Uniforms and Equipment
OFFICER’S SERVICE DRESS
The RMN officer’s service dress uniform consists of a black, double-breasted tunic which seals up the right side and falls to the upper thigh. Beneath the tunic, officers wear a white blouse and black trousers. The tunic collar is “Prussian” in style—high and round but loose enough for comfort—and the blouse collar is a turtleneck. Trousers are loose and straight cut to shin level, at which point they flare out and are bloused into low-topped space boots. The tunic’s tailoring is slightly wasp-waisted, which can have unfortunate consequences for more portly officers, and bears thin gold piping on either side of the cross-over front panel. Trousers are untrimmed, with a smart-fabric closure.
Cuff stripes are bands, usually referred to as “rings,” of gold braid. In addition to the cuffs, a matching number of thin gold stripes are carried on the tunic’s shoulder board “epaulets.” Epaulet stripes run front-to-back and are counted in from the outer end of the epaulet. The background color of the epaulet is red, not black.
The left shoulder of the tunic bears the name of the wearer’s current assignment, with hull number if applicable, in an inverted horseshoe arrangement immediately below the shoulder seam. The right shoulder bears the gold-and-scarlet Manticore badge of the RMN. Collar insignia are worn on the tunic’s collar, and the same insignia are worn on an embroidered patch on the left chest of the blouse, immediately above the pocket. Medal ribbons and qualification badges are worn on the left breast of the tunic, and a nameplate is worn on the right with any unit ribbons worn below the nameplate. Above their other ribbons officers wear one star, embroidered in gold thread, for each hyper-capable command they have held.
The standard headgear is a beret, which breaks to the right and bears the Kingdom’s coat of arms as a flash on the left side. Starship commander’s berets are white; all others are black.
ENLISTED SERVICE DRESS
The enlisted service dress uniform is considerably simpler than the officer’s uniform. Built for comfort and range of motion, the uniform is a tailored, one-piece coverall, in standard Navy black with gold trim down the front. A nametag is worn on the left breast, with ribbons and qualification badges worn underneath. Unit ribbons are worn on the right side.
The same basic uniform is worn by noncomissioned officers (NCOs), but the trouser seams of petty officers and chiefs are picked out in piping color-coded by branch.
Rating insignia is worn on the left sleeve, color-coded by department. Additional specialist insignia is worn on the upper left sleeve as a shoulder patch, under the unit patch. Above the left cuff, one hash mark is displayed for every three Manticoran years (approximately five T-years) of service.
The beret is identical to that worn by the officers.
SKINSUITS
The RMN skinsuit consists of a single-piece body suit, boots, gloves and a helmet. A skinsuit is individually fitted to its wearer and varies in thickness from a minimum of about one centimeter to a maximum of twelve centimeters across the shoulders and upper back. The gloves are much thinner to allow manual dexterity.
The outer layer of the skinsuit consists of tightly woven antiballistic fabric. Underneath is a flexible matrix of storage vacuoles in which consumables are stored under immense pressure. The vacuoles are interwoven with the suit’s air, waste management, heat management and power systems. The innermost layer is a porous padding, designed to wick away excess heat and moisture.
The joints of the skinsuit are equipped with strands of an electro-organic “muscle,” which respond to the wearer’s movements by biofeedback sensors. These enhancements provide a full range of motion and help to counteract the weight of the suit.
The body suit itself is a single-piece garment covering the legs, arms and torso. Along the left arm is a flexible control pad that features small waterfall displays and a trio of telltales providing information on the skinsuit power level, seal integrity, and oxygen level, designed to be readable at a glance while the helmet is off. Suit functions (including configuring the displays and adjusting the color of the smart fabric on the outside of the suit) are controlled by a panel built into the same sleeve.
The chest has a medical panel consisting of a biometric readout and controls for emergency stimulants and painkillers. In addition, the arms and legs are equipped with an emergency tourniquet system that activates automatically when critical damage to a limb is detected, both to reduce blood loss and retain pressure.
At waist level, the suit features two umbilical connection points, on the left and right sides. These umbilicals are used to connect the suit’s life support and plumbing to the ship’s systems, or to daisy chain with another suit in an emergency situation.
The primary suit thrusters are located across the shoulder blades, while a second pair of smaller thrusters is located in the kidney area. The thrusters are controlled (and can be locked out) by the suit’s control panel. Using the thrusters requires a fair bit of coordination, and the body must be kept in a relaxed “sitting” position to balance the vectors properly. Total reaction mass for these thrusters is extremely limited, and it is by far and away the most sharply constrained consumable in the skinsuit, suitable only for short periods of EVA work.
The helmet has an opaque back and an armorplast faceplate with a 120-degree field of view, which opens upward for comfort. Unlike most navies, the RMN wears its headgear inside its helmets, accepting a slightly larger helmet as a consequence. Small spotlights for EVA and emergency use are located on both sides above eye level. A small magnetic clamp allows the helmet to mount in a shockframe, or be stowed on the chest of the skinsuit when not worn.
The inside of the faceplate contains a multifunction heads-up display used for status displays, communications and navigation. Inside to the left is a retractable water tube controlled by the arm keypad and to the right is the chin switch that connects the suit’s communicator to the emergency channel.
Officers’ skinsuits are solid white and display collar and cuff insignia in black similar to the service dress uniform. The helmet is marked with both rank insignia and a name stenciled across the top.
Enlisted and non-commissioned officers’ skinsuits are white with arms, legs and chest color coded by department. Name and rate insignia are displayed on the helmet, as on the officers’, and the arms display rating and specialist insignia in white or black contrasted against the departmental color.
Order of Battle
For all its current firepower and technological superiority, the Royal Manticoran Navy’s origins were humble. From the date of landing until the formation of the Star Kingdom, what became the RMN never boasted more than thirty-five ships, the largest approximately the size of a modern light cruiser. The discovery of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction led directly and inevitably to a major expansion in the Navy’s size, creating both a wall of battle and a numerous and powerful force of lighter units for commerce protection duties. In the middle decades of the nineteenth century PD, the future Roger III foresaw the coming clash with the People’s Republic of Haven more clearly than virtually anyone else in the Star Kingdom’s government, and began his life’s work of building up the fleet.
The expansion driven by Roger’s foresight lasted four decades, despite his own tragic, early death. The Navy’s wall of battle grew from a mere three squadrons at the time of his coronation in 1857 to over eighty ships by the time of his death, thirty years later. By the end of the century, the RMN had become the third most powerful navy in existence; arguably, today, it is the galaxy’s leading naval power in light of its numbers, technological superiority, and expertise. That position is no accident. It results directly from the policies of King Roger and his daughter Queen Elizabeth and the Navy’s unwavering focus—driven by Roger’s initial vision—on the R&D and technological imagination necessary to create a qualitatively as well as quantitatively superior fighting machine.
LIGHT ATTACK CRAFT (LAC)
Over the course of the last two decades the role of the LAC has evolved far more than that of any other type of vessel in the Manticoran Navy. By the time the Havenite Wars began officially in 1905 PD, the LAC had been completely phased out of Manticoran service. Too light to survive and too weakly armed to seriously threaten modern warships, the LAC had become a clearly obsolete type. Certain RMN theoreticians, however, led by Admiral Sonja Hemphill, had begun to consider the creation of an attrition unit built with the new technologies then becoming available. What began as a design study for an “expendable” unit (the Series 282 LAC) evolved over the next several T-years into one designed to operate and survive even in heavy-threat environments.
Several experimental types were produced over the next five T-years, but the true renaissance of the light attack craft came in 1913 PD with the new Shrike class, built with almost entirely new technology. Small, fast, and more heavily armed than some prewar destroyers, this new breed of warship revolutionized the concept of LAC operations in the Manticoran Navy. While the original Shrikes were used as alpha-strike units against unsuspecting targets, LAC doctrine was in a constant state of evolution throughout the last battles of the First Havenite War. By the end of Operation Buttercup, the LAC wings were used in a counter-screening role, destroying scouting platforms to deny the enemy tactical data on the wall’s formation, stripping off critical defenses from the Havenite walls of battle, and swarming and destroying cripples as they fell out of formation.
The sudden appearance of Havenite pod-layers and LACs forced a major reevaluation, and doctrine remains in a state of flux. Taking a page from the Republican Navy, the RMN has begun to use the LAC to replace the destroyer as one of the primary members of the antimissile screen, with LAC wings tightly integrated into the defensive network to blunt the initial massive salvoes that now characterize pod-layer warfare.
Highlander-class light attack craft
Mass: 11,250 tons
Dimensions: 138 × 23 × 21 m
Acceleration: 409.3 G (4.014 kps²)
80% Accel: 327.5 G (3.211 kps²)
Broadside: 12MB, 1L, 3PD
Chase: 1L
Service Life: 1843–1912
The Highlander-class light attack craft was commissioned in 1843 PD as a system defense picket and customs patrol unit. It had a heavier beam armament than most contemporary classes, though contrary to typical RMN doctrine of the time, the lasers were optimized for point defense fire as well as the antiship role. The one-shot missile launch cells were built directly into the hull, allowing for system checks and routine maintenance without vacuum gear by the crew, although this increased costs and made them somewhat less suited to rapid re-arming than previous external launchers.
When the Highlander class was first placed into service, light attack craft were primarily used as home system pickets and scouts, freeing up hyper-capable hulls for interstellar deployment or for concentrated rapid reaction system defense formations. As King Roger’s naval buildup progressed, Manticore system hyper-limit picket duty was shifted to destroyers cued by reconnaissance satellites and the passive system arrays. Starting in 1887 PD, the Highlander class was retired. A number of hulls were stripped of armament, modified heavily and transferred to Astro Control Service as search and rescue platforms. An additional small number were retained purely as training craft attached to Saganami Island Naval Academy.
Series 282 light attack craft
Mass: 17,750 tons
Dimensions: 121 × 20 × 19 m
Acceleration: 573.2 G (5.621 kps²)
80% Accel: 458.6 G (4.497 kps²)
Broadside: 12MB, 1L, 1CM, 3PD
Chase: 1L, 2PD
Service Life: 1904–1918
The Series 282 light attack craft was never given a formal class name because it was a prototype LAC, designed by the Weapon Development Board for the Trojan Horse program which saw extremely limited operational service.
While the Highlander class was a typical LAC design, built to very similar standards as a conventional warship, the Series 282 took advantage of advances in both equipment miniaturization and automation to greatly decrease the volume necessary for critical systems. The result was a flattened hull that was slightly smaller than the Highlander, despite being half again the tonnage. The small size of the Series 282, along with the fact that its “on-paper” offensive capabilities were nearly identical to those of the old design, was cited numerous times by the program’s many critics.
These critics uniformly failed to recognize the qualitative improvements behind the figures. The 282s carried only twelve cell-launched missiles, but both the missiles and launch cells were far in advance of anything the Highlander mounted. Beam mounts were also more powerful, and the addition of a counter-missile launcher in each broadside more than doubled their survivability, as well as allowing them to perform an area defense mission in protection of their launch platform. Perhaps most notably, the Series 282 was the first LAC to mount an impeller ring powerful enough to accelerate it to the limits of its inertial compensator. This class was the first to serve as testbeds for the early second generation compensator, raising its maximum acceleration to just over 600 G.
Despite the type’s clear advantages, it was never able to overcome the opposition of its critics. Regarded as suitable solely for local defense and burdened with the anti-LAC attitudes of a navy philosophically committed to projecting combat power (and vehemently opposed to attrition-based tactics), it was produced in very small numbers. The number built provided valuable experience in the new technologies and were used as test beds for many of the systems incorporated into the early Shrike-class prototypes, however, and the 282s provided a critical component in the combat power of the Trojan-class Q-ships until their final retirement in 1918.
Shrike-class light attack craft
Mass: 20,250 tons
Dimensions: 71 × 20 × 20 m
Acceleration: 636 G (6.237 kps²)
80% Accel: 508.8 G (4.989 kps²)
Forward: 4M, 1G, 4CM, 6PD
Service Life: 1912–1917
The Shrike revolutionized the concept of the LAC in many ways. Far from a simple evolutionary outgrowth of the Series 282, the Shrike has virtually nothing in common with a conventional LAC. Although the Shrike carried over many of the 282’s technology innovations in terms of system miniaturization and increased automation, it represented a complete conceptual break with previous LACs. Earlier examples of the type had been seen as miniature warships equipped with traditional weapon systems; the Shrike was visualized as a single-weapon system, optimized for the sole purpose of getting its powerful graser into decisive range.
Historically, LACs have suffered from limited endurance driven by bunker space for fusion reactor hydrogen, so, unlike any warship in a millennia, the Shrike class carries a highly efficient fission pile as primary power. Inspired by Grayson developments in fission reactor technology, the fission plant means that the Shrike’s cruise endurance is limited primarily by crew support consumables. Its combat endurance remains a factor of plasma feedstock for the gravitic subsystems (mostly graser and missile launch systems), but its ability to stay on station for months if necessary is a huge advantage in the system defense role. In addition, while a Shrike masses almost twice as much as a Highlander (in a hull less than half the size), its remotes and expert systems are some of the most advanced anywhere in space, simultaneously increasing lethality while decreasing crew requirements.
The Shrike class was also the first warship to be fitted with the new “beta-squared” impeller nodes, which by 1921 PD have become standard equipment on all new Manticoran construction. In addition to the mass savings the nodes provided, they also allowed the Shrikes to transmit FTL communications while under acceleration. The vastly more powerful impeller rings, second generation inertial compensators and enhanced electronic warfare and stealth systems made the Shrikes the fastest, stealthiest, and ton-for-ton most dangerous warships in space for their time.
Among all of the other advances seen on the Shrike class, perhaps the most notable was the introduction of the all-forward armament, combining the new off-bore launch technology with a bow wall and a powerful spinal-mounted graser for close range antiship strikes, all without relying on the traditional broadside armament carried by LACs up until this point.
For a program that was nearly cancelled by Navy before it could prove itself, the Shrike-class LACs performed far above expectations during the Second Battle of Hancock. Able to approach to far closer range of an enemy under stealth than anyone had predicted, their initial attacks were devastating. While their survivability against a prepared opponent was questionable, their ability to isolate and destroy cripples and the savage damage they could do to the enemy’s screen proved their value.
Despite exceeding all expectations, the original Shrike was still a transitional design, with many flaws, some major and some minor, appearing during the early simulations, wargames, and battle experience. While the heavy demand for LACs kept many of them in service longer than expected, the last of the original production run was replaced in 1917 by the Shrike-B.
Shrike-B-class light attack craft
Mass: 21,250 tons
Dimensions: 72 × 20 × 20 m
Acceleration: 635.5 G (6.232 kps²)
80% Accel: 508.4 G (4.986 kps²)
Forward: 4M, 1G, 4CM, 6PD
Aft: 4CM, 6PD
Service Life: 1914–present
The Shrike-B class was a refinement of the original Shrike class, based on operational experience with the initial deployed prototypes. Almost before the first of what came to be known as the Shrike-A variant was commissioned, simulation data had begun to turn up weaknesses in the design. Its first trial by fire at Hancock provided all the evidence BuShips needed to finalize the new design. The aft hanger and cutter of the original Shrike were replaced by a duplicate set of counter-missile launchers and point defense facing aft, which provided much needed protection against the “up-the-kilt” fire which was responsible for the majority of the early losses. A small hanger was retained for deployment of the current generation of Ghost Rider reconnaissance drones or decoys.
Starting from 1915, all new construction added an external sternwall generator modeled on the one carried by the Ferret class. Like the Ferret’s generator, the power budget was tight enough to provide only enough power to run either the bow or sternwall but not both simultaneously.
Ferret-class light attack craft
Mass: 20,750 tons
Dimensions: 72 × 20 × 20 m
Acceleration: 635.8 G (6.235 kps²)
80% Accel: 508.6 G (4.988 kps²)
Forward: 4M, 4CM, 6PD
Aft: 4CM, 6PD
Service Life: 1914–present
The Ferret class was developed in parallel with Shrike-B as a screening unit, designed both to accompany squadrons of Shrikes on their strike missions and to thicken defenses for the wall of battle.
The Ferret is a pure missile-armed craft, with no antiship energy armament. The launch tubes remain in the same locations but the magazine is a far more traditional design, rather than the combination magazine and launch cell used in the Shrikes. The mass and volume freed up by the removal of the graser was enough to more than double the missile load of the Shrikes, thereby allowing the Ferret to carry dedicated electronic warfare (EW) drones as well as sophisticated decoys in addition to shipkillers. The counter-missile launchers remained similar to the Shrike-B, but their capacity was expanded as well, and the EW systems were upgraded still further. The addition of a dedicated sternwall generator marked the final difference between the Ferret and original Shrike-B classes, though the same power management limitations applied as on the Shrike-B refits.
Katana-class light attack craft
(for specification, see GSN Katana-class LAC)
Service Life: 1920–present
Shortly after the turnover at Admiralty House in 1920 PD, the RMN ordered several dozen squadrons of Katanas from the Graysons and put the design into Manticoran production, as well. Many of their frontline Minotaur and Hydra-class carriers are being refitted to carry a few squadrons of Katanas in addition to their regular complement of Shrikes and Ferrets.
DESTROYERS (DD)
From the earliest days of the Wormhole Junction and subsequent expansion of both the Navy and merchant fleet, the destroyer has been the workhorse of the Royal Manticoran Navy. The type itself remained almost unchanged in fundamental design for hundreds of years, but the roles it fills have been in a state of constant flux, especially over the course of King Roger’s buildup.
Destroyer missions generally fit into one of two major roles: screening the wall of battle and fulfilling independent missions such as commerce protection. The primary choice facing designers has always been how—or even whether—to balance these roles.
The destroyer first came into its own as a screening unit because it was an inexpensive platform that could provide tactical reconnaissance duties as well as deny the enemy those same opportunities. A hyper-capable unit was needed to search in nearby sub-bands when a fleet or convoy was in hyper transit. Traditional cruising formations also deployed destroyers and light cruisers far out to the flanks upon emergence into real space to expand the sensor baseline of the formation and provide an outer picket to detect and destroy enemy scouting forces. Once battle was joined, the lighter units of the screen fell into position behind and around the wall, lending their support to the area defense without putting their fragile hulls in the line of fire.
The evolution of small, high-endurance drones began to erode the destroyer’s operational reconnaissance roles, as these new drones were both faster and stealthier than any warship, in addition to being unmanned and therefore more expendable. The destroyer became a crewed node controlling formations of drones and the principle antiscouting platform, designed to localize and destroy recon drones as they approached the flanks of the formation. It still had a place as part of the wall’s missile defense, but remained fragile and limited in that role compared to heavy cruisers and battlecruisers. On the other side of the coin, the traditional roles of a destroyer as an independent cruising unit were being eroded slowly as the Navy built up its inventory of light cruisers, a type that had been traditionally underrepresented in the Manticoran order of battle. The new light cruisers were more powerful, better defended and had longer endurance than any destroyer in service, which made them far better suited to the roles of strategic reconnaissance picket forces, commerce protection, or commerce raiding. The advent of the advanced LAC in 1914 PD, followed by the evolution of LAC antimissile doctrine in the early 1920s, removed the destroyer’s last vestiges of utility as a screening unit. On a ton-for-ton basis, the new LACs were faster, better at localizing and killing recon drones, and far more effective in the missile defense role then destroyers had ever been.
At the present time, the future of the destroyer as a type is uncertain. On the one hand, there are those who predict that the destroyer will effectively disappear from the Navy in the not-too-distant future, with its independent operations role reverting to the cruiser and its fleet screening role going to the LAC groups. On the other hand, it is clear that the RMN sees a role for the destroyer today and into the future, as evidenced by the new Roland class. The advent of the multi-drive missile and the fact that the Roland appears to be the smallest hyper-capable ship type able to carry a meaningful number of these missiles indicate to many that the destroyer will be with us for a long time, even if it masses as much as an old-style light cruiser.
Noblesse-class destroyer
Mass: 68,250 tons
Dimensions: 351 × 41 × 24 m
Acceleration: 524.4 G (5.143 kps²)
80% Accel: 419.5 G (4.114 kps²)
Broadside: 4M, 3L, 2CM, 3PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 1CM, 2PD
Number Built: 60
Service Life: 1819–1907
The Noblesse-class destroyer, a contemporary of the Courageous-class light cruiser, was the oldest destroyer still in service when the war with Haven began. In many ways, it was built as a scaled-down version of the Courageous, armed with the same outdated missile tubes and general weapon balance, though without the powerful beam armament carried by its larger cousin.
Although originally scheduled for decommissioning by the turn of the century, the RMN’s need for light combatants extended the class beyond its planned operational life, and the many of the ships remained in service until 1907 PD. Although they were still suited for anti-piracy work, they had become obsolete with the rapid technological developments stimulated by the war and all were decommissioned as the Culverin class started coming off the building slips.
Falcon-class destroyer
Mass: 70,500 tons
Dimensions: 355 × 42 × 24 m
Acceleration: 523.6 G (5.134 kps²)
80% Accel: 418.8 G (4.108 kps²)
Broadside: 3M, 4L, 3CM, 4PD
Chase: 1M, 2L, 2CM, 2PD
Number Built: 88
Service Life: 1851–1916
The Falcon-class destroyer was a product of the same design study that yielded the Apollo-class light cruiser and Lightning-class frigate, the last frigate class to be built by the RMN. The notable feature of the Falcon class is that it is a beam-heavy platform relative to its contemporaries, designed to close quickly and engage an enemy at short range.
The first flight Falcons suffered from the same sub-standard construction practices which caused the Apollo class’ structural weaknesses, and all but two required substantial refits.
Unlike the far more successful Apollo, both the Falcons and Lightnings were widely considered to be too fragile to survive an energy engagement (where a single lucky hit can do major damage). Although possessed of impressive firepower for their size, there were grave concerns about their ability to defeat something of their own rate. Although the last of the Lightnings was decommissioned before the turn of the century, the Falcons lasted until the fleet drawdown of 1916 PD.
Havoc-class destroyer
Mass: 84,500 tons
Dimensions: 377 × 44 × 26 m
Acceleration: 519.8 G (5.097 kps²)
80% Accel: 415.8 G (4.078 kps²)
Broadside: 5M, 3L, 3CM, 3PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 2CM, 2PD
Number Built: 83
Service Life: 1861–present
The Havoc class was built as a successor to the Falcon-class destroyer. In many ways, its design presaged the move away from beam-heavy combatants to missile-heavy combatants. Designed as a general purpose destroyer, the Havoc class was able to perform all of the traditional destroyer missions and served many of them well. This was especially true in Silesia, where its mix of defensive armaments and adequate broadside made it a natural for anti-piracy operations. The skipper of a Havoc will generally attempt to keep the range open against its usual opponents, where the Havoc’s superior electronics and deep magazines provide it the greatest edge. Beam armament is modest at best, and a Havoc commander who approaches too aggressively places his command in danger.
As the buildup of light units accelerated and after hull numbers reached an unwieldy four digits, the RMN began to renumber its destroyers, with HMS Havoc being redesignated as DD-01 in 1873 PD. While the majority of the class are still in service, the combination of a small cramped hull and sub-par defenses have relegated the Havocs to rear-area duties and less important remote stations. With the latest round of EW refits, they remain well suited for anti-piracy operations, even if they are unsuited for combat against the Republic of Haven Navy.
Chanson-class destroyer
Mass: 78,000 tons
Dimensions: 367 × 43 × 25 m
Acceleration: 520.7 G (5.107 kps²)
80% Accel: 416.6 G (4.085 kps²)
Broadside: 3M, 3L, 4CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 2CM, 2PD
Number Built: 204
Service Life: 1867–present
With King Roger’s naval expansion program in full swing, the RMN began a serious analysis of combat records from Silesia, and realized that ship defense needed significant improvement. The resulting destroyer, light cruiser, and heavy cruiser designs of the Enhanced Survivability Program all emphasized greater defensive armament and improved passive defenses. The destroyer design was the Chanson class.
By far the most numerous class of destroyer in the RMN, the Chanson is well suited to a variety of duties, from scouting and picket duty to the destroyer screen of a wall of battle, to independent operations “showing the flag” in smaller star polities. The class has long strategic endurance for a destroyer, making it popular with RMN planners, and its modern electronics suite and enhanced area defense capabilities make it better suited for convoy defense than the Havoc. Despite the reduction in launchers over the Havoc and Noblesse classes, the Chanson class remains strongest in a missile duel. Its heavy defenses and superior fire control allow it to hold its own against most destroyers and even some light cruisers as long as it can remain out of energy range. Still, it lacks the offensive punch of the Havoc class and its successor the Javelin class, a fact that was heavily criticized by opponents of the Enhanced Survivability Program.
When the Culverin class was delayed in the early 1900s, another flight of Chansons was ordered as a stop-gap. Other than incremental updates in electronics and fittings, these hulls are virtually identical to the older model Chansons, despite the ten-year gap in construction.
Javelin-class destroyer
Mass: 87,250 tons
Dimensions: 381 × 45 × 26 m
Acceleration: 519.7 G (5.096 kps²)
80% Accel: 415.7 G (4.077 kps²)
Broadside: 6M, 2L, 4CM, 3PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 2CM, 2PD
Number Built: 65
Service Life: 1883–present
The Javelin-class destroyer is a contemporary of the Chanson class but has a fundamentally different design philosophy. Where the Chanson focused on cramming as much defense as possible into as small a hull as possible, the Javelin favors a heavier offensive punch, at the cost of some defense. It was intended to serve mostly as a fast screening unit for battlecruiser squadrons and has seen less independent command than its more survivable cousins.
While in simulation it seems like a highly effective design, its heavy offensive punch came at a price. Magazine space to support the larger broadside was one limitation, and the fact that all six launchers shared only two magazines made the design particularly vulnerable to damage. Missile tubes and magazines also had to be placed nearer to the sidewall generator spaces than normal and as a result the class has been plagued by feedback issues between grav drivers and sidewall generators for its entire service life. Compared to the Chanson and even the much maligned Culverin class, the Javelins were never particularly popular among either RMN planners or their crews. Most of them were relegated to reserve duty by 1920 even though some much older Chanson-class hulls were still in active service.
Culverin-class destroyer
Mass: 104,000 tons
Dimensions: 404 × 48 × 27 m
Acceleration: 547.4 G (5.368 kps²)
80% Accel: 437.9 G (4.294 kps²)
Broadside: 5M, 4L, 5CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 2CM, 2PD
Number Built: 72
Service Life: 1899–present
The Culverin class was designed as a powerful, general purpose destroyer to replace both the Havoc and Chanson classes. Although a bold design in terms of intent, the first units to be delivered came in over budget, late, and “overweight.” Changes in requirements during the design process resulted in an increase in the offensive throw weight and a decrease in crew size, dictating the use of automation more commonly seen in merchant ships. In the end, the automation project was abandoned after the first two ships, but not before these changes delayed the commissioning of the first ship by two years and resulted in software and hardware glitches that were all but impossible to work out. The armament changes caused the Culverin to grow by nearly eight thousand tons and to lengthen by almost ten meters. Some point to these early problems as the reason that it took the Admiralty another ten years to try again to reduce crew requirements through increased automation.
When all was said and done however, the Culverin class was nearly as good as its design simulations said it should be. It has significant electronic warfare assets, an impressive broadside for a destroyer, and solid defensive capabilities that mesh perfectly with the latest generation of Manticoran hardware. The primary complaint about the Culverin is its reputation as a maintenance headache, although part of this reputation resulted from periodic shortages of spare parts during the initial construction phase. The peculiar internal layout brought on by the design changes has caused a great deal of trouble for damage control teams, a fact that wasn’t fully appreciated until the first units began to see combat.
Wolfhound-class destroyer
Mass: 123,500 tons
Dimensions: 428 × 51 × 29 m
Acceleration: 784.7 G (7.695 kps²)
80% Accel: 627.7 G (6.156 kps²)
Broadside: 6M, 3G, 6CM, 5PD
Chase: 2G, 4PD
Number Built: 19
Service Life: 1919–present
The Wolfhound-class destroyer is a general purpose destroyer originally designed during the Janacek Admiralty to replace the entire RMN inventory of older model destroyers. Eighteen percent heavier than the Culverin class, the Wolfhound takes full advantage of the new technologies that enabled the RMN to build a destroyer that is more effective than many prewar light cruisers. The class has a limited off-bore capability and carries the latest generation of single drive missiles in RMN service, far longer ranged and more powerful than anything in service at the start of the war. With a crew of only eighty-seven, the complement of an old-style destroyer can be spread across nearly four Wolfhounds, freeing up manpower for other new construction without reducing the total number of destroyers in service.
While the Wolfhound is an effective platform by any prewar standard, once the performance numbers began to appear for the new Roland-class destroyers, the RMN substantially revised their building schedules. Given the missions that it would be assigned, the Wolfhound would not be significantly more capable than the hulls already in service, at least not enough to warrant the cost of replacing almost four hundred of them in wartime. Only nineteen Wolfhounds are currently in service; the other twenty of the original flight were destroyed in the Grendelsbane raids. While there are plans to put the Wolfhound into limited series production to start slowly replacing the oldest surviving destroyer classes, currently all of the smaller building slips have been dedicated to building Rolands and Avalon-class light cruisers.
Roland-class destroyer
Mass: 188,750 tons
Dimensions: 446 × 54 × 45 m
Acceleration: 780 G (7.649 kps²)
80% Accel: 624 G (6.119 kps²)
Broadside: 5L, 10CM, 9PD
Chase: 6M, 2G, 6PD
Number Built: 46+
Service Life: 1920–present
The Roland class reflects much of what the RMN has learned in the course of the war against Haven. In terms of sheer size, it is the largest destroyer ever produced, rivaling the size of other navies’ light cruisers.
The RMN had been caught short of suitable flagships for cruiser and destroyer service during the First Havenite War, and the Rolands were one attempt to address that shortage. Every member of the class was fitted with extensive command and control capability and, in essence, each can operate as the flagship of a destroyer squadron.
The Roland is also the smallest warship to carry the Mark 16 dual-drive missile, mounting a cluster of six launchers in each hammerhead. Using off-bore fire, it can bring all missiles to bear on a single target. The obvious downside of this arrangement is that a single hammerhead hit can take out half the total missile armament.
The Roland is a match for any conventional light or even heavy cruiser without multi-drive missiles of its own. The Roland is able to engage at a range far outside the opponent’s and is fast enough to make a run for it if its Mk16s are unable to penetrate the enemy’s defenses. As with the Wolfhound, the Roland class has no place in the modern RMN wall of battle, and all of the units thus far deployed have been sent to either the Talbott Quadrant or Silesia for use as pickets, system defense, and convoy protection. The Roland's use as a commerce raider has yet to be proven but extensive simulations reportedly have shown that the Roland will excel in that role should it be necessary.
LIGHT CRUISERS (CL)
Historically, the frigate was the primary RMN cruising unit, not the light cruiser. Designed for independent, long-endurance interstellar operations, frigates frequently engaged in commerce protection, anti-piracy operations, and strategic intelligence gathering. They became a common sight in many Verge systems as the Manticoran merchant fleet expanded, and as the first independent commands for many outstanding Manticoran officers of the war years, these tiny ships may rightly claim to have played a major part in the RMN’s subsequent successes.
The RMN’s longtime predilection for this type, despite its known disadvantages, stemmed from the need for numbers of platforms to deal with relatively low-level threats. Frigates were cheaper than destroyers, although their crew sizes and operating costs were very nearly equal, and they were capable of trouncing almost any pirate they were likely to meet. The ability to deploy them in greater numbers made them more desirable to a Navy whose primary business was just that—trouncing pirates—despite the always marginal combat power imposed by the heavy demands life-support, power rooms, and hyper generators placed upon the available mass and volume of such small hulls.
It took the looming war against Haven to knock the frigate out of favor due to its inability to face any regular warship, regardless of tonnage, and one of King Roger’s major initiatives was the gradual replacement of the large inventory of frigates with light cruisers for long-range interstellar missions.
Light cruisers were seen as interstellar units, intended to operate for long periods of time without outside support, primarily for strategic and tactical scouting missions. Substantially larger than current-generation destroyers, they were also more potent combat units, capable of dealing with the increasing numbers of heavily armed “privateers” operated by various Silesian separatist movements in the Confederacy. Despite this, Manticore never had more than a couple of dozen light cruisers in service prior to King Roger’s naval expansion program. Lacking neighbors with ill intent and with a battle fleet geared primarily towards home system defense rather than power projection, the RMN’s limited wall of battle had little need for strategic scouting, and the tactical scouting role was filled by LACs and destroyers in the home system. Roles had begun to shift within the RMN in the 1820s, however, due to the ever-expanding reach of the Manticoran merchant marine. As conditions worsened in Silesia, missions normally assigned to destroyers began to be filled by the limited number of RMN light cruisers, and tasks normally assigned to frigates began to be filled by destroyers and light cruisers alike. The success of both the merchant marine and the light cruisers assigned to protect it prompted an acceleration of CL building programs, which were already underway when Roger began to increase the size of the battle fleet. The expansion of the battle fleet substantially accelerated the process, and as increasing numbers of cruisers became available, the remaining frigates were steadily taken out of service, both to free up manpower for the king’s “New Navy” and to increase the combat power and survivability of individual units.
The best known light cruiser in RMN history is certainly HMS Unconquered (CL-16), built in 1649 PD, which served as the first hyper-capable command for both Edward Saganami and Ellen D’Orville. Unconquered has been restored and kept in permanent commission as a living museum in orbit around Manticore.
Courageous-class light cruiser
Mass: 88,250 tons
Dimensions: 389 × 40 × 31 m
Acceleration: 519.6 G (5.096 kps²)
80% Accel: 415.7 G (4.076 kps²)
Broadside: 7M, 2L, 2G, 3CM, 3PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 2CM, 2PD
Total Built: 62
Service Life: 1820–1909
The Courageous-class light cruiser was the oldest light cruiser class in the RMN’s inventory at the start of the war. These cruisers were originally scheduled to be decommissioned in 1897 PD, but remained on the active list for another ten years in light of the Navy’s growing demand for light combatants in Silesia, coupled with a shortage of yard space for the construction of replacements. The Courageous class was designed for commerce escort and anti-piracy duties, where it could make best use of its heavy offensive armament. Although scarcely larger than a modern destroyer, the Courageous mounts a broadside of seven lightweight missile tubes and was one of the few units of its size to mount grasers in its beam broadside.
The heavy offensive armament of the class came at a cost, however. It is virtually unarmored, even by light cruiser standards, and the designers opted to save even more mass by reducing crew spaces and bunkerage to levels well below current standards. The reduction in cruise duration between resupply evolutions has rendered the Courageous less suited to its intended role than its weapons fit might indicate, and in that respect it was a disappointing replacement for the classes it superseded.
Despite the age of its offensive systems and its endurance issues, the Courageous class has a good performance record. It was still a strong performer in missile combat and, if it could keep the range open, was a match for most contemporary light cruisers. However, the combination of reduced endurance and cramped crew accommodations make it unpopular with crews. The surviving ships had a series of major upgrades over the years, but hardware supply constraints have caused them to fall behind the more modern classes. They were being replaced on a hull-for-hull basis by the Valiant class as the war began, and the last unit was decommissioned in 1909 PD.
Apollo-class light cruiser
Mass: 126,000 tons
Dimensions: 438 × 46 × 35 m
Acceleration: 517.8 G (5.078 kps²)
80% Accel: 414.2 G (4.062 kps²)
Broadside: 5M, 6L, 4CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 3CM, 3PD
Total Built: 132
Service Life: 1856–present
The Apollo class is a beam-centric light cruiser designed for anti-piracy operations. Built as the result of an 1846 design study, the focus of the design was overall protection and antimissile defenses on extended duration deployments far from resupply, primarily in places like Silesia, but also with an eye towards future fleet scouting requirements.
The first seven ships built to the design study’s specifications were delivered between 1851 and 1856 PD. The RMN had awarded the Jordan Cartel a production contract lasting through the 1860s, but three of the first twelve ships failed their full power trials due to structural flaws. The subsequent scandal forced the cancellation of all naval contracts with the Jordan Cartel, following a lengthy investigation of charges of fraud and substandard building practices. Even before the investigation concluded, the Navy had turned construction over to the Hauptman Cartel. Following the investigation, Hauptman was also awarded possession of the remaining Jordan hulls for salvage of parts and systems. Aside from the first two, all of the remaining hulls have been built by the Hauptman Cartel, which received contract renewals in the mid 1860s and early 1870s.
The Apollos are designed to fight a closing battle while maneuvering into beam range, and have electronic countermeasures and sidewalls as strong as some older heavy cruisers. They also boast heavier armor than most light cruisers. At close quarters, nimble maneuvering and a heavy energy broadside should make an Apollo more than a match for any ship of its type. However, the beam armament has come at the expense of the missile broadside, leaving only five tubes in each broadside, with disadvantages that became truly obvious only after the widespread introduction of the laser head towards the end of the nineteenth century. The Apollos have undergone three major refit cycles to update their electronics and fire control systems. The remaining units in the class are expected to be decommissioned soon, though wartime requirements may extend their service life yet again.
Talisman-class light cruiser
Mass: 124,250 tons
Dimensions: 438 × 46 × 35 m
Acceleration: 517.9 G (5.079 kps²)
80% Accel: 414.3 G (4.063 kps²)
Broadside: 5M, 2L, 4CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 3CM, 3PD
Number Built: 16
Service Life: 1871–present
The Talisman-class light cruiser is a dedicated intelligence-gathering cruiser built on the versatile Apollo hull. With most of the Admiralty convinced that war with Haven was a near certainty, plans were put in place to shadow Havenite units in neutral space and picket Havenite systems with Talismans, in order to capture as much data as possible on Havenite propulsion, sensor, and fire control systems. In the event that war broke out, the Talisman-class ships were to be assigned to screening formations, using their upgraded sensors to provide a direct data feed to the wall’s fire control computers in real time as the battle progressed.
Four broadside lasers were removed and magazine space was reduced to make room for an extensive suite of passive sensors, analysis gear and room for the crew required to run the systems. The entire forward half of the boat bay was dedicated to launch and recovery equipment for a variety of reconnaissance drones.
While political considerations rendered their primary mission difficult in many cases, the Talismans served well throughout the early years of the war. Several of them eventually ended up in the service of ONI special operations teams and a study is underway to refit the others as advanced drone tenders. This would allow a division to hyper into a newly occupied system and set up an ad hoc perimeter security array on short notice. This capability is expected to be of most use in the new territories of the Star Empire of Manticore.
Illustrious-class light cruiser
Mass: 135,750 tons
Dimensions: 449 × 47 × 36 m
Acceleration: 517.3 G (5.073 kps²)
80% Accel: 413.9 G (4.059 kps²)
Broadside: 5M, 4L, 6CM, 6PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 4CM, 4PD
Number Built: 26
Service Life: 1876–present
The Illustrious class was a product of the Enhanced Survivability Program undertaken by BuShips in the early 1860s. Unlike some of the other designs spawned by that program, the Illustrious class carried the concept far enough to compromise the offensive capabilities of the design, and most authorities consider the ship severely under-gunned. The Admiralty agreed with that assessment and shifted resources to the continued production of the older Apollo class rather than the newer Illustrious-class CLs.
The Illustrious design has been disparagingly referred to as the most expensive destroyer ever built. This is perhaps unfair, as the class has found several useful niches, but the RMN had hoped to use it as a more generalized light cruiser and hence overall it is regarded as a failure. Lacking the firepower to be a credible threat to any modern warship in its tonnage range, standard employment options for the class usually emphasize missions where its defensive armament is an advantage. Initially these deployments focused on situations where it was more likely to find a mismatch in its favor, either hunting pirates in Silesia or in an antiscouting role with the fleet. As the tempo of wartime operations increased, command groups with Illustrious-class cruisers attached have taken to detaching them to cover convoy elements while heavier elements have been tasked elsewhere. A related idea that saw Illustrious-class ships attached in division strength to deep raiding battlecruiser squadrons as supplementary defensive firepower met with some limited successes early in the war. Their conversion into light, fast-attack transports assigned to the RMMC is also under consideration.
Apollo-class light cruiser extension (Flight IV Apollo)
Mass: 128,750 tons
Dimensions: 441 × 46 × 35 m
Acceleration: 517.7 G (5.077 kps²)
80% Accel: 414.1 G (4.061 kps²)
Broadside: 5M, 4L, 6CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 3CM, 3PD
Number Built: 52
Service Life: 1886–present
After the Illustrious class failed to live up to its intended capabilities, another flight of Apollos was ordered. Over the course of several years, almost all of the original Flight I hulls were stricken and replacements were commissioned with the same names as the originals.
Recent experience with the Talisman class had emphasized the versatility of the basic Apollo hull form, and the decision was made to modify the class. Two beam mounts were removed from the broadside and replaced with a pair of counter-missile launchers and their magazines. This reduction in close combat ability was regrettable, but the new design was a welcome addition for task force commanders looking to thicken the defenses of their screen. Operational experience soon made it clear that the design was in many ways superior to the original Apollo class and a refit program was put into place to upgrade as many of the original hulls as possible.
At present, many surviving hulls of the original Apollo class have been upgraded to the Flight IV standard. At the beginning of its service life, this class was often referred to as the Artemis class, although officially they have always been carried on the Navy List simply as Flight IV Apollos. The distinction became irrelevant as the remainder of the older hulls were refitted to these standards.
Valiant-class light cruiser
Mass: 154,750 tons
Dimensions: 469 × 49 × 38 m
Acceleration: 516.4 G (5.065 kps²)
80% Accel: 413.2 G (4.052 kps²)
Broadside: 8M, 6L, 2G, 5CM, 4PD
Chase: 3M, 2G, 3CM, 3PD
Number Built: 83
Service Life: 1902–present
With half again the missile broadside of an Apollo, the Valiant class marks a departure in typical RMN light cruiser design. It is fourteen percent heavier than the Illustrious class and takes much of its design philosophy from the old Courageous class. The Valiants remain effective units even by today’s radically changed standards, boasting a heavier missile broadside than any previous RMN light cruiser, energy weapons equal to those of an Apollo, and a respectable defensive suite. Another notable design feature is its heavy chase armament, although fitting in the three missile tubes and two grasers (plus the defensive mounts) required a substantial reworking of the internal hammerhead design.
Like the much smaller Courageous class, this capability comes at a price. Solid, reliable, and effective, the Valiants are shorter legged and more cramped than most of their contemporaries, despite their larger size. Enough Valiants have been built to completely replace the Courageous-class hulls as they are decommissioned, with many Valiants inheriting their names directly from the older ships.
Avalon-class light cruiser
Mass: 146,750 tons
Dimensions: 461 × 48 × 37 m
Acceleration: 749.9 G (7.354 kps²)
80% Accel: 599.9 G (5.883 kps²)
Broadside: 10M, 4G, 8CM, 8PD
Chase: 2G, 4PD
Number Built: 196+
Service Life: 1919–present
The Avalon class is the light cruiser variant based on the same design studies that created the Saganami-B heavy cruiser, and it shares many of the same advantages in terms of fire control, protection, off-bore launching and electronics. Although still categorized and deployed as a light cruiser, it is actually smaller than the Roland-class destroyer, a testament to the RMN’s policy of classifying hulls based on role rather than tonnage.
Unlike its contemporaries the Roland and Saganami-C, the Avalon does not carry the Mk16 Dual Drive Missile (DDM). Instead it carries the same Mk36 Lightweight Extended Range Missile (LERM) as the Wolfhound. The Mk36 single-stage drive package is capable of significantly longer runtime and range than prewar missiles but remains considerably shorter ranged than the Mk16.
The Avalon admirably fills the role of a light cruiser as defined by the RMN. The class is being built in large numbers alongside the Rolands and Saganami-Cs, and many of them have been sent to Silesia, where their capabilities are badly needed at present.
Kamerling-class system control cruiser
Mass: 276,250 tons
Dimensions: 569 × 59 × 46 m
Acceleration: 741 G (7.266 kps²)
80% Accel: 592.8 G (5.813 kps²)
Broadside: 8M, 4G, 12CM, 12PD
Chase: 2G, 6PD
Number Built: 48
Service Life: 1921–present
While listed on the BuShips records as a light cruiser, the Kamerling class has the designation of “system control cruiser” and is in fact closer to a replacement for the Broadsword-class heavy cruiser.
One of the major disadvantages of the new RMN warship classes and their highly automated designs is that station commanders are finding more and more often that they lack the manpower and Marines to deal with boarding actions, prize crews, piracy suppression, and similar missions.
The Kamerling class was designed to address this problem. It takes advantage of the same level of automation and crew reduction as all modern classes, but in addition to the small Navy crew, it carries three companies of Marines, with support equipment and enough small craft lift capacity to move the entire contingent in a single flight.
While capable combatants against anything they are likely to encounter in distant stations such as the Silesian Confederacy, the Kamerling’s weapons fit is biased towards defense and, despite its tonnage advantage over both the Avalon and Valiant classes, its antiship capability is limited for its size due to the tonnage consumed by additional life-support. These ships were never intended to contest space control with another navy’s units. Rather, they were conceived of as units intended to police commerce and restore the peacekeeping and humanitarian mission capabilities which had been lost in the low-manpower designs. However, the explosive increase in construction following the resumption of hostilities resulted in a shortage of building slips. Smaller slips were turning out Rolands and Avalons as quickly as possible already. Given the massive size of these ships, each one would displace the construction of a Saganami-C, so the original build numbers were cut twice.
Only forty-eight have been built and no more are planned until at least 1923. Nearly all of those have been assigned to Silesia.
HEAVY CRUISERS (CA)
For most of its history, the RMN relied on heavy cruisers—and later battlecruisers—as its primary offensive units. Commodore Edward Saganami refined this practice during the Ranier War, and his heroic actions at the Battle of Carson stamped it forever into the traditions of the Royal Navy.
The heavy cruiser is particularly well suited to commerce raiding. Operating in singletons or divisions, cruiser-class ships are easily able to overpower the traditional destroyer and light cruiser escorts and effectively force enemies to protect their supply lines with heavy units of their own, often at the cost of far more units pulled from the front lines than the expenditure of raiders.
While the nature of warfare has changed for many of the last generation of officers to serve King Roger III, moving from one of deep raids with nimble battlecruiser squadrons to the ponderous might of the wall of battle, the tradition has never been forgotten. Strategic planning even today still includes these pinpoint raids. Many in the Navy today believe no officer’s capability has been truly tested until he or she has commanded a heavy cruiser.
Warrior-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 227,250 tons
Dimensions: 474 × 57 × 48 m
Acceleration: 513 G (5.031 kps²)
80% Accel: 410.4 G (4.025 kps²)
Broadside: 6M, 6G, 2CM, 6PD
Chase: 2M, 1G, 2CM, 2PD
Number Built: 46
Service Life: 1794–1906
While perfectly capable for the era in which it was built, the Warrior’s missile broadside is light by modern standards, a fact which was only partially offset by the quality of the RMN’s missile penetration aids and seekers. On the other hand, it carried an all-graser broadside, which provided it with a powerful punch in close range combat. The defensive suite is typical of its time of construction, showing more point defense clusters than counter-missile tubes, a balance optimized against contemporary contact nuclear warhead missiles.
Despite these limitations, the Warrior proved to be an ideal frontier patrol ship for the Silesian sector. Its smaller size gave it a marginally better acceleration than newer, larger hulls, and, with the right initial geometry, it was capable of running down many light cruisers and even some destroyers. Its missiles gave it a reasonable attack against the lightly defended ships used by liberation front navies and pirates, and the generally low quality of Silesian equipment prevented its weaknesses in active defenses and armor from being a crippling disadvantage.
Although few remained in service by the start of the war, the Warrior class had always been a well-regarded platform, despite its age, and all ships in the class had received periodic electronic package upgrades throughout their operational lifetimes. Still, the era of battle for which these ships had been designed and in which they performed admirably was drawing to a close. Woefully insufficient in long-range defenses by current standards, the Warriors were low enough on the priority list that refitting them to a more balanced defensive suite was shelved in favor of designs that were more capable of fighting the People’s Republic of Haven. While a few units saw combat at the opening of the war, the last of them were decommissioned less than a year later.
Truncheon-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 223,000 tons
Dimensions: 471 × 57 × 48 m
Acceleration: 513.2 G (5.033 kps²)
80% Accel: 410.6 G (4.026 kps²)
Broadside: 5M, 5L, 3G, 2CM, 6PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 1G, 1CM, 2PD
Number Built: 77
Service Life: 1809–1905
The Truncheon-class heavy cruiser was designed in concert with the Warrior class as a less expensive option to make up total designated build numbers. Despite having been authorized and placed on the books a full year earlier than the Warrior, budget cuts delayed the first Truncheon for fifteen years after the Warrior class entered operational service. With several squadrons of the ancient Acherner class long overdue for retirement when the Truncheon, finally did enter service, however, and in light of production problems with the Warriors, the original production run was lengthened in 1822 PD.
Two divisions of Flight I Truncheons were refitted in the early 1830s as marine operations support cruisers and redesignated with the prefix LCA. This refit reduced the broadside weaponry to make room for a full battalion of marines and support staff plus specialized command and control equipment. While sorely needed, the makeshift nature of the Nightstick-class conversion was never popular with the Corps. Plans were drawn up shortly thereafter for a purpose-built LCA, though several delays in that procurement kept the Truncheons in service decades longer than anticipated. When the long awaited Broadsword class was finally commissioned, two decades overdue, the converted Truncheons were finally decommissioned, much to the relief of the RMMC.
Prince Consort-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 246,500 tons
Dimensions: 487 × 59 × 49 m
Acceleration: 512.1 G (5.022 kps²)
80% Accel: 409.7 G (4.017 kps²)
Broadside: 8M, 3L, 2G, 5CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 3CM, 2PD
Number Built: 175
Service Life: 1851–1919
The Prince Consort class of heavy cruisers holds the record as the largest class of heavy cruisers in the Royal Manticoran Navy, though it is likely to be overtaken in the next flight of Saganami-Cs coming off the building slips in 1922 PD. The class was originally authorized as the Crown Prince class, but the name changed before the first was delivered.
Individually the Prince Consorts are powerful and effective units, but their design was a compromise in two ways. First, they were designed with just enough internal bridge volume to accommodate their original equipment, which caused a great deal of frustration as future refits and equipment upgrades had to be crammed wherever they fit, making for an even more cramped interior working space. Second, to get as much firepower into space as quickly and at as low a cost as possible, BuShips omitted a proper flag deck and its support systems in exchange for additional tonnage dedicated to broadside weaponry. Due to the shortage in flagships of any kind, this required Prince Consorts to be assigned to task force and fleet formations where other ships in the squadron could provide the space for a flag officer and staff.
Like most Manticoran designs, the Prince Consort enjoyed a healthy advantage in medium- to long-range missile duels against foreign opponents, where it could make the most of its superior seeker systems and electronic countermeasures. At closer ranges, where the disparity in missile qualities evened out, much of that advantage disappeared. While many of the class saw active service throughout the war, the growing numbers of more capable heavy cruisers being built gradually displaced the last of them.
Crusader-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 234,500 tons
Dimensions: 479 × 58 × 48 m
Acceleration: 512.6 G (5.027 kps²)
80% Accel: 410.1 G (4.022 kps²)
Broadside: 6M, 3L, 1G, 5CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 3CM, 2PD
Number Built: 25
Service Life: 1851–1919
The Crusader-class heavy cruiser was designed as a supplement to the Prince Consort building program. As the Prince Consorts did not have flag facilities, BuShips authorized a program which would have built the Prince Consorts in groups of seven and paired each group with a Crusader providing flag services to make a full eight-ship squadron. In addition to a flag bridge, the Crusader class mounts a full auxiliary command deck, in addition to a number of other system and habitability upgrades.
“Flag facilities” in modern naval parlance means the extra computational support, communications equipment, and watchstanders necessary to link a formation spread over tens of thousands of kilometers into a coherent tactical fighting force, as well as the long-range communications arrays necessary to coordinate the action of detached units across a star system. While any modern combat control system can perform this function at some level, dedicated personnel and facilities are required to optimize the use of a modern squadron’s resources.
The original building program failed to allow for a realistic overhaul cycle, with the result being that at least twenty-five percent too few flagships had been projected from the beginning, and the Admiralty’s decision to cut funding for them in the intervening years only made the problem worse. The shortage of Crusader went largely unremarked at the time, but as the signs of war between Manticore and Haven grew, the forward redeployments of cruisers and battlecruisers as raiders highlighted the shortages of flag decks in heavy cruiser squadrons. The crucial importance of appropriate flagship facilities lay in the close coordination required of a modern squadron in combat.
As squadron flagships, the Crusaders performed admirably over their lifetimes. The weapons fit was weaker than that of the Prince Consorts, but even by modern standards this class had excellent command and control facilities, rivaling those of far larger ships. It was less capable in solo operations as it was not intended to operate outside a squadron. Aside from enhancements in targeting and penetration aids, the offensive power was comparable to that of the Warrior-class heavy cruiser, despite a more than ten percent increase in tonnage over the older class.
Additional advances in automation reduced the personnel and space required to build the same command and control capability into follow-on ships. With the Star Knight and Saganami classes and their variants being built in large numbers, the need for a class of lightly armed dedicated flagships was dwindling. Almost the entire class had been relegated to the Reserve by the time of Operation Buttercup, and it was finally scrapped during the Janacek build-down.
Broadsword-class Marine operations support cruiser
Mass: 268,500 tons
Dimensions: 531 x 59 x 49 m
Acceleration: 511 G (5.011 kps²)
80% Accel: 408.8 G (4.009 kps²)
Broadside: 8M, 3L, 2G, 5CM, 5PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 4CM, 4PD
Number Built: 8
Service Life: 1873–present
The Broadsword-class marine operations support cruiser is built on an elongated Prince Consort-class hull, with a comparable weapon and defensive fit. The class fulfills two primary mission roles. The first is a rapid deployment ship for the RMMC in situations where a reinforced battalion will do the job but a full brigade or divisional Marine drop is too cumbersome. The second is as an orbital command ship for extended ground operations. In the first role, a Broadsword may be assigned individually or as part of a cruiser squadron, while in the second it will accompany a full Marine Transport Squadron. Given their specialized nature, Broadswords are rarely deployed as part of an offensive space control fleet element and usually do not arrive until the battle is over.
The Broadsword’s marine complement consists of a full battalion reinforced with a single assault company in addition to the heavy weapons company. With the newer Mk17 light assault shuttles, a Broadsword can drop its entire marine complement in a single wave. This class also carries a large number of containerized kinetic strike weapons, reconnaissance and communication satellites, planetary probes and other ground support equipment and has an extensive orbital command facility for coordination of Marine forces in the air, in orbital spaces, and on the ground. Additionally, the Broadsword is also equipped with hospital facilities comparable to those of a small station or forward base, making this class a welcome addition to any force.
Star Knight-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 305,250 tons
Dimensions: 523 × 63 × 53 m
Acceleration: 509.3 G (4.994 kps²)
80% Accel: 407.4 G (3.995 kps²)
Broadside: 12M, 6L, 3G, 8CM, 8PD
Chase: 3M, 1L, 5CM, 5PD
Number Built: 74
Service Life: 1893–present
The Star Knight is in all ways a revolutionary design, not simply for the Manticoran Navy but for the heavy cruiser type in general. This class was the first two-deck heavy cruiser in the service of any navy, though a careful disinformation campaign kept that fact from becoming obvious until well into its service life. The fourth and final design built on the Prince Consort hull, the Star Knight was designed to replace both the Prince Consort and Crusader classes. The design takes advantage of decades of research by the Weapons Development board in system miniaturization and it represents arguably the most notable achievement of BuShips in the nineteenth century. Its significantly increased armament, more powerful sidewall generators, heavier armor, better electronic warfare capabilities, and more numerous point defense systems make it at least thirty percent tougher than the Prince Consorts.
This improvement was due to the fact that the Star Knight was the first heavy cruiser designed from the keel out with the laser head threat in mind. The designers realized missile exchanges would begin to dominate, even among the lighter classes, and with half again as many missile tubes as a Prince Consort, the Star Knight could lay down an impressive volume of fire. While the number of beam mounts is equally impressive, the truth is that they are individually much lighter weapons than on some older classes, though the decisive edge in missile combat has blunted any criticism in that respect.
Despite this class’ exemplary performance compared to its contemporaries, combat experience has shown that insufficient volume was allocated to offensive systems. This lack was largely due to one of the most controversial design choices: installation of a third fusion reactor as opposed to the normal two found on most ships of this size. Only a single reactor is required to carry the ship’s combat load and the additional volume could have been used to mount a heavier broadside but, unable to find any way to mount ejectable GRAVMAK reactors and not entirely certain that their passive armor scheme could possibly protect the core hull from laser head strikes, the designers opted for increased power system redundancy.
Despite the exponential increase in lethality over the Prince Consort class, the RMN has come to consider the Star Knight a transitional design. Once wartime experience was factored in, the RMN begun to develop an even more powerful and revolutionary heavy cruiser class as its replacement.
Edward Saganami-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 393,000 tons
Dimensions: 569 × 69 × 57 m
Acceleration: 592.2 G (5.808 kps²)
80% Accel: 473.8 G (4.646 kps²)
Broadside: 14M, 5G, 10CM, 10PD
Chase: 3M, 2G, 6CM, 6PD
Number Built: 46
Service Life: 1908–present
The Edward Saganami-class heavy cruiser was designed to improve upon the Star Knight. As the war progressed, the design underwent several major revisions, and construction was delayed by almost three years as the Manticoran designers studied innovations the Graysons developed for their Alvarez class and other small combatants. When the design was finally completed, the Saganami class became the RMN’s first “all graser” ship since the Warrior. It mounted two additional missile launchers and fewer but more powerful grasers than originally planned, as well as major changes in crew structure using the new automation. Other improvements included significant electronics and systems upgrades, which greatly improved its passive defenses.
The lead ship, HMS Edward Saganami, bears little resemblance to the original design proposed in 1903 PD, and there are significant differences between all of the first flight ships. Indeed, in some ways, the Flight I ships may be considered a series of prototypes, as they were not all laid down simultaneously and the basic platform’s design remained under development and refinement throughout their construction period. Later flights settled down into a more stable pattern. The Flight II Saganamis all carried first-generation bow walls, making them the first RMN warships larger than a LAC to use the new technology.
Saganami-B-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 422,750 tons
Dimensions: 583 × 71 × 59 m
Acceleration: 730.8 G (7.167 kps²)
80% Accel: 584.7 G (5.734 kps²)
Broadside: 19M, 10G, 16CM, 18PD
Chase: 2M, 3G, 6CM, 8PD
Number Built: 84
Service Life: 1917–present
Though it was billed as a block upgrade to the Flight II Saganami, the Saganami-B class is a radical departure from the original design, and the difference in armament led to its redesignation upon commissioning of the first unit.
Less than ten percent larger than a Saganami, the Saganami-B has a modified hullform to accommodate a broadside over fifty percent larger than that of the older ship. Its broadside of nineteen missile launchers and ten grasers more than doubles the armament of some older heavy cruisers still in service and, with active defenses equally upgraded, the Saganami-B is more than a match for most contemporary battlecruisers. On the passive side, electronics have been upgraded yet again, and the bow wall is joined by an equally powerful stern wall. The second-generation missile launchers are capable of limited off-bore fire into adjacent arcs, though the chase telemetry arrays limit them to realtime control of less than half the total salvo they could launch.
For all its improvements, the Saganami-B is another transitional design. It served as a testbed for new technologies and refinements of old technologies, all of which have led to the Saganami-C class.
Saganami-C-class heavy cruiser
Mass: 483,000 tons
Dimensions: 610 × 74 × 62 m
Acceleration: 726.2 G (7.121 kps²)
80% Accel: 580.9 G (5.697 kps²)
Broadside: 20M, 8G, 20CM, 24PD
Chase: 3L, 2G, 8PD
Number Built: 149
Service Life: 1920–present
The Saganami-C class is one of the few new classes BuShips managed to get approved under the Janacek Admiralty, which had focused all construction on LACs for system defense and lighter classes for strategic roles. Six of these were approved as an initial design study, although the first did not commission until after the war resumed.
The Saganami-C is uncompromisingly optimized for missile combat, with a total of forty missile launchers for the new Mk16 DDM. The third-generation launchers and missile allow them to fire off-bore up to 180 degrees, launching a forty-missile salvo into any firing arc, and telemetry arrays have also been upgraded, allowing full control of up to three “stacked broadsides” in any aspect not blocked by the wedge. Additional control channels in the broadsides allow the class to handle large missile pod loads in addition to the shipboard launchers. Its energy armament was reduced to only eight grasers, but each is significantly more powerful than those carried by the Saganami-B, with an output yield closer to the weapons some navies mount on smaller capital ships, and improved fire control modeling increases hit probability per mount significantly. Moreover, simulations indicate the larger beam diameters and larger plasma throughput of the new battery will actually increase the probability of kill against other heavy cruisers. It remains to be seen if combat experience will bear this out but early reports are promising.
Another advantage of the Saganami-C design are its two-phase bow and stern wall generators. A traditional endwall closes off the wedge at one end or another, reducing acceleration to zero for as long as it is active, but the two-phase generators carried by the Saganami-C allow the ship to produce what the RMN refers to as a “buckler.” This is a smaller endwall projected across the throat or kilt but not directly connected to the wedge. Its arc of coverage is not as wide as a traditional endwall and leaves vulnerable gaps in some engagement geometries, but the ship retains the ability to accelerate and maneuver when it is active.
Combat experience has been limited to date but early reports have been extremely positive. These are the most modern, powerful heavy cruisers available to any navy, and, between the salvo size they can control and the range advantage granted by the Mk16 DDM, they could easily destroy at least twice their tonnage in older battlecruisers in a stand-up fight.
BATTLECRUISERS (BC)
For almost as long as there has been a Manticoran Navy, battlecruisers have been its primary tools for force projection. Even after the first battleship squadrons were built for system defense following the discovery of the Junction, battlecruisers were the main striking force of the Navy and remained so until the first superdreadnoughts began to be commissioned.
A battlecruiser is designed to outfight anything it can catch, and outrun anything that outguns it. Traditionally, BuShips’ designers believed that any battlecruiser’s life expectancy against ships of the wall would be brief and that battlecruiser-versus-battlecruiser actions would be short and sharp. As a result, BuShips believed it was better to throw more (and better) missiles faster and to incorporate an energy armament heavy enough to make the initial salvo of a beam action decisive. The traditional RMN battlecruiser therefore mounts cruiser-grade missile tubes in larger numbers (and with deeper magazines) than a typical heavy cruiser on a hull which masses two to four times as much as the cruiser’s. In addition to a heavier weapons fit, that extra mass and volume also buy the BC a scaled-down version of a capital ship’s protective scheme, with tougher sidewalls and heavier armor than a cruiser.
Battlecruisers have many roles in the Royal Manticoran Navy. The battlecruiser is envisioned as the minimum platform capable of performing long-range, extended patrol and interdiction, destroying commerce raiders (not necessarily the same thing as convoy protection), and projecting force against anything “below the wall.” They are also useful for showing the flag, rear area security missions, and screening heavier ships and critical convoys. While the force balance and dynamics of warfare have caused certain roles to wax and wane over time, overall RMN battlecruiser doctrine has remained largely unchanged.
The Manticoran romance with the battlecruiser has taken on a different hue with the Nike and Agamemnon classes of recent years. As the balance of combat shifted, especially with the introduction of the missile pod for system defense and the reformed RHN wall of battle, these raids became more and more costly for the smaller ships. However, with the introduction of the Nike class in 1920 PD, the RMN apparently is moving back towards the traditional role for the type. It is a rather pointed commentary on the sheer destructiveness which missile combat has attained that the Navy feels that it requires a 2.5 million-ton platform to replace ships of less than one million tons put into service less than a decade ago.
Redoubtable-class battlecruiser
Mass: 784,750 tons
Dimensions: 686 × 87 × 78 m
Acceleration: 491.5 G (4.82 kps²)
80% Accel: 393.2 G (3.856 kps²)
Broadside: 18M, 8L, 6G, 9CM, 9PD
Chase: 6M, 1G, 6CM, 4PD
Number Built: 118
Service Life: 1786–1918
With over 125 years of service and four major deployed design revisions, the Redoubtable class is the longest serving battlecruiser class in the Royal Manticoran Navy. The Redoubtable’s birth dates back to the aftermath of the Ranier War and the Battle of Carson and the RMN’s shift from a predominantly system-defense force to one that could perform power projection missions. A major new shipbuilding effort was required, and over the next century, the RMN’s battlecruiser strength grew from a few dozen to over two hundred. The Redoubtable was the pinnacle of the Star Kingdom’s battlecruisers during that early period.
Designed for closing engagements against lighter opponents and peers, the design had extremely heavy chase armament for its time, as well as heavy face-mirrored armor over the hammerheads. Even today the Redoubtable’s antiquated (by current Manticoran standards) fire control systems have proven to be more than adequate against most Havenite opponents.
Nonetheless, the Redoubtables, while a solid and frequently updated design, were clearly showing their age towards the end of the First Havenite War. Maintenance and reliability had become recurring issues as components last manufactured a century ago were replaced with modern substitutes, and ships of this class were retired from frontline duties as rapidly as Reliants could be commissioned to replace them. The last were decommissioned or sold to Alliance members shortly before the war resumed.
Homer-class battlecruiser
Mass: 834,000 tons
Dimensions: 700 × 89 × 79 m
Acceleration: 490 G (4.805 kps²)
80% Accel: 392 G (3.844 kps²)
Broadside: 20M, 8L, 8G, 1GL, 4ET, 9CM, 9PD
Chase: 4M, 2G, 4CM, 6PD
Number Built: 86
Service Life: 1863–present
Like the Redoubtable, the Homer-class battlecruiser was built as something of a brawler, mounting an extensive energy broadside, augmented (in later flights) with a grav lance and an array of energy torpedoes for extremely close engagements. Like many Manticoran designs, the Homer’s passive protection relied on sidewalls in preference to thicker skin armor, on the theory that sidewalls could be upgraded more readily than hull armor as technology advanced.
Because of experience with Service Life Extension Program refits for earlier classes, the Homers were built for ease of upgrade. Paradoxically, this was one of the principle justifications for the delay in their prewar refits, as the RMN knew it could be done comparatively quickly. Until the start of the First Havenite War, updates to the electronics and fire control systems were repeatedly deferred in favor of funneling more resources into the Reliant-class building program. With the onset of hostilities, the Homers received defensive armament and compensator upgrades, to increase their ability to get in close, where their short-ranged armament could be used to greatest effect.
In operational service, the mixture of beams and missiles makes the Homer an unremarkable combatant outside of energy range, and only the pressing need for battlecruisers in the wake of the present resumption of hostilities has kept the class in service this long. All surviving units were pulled out of mothballs and quickly pressed into service in the wake of Operation Thunderbolt, even as building programs accelerated to build more modern units.
Reliant-class battlecruiser
Mass: 877,500 tons
Dimensions: 712 × 90 × 80 m
Acceleration: 488.7 G (4.792 kps²)
80% Accel: 390.9 G (3.834 kps²)
Broadside: 22M, 8L, 6G, 2ET, 10CM, 10PD
Chase: 4M, 1L, 2G, 6CM, 6PD
Number Built: 95
Service Life: 1896–present
The Reliant is only five percent larger than a Homer but is a far more capable platform. While perhaps not as revolutionary for battlecruisers as the Star Knight was for a heavy cruiser, they are still extremely capable warships and ideally suited to the fast, slashing tactics that the Royal Manticoran Navy has embraced for over four T-centuries. They are the first units below the wall fitted with fully integrated modern armor materials. While these materials offered improved laser/graser absorption and far better secondary mechanical and thermal properties, they are difficult to nanoform, requiring specialized coded chemical catalyst gear and careful environmental control to emplace or replace.
Designed from the keel out as a squadron flagship, the Reliant class has three boat bays with reserved visitor space for up to four additional pinnaces. Early in the First Havenite War, the few Reliants in service were most often found leading squadrons of older Homers and Redoubtables. As the wartime construction programs accelerated, they rapidly began to replace those earlier classes in frontline service.
Reliant-class battlecruiser (Flights III-IV)
Mass: 934,250 tons
Dimensions: 727 × 92 × 82 m
Acceleration: 616 G (6.041 kps²)
80% Accel: 492.8 G (4.833 kps²)
Broadside: 24M, 4L, 6G, 18CM, 18PD
Chase: 4M, 2G, 6CM, 6PD
Number Built: 73
Service Life: 1915–present
The Reliant’s combination of acceleration and firepower has made it a flexible, multi-role platform, but the original design did not age as well as others as the war progressed. Later flights became testbeds for a number of new technologies and doctrinal changes, and the Flight III Reliants show a significant evolution of the design, incorporating many lessons learned from observations of the GSN’s Courvosier class.
While six percent more massive than the original Reliants, the incorporation of a third-generation inertial compensator has allowed them to make up any loss in acceleration, while their massively upgraded active defenses allow them to stand in the wall of battle far better than their predecessors. While they didn’t move to the “all graser” armament preferred by the GSN, their beam weapons are fewer in number but much more powerful than the earlier flights, and the additional two missile tubes give them a slightly heavier broadside.
Any design has its critics and many have argued that the evolution of the battlecruiser as a type stalled with the Reliant class. This criticism is especially relevant when compared to the revolutionary designs BuShips has adopted for smaller warships. However, it has always been a solid performer and an additional three squadrons were ordered as part of the emergency wartime construction programs as a stopgap while the new Agamemnon and Nike classes were tooling up to go into series production.
Agamemnon-class pod battlecruiser
Mass: 1,750,750 tons
Dimensions: 815 × 118 × 110 m
Acceleration: 692.6 G (6.792 kps²)
80% Accel: 554.1 G (5.434 kps²)
Broadside: 10G, 30CM, 30PD
Fore: 4G, 12PD
Aft: 4MP, 4G, 12PD
Pods: 360
Number Built: 85+
Service Life: 1919–present
The Agamemnon-class BC(P) is one of the few new classes that Vice Admiral Toscarelli of BuShips managed to get approved under the Janacek Admiralty, though the design lagged behind the Grayson implementation of a similar concept. It was an effort to keep the battlecruiser a viable unit in the days of multi-drive missile (MDM) pod-based combat. The Agamemnon has a stern hammerhead designed around a pod core capable of deploying four-pod patterns. This design required significant alterations to the stern taper and aft impeller ring. As in the Medusa and Invictus classes, the pod core extends past the midline. Forward of the core the hull design is similar to a conventional battlecruiser, though to optimize pod storage the RMN has forgone any broadside missile launchers. In order to maximize salvo density rather than missile range, Agamemnon pods were usually loaded with the Mark 16 dual-drive missile. This design allowed BuShips to fit fourteen missiles into each pod and maintain actual missile densities per pattern close to that of a Medusa or Invictus.
Starting with the second unit of the class, HMS Ajax, BuShips began to send units already fitting out and in various stages of construction through a refit program to add the Mk20 Keyhole platform. Just over four squadrons were refitted, a process which eliminated half of the broadside graser mounts and resulted in significantly thinner armor over the primary fusion plant. It was originally planned to incorporate the design modification from the keel out in a Flight III build, but with evidence pointing to two of the three losses at Solon being due to reactor hits, that decision is being reevaluated and it is probable that any future Keyhole-capable BC(P)s will be more heavily redesigned to avoid the potential vulnerability of the Flight IIs.
This is a class whose time came too late in many ways. Against a Navy with no MDMs or pod-layers, it is a devastatingly effective platform, as even the Mk16s normally carried by the Agamemnons can be launched in quantities great enough to reduce any conventional superdreadnought to scrap well before it could get into its own missile range. Against a peer competitor, however, the limitations of the class quickly become apparent. Despite accepting a design with nearly twice the mass of a conventional battlecruiser, the designers were still forced to make fundamental sacrifices to fit in the pod core and other weaponry. The result is a design that can lay down an impressive weight of fire as long as its ammunition lasts, but which has limited magazine depth and is extremely fragile. In many ways the Agamemnon is even less suited to stand in the wall of battle than an older Reliant, despite its far greater firepower.
Nike-class battlecruiser
Mass: 2,519,750 tons
Dimensions: 1012 × 129 × 114 m
Acceleration: 674.3 G (6.613 kps²)
80% Accel: 539.4 G (5.29 kps²)
Broadside: 25M, 12G, 32CM, 30PD
Chase: 4G, 12PD
Number Built: 12+
Service Life: 1920–present
A single Nike-class battlecruiser was commissioned by the Janacek Admiralty as an operational prototype. For almost a year, HMS Nike (BC-562) was the only ship of her class in service, but the prototype’s combat performance convinced the White Haven Admiralty to proceed with mass production of the class. The first new-construction ships entered service in early 1921 PD.
Carrying fifty broadside launchers capable of off-bore firing the Mk16 DDM, the Nike can launch a salvo of fifty missiles into any aspect, and her magazines allow for over forty minutes of maximum rate fire. The class’ improved compensators allow an acceleration rate thirty percent greater than that of the Reliant class, despite being over twice the mass of the older unit. While suffering from the greatest “tonnage creep” of any class in RMN history, the Nike well illustrates the RMN’s policy of defining ships by their role and not by their tonnage. This has not prevented the size and classification from creating intense debate. In raw figures, these ships are five times the mass of a Saganami-C, with only a twenty-five percent increase in missile tubes. Accusations of poor design by BuShips and even outright incompetence are exacerbated by the fact that the Nike carries the same Mk16 DDM as the Saganami-C.
These critics overlook important difference in the capabilities of the two platforms and their designed missions. The Nike is designed to lead and survive independent long-duration deep-raiding missions in an era dominated by multi-drive missiles. The simple numbers of beam mounts, missile launchers and active defense systems belie qualitative per-mount differences. While a Nike and a Saganami-C may carry the same missile, each of a Nike’s launchers has four times the magazine capacity of her smaller heavy cruiser counterpart. A Nike’s grasers and point defense laser clusters are all superdreadnought grade. Their emitter diameter, plasma beam intensity, gravitic photon conditioning hardware, and on-mount energy storage capacity all rival the most modern capital ships. Finally, much of the Nike’s impressive mass is devoted to passive defense. Screening and sidewall generators have near-capital-ship levels of redundancy. The external armor system, internal mount compartmentalization, outer hull framing, and core hull construction are all designed to at least prewar superdreadnought standards. Nikes, finally, carry full flagship facilities and incorporate much greater Marine carrying and support capacity. The Saganami-Cs, while impressive space control platforms, have little or none of this capability.
The only reason, in fact, that a Nike might be less survivable than the prewar superdreadnought is the physical distance between the armor and the core hull. There simply is not enough depth to guarantee the same level of survivability to vital core systems as in a larger capital vessel. Early after-action reports indicate, however, that Nike’s survivability against her intended targets (heavy cruisers and other battlecruisers) has been extraordinary.
Above all other design elements, the addition of the Mark 20 Keyhole platform to the Nike class allows it a greater level of tactical flexibility than any other warship currently in service. This costs a tremendous amount of mass and creates interesting problems (which some commentators describe as weaknesses) in the armor system. But those costs buy the ability to tether the platforms outside the wedge, which, coupled with the off-bore missile launchers, makes Nike the one of the first warships that can fight an entire engagement with her wedge to the enemy. The telemetry repeaters allow full control of both missiles and counter-missiles, and the platforms’ onboard point defenses thicken defensive fire. In addition, the Keyhole platform can act as a “handoff” relay, allowing a Nike to coordinate offensive and defensive missile control for another ship while both keep their wedges to the threat. This flexibility has resulted in vastly increased computational complexity in offensive and defensive engagement programming and helps to explain much of the class’ survivability.
LAC CARRIERS (CLAC)
The first Minotaur-class LAC carriers were developed in secret along with the Shrike-class advanced LACs as part of Project Anzio. Experience with LACs as parasite craft in the Trojan-class Q-ships had shown they could be a powerful force multiplier when transported and serviced by a dedicated carrier, and the RMN set out to design a carrier that could keep up with the rest of the fleet and even survive in the wall of battle if necessary.
Original doctrine had the carriers launching their LACs and then staying far outside the range of the enemy wall of battle, screened by a cruiser squadron or other light units. This doctrine was intended above all to preserve the carrier, since it provided the only hyper-capable way to safely recover the LACs once committed to action.
On many raids and offensive actions this has proved to be a viable approach, but on major offensives or defensive actions the carriers are more likely to stay with the wall of battle, lending their active defenses to the other ships in formation and simultaneously taking shelter under the wall’s antimissile umbrella.
Minotaur-class LAC carrier
Mass: 6,178,500 tons
Dimensions: 1131 × 189 × 175 m
Acceleration: 428.2 G (4.199 kps²)
80% Accel: 342.6 G (3.359 kps²)
Broadside: 30CM, 28PD
Chase: 9M, 4G, 10CM, 10PD
LAC Bays: 100
Number Built: 18
Service Life: 1912–present
As the first operational unit of Project Anzio, The Minotaur-class LAC carrier can embark one hundred Shrike- or Ferret-class LACs in individual bays along the broadsides. Each bay is sealed by an armored hatch and can be completely pressurized if necessary to provide a “shirtsleeves” environment for hull maintenance, though that is rarely done for routine maintenance and operations. The LAC is held in place by a docking cradle, while an oversized boarding tube seals over the nose, allowing for easy access to the graser emitter and point defense for maintenance. Separate loading tubes run from the carrier’s high-speed magazines to the LAC’s missile and counter-missile launchers, allowing a LAC to be re-armed with a standard missile package in a matter of minutes.
Offensively, the Minotaur-class CLACs carry offensive weapons only in the hammerheads, with a heavy defensive weapons fit on the broadsides. The Minotaurs were the very first ships to be built from the keel out to fire the new (at the time) Mk41 capacitor-driven multi-drive missile, though they carry them in too few numbers to be more than a minor deterrent against anything larger than a heavy cruiser. The addition of the MDMs gave them the ability to harass any light raiding force dispatched to attack the carriers while the LACs were in-system, while the squadron would be forced to run from anything heavier.
The entire LAC complement of the carrier is organized into a single LAC wing, with a separate wing staff reporting to the wing CO, called the COLAC. The COLAC in turn reports to the carrier’s commanding officer. Carrier-based support is provided by the LAC crews themselves, along with a core of specialists belonging to the wing. Much of the early doctrine was built by the crew and COLAC of HMS Minotaur during working up, with modifications for lessons learned at the Second Battle of Hancock.
Hydra-class LAC carrier (Flight II)
Mass: 6,145,750 tons
Dimensions: 1129 x 188 x 174 m
Acceleration: 428.5 G (4.203 kps²)
80% Accel: 342.8 G (3.362 kps²)
Broadside: 36CM, 36PD
Chase: 12M, 12CM, 12PD
LAC Bays: 112
Number Built: 94+
Service Life: 1914–present
While officially on the books as the Minotaur-B class, these ships are most often referred to as the Hydra class, after the lead unit of the new design. The Hydra class is slightly smaller than the Minotaur but carries twelve more LACs, extending the broadside length by sixty meters and cutting the chase magazine space in half.
While their active defenses are markedly lighter than those of the Medusa and Invictus classes, the Hydras have proved reasonably survivable in support of the wall of battle, especially when included in the defensive umbrella of the rest of the wallers.
Starting in 1920 PD, the Flight II Hydras have had their launch tubes and magazines configured to fire the Mk23 fusion-powered MDM rather than the much larger Mk41, and the elimination of all chase beam weaponry allowed them to increase the launch tubes to twelve, in addition to an increase in the defensive armament. This change reflects the operational realities of how little business carriers have in engaging in beam combat with ships of the wall, as well as providing them with a credible threat at extended range against anything below the wall.
DREADNOUGHTS (DN)
The RMN built two squadrons of battleships shortly after the first transit through the Manticore Wormhole Junction, and they served as the primary defensive component of Home Fleet, with regular overhauls, for nearly 250 years.
By the time the Navy began its expansion under King Roger III, the People’s Republic of Haven had over two hundred battleships already in commission, and Roger flatly refused to build a warship that was qualitatively inferior to anything Haven had in service at the time. The last of the RMN’s small battleship force was decommissioned in 1868 PD, when sufficient dreadnoughts had been built to replace them.
Unlike the People’s Navy with their core of battleships for rear area support or the Imperial Andermani Navy with its “fast wing” of light superdreadnoughts, the RMN has historically kept all of its capital ships concentrated into heterogeneous squadrons and task forces filling the same doctrinal niche, the wall of battle. The natural consequence of this doctrine would have been for the RMN to begin building the more-powerful superdreadnoughts for the wall after inertial compensator improvements made the SD concept viable. Even with the strength of their economy, though, Manticore was unable to afford the number of hulls necessary, and hence continued to augment their superdreadnought force with new dreadnought construction.
The emergence of the modern missile pod, with its light-weight grav drivers, more numerous launch cells, and laser head-armed single-drive missiles, produced salvo densities which increased the relative vulerability of the already vulnerable dreadnought significantly. The type was increasingly relegated to rear area roles, and the introduction of the Medusa-class pod-layers of Operation Buttercup, armed with multi-drive laser head missiles, led to its outright demise. A dreadnought-sized ship of the wall simply could not support the mass and volume required to mount competitive offensive and defensive systems. Most of the remaining dreadnoughts were quietly retired by the Janacek Admiralty, and the last of them was decommissioned early in 1921 PD.
Ad Astra-class dreadnought (1878 refit)
Mass: 3,895,500 tons
Dimensions: 1064 × 154 × 144 m
Acceleration: 450.8 G (4.421 kps²)
80% Accel: 360.7 G (3.537 kps²)
Broadside: 18M, 14L, 12G, 6ET, 8CM, 18PD
Chase: 4M, 6L, 2G, 2CM, 8PD
Number Built: 11
Service Life: 1632–1913
The design of the Ad Astra class was refined over a few decades of operational experience with the Manticore-class battleship, a locally-built, Solarian licensed design. At almost twice the tonnage of the Manticores, they were the first Manticoran capital ships uncompromisingly designed for power projection as opposed to system defense. Reality fell somewhat short of expectations, however, as a succession of isolationist foreign policies resulted in a hyper-capable battle fleet that was firmly anchored to the Manticore system. Their first actual out-system deployment wasn’t until 1674 PD, when they accompanied the First Battle Squadron to Silesia after the Battle of Carson to force the Confederacy to sign the Cherwell Convention.
Nearing three hundred years old when the first one was decommissioned in 1908 PD, the Ad Astra-class dreadnought was the longest serving single class in the history of the RMN. Subject to several major refits, and rebuilt virtually from the keel out in 1878, the ships decommissioned in the early days of the war bear little resemblance to the original ships laid down in the seventeenth century.
A full two squadrons (sixteen hulls) were originally planned, but only eleven ships were actually built. The first four ran afoul of cost overruns and multi-year delays in construction as the yards were expanded to handle hulls of their size, and a bitter budgetary debate in Parliament in 1651 PD suspended the entire program for almost half a century before the funding could be found to complete the class.
In the late 1880s, the entire class was modernized, despite the fact that the lead unit was over two centuries old. The original autocannon were replaced with modern point defense laser clusters, the armor was thickened in a few critical locations in response to the laser head threat, and electronics and missile launch systems were upgraded. Little could be done about the limited number of counter-missile launchers, a standard feature when these were built but a critical weakness in the era of the laser head.
Despite these shortcomings, the class continued well into the twentieth century, when the last units decommissioned midwar to provide crews for the final flight of Bellerophons.
Royal Winton-class dreadnought
Mass: 5,814,750 tons
Dimensions: 1216 × 176 × 164 m
Acceleration: 431.9 G (4.235 kps²)
80% Accel: 345.5 G (3.388 kps²)
Broadside: 20M, 18L, 16G, 6ET, 12CM, 28PD
Chase: 6M, 6L, 2G, 4CM, 10PD
Number Built: 21
Service Life: 1846–1916
Over seventy years after the last RMN ship of the wall had been completed, the Admiralty realized at the turn of the nineteenth century that it needed to modernize Home Fleet. While the previous classes had all seen service life extension programs and heavy refits, two centuries of advances in naval warfare had rendered them obsolete, despite their modernized weapon systems.
The design study for the Royal Winton and Samothrace classes began in 1812 PD, building on the Navy’s experiences with the existing wall of battle. The Royal Winton-class dreadnought was designed to completely replace the RMN’s handful of battleships, joining the Ad Astras to provide a total of two active battle squadrons of dreadnoughts each led by a division of superdreadnoughts, with sufficient hulls to rotate through regular refits without any reduction in deployable forces.
Half again as massive as an Ad Astra, the Royal Wintons were nearly as large as the old Manticore-class superdreadnoughts and, by any objective standard, their combat ability was equal or better as well.
While nothing could compare to the glacial construction pace the Ad Astras had encountered, both the Royal Winton- and Samothrace-class superdreadnoughts suffered their share of “growing pains” as the Navy and civilian shipyards learned how to design a ship of the wall for series production. The class was broken into three distinct flights, each with a slightly different weapons fit, and even within a given flight no two hulls were exactly identical.
Gladiator-class dreadnought
Mass: 6,846,000 tons
Dimensions: 1284 × 186 × 173 m
Acceleration: 421.5 G (4.134 kps²)
80% Accel: 337.2 G (3.307 kps²)
Broadside: 22M, 18L, 24G, 1GL, 8ET, 18CM, 26PD
Chase: 6M, 4L, 6G, 6CM, 10PD
Number Built: 34
Service Life: 1868–1920
With King Roger’s shipbuilding and infrastructure initiatives and the experience in building the Royal Winton and Samothrace classes, the shipyards had worked out most of the initial problems involved in building wallers by the time work began on the Gladiators, and both Navy and civilian yards were ready to embark on true series production.
The Gladiator class was built as a brawler, designed with an intentionally light missile broadside. Instead, it was equipped with the heaviest beam armament that could be fitted into a hull of this size, including an extensive suite of energy torpedo launchers and later refitted with the newly developed grav lance, a weapon capable of disabling a target’s sidewall at extremely close range, in an early attempt to make a decisive wall engagement possible. The range limitation required a wall equipped with it to get close enough to actually use it, however, which (of course) meant that the primary effect of its introduction was simply to make fleet commanders across the galaxy even more cautious about close engagements.
The decision to greatly increase the Gladiator’s defenses, particularly the counter-missile launchers, proved prescient. The original rationale for the greatly increased area defense—even at the expense of the far more effective point defense clusters—was to allow the Gladiator to screen both itself and other units in the formation as they closed towards beam range. With the standoff attack range of the laser head (first deployed by the IAN in 1872 PD), the utility of the short-ranged point defense clusters was critically reduced almost literally overnight, and the Gladiator was one of the few older classes to weather the transition.
Overall, despite the lost missile broadside, the Gladiator was a solid design, and remained in service a couple of years past the more modern Majestic class due to its better survivability and passive defenses. Plans were drawn up to substantially refit the surviving units with sufficient defenses to remain in the wall of battle even in the era of pod-based combat. The cease-fire and transition to the Janacek Admiralty scuttled those plans, however, and only a few Gladiators remained in service when the war resumed.
Majestic-class dreadnought
Mass: 6,750,500 tons
Dimensions: 1278 × 185 × 173 m
Acceleration: 422.5 G (4.143 kps²)
80% Accel: 338 G (3.315 kps²)
Broadside: 28M, 18L, 20G, 24CM, 24PD
Chase: 8M, 6L, 4G, 8CM, 8PD
Number Built: 40
Service Life: 1896–1918 PD
Following her father’s death and the subsequent forcible annexation of the Trevor’s Star System (and terminus) by the People’s Republic of Haven, one of Queen Elizabeth’s first actions was to reaffirm her commitment to her father’s naval buildup, including a provision to more than double production of capital units within five years.
While the reasons behind the move to the Majestic class were many, the argument that the RMN could build a substantially less costly dreadnought class than the Gladiators was one of the primary drivers, and the class was sold to Parliament as having a per-platform cost seven percent less than a Gladiator. There were other factors in play, however, including the fact that the Navy had to shift government contracts away from electronics providers that were under investigation for fraud and malfeasance.
Speeding up construction of a dreadnought (at least a dreadnought as capable as the Gladiator) proved to be a challenge, but the experience was to stand the RMN in very good stead in its ever-expanding wartime building programs. Ironically, though, while the Majestic had the virtue of being less expensive on a per-unit basis, the increased missile magazine size meant that the deployed cost of a fully equipped and armed Majestic dreadnought was nearly equal to the “more expensive” Gladiator it supplanted.
For all of that, the Majestic was never an entirely satisfactory design. Slightly smaller than a Gladiator, its heavy missile broadside was only possible at the cost of close combat capability, and despite the increase in active defenses, it had a far more fragile hull than the Gladiator. This relative frailty, despite far more numerous missile tubes during a time when beam combat was falling out of favor, was one of the reasons the entire class was decommissioned before the older Gladiator.
Bellerophon-class dreadnought
Mass: 6,985,250 tons
Dimensions: 1293 × 187 × 175 m
Acceleration: 420.1 G (4.12 kps²)
80% Accel: 336.1 G (3.296 kps²)
Broadside: 33M, 15L, 18G, 24CM, 24PD
Chase: 7M, 2L, 3G, 8CM, 8PD
Number Built: 38
Service Life: 1900–1921
The Bellerophon-class dreadnought represents the pinnacle of Manticoran dreadnought design, incorporating lessons learned from all of the previous classes and the final prewar generation of RMN simulation data and doctrine. The Bellerophons were originally intended as inexpensive contemporaries of the Gryphon-class superdreadnoughts, to be built in larger numbers than the heavier ships and to support the SDs in battle. The originally projected building ratio for the two classes was reversed almost literally overnight once war began and the emergency construction programs reached their full potential, however. The class continued in construction at a slow rate for the first five years of the war, until the Navy’s funding and infrastructure allowed it to begin building exclusively SDs for its line of battle, at which time the Bellerophons were honorably retired and phased out of service.
Massing just under seven million tons, the Bellerophons were in every way equal or superior to any of the early Manticoran superdreadnought classes and could give even the Anduril class a run for its money, especially given the predominance of missile-only combat in the later phases of the war.
However, no matter how advanced it was, there is no question that the Bellerophon, like every other conventional capital ship in the Manticoran Navy, was designed to fight the last war. When even the most advanced prewar superdreadnought was rendered hopelessly obsolete by modern standards, the cost and manpower were clearly better spent on building larger, more powerful, and more survivable ships to replace them. The majority of this class lies in mothballs and could potentially be reactivated, but the possibility that any of them will see service again is remote.
Nouveau Paris-class dreadnought
Mass: 6,331,500 tons
Dimensions: 1251 × 181 × 169 m
Acceleration: 426.7 G (4.184 kps²)
80% Accel: 341.3 G (3.347 kps²)
Broadside: 32M, 10L, 10G, 18CM, 20PD
Chase: 8M, 4L, 4G, 10CM, 10PD
Number in Service: 5
Service Life: 1905–1917
Several Havenite ships of the wall were taken into service during the early war, including five dreadnoughts during the First Battle of Hancock. None of these ships saw frontline service, but four of them spent some time as rear area security operating with captured Havenite superdreadnoughts. All of these units were scrapped by the Janacek Admiralty during the interwar period.
SUPERDREADNOUGHTS (SD)
Superdreadnoughts, along with their pod-carrying brethren, are the largest warships in any star nation’s inventory. The classic prewar SD mounted a heavy missile broadside; had the sidewalls, antimissile defenses, and armor to shrug off most missile hits themselves; and served primarily as a platform for the massive beam weapons required for a decisive engagement at close range. For centuries, SDs have been the decisive units of the wall of battle, built to survive to reach beam range and then batter their opponent into wreckage at close range.
As the core units of the wall of battle, dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts are rarely deployed in less than divisional strength, and far more frequently they are moved around at the squadron level, complete with screen and support ships. Their true strength is in the concentrated fire a battle squadron can create, and the existence of even a single battle squadron automatically propels a naval force into one of the top two dozen or so navies in the galaxy.
The RMN accumulated a great deal of operational experience with their early Manticore-class superdreadnoughts before they began to add any more to the order of battle. However, they had not developed much combat experience when King Roger began the naval phase of his buildup in 1860 PD, and BuShips was forced to develop, build, test and refine designs at an ever-increasing rate, all without the benefit of any battle experience. At the peak of production, the RMN saw a new superdreadnought commissioned every month and a new class every four years, with advances leapfrogging entire classes due to the frantic production schedule.
While the design of these massive ships was in a state of flux for years, their doctrine also had been refined over years of training and simulations. The RMN knew what to do with the type even as they were constantly refining how they were designed and constructed. Not even the RMN, however, truly appreciated in 1905 how close to the end of its long reign the classic SD had come.
Manticore-class superdreadnought
Mass: 6,515,500 tons
Dimensions: 1263 × 183 × 171 m
Acceleration: 424.8 G (4.166 kps²)
80% Accel: 339.9 G (3.333 kps²)
Broadside: 22M, 18L, 24G, 8ET, 12CM, 24PD
Chase: 4M, 2L, 6G, 6CM, 12PD
Number Built: 3
Service Life: 1742–1905
The original design requirements for the Star Kingdom’s first superdreadnought called for a ship “fit to engage and defeat any ship of the wall now in commission or under construction,” and for their time, their design proved more than sufficient in that regard. With greatly improved active defenses and twice the graser broadside of the Ad Astra class, the Manticore class was a powerful, modern unit that compared favorably to even the most advanced Solarian design of the day.
HMS Manticore and her sister ships Sphinx and Gryphon were commissioned over a period of fifteen years, while their old battleship namesakes were redesignated HMS Thorson, Perseus and Bellerophon, respectively.
The trio was originally intended to form the core of a modernized capable wall of battle along with the Ad Astra-class dreadnoughts. The initial units rode the tail end of the wave of construction that followed the Battle of Carson, and a total of nine ships was originally planned.
HMS Manticore was scarcely a decade old when she first saw combat, during the rather misnamed “San Martin War.” Given that the war began and ended with a single battle, and an uneventful one at that, there was little to learn from the experience. Worse in some ways, the brief skirmish actually hampered additional efforts to secure funding, as victory had been achieved so easily and no navies in the region were viewed as a threat that warranted more than the three ships already in commission. Instead of the planned additional construction, the existing dreadnoughts and battleships underwent a modernization and service life extension program. The three ships of the Manticore class served as flagships for the two mixed battle squadrons of Home Fleet, with one in the yards for maintenance at any given time.
While an effective design for their time, the class was over 150 years old by the start of the First Havenite War. HMS Sphinx and Gryphon had already been decommissioned as their namesakes led new, modern classes, and while HMS Manticore had been refitted as a flagship and saw the opening salvos of the war, she was decommissioned in late 1905 and her name given to a brand new Gryphon-class hull.
Samothrace-class superdreadnought
Mass: 7,253,750 tons
Dimensions: 1309 × 190 × 177 m
Acceleration: 416.6 G (4.086 kps²)
80% Accel: 333.3 G (3.268 kps²)
Broadside: 28M, 22L, 18G, 6ET, 18CM, 26PD
Chase: 6M, 6L, 4G, 6CM, 8PD
Number Built: 7
Service Life: 1848–present
The Samothrace class was the second class of superdreadnoughts built by the Royal Manticoran Navy, and (not surprisingly, given that almost exactly a century separated the two classes) it was a marked improvement over the Manticore class. While the increased combat power was a decided advantage, the true reason for the construction of this class was, originally, to provide modern flagships for the two active battle squadrons of Home Fleet.
The plans called for a total of three hulls to be built to allow for regular maintenance cycles and still retain a division of superdreadnoughts in every squadron. However, the cost of these units, coupled with the actual and projected costs of the Royal Wintons, caused Parliament to cut funding, dropping the planned construction to a single hull.
However, the Navy had been steadily increasing the number of units below the wall for over a century since the discovery of the Matapan Terminus, with a major push by First Space Lord Frederick Truman in the preceding few years. With both Parliament and the senior uniformed officers of the Navy focusing on the commerce protection mission, the so-called “Gun Club” advocates were outnumbered and outvoted.
When King Roger began his buildup shortly after his coronation, one of the first actions he took was to renew construction of the two cancelled hulls, plus allocate funding for four more while the builder’s plans were finalized for the King William class. As one shellshocked member of the Opposition remarked following the King’s remarkable success in this initial foray: “The Admiralty asked for three, we offered one, and His Majesty compromised on seven.” It would not be the last armament battle that remarkable monarch would win.
In the late 1890s, the entire class was pulled from service and refitted extensively as command ships. Technological advances, even in the short time since their construction, allowed their defenses to be substantially upgraded while at the same time providing space for extensive command and control facilities. Many of these ships have seen wartime service as task force and fleet flagships, even after more modern classes had been placed in reserve, simply because of their command and control equipment.
King William-class superdreadnought
Mass: 7,170,750 tons
Dimensions: 1304 × 189 × 176 m
Acceleration: 417.7 G (4.096 kps²)
80% Accel: 334.2 G (3.277 kps²)
Broadside: 32M, 19L, 21G, 26CM, 28PD
Chase: 8M, 6L, 4G, 10CM, 10PD
Number Built: 25
Service Life: 1877–1919
The King William-class superdreadnought was the first ship of its type to reach series production, after nearly a decade of design work and lessons learned from work on the Royal Winton and Samothrace classes. It was also the first ship built from the keel out to carry the new Mk19 Capital Ship Missile, then in development as the RMN’s first laser head weapon, though not actually placed in service until several years after the first unit was commissioned.
Massing over seven million tons, the King William was designed to be a balanced combatant, giving equal weight to missile combat, beam combat, and defenses. The King William’s technological advances over the Manticore class resulted in a near fifty percent improvement in missile broadside strength, and the class established what was to become the standard Manticoran capital ship ammunition allocation of one round per minute per broadside launcher for a sustained period of two hours, known as the “1-for-2” rule.
While the King Williams proved a very successful design, they experienced their own share of growing pains during the course of construction. After the first eight of the class were completed BuShips realized counter-missile batteries were going to have an even greater prominence in missile engagements than originally realized, as laser heads increased the standoff distance of incoming missiles and reduced the effectiveness of point defense. A half-dozen point defense clusters were accordingly removed from the defensive weapon decks and replaced with counter-missile launchers.
Later refits brought the entire class up to a more consistent standard, leaving most of the remaining difference merely cosmetic. While the King William was eventually supplanted by the Anduril and Victory classes as the frontline Manticoran superdreadnought, a number of the King Williams distinguished themselves over the course of the war.
Most of the surviving King Williams were sold to Alliance navies during the Janacek build-down, including a full squadron transferred to the Erewhon Navy shortly before the resumption of hostilities and their subsequent exit from the Alliance.
Anduril-class superdreadnought
Mass: 7,506,000 tons
Dimensions: 1324 × 192 × 179 m
Acceleration: 413.3 G (4.053 kps²)
80% Accel: 330.6 G (3.242 kps²)
Broadside: 29M, 22L, 24G, 1GL, 8ET, 24CM, 32PD
Chase: 6M, 7L, 6G, 8CM, 12PD
Number Built: 14
Service Life: 1889–1918
The Anduril class was one of the shorter-lived designs of Roger’s buildup, for two reasons. First, the older, cheaper Gladiator-class dreadnought had nearly the same capabilities for a considerably lower cost. Second, the Navy had come to the realization that missile combats were poised to become far more decisive than they had been at any time in the last two centuries, which moved the design trend towards more balanced combatants and away from brawlers like the Anduril.
While over four hundred thousand tons heavier than the King William, all of that extra tonnage was devoted to heavier armor and passive defenses. The Anduril’s distinction as the most heavily armored warship in the history of the RMN came at the cost of the offensive (missile) and defensive armament the Navy had come to value.
In addition, the heavy armor and internal compartmentalization had a hidden cost in terms of maintenance and downtime. Many systems, while well protected, were difficult to maintain, with too few accessways for movement of personnel and repair parts. Over the lifetime of the class, many pieces of equipment were simply abandoned in place rather than upgraded, due to the inability of the shipyard workers to install the new systems without cutting through a significant amount of hull armor.
The difficulty in upgrades, during a time when the Navy was undergoing generational changes in weapons systems literally every few years, was a death knell for the class. The Andurils were one of the first ships decommissioned during the Janacek build-down, and a number of them were sold to Erewhon with the King Williams.
Victory-class superdreadnought
Mass: 7,781,250 tons
Dimensions: 1340 × 194 × 181 m
Acceleration: 409.6 G (4.017 kps²)
80% Accel: 327.7 G (3.213 kps²)
Broadside: 35M, 20L, 19G, 6ET, 29CM, 27PD
Chase: 9M, 5L, 5G, 11CM, 9PD
Number Built: 36
Service Life: 1892–1918
With the Victory class, the RMN had finally hit its stride in superdreadnoughts. The construction woes plaguing the King William were a thing of the past, and the new design was a capable, missile-optimized platform that was a perfect match for the doctrine BuPlan had been perfecting since the advent of the laser head.
The class wasn’t particularly large, as even at the time advances in capital ship design were progressing at breakneck speed. The entire series production run lasted no more than handful of years before it was superseded by the Sphinx class.
The disposal of the entire Victory class in early 1918 PD by the Janacek Admiralty was one of the most contentious decisions made by Second Lord Houseman. Every single remaining hull was sold to Grayson at scrap prices, despite the fact that the GSN couldn’t possibly provide the manpower for all of those ships out of its own resources.
Benjamin Mayhew’s decision proved to be fortuitous, however, as the RMN scrambled to reactivate every hull it had in mothballs after the resumption of the war with Haven. While the newer ships had been brought back into service first, BuShips has been negotiating with the GSN for the return of over half of the hulls over the next year. The remainder were crewed as GSN units with a higher than normal percentage of RMN “loaner” personnel.
Sphinx-class superdreadnought
Mass: 8,207,000 tons
Dimensions: 1364 × 198 × 184 m
Acceleration: 403.9 G (3.961 kps²)
80% Accel: 323.1 G (3.169 kps²)
Broadside: 36M, 21L, 19G, 6ET, 27CM, 31PD
Chase: 8M, 4L, 5G, 9CM, 12PD
Number Built: 67
Service Life: 1895–present
The Sphinx class was by far the largest SD class (in total hulls) when the war started. During the peak of the buildup these ships were entering service at an almost frantic pace of more than one every month.
In terms of weapons fit, the most visible feature of any warship, the Sphinx was merely an incremental update over the Victory class, with no truly revolutionary ideas. That was scarcely surprising given the pace of production and improvements in design and construction. The first Sphinx was laid down before the first Victory was even commissioned, so there was little time for lessons learned from one to propagate to another.
While the weapons fit was largely the same as the preceding class, the defenses were much different. In theory the RMN has always designed their capital ships to be able to survive their own fire; in practice, up until the war began, RMN simulation models were in an almost continual state of flux as the damage potential of the laser head warheads kept increasing, without actual real-world testing data to ground the sims.
The Sphinx class marks the turning point where enough real-world data had been accumulated for BuShips to fully understand the kind of armoring and compartmentalization a ship of the wall needed to survive the new environment. Weapon mounts were rearranged, internal bulkheads were strengthened, magazines were hardened, and compartments were arranged to protect critical systems with less critical equipment spaces, all leading to a ship that was far more survivable than any design yet in service.
Still, the speed of design and development had not slowed, and, in a short construction run of only six years the RMN built almost twice as many Sphinxes as the previous Victory class.
The Sphinx and follow-on Gryphon were the only classes spared in the Janacek build-down, though over half of both of these classes had been placed in reserve by the time the war resumed. They have been reactivated on a crash priority basis on the theory that any ship of the wall is preferable to none, especially with the loss of so many incomplete modern units at Grendelsbane.
Gryphon-class superdreadnought
Mass: 8,339,000 tons
Dimensions: 1371 × 199 × 185 m
Acceleration: 402.1 G (3.944 kps²)
80% Accel: 321.7 G (3.155 kps²)
Broadside: 37M, 19L, 22G, 8ET, 28CM, 30PD
Chase: 9M, 4L, 5G, 10CM, 10PD
Number Built: 163
Service Life: 1900–present
In many ways the Gryphon class was simply an evolution and continuation of the successful Sphinx class, as new construction began to incorporate lessons learned from the Victory-class testing and evaluation programs. The differences in weapons fit and evolutionary changes in design were great enough that BuShips redesignated them as an entirely new class, despite the fact that several of the later Sphinxes were all but indistinguishable from the earlier Gryphon-class ships.
Still under construction at the outbreak of the First Haven War, these represent the pinnacle of conventional superdreadnought design, and the demands of the war kept the class in series production with a minimum of changes for the next decade. They would have continued at that pace were it not for the fruits of Project Ghost Rider, and in fact, a number of the Medusa-class units were carried on the books as Flight III Gryphons to maintain secrecy on that project.
Most of the Gryphon-class ships were spared from the Janacek cutbacks, though many were placed in the reserve in line with the policy of leaving system defense to LAC wings and concentrating the Navy’s striking power in the squadrons of pod superdreadnoughts already in commission.
During this period, a handful of Gryphons had been gutted and refitted with launchers capable of firing the new Mk23 Multi-Drive Missile from internal tubes. While plans had existed initially to refit all of the class with MDMs, the program proved prohibitively expensive and was bedeviled by technical and safety problems with the fusion-powered missiles, and only a small portion had actually been completed before the war resumed. Given the current strategic situation, the White Haven Admiralty has not been willing or able to pull the existing units off the front lines to continue the refits.
Duquesne-class superdreadnought
Mass: 7,187,250 tons
Dimensions: 1305 × 189 × 176 m
Acceleration: 417.5 G (4.094 kps²)
80% Accel: 334 G (3.275 kps²)
Broadside: 36M, 12L, 12G, 28CM, 24PD
Chase: 10M, 4L, 6G, 12CM, 12PD
Number Captured: 18
Service Life: 1906–1917
Exclusive of the original eleven donated to Grayson by Admiral White Haven, a number of Havenite superdreadnoughts were captured in the opening stages of the war, and the capture of several forward bases almost intact provided the RMN with enough ammunition and spares to bring them into service.
Along with the handful of captured dreadnoughts and smaller classes, these ships provided rear area security for a number of Alliance systems during the early stages of the war, but were relegated to mothballs as their crews were needed to man the new construction, while the ships in best condition were all sold at scrap value to Grayson in early 1917.
Haven-class superdreadnought
Mass: 7,816,250 tons
Dimensions: 1342 × 195 × 181 m
Acceleration: 409.1 G (4.012 kps²)
80% Accel: 327.3 G (3.21 kps²)
Broadside: 36M, 15L, 23G, 26CM, 32PD
Chase: 8M, 4L, 10G, 10CM, 12PD
Number Captured: 3
Service Life: 1907–1917
Similar to the Duquesnes, the few more modern Haven-class superdreadnoughts captured in the early days of the war served for several years as rear area security, freeing up hulls for the front. None of them saw battle against their sisters still in Havenite service, however, and the last were sold to Grayson along with the Duquesnes.
POD SUPERDREADNOUGHTS (SD(P))
The Royal Manticoran Navy began its operational experience with pod-laying designs with the Trojan-class armed merchant cruiser of Project Trojan Horse. While the initial designs were cumbersome, fragile, and inefficient, they still provided a huge force multiplier. They also proved the concept of the hollow-core pod-layer which certain officers in BuWeaps and BuShips had been proposing for some time. The Trojans’ successful deployment finally routed most of the “traditionalist” opposition to the proposal, and BuShips was formally authorized to begin design studies on what became the SD(P).
Beginning with the Medusa class, the RMN took the concept of a pod-laying warship and began an entirely new era of warfare. For the first time since its inception centuries before, the ponderous formality of the wall of battle had been broken, as engagements were often decided in the opening salvos of missiles.
The simultaneous implementation of a practical multi-drive missile system gave the RMN a qualitative edge that was unparalleled, and drove the People’s Navy to the brink of defeat in the few short months leading up to the ceasefire. Even though the MDM was inherently inaccurate at extended ranges, the pod-laying designs could fire salvos of thousands, multiple times, so that even a low percentage rate of hits produced overwhelming numbers of them in absolute terms.
Almost unnoticed in the early stages of the developing doctrine was that the endurance of the missile pod allowed a single ship to stack multiple patterns of pods, allowing it to fire double or triple patterns (or more), up to the limits of its individual fire control. As a result, even an outnumbered force could put enough missiles into space to saturate a target’s defenses in the opening salvo. The smaller force might still be wiped out in the end, but no longer would it go quietly.
With the introduction of the MDM and pod-layer on both sides of the conflict, the RMN has been forced to continually reevaluate its own doctrine for defending against the weight of fire a pod-layer can lay down. This reassessment is reflected in countless places, from new antimissile weapons, improved EW, and experimental defensive doctrine to the makeup of task forces and the formations adopted in combat, reflecting a time of rapid change in all areas of warfare.
Medusa-class pod superdreadnought
Mass: 8,554,750 tons
Dimensions: 1383 × 201 × 187 m
Acceleration: 502.8 G (4.931 kps²)
80% Accel: 402.3 G (3.945 kps²)
Broadside: 26M, 13L, 15G, 54CM, 52PD
Fore: 9M, 4L, 5G, 18CM, 22PD
Aft: 6MP, 4L, 5G, 14CM, 20PD
Missile Pods: 492
Number Built: 63
Service Life: 1914–present
The Medusa-class pod superdreadnought was in secret conceptual development for over a decade prior to Operation Trojan Horse in 1909 while the Weapons Development Board and Project Ghost Rider worked to develop the weapon systems the class would eventually carry. The success of the prototype pod system in the Trojans threw the project into high gear, however, imposing a great deal of strain on BuShips’ design staff.
Even before the first units were laid down, the RMN had begun a carefully crafted disinformation campaign, including a leaked “spring study” for the next generation (conventional) superdreadnought replacement for the Gryphon class. Thus the RMN diverted attention from the decrease in new Gryphons and gave the Havenite intelligence agencies a plausible explanation for the secret programs being conducted at HMSS Weyland.
Following the Graysons’ lead, the class was renamed the Honor Harrington class to honor then-Commodore Harrington after her presumed execution. Following her dramatic return from Cerberus, the class name was changed back to the original Medusa. Deriving from the same joint design program, the Medusa is similar in design to the final Harrington class, the first units of which were commissioned over a year before the RMN managed to get the first Medusa into service.
As the first RMN warship designed from the keel out to deploy missile pods from an internal magazine, the Medusa faced some unique design challenges. The most obvious difference between it and any conventional ship of the wall is apparent from the broadside. All of the primary armament has been pushed into the forward half of the main hull to make room for the double rings of missile pod storage in the after section. The second most notable difference is the sheer number of surface arrays, which provide both fire control and telemetry uplinks for the hundreds of missiles these ships can launch in a single stacked salvo. Finally, the defensive armament, located at the upper and lower turn of the hull, extends along its entire length, and the number of point defense and counter-missile installations have been greatly increased over any previous design.
While massively enhancing the ships’ first strike capabilities, the hollow-core filling the after third of the hull reduced its survivability in comparison to pre-pod superdreadnoughts. In addition, the need to mount armored hatches through which to deploy the pods forced the designers to sacrifice some of the after chase weaponry.
Despite the huge increase in offensive firepower, the Medusas contain a significant degree of automation in their design and require a crew less than half that of an older conventional design.
The pod rails on the Medusa class were designed originally for a modification of the old Mk10 missile pod, of which it could carry 564. Later pods were designed with the same rail attachment points and footprint, varying only in their depth. As deployed during operation Buttercup, the Medusa class carried just under 500 Mk11 missile pods, while currently deployed units can carry as many as 800 Mk17 series flat-pack pods.
Invictus-class pod superdreadnought
Mass: 8,768,500 tons
Dimensions: 1394 × 202 × 188 m
Acceleration: 562.6 G (5.518 kps²)
80% Accel: 450.1 G (4.414 kps²)
Broadside: 18G, 84CM, 62PD
Fore: 10G, 24CM, 22PD
Aft: 6MP, 10G, 14CM, 24PD
Missile Pods: 1074
Number Built: 53+
Service Life: 1919–present
The Invictus class was on the drawing board at the end of the First Havenite War as the improved successor of the Medusa class, but construction of the first wave of ships had barely begun when the High Ridge Government agreed to a truce with the People’s Republic. As per the drawdown of forces ordered by the new government, construction of the majority of units in the class was suspended and the unfinished ships were placed in storage in their building slips in the Manticore and Grendelsbane shipyards.
At the resumption of hostilities, only twelve Invictus-class ships were in commission, with a few more nearing completion in Manticore from previously suspended construction programs. Dozens were lost in the Grendelsbane attack, and over a hundred were laid down as part of the emergency war construction program for completion over the next couple of years.
In many ways the Invictus is simply an evolution of the Medusa design, with a pod core extending half again as deep into the hull. In a departure from both traditional Manticoran and contemporary Grayson practice, all broadside missile tubes were eliminated to allow for the maximum extension of the missile core, which is capable of holding upwards of a thousand of the new flat-pack missile pods. Internally, the differences are even greater, however, as one of the major weaknesses of the pod-layer concept has been partially offset by armoring the interior of the pod core almost as heavily as the outer hull armor. Almost all of the tonnage advantage over the Medusa went into this new armoring scheme, which has greatly increased survivability.
Nevertheless, the greatest weakness of the design remains in the pod rails, and even with the new armoring scheme, a single lucky hit on the pod core can cause enough damage to jam up deployment of the pods “upstream” of the hit. Cross connecting rails, the ability to quickly jettison debris and destroyed pods, and a tractor system that can help the system “leapfrog” over broken rails all help mitigate the effects of this damage, but the incidence of mission kills in pod-layers with otherwise light damage remains potentially high.
By far the most significant improvement seen in the Invictus class, however, is the new Mk20 Keyhole platform. At least two versions of this versatile tethered platform exist, but both of them share a number of the same features. Although Keyhole was originally envisioned primarily as a means to improve active antimissile capability, conceptual evolution during development produced a very different end product. At their heart, Keyholes are telemetry relays, multiplying the number of telemetry links the ship can maintain, which in turn allows for even deeper stacked salvos, or a layered approach where conventional ships in the squadron can hand off their onboard and pod-launched missiles to an Invictus to centrally control.
In addition, the Keyhole platform extends the sensor reach of the host ship, both with dedicated offboard arrays as well as with the ability to deploy outside the wedge and relay information while the ship has rolled against the threat axis.
Finally, the platform not only replaces and enhances the traditional tethered decoy platform, mounting sophisticated jammers and ECM gear, but is very heavily equipped with point defense laser clusters of its own.
Although no more than two can be carried by even the largest of ships, they are still cheaper to replace than an entire warship, and their heavy onboard array of point defense laser clusters not only allows them a degree of self-defense far in advance of any previous tethered EW platform in Manticoran service, but also contributes significantly to the defense of the deploying ship.
While the Invictus is a new design, tested so far in only a few engagements, it is indisputably one of the most powerful and capable warships in existence.
ARMED MERCHANT CRUISERS (AMC)
While the Navy had long maintained the practice of installing defensive armament and sidewalls on its fast auxiliaries, the RMN had never operated Q-ships of any sort prior to Project Trojan Horse. Due to the mounting merchantship losses in Silesia resulting from the drawdown of forces in the Confederacy to replace losses on the Havenite front, BuShips and BuWeaps proposed to take a page out of the Havenite book and build auxiliary warships on essentially merchant hulls. The idea was to convert several of the RMN’s standard Caravan-class support vessels from the Joint Navy Military Transport Command into armed merchant cruisers by incorporating some of the new concepts in development. The AMCs would both allow operational testing of some of the WDB’s more radical new systems proposed and combat the growing piracy problem by deploying to the Confederacy as convoy escorts and independent patrol units.
While Trojan Horse as a whole succeeded in protecting commerce in Silesia, it was even more successful as a proof of concept for both LAC and carrier operations as well the internal pod rails and deployment that helped paved the way for the first Medusa-class SD(P) in 1914 PD.
Trojan-class armed merchant cruiser
Mass: 7,352,000 tons
Dimensions: 1199 × 200 × 185 m
Acceleration: 190 G (1.863 kps²)
80% Accel: 152 G (1.491 kps²)
Broadside: 10M, 8G, 10CM, 10PD
Fore: 6CM, 6PD
Aft: 6MP, 8PD
Missile Pods: 180
LAC Bays: 12
Number Built: 15
Service Life: 1909–1920 PD
The Trojan-class armed merchant cruiser was a testbed platform in many ways, built on the hull of the Caravan-class freighter used by Logistics Command for rear area supply.
The armament of the Trojan class was unique at the time of construction. While the term “Armed Merchant Cruiser” belies the normal grade of weaponry found on a Q-ship, most of the examples seen in other navies are hybrid designs, able to carry limited cargo in addition to their disguised weaponry. BuShips decided to eliminate all cargo storage from the Trojan and use all of the volume freed up for a number of weapon systems, some more experimental than others.
Conventional broadside and chase armament consisted of the sort of missile broadside one might find on a heavy cruiser, except that the weapons in question, both missile tubes and energy mounts, were all superdreadnought-grade installations. Bottlenecks in capital ship construction, coupled with a surplus of weapon system components provided the systems in question, though the nature of the building queues resulted in different units of the class carrying a different balance of missiles and beams. The most common configuration was the ten missile launchers and eight grasers carried by the lead ship, but other ships in the class had mixed beam armaments, all lasers, and in some cases fewer missile tubes and more beams.
Unique to the Trojans at that time was an internal storage and deployment system for missile pods, making the Trojan the first ever pod-laying warship in service in any Navy. While outwardly similar to the more advanced system onboard the Medusa class, the prototype system had numerous inefficiencies and some outright dangerous design faults that were fixed in later generations.
The second unique “weapon system” was the organic ability to launch a squadron of Series 282 advanced light attack craft from internal bays. While its ability to service and rearm the LACs was somewhat limited, the Trojan was also the galaxy’s first hyper-capable LAC-carrying warship.
After the early successes of the first four units, the class went on to serve well in the Silesian Confederacy for over a decade. The follow-on units became a common sight throughout Silesian space, and even though pirate groups learned to recognize them, they still provided a powerful deterrent effect, especially once the merchant cartels began to introduce more new-build unmodified Caravan-class freighters into the area.
While the Janacek Admiralty had written up plans to extend the class with an additional dozen units, those plans were scrapped with the onset of the Second Havenite War. With the need for manpower growing at an enormous pace, the Trojans were listed for disposal shortly thereafter, freeing up their overly large crews for the new construction starting to come off the building slips.
The Royal Manticoran Marine Corps
The Royal Manticoran Marine Corps was formally established in 1516 PD, but can trace its roots back to the Navy’s Fleet Marine Forces, first created in 1438 PD shortly after the initial skirmish with the Free Brotherhood. Part of the process of transforming the Navy from a primarily civil defense organization into a true military organization, the Fleet Marine Forces grew from the core of cross-trained naval personnel who formed the original boarding teams and shipboard security.
Until the mid-seventeenth century, the Corps remained the only Kingdomwide armed service dedicated to ground or boarding combat. In 1665 PD, shortly after the Ranier War, a growing movement in Parliament called for a unified ground service encompassing both the newly created Army and Marines as a cost-efficiency measure. It made little sense, proponents argued, to maintain two separate forces, each with its own infrastructure needs and costs, when they performed so many overlapping roles and missions. While the new service was formally called the Royal Army due to the broad spectrum of official responsibilities the new service needed to meet, the majority of the senior officers came originally from the Corps. After a few generations, though, the drive to create “uniformity” in the name of efficiency became increasingly pronounced, eventually leading to much more emphasis being placed on planetary combat and less on the training in the shipboard duties like damage control and weapons crews which had always been part of the traditional Marine role. Increasingly, the Fleet found itself with soldiers assigned to its ships but not fully integrated into those ships’ operations, which increased manpower costs—without Marines trained in shipboard duties more spacers were inevitably required—and decreased efficiency. Eventually, the nature of the problem was recognized and the Marines reemerged as a separate organization intensively trained to perform both shipboard and planetary missions.
Given the primacy of the RMN within the Star Empire, the RMMC has become the senior ground combat arm of the Star Empire. Originally tasked with providing boarding parties for naval units, the Corps’ responsibilities are currently defined as follows:
1. Provide emergency landing parties, security parties, and boarding parties for the ship to which they are attached.
2. Provide shipboard police under the authority of a warship’s master at arms.
3. Man shipboard duty stations at GQ or battle stations.
4. Provide garrisons, guards, and security detachments for Manticoran enclaves on other planets.
The Royal Marines are not responsible for sustained planetary combat, atmospheric support, or the garrisoning of entire planets. Those missions are the purview of the Royal Manticoran Army, which is specifically trained and equipped for these tasks.
Organization
A Marine rifle squad consists of thirteen members: a sergeant, two corporals, six riflemen, two grenadiers, and two plasma gunners. The basic tactical element, a section, consists of a plasma gunner covered by three pulser-armed riflemen and a grenadier, commanded by a corporal, while the sergeant exercises overall command. A Marine heavy weapons squad consists of a sergeant, two corporals, and six to ten riflemen, depending on the weapon the squad operates. Heavy weapons squads are “pure function” units equipped with either heavy tripod-mounted plasma guns, tri-barrel pulsers, man-portable SAMs, or mortars.
A Marine rifle platoon consists of a lieutenant, platoon sergeant, one clerk, and three rifle squads. In addition, each platoon has two assigned Navy Sick Berth Attendants (SBAs) to act as corpsmen. A heavy weapons platoon consists of a lieutenant, platoon sergeant, clerk, and four weapons squads (one of each type).
A Marine rifle company consists of a captain, four staff lieutenants, one first sergeant, three clerks, and three rifle platoons. Each company also has two additional permanently attached Navy SBAs and is normally paired with one of its parent battalion’s heavy weapons platoons.
The primary maneuver unit of the RMMC is the battalion, which typically consists of a lieutenant colonel, one major (the exec), a ten-man staff, one sergeant-major, one color sergeant (a leftover from the Corps’ earliest days now acting as the sergeant-major’s noncommissioned exec), ten noncommissioned clerks, three rifle companies, and one heavy weapons company. In addition, each battalion should have an attached Navy doctor, assisted by five SBAs.
Approximately ten percent of the Corps’ total battalions are “assault” battalions (indicated by adding [A] to their unit designations) in which all personnel are equipped with battle armor. An assault battalion has no “heavy weapons” company per se. Instead, an additional “rifle company” in battle armor takes its place. In addition, an assault company or battalion has a somewhat higher “teeth-to-tail” ratio than a rifle company or battalion because the Corps’ attached Navy medical personnel are not trained in the use of battle armor and are not carried on the assault units’ Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E).
The largest permanent standing unit is the regiment, consisting of a command section leading three battalions. Regiments may be organized into brigades or even divisions, although this was seldom practiced before the Havenite Wars. Brigades are currently used as administrative organizations when a large Marine force needs to be deployed to a distant fleet station such as the Talbott Quadrant or Silesia. Deployment of units above regimental strength in a combat zone remains rare for two reasons: modern weapons and equipment mean that larger units are seldom required, and when larger units are required, the situation is almost always one which should have been handed over to the Army in the first place.
Equipment
The standard shoulder arm of the RMMC is the M32 series grav pulse rifle in 4 x 37 mm caliber. The M32A5, introduced in 1918 PD, is the latest variant of this versatile weapon system. The M32 has two magazine wells, each of which will accommodate a single hundred-round magazine. Pulser darts come in two basic varieties: a solid, non-explosive, antipersonnel round and a superdense, explosive round designed for antiarmor or general suppressive fire. A shorter carbine version, the M19, is designed for shipboard use. The standard sidearm carried by officers is the M7 pulser and its short-barreled variant the M9.
The M107 Plasma Rifle and M109 Plasma Carbine are the RMMC’s standard antiarmor weapons. The M107 uses twin M13 power cells, while the M109 carries only one. Each cell is good for three to twelve shots, depending on power settings. Maximum effective range in atmosphere is about four thousand meters, but bloom and energy bleed begin reducing terminal effect very rapidly beyond twenty-two hundred meters. In vacuum, maximum range is usually line of sight, with minimal energy bleed.
Indirect supporting fire is provided by the M142 Grenade Launcher, a semi-automatic grav-launcher firing spin-stabilized 30mm grenades from forty-round belts or six-round box magazines. Maximum effective range is about eighteen hundred meters. The grenades can be fused for impact, delay, or air burst operation and the integrated targeting computer displays ranging data and kill zones on the scope or directly overlaid onto the Skinsuit HUD.
Heavy weapons squads are equipped with a variety of crew-served weapons, including the M247 Heavy Tribarrel, M271 Plasma Cannon, and M223 Mortar among others. These are tripod-mounted weapons carried disassembled by squad members and deployed in minutes to provide support fire to maneuver units. Variants of the M247 and M271 exist for battle armor, carried be a single assault marine and drawing from the suit’s internal power cells.
Standard combat gear for the RMMC includes the Mk7 Armored Skinsuit. The underlying structure of the Mk7 is identical to the Navy’s skinsuit, though the Marine variant trades comfort for protection and increased tactical features. For small arms protection, a series of armor plates covers the suit, providing adequate defense against light weaponry. The addition of weapon interlink ports allows the use of the helmet’s heads-up display (HUD) in combat. The skinsuit is used in boarding actions, shipboard duty, hostile environment engagements and combat drops, while lightweight unpowered body armor is worn at other times.
Assault units are equipped with M21 Battle Armor, a combat suit with a powered exoskeleton and heavy armor plating, powered by internal power cells. The M21 Base Platform can be configured in a number of ways depending on mission requirements. In reconnaissance configuration, more power is stored at the expense of weapon loadouts, which increases endurance but leaves the trooper with nothing more than a standard pulse rifle, while in assault configuration, heavy weapons such as tribarrels and plasma cannon are carried.
The RMMC is a pure infantry force, with no organic vehicle components other than their (Navy-operated) small craft. The two most commonly seen subtypes are the Mk30 “Condor II” Pinnace and the Mk17 Avenger Assault Shuttle, though some units still carry the older Marine-optimized Mk26 Skyhawk Pinnace. All three are capable of company-level drops as well as fire support.
Aside from the dedicated Broadsword-class LCA and the new Kamerling class, interstellar transport was provided throughout the war by the aging Rorke’s Drift-class Fast Attack Transports and the Guadalcanal-class Heavy Assault Transports. With the drawdown of onboard marine complements due to the increased automation onboard Manticoran Warships, a design study was put in place in 1920 PD for a new class of Marine transport. Designed to attach to a fleet to provide a centralized Marine support unit, the as-yet unnamed LPX (Attack Transport, Experimental) can carry three regiments plus support on a large battlecruiser-sized hull, with enough active and passive defenses to protect itself as part of the fleet train, and sufficient small craft capacity to deploy a full regiment in a single wave.
The Royal Manticoran Army
The Royal Manticoran Army was formally established by King Roger Winton II in 1648 PD and is the youngest of the Star Empire’s three military services. Prior to that date, each planet in the Manticore system had its own Planetary Guard to provide for disaster relief, peacekeeping, and planetary security, but there was no perceived need for a Kingdomwide army.
With the growing merchant fleet and responsibilities of the Royal Manticoran Navy in the years following the first transit of the Junction, the Star Kingdom began to look toward gathering a military that was capable of force projection in addition to its historical role of providing system security and defense. The Royal Army was established as part of that initiative, merging the three Planetary Guard forces into a single service and starting a research and construction program to develop the equipment and doctrine to fight a major ground war if required.
The Army achieved two important “firsts” during the Ranier War: its first operational deployment and its first actual combat operations. The practical experience of several months of low-intensity combat in the Ranier System honed the skills the Army had developed through extensive training and wargaming. The Army’s good performance was one of the factors cited to justify the century-long merger with the Royal Marines.
The Army’s four primary mission roles are defined as follows:
1. Provide the mechanized “muscle” for sustained planetary combat.
2. Secure and maintain control of planetary surfaces and fixed ground defenses.
3. Maintain the peace against uprisings or unrest when called to do so by the Government.
4. Provide disaster relief and humanitarian assistance.
It should be noted that, despite the equipment and training, the Royal Army has never in its history been called upon to fulfill its primary mission. Any force that holds undisputed control of the high orbitals can force a surrender or can defeat even a superior enemy ground force without risking its own units with few exceptions. For those exceptions, the Star Kingdom has built an Army capable of sustained planetary combat, but the capability has not been needed to date. Instead, the Army has been tasked with peacekeeping and garrison duties on over a dozen captured Havenite worlds. Often the first Manticoran any of their population met in person was a member of the Army, and its training as peacekeeping and local police forces has served them well in that role.
Organization
The Royal Army is primarily a mechanized force, consisting of regular, armored, and assault infantry units; armored units; engineering units; heavy ground defense units; and aerial units, including both atmospheric and trans-atmospheric fighters (sting ships). The Army uses the term “armored unit” to indicate a unit equipped with armored fighting vehicles, which range from relatively lightly armored but highly mobile skimmers and infantry fighting vehicles to heavy tanks, capable of standing up to heavy plasma fire. In the unusual eventuality of really heavy ground combat, the Army usually provides heavy vehicles support for the Marines or completely takes over from them in the sustained combat role.
While the Army’s “leg” infantry and few battle armored assault units operate with the same organization and doctrine as the Marines, their armored infantry are organized a little differently at the squad level. An armored infantry squad fights dismounted, with two four-man fireteams (often called “quads”) and a sergeant in overall command, supported by the two- to three-man team in their light skimmer or infantry fighting vehicle.
Armored infantry platoons consist of three squad vehicles plus a command vehicle. A tank platoon likewise consists of four tanks (three plus a command tank). Various support platoons exist at different levels of organization, but the core “three plus command” organization concept remains constant across this level of organization. A company, whether composed of infantry, armored infantry or tanks, consists of three platoons plus a command element. The command element will include a command vehicle for the staff, and often includes support vehicles (medical, engineering, air defense, etc.) depending on the mission.
A typical Army Battalion will consist of a command element, three standard companies, one support company (often a combination of heavy weapons and mission-specific support), and a fifth company that is normally detached for recruiting and depot duties, including vehicular maintenance and rear area security. Three battalions combine to form a regiment, which is the highest permanent organizational unit, similar to the Marines.
Pure function units above regimental size are not used, but when necessary, the Army will form mission-specific Regimental Combat Teams, typically consisting of one armored regiment, two armored infantry regiments, and one aerospace wing for transport and airspace control.
Atmospheric Command operates all of the Army’s aerospace fighters and transports, and is organized into squadrons and wings. The unit organization changes to meet the needs of the mission, ranging anywhere from a cross-attached squadron for close-air support of an armored infantry battalion to a full transport wing to provide airlift for an entire regiment. Under the terms of the East Cay Agreement, Atmospheric Command is prohibited from operating extra-atmospheric vehicles at “interplanetary distances,” which is interpreted to mean more than one light-minute from a planetary body. The East Cay Agreement was intended to prevent the design and procurement of competing assault shuttles, pinnaces, etc., by restricting the Army to stingships and similarly short-ranged extra-atmosphere combat vehicles. The East Cay Agreement had been waived upon occasion, however, and Army stingships are designed to be capable of operating from Navy boat bays and Marine assault ships when necessary. Atmospheric Command personnel routinely train in joint operations with both the RMMC and the RMN.
Equipment
At the level of the individual soldier, the Army has a great deal of commonality of equipment with the Royal Marines, and its infantry regiments are equipped with identical gear across the board, with minor differences only based on mission focus. The Army has far fewer battle-armored assault units than the Marines, however, given the expense in both equipment and training to maintain them.
The primary combat unit of the armored regiment is the M11A2 grav tank. The M11 is a hybrid design, capable of short “sprints” on counter-grav, with conventional treads for stability and long distance travel. The primary weapon is a 120 mm plasma cannon, supported by a remote tribarrel pulser for anti-infantry defense as well as an automated point defense turret designed to rapidly engage and destroy incoming projectiles and missiles. Forward scouting is performed by onboard counter-grav reconnaissance drones, while an active and passive ECM suite works to defeat guided projectiles, as well as target locks from enemy tanks.
The M13 Infantry Fighting Vehicle is a lightweight variant of same hybrid pattern as the M11, but armed with a heavy tribarrel pulser in the turret and capable of carrying a total of twelve soldiers, including a commander, driver, gunner, and full rifle squad. Numerous specialty vehicles (command, engineering, air defense, artillery, etc.) are built on the M11 and M13 base platforms.
In comparison, the M27 Skimmer (often referred to as a “battle taxi”) is a pure counter-grav vehicle that bears a closer resemblance to an armored aircar than a tank. Optimized as a fast reconnaissance vehicle, the M27 is capable of speeds up to nine hundred kilometers per hour at low altitude. Armament consists of a twin light tribarrel pulser turret to provide support fire to the embarked squad when necessary.
Atmospheric Command operates a number of aerospace craft, but the two most common are the M105 “Goliath” transport and the M116 “Viper” stingship. The Goliath is the primary heavy lift platform of the Atmospheric Command, and a Goliath Wing is capable of airlifting an entire regiment from one side of the planet to the other in less than twenty-four hours. The Viper is the standard single-seat stingship operated by the Army, a high-performance impeller-drive hypersonic attack fighter capable of operations from “treetops to low orbit,” as well as limited space capability.
The Army has no interplanetary transport ability and must rely solely on Navy and Marine transport. The Star Empire is running chronically short of their fast attack and heavy assault transports, and the ones in service are worked hard. It is not unusual for Army regiments to find themselves loaded aboard civilian transport to reach their garrisons.
Queen’s Own
The Queen’s Own exists in order to provide physical security to the sovereign and to members of the royal family, and to provide area security for Mount Royal Palace and for other royal residences. More than mere bodyguards, the Queen’s Own also has responsibility for certain support functions, such as intelligence, associated with protection of the Royal Family. While operationally part of the Army, the Queen’s Own dates back to 1489 PD with the Coronation of King Roger I. Recognizing the need for a protective detail for the Monarch, given the influx of new colonists, the Manticore and Sphinx Planetary Guards each “donated” a company and a half of their troops to form the core of a battalion. Gryphon followed suit after its population reached a level to support its own Planetary Guard. The unit has grown in strength since then, and had already reached regimental size by the time it was merged with the Army in 1665 PD.
The Queen’s Own (formally known as the Monarch’s Own Regiment) is generally regarded as the elite of the Army, but its ranks are also open to Marines, and even the occasional naval officer. Before being accepted for service in the Queen’s Own, an individual must first prove himself or herself thoroughly in one of the combat arms.
The Queen’s Own consists of four “battalions,” one for each of the three original planets of the Star Kingdom plus a “training battalion,” which both trains new recruits and provides opposition forces for training at the Army’s premier combat training facilities. The Queen’s Own’s battalions do not normally detach their “recruiting” or depot company. This means that, technically, the Queen’s Own’s official strength is 2,940 troops. In fact, it is usually somewhat understrength because of the high standards its personnel must meet. Like the Army itself, the Queen’s Own contains its own atmospheric component of stingships and heavy transports. Most of its personnel, even on security detail for the Monarch herself, are normally configured as light infantry, but each battalion has its own integral heavy weapons company, and powered armor is available to it.
The Queen’s Own is expected to contribute forces to frontline combat if the Star Kingdom is at war. This usually takes the form of deploying one of its three planet battalions to the active theater, leaving the other two planet battalions to hold down the Regiment’s normal peacetime duties. Those duties include the personal security of the sovereign and members of the royal family, security at Mount Royal Palace and other royal residences, and intelligence functions related to the preceding two duties.
In addition to all of the above, the Queen’s Own is the Army’s premier ceremonial unit, as it has been a part of the Star Kingdom’s military traditions dating back to the founding of the Star Kingdom itself.
The Protectorate of Grayson
My Lords, I do not intend to debate with you. It is the Sword’s prerogative in time of war to instruct you, and such is my purpose today. I will entertain no discussion, and I will brook no defiance. Understand me well, and ignore my warning at your peril.
There has been much discussion in this Conclave over months past as to blame and responsibility. There have been countless whispers, and more than a few open arguments, that the time has come for the Protectorate of Grayson to walk away from the Star Kingdom of Manticore. It is not our job, I have heard too many of you say, to guard the back of a star nation which does not worry about guarding our own or consulting us on foreign policy as an ally should. It is not our responsibility to stand at the side of a star nation whose own policies, whose own internal political corruption and partisanship, have brought it to this deadly pass. It is wisdom to stand aside rather than fling ourselves between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven in this new and even deadlier war between them. We have paid enough standing there in days past; we will pay no more today.
Yes, My Lord Keys, I have heard you. The Sword has listened, as it is charged to listen. And now, having listened, the Sword will speak, and I will speak to tell you to be silent.
I know as well as any other man in this chamber—indeed, better than any other man in this chamber—how corrupt, how self-serving, how foolish and shortsighted and arrogant the High Ridge Government has been. I know how it has ignored consultation with its allies, how it has built down its own navy, paid no heed to the possibility that Haven might be acquiring equally advanced weapons. I know how it squandered the opportunity for outright victory which lay with in our grasp before the Duke of Cromarty and Lord Chancellor Prestwick were killed—murdered—right here at Yeltsin’s Star by agents of the Committee of Public Safety. I know all of those things, yet they are not all I know, and unlike certain honored members of this conclave, I remember those other things.
I remember the Faithful on Masada. I remember their promises to destroy all we hold dear. I remember their plot, Haven’s assistance to them, the way in which our Navy was destroyed by them. And, My Lords, I remember why they failed. I remember the men and women of a foreign, infidel star nation who never hesitated, never asked “Why?”—never even considered standing aside in a battle which was not theirs. I remember how many of those men and women died for us, when they did not even know us. When too many of our own people had systematically insulted them because of the difference of their beliefs. And I remember how much else we owe to those “strangers” who brought us modern medicine, interstellar trade, prosperity, safety. Who gave us the gift of the sons and daughters this hostile world of ours can now support. Who freed us from the curse which killed so many millions of our babies at birth. Who have fought and bled and died with our sons and our brothers because they are no longer “strangers,” but have also become our brothers—and our sisters—by choice.
I will not hear a voice in this chamber which does not count them as much our own, as much the Tester’s children, as any human being ever born of Grayson. Their government has made mistakes—grievous mistakes—but remember what the Intercessor said. Read our own history, see our mistakes, before you dare to cast that stone in your hand. The policy of the High Ridge Government was just that, my Lords—the policy of the High Ridge Government, not of the people or the Crown of Manticore. And I will assure you on my own honor as Protector of Grayson, that the Republic of Haven has lied about the contents of its diplomatic correspondence with Manticore. I do not pretend to know why, yet I have seen the Manticoran originals, and they do not support Haven’s claims.
In the face of this fresh, undeclared, powerful attack upon the Star Kingdom of Manticore, one justified before the galaxy by lies and distortions, Grayson will stand by our brothers and sisters’ side. We will remember our debt, our shared blood, all we have lost for one another’s sake, and as the Tester is our witness, the sword we have drawn will not be sheathed once more until this time there is true peace and an end to the killing at last.
—Protector Benjamin IX of Grayson, addressing the Conclave of Steadholders, March 13, 1920 PD
Introduction
The Protectorate of Grayson is a feudal aristocracy consisting of a single system with one habitable planet and a significant space-based supporting ecosystem.
Grayson was founded in 988 PD by the Reverend Austin Grayson and his co-religionists of the Church of Humanity Unchained. The Reverend Grayson sought to take his followers away from Old Earth to the New Zion and its technology-free Garden of Eden. Upon arrival, however, the colonists found that their beautiful planet was so rich in heavy elements that survival without technology would be almost impossible.
Since the original intent of the colonization of Grayson was to build a New Zion without the evils of technologies used on Old Earth, the founders quite intentionally left behind a great deal of the knowledge and manufacturing capacity required for a technological base. The necessary reinvention and rebuilding of technologies on Grayson were very badly handicapped by that initial planned technology shortage and the need for much of the planet’s labor resources to be dedicated to survival.
In support of that survival, Reverend Grayson made a radical change to the Church of Humanity Unchained’s doctrine. He called for the rejection not of the machine but of the ungodly lifestyle which machine-age humanity had embraced. In time a religious schism between the technology-embracing Moderates and the technology-rejecting Faithful led to a bloody civil war which ended only when the Faithful were exiled to a new colony on the neighboring Endicott System’s planet of Masada. The rest of space-going humanity rediscovered the Yeltsin and Endicott systems in 1793 PD.
The Protectorate of Grayson fought the descendants of its exiles in the Masadan War of 1843 PD, the Long Crusade (a series of Masadan raids on Grayson) between 1848 and 1868, and the Second Masadan War of 1903. Following the Manticoran defense of Grayson from Masadan attack in the second war, RMN commander Honor Harrington was made the first non-Grayson and the first female steadholder. The war marked the Protectorate of Grayson’s entry into the Manticoran Alliance and ended the Masadan threat but did not bring peace. Grayson fought as a member of the Manticoran Alliance in the next decade of wars with Haven, and the 1913 assassination attempt on the heads of state of both Manticore and Grayson was coordinated by agents with clear Havenite ties. The Protectorate of Grayson remains a strong ally of the Star Empire of Manticore.
Astrography
With a single habitable planet and a population of about three billion, the Protectorate of Grayson is one of many single-system nations in the Verge. Yeltsin’s Star is a young F6 class main sequence star half again as massive as Sol. The system layout is remarkably similar to the Sol System, although the single habitable planet is much farther from the primary.
Grayson (Yeltsin V)
Radius: 6,242 km
Gravity: 1.17 G
Orbital Period: 681.61 T-days
Sidereal Day: 24.21 hours
Hydrosphere: 63%
The planet Grayson is significantly smaller than Old Earth, but is of approximately equal mass because it is a high-density world with unusual concentrations of heavy metals. None of its native plants or animals are safe for human consumption, due to the presence of those heavy metals. Population centers are primarily inland to avoid the toxicity of the planet’s oceans. Early genetic engineering by the initial settlers resulted in a set of enzymes that allow native-born Graysons to sustain and survive degrees of heavy-metal contact that would kill unmodified humans. This genetic engineering has resulted in a live birth rate of females that is roughly triple that of males. Despite these modifications, heavy-metal toxicity remains an ever-present risk, and the population lives in air-filtered homes. Although able to sustain a “shirtsleeve” environment under many conditions, wind speeds which generate significant quantities of atmospheric dust require the use of protective masks, and gloves are frequently required when in contact with the natural environment.
The average temperature on Grayson is on the warm side by Manticoran standards, and limited hydrosphere and axial inclination do not help to moderate it very much. Unlike most planets, Grayson’s orbital infrastructure contains a high percentage of orbital farms where the livestock and soil can remain uncontaminated.
Prior to joining the Manticoran Alliance, Grayson had very few exports or imports. Most products were produced for the domestic market only. While wartime construction has occupied most of the system’s heavy industry, it has begun to export both light warships and merchant hulls to Alliance members. Although military needs have dominated and driven the development of Grayson’s industry since 1905 PD, the infusion of modern technology and Manticoran investment funds have simultaneously provided for a huge leap in civilian manufacture, as well, at least in comparison to pre-Alliance levels. The planetary standard of living has risen quite remarkably over that timeframe as a result of the leaps and bounds by which productivity has increased.
The population as of 1921 PD was about three billion and expanding after a lengthy period of stagnant population curves, and the planet is experiencing a significant boom in space-based industry. Politically, the planet is divided into eighty-two steadings, each under the control of a steadholder. One consequence of the draconian population limitation Graysons were forced to accept due to their planetary environment is that no more than half of the entire planetary surface has actually been developed or organized into official steadings at this time. Harrington Steading, organized in 1906, is one of the youngest, but there remains much room for additional steadings as the Grayson population increases.
Asteroid Belt
The Asteroid Belt, which has never been given a name, provides the source of raw materials for the Grayson construction programs both orbiting Grayson and at Blackbird. Resource extraction ships move constantly between the processing nodes that are spaced equidistantly around the Belt. Refined materials are shipped from the nodes either in-system to Grayson or out to the Blackbird yards.
Blackbird Shipyards
The major Grayson Naval shipyard was built in orbit around the gas giant Uriel, and takes its name—“Blackbird”—from one of Uriel’s moons. Blackbird was the site of a secretly constructed Masadan base during the last war with Masada and the shipyard’s name was chosen as a deliberate memorial to the Graysons and Manticorans killed in the last Masadan attack on the home system. Heavy investment from the Hauptman Cartel of Manticore and Skydomes of Grayson was fundamental to the yard’s initial construction. The Hauptman Cartel had been repaid in full by the time of the cease-fire of 1915 PD, but Skydomes remains a fully participating partner and major stockholder in Blackbird.
The shipyards consist of dispersed construction slips distributed around the Uriel subsystem, as well as an impressive dispersed defensive system consisting of both static and mobile assets.
History
The colonization of the planet Grayson represented an even greater leap of faith—in every sense—than the majority of pre-hyperdrive colony expeditions. Basic astronomic surveys had shown an apparently habitable world in the green zone for Yelstin’s Star, with an atmosphere and surface temperatures permitting liquid water on most portions of the planet. Those bare facts were entirely correct, but for a planned self-supporting human colony the precolonization research was grossly and fatefully inadequate, for while the planet hosted no native sentient species prior to human colonization, it was an exceedingly hostile environment for humans.
The exclusive rights to the Yeltsin’s Star System were acquired by the Church of Humanity Unchained, a religious group centered in an Old Earth polity known as the State of Idaho. While the Church’s theology had Judeo-Christian roots, much of the Church’s antitechnology doctrine was inspired by later Green and New Luddite teachings. Church leaders Reverend Austin Grayson and his deputy Oliver Mayhew hoped to build a new, more holy society far from the sinful technological temptations of Old Earth. Although Reverend Grayson’s Book of the New Way, the core of the Church’s new teachings, was actually less rabidly prejudiced against the evils of technology than many groups of the time, the combination of that prejudice with deep religious faith produced a zealotry which took them far beyond the range at which any truly detailed planetary survey could have been achieved in the belief that “God will provide.”
Colonial Period, the Time of the Testing
988–1063 PD
On October 24, 988 PD (3090 CE), the starship Gideon, the Church’s single cyroship, arrived in Yeltsin’s Star System. The system’s distant and isolated location, far beyond any other planned colonization efforts, had been a major factor in the colony planners’ selection of their destination, and indeed it would be many centuries before any other ships would pass through that out-of-the-way corner of the universe.
Early records from just prior to landing name the colony planet as “Zion” and christen the other nine planets in the Yeltsin’s Star System after Judeo-Christian archangels. A recording of the prayer made by Reverend Grayson prior to landing calls on God to ask the archangels to watch over their new colony just as the nine sister planets will patrol the heavens above Zion.
The name Zion was not to last. The planet’s heavy-metal-rich surface proved sufficiently hostile to have tested human survival even in the most technologically advanced colony, far less one which had deliberately discarded technology. In the early days of the colony, heavy-metal poisoning caused horrific rates of miscarriage, with few pregnancies progressing to reach even a stillbirth. In the intense physical struggle for survival, a time when many of the colonists found themselves questioning what sin might have led God to test them so severely, the colonists balked at calling their home after the Holy City. During Reverend Grayson’s lifetime, their planet became simply “the world”; after his death, it was formally renamed “Grayson’s World” as a tribute to his leadership. Over the centuries, “Grayson’s World” was shortened to the simple “Grayson” of today.
The hostile environment inspired a theological change as well. Reverend Grayson himself modified and extended the Church’s doctrine to include the concept of the “Test” as God’s way of refining and purifying His people. The doctrinal change faced minimal theological criticism during Grayson’s lifetime and continued to evolve after his death, in accordance with Grayson’s teaching that God is never done teaching His people new ways and new concepts. Born in this founding crucible, Graysons came to speak of their God as the Tester and commonly held that the human condition called for all good people to meet the Test set before them.
Reverend Grayson had gathered the first-generation colonists and served as the first planetary administrator, but he died only ten years after landing, leaving no heir, and leadership devolved on Oliver Mayhew, the Church’s Second Elder, and Captain Hugh Yanakov, Gideon’s commanding officer. Mayhew and Yanakov were instrumental in creating the social and political structures the colonists required to survive the Test presented by their planet. It was clear they could not survive without technology, and Mayhew completed a doctrinal evolution—begun by Grayson—which held that the lesson of their Test was that it had been the misuse of technology on Old Earth, not technology itself, which had been evil. This cleared the way for the colonists to embrace the necessary technologies, albeit in a cautious and circumspect fashion. What the majority of the colonists were not told was that Mayhew, with the blessing of the dying Reverend Grayson, had also authorized a secret genetic modification project designed to increase their heavy-metal poison tolerance.
The modification was initially (and covertly) tested on the Mayhew and Yanakov families. Once it proved successful, it was implemented across the entire population, but Mayhew recognized that even if he were to posthumously reveal Grayson’s blessing, the modification would be highly controversial. A fervent, well organized minority among the colonists, the progenitors of the present day “Faithful” of Masada, continued to believe that faith in God alone would heal the colonists. Though never more than a quarter of the total population, that minority continued to believe and to militantly insist that any reliance on technology, even for medical purposes, was but the first step into the “Sin of the Machine.” Unwilling to risk a potentially deadly conflict when the entire colony’s survival hung in the balance, Mayhew, Yanakov, and their inner circle decided to keep the genetic modification secret from the general public, propagating it throughout the total population under the guise of a common cold.
Given the technology available to them, it was a remarkable achievement, but the modification was not perfect and an unintended side effect caused a high miscarriage rate among male fetuses. The Church of Humanity Unchained had enshrined polygyny even before leaving Old Earth, and the sexual imbalance provided long-term social pressure to maintain that institution. In general, however, the modification proved very successful in mitigating the consequences of heavy-metal poisoning. While the miscarriage rate (especially among boys) remained tragically high, it nonetheless represented a vast improvement on the status quo. Knowledge of the genetic manipulation was so closely held, it was completely lost for a thousand T-years, until it was discovered by Dr. Allison Harrington in 1912 PD.
The Church’s tendency towards patriarchy became increasingly pronounced after Reverend Grayson’s death. This development was only exacerbated by the survival imperatives of the Grayson environment and the skewed birth rate, and despite efforts by Oliver Mayhew to prevent it, female social and legal rights began a steady erosion. In addition, the most ardent members of the Church, those who had most fervently opposed the easing of the Church’s antitechnology tenets despite Reverend Grayson’s approval, began to emerge as “the Faithful,” an organized, minority sect which preached that the immediate struggle to survive had actually been a punishment, not simply a test. God had acted to chastise Man for failing to place his faith in Him rather than in technology, and if only the Church had remained faithful to God’s true intent and rejected the Sin of the Machine, relying upon His power, He would have delivered them from their trials and transformed the Grayson environment into the technology-free Zion they had fled Old Earth to find. The Faithful’s theologians grudgingly permitted the use of technology, regarding it as a necessary evil in a fallen world. Yet they argued that it was necessary only because of Man’s “Second Fall” on Grayson, and the most ardent of them taught that if Man could be returned even now, fully and humbly, to God’s original intent, God would relent and transform Grayson. In their theology the Test became a test of humanity’s willingness to accept God’s promise and return to His true will, despite the temptations of its fallen and corrupt existence, rather than a trial designed by God to refine those He loved and correct their original misunderstanding of His intent.
Consolidation, the Time of Learning
1063–1138 PD
After decades, the Grayson population finally achieved sufficient victories over its hostile environment that survival on the planet was no longer in doubt. Adequate locally produced technology became available to secure a minimum sustainable standard of living. The institution of the Steadholder had emerged as a hierarchical, authoritarian response to the demands of survival, expanding levels of population, and the technological cushion required for both. The doctrine of the Test was fully accepted by the mainstream Church, polarizing religious dissidents outside the mainstream into the still relatively small sect of the Faithful.
It should not be surprising that the original colonists, intent upon building a technology-free Eden, had brought very few tech manuals and textbooks with them. They were fortunate in that the technology they had intended to preserve had been heavily biased towards the life sciences and medicine, but they had underestimated the extent to which those technologies depended upon a robust, diversified base of other technologies. While Grayson preserved pockets of advanced technology, especially in environmental capabilities, the planetary tech level as a whole regressed to one comparable to Old Earth’s Victorian Era.
In one other area—spaceflight—a limited capability was preserved largely as the work of one man: Hugh Yanakov. Yanakov succeeded in winning Grayson’s approval for the preservation of Gideon rather than the complete cannibalization contemplated by the original colonization plan, which proved critical to the colony’s early survival. Gideon’s sick bay was absolutely essential at more than one point in the struggle, and evidence suggests that the genetic modification was developed aboard ship. After Yanakov’s death in 1018 PD, his eldest son took up the task of keeping a handful of the original shuttles operable and managed to do so for almost another fifty years, despite the powerful opposition of the Faithful and at least some of the mainstream Church.
Expansion, the Time of the Five Keys
1138–1261 PD
This period was generally one of optimism, of faith in both God and the future, and a broad sense of dynamism. The indigenous technology base improved in areas publicly acknowledged as direct and immediate needs, despite the Faithful’s best efforts to prevent it. Even now, however, Grayson efforts focused on solving specific problems, rather than the pursuit of research for its own sake, and there were holes in Grayson’s tech base which other planets would have found peculiar. The colonists had brought no lethal weapons with them, for example, and when personal weapons reemerged on Grayson, they took the form of swords and other muscle-powered weapons which were only slowly replaced by the reinvention of relatively crude firearms.
Following Oliver Mayhew’s death, the steadholders (already coming to be known as the Keys) consolidated their political authority, creating the Conclave of Steadholders as a body of co-equal peers, presided over by the Protector, to consult with one another and support the formation of new steadings as population and wealth permitted. The formation of the Conclave was legitimized by the approval of the Church, yet the Church remained the true secular as well as temporal authority. Over time, power came to reside in the most powerful steadholders, known collectively as “the Five Keys.” By the end of the era the five steadholders of the original Grayson steadings (Mayhew, Burdette, Mackenzie, Yanakov, and Bancroft) held effective control of the Conclave and through it, the planet. Anything like a true planetwide political state remained a purely nominal construct during this era, however.
Mayhew Steading, ruled by a direct patrilineal descendent of Oliver Mayhew, was Grayson’s largest single Steading, and the Conclave’s Articles of Establishment had provided that the Protector must be selected from all the adult males of the Mayhew line in perpetuity. This did not mean the planet had a single ruler, however. The Protector was primus inter pares (“first among equals”), responsible for presiding over the Conclave, administering its policies, and serving as the Conclave’s formal interface with the Church, but forced to govern by forging consensuses or at least pluralities among the other Keys rather than through his own legal authority. The First Elder of the Church retained a mandatory seat among the Keys and was the ultimate arbiter of matters pertaining to the Church, which made him the true fountainhead of authority, but the Protector was envisioned as the executor and enforcer of that authority on Father Church’s behalf.
By the end of the twelfth century, the life-or-death fight to survive on Grayson had stabilized in favor of survival, and by 1250 PD, sufficient resources had become available for the Five Keys to begin diverting a meaningful percentage of the planet’s available capabilities to reestablishing the space presence which had lapsed in 1065 with the failure of the last of the original landing shuttles. The proposal to do so was carried (over the vehement opposition of the Faithful) on the argument that the exploitation of the star system’s extra-planetary resources would repay the effort many times over. Ominously for the future, one of the Five Keys, Eustace Bancroft, Steadholder Bancroft, broke with his fellows to vote in opposition to the hotly contested decision.
Schism, the Time of Sundering
1261–1337 PD
The Faithful seized on this decision as “sin-filled and blasphemous,” and their attitudes and doctrines began to harden, sowing the seeds for the eventual Civil War. Indeed, the official formation of the “Congregation of the Faithful” in 1261 PD as what amounted to an openly schismatic sect within the Church of Humanity Unchained was expressly justified by its founders’ contention that in promoting a resumption of extra-atmospheric development, the Moderates had moved well beyond the technology absolutely essential to planetary survival and hence had returned to the “Sin of the Machine” against which Austin Grayson had preached.
Grayson society as a whole had by now acquired its highly consensual nature as a survival imperative, and Grayson remained a thoroughly theocratic state, but the Church enshrined a deep respect for individual belief, even when it conflicted with official doctrine, as a necessary and direct consequence of the Doctrine of the Test. Despite this, Grayson society had largely rejected the Faithful’s beliefs, and social pressure had prevented their membership from spreading broadly. As their doctrine diverged further and further from the mainstream, the Faithful found themselves increasingly marginalized, regarded as shrill extremists when they were regarded at all.
This attitude began to change, though, as the degree of discipline necessary to ensure survival decreased. The extremists, no longer seen as a direct threat to necessary conformity, were less thoroughly ostracized, and a certain percentage of the Grayson population began to regard the Faithful and their leaders with at least grudging admiration. A mainstream Church clergyman of the period famously wrote, “I reject their beliefs, yet I have no choice but to respect someone who meets his Test by living his life one hundred percent in accordance with his beliefs, however unpopular they may be.”
By the colony’s three-hundredth birthday, this toleration had expanded to the point at which the Church of the Faithful first openly converted steadholders. Some personal journals of generally accepted provenance imply that, if not the steadholders themselves, members of the converting steadholders’ families (and quite probably Eustace Bancroft at the time of the space program vote) had been secret members of the Faithful for at least a full generation prior to their open conversion.
Ironically, religious toleration was one of the areas where the Faithful diverged from mainstream norms, and as soon as those few steadholders publicly converted, they implemented a policy of enforcing their interpretation of doctrine in their steadings, with very little toleration for those adherents of the mainstream Church. Given the autocratic power and autonomy of the Keys, those steadholders were able to alter conditions in their own steadings very quickly, which attracted the immigration of more Faithful from other steadings (and prompted the emigration from their steadings of adherents of the mainstream Church). Many of the other steadholders were secretly relieved to see their own Faithful go, but although they were a clear minority planetwide, there were large absolute numbers of them, and the populations of the Faithful steadings grew rapidly. The Faithful steadholders became individually more powerful, as a consequence . . . and they also became increasingly insistent on exporting their own doctrine. The emergence of a distinct, aggressively proselytizing, increasingly powerful and militant “Faction of the Faithful” began to alienate the mainstream once again, and by the 1320s, the mainstream Church hierarchy was threatened with a steadily growing schism.
By the end of the thirteenth century PD, Grayson had reestablished a substantial space presence, with private industry providing the lion’s share of deep-space industry and the increasing exploitation of the asteroid belt. The habitats orbiting Grayson remained extremely primitive by present-day standards, heavily dependent upon support from the planetary surface in many critical areas, particularly food and other life-support elements. Space industry was providing benefits which clearly outweighed the support costs, however, and ambitious plans were afoot to construct orbital farms to produce not simply sufficient food to support the extra-atmospheric population, but also significant quantities of foodstuffs free of the omnipresent heavy-metals contamination which had such destructive effects for Grayson’s planetary citizens. The increase in private contractors and employees had inevitably resulted in the need for both search-and-rescue capabilities and law enforcement powers, and in 1286 PD, the Five Keys created the Grayson Space Guard (GSG).
Civil War, the Time of Dying
1337–1351 PD
In 1337 PD, the Faithful launched a coup d’état against the Conclave of Steadholders, triggering the Grayson Civil War. Steadholder Jeremiah Bancroft, an avowed member of the Faithful and one of the Five Keys, had petitioned for a special meeting of the Conclave of Steadholders, ostensibly to address some of the more contentious issues dividing the Faithful from the Moderates. Protector John Mayhew II, with the support of Reverend Elkanah Timmons, called the special Conclave and the steadholders attended with their heirs. Steadholder Bancroft never arrived, but troops of the Faithful massacred fifty-three of fifty-six steadholders and their heirs. The other two survivors, Steadholder Oswald and Steadholder Simonds, were also members of the Faithful. Reverend Timmons was “accidentally killed” in the crossfire, the first patriarch of the Church of Humanity Unchained to die by violence.
The Mayhew armsmen died to the man, fighting with Protector John at their head, but by their sacrifice, they saved John’s son Benjamin, who escaped to claim the Protectorship as Benjamin IV. The seventeen-year-old Protector, who was to become known in the fullness of time as Benjamin the Great, fled to Mackenzie Steading and rallied the shattered remnants of the other Steadholders’ Guards to him. Fighting was extraordinarily bitter and bloody, and the brutal measures the Faithful employed in an effort to suppress resistance in areas occupied by their troops was a key element in Benjamin’s success in rallying and leading the military opposition. Damage to the planetary infrastructure, including its farmlands, was extreme, and almost forty percent of the total planetary population died.
One of the Faithful’s first moves was to immediately terminate all support for the despised space industry and to demolish its ground-based component, throwing the fragile deep-space community back on its own limited resources. At the same time, the GSG promptly declared its support for Benjamin IV as the legitimate Protector and head of government, although there was little it could do at that time to assist him, given the need to divert every scrap of orbital and deep-space capability to simple survival, especially after the Faithful destroyed two of the three primary orbital habitats with surface-to-space missile strikes. The GSG was able to create an antimissile defense for the remaining habitat, but only at the expenditure of even more manpower and resources from a critically limited supply of each.
War is usually an impetus to research and development, and the bitterness of the fighting and the total incompatibility of the religious beliefs on either side led to the Faithful’s creation and planned use of a doomsday weapon. Although the practicality of the threat, designed to crack the planet with a succession of powerful warheads, was questionable, there was no doubt that they would almost certainly wreak still more destruction on Grayson’s remaining population centers. They might well also destroy sufficient of the farmland which had been slowly and painfully decontaminated over the past four centuries to threaten all remaining human life on Grayson through mass starvation. Faced with that threat, Steadholder Bancroft’s senior wife, Barbara, defected. Warned by her of the Faithful’s plans, Benjamin’s forces found and defused the first of the doomsday weapons. The Faithful, however, continued building and secreted the weapons around the planet.
Some of Benjamin’s advisers had seriously questioned his decision to “waste” desperately needed resources on off-world projects when they were fighting for their very lives on the planetary surface. In their opinion, it would have been far wiser to withdraw the remaining human presence from space to the planetary surface rather than expend effort, money, and supplies on sustaining it. In the event, they discovered how wise Benjamin had been to reject their arguments when the GSG, given the vitally needed transfusion of resources and support he was able to provide, designed and built a kinetic bombardment capability. Available in 1349 PD, the ability to call in impossible-to-intercept, highly accurate, high-kiloton range kinetic strikes provided the critical edge Benjamin’s still badly outnumbered but passionately loyal, skillfully led, and grimly determined army required to take the war to the Faithful. Another two years of bloody combat (and yet more damage to the farms and protected habitats necessary for survival) were required for the final defeat of the Faithful, but virtually every analysis of the Civil War has agreed that the GSG provided the margin which led to Benjamin the Great’s ultimate victory.
Although the surface infrastructure on Grayson suffered terribly through the Civil War, the remaining spaceborne habitat was largely untouched after the initial missile strikes, as were the ships used to transport goods to and from this platform. The relatively minor nature of the damage to remainder of Grayson’s distributed spaceborne infrastructure was to prove critical to ending the Civil War.
An impasse had been reached: the Faithful no longer had the ability to conquer the planet, but they could destroy its habitability once and for all. Benjamin, with the assistance of Reverend Baruch Gonzalez, Reverend Timmons’ successor, ultimately brokered a deal with the Faithful under which Grayson’s Moderates built short-range starships to transport the Faithful to an exile on Masada in the Endicott System in exchange for the locations of the hidden weapons.
Reconstruction, The Time of Healing and The Rise of the Sword
1351–1397 PD
The Grayson Civil War officially ended in 1351 PD, although the Faithful did not leave Grayson for the Endicott System until 1362, when the starships necessary for the trip had been constructed. Including the Faithful who departed for Masada, Grayson had lost almost fifty-three percent of its pre-Civil War population in just twenty-eight years and damage to the planetary infrastructure, while not total, had been catastrophic. Worse still, in some ways, the capacity diverted to building the starships required for the Faithful’s exile had severely hampered early reconstruction efforts. Fortunately, the Graysons had lost none of the hardworking pragmatism that comes from living on a planet that is trying to kill you even in the good times. The same traditional goal-oriented R&D which had allowed Grayson to produce the capability to exile the Faithful to Masada was turned to the reclamation of the Moderates’ home.
The political results of the Civil War proved far more lasting than the mere physical effects. The old order, defined by a relatively weak Protector serving as first among equals in a small group of leading steadholders, was completely turned on its head. One of the Five Keys and two other steadholders had turned traitor, the loyal Keys had been gunned down to a man, and Protector Benjamin (already beginning to be called “the Great”) had rallied the leaderless steadings in defeating the enemy. Under Reverend Gonzalez, the Church had strongly supported Benjamin yet deliberately distanced itself from direct control of Grayson politics as a response to the religious fanaticism which had sparked the Civil War. Gonzalez continued to support Benjamin after the war, which, combined with his own achievements, gave him the opportunity to set up the new political system in whatever manner he chose, and that is exactly what he did.
The keys which steadholders wore around their necks were symbols of their power, and as “first among equals,” the Protector had shared that symbol. Benjamin’s new Constitution, however, promulgated in 1357 PD, formalized the political supremacy of the Protectorship, giving Benjamin and his heirs the de jure power that he had acquired de facto during the Civil War. Accordingly, the Protector’s symbol became the Sword, rather than the Key, underscoring that supremacy and how it had been won. The steadings of the three treasonous steadholders were combined as the Sword Steading, the Protector’s personal demesne, further cementing Mayhew dominance in the post-Civil War era. The original Mayhew Steading became the steading of the Protector’s heir, thus effectively combining four of the larger steadings of Grayson in the direct Mayhew line.
Nor was that change the only dilution of steadholder power. The Constitution also created a second parliamentary house, the Conclave of Steaders. From the perspective of the exhausted steadholders, the common steaders had earned representation in a chamber of their own because of the way in which they had continued the fight even after their steadholders had been murdered or killed in battle. From the perspective of Benjamin IV (a shrewd politician, as well as a military leader of genius), the natural enemies and competitors for the Sword’s authority were most likely to be found in the Keys, whereas a lower house would be inclined to ally itself with the Sword to protect its own prerogatives.
The cultural rebuilding of this era was made possible largely by the fact that the Faithful who wanted to leave the planet had done so. The lack of a defeated and disaffected former foe and the immediate needs of rebuilding, coupled with a general war-weariness, permitted a rapid and uncommon degree of religious reconciliation and healing. Madame Barbara Bancroft’s remarriage to Protector Benjamin IV also helped Graysons of a more conservative religious perspective view themselves in full communion with the Church and sharing in the Protection of the Sword.
Even the setbacks were used to good effect. When an assassin murdered Madame Barbara Mayhew, members of the crowd tore the killer apart, and Protector Benjamin, with the full support of the Grayson steaders, used the opportunity to root out any remaining pockets of extremist groups unwilling to live at peace with their neighbors.
By the time of Benjamin the Great’s death in 1397 PD, Grayson had largely completed the rebuilding process.
Maturation, The Time of the Protectors
1397–1703 PD
The nearly three centuries following the rule of Protector Benjamin the Great were a golden age for Grayson. The number of steadings continued to increase. The population continued to expand. The rate of growth was high for Grayson, considering the hostile environment. A sense of planetwide unity grew, particularly as the planetary data-net expanded and grew in complexity and capability.
In political terms, the authority of the Sword was wounded by the six-year dynastic war between 1418 and 1424 PD, which was sparked by Thomas II’s assassination of his brother Caleb. Fortunately for the Sword’s fortunes, Caleb’s junior wife Patricia fled to her father, Steadholder Dietmar Yanakov. Unknown to Thomas (who became known to history as “Thomas the Usurper”), his sister-in-law was pregnant, and Yanakov and Steadholder Abner Mackenzie forged an alliance among a coalition of steadholders to depose Thomas and replace him with Caleb’s posthumously born son, Bernard.
Barely twenty years had passed between Benjamin the Great’s death and Thomas’ coup attempt, and the Constitution (itself barely sixty years old) might well have foundered under such stress. Yanakov, Mackenzie, Reverend Ronald O’Day, and their allies among the Keys, however, recognized the potential for fresh civil war if that was allowed to happen. They stood unswervingly behind the infant Protector, and Yanakov and his daughter trained Bernard literally from the cradle up to rule and not simply reign. Under their rigorous, sometimes harsh tutelage, Bernard V emerged as a ruler almost as skilled as his great-grandfather, Benjamin IV, and strongly reasserted the Sword’s authority after Yanakov’s death in 1443 PD.
There were other setbacks as well. Perhaps the most egregious was the decision by three protectors in a row—Bernard VI, Peter, and Benjamin VII—between 1569 and 1655 PD to effectively turn their backs on further development of space. In fairness, all of them were focused on pressing planetary development issues, but many historians argue that their attitudes owed a great deal to how much of the existing space infrastructure had been created primarily to build the Faithful’s exile fleet, which “tainted” it in the eyes of some of Benjamin IV’s descendants. It was fortunate, however, that Protector Adrian (1655–1681 PD) reversed that trend when he did. Without his change in policy, Grayson would have found itself virtually defenseless in the face of the first Masadan attack on Yeltsin’s Star.
While Grayso was focused on domestic affairs, however, the Faithful were rapidly expanding and consolidating on Masada. In one of history’s greater ironies, Masada was a far more hospitable planet than Grayson, and without the checks of a hostile environment, the Masadan population grew rapidly. More ominously, had the Graysons known it, the Faithful’s attitude towards technology had changed radically. While “the Sin of the Machine” remained anathema, the Masadan Church viewed the suppression of the “heretical” Church on Grayson as a holy mission laid upon it by God Himself. The Moderates had been the first to turn their backs on God; therefore, they and the entire planet which had been intended as His perfect world must be conquered and restored to God’s will. All else must be subordinated to that end, and just as God had granted their ancestors the dispensation to use that technology absolutely essential to survival on Fallen Grayson, so He would grant them the dispensation to develop and use whatever of technology was required for the reconquest of Grayson.
However theologically inconsistent that doctrine might have been, it led to a fierce sense of Masadan identity and solidarity and an astounding reversal in the Faithful’s attitude towards research and development. The first Grayson-Masadan War was one of the few interstellar wars fought without gravitic technology, but the fact that it could be fought at all within little more than three hundred years of the Masadans’ exile speaks volumes of their determination and ability to transcend their antitechnology biases.
The initial series of raids were carried out entirely by sublight vessels, as neither combatant had the hyperdrive, the impeller, or the Warshawski sail. The GSG had expanded in step with the growth in industrial capacity and population, and electronic listening posts and remote observatories were established outside the system’s Kuiper belt to monitor (as well as possible) events in Endicott, since no one on Grayson was foolish enough to believe the Faithful did not cherish a burning hatred and desire for vengeance following their defeat. Those monitoring posts had been neglected under Adrian’s predecessors, though, which, coupled with well thought out Masadan measures to conceal the nature of their preparations, might well have proved fatal. Fortunately, however, the signatures of the attack force’s fusion drives and the electromagnetic noise of their passage through the interstellar medium gave sufficient warning—barely—for defensive measures to be taken prior to the first Masadan strike on Grayson in 1672 PD. The GSG’s existing cutters would have been thoroughly inadequate to defeat that attack, but Protector Adrian had been given sufficient warning to commission a force of hastily converted ore-carriers and personnel transports to meet it.
The fighting was furious, bloody, and costly. To quote from Andrew Preston’s God’s Warriors: Masada and the Endless Crusade:
“Modern analysts are uniformly shocked by the suicidal obsessiveness of the Masadan raiding parties. The huge ramscoop fusion carriers that made the multi-year journey to ‘cleanse’ their ancestors’ homeworld were fueled by hydrogen isotopes. Their crews, though, were fueled by religious fervor and a searing hatred, worked to a razor’s edge over three centuries of careful preparation by the Elders of the Faithful. By the time the first Masadans returned to Yeltsin’s Star they saw themselves as chosen instruments of God, guaranteed salvation, on a one-way mission to fight the forces of Satan at the gates of Hell itself. They did not even bother to establish a refueling complex for a chance at returning home. They just fought and died, willing to do anything to purge a planet none of them had ever seen, let alone set foot on, of a people with whom none of them had any personal experience.”
The Faithful were defeated, but the cost was heavy and it was evident to all Graysons that Masada would not accept that defeat as final. As a recognition of that fact—and also as a well-earned tribute to its services—the GSG became the Grayson Space Navy on November 1, 1675 PD, becoming an independent, coequal of the Grayson Army, a status it has maintained ever since.
The follow-up attack in 1696 PD assumed the same flavor, with the Graysons enjoying the advantages of years of warning and a defensive position. The Masadans had realized that, since surprise was impossible, a base of operations in the outer Yeltsin System was necessary, but the increasingly capable Grayson Space Navy prevented the establishment of such a base.
Rediscovery and Modern Warfare
1703–1750 PD
In 1793 PD, the Havenite merchant ship Goliath contacted both Yeltsin’s Star and the Endicott System, reestablishing contact between the descendants of Austin Grayson’s colonists and the rest of humanity. Although additional contacts with the galactic mainstream were sporadic and infrequent, to say the least, the effects of rediscovery were profound. New technologies, whose possibility had never occurred to any Grayson or Masadan, were revealed, and a period of frenetic R&D ensued, driven by the longstanding hostility between the two star systems. Although neither Grayson nor Masada could obtain more than bits and pieces from their occasional visitors, both were aware of the dire consequences of falling behind their enemies, and both introduced domestically engineered versions of the hyperdrive, impeller drive, and Warshawski sail in remarkably short order. The locally produced iterations of those systems were both crude and outmoded compared to more modern systems, yet in the process of essentially reinventing technologies the rest of the galaxy had enjoyed for centuries, Grayson researchers opened several promising lines of development which had not occurred to anyone else.
More important in the short term, the Rediscovery advanced Masadan and Grayson interstellar warfighting technology drastically in a short period of time. Within less than forty years, the Masadans had developed the ability to attack with no warning and with the massive payloads that Warshawski hyperships made possible. The first attack of what came to be known as the Third Masadan War was launched in 1736 PD, thirty-three years after the Rediscovery. The GSN—by this time, a highly professional military force that had been effectively continuously at war for the better part of a T-century—had developed its first hyper-capable warships primarily for rapid response in system defense rather than to project power beyond its home system and decisively defeated the fresh Masadan attacks. Masada’s much larger system population allowed it to allocate roughly two to three times more resources to its military than the Graysons could afford to allocate to the pre-Alliance Grayson military, however, creating a losing proposition for Grayson. With interstellar distance no longer equalizing the equation, the situation was grim, and the Navy’s strategists soon realized that they would need to destroy Masada’s interstellar capability if Grayson was going to survive
The first true interstellar warships of the GSN were laid down in 1742 PD, and The Fourth Masadan War began seven years later with a GSN strike on the starship construction infrastructure in the Endicott System. The Grayson captains were scrupulously careful to avoid any possibility of an Eridani Edict violation, but their attack completely surprised the Masadans (who had neglected system defense in favor of offensive forces) and wreaked havoc on Endicott’s deep-space infrastructure.
Triumph and the Decline of the Sword
1750–1848 PD
Protector Michael II had made the construction of the GSN’s starships and the destruction of Masada’s war-making capacity his life’s work, and he succeeded. Although the planet itself was too heavily defended to be attacked without committing an Eridani violation, centuries of orbital infrastructure were wiped out during the attack. Unfortunately, Michael died in 1753, before he could drive the war through to a conclusion, and his heir, Robert I, was a very different Protector. Without his father’s aggressive energy, lacking in political insight, and more interested in the fine arts than in matters military, Robert declared victory, recalled the Navy from Endicott, reduced its strength, and turned his attention to domestic concerns.
The respite won by Michael’s strike on Endicott permitted Grayson to survive Robert’s policies, but many of the Keys recognized that would not be true forever. In the power vacuum created by Robert’s vacillation and disinterest in governing, the Conclave of Steadholders began to chip away at the Sword’s authority and prerogatives. Robert I’s protectorship was short, but when his son, Robert II, replaced him in 1766, he proved no stronger or more politically adroit than his father had been.
The erosion of the Sword’s power continued as a political structure reminiscent of the Time of the Five Keys reemerged. A power bloc of steadholders who eventually came to be called the Great Keys gradually assumed primacy. By the end of the era, the Great Keys controlled the government of Grayson, and over the next century, the de facto power of the Protector was reduced to little more than figurehead status.
The Long Crusade and Cold War
1848–1903 PD
The bill for the succession of weak protectors came due in 1848 PD when Masada, having rebuilt its infrastructure—and its navy—launched the Fifth Masadan War, which came to be known as the Long Crusade. The initial attacks took the GSN by surprise and almost succeeded in reaching Grayson’s planetary surface. Defeated at heavy cost, the Masadans withdrew, but only to reorganize and launch a fresh assault four years later. The GSN launched a counterattack, only to encounter powerful Masadan system fortifications and take heavy losses of its own. The fighting continued, see-sawing back and forth, until Masada ultimately did get through to Grayson with a series of planetary nuclear strikes in 1868. Casualties were severe, although Grayson’s heavily protected environmental domes held them to a much lower level than Masada apparently expected, and under the Great Keys, a heavily reinforced GSN took the war back to Masada in a series of bitter battles. The Long Crusade guttered down to a state of cold war in 1875, but neither side was so foolish as to believe the longstanding war was at an end, and the interval was marked by occasional skirmishes, Masadan commerce raids, and Grayson reprisal strikes when the raiders became overly blatant. By 1892, however, the rising tensions between the People’s Republic of Haven and the Star Kingdom of Manticore, coupled with Yeltsin’s Star’s and Endicott’s strategic position between the PRH and the Manticoran Alliance, had drawn the two warring star systems into the toils of great power politics.
The Mayhew Restoration
1903 PD–Present
Both Endicott and Yeltsin’s Star are located along a direct hyper-space route between Haven and Manticore, and, as the likelihood of a conflict between the Star Kingdom and the People’s Republic increased, so did the strategic value of the two bitterly hostile star systems. The growing alliance between Grayson and Manticore may prove to be the most important outcome of the last twenty years, given its major contribution to the survival of both star nations at least to date. Many Grayson political analysts, however, would argue that the political implications of the rise of Protector Benjamin IX, the so-called “Mayhew Restoration,” and his domestic policies have even greater significance for the people of Grayson.
Of course, these events are not independent, as the restoration of Benjamin the Great’s Constitution has been closely linked with the alliance with Manticore. The Courvosier Mission, Manticore’s initial attempt to bring Yeltsin’s Star into the Manticoran Alliance, would have ended in unmitigated disaster if not for a Royal Manticoran Navy squadron commanded by then-Captain (subsequently Steadholder) Honor Harrington. Harrington’s desperate and costly defense of Grayson against the so-called “Maccabeus Campaign” launched by Masada with Havenite support, created the political climate in which Protector Benjamin Mayhew IX could reassert the Sword’s ascendancy and restore the Constitution. In public statements, Protector Benjamin has acknowledged that the absolute power of the Protectorship may need to be reduced in the fullness of time. His actions, however, imply no intention of giving up any of his authority in the near future. Opinion polls of steaders in the last several years show powerful majority support for his continued power and policies, despite periodic complaints from individual steadholders in the Conclave. While it seems likely his heirs may face a gradual transition to a genuine limited monarchy, most Manticoran constitutional scholars and Grayson historians agree that too precipitous a transition could prove disastrous because of the nature of the Protectorship itself. Every steadholder is recognized as a sovereign head of state and absolute ruler, limited only by the citizens’ rights clauses of the Constitution and the fealty he owes to the Protector. Until and unless the power of the individual steadholders can be reduced, any attempt to limit the Sword’s powers is all too likely to result in a return to something very like the Time of the Great Keys.
Government
The Grayson’s form of government evolved as the result of the challenges that faced its colonists. Although the Civil War and the Constitution that followed provide a convenient dividing point in its development, the Protectorship and Steadholderships both predate them. The Protector was originally called “Protector of the Faith,” but that was changed to the present title in 1822 PD after decades of debate. The Time of the Five Keys is the term used to describe the period when the Protectorship was legally no more than the first among equals, elected from the Mayhew dynasty by the majority vote of all steadholders and subject in almost all ways in secular matters to the paramount authority of the Conclave of Steadholders. This all changed, beginning in 1337, with the start of the Civil War. At its conclusion, as the triumphant leader of the Moderates following the Civil War, Benjamin Mayhew IV instituted the Constitution of 1357 (deliberately promulgated on the twentieth anniversary of the Faithful’s initial coup) which established the primacy of the Protector and the general form of government that remains in effect.
The Protectorship
The Protectorship, also known as “the Sword,” is passed through the male Mayhew line, and can be traced directly back to the original Oliver Mayhew. Prior to the Civil War, the Protector was elected from all adult male Mayhews; since the Civil War, the Protectorship has passed in unbroken patrilinear succession from Benjamin the Great to the current holder of that office. The Protector serves as both the head of state and head of government for Grayson, and the Constitution grants him far more executive power than is typically seen in constitutional monarchies. All military oaths are sworn directly to the Protector and he has the power to issue direct orders to any military personnel. With the exception of a steadholder’s personal armsmen, no other Grayson armed forces are allowed to recognize a different commander in chief. He is also the only person on Grayson who has the right to organize full-scale military units out of his personal vassals.
Because religion and public life are inseparable on Grayson, the Sword is also responsible for upholding the authority of the Church of Humanity Unchained. It is the Sword’s responsibility to enforce the decisions of the Church if necessary. By extension, the Sword is also responsible for enforcing judicial decisions of the High Court.
The reigning Protector of Grayson is Benjamin Mayhew IX, a direct descendant of Oliver Mayhew, the First Deacon of the Church of Humanity Unchained. His son, Bernard Raoul Mayhew, is his heir.
The Sword is assisted in his duties by the Protector’s Council. Its membership is composed of:
Chancellor: Lord Floyd Kellerman
First Elder: Reverend Jeremiah Sullivan
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Brother Uriah Madison
Minister of Security: Hiram Bledsoe, Steadholder Seneca
Minister of Agriculture: Gregory Mandalow
Minister of the Navy: Truman Womack
Minister of Industry: Brother Jacob Inman
Minister of Justice: Aaron Sidemore
Minister of Commerce: Francis Maxwell, Steadholder Redmon
The Council supports the Protector by serving as his advisory panel, and assists in the high level organization and operation of the government and its bodies.
With the exception of the First Elder, who is automatically on the Council, all Ministers are chosen by the Protector and serve at his pleasure. Although the Constitution does not require him to abide by the advice and consent of the Great Conclave, the Keys and Steaders hold the power of the purse and may refuse to fund a particular ministry if they disapprove of the individual chosen to head it. Prior to the Mayhew Restoration, the Conclave of Steadholders, having taken advantage of a succession of weak Protectors, was able to use this power of the purse to effectively control both the Council’s membership and its policies. That situation ended with Benjamin IX’s reassertion of the Sword’s prerogatives.
The Great Conclave
The Great Conclave, or planetary legislature, is composed of two houses. The senior house is the Conclave of Steadholders, also known colloquially as “the Keys.” The lower house is known as the Conclave of Steaders, collectively referred to as “the Steaders.” As a legislative body, the conclaves are rather more circumscribed than those of other star nations. Because of the Constitution and the almost feudal supremacy of the Sword, the conclaves may not propose or introduce financial bills. National budgets and taxation policy are formulated by the Protector, and the Great Conclave is restricted to an up-down vote to approve or disapprove. Although there is no formal amendment procedure for money bills, the practice of “remonstrance” allows either chamber—or both jointly—to set forth what portions of a proposed money bill they find objectionable, inviting the Sword to craft a compromise acceptable to them. Aside from money bills, the Great Conclave does have the power to create national law and legislation, and the Constitution specifically grants the Great Conclave the power, by majority vote of both chambers, to defund any ministry as a means of avoiding tyrannical rule by the Sword.
The Conclave of Steadholders is composed of the heads of every steading on Grayson and dates from before the Constitution. Members are immune from prosecution in most instances unless the Protector can provide proof of treason, or the Conclave sustains a two-thirds vote of impeachment. The Sword, however, holds the right to remove any Steadholder from office upon his sole discretion for acts of treason. His decision takes immediate effect and may not be contested or resisted, though it may be subsequently appealed to a joint session of the Great Conclave, where a two-thirds majority vote, after presentation of evidence, may reverse the Sword’s decision. A steadholder condemned by the Sword also holds the ancient right of an immediate challenge to trial by personal combat and, if he is victorious, is permanently exempt from any punishment on the charge for which he was condemned. The Keys share the right of legislative veto with the Protector, where a two-thirds majority can override the Protector’s decision. The Conclave of Steadholders also has the right to approve the heir to a steading whose succession is in doubt as well as to approve a regent for any minor heir.
The lower house is the Conclave of Steaders. Unlike the Conclave of Steadholders, it was created by the Constitution, ostensibly as a check on the Conclave of Steadholders. It is an elected body with proportional representation based on population. Realistically, for many years it had been reduced to irrelevance by the power of the steadholders. Since the Mayhew Restoration, it has become a source of strength for the Sword, as a solid core of its members, even those uncomfortable with some of Protector Benjamin’s social reforms, are Mayhew loyalists. Like the Conclave of Steadholders, they can introduce legislation but approval must be by both Conclaves.
Following the establishment of the Constitution, the Sword was clearly ascendant. After several centuries, however, a series of weak Protectors allowed the steadholders to reverse that ascendancy by the end of the eighteenth century PD. Prior to the Mayhew Restoration, the Keys acted with de facto powers through its ability to dominate the important ministries and, thereby, the government, yet the de jure powers were reserved to the Protector. Benjamin IX succeeded in reasserting the primacy of the Sword over the Conclave, due in no small part to the fact that the High Court held that the Constitution had never been changed, that it did not provide for ministerial rule, and that the powers enumerated in it—and thus real power—were therefore still vested in the Sword.
Although the Great Conclave can directly exert only a limited effect on the behavior of the Sword, it does have its own weapons and represents a source of opinion the Protector must take into account. Moreover, because the steadholders are ruling lords within their own steadings, a concentrated opposition among the Keys must always be a source of concern. Opposition by the Conclave of Steaders serves as an index of general public opinion.
Local Government
The Protector maintains authority over all of Grayson’s surface which has not been bestowed to a steading. Only the Sword may initiate the process to create a new steading from unallocated land, although the Conclave has the right of approval. The process is known as a Grant in Organization. Once a steading has been created, it may not have its status revoked except under the most extraordinary of circumstances, such as general insurrection or treason. Because all steadings are autonomous on creation, they are considered national units under the overall umbrella of the Protectorate of Grayson. This makes a steadholder an actual head of state, unlike other aristocratic systems like the Star Empire of Manticore or the Andermani Empire where territories are administered in the name of a higher authority.
Steadholders, as absolute monarchs within their own steadings, have virtually unlimited powers. Even the Sword may not interfere with the purely internal functioning of the steading. The only limitation on legislation within the steading is that it may not conflict with either the Constitution or national legislation. The Constitution guarantees Grayson steaders’ civil rights, including freedom of speech and freedom, protection from unreasonable search or seizure, protection from arbitary arrest, and protection from self-incrimination, but that constitutes only the planetary baseline and a steadholder may extend greater rights to his subjects than are provided by the Constitution. Because personal armsmen are sworn to the steadholder, they are required to follow any order given by the steadholder, even if the action ordered is illegal under the Constitution. The steadholder who gave the order may be held liable, impeached, tried, and convicted of a crime committed by one of his personal armsmen at his command, but the fact that it was the order of his steadholder is a complete defense to any charges against the armsman, civil or criminal, resulting from his actions.
Judicial System
Due to its origins in Idaho in what had been the United States of America on Old Earth, the Grayson judiciary and legal systems are based on the American system as it existed at the time. As such, it is a common law system with legal precedent being the most important consideration.
The judiciary system is at once very simple and very complex. It is simple in that there is a single planetary level court known as the High Court. It is complex in that each Steadholder holds not just executive but also judicial power within his steading.
The High Court can be thought of as the secular extension of the Church of Humanity Unchained. While the Church, in the aftermath of the Grayson Civil War, renounced secular executive authority, it retained sole responsibility for training the planet’s jurists. Thus, while sitting judges are barred from holding a position in the Church, the opinions of the Church still influence judges. In addition, the Reverend has a veto over nominees to the court.
The process of filling a vacancy on the Court involves all three of the major centers of power on Grayson. The Protector compiles a list of at least six nominees. The Reverend, with the assistance of his legal staff, reviews these nominees and is allowed to reject anyone on the basis of their qualifications. This decision is final but he does have to justify it. Once the vetted list has been approved by the Reverend, it is passed to the Conclave of Steadholders, which may also strike names from it upon a two-thirds majority vote. The Protector then chooses one nominee from the vetted list. Under the Constitution, if the Conclave rejects all of the Protector’s nominees then the Protector may make his choice from any name on the original list, as approved by the Reverend.
The High Court is divided into an Upper and Lower Division. Each steadholder holds the power of high, middle and low justice within his own steading, and with virtually feudal powers, each can create laws applicable to his own steading. Because there is no uniformity of law among the steadings, disputes that cross steading lines, or that implicate choice of law questions, are heard by the Lower Division of the High Court. In that sense, the High Court’s Lower Division courts are the trial courts and courts of original jurisdiction for these cases. The Lower Division of the High Court also hears criminal cases where planetary law has been violated. Cases that do not meet these criteria are tried in a steading’s own courts, which are the courts of local jurisdiction.
The Upper Division of the High Court is the court of final appeal for cases that originate in the Lower Division. There is no appeal to the High Court from the courts of individual steadings. The High Court also hears cases regarding the Grayson constitution. The number of judges on the Upper Division of the High Court is fixed by the Constitution at nine members.
The steadholders hold the power of judicial appointments to the courts of their own steadings. Although all the steading-level court systems are based on common law, the variations in law and procedure that have grown over the years would require an individual examination of each steading. What the systems have in common is that they are structured as three level systems: trial courts, appellate division courts, and steading supreme courts. Steadholders have the right to institute any laws within their own steadings (indeed, their decrees have the force of law) as long as these laws do not conflict with planetary law or impinge on any of the Sword’s prerogatives, as well as the power of commutation and pardon.
It is not legally possible for a steadholder’s decrees to be “unconstitutional” within his own steading unless they conflict with planetary law or impinge upon the Sword’s prerogatives. The constitutionality of steadholder decrees of law may be challenged only if the Lower Division of the High Court agrees to hear the challenge. Once accepted by the Lower Division, either party to the appeal challenge may appeal to the Upper Division, but the choice to hear the appeal is solely within the High Court’s discretion. Lawyers admitted to practice in one steading are generally accorded the privilege of appearing in courts of any other steading, although there are some exceptions.
Church of Humanity Unchained
The people of Grayson are not required to be members of the Church of Humanity Unchained, but nearly all of them are. Well over eighty percent of all Graysons are active members of a local church or cathedral. Aspects of religious observance and customs in living out the faith vary between steadings, but the core doctrine and the primacy of the First Elder as chief interpreter of the holy text remain the same.
The church is unified on a planetary level by the Office of the Sacristy which is headed by the First Elder. Sub-denominations within the Church of Humanity Unchained may hold entirely opposing views, yet the Church is clearly hierarchical.
The Church is a creedal religion which is clearly part of the Christian tradition, as is obvious from the Austinian Creed which contains the key points of its doctrine. These are essentially those of mainstream Christianity, but the Sacristy further requires universal acceptance of the two primal doctrines unique to the Church of Humanity Unchained: The Doctrine of the Test, and The Doctrine of Toleration. Serving members of the clergy are further required to abide by the instructions of the First Elder and their ecclesiastic superiors in matters of observance, scriptural interpretation, and instruction.
The Doctrine of the Test teaches that God, the Tester, places certain challenges before all human beings, as a means of instructing and strengthening them, but has also granted them the strength and ability through grace to meet those challenges. The Doctrine of Toleration teaches that it is for the Tester alone to judge how any human has risen to his or her individual Test. Any child of God has not simply the right but the absolute obligation to meet his or her Test in accordance with his or her individual interpretation of God’s will, yet the Church, as the corporate body of all believers, is responsible for teaching right doctrine and providing coherent instruction in the understood will of God. Any serving priest of the Church is therefore required to live and teach in accordance with the Sacristy’s rulings and scriptural interpretations on major points of doctrine and Church discipline. If he cannot in good conscience do so, he cannot be condemned for his refusal, which is enshrined in the Doctrine of the Test, but neither may he retain an active office of the Church until the conflict between its teachings and his own beliefs has been resolved. Note that on several occasions in Grayson history, the conflict has been resolved when the Church accepted that the dissident’s beliefs had been correct, rather than the reverse.
The Reverend Austin Grayson founded the Church, led the colonization of the planet, reformed the faith around the Doctrine of the Test, and was canonized as the Church’s first saint. Believers do not worship Grayson himself, but he is honored as an exemplar who met the Test placed before him. The Church of Humanity Unchained draws divine inspiration from not only the Old and New Testaments of the Judaeo-Christian tradition but also from The Book of the New Way, a collection of writings by Reverend Grayson. The writings include texts written on Old Earth, in orbit, and after landing. All are considered sacred as they show how even a man as obedient to God as First Elder of the Church wrestled with the challenges of planetary survival, feared failure and abandonment, and yet rose to meet the Test by recognizing his own failures and seeking redemption for himself and all of Father Church’s children through grace and good works.
People
The people of Grayson are the product of their environment and have developed distinctive religious and cultural imperatives in response to their hostile homeworld’s survival requirements. Theologically, this shows most clearly in the Church of Humanity Unchained’s doctrine of the Test which undergirds a religion which is simultaneously intensely conservative and yet highly adaptive. Culturally, the colonists’ need to live together in close holdings, shielded from the environment, led to the institution of the steadholders as the autocratic leaders who, in times of crisis, were obligated to select who among a holding’s citizens would be euthanized to ensure that it had sufficient purified air, food, and water to survive. In addition, the high mortality rate and skewed gender distribution reinforced and preserved the practice of polygynous marriage.
While the desperate days of the founding are long past, these traditions remain in modern forms. Steadholders continue to rule their steadings as autonomous states, and while they no longer have the need to decide who lives and who dies on a daily basis, they retain much of their original power.
Grayson’s views of women and their roles in society are in the process of changing, as well. Polygyny remains the standard form of marriage, but the societal view of gender roles has changed with increasing dominance over the Grayson environment and interaction with outside cultures. Over the last two decades, women have been permitted to own property, enter the workforce, and exercise the franchise, and inheritance laws have been modified to permit female succession to steadholderships. Despite this, traditionalists still maintain that women suffer most from the harsh nature of Grayson’s environment, and that men therefore should serve as their protectors from all other stresses of life outside the creation and nurturing of families.
Bagwell, Frederick
Rear Admiral, Grayson Space Navy
Frederick Bagwell served as Admiral Harrington’s staff operations officer as a commander in the First Battle Squadron. As a captain, he commanded GNS Honor Harrington as Vice Admiral Brentworth’s flag captain. Promoted to rear admiral in 1919 PD, Bagwell is currently CO, Battle Division 4.1, GSN.
Benson-Dessouix, Harriet
Rear Admiral, Protector’s Own
Harriet Benson, a captain in the Pegasus System Navy, became a Havenite POW when her system was conquered and she spent sixty-five T-years imprisoned on the planet Hades. Transferred to Camp Inferno after leading a passive resistance movement against StateSec atrocities, she was a key participant in Honor Harrington’s escape from Hades and commanded the captured battlecruiser Kutuzov in the Battle of Cerberus. Married to Henri Benson-Dessouix, who was imprisoned with her on Hades, she is now a Grayson citizen and commands the Protector’s Own’s Carrier Squadron 1.
Benson-Dessouix, Henri
Colonel, Harrington Steadholder’s Guard
Henri Dessouix, imprisoned on Hades with Captain Harriet Benson, played a major role in Honor Harrington’s escape from Hades. Now a Grayson citizen married to Harriet Benson-Dessouix, he resides in Harrington Steading and serves in the Harrington Steadholder’s Guard.
Brentworth, Mark
Vice Admiral, Grayson Space Navy
Commander Mark Brentworth served as Honor Harrington’s liaison officer during the battles of Blackbird and Second Yeltsin. His subsequent commands included GNS Jason Alvarez, GNS Raul Courvoisier, Battlecruiser Squadron 1, and Battle Squadron 2. He is currently CO, Blackbird Yard.
Brentworth, Walter
Vice Admiral, Grayson Space Navy (retired)
Walter Brentworth was a commodore during the final war with Masada. Promoted to rear admiral, he served as CO, BatDiv 1.1 under Admiral Harrington in the Third Battle of Yeltsin. Promoted to vice admiral in 1911 PD, he served as CO, Office of Shipbuilding, retiring from that post in 1915.
Candless, James (deceased)
Corporal, Harrington Steadholder’s Guard
James “Jamie” Candless, the second ranking of Honor Harrington’s three original personal armsmen, died during Harrington’s extraction from solitary confinement onboard PNS Tepes.
Caslet, Warner
Rear Admiral, Protector’s Own
Warner Caslet served as an officer in the People’s Navy. Defeated by Honor Harrington in the Battle of Schiller, he was reassigned as Admiral Thomas Theisman’s staff operations officer and personally assigned by Cordelia Ransom to escort Harrington to Cerberus for execution. Captured by Alistair McKeon during the escape from PNS Tepes, Caslet accompanied Harrington to the surface of Hades and, eventually, served as Harrington’s XO aboard the battlecruiser Farnese during the Battle of Cerberus. He accompanied her to Grayson, where he became a Grayson citizen and currently commands Battle Division 2.1, Protector’s Own.
Clinkscales, Carson
Commander, Grayson Space Navy
Carson Clinkscales, nephew of Howard Clinkscales, became Honor Harrington’s flag lieutenant and was captured by the People’s Navy with her while he was an ensign. He was instrumental in Harrington’s escape from PNS Tepes and in the later escape from Hades. He is currently CO, GNS Erastus.
Clinkscales, Howard Samson Jonathan (deceased)
Regent, Harrington Steading
Howard Clinkscales began his career as a Sword Armsman, attaining the rank of brigadier in Palace Security by age thirty-six. As a general, he commanded Planetary Security at the time of the Courvoisier Mission to Grayson. He later served as Steadholder Harrington’s regent and as CEO of Grayson Skydomes, Ltd., until his death in 1920 PD at the age of ninety-two. He is survived by his wives, Bethany, Rebecca, and Constance, and by his children, Howard, Jessica, Marjorie, John, Angela, Barbara, and Marian.
Fitzclarence, William (deceased)
Steadholder Burdette
William Fitzclarence used his steadholdership to plot against Protector Benjamin Mayhew’s reforms and against Steadholder Harrington in association with Steadholder Mueller and Brother Edmond Marchant. Fitzclarence ordered Harrington’s assassination in 1907 PD. Accused of treason, he demanded trial by combat and was killed by Steadholder Harrington in her role as Protector’s Champion.
Gerrick, Adam (deceased)
Chief Engineer, Grayson Skydomes, Ltd.
Adam Gerrick, a Grayson engineer, proposed the construction of crystoplast, hermetically sealed domes to protect cities and farmland from the toxic planetary environment. That key technology was funded by Steadholder Harrington through the creation of Grayson Skydomes, Ltd., with Gerrick serving as chief engineer. He analyzed the catastrophic collapse of the Winston Mueller Middle School Dome, successfully demonstrating that it was due to sabotage, then was killed when Steadholder Harrington’s pinnace was shot down on the orders of William Fitzclarence, Steadholder Burdette.
Gutierrez, Mateo
Lieutenant, Owens Steadholder’s Guard
Mateo Gutierrez immigrated to Manticore as a child following the PRH’s conquest of San Martin. He enlisted in the Royal Manticoran Marine Corps and rose to the rank of platoon sergeant aboard HMS Gauntlet during the Tiberian Incident in 1918 PD, where he served as Midshipwoman Abigail Hearns’ senior Marine. In 1919, he transferred from the RMMC to Owens Steadholder’s Guard with the rank of lieutenant, and serves as Abigail Hearns’ personal armsman.
Hanks, Reverend Julius (deceased)
First Elder of the Church of Humanity Unchained
Reverend Hanks, as the spiritual head of the Church of Humanity Unchained, was a firm supporter of the “Mayhew Restoration’s” reforms and of Steadholder Harrington. In 1907 PD, he was aboard Harrington’s pinnace when it was shot down on William Fitzclarence’s orders. Although Hanks survived the subsequent crash landing, he gave his own life to save Steadholder Harrington when he threw himself between her and an armed assassin.
Hearns, Abigail
Lieutenant, Grayson Space Navy
Abigail Hearns is the third daughter of Steadholder Owens and is the first Grayson woman to graduate from the Royal Manticoran Naval Academy on Saganami Island. She has since served exclusively in the RMN, beginning with her midshipwoman’s cruise aboard HMS Gauntlet, where she demonstrated both leadership and courage in the Tiberian Incident. As assistant tactical officer, HMS Hexapuma, she was the acting squadron tactical officer at the Battle of Monica in 1921 PD.
LaFollet, Andrew
Colonel, Harrington Steadholder’s Guard
Andrew LaFollet, after completing training and service in Palace Security, served as Steadholder Harrington’s senior personal armsman from 1906 until 1921 PD, when Harrington made him her son and heir’s personal armsman.
LaFollet, Miranda Gloria
Chief of Staff, Harrington household staff
Miranda LaFollet first entered Steadholder Harrington’s service as her personal maid on the recommendation of her brother, Andrew LaFollet. She currently manages the Harrington House staff and, with her treecat companion Farragut, works with Dr. Adelina Arif in the development of treecat sign language and the integration of treecats into human society.
Matthews, Wesley
High Admiral, Grayson Space Navy
Wesley Matthews was, as Commodore, the senior surviving Grayson officer in space at the First and Second Battle of Yeltsin’s Star. His open-mindedness and ability to coordinate with the Star Kingdom of Manticore served him well when he was subsequently promoted to High Admiral, the uniformed Commander-in-Chief of the GSN, in 1903 PD following the death of High Admiral Bernard Yanakov. He has held that post continuously since that time.
Marchant, Solomon
Commodore, Grayson Space Navy
Solomon Marchant served as XO, GNS Jason Alvarez, in 1911 PD. He accompanied Steadholder Harrington aboard HMS Prince Adrian and was captured with her by the People’s Navy. After playing an important role in the escape from Hades and commanding the battlecruiser MacArthur in the Battle of Cerberus, he returned with Harrington to Grayson. Promoted to captain in 1912 and to commodore in 1915, Marchant currently commands Cruiser Squadron 6, GSN.
Mayhew, Benjamin Bernard Jason
Protector of Grayson
Benjamin Mayhew IX graduated from Harvard University’s Bogotá Campus on Old Earth before becoming Protector of Grayson in 1898 PD. In 1903, Captain Honor Harrington and her treecat Nimitz saved Benjamin’s family from assassination and he, in turn, saved Harrington’s life in the same fight. He is a political moderate, a close friend and advocate of Honor Harrington, a proponent of Grayson’s societal modernization, and a firm ally of Queen Elizabeth III of Manticore. He is married to Katherine Elizabeth Mayhew and Elaine Margaret Mayhew, with whom he has seven living children: Rachel, Theresa, Jeanette, Alexandra, Honor, Arabella, and Bernard.
Mayhew, Bernard Raoul
Steadholder Mayhew
Bernard Raoul Mayhew, Steadholder Mayhew, and heir apparent to the Sword, was born in 1913 PD of Benjamin Mayhew’s senior wife, Katherine.
Mayhew, Michael
Although Michael Mayhew, younger brother to Benjamin IX, no longer holds the title of Steadholder Mayhew, he remains second in the line of succession to the Sword. Educated at Anderman University, New Berlin, and King’s College, Manticore, he is a senior technical consultant to the Grayson Space Navy and frequently serves his older brother as a personal representative and special ambassador.
Mayhew, Rachel
Midshipwoman, Grayson Space Navy
Midshipwoman Mayhew is the eldest child of Protector Benjamin and Katherine Mayhew and the second Grayson to be adopted by a treecat. She is bonded to Hipper, one of the Harrington treecat colonists, and is currently entering her second year at the Saganami Island Naval Academy.
Mueller, Samuel (deceased)
Steadholder Mueller
Samuel Mueller, Steadholder Mueller, was an ally of William Fitzclarence, Steadholder Burdette, and a member of Fitzclarence’s conspiracy against Benjamin IX and Steadholder Harrington. Despite his association with the plot, including his direct involvement in the sabotage of the Winston Mueller Middle School Dome, he escaped detection at that time and was not legally implicated. In 1915 PD, however, he was blackmailed by Masadan agents into participating in their attempt to assassinate Elizabeth III and Benjamin, although he was unaware of their full intentions. In 1916, after being successfully impeached in the Conclave of Steadholders and convicted of treason, he was executed.
Paxton, Gregory
Director of Sword Intelligence (retired)
Gregory Paxton, with doctorates in history, economics, and religion, served as Steadholder Harrington’s intelligence officer when she commanded the First Battle Squadron in 1907 PD. In 1911, Dr. Paxton resigned from naval service to accept the post of Director of Sword Intelligence for Protector Benjamin and held that post until his retirement in 1920.
Prestwick, Lord Henry (deceased)
Chancellor of Grayson
Henry Prestwick became Chancellor of Grayson in 1897 PD and remained in that office following the Mayhew Restoration of 1903, serving Benjamin IX loyally and well. In 1915, Lord Prestwick, along with many other Manticoran and Grayson government officials, died in the destruction of HMS Queen Adrienne.
Sullivan, Reverend Jeremiah Winslow
First Elder, Church of Humanity Unchained
Jeremiah Sullivan succeeded Reverend Julius Hanks as First Elder of the Church of Humanity Unchained following Hanks’ assassination in 1907 PD. Although by nature more conservative than Hanks, Reverend Sullivan has continued and reinforced his predecessor’s policies in support of the Mayhew Restoration and its social, religious, and medical reforms. He is a close personal friend of Steadholder Harrington and her parents.
Yanakov, Bernard (deceased)
High Admiral, Grayson Space Navy
Bernard Yanakov was the uniformed Commander-in-Chief of the GSN at the time of the Courvoisier Mission in 1902 PD. He forged a personal friendship with Admiral Raoul Courvoisier, took a leading role in the diplomatic negotiations with the Star Kingdom, and died commanding the Grayson-Manticoran combined fleet in the First Battle of Yeltsin.
Yanakov, Judah
Admiral, Grayson Space Navy
Judah Yanakov, the nephew of High Admiral Bernard Yanakov, continues his family tradition of service. As a rear admiral, he served as a divisional commander in the First Battle Squadron under Steadholder Harrington in 1907 PD. In 1913, promoted to admiral, he commanded the Grayson contingent of Eighth Fleet at the Second Battle of Basilisk. Since the resumption of hostilities, he has commanded Task Force 82, Eighth Fleet, under Admiral Harrington.
Yu, Alfredo
Admiral, Protector’s Own
Alfredo Yu was part of a covert “exchange program” between the PN and the planet of Masada, as a captain in the People’s Navy. As the commander of MNS Thunder of God, he attempted to prevent Masadan atrocities and resisted Masadan plans to use his ship to bombard the planet of Grayson. The Masadans, however, seized his ship and attempted to attack the planet. Yu managed to escape with a significant portion of his Havenite crew. Following the destruction of Thunder of God by HMS Fearless (CA-286), Yu requested and was granted political asylum by the Star Kingdom of Manticore. After intensive debriefing and service in support of the Royal Manticoran Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence and the Grayson Office of Shipbuilding, he requested Grayson citizenship and was subsequently granted a GSN commission and served as Steadholder Harrington’s flag captain aboard GNS Terrible in the First Battle Squadron at the Fourth Battle of Yeltsin. Upon Steadholder Harrington’s return from Cerberus and Protector Benjamin’s creation of the Protector’s Own in 1914 PD, Yu formally transferred from the GSN to the Protector’s Own as Steadholder Harrington’s second-in-command and de facto CO.
Treecats
A total of forty-two treecats now live full-time on Grayson. Those not bonded reside permanently in Harrington Steading, while those who have bonded accompany their adopted humans. Nimitz (Laughs Brightly of Bright Water Clan) is bonded with Steadholder Harrington and mated with Samantha (Golden Voice of the Sun Leaf Clan; bonded to Hamish Alexander-Harrington), with whom he has four treekittens: Jason, Cassandra, Achilles, and Andromeda. Eight other adult treecats from the Bright Water Clan originally immigrated to Grayson. Of the original immigrants, Farragut is bonded with Miranda LaFollet of Harrington Steading, and Hipper is bonded with Rachel Mayhew, daughter of Protector Mayhew.
Xenologists were originally divided on whether this move should be considered the first colonization of another world by the treecat species. Nimitz and others did participate in space travel and visit other worlds prior to the birth of Samantha’s litter and the immigration of the eight members of Bright Water Clan. However, the archives of the Xenology Institute of Sphinx, which makes a special study of treecats, had no prior instance of so many females leaving Sphinx together or of treekittens being raised outside of a Sphinxian treecat range.
After the communication breakthrough by Dr. Arif, the treecats themselves were able to answer the question definitively, and two follow-on groups have immigrated from Sphinx in the intervening years.
The Grayson Space Navy
While the GSN was officially founded in 1675 PD (3777 CE), it traces its origin to the founding of the Grayson Space Guard in 1386, making the GSN one of the galaxy’s older navies.
The GSG was envisioned more as a civilian law enforcement and SAR organization than as a military force, equipped with a modest force of small, lightly armed patrol craft and a handful of longer-ranged “cutters” (essentially, reaction-powered equivalents of what the rest of the galaxy now calls light attack craft). The GSG was never really big enough or sufficiently well-funded to perform its various missions over so vast a volume, yet it succeeded in doing so anyway, establishing a tradition of adaptive innovation and resourcefulness which was to serve it and the Grayson Space Navy extraordinarily well over the ensuing centuries.
After thirty-five years of police and SAR duties, the GSG’s first combat action occurred in 1422 PD, when it supported Benjamin the Great’s forces by launching kinetic strikes against the Army of the Faithful during the final years of the Civil War, but it came truly into its own in 1672, when it defeated the first Masadan attack on Yeltsin’s Star. Shortly thereafter, in recognition of its service to the Protectorate and as an acknowledgement of its future role, the GSG formally became the Grayson Space Navy.
For most of its history, the GSN has been at war or preparing for war with Masada, and during that time the Navy of the Faithful has cycled several times in capability, from barely space-worthy to a near-peer competitor with the GSN.
From the early days of converted ore haulers and GSG cutters, the GSN had grown into a small, but respectable force of cruisers, destroyers, and light attack craft by the time Grayson joined the Alliance. Since the Protectorate of Grayson’s admission to the Manticoran Alliance, it has become one of the largest, most modern, and most powerful navies in existence.
Organization
The GSN has historically been organized into a three-tier system. In the first tier are the Offices, roughly equivalent to the Bureaus of the RMN. Each office is run by an Admiral and is broken into divisions that focus on different aspects of its area of responsibility. The second tier consists of independent Commands, unique in that they report directly to the High Admiral, though they may work closely with one or more Office. Finally, in the third tier are the administrative units, smaller staffs that provide support in specialized areas.
This organizational scheme worked quite well when the GSN was a small system defense force with no more than a half-dozen hyper-capable ships in its order of battle. Scaling this organization to run one of the five most powerful navies in the galaxy has been difficult, though the Graysons, with their combination of stubborn adherence to tradition and flexible attitude towards change, appear to have made it work.
Office of the High Admiral
High Admiral Wesley Matthews
Every layer of the Navy has historically reported directly to the High Admiral, and the formal tables of organization still reflect this polite fiction. However, over almost two decades of explosive growth, the office of the High Admiral has grown to encompass a number of smaller administrative units as well as a staff to manage the day-to-day inputs from the Offices and Commands. Encompassed in the Office of the High Admiral are both the Chaplain Corps and Legal Services, tasked with caring for the Navy’s spiritual and secular well-being. These offices have traditionally dealt with sensitive issues requiring direct access to the High Admiral.
Office of Shipbuilding
Admiral Cornelius Browning
The Office of Shipbuilding is responsible for all aspects of starship construction, from stations and small craft to superdreadnoughts. While every part of the Navy has expanded since Grayson joined the Alliance, the Office of Shipbuilding has probably had the most growth, responsible for the design and construction of no fewer than twenty-two warship classes (both Grayson-designed and locally constructed RMN designs) in the twenty years since joining the Alliance.
Office of Intelligence
Admiral Austin Roberts
The Office of Intelligence coordinates all of the Naval/Military Intelligence-gathering activities into one cohesive whole. It works closely with Sword Intelligence and Manticore’s Bureau of Planning. This office has the distinction of being the oldest organizational unit of the GSN. It is descended from the group that controlled the original “Watcher” platforms built to monitor the status of the Masadan colony expeditions during the Exile. While the platforms themselves have been transferred to System Defense Command (SDC), the Office of Intelligence retains its original function and works closely with SDC to identify threats to the Yeltsin’s Star System in enough time to counter them.
Office of Supply
Rear Admiral Carlyle Jones
The Office of Supply encompasses the logistical side of the Navy as well as the Ordnance Command and is responsible for all munitions, drones and other expendables carried aboard warships. It works in tandem with the RMN Logistics Command to form the Joint Navy Military Transport Command, the fleet of fast commercial freighters that has been the core of rear-area logistics throughout the war. Armed fleet auxiliaries operating in conjunction with Grayon’s forward deployed wall of battle also report to the Office of Supply.
Office of Personnel
Vice Admiral Justin Ackroyd
The Office of Personnel is responsible for manning requirements as well as all administrative issues surrounding personnel management (payroll, benefits, promotions board, leave, etc.). It has worked heavily with Alliance partners to find homes for allied personnel in GSN service.
The Office of Personnel has also had the unenviable task of navigating the minefield of forming a gender-integrated Navy, with the introduction of female Grayson personnel into what has always been a male Navy. The GSN’s experience with female personnel “on loan” from the Royal Manticoran Navy has been a godsend in this respect, but the process of integrating even those experienced, trained women into their all-male service was not without problems. Integrating Grayson-born women has been even more challenging, given the Grayson tradition that women are to be protected rather than exposed to danger, and there has been considerable friction, especially in the early years of the process, but the GSN appears to be coping.
Office of Technology
Admiral William Gaffney
The Office of Technology grew out of the alliance with the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the need for the GSN to quickly incorporate the wealth of new technology and data coming into the system. Taking a page from the RMN, the Office of Technology works closely with corporate and shipping concerns both in Grayson and Manticoran space to gather technological news from across explored space.
By 1921 PD, the Office has moved into more of a pure R&D role, working closely with the R&D programs in Systems Command. Pressure to merge the two groups into a single office started when the Janacek Admiralty shut down all coordination between the navies in the interregnum between operational phases of the war, but bureaucratic inertia, present even in the GSN, has so far resisted the merge. During the locust years of the Janacek Admiralty, the Office of Technology began to form its own relationships with Alliance navies and had established robust channels of communication independent of the RMN by the time the war resumed.
System Defense Command
Admiral Leon Garret
System Defense Command (SDC) maintains the long-range detection arrays, border sensors, and several squadrons of quick reaction forces to identify and respond to possible threats. It is the oldest formally integrated organization in the GSN and is also in charge of the “fixed” defenses of the system, including orbital fortresses, missile pods and planetary defenses. In the event of an attack on the home system, the mobile force commander works closely with SDC.
Admiral Garret is one of the last of the original GSN admirals to survive the War, and he has been instrumental in organizing and coordinating the home system defenses for longer than much of the current crop of Grayson officers has been alive. He continues to work tirelessly despite his advanced age and calls from some quarters for his retirement. He runs his Command as a personal fiefdom but, despite any personnel management peculiarities, his results have kept him in charge. His style is seen by many as abrasive but this defect has been matched by the near total success of his defensive measures. Admiral Garret has publicly acknowledged the successful defense of the Yeltsin’s Star System as his personal Test and has been quoted in the ’faxes as saying, “God will let me know when it’s time for me to go. Probably when my heart stops beating.”
Doctrine and Training Command
Rear Admiral Michael Reston
Doctrine and Training Command (DTC) works closely with the Office of Personnel and has been instrumental in keeping pace with the rapidly evolving theory of warfare in the Alliance as a whole and GSN in particular.
For the first decade after Grayson joined the Manticoran Alliance, all GSN officers attended the RMN Academy on Saganami Island, and the majority of them continue to do so. In 1920, however, the revamped Isaiah Mackenzie Naval Academy, the traditional source of the GSN’s officer corps, reopened with a thoroughly modernized curriculum and up-to-date training facilities. DTC has been deeply involved with coursework design for Saganami Island from the very first, and was instrumental in designing the new Mackenzie curriculum and in recruiting visiting Manticoran professors. In addition, DTC bears primary responsibility for local enlisted personnel training, and it has also been instrumental in some of the changes in command and control structure on Grayson warships, rippling down from flag staff to individual bridge crews.
Systems Command
Vice Admiral Thomas Albert
Systems Command has been the Navy’s research and development shop since long before the Alliance. All of the home-grown technology updates the Navy had put into place before the first Masadan attack after the Exile were developed here. Systems Command provided the original work on the improved compensators and fission reactors and has worked very closely with the RMN’s Weapons Development Board on many aspects of Alliance technology.
The original intention was to replace Systems Command with the Office of Technology once the influx of new tech from Manticore grew from a trickle into a flood, but High Admiral Matthews, with the firm support of the Protector, overruled the decision. He argued that Grayson must not rely on foreign efforts to develop new technology and should continue its own development, incorporating but not slavishly following Manticoran tech and practice. Thus, Systems Command retains its research and development role while coordinating closely with the Office of Technology to screen for useful ideas from across the human galaxy.
Special Warfare Command
Lieutenant General Gerald White
Special Warfare Command (SpecWar) is the smallest Command in the GSN and also one of the older ones. The hyperdrive, and exposure to the rest of humanity, brought both the GSN and their Masadan opponents a limited ability to conduct covert operations in each other’s star systems. SpecWar was the organization that grew out of the Office of Intelligence unit tasked with covert operations in either star system. As such, it gathered a substantial amount of information for the Alliance forces that occupied Masada.
Protector’s Own Squadron
Protector Benjamin Mayhew IX established the Protector’s Own in 1914 PD, using as its core the warships and volunteers of the Elysian Space Navy. The crews of the Elysian Space Navy were former State Security prisoners of war who escaped the Cerberus System under the command of Admiral Harrington. Every member was offered a position in the Protector’s Own, and nearly one hundred sixty thousand accepted. Like service members in the Grayson Space Navy, members of the Protector’s Own are entitled to Grayson citizenship following six years of honorable service. While the initial service members of the Protector’s Own were foreign, and in some cases decades out of practice in the art and science of space combat, that core group and the Grayson-born members who have joined it have become the most skilled force in the already elite Grayson service.
The Protector’s Own is personally financed by the Protector of Grayson. The squadron’s new ships are built in Grayson Space Navy yards. The Protector’s Own Squadron, currently nearer to a fleet in size, generally shares doctrine, training, maintenance, and upkeep facilities with the GSN. Service members of the Protector’s Own are uniformed in the Mayhew gold and maroon. They are paid on a scale set by the Protector. As of 1921 PD, that rate is 115 percent of GSN pay for the same grade.
In recognition of Fleet Admiral Harrington, its commanding officer, the emblem of the Protector’s Own is a flame-enshrouded salamander. Because of her other duties, Admiral Harrington relies on her second-in-command, Admiral Alfredo Yu, to serve as the acting commanding officer in her absence. Though many of the members of the Protector’s Own are foreign born, service is open to all spacers (foreign or steaders) who meet the qualifications standards and choose to compete for a position. Most of these service members become Grayson citizens. Additional members of the Protector’s Own, as needed to maintain force strength, have been enlisted and commissioned from Grayson. Most maintain residences in Harrington Steading. All Protector’s Own officers and general spacers make their oath to the Protector, as do all members of the GSN, but the Protector’s Own has been established as a separate service branch, legally coequal to the Grayson Space Navy, the Grayson Army, and Grayson Planetary Security. A recruitment office run at the direction of the Protector on Mayhew Steading reviews applications and administers qualification testing quarterly.
Uniforms and Equipment
OFFICER’S SERVICE DRESS
The Grayson Space Navy’s officer’s uniform consists of a medium blue hip-length tunic with lapels blending into a collar that opens towards the neck. The tunic is sealed with three buttons and has pocket flaps bilaterally on the breast and hips with silver buttons. Service badges, ribbons and awards are worn above the left pocket flap, and a nametag and unit awards are worn over the right. Officers assigned to a particular ship wear the ship’s patch on the shoulder of the right sleeve, while the GSN crest is worn on the right shoulder. Rank insignia pins are worn on both sides of the shirt collar and duplicated on the shoulderboards. Traditional cuff rings are worn as well, with the exception of lieutenant senior grade which also has a Grayson sword above the single gold ring.
The shirt worn under the jacket is, for some reason, referred to as an Oxford shirt. It is white with buttons up the front and buttons holding the points of the collar, which is folded down over an old-fashioned navy blue necktie.
The trousers are dark blue and come down to the tops of the black boots. As an option, and thanks to the efforts of the Bancroft Society, the GSN Uniform Board has made skirts an option for the dress uniform and split skirts for working uniforms for female GSN personnel. The skirts are the same color as the trousers.
The officer’s cap is generically referred to as a “wheel cap.” The cloth portion of the cap is the same dark blue as the trousers. The band around the head is black, with a black strap secured by silver buttons at the sides and a black peak, carrying gold braid “scrambled eggs” for senior officers and flag officers. A silver badge with the GSN crest adorns the front of the cap. In a tradition borrowed from the Manticoran Navy, starship commanders wear a white band on their cap.
ENLISTED SERVICE DRESS
GSN enlisted personnel wear a short jacket that seals up the front in the same medium blue as the officer’s tunic. It opens toward the top to lapels that blend into a collar. The sleeves terminate at the cuffs in a wide knit band for comfort. There are pleated pockets on both sides of the chest with silver buttons on the pocket flaps. Similar to officers, awards and decorations are worn over the left pocket and an identification tag is worn over the right. The Oxford shirt and necktie are the same as worn by officers. Shoulder decoration is the same as the officer’s uniform. Rating insignia is worn on the left sleeve while service hash marks adorn the right, one for every four years of service.
The trousers are similar to the officers’, but in the same medium blue as the tunic, terminating at the black boot tops. Like officers, female enlisted personnel also have the option of wearing a skirt.
The hat is a fore and aft cloth cap in azure blue with a narrow black band around the base.
SKINSUITS
Graysons use state-of-the-art skinsuits imported from the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Markings on these Grayson-issue skinsuits are similar to their Manticoran counterparts, but there are noticeable differences.
Like the RMN, skinsuits used by the GSN mark an enlisted spacer’s department in a large color-coded area along the arms and legs. Unlike the RMN markings, the Graysons prefer to leave most of the chest area white, coloring only the shoulders and the front helmet attachment piece in a fashion that slyly resembles their duty uniform’s ancient necktie.
Markings on the left arm of the enlisted suit include the Grayson roundel (a six-pointed star over crossed swords) reversed from the department color in white. Below that is the wearer’s rank, also in white. The spacer’s name is worn in his department color on the right breast. Like the RMN, Graysons also color the enlisted helmet’s visor with the wearer’s department color, reversing out their name in white. Rank is displayed above the name for enlisted spacers.
The Grayson officer’s skinsuit utilizes department-neutral coloration, favoring a navy blue accent around the shoulders instead of the black of RMN officer skinsuits. Rank is displayed on the helmet, on the collar, reversed on the shoulders, and on the sleeve of an officer’s skinsuit. The name is displayed on the visor of the helmet and on the right breast.
Both officers’ and enlisted spacers’ skinsuits display the hull number and unit name on the right shoulder. The officer’s skinsuit also displays the Grayson roundel on the left shoulder.
Order of Battle
The Grayson Space Navy was defined by its wars with the Faithful. The GSN’s sudden and rapid adaptation of modern interstellar warfighting technology, successful conclusion of its conflict with Masada, and ascension to its role as a senior Navy in the Manticoran Alliance is a testament to the flexibility of the force and a telling reminder for those who would see Graysons as backwards. In Grayson parlance, the modern GSN met and surpassed the Test for which it was created.
At the time that they were recontacted by the rest of humanity, the Graysons had the capability to build fission- and fusion-powered reaction drives, create large spaceborne structures, and conduct a great deal of their society’s industrial business off-world. They accomplished this with no gravitic technology, completely ignorant of nanofacturing techniques that had been industrial standards in the rest of the explored galaxy for centuries. Their accomplishments were aided, somewhat ironically, by the natural abundance of heavy elements through which their world daily tried to kill them. For example, their development of nuclear fission reactor technologies to previously undreamed of levels was largely due to the abundance of the needed fuels in their rocks, soil, and groundwater. The radioisotopes required less infrastructure to extract and a lower level of capability to burn than safer and cleaner fusion fuels.
This particular issue famously led to revolutionary developments in light attack craft (LAC) powerplants when the Grayson industrial base familiarized itself with modern fabrication techniques. However, it also created a host of problems as the Graysons tried to build their first modern fusion-powered hyper-capable warships. Simply put, pre-Alliance Grayson fusion plants were not gravitically/electromagnetically compressed (as are GRAVMAKs). They operated purely on electromagnetic principles and were enormous when compared to a modern GRAVMAK of similar output. Pairing their plasma output with hyperdrives, impeller nodes, sidewalls, and other gravitic devices strained Grayson ingenuity to its limits before it joined the Alliance.
Given a technically literate populace, a robust space infrastructure, and the motivation of the coming Manticore-Havenite War, the nascent Grayson space industry rapidly learned how to overcome many of these technical issues as they license-built their first Manticoran designs during the prewar naval buildup. The large number of space workers in Grayson service, coupled with new manufacturing techniques and processes brought in from Manticore, combined to create explosive growth in Yeltsin’s Star’s space population and manufacturing capability. This infrastructure and the generation who built it have become some of the most accomplished shipwrights in the known galaxy by any standard. Thoughtful understanding of technical principles and a continuous search for better ways of accomplishing their tasks are hallmarks. The GSN’s methodical approach to modern starship design has surprised the known galaxy, enemies and allies alike, with innovations from the first years of the Alliance up to the present day.
LIGHT ATTACK CRAFT (LAC)
Before the Protectorate of Grayson entered the Manticoran Alliance, the GSN boasted twenty-one locally built light attack craft in its order of battle. The influx of military and spacecraft technology that followed Alliance admission rendered these early Grayson LACs obsolete even for their original sublight system defense mission. The GSN summarily halted all construction and decommissioned the units in service.
When Project Anzio kicked off production in 1912 PD, the GSN rapidly constructed a number of the new advanced LAC classes as part of the military building push in advance of Operation Buttercup. These more capable and reliable units performed the system defense mission and remained close to home during the initial attacks. Later GSN fleet exercises evolved to more closely integrate LAC operations within GSN doctrine.
Grayson architects improved on Manticoran designs in their production of LACs for the space superiority role. They used the cancelled RMN Space Superiority LAC Program for initial designs, but followed through with superior designs of their own. Grayson’s latest LAC class, the Katana, is in service in both the RMN and GSN as a dedicated “LAC killer.”
Faith-class system defense unit
Mass: 11,250 tons
Dimensions: 138 × 23 × 21 m
Acceleration: 409.3 G (4.014 kps²)
80% Accel: 327.5 G (3.211 kps²)
Broadside: 12M, 1L, 1AC
Chase: 1L, 1AC
Service Life: 1891–1907
The Faith-class unit’s formal designation in Grayson service was “system defense unit” rather than “light attack craft” because it was actually the primary sublight system defense platform for the primitive, pre-Alliance GSN and massed barely twelve percent as much as a contemporary Grayson cruiser. However, those units were widely regarded as LAC analogs by other navies, given their mission requirements.
The Faith class was divided into at least three distinct subtypes, but the weapons fit between them is nearly identical. The major changes between subtypes are in the sensors, electronic warfare packages, and fire control systems. Like many pre-Alliance GSN units, the Faith class were protected by point defense autocannon, as the smallest pre-Alliance Grayson beam installation was far too large and slow firing to be an effective missile defense system. The designs are crude compared to modern units, but the Faith class performed well in the final Masadan attack.
Fission power plants driving plasma accelerators for gravitic conversion were standard in these units, and the inability to refit more modern Manticoran gravitic radscreens into their powerplants was a major factor in their retirement. The GSN initially considered upgrading them to modern GRAVMAK fusion plants similar to those used in RMN LACs, but decided against it. The tradeoffs revealed in that study convinced the GSN to propose the combination of Grayson fission reactors with Manticoran shielding materials and screen generators that ultimately resulted in the Shrike’s powerplant, however.
Another significant presage of the Shrike design were the Faith’s spinal laser weapons. While most impeller drive warships mount their largest weapons in their chase batteries, the Faith-class mounts were unusually large compared to their broadside mounts, requiring a dedicated plasma accelerator to feed them from the fission pile. The Faith-class’ designers realized that the platform needed improved turn rates if its crews were going to survive to use these weapons and gave it larger maneuvering gyros and more wedge torque than previous designs. All of these features provided valuable experience for designing the Shrike around a single spinal beam.
Shrike-B-class light attack craft
(for specification, see RMN Shrike-B-class LAC)
Service Life: 1915–present
While involved heavily in the initial Shrike research and development, Grayson lagged behind Manticore by several years in operational LAC and carrier deployment. A number of early Shrikes were in service with Systems Command as research and development testbeds, but the first advanced LAC class in GSN service was its own Shrike-B variant. The differences between the models are minor and each can operate from the other’s carriers as necessary.
Katana-class light attack craft
Mass: 19,500 tons
Dimensions: 71 × 20 × 20 m
Acceleration: 640.4 G (6.28 kps²)
80% Accel: 512.3 G (5.024 kps²)
Forward: 5M/CM, 3PD
Aft: 6PD
Service Life: 1917–present
Originally designed as the Grayson answer to the Ferret-class, the Katana does everything Graysonwanted a Ferretto do without trying to fill the antiship role. The Graysons realized early on that the primacy of the LAC in the antiship role was time-limited and began looking for ways to create a space-superiority fighter with enhanced dogfighting capabilities. The cancellation of the RMN’s own Space Superiority LAC Program under the Janacek Administration made the Katana class the only functional space-superiority LAC in the Manticoran Alliance.
The Katana carries five high-speed launchers capable of launching either standard Mk31 counter-missiles or the Mk9 Viper anti-LAC missile. These off-bore launchers are capable of launching into virtually any open aspect, including directly aft.
With no provision to carry the larger shipkillers, magazine levels have been increased over even that of a Ferret. The Katana also carries a trio of heavy superdreadnought-grade point defense clusters forward, optimized for antimissile defense but powerful enough to be used against other LACs in close combat. Aft, they carry a standard ring of light point defense clusters like the Shrikes and Ferrets.
The Katanas are slightly smaller and substantially more maneuverable than any of the other Shrike variants, with improved electronic warfare capabilities as well as the new two-phase “buckler” bow wall. Their multipurpose launchers fire the Viper missile, which can be used in either counter-LAC or counter-missile mode. Used in the second mode, the Viper remains an extremely capable counter-missile, matching the antimissile performance of the cheaper dedicated Mark 31 counter-missile from which it was derived.
In addition to its dogfighting role, the GSN and RMN have recently begun to use the Katana to supplement fleet missile defense, especially in the kind of MDM environment Alliance ships have faced against Haven’s new wall of battle post-Operation Thunderbolt.
DESTROYERS (DD)
With the explosive growth of the Grayson economy and the matching growth of naval responsibilities following Grayson’s membership in the Manticoran Alliance, the Grayson Space Navy found itself in desperate need of light units. The fact that none of its officers had ever commanded a warship heavier than a light cruiser and that they had no experience with extended deep-space hyper operations also gave Grayson good reason to begin by increasing the number of smaller ships in its Navy.
Like the rest of Grayson naval doctrine, Grayson destroyer design evolved nearly independently from the rest of the explored galaxy’s conceptions of naval power. Already at war continuously for several hundred years prior to their rediscovery, the first GSN “destroyers” were really just the lower level of two tiers of hyper-capable Grayson warships, used defensively to intercept Masadan raiders in the Yeltsin’s Star system and offensively as support units on Grayson raids into the Endicott System. Unlike most other navies, limited interstellar trade meant that GSN destroyers were not needed in the traditional commerce protection role common across the rest of human explored space.
Grayson’s Alliance membership changed the roles of its destroyers as it changed many other things. For the first time in living memory, the GSN no longer had to worry about an existential threat a handful of light-years away. Instead, it faced the potentially much larger threat of Haven and began concentrating on the development of interstellar combat power. Not content to accept “received wisdom” from their Manticoran partner, the Graysons responded with their hallmark inventiveness and reexamined their naval doctrine across the board. The end result was a concept of operations for their destroyer forces that essentially ignored traditional commerce protection missions. Instead, the forces are designed for three fleet missions: scouting, antiscouting, and screening.
First and foremost, GSN destroyers scout for a deployed battle fleet both while in hyper transit and in normal space. The new doctrine calls for a substantially larger scouting force, spread across multiple hyper sub-bands to maximize sensor performance. This increase in demand, combined with the relative ease in incorporating Manticoran technology in the smaller shipyards and a need for small-ship command billets to train the first generation of capital ship commanding officers (COs), explains the rapid initial buildup in destroyer numbers in the early days of the Alliance.
Second, and closely associated with the scouting mission, is the antiscouting mission. GSN destroyers engage light enemy scouting units as they are found, both to support their own scouting mission and to prevent enemy scouting.
Finally, once the main enemy formation is located and its composition determined, GSN doctrine calls for the destroyer force to fall back to the main body of the fleet and integrate itself into the wall of battle, augmenting the battle fleet with its sensor and antimissile capabilities.
Ararat-class destroyer (pre-Alliance)
Mass: 62,500 tons
Dimensions: 341 × 40 × 23 m
Acceleration: 526.6 G (5.164 kps²)
80% Accel: 421.2 G (4.131 kps²)
Broadside: 3M, 2L, 2CM, 2AC
Chase: 1L, 1PD
Number Built: 1
Service Life: 1874–1903
GNS Ararat was the oldest ship in Grayson service at the time of the battles of the final Grayson-Masadan War. As the first vessel built from the keel up to take advantage of the locally developed inertial compensator, Ararat could in many ways be considered the first modern GSN warship.
Like all of the pre-Alliance warships, Ararat mounted few broadside missile launchers, with even fewer chemical-burning counter-missiles for area defense. On the broadsides she still mounted autocannon for the point defense role but had recently been refitted with crude, but longer-ranged laser clusters to cover her vulnerable hammerheads. Ararat was destroyed with all hands during the Masadan War.
Zion-class destroyer (pre-Alliance)
Mass: 65,250 tons
Dimensions: 346 × 41 × 24 m
Acceleration: 525.5 G (5.154 kps²)
80% Accel: 420.4 G (4.123 kps²)
Broadside: 4M, 2L, 2CM, 3AC
Chase: 1L, 2AC
Number Built: 3
Service Life: 1879–1905
The Zion class was designed as a follow-on class to GNS Ararat. The most significant change was to add a fourth broadside missile launcher. Unfortunately, the lack of room for additional missile storage reduced the number of salvoes per launcher from eight to six. Defenses include dual gravitically driven point defense autocannon as chasers and an additional autocannon on the broadsides. These autocannon were imported ex-Solarian weapons. Grayson industry was as yet unable to construct such weapons, but the GSN was able to acquire them from Solarian reclamation yards as the SLN converted to laser clusters in more recent construction. Although the autocannon were more volume intensive than the cruder, electromagnetically driven Grayson weapons, they required much less volume and a lower energy budget than laser clusters would have, while their higher rate of fire and muzzle velocity remained more than adequate for dealing with then state-of-the-art Masadan shipkillers.
The class was scheduled to receive the same defensive upgrades as Ararat, but the onset of the final Masadan War disrupted those plans. GNS Saul, the only member of the class to survive the War, was decommissioned in 1905 PD after the first wave of the Alliance Technological Exchange Program ships arrived. Her survival in combat was directly attributed in official reports to an increased volume of defensive antimissile firepower and the dramatic improvement that her autocannon represented over the older electromagnetic guns on Ararat.
Jacob-class destroyer
(for specification, see RMN Noblesse-class DD)
Number Purchased: 7
Service Life: 1903–1921
These are former RMN Noblesse-class destroyers that were shipped to the GSN instead of being scrapped. Initially outdated by RMN standards, their electronics were upgraded before delivery. Complete fits of modern point defense weapons alone made them far superior to any pre-Alliance Grayson-built destroyer.
By the middle of the first war with Haven, they were mostly relegated to training duty or System Defense Command. Few of them saw action, though some were assigned as convoy escorts. They were modernized again in late 1911 with upgraded sensors and electronic warfare (EW) systems. However, given that the youngest was over seventy T-years old when they entered Grayson service, their impellers and compensators in particular were difficult to maintain. Preferring to spend scarce maintenance resources on more modern units, the GSN retired the Jacob class with a sense of relief as the first of the Paul class were commissioned.
Joseph-class destroyer
(for specification, see RMN Chanson-class DD)
Number Purchased: 3
Service Life: 1903–present
As part of the Technological Exchange Program offered by the Star Kingdom of Manticore that gave them the retired Nobelesse-class destroyers, three brand new Flight IV Chanson-class destroyers were sold to Grayson between 1903 and 1904 PD. Renamed the Joseph class when they entered Grayson service, these destroyers joined with the seven older Jacob-class destroyers as the early modern units of the GSN before the first locally built destroyer was commissioned in late 1905.
While GNS Joseph was lost in one of the early battles of the war, her sisters, Manasseh and Ephraim, have served the Navy well in the intervening years. Though not as capable as the newer construction, they are well suited to the picket duties and other tasks to which they are assigned. Many serving GSN flag officers had their first taste of extended deep-space hyper operations onboard one of these ships.
Joshua-class destroyer
Mass: 79,250 tons
Dimensions: 369 x 44 x 25 m
Acceleration: 548.9 G (5.383 kps²)
80% Accel: 439.1 G (4.306 kps²)
Broadside: 3M, 3L, 5CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1G, 2CM, 2PD
Number Built: 44
Service Life: 1905–present
The Joshua-class destroyer is the first ship of its type designed specifically with GSN doctrine as its guide. While the original inspiration was the Flight IV Chanson-class DD, the Office of Shipbuilding had its own ideas about warship design from the review of operational data received from the RMN. Somewhat to the consternation of their new allies, the Graysons made several significant changes to the Chanson design before putting it into production and still managed to complete the first unit over a year before their Manticoran advisers would have believed possible.
The GSN had already begun planning for its transition from a strictly system defense force to a force able to project power outside the Yeltsin’s Star system, and the Joshua-class plans reflected the first steps of the evolution of current Grayson doctrine for well-protected light units to provide layered defensive support as part of a screen for the wall of battle. Indeed, the GSN committed to the Joshua-class designs almost immediately after joining the Alliance, well before the completion of their first locally produced capital ship in 1908.
The Joshua-class destroyers were constructed at a time when Grayson designers and shipbuilders were still getting themselves up to speed with the technological changes the alliance brought to Grayson shipbuilding. Notionally they were built in two flights, with Flight II units carrying an additional point defense cluster in each broadside, more repair remotes, larger hydroponics bays, improved maintenance capability, and the myriad other upgrades experience had proved necessary to operate on remote stations with a wall of battle. In practice, the design was in a constant state of evolution as the Grayson engineers rapidly gained confidence. These constant changes made for some interesting times for Joshua-class crews. New hardware was frequently the only example of its type in GSN service and the only training to be had was in the simulations and technical manuals installed with the hardware. RMN and builder technical support staff did their best to be everywhere at once but these personnel have always been in short supply in Manticoran service. Any Joshua crew member has at least one story about how he caught himself up by “a few hundred years” with only the installed simulations and his own wits to help him.
The GSN never had enough of these hulls to go around, and even while almost every single one of them was assigned to a screening squadron, they were constantly stripped off for independent scouting duties. With the outbreak of the war and the emergency construction programs, the GSN laid down another two squadrons. As screening units, they were quite capable, though most of their additional defenses came at the cost of cruise endurance, offensive capability, and other factors valued in independent command. As good a “first effort” as seen in any navy, construction tapered off as the Paul class began coming out of the distributed yards.
Paul-class destroyer
(for specification, see RMN Roland-class DD)
Number Built: 17+
Service Life: 1921–present
The Paul of Tarsis-class destroyer (known in service as the Paul class) is similar in design and identical in mission to the Manticoran Roland-class DD. Built from the same base plans, the unique preferences of the GSN produced several subtle differences between the two classes. The most notable internal difference is the split berthing that the GSN has built into all of their new construction to accommodate mixed-gender crews. Most other changes are minor, reflecting differences in sensor and electronics between the two navies.
Operationally, the GSN expects to use these ships in much the same way the RMN uses the Rolands. They have the stowage for extended operations for deep-raid or commerce protection missions. This represents a change for Grayson destroyer doctrine, one made possible only by the tremendous increase in mass and volume of these units.
LIGHT CRUISERS (CL)
Modern GSN light cruisers are the direct descendants of the “cruiser” type of hyper-capable warship used by Grayson in its wars with Masada after the rediscovery of Yeltsin’s Star but before the Alliance with Manticore. The larger of the two GSN hyper-capable designs, these ships were the largest locally produced units before the Alliance and served as the centerpieces of GSN combat formations during the last Masadan War.
Post-Alliance Grayson light cruisers serve as strategic scouts, commerce raiders/protectors, and screening elements for the wall of battle. These roles are often filled by destroyers in other modern navies, but the Graysons, as is typical for them, elected to go their own way. In this case, their decision was that the light cruiser was the smallest vessel they would build for extended-duration, independent operations. For that reason, Grayson CLs typically have proportionally larger hydrogen bunkers, more onboard repair facilities, and greater supply storage than their smaller DD consorts, because DDs are designed to travel with, and gain support from, the wall of battle’s support train.
GSN light cruiser commands thus serve much the same role as battlecruiser commands in other services. As such, assignment to command a light cruiser is an indication to a GSN officer that he is being considered for higher positions.
Glory-class cruiser
Mass: 83,000 tons
Dimensions: 381 × 40 × 30 m
Acceleration: 519.9 G (5.098 kps²)
80% Accel: 415.9 G (4.078 kps²)
Broadside: 4M, 3L, 2CM, 3AC
Chase: 1M, 1L, 1AC
Number Built: 1
Service Life: 1869–1903
Referred to simply as a “cruiser” when commissioned, GNS Glory was the first power projection unit of what most consider the modern GSN. Boasting an inertial compensator of home-built design and a true broadside missile battery of first-generation impeller-drive shipkillers, she was the largest and most powerful ship in the Navy for over a decade.
By the standards of the rest of the galaxy, she was hopelessly antiquated even before she was launched, with short-ranged ship-killing contact nuclear missiles, rocket-propelled counter-missiles, autocannon point defense, and a myopic beam armament. However, by the standards of the war with Masada, she was a powerful ship, well suited for duty as the system defense flagship for Yeltsin’s Star and finally capable of true power projection into Endicott.
Damaged during the First Battle of Yeltsin’s Star, Glory was decommissioned shortly after the first of the Alliance Technological Exchange program ships began to arrive.
Austin Grayson-class cruiser
Mass: 91,750 tons
Dimensions: 394 × 41 × 32 m
Acceleration: 519.4 G (5.094 kps²)
80% Accel: 415.6 G (4.075 kps²)
Broadside: 5M, 3L, 3CM, 3AC
Chase: 1M, 1L, 1CM, 1AC
Number Built: 2
Service Life: 1880–1904
GNS Austin Grayson and GNS Covington comprised the remaining two indigenously built cruisers in service at the start of the Alliance. While both are listed as the same class, several minor differences appeared in layout and weapons fit between the two vessels, as each of the three light cruisers in GSN service was rotated through refits at least once during its operational lifetime. Weapons fit was similar to GNS Glory, and equally obsolete by the standards of the rest of the galaxy at the time.
Austin Grayson was the flagship of the GSN and was lost in the initial Masadan ambush at the First Battle of Yeltsin’s Star, while GNS Covington survived the battle only to be decommissioned by necessity along with Glory when the first modern units began to arrive from Manticore. Covington remains a museum ship in close orbit over Grayson at the time of this writing.
Matthias-class light cruiser
(for specification, see RMN Courageous-class CL)
Number Purchased: 9
Service Life: 1902–1921 PD
RMN Courageous-class light cruisers were presented to the GSN as part of the Technological Exchange Program on a similar basis to the Noblesse-class destroyers. Given the number of interoperable parts and the remaining stock of Mk50 shipkillers carried by both classes, there were plenty of spares to maintain them.
The Matthias class served the GSN well early in the war, when they were desperate for light units; but, like the Jacob-class destroyers, these were reassigned to the Polar Reaction Squadrons for System Defense Command by the time of Operation Buttercup. Three of the class were converted to interim early-warning system ships pending the completion of the GSN’s first large space surveillance platforms. All remaining units were placed in reserve by 1917 before complete decommissioning and materials reclamation in 1921.
David-class light cruiser
Mass: 130,500 tons
Dimensions: 443 x 46 x 35 m
Acceleration: 517.6 G (5.076 kps²)
80% Accel: 414.1 G (4.061 kps²)
Broadside: 6M, 5L, 6CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1G, 3CM, 3PD
Number Built: 18
Service Life: 1904–present
The David class was the locally built variant of the Manticoran Apollo class, though benefiting from two decades of miniaturization advances and influenced by the Grayson’s stubborn refusal to uncritically accept any shipbuilding concepts even from its closest ally. Externally, the two classes are similar, though the Graysons replaced one broadside laser mount with a sixth missile tube and upgraded the chase energy mounts to grasers. Hull space constraints would not allow the total missile loadout to be increased, so each launcher dropped from twenty to sixteen missiles. The David-class light cruisers were much better armed than the Joshua class, but the defenses were not much better than those of the smaller ship. This fact was not lost on the critics of the platform, especially those who thought all small classes should be effective screening units first, with less emphasis given to other duties.
The David class, however, really shone operationally in the other independent duties to which the GSN would not assign destroyers. Its defenses were more than adequate for its primary roles of commerce protection, commerce raiding, anti-piracy, and picket work; and its operational endurance was superior, even for a light cruiser. The GSN has worked the few units of the David class hard over their lifetimes. By 1921, almost every senior commander had spent a few years of his early career in command of one of these ships on one of Grayson’s few detached duty stations.
Glory-class light cruiser
(for specification, see RMN Valiant-class CL)
Number Purchased: 7
Service Life: 1906–present
The growth of the GSN’s wall of battle consumed more local shipyard production capacity than was predicted. This led to particular difficulties in procuring lighter units, as the new battle fleet would create a desperate need for strategic scouting. Over the course of two years, seven new Valiant-class light cruisers were purchased from Manticore. The Valiant was a powerful unit for its time, well suited for deep raids and strikes, part and parcel of the prewar doctrine of the RMN. Its heavy broadside and average defenses are not quite as well suited to the missions the GSN prefers for light units, but the ships have still been well received. All of the Glory-class ships still in service are currently serving in the Protector’s Own.
Neophyte-class light cruiser
Mass: 145,000 tons
Dimensions: 459 x 48 x 37 m
Acceleration: 516.9 G (5.069 kps²)
80% Accel: 413.5 G (4.055 kps²)
Broadside: 8M, 5L, 6CM, 4PD
Chase: 2M, 1L, 3CM, 2PD
Number Captured: 2
Service Life: 1913–1916
Two of the Havenite Frigate-class light cruisers were bought into GSN service after Admiral Harrington returned from Cerberus with her fleet of captures, and both were assigned to the newly created Protector’s Own squadron shortly after arrival. While cutting-edge technology for Havenite warships at the time, Grayson found little to learn from the designs, and unlike the Warlord and Mars classes brought with them, these light cruisers had limited ammunition stowage and no interoperability of weapons between them and their larger brethren.
Both ships were relegated to training service shortly after being replaced with new-build David-class units and were decommissioned soon thereafter. Their hulks were towed out to the asteroid belt and used as target vessels during workups of the Paul-class destroyers.
Disciple-class light cruiser
(for specification, see RMN Avalon-class CL)
Number Built: 52+
Service Life: 1919–present
The Disciple-class light cruiser is almost a clone of the RMN Avalon class, locally built by the GSN. With numerous small differences in internal space allocation and electronics, the basic weapons fit between the two classes is identical. This faithful GSN reproduction of a Manticoran design is not so much a case of the GSN changing its design philosophy as of the RMN changing its own, as the RMN has begun to follow the GSN lead in terms of the “all graser broadside.” Production of the new class was just beginning when the war resumed in 1919, and the planned first flight was doubled in size as part of the emergency measures.
While the Disciple class as a whole has seen limited combat, individual units have more than proved their worth, both as independent operators and as members of the screen. Their off-bore capability in particular has been well received, given that it has multiplied their effective broadside.
The Disciple class also has the distinction of being the first of the smaller GSN warships to be built from the keel out to handle mixed crews, with space set aside for gender-segregated berthing facilities in keeping with Grayson social practices.