*Upgradeable to Energy Cannons (80 damage, fire
time 1.2 s).
Based on
parts of a Somtaaw Explorer-class mining ship, the Beast
Mothership is more mutation than starship. How the Beast
can warp plasteel and plasma conduits across nearly a
kilometer of hull isn't truly understood, but the
results are obvious. High-speed deep scan passes by
Seeker-class fighters have revealed the outer hull to be
some kind of organic armor, laced with depleted uranium
and superconductor fiber. This duplicates the best
anti-kinetic armor we have and combines it with enough
energy dissipation capability to seriously downgrade the
damage of ion beams and plasma-based weaponry.
Analysis
of combat behavior seems to indicate that the Beast
Mothership behaves like a living thing, concentrating
its strength in certain areas for a limited time before
"exhausting" itself. So, like an athlete
pushing himself hard, the Beast Mothership seems capable
of shunting power to its maneuver drives and other
systems: it can build ships faster, research faster, or
even fire faster, for a limited period of time. During
this time the hull appears to degrade slowly, as if the
Beast is weakening somehow from the strain of shunting
power to these subsystems.
The Beast
Mothership is a full-fledged construction-class vessel,
it is capable of simultaneously building over a dozen
different types of strike craft and frigates internally
and super-capital-ship hulls externally. Current
intelligence indicates the Beast Mothership can build
its own variants of the Taiidani Qwaar-Jet Heavy Cruiser
and the dreaded Saarkin-Cho Carrier. When the Beast
takes over a new kind of vessel, encountering technology
It has never seen before, It brings the ship in to dock
and basically absorbs it, seemingly to learn the new
design or technology. From that point on, It can
incorporate those technologies into new designs—or
even order Its ships in the field to grow the new parts
themselves.
The Beast
Mothership has six heavy turrets in excellent coverage
positions. The heaviest fire can be directed below and
to the sides of the Mothership, while strike craft will
have the highest chance of surviving a pass from head-on
and slightly above. Of course, should an allied ship
survive the defensive turret fire, an even deadlier
threat awaits any ship closing in past 10 kloms—the
Beast Mothership's infection beam. The Beast seems to be
able to fire this beam approximately once every 90
seconds, and can use the beam to infect a mass
equivalent to two frigate hulls. Given that the charged
beam can leap from ship to ship across hard vacuum, an
entire flight of fighters can be taken over in one shot.
This attack is so devastating that many allied pilots
have equipped their strike craft with deadman switches
that cause the drives to overload and detonate before
the beast virus can tear the pilot apart. The Beast
Heavy Cruiser and Carrier also carry Infection beams,
though they seem to be lesser versions with shorter
ranges and longer recharge time.
With all
this power at its disposal, there is no question that
the Beast Mothership is currently the most dangerous
vessel in the Galaxy. It is not just a starship. It is a
plague come for us all.
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