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| Negative Space Background |
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| by Jason "Rodzilla" Rodzik |
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| Posted on September 26, 2004 |
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Combat History of the UESC-Katsuragi
The Kyojin class dreadnoughts produced on the factory world of Eizokouba IV during the Yuuetsusei Conflict (2230-2235) were considered to be among the most versatile heavy combat craft of that era. No less than three mythical UESC military craft were built there: the Spring Colossus, the Lotus Brother and the Black Crane. During the war with Jaojin-Zamat’s Cuturu Republic, these three UESC battleships became the stuff of legend. The UESC-Spring Colossus made a heroic last stand at the Horse Ring when Cuturu ravaged it’s orbital enclaves, holding off an armada of over 500 ships while UESC Starlift Command evacuated civilians. The UESC-Lotus Brother engaged the Cuturu mothership Kakushinko, ultimately ramming it into the primary star of the Tarrabanis system and the UESC-Black Crane reportedly went into low orbit over Cuturu 57 times in a row to drop off CRF marine divisions.
After the fall of Cuturu’s dictatorship, Eizokouba IV continued to produce Kyojin class dreadnoughts. For some strange reason however, many of these ships featured eccentric design updates and fatal manufacturing errors. The manifest of Kyojin dreadnoughts destroyed after that time is a tragic read, miscalculated FTL jumps being primarily responsible for several thousand lives lost and no more than 28 dreadnoughts being listed as "Lost in Space". The last dreadnought to be produced on Eizokouba IV was the UESC-Katsuragi, and even though she did not suffer the fate many of her post-2235 sisters did, the stories illustrating Katsuragi’s bizarre combat history speak for themselves (the reason why she was ultimately passed on to Delta-73):
"The Katsuragi was considered to be a wretched ship by many helmsmen throughout the CRF fleet. At Sereo 54 she was hit 3 times by orbital rail gun stations – the only attacking vessel to be damaged by highly inaccurate and slow firing weapons while in orbit – and at Hale base she was involved in a docking incident that killed 37 people and permanently destroyed it’s Starlift Projector Facility. After that, there were few CRF-companies that could handle her and she was handed down several times like a cheap token whore."
Admiral Jurgen Ponteis, CRF
"The problem with Katsuragi’s Tachyon Shunt FTL system was that it was updated to scan supralight fluctuations in gravitational constants, but that the shipboard A.I. hadn’t been upgraded to compare those fluctuations with proven Heisenberg software matrices. Out of every ten FTL jumps the Katsuragi would make, seven times she would appear out of her jump at a speed causing instability in the cryo tubes of the crew quarters. Continuing on at sub-FTL speed, this would cause unnecessary ageing in the frozen CRF members on board. I actually heard of one incident in which a female marine was aged almost 8 years, making her infertile. The fairer sex of our CRF brigades considered Katsuragi to be an extremely hostile and jealous bitch, as these effects were indeed only ever reported on female marines."
- General Thor "Red Smiler" Kurdunov, CRF
"The Katsuragi was more eccentric than anyone would have liked during our tour on her. Her evasive software routines consistently caused her to use oddball tactics when trying to get away from orbital fire. Something to do with her inability to calibrate her Heisenberg matrices I heard. One such time in high orbit above Scylla Prime she chose to jettison her AGC dropships on autopilot to avoid a barrage of Dammerung STO nukes. It was a brilliant move to be sure – as Katsuragi had completely depleted her decoy launch bays during the 18 hour conflict - but then, as if she wanted to double bluff her way out of the situation she manoeuvred to protect several of the doomed spaceframes. The STO’s had great difficulty deciding on whether to hit what appeared to be launching incursion vessels or the autopiloted dreadnought, but several of the STO’s did in fact go after the Katsuragi. Though her shielding could easily handle the impact of the nuclear explosions, Katsuragi’s hull was saturated with excessive radioactivity that caused us to go through ARD therapy for several weeks after disembarking from her ramps on Hale Base."
- Colonel Michael Lee Foreman, Zeta-CRF Company
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