"Designed by Banner Defense Research in 292, I believe. Only saw full deployment in the subsequent decade after the Government decided it wanted a much faster and more aggressively inclined superiority fighter. Was eventually replaced by some interim design I can't remember the name of. It wasn't as well received, hence the rushed development of the Defender and its popularity. Still, the original version of this thing? It was in service during a pretty interesting time. Sector was still new, Houses still testing their limits, and travel taking much longer." This running commentary helped establish two things. One, being the lineage and pedigree of the original design. Two, that the design in front of Sarita was wildly different from its original intent. While the Xenos were definitely falling prey to the pitfalls of nostalgia despite fighting for a future. This was still being offset by adaptations specific to their methods and conditions. So if a future had to be pictured based on this ship alone, it seemed like a mixture of the old and the new. Hardened by immense opposition and working out severe shortages. Somehow still maintaining relative effectiveness with far more modern and well produced designs. Definitely an accomplishment.
"Still just generation one. We're working on a test batch to see if we can't make improvements." There was almost a hint of excitement to that statement. Like he simply couldn't wait to test out the new batch and see if it was any better than his personal refit. Maybe he was feeling competitive, wondering if he hadn't already solved those key design flaws himself using adjustments which were far too specific to him for widescale rollout. It might still get him some small amount of praise from the workshop technicians who would have potential solutions to work with. But then he changed the subject. "Thank you for the books by the way. The ones in Italian were helpful, I'm studying the language." That was a curious thing. A man in a cause centered around an inherent mistrust or anger with outsiders studying an extremely foreign language. Why was he bothering?
