased mass. Allowing for the generation of kinetic barriers, increasing the power of weapons and altering the mass of the entire ship. Allowing increased mobility beyond what should be possible. It even allowed the ship to move faster than the speed of light.
The drive core allows for increased acceleration, but does not provide any motive power. Even during faster-than-light travel, the ship is propelled by it's sublight thrusters. Four military-grade antiproton drives. Antiprotons are injected into a reaction chamber filled with protium. The most common and stable isotope of hydrogen. Consisting of a proton nucleus and a single electron. The antiproton is the antimatter version of the proton contained at the nucleus of protium, but with the opposite of charge. The resulting matter-antimater annihilation provides unmatched motive power. The exhaust of antiproton drives is measured in millions of degrees Celsius. Any vessel caught behind them will melt like wax to a blowtorch.
For maneuverability, the Everest-class is equipped with an array of hydrogen-oxygen reaction control thrusters.
When in combat, the Everest-class' DRA systems are unable to keep up with the increased radiation output. During combat, they deploy high-efficiency "droplet" heat sinks. Lithium tanks within the hull absorb the heat generated. The liquid is then vented through spray nozzles near the bow as a thin sheet of millions of micrometer-scale droplets. The droplets are then cooled by the cold vacuum of space before being caught at the stern and recycled back into the system. Droplet sinks are 10-100 times more effective than DRA systems. Droplet sheets resemble a surface ship's wake through water. The wake peels out in sharp turns, spreading a fan of droplets as the ship changes vectors and leaves the coolant behind.
Crew and Complement
The official crew size of a Berlin-class Cruiser was 900 personnel, plus an additional company of upto 300 marines, divided into 6 platoons, which were further divided into 4 squads each.
An Everest-class Dreadnought has 135 emergency escape pods. A dedicated hanger deck contains 5 Shuttle bays, with a combined total of 25 UT-47 Kodiak Drop Shuttles, 4 Gunship bays with a combined total of 16 A-61 Mantis Gunships and a Fighter bay with an Airwing of 70 F-61 Trident Fighter/Interceptors
Sensors and Communications
Most space battles can occur beyond visually range, as such Everest-class Dreadnoughts rely heavily on an array of active and passive sensors to remain aware of their surroundings, however "light lag' prevents seeing in real-time over great distances. Due to the light-speed limit, the ship can't see enemy vessels approaching until they have already arrived, as there is FTL travel, but no FTL sensors.
Passive sensors are used for long-range detection and include visual, thermographic and radio detectors that watch and listen for objects in space. A powered ship emits a great deal of energy; the heat of the life support systems; the radiation given off by power plants and electrical equipment; the exhaust of the thrusters.Starshipsstand out plainly against the near-absolute zero background of space. Passive sensors can be used during FTL travel, but incoming data is significantly distorted by the effect of the mass effect envelope and Doppler shift.
Active sensors are used for long-range detection. These include radars and high resolution ladars (LAser Detection And Ranging) that emit a "ping" of energy and "listen" for return signals. Ladars have a narrower field of view than radar, but ladar resolution allows images of detected objects to be assembled. Active sensors are useless when a ship is moving at FTL speeds.
For communication, Everest-class Dreadnoughts transmit information to the nearest mass relay comm buoy. Comm buoys are maintained in patterns built outward from each mass relay. The buoys are little more than a cluster of primitive, miniature mass relays. Each individual buoy is connected to a partner on another buoy in the network, forming a corridor of low-mass space. Tightbeam communications lasers are piped through these "tubes" of FTL space, allowing virtually instantaneous communication to anywhere on the network. The networks connect across regions by communications lasers through the mass relays. Military communications get top priority in the comm buoy network, ensuring no communication lag due to limited bandwidth.
Armament
The Primarily armament of an Everest-class Dreadnought are a series of mass accelerator cannons. Mass accelerators propel solid metal slugs via electromagnetic attraction and repulsion. A slug lightened by a mass effect field can be accelerated to extremely high speeds, permitting previously unattainable projectile velocities. The primary determinant of a mass accelerator's destructive power is length. The longer the barrel, the longer the slug can be accelerated, the higher the slug's final velocity, and therefore the greater its kinetic impact. However, mass accelerators produce recoil equal to their impact energy. While the mass effect fields suspending the rounds mitigate the recoil, recoil shock can still rattle crews and damage systems. Slugs are designed to squash or shatter on impact, increasing the energy they transfer to its target. Without collapsibility, slugs would punch through their targets while inflicting only minimal damage. Rather than being mounted on the exterior, starship guns are housed inside hulls and visible only as gun portholes from outside.
The Everest-class' main armament consists of a pair of 800 meter spinal mounted Super Mass Accelerator Cannons. Each accelerating a 20 kg slug of ferric titanium to a velocity of 4025 km/s. Impacting with the force of 162 006 250 Megajoules of kinetic energy or 28.72 kt of TNT. About 3 times the yield of the Hiroshima bomb every 2 secons. The only drawback to these guns is that they are hard to aim. Requiring the ship to line up it's entire bow with the enemy vessel. As such they are more effective at long-range bombardment.
Secondary weapons are provided by thirty 105 meter long broadside mounted Light Mass Accelerator Cannons per side. Each accelerating a 20 kg slug of ferric titanium to a velocity of 528 km/s. Impacting with a force of 2 787 840 Megajoules of kinetic energy or 666 t of TNT every 2 seconds.
In 2184, the Alliance introduced the Javelin torpedo tube. All Everest-class Dreadnoughts were equipped with 30 M-53 Javelin Mk2 torpedo tubes. Disruptor torpedos with warheads that create random, unstable mass effect fields when triggered. These fields warp space-time in localised areas. The rapid, a symmetrical mass changes cause the target to rip itself apart. The Javelin fires disposable Disruptor torpedos on converging trajectories, the torpedoes detonate in a precisely timed sequence that allows the warhead's dark energy to resonate and thereby magnify the resulting space-time warp effects. Like fighter-launched torpedoes, Javelins are "cold-launched" for safety reasons, though they use a different approach. Resembling old-fashioned submarine torpedo tubes, Javelin torpedoes come packed in individual sealed tubes filled with compressed, inert gas. Opening the front of the tube causes escaping gases to push the torpedo into the vacuum, releasing a puff of crystals around the mouth of the tube. After completely clearing the tube, the torpedo ignites its thrusters. As missile weapons, Javelins are subject to highly accurate defensive GARDIAN fire. They must be launched in large numbers and at short range to have any chance of hitting their target at all.
The Everest-class' General ARea Defense Integration Anti-spacecraft Network (GARDIAN) consists of 176 anti-missile/anti-fighter laser turrets on the exterior hull. Because these are under computer control, the gunnery control officer needs to do little beyond turn the system on and designate targets as hostile. Since lasers move at light speed, they cannot be dodged by anything moving at non-relativistic speeds. Unless the beam is aimed poorly, it will always hit its target. In the early stages of a battle, the GARDIAN fire is 100% accurate. It is not 100% lethal, but it doesn't have to be. Damaged fighters must break off for repairs. Lasers are limited bydiffraction. The beams "spread out", decreasing the energy density (watts per m2) the weapon can place on a target. Any high-powered laser is a short-ranged weapon. GARDIAN networks have another limitation: heat. Weapons-grade lasers require "cool-down" time, during which heat is transferred to sinks or radiators. As lasers fire, heat builds within them, reducing damage, range, and accuracy. Fighters attack in swarms. The first few WILL be hit by GARDIAN, but as the battle continues, the effects of laser overheat allow the attacks to press ever closer to the ship. Constant use will burn out the laser. GARDIAN lasers typically operate in infrared frequencies. Shorter frequencies would offer superior stopping power and range, but degradation of focal arrays and mirrors would make them expensive to maintain, and most prefer mechanical reliability over leading-edge performance where lives are concerned. Lasers are not blocked by the kinetic barriers of capital ships. However, the range of lasers limits their use to rare "knife fight"-range ship-to-ship combat.
Layout
The Everest-class Dreadnought consists of 21 decks.
The front section of the ship is dedicated to ship operations and include the main bridge and Combat Information Centre at the bow of deck 19. Directly below Main Battery 2.
The middle section of the ship is dedicated to the crew and include Mess Halls, Crew's quarters and other crew accommodations. There is also a Medical Bay on deck 14
The aft section of the ship is dedicated to storage and engineering.
Main Battery 1 runs through deck 4 and Main Battery 2 runs through deck 17, with their corresponding stations located behind each.
The slanted wings contain the broadside guns, positioned at a 45 angle to the hull. The guns are separated into 2 rows on each side. The first row of 15 link to stations on Deck 5 and the second row of 15 link to stations on deck 6.
There are three deployment tubes on each side that link to the hanger deck on deck 7. These magnetically accelerate and decelerate craft as they enter and exit the vessel.
Towards the bow side of both the port and starboard wings are the primary docking tubes, used to dock up to stations and other vessels for the loading and unloading of cargo and crew.
Ships of the line:
- SSV Everest DN-1(2153) - secondary flagship of the 1st fleet, Class leader
- SSV Elbrus DN-2(2155) - Flagship of the 2st fleet, Originally commanded by Admiral Kasteny Dresher
- SSV Fuji DN-3(2157) - Flagship of the 3rd fleet in 2183, flagship of the 6th fleet in 2186
- SSV Rainier DN-4(2165) - Never completed
