Abnegation-class

The Abnegation-class Peacekeeper Battlecarrier is a class of starship used by the Stellar Compact armed forces.

Overview

At a length of 1.2 kilometers and a width of 400 meters, the Abnegation-class originated with a fleet modernation program started in the 140s of the Unified Era following the conclusion of the Nomad War. Ongoing rebuilding efforts, frontier conflicts, and various petty wars among member states and protectorates left unsupervised highlighted the need for a dedicated, multi-role peace-keeping vessel able to decisively intervene to contain and resolve crises.

The Abnegation's spaceframe is sleek and aerodynamic, designed to support planetary flight and landing, for which it is held aloft by an array of gravity brakes, making for an impressive sight as it hovers down over a battlefield or city. Once positioned in orbit or near the surface, it can make full use of its payload: an entire regiment of Stellar Compact Peacekeepers, plus their equipment and auxiliary vehicles, including recon drones, mechs, and omnicraft, all launchable from one of several hangar bays.

Weapons and Defenses

Armed with electron-beam cannons for long-range combat, and lasers for orbital strikes, and defended by high-capacity deflector shields and lightscreens, the class is well-equipped to establish orbital supremacy over a contested world and begin methodically wearing down the warfighting capacity of insurgents on the surface, creating openings for its deployed troops to give the finishing blow to a separatist faction or criminal regime.

Abnegation-class

Classification

Battlecarrier

Owning Organization

Stellar Compact

Beam

~400 m

Length

~1200 m

Height

~200 m

Propulsion

3x Gravitational Impeller
Impeller Warp
Lorentz 300 Cosmodrive

Propulsion

Insystem propulsion is provided by a trio of Greason Gravitics impeller engines running in both internal and warp modes. With a top acceleration of 0.5 gravities, the class is a sluggish combatant by modern standards, but counters this with its armament as well as its normal status as a protected asset at the center of a battlegroup. Even so, fleet actions against an Abnegation-class carrier are exceedingly rare, as few Frontier insurrectionists possess the firepower to challenge one directly in combat.

While the class is equipped with a cosmodrive, it is rarely used on account of the long run-up time required by its low acceleration, and recent Security Directorate deliberations have raised the possibility of omitting it entirely from future hulls on account of budgetary pressure. In usual operation, existing ships are deployed to crisis points through the stargate network.

Crew and Accomodations

As with many Unified Era combat craft, the Abnegation's pressurized volumes are laid out in a series of rotating drums and spheres, able to switch between the aft-is-down orientation of engine thrust and the ventral-is-down arrangement of planetary landing or flight. Hangars and large cargo bays are arranged horizontally, left unoccupied and with cargo secured when the vessel is under thrust. Crew compartments feature repulsor-based simgrav for health and comfort, and are divided between the ship's Star Patrol crew and its embarked troops, housed in an expansive series of barracks.

The class's nerve center, its bridge, is located in a dedicated pressure module and features an open, tri-level plan combining stations for ship's functions, fleet coordination, and ground support, further augmented by a secondary observation bridge located on the underside and used in atmospheric flight. In a typical deployment, the ship's command staff consists of a Captain in charge of the vessel itself, working in tandem with a Peacekeeper colonel in charge of the embarked troops, this pair usually being overseen by a Foreign or Security Directorate diplomat, or in rarer cases even an Existential Risks Directorate agent.

History

First entering service in the 150s UE, the Abnegation-class has been at the forefront of Stellar Compact policy towards griefer states and illegal wars, considered two of the most pressing threats to the Unified Era interstellar order. Interventions to which these ships were deployed include the Accession Wars of Tannhauser System, the Lemurian Contact Crisis of the late 170s, and the Bayou Genocide of UE 180. Its large size has spurred criticism from both sides--too big and expensive for some, and yet for others too small to adequately handle an entire world caught up in crisis.