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Golem Battleship

In the year 4902 A.D. of the Novus Initium Republic’s calendar, the Vitams who were a fox-like bipedal race who had recently managed to go into outer space soon came across another spacefaring race from another world. They were a wolf-like bipedal race known as the Lykans of the Royal Lykan Kingdom. It was soon made clear once they arrived in the Vitams’ home system that they were there to conquer the Vitams and the Lykans did so with little effort against the technologically inferior Vitams. The entire population was put into slavery and was to serve the Lykans and their war machine in conquering the star cluster in the name of the Lykans’ deity. A good number of Vitams were tasked with the mechanical maintenance of the Royal Navy’s ships while others were tasked with more remedial work. For over the next three centuries, the Vitams continued to be the servants of the Lykans along with other races, but they all were waiting for the day the Lykans would do something to let their guard down and allow the slaves to be free.

That time came in 5326 A.D. when the Lykans at the height of their kingdom came across the Camino Star Empire and waged a large battle against the Caminos using only destroyers and cruisers. The battle was intense and the Lykans last almost two-thirds of their fleet versus the Empire losing less than half. The Lykans’ choice of not using battleships in the battle gave them a bloody nose and the first loss in the history of the Kingdom. The Kingdom’s response was to send another force with battleships against the Empire. However, the loss left the Lykan officers demoralized to the point that the Vitams along with the other slave races rose up to take action against their oppressors. The Vitams installed triggers and bypasses throughout several Royal Navy ships to either incapacitate or terminate the Lykans on the ships with their own security system. The Slave Revolt, as it was soon called, saw several military and civilian ships being hijacked and evacuations of the slaves throughout the Kingdom. The King called for an uneasy truce with the Empire in order for them to address the Revolt as best they could. Stocking up on Salire Purpura Crystals in order for their ships to perform several jumps without the need of the Lykans’ jump gates, the Vitams led the way towards the Southeast Region to gain some distance from the Kingdom. The Lykans, still demoralized and attempting to keep other slaves from fleeing, did not pursue. Only two-thirds of the slaves were free from the Kingdom, a fact that was both impressive and disheartening at the same time. The former slaves knew that someday they would go back to the Kingdom and either free the remainder of their brethren or defeat the Kingdom outright.

The former slaves jumped a few more times before they came across a system with a habitable world. From there, they started to build homes and fortresses to protect their newfound freedom. They got together a committee of different races that were enslaved to find out how they wanted things to develop in terms of a government, military, civilian operations, or even a name. The name was the easy part as the Vitams were the ones responsible for the freedom of so many from each race. It was decided that the nation they would creat would be the United Vitam State. The State’s government was focused on the idea of a council with the elected heads of each of the races representing them after comparing the histories of all the races and what would work best for their situation. This Executive Council would serve as the leaders of the nations and would fulfill the roles similar to the president of a democracy. A Representatives Parliament would become the lawmakers and representatives of their various districts. Finally, a court system was in place to enforce the laws. Over the course of the next 50 years, the State grew as many contributed their knowledge and know-how to develop the planets both in and around their new capital. Most of this was thanks to one of the race’s use and development of advanced automation that skyrocketed their society. The State now expanded to over twenty systems to help house all of the people that were freed from the Kingdom and the next two generations.

However, the State knew that the Kingdom would eventually manage to get their situation stabilized and come after the former slaves. Vitam engineers who had studied the Lykan ships dismantled the ships they had stolen and began to work on effective designs to counter the Lykan war machine. After a few months, the Vitams decided to go for smaller angular designs that were also modular to replace components quickly and efficiently. They also needed a weapons system that was more powerful in their opinion than the projectile weapons used by the Kingdom. After talking with the other races, they came upon the decision to use missile weaponry for various reasons. The first was that they knew that the missiles were hard hitting and can do various types of damage to the Kingdom’s ships. Second, the Royal Navy’s tracking system was not designed to track and destroy missiles which was proven on a few occasions with other races that tried to fight off the Lykans in the past, though those races did not have enough missiles to take down a single ship before their missile batteries were destroyed. Third, unlike the guns on the Royal Navy ships that were split between long and short range, missiles can attack targets at all ranges. Lastly, all of the missile launchers can fire at the same target as the launchers did not have to face their targets to fire. After coming up with the ships, the missile launchers, and the missiles themselves, the automated factories quickly got to work on the new ships and built as many as they could within that time-frame.

Based on the same principle defense system as the Royal Navy, the State Navy ships also had to make room for the payloads they were going to carry and thus relied on defensive shields as their primary means of defense with both primary and secondary shields. However, the State ship designers gave the ships some thicker armor do to the fact that missiles inside the ship would explode more violently than the ammo payload of a Royal Navy ship if a direct hit was scored. Therefore, the payload is somewhat smaller in capacity but allow the State ships a better chance of survive engagements. This armor is especially thick around the bridge of each ship as they were mounted externally to make more room inside the ship. To make further room, the officer quarters are small and quaint while the remainder of the crew were in Spartan-style quarters with bunk beds. The ship designers knew that if they made the quarters spacious and luxurious, not only would there not be much room at all but that they would have been no different that the Royal Navy ships’ officers’ quarters, a luxury that still angers the older generations of the State to this day as it served as a sign of the Lykans’ dominance aboard each of their ships.

The resource gathering sector of the State was quick to find more Salire Purpura Crystals to allow them to create their own version of the Lykans’ jump gate for them to get to other star systems nearby that were quickly colonized. They also gathered and rationed the crystals to each ship in order to ready them for the day that they can try to get the rest of their people without using jump gates that could potentially lead the Kingdom right to the State. However, the State Council knew that someday the Lykans would once again threaten their space in hopes of reclaiming the former slaves and their families now numbering over 53 billion people. That day came in 5377 A.D. after the Kingdom managed to track them down, but even the Kingdom was caught unprepared for a well-equipped and equally matched State fleet. The battles that ensued have continued in a prolonged war that has been nothing more than a stalemate, a fact that both the State and the Kingdom have been highly upset about.

In order to reduce the time for maintenance and construction, the State opted to only field three different types of ships at the time of the nation's founding. Of the three ship designs that State ship designers and engineers could come up with, their crowning achievement came when they developed the ultimate missile launcher platform on a battleship. Naming it the Golem for its rock-solid offensive and defensive capabilities, the Golem is capable of engaging targets from frigates up to battleships with enough firepower to be a one-ship armada. Equipped with the most sophisticated missile guidance and tracking systems found on State ships, the Golem is expected to hit its mark with a multitude of missiles every time. Against enemy frigates and destroyers, the Golem is armed with 100 light missile launchers, causing many Royal Navy destroyer commanders to think twice about engaging the Golem. Indeed, while the Golem can use the light missile launchers against frigates and destroyers, they can also be used against cruisers with the higher-yield payloads on board. However, the Golem also comes equipped with anti-cruiser weaponry already installed with 32 heavy missile launchers, an arsenal that Royal Navy cruiser commanders are not proud to see if they have to engage the vessel. The ship is also equipped with 24 quad anti-battleship vertical torpedo launchers and 40 vertical cruise missile launchers designed specifically for use against battleships or any other large target such as Royal Navy logistical craft which help to rearm the enemy ships. With this much firepower, many people of the State deemed the ship indestructible against the Royal Navy ships. However, it was soon discovered that there was a couple of fatal flaws in the initial design. At the time of the first Golems being launched, the missile system could not keep up with the multitude of missiles being launched. This caused the missiles to either miss their targets or run into each other while in battle with a Royal Navy Thrasher-class Battleship. That Golem was ultimately destroyed by the Thrashers guns before it could flee. Realizing the issue, the engineers reworked and added more guidance systems to help with the problem. While the missile guidance issue was fixed by the time the Golem’s next engagement with another Thrasher occurred, another problem arose in the defenses of the Golem. While the Golem was equipped with the same primary and secondary shield system found on the Thrasher, the engineers had overlooked the fact that the Thrasher also had thicker armor to help buffer further damage once its shields were gone, something the Golem lacked a sufficient amount of. That engagement ended in a stalemate as the Golem was beginning to sustain hull damage once its shields were gone and it could not finish off the Thrasher it was fighting who was also beginning to lose its armor. Instead of giving the ship a thick coat of armor like the Thrasher, the engineers opted to do one last change to the design by reducing some of the payload by 10 percent in order to install a tertiary shield system as well as some newly developed shield “hardeners” that gave the shields better resistances to the multitude of different rounds used by the Royal Navy. In the third engagement against yet another Thrasher, the Golem came out victorious against the Thrasher barely activating its tertiary shields before destroying the enemy battleship. This gave the State a boost in moral while dealing a significant blow to the Kingdom who always thought their battleships were indestructible. The Kingdom at some point boasted that they lost against against the Camino Star Empire decades ago because their battleships were not there. After the destruction of one of their battleships at the hands of a State battleship, that boast quickly began to fade away to the realization that the Thrasher may not be as indestructible as the the Lykans first thought.

After the First Interstellar War, the State would later review the design leading to a complete remodel into the Golem II Battleship.

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