The Corsair battleship "Chthon"...

[Blighter]

"The Chthon? Oh sure, she may not posess the punishing firepower of the Torquemada, the thick armor of the Talos or even the grace of the Artemis, but let me assure you that she is nonetheless a worthy addition to the fleet. On the outside she's just another Osiris class vessel, but her inside totally differs from todays battleship standards for various reasons.

You see, while battleships and dreadnoughts these days are very mighty assets of any fleet, they are also very expensive to maintain and require an enormous amount of personnel to function properly.
The average crew count of an Osiris class battleship lies in the hundreds, which makes losing such a ship a very hard blow to sustain both for the families of those who serve onboard and for the economy. Afterall, building a vessel of that size and training such amounts of capable personnel takes not only a lot of time, but also a lot of resources. With the Chthon we, that is the engineers and shipwrights of both Evora and Tripoli, aimed to minimize the crewcount and also the amount of resources needed to keep her fully operational under all conditions.

I don't want to bore you too much with unnecessary details, but let me give you a few examples.
Using advanced manufacturing technologies we managed to optimize and simplify most if not all of the ships internal systems. Where an Osiris' engineering section alone usually needed more than 40 people to keep everything in order, all functions can be monitored and kept under control by two people alone, with the help of four of our new tech-bots. Not only does this minimize casualties in case of an accident, but it also ensures that people don't get in eachother's way. In more desperate situations the whole section may run without any human assistance at all even.

Of course, that is not the only new feature which makes this ship stand out, thanks to numerous technological advances her engine consumes 85% less H-Fuel than standard, the hull itself has been reinforced with shock-absorbing materials ensuring that in case of weapon impacts all critical systems and datalinks remain stable and operational, the layout of all decks has been reworked to ease access to all sections, so they may be reached faster and safer. A new sealing system has been implemented to allow cutting off any sections that might lose stability and life support even quicker than before, thus minimizing additional damage and casualties.

The internal defense systems have been reworked and optimized to make a boarding attempt on the ship a suicidal task at best. Should any boarding party succeed to gain access to the outer decks, there's the additional possibility of flooding those with plasma directly transferred from the reactor core.
The complete sensor and communications network has been reworked from ground up with the help of some of our Zoner friends, allowing to collect and relay precise scan and targetting data with much greater efficency. The systems resistance to electronic countermeasures and em-pulse attacks has also been increased as a result of this major overhaul. To top it off, the network has been reduced in size by 72% which lowers maintenance times and reduces the crew count by another large bit.
We've also made some other improvements to the fire control network, but again, I won't go too much into details.

However, another new feature I'd like to mention is the use of new modular weapon mounts, similar to those used on fighter and bomber class ships, which allowed us to cut the time needed to exchange weaponry by as much as 99%. Where other ships might have had to return to drydock for several weeks when they were getting a weapon overhaul, we can completely switch out all weaponry in less than two days. This is a revolutionary step forward, and it gives us another tactical advantage.

Well, enough of my talk, you start to look sleepy. Let's go get a drink, I know a good bar not far from here.
You ever heard of the Waltzin' Smuggler's?"


-Order Commander Priss Asagiri about the Osiris class vessel "Chthon".

The vessel is a jointventure of the Order and the Corsairs used as a testbed for advanced technologies and is currently stationed in Omicron Gamma, where it is undergoing field tests and being optimized for regular duty.
So far the ship has engaged in combat several times, assisting in the destruction of five Outcast destroyers and an Outcast battleship, even though the ship had only a skeleton crew and was far from being battle ready.

The current captain is Commander Priss Asagiri herself, her superior officer being Asno Muleo of the Omega Pirates Guild.
Additionaly, Alexa "Heartbreak" Cordova is rumored to have been assigned to the ship, however any further information remains classified under security level Rho.

-Excerpt from the latest Corsair Military Journal