Arkalal - Class Cruiser
A class of Harkas bioships of the medium weight class. Hyperion Federation operated.
The Arkalal - Class primarily sports a feature that distinguishes it from most other Harkas bioships - it has a form of tough scaled skin acting as armour. Their ingenuity is such that they allowed the bioship to grow a material that can rival the strength and certainty of TGX Composite through an extremely complex and energy intensive biological process. Like other HF starships (including bioships), they can be modified on the field by modifying the DNA structure of the bioship, present in the brain of the creature. This information is stored in a spacetime crystal, taking inspiration from Suon biology, allowing the process of modification to be simple and easy, and all performed at a central location. This can also make the Arkalal - Class incredibly versatile - even in comparison to other bioships.
As it can now survive hits from enemy starships more effectively, the crew of such a ship can afford to remain out of cover, or in range, for longer. This allows them to fire at enemy starships more. Like other bipships, it cannot eat food as it has no digestive system but instead relies on antimatter fuel and matter plasma to keep itself supplied with energy and nutrients. These can both be telepoerted into the bioship using a biological form of Teleporter.
However, the Arkalal - Class is slower than other bioships. This can roughly rival a Decimator - Class Cruiser in mobility. It also has no ewar capability - but is also not effected by ewar due to its biological nature. There are other ways to neutralize bioships - such as shining lasers into their eyes. The Harkas have developed a form of light filter to counter this, when the intensity of a particular wavelength goes above a threshold its eye ignores all light of that wavelength. Enemies countered that by attacking more than one wavelength. Moves and countermoves, a tale as old as time.
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