Collector cruiser
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Production information
Manufacturer:	Collectors of the Cycles
Model:	Cruiser
Class:	Dreadnought
Operator(s):	Collectors of the Cycles
Technical information
Length:	1.9km
Width:	733m
Height/depth:	700m
Max acceleration:	17 kilometers per second
Engine unit(s):	Element Zero Drive Core
Power plant:	1 Element Zero drive core
Shielding:	Kinetic Barrier
Hull:	4m of Carininium
Sensor systems:	LIDAR Celestial imaging Radar Spectroscope Electromagnetic Spectral Imaging
Armament:	400 Mark 190 point defense particle systems 1 bow-mounted Mark 350 particle cannon
Crew:	5,000,000
Skeleton crew:	10
Passengers:	Tens of millions of abducted victims
Complement:	Hundreds of thousands of different types of husks, including scions and praetorians
Usage
Commissioned:	10999998995 BCE
Decommissioned:	11 July 2197 CE
Role(s):	Transport enormous amounts of abducted organics for harvesting
Era:	All cycles and eras of the Galactic Harvest
Affiliation:	Collectors of the Cycles The Reapers

The Collector cruiser was a classification of dreadnought built and used by the Collectors from 10999899400 BCE to 2185 CE, and was the only starship type used by the Collectors. Built by the first rate of Collectors harvested in the second cycle, the Collector cruisers were designed, in lieu of the Reapers themselves, to serve as the warships of the Collectors, colossal vessels with powerful firepower with enough space to house tens of millions of abducted organics for transport back to the Collector Base where they'd be collected for use in creating a new Reaper. Before the beginning of a cycle, the Collectors would largely keep their cruisers inactive, rarely taking them beyond the Omega 4 Relay and only when needing to collect specimens for study so as to keep an archive of genetic information of the races of each cycle: upon the beginning of a cycle, all available cruisers would be deployed to collect captured organics that the Reapers hadn't turned into husks or killed and take them back to the Base for the Reaper reproduction process. After every cycle, the previous Collectors are wiped out to be replaced by the next generation of Collectors, the huskified remnants of the apex species of that cycle: this meant each new species of Collector added brought their starship design philosophies and technology with them, forever improving upon the Collector cruiser design and ensuring it was constantly evolving and changing. Whilst called a "cruiser", the ship's enormous size and powerful arsenal made it more in line with a dreadnought. Of the class, only four ships were ever built: the Sarcophagus, Sojourner, Cenotaph and Ascendancy.

A single Collector cruiser was absolutely enormous at almost two kilometers in length. Resembling an insect hive and a honeycomb of interlaced structures rather than a warship, the cruiser possessed powerful kinetic barriers and an arsenal of particle-based weaponry, with a bow-mounted particle cannon supplemented by dozens of point defense particle turrets along its port and starboard sides: its thick hull was also capable of sustaining multiple hits from mass accelerator weaponry without sustaining structural damage. Each cruiser could be manned by a skeleton crew, but on average carried a crew of five million Collectors, with the vast majority serving as ground troops to be deployed: each cruiser always came with a complement of husks as well, ranging from standard husks to heavier variants such as scions and praetorians. A single Collector cruiser could take on a sizable fleet on its own, although such situations were rare, with the Collectors preferring to avoid naval engagements unless pressed to do so. The only known case of a Collector cruiser taking part in a naval battle was during the Battle of Felsep during the Prothean War with the Reapers, when a prothean fleet attempted to ambush a pair of Collector cruisers, the Sojourner and Cenotaph, as they were transporting captured protheans and was instead destroyed when the cruisers returned fire, followed by Reaper reinforcements arriving to assist.

In 2183 CE, one of the cruisers, the Sarcophagus, was deployed to destroy the SSV Normandy in the Amada system. Afterwards, the Collectors would begin their harvesting early as directed by Harbinger, with humanity specifically targeted due to their victory over Sovereign at the Battle of the Citadel. All four cruisers were deployed for abducting human colonies, although the Sarcophagus and Cenotaph were used the most. The Cenotaph would become the first Collector cruiser to be destroyed in 2185 CE with its destruction during the failed abduction of Fehl Prime, and the Sarcophagus would follow it not long after when it was defending the Collector Base against the Normandy SR-2's assault a few days later. On the same day, the Sojourner, docked at the Base during the assault, would follow the same fate when the Base was destroyed, wiping out the vast majority of the Collectors. The Ascendancy, on its way to abduct the colony of Eden Prime at the time the Base was destroyed, became the only Collector cruiser left in existence, and it quickly went to ground, unaccounted for. When the Reapers began their invasion of the galaxy in 2186 CE, the Ascendancy emerged to assist their forces, participating in numerous battles across the galaxy. The Ascendancy would be present when the Reapers took the Citadel towards the end of the war, docking itself within the closed arms of the station over Earth and deploying its forces to assist in the harvesting of organics on the station, with the Citadel to be used to create the next Reaper. When the Crucible was docked and fired, every Collector on the station and on the ship was instantly killed, finishing off the Collectors once and for all and leaving the Ascendancy a lifeless hulk. Captured and towed to the edge of the system by the UGC to join the "Reaper graveyard", the Ascendancy would later be captured by Prometheus, labelled as "destroyed" to wave off suspicion and taken to a secret base on Mars to be taken apart and stripped of all valuable technology. In 2194 CE, it was taken to the edge of the Sol system to be used for live fire weapons testing by the Coalition Navy, severely damaging the ship. Finally, in 2197 CE, the Ascendancy was towed to Sol and allowed to drift into the sun, where it was vaporized and destroyed.