Database and Lore

The Equix Class Siege Dreadnought

*Spoilers if you haven’t read Gabatrix: The First Peace* “The gargantuan mammoth of the Shal’rein vessels is one of the most devastating warships to exist. It’s nothing more than a whale with a space gun……and it’s a powerful one at that!” Journalist Kenmore, Martian Central News. The Equix is one of the most powerful current warships in the Shal’rein clan inventory. Its legacy is one that follows a proud history in the Shal’rein clan. However, even with such a legacy, the Equix suffers several reliability issues. These issues often place the vessel in a devalued state. With all that said, the siege dreadnought holds several advantages that allow it to be still used in the battlefield of space. Design At first glance, it is easy for one to assume that the Equix is that of a whale with a protruding gun from its mouth. The aesthetic beauty of the protruding fins allows many to speculate the aquatic nature of the Shal’rein people in coming up with a ship that looks like a sea creature. However, many Itrean scholars and recent UHN analysts have had a chance to evaluate the Equix. The original concept of the Equix comes from the famed Shinta’Ral class super dreadnoughts used by subclan Gok’Shinta. The subclan generally focused on vessels that had more aquatic features at the expense of pure combat practicality. The Shinta’Ral had an adequate history against the Emphra. However, their high cost proved to be too much in a damaged and depleted Shal’rein economy. The Shinta’Ral super dreadnoughts were generally looked at as command vessels for the Shal’rein clan. Supposedly, the Equix was intended to return back to these former dreadnoughts. This would include carrying a powerful forward- mounted hypervelocity railgun that was capable of obliterating enemy vessels in a single shot. In addition, the entire frame might have had inspiration from powerful and enormous sea creatures similar to the Mosasaurus on former Earth. However, 2340 was a new time period even for the Shal’rein clan. Some felt a desire to return to the Shinta’Ral as a powerful warship. This was further hyped for the fact that the T’rintar clan was introducing the Hyhy class Siege Dreadnoughts. The Shal’rein felt entitled to bring a powerful single-shot mobile railgun battery vessel to compete with the design out of a sense of pride. With that said, there were opponents to the plan. Gular’shel would be one of these individuals that claimed that the upcoming Equix class was “A return to an obsolete design. These super dreadnoughts are not practical and a waste to use as ‘thee vessels’ for the best Shal’rein Adjuncts.” The fact was that the Equix’s design of a single powerful railgun was a difficult tried concept even for a people that valued the power of the gun. The entire vessel must turn to aim at the enemy to hit it. As command ships, they were adequate, but it wasn’t uncommon for Adjuncts to want to close in to engage other enemy vessels. Some Shal’rein still felt the ‘need’ to have a siege dreadnought. Even if it made a poor warship combatant, they could still cause heavy damage to ground targets. Not even the best defenses can survive a single hit from the Equix’s powerful railgun. This argument ultimately won out in making these new sets of dreadnoughts. The vessel stretches to about 670 meters in length, making it one of the largest current known Shal’rein warships, if not the current largest Itrean warship.     This wasn’t to say that the Equix was going to be a complete haphazard warship. Many adhered to the ideas of how to improve the vessel. One of these ideas was to introduce improved power cores, an improved railgun, vastly improved CIWS defenses, and two light side-mounted Gatling railguns. The Gatling railguns themselves allowed the Equix to be able to adjust and poor withering fire onto two enemy targets. This coupled with the single-shot railgun, could easily obliterate anything that stood in front of it. After some reluctance, orders were placed on manufacturing these titanic-sized warships. History The Equix class managed to be pushed out not that long when Zilik’s Disease tragically struck the Itreans. A few were still in operation when it reached 2341, but it was apparent that construction was greatly delayed. Regardless, by the time hostilities did resume, the Equix had started to help form the core network of command ships in the Shal’rein clan community. The vessels were used in two particular ways. They were formed into planetary siege squadrons or formed the center warship in a network of the greater fleet adjunct formations. While planetary siege squadrons praised the vessel highly, the fleet adjuncts had mixed feelings. While the cost was almost on par with the Hyhy class Siege Dreadnought used by the T’rintar clan, the versatility is far better. This was a dreadnought that could attack a planet and adequately fight enemy warships that approached it. Its anti- missile weaponry was also quite well established. They were hard to destroy and posed a significant threat to most battleships. With all that said, however, the vessel’s bow- mounted railgun was still a significant problem. The entire ship had to aim and fire at whatever target that it needed to hit. This often pushed the Shal’rein warships to their limits into accurately hitting their targets. While the Equix was famous for returning the Shinta’ral dreadnoughts into fruition, its reception was only lukewarm. Even with the Equix’s introduction, only a small percentage has been truly built. The Shal’rein clan, instead, focuses on the Kiyliy and Del’rein dreadnoughts that more easily fulfill the ranks and positions of the Shal’rein clan fleet. In fact, it's still not uncommon for some greater adjuncts and fleet commanders to utilize the dreadnoughts rather than fully employ the Equix class. However, older veterans do see the advantages of using the ship. In fleet formations, the siege dreadnoughts are typically positioned in the center. They form part of the classic wide “Bident” formation instead of the newer “Trident” formations. If all else fails, the wall formation is used, placing the large ship near the center. The massive warships have seen some of their share of conflict. Unlike the older Oldra and Mondra dreadnoughts that are typically kept at home, the Equix is usually easily tossed into the frontlines. Their great size and power often gather attention quickly and help inspire a form of pride for the fellow crew or terror to the enemy. In the Seventh Skirmish of Tal’fredno in 2344, the Shal’rein taskforce led by the Fleet Adjunct Zala’dow managed to inflict heavy losses onto the Aksren clan fleet that was in place. The Equix was used in its full prime being able to rush headlong into the fray. The Gatling railguns were able to bash enemy battleships that approached it, shoot down enemy munitions, and damage several ground defense installations that resided in the Aksren clan-controlled world. Only one of the five Equixes was heavily damaged but later returned to full operational condition. Tal’fredno was nearly conquered because of the skirmish alone. The end result of the Equix would help spurn the development of the super dreadnoughts and siege dreadnoughts for the T’rintar and Aksren clan. While these warships wouldn’t be built to the huge numbers that the Equix did, it still left a wake of newer, larger attack vessels. With the advent of Zilik’s Disease, it was theorized that the half-reduced Itrean population would start to value quality over the value of quantity. While it wasn’t grave, it was enough that the new Shal’rein siege dreadnoughts would push the direction of Itrean ship-build engineering. As of 2347, the Shal’rein were well aware of the limitations of the Equix class and proposed the newer “true” super-dreadnought that the Shal’rein clan could use. The development of the Hotalacix Mark 101 (Or at least reintroduction) would return to see the Shal’rein in having a pure heavy-hitting warship. Even then, many Shal’rein politicians and hardliners still value building the Equix. Even as of 2350, the vessel’s production numbers have remained almost unchanged. *Spoilers if you haven’t read Opet and the Tales of Heroes* It is unknown whom, if any, Itrean vessels were ever engaged by the colony of New Olympia. However, according to the mysterious world, it was reported from around October to November of 2349 that the New Olympian defense force had engaged the Shal’rein clan fleets. The so-called “First Battle of New Olympia” and “Second Battle of New Olympia” reported cases that the Shal’rein clan would use the Equix class to help bolster their attack force. In the first battle, a single Equix class was leading 39 battleships and dreadnoughts to attack the twelve New Olympian dreadnoughts. The colony completely wiped out both invasion forces with no reported casualties. However, the UHN received only so much data about the event that some claimed it was a hoax to bolster morale in the UWA somehow or “promote New Olympia’s image” to the other colony worlds. This was further backed up by the fact that New Olympia had decided to remain neutral and refused to send their warships elsewhere to help reinforce other beleaguered colony worlds. The colony would fabricate the story and provide almost no data to back up the claim. However, it was later reported by Shal’rein clan defectors that such battles did take place. Over 140 Shal’rein clan warships were lost in both battles. The resulting losses, including the defeat at Oshun, supposedly dissuaded the Shal’rein from launching further incursions in UWA territory. With the new information to back this, it was estimated that two ships of the Equix were lost. It is unknown how the New Olympia dreadnoughts contain the firepower and abilities to repel such an overwhelming force.