| abstract
| - The Drake Class is a class of space warships made for interstellar travel. In-universe they are named after the Imperial Air Fleet's first warship, the I.S.S. Drake, which was used to end the 1st Blood Planet Rebellion (wherein human colonies on the Planet Anasefta declared independence from the Earth states that originally created them). In real life, they are named after Sir Francis Drake, famous British sea captain/pirate. The Drake was a huge success, ending the rebellion in just two short weeks: it first successfully beat a gigantic fleet of airships, and fighter planes with its precision bolt-blasters, the first of their kind, and then at the Battle of New Haruirrin destroyed several key military bases, while also minimizing casualties. Here is the full fleet of Drake Class ships. Like the I.S.S. Drake, they are all named after famous captains:
* The I.S.S. Teach, nicknamed "Blackbeard," equipped with Far Bomb-Blasters, and therefore capable of destroying an entire planet
* The I.S.S. Kidd
* The I.S.S. Hook, the ship of the Huron Space, a huge part of space encircled by walls of white nigh-impenetrable material. Blinkgates allows people to enter the space, but ships are another story. It took over three years for the Hook to be manufactured, assembled, tested out for Huron Space-like conditions, disassembled, taken to remote teleportation gates piece by piece, then slowly teleported into the Huron Space, reassembled, tested out, fail the test and have a "minor" explosion, be disassembled, be repaired, once again reassembled, be tested out again, succeed, and finally be put to service
* The I.S.S. Ahab, patrols the outside of Huron's Walls
* The I.S.S. Nemo, patrols the outer quadrants
* The I.S.S. Tiberius
* The I.S.S. Theseus, nicknamed "the Skinstealer." The starmen aboard the Skinstealer are seen as murderers, and as almost-literal wolves in sheep's clothing, because their ships have to defeat and analyze ships before being able to shapesteal their forms
* The I.S.S. Da Gama
* The I.S.S. Magellan, nicknamed "the Spacesnake," which encircles the entire universe every sixteen years (it could do this more quickly, but its main function outside of war is scanning the universe, and surveying for threats or for new information)
* The I.S.S. Drake (decommissioned, but honorarily part of the fleet)
* The I.S.S. Perry, nicknamed "the Hazard," because of how notoriously dangerous the job is; starmen aboard the ship are expected to land on uncontacted, isolated or hostile planets to broker peace or alliances
* The I.S.S. Morgan, recently stolen by a band of space pirates
* The I.S.S. Columbia, currently being built in the hopes of the Universal Union ("the W") crossing the Deathless Abyss, a region where timespace is stretched infinitely, and where all models of physics say the universe is split in two, with a completely uncontacted and alien side beyond the abyss
* The I.S.S. Zheng He
* The I.S.S. Cheng Shih
* The I.S.S. Barbarossa, nicknamed "Redbeard" All Drake Class ships are warships; in a universe with blinkgates, all spaceships are made for travel. Even Columbia, with its hopes of traversing the abyss to discover what's on the other side is fully equipped with bolt-blasters capable of smashing a small moon to bits. These ships are all designed as huge cargo ships that can quickly, and efficiently travel between star systems. Blinkgates allow for the mass movement of people, and smaller items, but not really the mass movement of goods... for that, it is still somewhat cheaper to have them transported by spaceships.When not moving cargo (most of the time, they are only used as cargo ships when no other spaceships are available), they are generally just patrol ships, looking out for space piracy. They all have this huge yet streamlined design, and essentially look like solid black triangles moving through space. Really, in terms of their designs the only differences are the Theseus' shapestealing apparatus, and the Blackbeard, and Redbeard's gigantic bolt-blasters. The Redbeard can blast out the largest non-magickal bomb, called the Distant Bomb, capable of levelling an entire city. Parts are swappable, but no Drake Class ship besides the Drake, the Perry, and the Hook has ever sustained anything but minor damage. Both the I.S.S. Perry and the I.S.S. Da Gama are named after multiple real-life captains. The Perry after Oliver Hazard Perry, and Commodore Matthew Perry. The Da Gama after Vasco da Gama, his sons, and his brother. In-universe, the names for these ships were generated by an A.I. named N.A.V. - N.A.V is most-likely just an extension of the Æther-Man. A.M. is perfectly aware of the real-world, and is a personable being who probably gets some small pleasure out of giving warships cool names.
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