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The Poseidon-class Star Control Ships are the latest and most powerful vessels of their type in Earth Fleet. Designed with the lessons of the Third Civil War and Vin Shriak War in mind, it is actually slightly smaller than the Ares class that preceded it, but is more heavily armed in many ways. Most obviously, it carries two Gravitic Rams of a slightly more compact (but slightly less powerful) type than single such weapon the Ares carried. It carries fewer troops and more Lance Torpedoes, but it also adds the devastating Hellbore cannons. The fruits of Arthur Clarke's conquest of the Jurvain Commonality and K'Nes Tor included new weapons and shield technology, and Hellbore cannons are among those to be successfully reverse-engineered and improved upon by human scientists.
Probably more importantly, the Poseidon class is the first in Earth Fleet with a new type IV Jurvain-influenced Gravity Drive able to form firing ports in its Gravity Shield. This means that, while it still cannot maneuver and operate its shield at the same time, it CAN operate the shield and fire many of its weapons, although the Gravitic Rams are not among those. The quantum singularities fired by a Gravitic Ram would interfere with a nearby Gravity Shield with unpredictable results.
Like its predecessor, the Poseidon has a large compartment on the aft of each of its two hulls, which normally carry three small Battlestations each and a large supply of weapons platforms, to install defenses around newly-conquered planets or rebuild the Orbital Defense Network around newly-liberated ones.
Known Ships[]
- EFS Poseidon SCS-36 (Joseph Smythe's flagship before, during, and after the Caal Invasion)
- EFS Anubis SCS-37 (under construction at Phoenix at start of Ascension War, used as parts hulk to support Poseidon)
- EFS Wotan SCS-38 (Destroyed while under construction at Avalon)
- EFS Thor SCS-39 (under construction at Avalon, crippled in same attack that destroyed the Wotan)
- Several more were planned, but their construction had not yet begun when the Caal Invasion put an end to such plans.
Behind the Scenes[]
When Marcus wrote Prayer for the Technocrats, the Caal Invasion novella and prequel for Season Nine, he mentioend that Smythe was in command of Task Force Poseidon. As the other named task forces were centered on Star Control Ships (Task Force Ares, Task Force Hachiman), and the name Poseidon fit the ancient-god naming scheme for the Ares class but was not among the canonical list of names of ships of that class, it was left ambiguous whether this was a new Ares-class ship built to the same design after the Third Civil War, or a new class of Star Control Ship, or some other large warship. Other text in the novella seemed to imply that all other Star Control Ships were scrapped or destroyed in the 20 years since the Third Civil War, and since Clarke was monopolizing the entire Federation economy for war production, it made sense that new Star Control Ships would be under construction, or even newly-built, as part of that military buildup. The Poseidon was designed by Martin Hohner with these ideas in mind.