Pandorica-class superdreadnought
From FABT
CSV Manticore hovering near the city of Domoy Izdaleka on Virmire, present for peace talks to end the December War | |
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Production information | |
Manufacturer: |
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Model: |
Pandorica |
Class: |
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Operator(s): |
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Preceded by: |
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Succeeded by: |
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Technical information | |
Length: |
6360m |
Width: |
700m |
Height/depth: |
844m |
Max acceleration: |
16 kilometers per second |
Engine unit(s): |
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Power plant: |
8 Element Zero drive cores |
Shielding: |
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Hull: |
1300cm of Silaris-D Modular/Ablative Super Armor |
Sensor systems: |
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Targetting system: |
Shipwide VI |
Armament: |
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Crew: |
70,800 |
Skeleton crew: |
200 |
Usage | |
Commissioned: |
19 July 2231 CE |
Decommissioned: |
4 March 2310 CE |
Role(s): |
Heavy front line fighting |
Era: |
Human Cycle |
Affiliation: |
Systems Coalition |
The Pandorica-class superdreadnought was a classification of superdreadnought that served in the Systems Coalition Navy from 2231 CE to 2310 CE. The Pandorica-class was a successor to the obsolete Olympic-class, with lessons learnt from the Post-Apocalyptic War incorporated into its design. The ship was designed for the dual roles of heavy front line fighting and defensive standoffs. For these purposes, it was outfitted with extremely thick ablative hull armor, powerful energy shields and a vast array of kinetic and directed energy weaponry, including two of the incredibly powerful Earthsplitter cannons on its bow and stern. No other ship in the Coalition navy could match it for sheer firepower, with the Pandorica-class being boasted as the answer to the Covenant's White Wolf-class dreadnought-carriers.
While extremely advanced for the period it was introduced in, the Olympic-class encountered many setbacks that reduced its effectiveness as a front line warship and flagship, hampered further by it being the Dominion's first superdreadnought. The Pandorica-class program was put into action late into the PA war, but a working ship wouldn't be constructed and commissioned until much later. The CSV Pandorica showed enormous promise, with Awarnach Stanford himself praising the vessel as a 'star fortress with engines'. The Pandorica rose to become the pride of the Coalition navy, and between 2233 CE and 2247 CE, three more were commissioned and built: the Griffin, Pegasus and Manticore respectively. The Griffin and Pegasus were assigned to the Maginot Line, while the Manticore and Pandorica were assigned as reserve forces. The Pandorica-class wouldn't prove its true effectiveness however until the Battle of Feros in 2251 CE, where the CSV Pandorica single-handedly annihilated a Covenant force of ten ships. As a result of this success, the Manticore was pulled from greater fleet-wide duties and reassigned to join its sister ships at the Maginot Line, in preparation for phase II of Operation Silent Zealot.
When the Dominion Civil War broke out in 2253 CE, very few Pandorica-class vessels saw action against DDF forces, with only the Pandorica engaged in heavy fighting on the Dominion side, and the Pegasus, Griffin and Manticore fighting as part of Xerxes' fleet at the Battle of the Citadel-Ark and Battle of Eos at the end of the war. After the war ended, all four ships remained active, with only the Pandorica being destroyed as a result of Stanford's actions at the brief but devastatingly inconclusive Battle of Ming. The rest remained in service to the Coalition navy and the Unified Galactic Navy, with the Manticore facilitating the peace talks between Virminian government forces and NDRA at the end of the Eight Day War, and then again after the December War. The ships were eventually all decommissioned and scrapped by 2310 CE, where they were succeeded by the Warspite-class.
"Pandorica" is a variation of the word "pandora", which is defined as "a burrowing bivalve mollusc with a fragile shell, the unequal valves of which form a ‘box’ with a lid."