Database and Lore

The Hikio Class Cloaking Battleship

*Spoilers if you haven’t read Gabatrix: The First Peace* "The curtains rise. The hidden peasants come rushing to attack you. It doesn’t matter how well they can fight. All that matters is that we overwhelm you. The curtain closes, and the audience lies dead.” Zedresh, Master Adjunct of Renlar.             The Hikio class would form the core of the new Aksren clan stealth fleets. It would be the first cloaking battleship that would mirror the discovery of cloaking technology made by the Kingdom of Shish. Even if the ships are obsolete, it doesn’t matter. To the Aksren, this ship can cloak and serve in battle. Its importance can’t be ignored by any wayward Captain….  Design            With the advent of the Emphra War, the Itrean clans struggled against them. The need for every resource had become critical if they were to survive. However, the Emphra lost due to a variety of different reasons. Their brute force tactics, while effective, still resulted in the loss of wave after wave of their fleets. Intelligence gathering was among the critical ventures that helped save the Itreans. While it was sometimes difficult to achieve, reconnaissance proved vital for everyone’s survival. Proper evacuations could be planned, counter ambushes, and even counteroffensives all depended on intelligence.            Throughout the Emphra War, the Yutilians mastered this technique. The Kingdom of Shish’s cloaking technology could render a ship invisible. Their cloaking battleships could sometimes sneak up on unsuspecting Emphra ships and lay waste on countless enemy ships. Other times, it was the simple ability to provide information that mattered. However, cloaking technology did come with a cost, both in sheer resources and the ability to mass produce them. The Emphra had hundreds of thousands of warships that they cobbled together from any piece of equipment out there. The Itreans were well aware that cloaking technology could only be made more available if the other clans could also try to mass produce it as well.            The Kingdom of Shish vigorously debated this topic, and ultimately, the concept of simple survival became the defining argument. They agreed to share their technology. However, what they did share was their oldest piece of equipment. But, it would be later discovered that what they provided was 100-year-old technology, well behind the new improvements and refinements that the Yutilians made. Ironically, by the time the first piece of equipment had been delivered to the other clans, the Emphra War was coming to an end. It would take two years before the Aksren clan reversed engineered the technology and came out with their first cloaking battleship, the Hikio class.            The Hikio, or “Shadow Peasant” in the Itrean language, is very similar in design to the Calt class Cloaking Battleships used by the Kingdom of Shish. The Empire of Rasha’Molash’Tren borrowed heavily from a design that had proven to be effective in providing a proper field. Internally, while most spaces were the same, additional facilities were added to the bow dorsal section giving a crest-like appearance. With the desire to employ cloaking vessels, the Aksren clan decided to build their first prototypes pending mass construction. History            The Hikio, while the first Aksren warship to cloak, suffered numerous issues from the beginning. Mechanical breakdowns, improper field deployment, and faults plagued the prototypes. The vessels were all but useless when introduced by the end of 2299. Another major issue was the fact that the war had come to an end. With the Ikra class Battleships in production and the economy in a state of recovery, the Hikio prototypes were placed into mothball status. For over six years, the Empire of Rasha’Molash’Tren would have to work to continue fine-tuning the non-functioning prototypes. By 2306, many of the issues were resolved, and the prototypes made their first tours without strife. In 2307, the Hikio was to begin mass production.              With the advent of peace and the full intentions of the United Itrean Republic underway, the Hikio had a very quiet career. The Aksren clan placed a small priority on building them, but their missions were typically reserved as just training vessels. Many Itrean historians often compared them to the ancient Chinese submarines of the 1950s of former Earth, where they were kept mostly at home while making short tours. Many often looked at the Hikio as an inferior warship when compared to the Yutilian cloaking battleships. The Aksren ships could only maintain a cloak for one week at a time. Scale emitters would constantly burn out, and mechanical breakdown was still possible.            However, not all was as it seemed. The later subvariants of the Hikio were starting to operate better. To the Aksren, it was never about quality. It was about quantity. The various warships had very little wear and tear to them, and parts were constantly made available despite the infrequent faults. Despite their inferior design, the Aksren built more of the Hikio than the Yutilians could ever achieve in cloaking ships in the course of 25 years. By 2332, the Aksren had begun to mass produce the more advanced Ryi class. Refinements and training of crews had proved fruitful, all thanks to the Hikio.            Even with the obsolete ships, by the time it hit 2339, the Hikio’s service was put into fruition. A saying by adjuncts would usually follow as “It didn’t matter if the ships were crap. It didn’t matter if many were found and destroyed. Ultimately, all it takes is one to slip past your defenses.” On some occasions, the Hikios had managed to inflict damage, including being able to damage one of the Yutilian Nat shipyards in the Getrean system in 2339. In another instance, the Hikio was used as distraction vessels as the more advanced Ryi classes would slip through detection networks to attack Shal’rein worlds. In remote systems, the aging cloaking vessels were still used as surveillance vessels.            By 2349, with the advent of the newer Aksren cloaking battleships, the Hikio’s staggered history was slowly coming to an end. The last time they were seen in full use was in 2347, with only a few off-seen reports of their sightings by detection networks. It’s believed that the vessels are now mostly kept at home bases as priority is placed on building better and far more capable warships. However, not all is lost for the Hikio. Despite their slow phase into retirement, there is no suggestion that the ships are being scrapped. If anything, many are kept in reserve status, waiting for the possible day that they can be used in masse. Some still see their service as they once began, as training vessels for future cloaking warships.