Alistar Dimiye-class

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The ship which was at various times in its career known as the EFS Alistar Dimiye, the INS Alistar Dimiye, the EFS Alistar Dimiye again, and, in an alternate timeline, the SS Polaris, was a one-off experimental design for an advanced assault transport designed to insert covert action teams and special forces soldiers deep behind enemy lines.

Construction and Launch

Laid down in 2251 at the Ceres Main Shipyard in the Earth System, the EFS Alistar Dimiye utilized an experimental hyperspace-entry system known as Jump Accelerator Rings. Based on Horadrim Tunnel Drive technology, the Jump Accelerator Rings utilize a similar principle to rapidly enter or exit hyperspace by forming a jump point around the ship rather than some distance in front of it, but travel through hyperspace in the normal manner rather than through a different layer of the Umbra, as the Horadrim ships do. Despite this limitation, the system allows ships far smaller than normal to carry their own method of entering and leaving hyperspace with them, without relying on Jumpgates or dangerous explosive devices. Development difficulties with the drive, and wartime shortages during the Vin Shriak War, led the ship to experience several delays during construction and its shakedown cruise, and it wasn't formally commissioned into Earth Fleet until 2258.

Earth Fleet Service

Having entered service too late for the Vulthra War, the ship was initially used to launch hit-and-run raids on Bug systems, but the nature of Arachnid society meant they had few high-value targets which could be attacked successfully with the small number of troops carried by such a ship. It ended up relegated to courier duties, VIP transport, and occasional harassment raids on Bug-held worlds. It went into spacedock for a major refit and replacement of the drive coils in 2264, just in time to also miss the Caal Invasion. Despite heroic efforts by the dockyard crew at Ceres Main, it was not possible to put the ship back together and get it into service before the Caal Invasion was over.

Imperial Service at Kalintos

With the Fall of the Federation, the Dimiye fell into the hands of the new Holy Terran Empire, who gained control of the Earth System and the Ceres Main shipyard with it. Renamed the INS Alistar Dimiye to reflect its new ownership, the ship completed its refitting early in the last days of 2264 and was soon sent to the Southern Frontier to join in the invasion of Kalintos. Still in the system when the Federation counter-attacked, the Dimiye utilized its advanced drive to make microjumps within the Kalintos system, dropping out of hyperspace just long enough to send a spread of Lance Torpedoes at the Earth Fleet task force, then jumping back out again. However, it was boarded via Transit Beacon by Soti's Slammers, a unit of the Tech Infantry, and captured. Having bet on the advanced technolgy of the Dimiye to weaken their enemy and even the odds, the rest of the Imperial Fleet task force was trapped and destroyed in the ensuing battle.

Back in Federation Service

Damaged slightly in the capture, the ship was sent to Rios to be repaired and examined, and returned to Earth Fleet service, once more as the EFS Alistar Dimiye. Its first mission was to carry a special assault group on a covert mission to assassinate Holy Terran Emperor Vin Dane himself. At time of this writing, that mission is still ongoing.

Weapons and Systems

Designed mainly as a transport, from the outset its design also acknowledged a secondary role as a hit-and-run raider. So it is heavily armed for a transport of its size, packing eight full Lance Torpedo tubes on special diagonally-offset side-mounted launchers, a positioning necessitated by the geometry of the Jump Accelerator Rings. These in turn contain spiral coils through which liquid neutronium is pumped at very high speed, that much mass in such a small space moving in such a manner twists and buckles the fabric of spacetime around it, creating a tube-like rip in reality all around the ship, enabling it to pierce the Gauntlet and enter Hyperspace. For its primary role as a covert assault transport, it is equipped with sixteen Drop Pod launchers on each side, plus four sets of retractable Transit Beacon antennae, again their retractability is dictated by the geometry of the tubular jump point. These same considerations of drive-system geometry mean the ship cannot hold a large launch bay for small craft, and so it only carries two AT-14 Skyranger Assault pinnaces and a handful of other small craft, operating out of two very small launch bays amidshps. The shuttle hangars double as Transit Beacon rooms, and so the shuttles need to be launched to clear the bays before any transit beacon activity can take place.

Season Eight Alternate Timeline

When the Vin Shriak invaded the Federation, the EFS Alistar Dimiye was still under construction. The Vin Shriak being more interested in wiping out inhabited planets than in smashing asteroid-mining facilities, the Ceres Main Shipyard escaped major fighting, but was evacuated all the same when the rest of the system fell to the Vin Shriak advance. Left half-completed and ignored for over a decade, the hull was eventually salvaged and completed to a modified design as a civilian freighter, and renamed the SS Polaris. It was bought by James Welthammer, who saw in its advanced drive system an excellent tool for his smuggling and other adventures, and a worthy replacement for his lost previous vessel, the SS Resolve.

Behind the Scenes

The ship was actually originally designed in its modified configuration as the SS Polaris, by Martin Hohner at the request of the player of James Welthammer. The special drive system was a recycling of an FTL-drive concept Martin had come up with for a previous sci-fi writing project which never got off the ground. Although initially named after the Polaris I Space Lab LEGO set as an inside joke from one Legomaniac to another, the fact that Polaris had been the name of Alistar Dimiye's spirit-guide totem in Season 4.3 led to the backstory of the ship as a rebuilt military transport. Its Commissioning Plaque, seen in Episode 2 Act 1 of Season Nine, was both a parody of similar plaques on Star Trek vessels, and crammed full of inside-joke references to friends and family members of various players, old NPC's, and punny names. When the ship returned to the story in Season Nine, its original configuration had to be retroactively defined at last.