Whoami — Roleplayer Guild

Name: Marquis, Alexis Age: 25 Gender: Female Nicknames: Fox, Young'n Kills: 32 MAS 1 Coalition Battleship Psychological Analysis: Captain Marquis is a proud individual who is deserving of her rank. She is strategically capable and inspiring to her crew. Alexis takes a liking to ancient Roman texts, learning what she can from their strategies and how their generals commanded so much respect from their men. Alexis is aware of her age and she knows it bothers some of the older crew members aboard her ship that she is in charge, she tries her best to appease them through being good to her crew and surprising them with her tactical ability. On duty, she is quick and on point with her orders. Off duty, the young captain tries to spend time with her crew, be it her officers or the engineers in the lower decks that are rarely graced with a captain's presence. She respects those who have served longer than she has, and often finds herself coming to them for advice on certain things and learning from their experiences she hasn't shared with them. In some cases, Alexis will even take to a MAS and fight with the grunts, leaving the ship in the capable hands of her XO, a man of longer service and a close friend to her. Military Record: Starting her service in officer training elevated Alexis Marquis to high ranks quickly. Instead of fighting in the trenches as a grunt, she was behind a desk learning battle tactics. Once she was finished with school, Alexis was put in command of a MAS platoon. Her subordinates looked down on her, a green as grass officer who was given the reigns following the death of the platoon's previous leader. While most of the platoon were veteran pilots, coming up to middle age, Alexis was a twenty-one year old who had never seen combat. The three months before their first engagement was nothing but insubordination and disrespect. But when the first engagement happened, Alexis was quickly accepted as their platoon leader. The ship the platoon was attached to, a Liberator class carrier known as the Abraham Lincoln, was caught in a solar flare. Where ships are usually protected by flares, there was a failure in the shielding that the engineers had been working on, it wasn't fast enough. The Lincoln blacked out. And if things weren't bad enough, it was just in time for a Coalition strike group to jump into the system. They were given warning thanks to a listening post on the edge of the system, and had prepared whatever systems they could get back online in time. When the flare struck, the Liberator was patrolling an asteroid belt and investigating a strange signal coming from one of the planetoids in the belt. The asteroid belt gave the Sentinel some advantageous cover and the planetoid's ghost signal was overpowering that of the Sentinel's failed systems. They were invisible to Coalition sensors, and it was Alexis who had pointed it out. The initial captain of the ship was surprised that he didn't see that, and quickly started to form a plan with his officers. They had only hours before the strike group was in range. The Lincoln had a MAS compliment, carrying two platoons and a scout squadron consisting of retrofitted space fighters. The benefit to the old SF's were that they produced a very small signature, so they were able to get close to the strike group to analyze their composition. A battleship, accompanied by two destroyers and four frigates. Marquis and her platoon were deployed to dig in on some asteroids, using deep craters as pseudo trenches for the MAS units. As they strike group came closer, Marquis realized that their signatures would give away not only their position, but that of the Lincoln's as well, and the group was headed straight for them. Marquis ordered her platoon to power down completely, and urged the other platoon leader to do the same. When the strike group was in range, the Lincoln and its MAS units remained quiet. They waited until the small fleet was in the asteroid belt, making it difficult to target and maneuver. Once they were in, the MAS units powered up and shot at the exposed engines of the coalition ships. With their maneuverability crippled, they used their vector thrusts to attempt to dodge the asteroids. The impacts were enough to draw power from their shields, exposing the Sentinel's now online weapon systems to open up on the crippled targets. One of the destroyers and all of the frigates were lost in a devastating pincer attack from MAS and carrier. The coalition battleship attempted to align its main forward gun on the Lincoln, but the asteroids were making it difficult to line everything up. A few impacts on the starboard side damaged a number of its weapon systems and threw the large ship into a slow but sure spin. Marquis and her MAS units took advantage of the weaker side of the ship and make an attack run with anti-ship bombs, piercing the ablative armor and sturdier armor underneath. Alexis landed on the hull of the battle ship and planted an anti-capital charge in the breach, splitting the ship in two and leaving only a single destroyer left as victims to the assault. The other platoon boarded the destroyer through its small hangar bay and held it while the Lincoln sent dropships with marines to capture the vessel. Despite the handicaps on the Lincoln, Alexis's quick thinking to form an ambush garnered a decisive victory. Her platoon had fallen in line after witnessing her ability to take charge of the combat space. After three and a half years of service with the Abraham Lincoln, and thirty-two personal MAS kills along with the glory of a battleship kill, Alexis was destined for a higher level of command. When the captain of the Lincoln was promoted to desk duty, Alexis was given the position. She was a young captain, and even though her tactical insight led to a number of victories, many of the long time crew of the ship still thought she came into command of the carrier too soon. Alexis spent that last six months trying to earn their favor. While she has made enough progress to have a ship running at full capacity, she still has a ways to go before victories are celebrated in her name. It has been difficult, as the carrier was assigned to guarding the rear lines, away from combat. But now the ship has been charged with a much greater task, and Captain Alexis Marquis has in full confidence that her crew and new additions like the reputable Mr. McKnight can pull through with the objective.

The Battle-carrier Abraham Lincoln

'Pretia libertatis est lex' Developed by Mars Clipper Ships, the Liberator class was the civilian company's first entry into Military contracting. Previously renowned for quality civilian vessels, including bulk freighters and passenger liners, a bid issued by the Naval Procurement department called for a 'rugged, reliable carrier capable of staying on station for up to six months with sufficient firepower to intimidate pirates and ward of another major power.' Of the several designs submitted, only the Liberator was accepted, with the first of the class, the EENS Liberator, being produced at Phobos station. Over the next decade twenty of the class would be produced for the EENS Navy and distributed to border worlds and disputed territories. The ship has served admirably, with the class being refitted with newly developed technology last year to bring it up to front line standards, especially to keep pace with the development of Mobile Armour suit technologies

Layout:

The centre and heart of the Liberator Class is its Toyama Fusion Reactor. With deuterium tankage for three months, tied to an efficient mag-grav sweep system, the Toyama can sustain The Liberator for 12 months of minimal activity before fuel reserves will run low. At that point, it can refuel from any planet with a hydrogen/helium rich atmosphere using the 'drag scoop' maneuver to skim the atmosphere for fuel. Aft of the reactor section and the tankage is the ships Impellor drive, rated for 2.3G of continuous acceleration, though fleet trials have pushed this to 2.6G with a low payload mass. The drive section can also deploy solar panels to provide additional power when in range of a star. Nestled between the Impellor drive and the Reactor is the ships Kearnsky-Fuchida Warp drive. By bridging two points in space the drive can near instantaneously move the Liberator up to 50 light years. This requires significant charging, with a jump delay of 48 hours, slightly slower than the fleet norm, which is currently 42 for most cruisers and battleships. Fore of the drive and engineering spaces is the Docking Collar. Equipped to handle up to 4 destroyers, the Docking collar allows the Liberator to bring 'Tag along' ships which lack jump drives of their own. Standard UES doctrine is to pair the Liberator with a squadron of four Dervish Class Destroyers. this feature is less used now that MAS technology is proliferating After the docking collar comes the ships cavernous flight deck. Equipped to handle several dozen small craft, the Flight deck also houses the Marine Barracks, the crew quarters and the launch bays for ten Mobile Armour Suits. Finally, the CiC is located deep in the guts of the Liberator, behind sheets of shielding and redundant systems.

Weapons:

Originally equipped to drive of lightly equipped raiders and support fleet actions, the Liberator Class was, but more than capable of demolishing any smaller ship it happens across. With the advent of MAS technology, it became apparent that different weapons where needed. The weapons of the Liberator Class where redesigned to give maximum defense against MAS strikes, though the best defense for any capital ship is its own MAS escort. Mounted on the dorsal line and powered by its own reactor and capacitor system, the Abraham Lincoln mounts a Pulsed Plasma Gravity Braid Cannon. Known by the crew as the 'wave motion gun', (all attempts at coming up with a clever acronym or backronym failed), this weapon fires a massive plasma blast wrapped in a braid of artificial gravity, allowing it to overwhelm energy shields at incredible distances. It is limited by the need to be pointing directly at its target, which means the ship must be pointing directly at its target, and an agonizingly slow recharge time of a minute. Four Armstad missile bays carry 50 anti capital missiles each, supplementing the main gun. With a secondary magazine located in the hold holding another 200, the ship has enough missiles for 5 minutes of sustained fire. These missiles are remote piloted by operators in the CiC, but can revert to on-board guiding if they are jammed. Configurable for a variety of targets, these missiles are also the primary means of attacking a surface target the Liberator Class has. These missiles can also be 'passed' to MAS units, who can control them to support their own attacks. Along the both the port and starboard lines of the ship, are 10 dual barreled turrets- for a total of 20 turrets- mounting Heavy Capital Class Laser Cannons suffice to ward off close range attackers, as well as lighter ships, though a heavier capital ship or true battleship will easily muscle through that fire. These weapons also provide port/starboard coverage against MAS attack, but can be overwhelmed or avoided by a determined or skilled attacker. Along the bow of the ship, is a line of three twin barreled Mass Driver Cannons, serving as the ship's primary anti-ship weapon, aside from its own MAS compliment. These rail based turrets launch large caliber shells of varying types and are capable of hitting large targets at great distances. These cannons can also be used for orbital bombardments, but due to their size, power and position on the top of the ship, cannot be fired in-atmosphere. Finally, the Liberator mounts a staggering 200 heavy rail cannons in 50 four gun 'ball' turrets. Designed for AA work and interception, these designs provide a murderous hail of tungsten slugs designed to fill local space around the Liberator class with an expanding 'cone of death', that should shred any missile or drive off any MAS that gets under the laser cannons coverage.

Defenses:

Along with the aforementioned rail cannons, the ship mounts over a meter of Durralex Ferro-fibrious armour plate, reinforced with Cobblestone Reaction ceramic ablative plate. Able to withstand direct hits from nuclear weapons, the Cobblestone is a more recent addition as part of the last round of upgrades, and detrimentally affected the ship's handling. To quote one Commander 'She handled like an iron bathtub full of water before. Now she handles like an iron bathtub full of concrete, covered in grease'. ECW defence includes several dedicated ECM defence nodes, located in a ring with the docking collars. Finally, a powerful reflex shield allows the ship to deflect laser and and small amounts of plasma attacks. Like all capital ships of her size and construction, the greatest threats come from bigger, meaner capital ships, concentrated attack by destroyers or close range 'skin dancing' attacks by MAS's. A MAS penetrating into the ships internal engineering spaces could destroy the Abraham Lincoln in one attack, which is why the ships designers have worked extra hard to prevent such a thing occurring. Both the Empire and Coalition are following a similar design ethos: Increasingly, newer ships are heavily defended and designed to support MAS operations, rather than engage in capital ship combat themselves.

Flight Deck:

The flight deck and associated hanger bays have stowage for over 50 small craft of various types. Currently, the Abraham Lincoln carries a squadron of 12 AS-18 Naginata Aerospace fighters, a squadron of 12 H-12 'Zero' Aerospace bombers, and 12 XXXL-12 'Albatross' orbital Gunships for marine deployment. Fighters are deployed via magnetic catapult and can be recovered using the same equipment. The ship also carries four shuttles for general shipping duties, one bulk lifter and 18 repair craft. 6 T-88 Toad class scout ships round out the ships compliment. Finally, the ship mounts 12 MAS repair, recovery and refit bays (Triple R Bays) on external rails. The Triple R bays can be retracted into the pressure hull after recovering or deploying their MAS occupants.

Crew Compliment:

The ships company runs to 2400 over all ranks and specializations, including a dedicated security detachment. The airwing has a compliment of 1000, and the Marine Battalion aboard numbers 800. A normal deployment would accompany the ship with four Frigates, or a pair of destroyers with up to another 200 marines spread across those ships to form a distributed regiment.

Other Capabilities:

The ships computer systems are managed by Mary-Ann, a gestalt LV 2 Virtual intelligence. Not true AI, she instead is an exceptionable personable interface program designed to ease crew interactions with the ships systems, function as a organizer and statistician, and provide ready advice and information for the command crew. Capable of independent management of many of the ships defensive systems and day-to-day management of the ships immediate Battlespace, she is designed to both take, interpret and redistribute orders. When designing the Liberator Class, Mars Clipper ships took the design requirement of 'tough' to heart. Designed with multiple redundant systems, thick armour plating both internal and external, and excellent damage control measures, it is not unknown for the Liberator Class to take a ferocious pounding and emerge intact, if not unscathed. In one particularly famous example, the Winston Churchill was ambushed by belt pirates and attacked with five limpet nukes. Despite the collapse of one flight deck and the loss of half her tankage, and the exposing of her engineering spaces to vacuum, the ship was able to fight her way clear and summon assistance. She was rebuilt and re-deployed within 3 months of the incident. The one place the ship falls down is crew comforts. With survivability and endurance as key priorities, crew comforts came a distant third. As most of these ships are designed to garrison frontier worlds with atmospheres, it was expected that the crews would have access to ground-side facilities to stretch their legs and use their R&R time. The ships compliment of light craft are often busily employed shuttling crew on furlough between the ship and any local civilian port. A long deployment far from friendly bases could see morale suffer.

Statistics:

Length: 1021m Width: 330m Depth: 330m Mass: 196,000,000 metric tons Crew Compliment: 3600 Jump Range: 50 light years Jump delay: 48 hours Endurance: 6 months

Alexis isn't a front line MAS pilot anymore. But she isn't afraid to step into the cockpit of one if extra hands are needed in an operation. Alexis uses a template PTX-071 Sentinel MkI M and arms it as the mission requires.

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