Database and Lore

The Krintarch Mark 266 Class Shrouded Heavy

Battleship

*Spoilers if you haven’t read Gabatrix: The Violet Wave* “The latest version of the Krintarch carries my former mate’s legacy. It is the best ship in the Shal’rein clan fleet. I’m proud to see it in the hands of the T’rintar clan fleet.” Former Fleet Adjunct Velashar, 2350. There are a few warships that are as advanced as the newest Krintarch. So few were built that it almost flew by T’rintar clan intelligence. However, the past Krintarch’s former legacy is well known in Itrean history. It would be one of the better ships to serve in the Shal’rein clan fleets and help combat the Emphra to their end. It was only fitting that the Shal’rein would ultimately introduce a new warship model that would carry out what the past designs had done successfully. Design When the Itrean Civil War began, Gular’shel, one of the great Master Adjuncts of the Emphra War, would unveil his new and improved Mark 266 Heavy Battleship. While he was very much against the recent war, there was much consideration if the Mark 266 was ever going to be looked at. In reality, the Equix Class Siege Dreadnought was already being built in large numbers. The ship was ahead of its time, consisting of technology that was almost not available to the Shal’rein. It also flew in the face of most Shal’rein combat doctrines of having a ship that operated in this particular manner. Sadly, Gular’shel would pass away from Zilik’s Disease before he could further press his ship design. The former Krintarch Mark 265 and 264 had performed well during the Emphra War, with one serving as Gular’shel’s flagship. In the hands of subclan Nak’Ko’Ken, the warships were an outgrowth of the Olatarch Class Battleships. They carried better firepower and served as excellent mid-rim heavy hitters for the Shal’rein clan forces. Against the Emphra, they performed exceptionally well being able to devastate columns of Emphra vessels. The biggest complaint, like anything, was that there was never enough of them to fill the fleets' ranks adequately. Gular’shel, in his opinion, considered the Krintarch to be the best ship design ever designed by the Shal’rein clan. Even with the advent of the newer dreadnoughts of the United Itrean Republic, Gular’Shel still praised the effectiveness of the Krintarch. Regardless, the Mark 265 was utterly obsolete by the Itrean Civil War. Gular’shel was dead, and his ideas of a new, improved warship were fading. His widowed mate, Velashar, promoted the idea of revitalizing his former ship design. The Mark 266 would introduce a new series of improvements, almost redesigning the former frame of the 265. This would incorporate a cloaking scale network that covered much of the design. While the firepower would be reduced to make way for this network, it would still carry a powerful array of dual triple-barreled medium to heavy railguns, small railguns, and two highly advanced prototype CIWS batteries. The vessel was able to cloak and could properly ambush enemy vessels. However, the power requirements were so immense for such a large vessel that it couldn’t fire its railguns while maintaining this field. This was a constant problem for many of the Shal’rein cloaking battleships that were already pushed into the role of stealth recon vessels and stealth transports rather than genuine ambush vessels that they were intended. Cloaking technology, even if it was fifty years old, was still relatively new in the hands of the Shal’rein. However, Velashar was insistent that the vessel would work. Its cloaking field would allow the heavy battleship to cloak and hide. This would allow the ship to serve as a flagship and command vessel and be more difficult to target in fleet formations. Other vessels could serve as a distraction as the Krintarch could sneak in and inflict as much damage as possible before withdrawing. The versatility of this design was something that the Shal’rein clan couldn’t ignore. There was a series of drawbacks, however. The biggest issue was its cost. The warships were gravely expensive. Almost two Equix Class Siege Dreadnoughts could be built for the price of one of these new Krintarchs. While the Itrean Civil War did see an increased concept of quality over quantity, the price alone almost doomed the vessels from getting past the drawing boards. The Shal’rein needed new and powerful ships, but not at the point of bankrupting their revitalizing economy. The advanced CIWS network consisted of large revolving bulbous cannons and multiple short-range intercept missile batteries, which was also taxing to build. It would take Velashar over five years before the entire system was perfected to work. The rotary guns and targeting computers could pour a withering number of rounds and obliterate countless amounts of incoming enemy munitions. In theory, it would take several enemy battleship salvos just to overwhelm the system. This, coupled with the cloaking system, could make the vessel practically over-powered in battles. Nevertheless, the Shal’rein clan would finally relent that the ship had potential. By 2346, the economy was rebuilt enough that Velashar finally convinced her people that a vessel could be constructed. History Several batches were ordered, and the first vessel, appropriately named the “Gular’shel,” was completed and commissioned in 2347. Velashar would personally command it as her flagship. The ship was reported to suffer some technical faults at first in real-time operation. The cloaking field was moderately weak (technically known as a “cloaking shroud” due to the weaker field) and more prone to detection by opposing sensor networks. Nevertheless, cloaking battleships were still better at staying invisible than the Krintarch Mark 266. When Gular’shel was coming up with the design, he knew that the vessel would be prone to this problem, but he never had a valid solution to this before his passing. Regardless, the vessel seemed promising to Velashar, and she used the ship to her fullest extent. With many of the kinks eliminated, she proposed a series of battle plans in 2348. This included her cavalry raids deep within Aksren space, where she would hit and damage shipyards with several cloaking battleships. In the Fleet Battle of Sector 56-J, Velashar would successfully rout an Aksren invasion fleet using her ship to fly into the center formation to destroy the Aksren flagship taking no damage in turn. The UHN has expressed a deep fear of this vessel upon learning about it. It was a formidable design capable of inflicting heavy damage on human forces. Unfortunately, only so much information was available before the alliance was made with the T’rintar clan. Thankfully, the Shal’rein clan never deployed the vessels into UWA space, instead relying on brute force tactics in the early days of the war. The alliance has further helped improve ways that the Mark 266 could be detected and provide a better defense if the Shal’rein do decide to use them. Once again, the sheer cost also severely limits their usage. What further surprised UHN/T’rintar commanders was the defection of Velashar in late 2349. With her crew willing to defect, she abandoned her fleet and disappeared from the Shal’rein clan while on a deep-space patrol. She would decloak her vessel in the far orbit of the planet Getrea and surrender herself and the ship and crew to the T’rintar clan. The defection was a welcoming sight from the T’rintar clan that their new propaganda efforts, coupled with the UWA efforts, were working. Velashar was one of the better Fleet Adjuncts and a possible symbol that many more would follow in her wake. The Gular’shel was interned and held in T’rintar clan shipyards to be analyzed. This included the possibility of reverse-engineering the advanced CIWS network on the ship. While Velashar has expressed interest in having her vessel back, it may take some time, if ever, to receive it.