Note from Zedicon: Since my family is barely involved in ‘pew’, and is far more involved in many nonviolent industries, we chose one of our biggest freighters to be our flagship.
Of All Our Ships: Even though our business empire has tens of thousands of ships (I having helped acquire a couple hundred of them over the last several years), most of those are at the smallest end of the ship-classes spectrum (shuttles, corvettes, frigates), and we have fewer and fewer of each successively-larger class (thousands of mid-size, hundreds of larger (not largest), etc.), with only dozens of a few types of the biggest ships in New Eden (cap’s, a few being super-cap’s –~100 JFs, to be precise, 25 of which are Arks).
That makes this flagship of ours “1 in 100” of our JFs, and “1 in ~40,000” (our entire array of spaceships).
History, Fleet/Convention: Until now, our ships did not have names; we only used the generic alphanumeric designators naming convention.
History/Age, Flagship: This is not our first ship of this class. It is one of our newest (not even a year old yet). We have not overhauled/retrofitted an older ship, but had this one jam-packed with the best components we could get from the start.
Builder: confidential
Home Dock/Station: one of the biggest orbital platforms around Soliara III
Nickname of Our Flagship: “The Date”, since it looks like those Middle Eastern / North African sweet fruits…
Customization: …That is, until we gave it a paintjob of all the most offensive symbols that were sure to upset at least someone in every region of the cluster.* (elaborated upon farther down in this post)
That was my father’s idea. He believes bad press is better for business, since good press does not trigger most people (thus comparatively far fewer people talk about things that are NOT offensive), but the worst press triggers nearly everyone, thus you trick the gullible and sensitive into doing free advertising for you.
Flag It Flies: It wouldn’t be much of a flagship if it didn’t come with a unique flag. Ours, naturally, is the flag of the crest of our family, including an indicator that one of our elders is a Holder.
Status: active
Crew: hundreds, mostly non-free (not counting thousands of automated vehicles; robots, etc.)
Fittings and Rigs: classified, but all the good stuff (and, like any flagship of anyone’s fleet, the best of what we ourselves can afford; “The Date” is our strongest, fastest, highest-tech’, non-combat (though heavily-armed) vessel)
Escort: our own fleet of combat vessels (though most of the combat ships we own are tasked with keeping our other big ships and shipping lanes safe), including many drones
Additional Support: a regions-wide intel’ and Space-weather-monitoring network, plus a few jump-gates and other bypasses (so we never have to deal with CONCORD or any mainstream route or shipping lane)
Use: obviously for major shipments, or multiple major shipments (drop-offs and pick-ups alike) during a single route, between the planet all our businesses are based on, and population-centers (developed planets, a few very-developed moons, and some of the largest Space-stations) of those doing the most business with us (i.e. ordering the most of our goods and/or services)
We do not send this ship into areas of New Eden where its paintjob would sour relations / lower our sales. We only let it pick things up and drop things off where most people are already familiar with us, and understanding of this type of humor/marketing.
Dad doesn’t often venture off our homeworld, these days, at least not for business-only trips, so one of his highest-ranking Space officers tends to be the man at the helm of this particular JF. (Dad prefers to take our “Victorieux” when he goes out, or one of the ships he designed and had custom-build from the start --not any of the common/public make+models of the cluster.)
Number of Completed Hauls: dozens (generally a few each month)
Favorite Moments: seeing gankers and other would-be thieves either back off or stay nervously still when it comes into view/range, its escort-fleet’s reputation for surgical ruthlessness preceding it
–That, or they don’t attack us because we have done good work for their people, getting them things they might not be able to get elsewhere, or for the prices our free labor and Aridia location make possible.
Further Details: Compared to the largest cargo/container ships of Earth millennia ago, jump freighters dwarf them (~2.5km vs. a mere 400m), and are less like a large transport vessel… and more like a small city of cargo in Space, complete with hangars and smaller ships of their own; they are their own support fleets and can be described as pseudo-carriers.
It takes hours, if not days, to load one before sending it off on deliveries, and that is with nonstop loading, perfect or near-perfect automation, everything pre-staged well in advance, and so on.
Aligning (turning while undocked) can take ~half a minute.
Elaboration from the Customization section above:
*some of the offensive symbols painted onto the exterior of this flagship:
–inverted version of every empire/faction symbol
–sideways version of every inverted symbol (e.g. a sideways Blood Raider symbol)
–a middle finger, and other offensive hand signs
–abbreviations and acronyms for taboo Internet slang/terms
–stick figures and silhouettes in hundreds of provocative/suggestive poses and pairings
–caricatures/likenesses of the highest leaders, such as the current and former emperors/empresses, but dressed as commoners wearing t-shirts with the symbols of their mortal enemies
–one symbol for every pirate group
–one symbol for every terrorist organization
–one symbol for every music artist/band which conservative parents regard as immoral or evil
–Associate of the Deathless
–Athran Brotherhood
–Avetat Order
–Avetatism
–Blood Raiders
–Cult of the Lash
–Devotee of the ‘Scent of Faith’ Holoseries
–Disciples of Purity
–Equilibrium of Mankind
–Follower of the Kami Dia
–Fundamentalists Pangolossians
–Goosianism
–Kybernauts
–Nauplites
–Purity of the Throne Cultists
–Sani Sabik
–Sansha
–Sedevancatists
–The Ashes of Turnur Cult
–The Church of the Crimson Saviour
–The Cult of BOB
–The Cult of The Exploding Star
–The Cult of the Three ABs
–The Flame of Peace
–The Scarlet Ascendancy
–The Scions of the Superior Gene
–Tothism
–Triglavians
With a hull as gigantic as that of an Ark, believe me, there is plenty of room for all those symbols and more, each of them big enough to easily notice from afar, long before docking.
Why do authorities let us fly such an offensive vessel around?
- We are a respected, big, wealthy family.
- We have spent generations improving Aridia for the Empire.
- We have made friends and deals where needed.
- We employ hundreds of thousands of free people, and house and feed many millions of slaves.
- We deliver goods and services to nearly 2,000 worlds (~312 planets and ~1,560 moons).
- While any of those symbols might get us warned, cited, and banned, the combination of all of them on the same ship instead is regarded as amusing, since many of them are conflicting, thus they make no sense when side by side, so the authorities understand we are not part of any of those groups which were/are hostile to them.
- It can also signal to the fringe civilizations that we are willing to do business with damn near anyone, without taking ourselves too seriously along the way.
Generic Image (since I’m not trying to get banned from this forum for photoshopping actual offensive symbols onto an Ark)
