Database and Lore

The Italq Mark 2 Class Attack Battleship

*Spoilers if you haven't read past Gabatrix: The First Peace arc* “Never have I seen such an impressive vessel. It is so much powerful than ours, yet it looks like it can take a beating. No matter why the Itreans keep winning every battle,” A crew member from the UHN Gabatrix, 2349. Simple and refined, the Italq Mark 2 is the pride and symbol of the T’rintar clan military. It is able to perform its job adequately while being the best cost-effective measure in countering the other enemy clan advances. The warship is the standard equipment of the current clan inventory. Design The Italq Mark 2 is the evolution of the Italq Mark 1, the prime warship that evolved from the Ikra and I’rala class Battleships. In many aspects, the Mark 2 is little more than an improved hull design of the Mark 1. This would include moving and placing the bottom secondary bridge and gate probe launcher to the ventral bow section. This allowed the expansion of the VLA missile launchers to store and fire-guided munitions from the front dorsal and ventral sections. Essentially, this move alone doubled the number of warheads that the battleship could hold. Further improvements were also adding additional CIWS weapons on the bow starboard and port sections to further improve its defenses. The final changes were replacing the hangar deck with a see-through setup for shuttles to come in from both starboard and port sides. However, in a controversial decision, the particle cannon was removed to make room for the VLA missile array. All of these changes were critical for the T’rintar clan to turn their fleets into formidable ones and maximize the intentional effort of what the older Ikra battleships were intended. The Italq Mark 2 is the continuous evolution of what was intended to evolve the older warships of the united clans eventually. The Italq was such a popular name that the Aksren would adopt Italx for their similar design and concept warships. This would often confuse UHN analysts into thinking that the ships were the exact same and same name in turn. It is quite often that UHN researchers have used the Italq 2 to compare to current UHN warships. In many aspects, the design is so similar that many wondered if there was an evolutionary pattern of alien warships to follow the same route as human-made ships or vice versa. However, it has been deemed more of a coincidence rather than a true intention. Ancient Yutilian warships looked nothing like the current UHN battleships of today, and the motivation was more from the Aksren clan history of ship designs and the Ikra class’s design specifications. There are physical differences between the UHN and T’rintar clan prime warships. For one, the Italqs typically have two centripetal rotating rings to serve as a redundancy. The ship, while cylindrical, has a blockier appearance in its bow section. Extended front starboard and port forward engine mounts are also a big difference in how the ship looks and feels. While UHN ships carry a larger amount of missile tubes in the front, the Italqs have two heavy torpedo tubes in the front and smaller VLA missiles that perform the same actions. All in all, the Italqs are more than a match for the current Magellan Class Battleships that the UHN uses. The long history of Itrean warfare ensured that their ships were easily more capable of engaging in warfare than their UHN counterparts. It has been fully concluded that the Italq 2 is a solidly designed warship and reflects the T’rintar clan philosophy. In an attempt to let the other Itrean clans “come to them,” the battleship can be built in sizeable numbers while being flexible enough to engage in basic offensive campaigns if need be. History The Italq Mark 2 was introduced right when the Zilik’s Disease and ceasefire had begun. It was not intended to do so, and there were debates if an ever-lasting peace was to be made, but the hostilities resumed. At the end of 2340, the first series of battleships were slowly brought out. Their combat capabilities wouldn’t be truly tested until much later. In reality, the T’rintar clan loved the vessel even though Yutilian Emphra War veterans hated that they were now using ships equipped with railguns. The newer generation was generally more forgiving and saw the use of having a secondary weapon mounted on board as a necessity. If anything, the railguns would prove to be a lifesaver when the missiles would become depleted.   There are numerous battles that the Italq Mark 2 would participate in, but none were more famous than that of the Skirmish of Sector MKG- 49. The skirmish is often used as a teaching tool and example for UHN leadership to understand when it comes to how Itrean battles would occur. It started on November 20^th of 2342. While the civil war had fully resumed a year ago, battles were still sporadic at times. The battle began as the T’rintar clan battleship named the “Odalare’Lo” (Swashing Comet) was in a routine deep-space patrol alone in Sector MKG-49 or what is also known as the Helix Nebula. The region of space is one of two systems that have both a T’rintar clan and Aksren clan observation post in one place that uses the remnants of dead planets in a dying star. Located in the Helix Nebula, it is the closest known nebula to Earth. The Odalare’Lo was making its patrol for over a week until an Aksren Italx Mark 2 Class Battleship named the “Jackta” (Slicing Tooth) entered into the vicinity of the Odalare’Lo’s sensor range. Prompted by the Aksren observation post’s sighting of the ship, the enemy clan sent the battleship to intercept and destroy it. Both the Odalare’Lo and the Jackta engaged in typical extreme ranges for at least two hours. This involved firing anti-ship and intercept munitions at one another while the autoguns would help destroy the incoming warheads. Typically, the idea is to fire such large salvos that the CIWS defenses cannot handle all of it until a few of them hit. The Odalare’Lo did sustain damage to its ventral bow section, while the Jackta sustained damage on the starboard side. Essentially both sides didn’t do enough to each other in the ensuing battle and ended up running out of missiles and torpedoes. While most Itrean skirmishes of this type usually end in a tie where the attacking ship would disengage, this skirmish was a little bit different. The Aksren warship decided to head toward the Odalare’Lo. The T’rintar also decided to head toward its enemy as well. The hope was to use the railguns to fight each other in unavoidable close ranges. Within ten minutes of travel, both ships would fly so close to each other that the Odalare’Lo reported that its centripetal ring was within ten meters of contact with the Jackta’s ring. Almost colliding with one another, both warships used their railguns on one another. The powerful guns were so strong that the hypervelocity rounds ripped into each other. Firing so closely at one another, the railgun rounds were perfectly coordinated to hit the most vital of sections. The Jackta’s railgun round hit the lower ventral side, piercing into the center of the ship, flying through the midsection, and hitting two of the ship’s super direct fusion drives before the round exited from the other side. The Odalare’Lo, however, scored the luckier hit. Its shot managed to slam into the dorsal center of the Jackta, hitting the primary power regulator for all of the direct fusion drives. This caused the Aksren ship to lose power and go adrift in space completely. As a common tradition for Itrean warfare, the Jackta self-destructed themselves to avoid capture. The Odalare’Lo might have been victorious, but it was also a loss for the ship. Critically damaged, its power systems were partially working. The crew tried to get the generators to work, but a complete power failure was also reported ten minutes later in the beleaguered T’rintar clan warship. Instead, the crew managed to evacuate from the vessel. There the ship was set on auto-destruct, and a T’rintar scout ship picked up the remaining crew before the Aksren could send another vessel to the sector. The Aksren and T’rintar clan would have several other skirmishes in the sector but reported no losses on either side. Many contribute to the surviving crew of the Odalare’Lo because of advancements in internal construction. The Italq Mark 2 was slightly better than the Aksren Italx Mark 2, but the Aksren learned of the improvements that could be made to prevent such a failure from happening again. The Aksren would introduce the Italx Mark 3 Battleship a year later that fixed several minor defects in the design. Despite such a famous well-taught example, the Italq Mark 2 would see numerous battles. By 2345, it formed the common core of ships alongside the older Italq Mark 1s. By the time it hit 2348, it had become the most standard battleship used by the clan. The “Atra” was just another example. In 2349, the first peace treaty between humanity and the T’rintar clan was signed onboard this vessel. Carrying the T’rintar clan ambassador, the clan decided to send one of their more viable warships into the possibility that the UHN might engage them. The ship would serve as an act of strength while not risking sending an entire fleet to provoke humanity to retreat. It worked, and the UHN Gabatrix would send their ambassador in turn. In the beginning days, all seemed promising as discussions were being made. However, the peace negotiations quickly went into a stall when a spy onboard revealed the location of a supposed diplomatic meeting. The Aksren clan that were tipped off had sent a dreadnought to respond. Even with the combined strength of both warships, it would still not be enough to take down the Aksren clan intervention, but the UHN captain of the Gabatrix thought otherwise. Covering the escape, the captain sacrificed himself in a valiant attempt for the Atra to escape. The ship took minimal damage as the T’rintar battleship went to New Olympia and then to Earth to continue the negotiations. The event surprised the UHN leadership, and they almost fired upon it by accident. Eventually, word reached the UWA leadership, and a cease-fire was called out. The Atra would be the first Itrean vessel ever to see planet Earth. After the negotiations, the UHN would be accustomed to seeing these Itrean battleships as they made regular patrols around Earth (that was given to the clan) along other distant routes around UWA controlled space. Despite the popularity of the ship, the newly built Italq Mark 3 is the replacement for the venerable warship. The last of the Mark 2s were built in 2348. It is expected that by 2352, the Mark 3 will be a regular sight as the Mark 2s will eventually lose its place as the standard warship of the T’rintar clan.