Kuat Drive Yards

Kuat Drive Yards, KDY, or Kuat Engineering was the largest military shipbuilding corporation in the galaxy at the time of the Galactic Civil War. It was based on the planet Kuat.

Kuat Drive Yards mainly sold its products to the Galactic Empire, and the Galactic Republic previously. Many Kuat products could be found in TIE Fighters, armored fighting vehicles such as AT-STs and AT-ATs, Star Destroyers, and other military vehicles. Kuat Drive Yards did not sell only to the Imperials, however; many planetary governments purchased its weapons for the purposes of defending their planet from the war. These circumstances helped to make Kuat Drive Yards one of the most famous corporations in the galaxy.

Assets

Expansion and investment

KDY quickly earned a reputation as a predatory company. Besides Core Galaxy, Kuat rapidly bought up several other small shipbuilders, and built factories on several worlds outside the Kuat Sector. Belderone, Rothana, and Xa Fel were among many worlds to contribute to the KDY construction effort, either directly or through subsidiary corporations such as Rothana Heavy Engineering and Ubrikkian Industries. KDY also tended to create subsidiaries to focus on specific markets:

Kuat Leisure focused on civilian vessels.
Kuat Vehicles built airspeeders, landspeeders, and speeder bikes.
Kuat Systems Engineering was responsible for starfighter design and light patrol craft.
Chempat Engineered Defenses, owned jointly with CEC, designed and built starship shield generators and sensor arrays.

KDY was also a significant member of several commercial and trade groups and had two members on the Trade Federation Directorate. The company was also part of the Techno Union, but at some point before the Clone Wars decided to cut their ties.1 Kuat Drive Yards was also a founding member of the Corporate Sector Authority. In exchange for an investment of 50 quadrillion credits, half indirect gifts of credits and equipment, and the other half in the purchase of CSA stock and bonds, KDY received a position as a signatory sponsor, allowing it complete access to advertise and sell its products in the Corporate Sector, as well as extremely discounted prices for bulk goods and raw materials which were necessary for the large-scale construction KDY often undertook.

In the centuries prior to the Clone Wars, Kuat Drive Yards entered into a pronounced rivalry with Rendili StarDrive, challenging Rendili's dominance in the supply of small cruisers to Planetary Security Forces by constructing several even larger warship designs. These included several massive Star Destroyers, Battlecruisers, and Star Dreadnoughts, which first came into service as part of the Kuat sector defense fleet. KDY's first battlecruiser, the two thousand, five hundred-meter Procurator-class, was launched in 200 BBY and became the template for a series of ever-larger and more powerful battleship designs aimed at attracting contracts from wealthy Core planets, sectors, and powerful mercantile interests. The Procurator-class was refined several times before being supplanted by the four-thousand-meter Praetor-class battlecruiser. KDY's first Star Dreadnought design, the eight-kilometer Mandator-class, was launched twenty years before the Clone Wars and triggered a slew of orders by wealthy sectors for similar battleships.

Rendili StarDrive was skeptical of the utility of such large ships, which fell well outside the warship restrictions of the Ruusan Reformations and consequently could be equipped only with short-ranged, local hyperdrives. Nevertheless, KDY's advertising won the ear of senators from wealthy Core Worlds sectors, who soon began buying Star Destroyers, Battlecruisers, and Star Dreadnoughts for their defense fleets. Some of KDY's experimentation with large designs came about due to their membership in the Techno Union. After the split, KDY decided to create new starships only for the Galactic Republic.

History

Founding and early history

"Since the dawn of the Republic, Kuat Drive Yards has been the exclusive supplier of many of our greatest warships."
— Fleet Admiral Aygo

Kuat Drive Yards was founded in the early days of the Galactic Republic by a group of Human aristocrats known as the Ten. These merchants, led by the Kuat family, joined together with the intent to create the largest, most efficient shipyard in the galaxy. They hired terraformers to change the planet Kuat in the Core Worlds into a paradise world while engineers designed and built the first six of many orbital shipyard complexes.

That project faced opposition from fledgling trade consortia as well as internal dissent within the merchant families. Despite their use of sabotage, espionage, and hired pirate groups, the trade groups failed to stop the Kuat families, who settled their internal differences by signing the Inheritance Exemption which gave the Kuat family perpetual control over Kuat Drive Yards.

After these early difficulties, the shipyard grew rapidly in both size and prestige, and by 5000 BBY it was known as a first-class galactic shipbuilder. In the millennia that followed, the shipyards became noted for building warships that served in the Republic Navy throughout both the Old Sith Wars and the New Sith Wars.

KDY was not a top-tier shipyard, however; that title was held by the triumvirate made up of Core Galaxy Systems, Corellia StarDrive, and Hoersch-Kessel Drive, Inc.. Kuat set its sights on becoming a member of this group and engaged in a vicious competition with Core Galaxy Systems. Between price wars, industrial espionage, and more underhanded tactics, Core Galaxy suffered severe losses and was forced to sell its assets. In 500 BBY KDY bought the company and retired the Core Galaxy Systems name. With this purchase, Kuat took its place as the top shipbuilder in the Old Republic. It was soon joined by the Corellian Engineering Corporation (CEC) which had bought out Corellia StarDrive when the older company lost its entire senior design team in a shuttle accident.