Scourge Cruiser
Very little is known about these eldritch ships, as any attempt to disable or tamper with a damaged ship immediately results in some type of failsafe where the craft self destructs with a magnitude of 500-1,000 megatons. Even its designation as cruiser was given by the nearest human approximation of its role within The Scourge navy, and by far the most common. While these craft were typically observed acting in a role closest to the cruisers of human navies, this in no way was meant to categorize their relative combat effectiveness or power scale. Indeed, even the most heavily armed of human warships would be hard pressed to put so much as a scratch on a Scourge Cruiser's strange black hulls, as even that would require their energy shields to be etched away first. As such, to have any hope of besting Scourge ships in combat in The Galactic Uprising, humanity was forced to have fleets comprised of dozens of crafts and even that was often inadequate when more than one alien ship was encountered. Evidently the effectiveness of these ships had the tradeoff of being extremely time consuming or expensive to produce, as only few dozen thousand were ever encountered and destroyed. Just those few, however, took well over fifty times their number in human casualties with them in the abyss.
Propulsion
Regular rules of physics such as inertia and velocity do not seem to apply to these strange ships as they fly through space, stopping instantly or turning ninety degrees on a dime without slowing in the slightest. Naturally, this can make them quite elusive and hard to hit, complicated further by their incredible acceleration capabilities and top speed. Given enough time to build up speed, these ships can nearly reach lightspeed, faster than any man-made vehicle to date.
Weapons & Armament
Scourge Cruisers seem to be equipped with two primary offensive weapons. These are known only as shadow projectors and lattice cutters. The first of these weapons has the longest range and widest are of effect overall, but also requires several moments to charge up for each attack. The weapon, comprised of two large prongs located on the front of the ship, can be seen visibly charging up as purple light accumulates before a release, when a cone of pure light emanating from the point of intersection between the tips of the two prongs instantly extends outward (up to approx. 35 miles before damage begins to decline). Any physical object caught in this cone after it disappears seems totally intact at first glance, simply appearing to be darkened and oddly textured compared to its original state (hence the human naming of the weapon). However, the objects are not nearly as intact as they may appear, as they have been partially deconstructed on an atomic level. If any physical contact is made with these objects, they crumble apart as if constructed of dust that had been meticulously arranged in the shape of whatever it once was. Lattice cutters are more close range and can be fired much more frequently. The weapon works by emitting around a dozen hairline lasers from each of the spikes located at the rear of the ship that quickly change their orientation, cleanly slicing any matter between point a and point b. One single discharge of this weapon can and will instantly turn an enemy ship, no matter how heavily armored, into a collection of useless glowing sections of ship-metal.
Armor and defense
The hull itself of these ships is not very resilient, seeming to shatter when stuck with physical projectiles as if made of glass, if only in the localized areas of the impact. However laser or light-based weapons are reflected as if hitting a prism. To protect this relatively fragile exterior, an energy shield is projected around the craft at all times, suspended just a few inches from the hull. This shield remains partially visible at all times, resembling an oil slick atop water, constantly rippling as if driven by invisible currents. It can take an incredible amount of punishment, instances of them sustaining hits from multiple nuclear warheads being recorded. Once enough damage is taken however, they do fail, disappearing like a popped bubble and exposed that strange, ebon hull beneath.
Additional & auxiliary systems
One of the more terrifying characteristics of these ships is their ability to become completely to both sight and sensors. As one could imagine, this feature made hunting down and destroying these ships extremely difficult, and likely the only reason it was able to be accomplished at all was their handicap of being forced to remain stationary to activate this cloaking technology. Human hunter fleets would often utilize a strategy of area saturation, sending millions of low power laser pulses out into space as they travel, as if even one contacts a Scourge Cruiser, it briefly becomes detectable on sensors.
Manufacturer
Owning Organization
Rarity
~750k built
Speed
0.92% light speed
Complement / Crew
~20 Vendrasi
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