PSU SUPERMONITORS

   At the beginning of the Armageddon War, supermonitors were the Pan-Sentient Unions' largest warship design. Only thirty were constructed in the Terran-half of the PSU before that dreadful war broke out and they were enormously large (300 hull spaces in size). Being the newest capital warships in the PSU fleet, the various

classes of supermonitors had the most advanced defensive suite known to man: quantum armor, phased shields, damage-control nanobots, etc. Most construction of these ships took place at Galloway's World, Great Ships, and the large Garsten Yards in the newly formed Terran "Frontier". Unfortunately, their engine speeds were

so slow that it literally took months to redeploy to the combat zone (in the case of PSNS Resolute eight months of travel time to Red Rocks from Zephrain). These slow strategic speeds crippled heavy fleet unit movements across the PSU and in the aftermath of the war caused a great deal of in-fighting among the political and

military factions over their use and their initial deployment.

   The supermonitors involved in the fighting in Red Rocks were the only ones at the disposal of the Terrans and were an enormous drain on resources for the PSU Navy when first constructed. These ships took over 12 months to build and cost over 8 million credit's each, with an enormous crew requirement of almost 7,000 personnel. Unfortunately, the unique technology of enemy Hre'Daak vessels made them virtually impervious to PSU forces and during the fighting in Red Rocks only a few supermonitors actually did any damage to the Hre'Daak Arbiter. In fact, only the primary beam-armed Continent-class and the variable forcebeam/primary beam Renaldo Chavarra-class supermonitors did any damage to the enemy vessel: the PSNS Asia did some internal damage to the Hre'Daak warship before she was destroyed (a process which in fact took less than 30 seconds by enemy fission beam fire). No PSU supermonitor survived the fight in Red Rocks and the remaining ships that did fell back to the Corporate world Esteel and the Frontier world New Idaho for repairs and replenishment, sheparded by Commodore Toby Chu and Admiral Yevgeny Knox. Only Admiral Knox's timely discovery of ramming Hre'Daak ships as they came out of a warp point (and were still slightly out-of-phase) brought the war to an end at all but by then both Terra and New Valkha were smoking balls of ruin.

   In the end, the usefulness of supermonitors and other very large capital warships is still debated in the navies of the surviving empires, however this author has been assured by current naval officials that large warships like the supermonitor will be needed for the foreseeable future.

Assassin-class (Wca) x6

   Designed around a dozen capital gun/missile launchers launchers, the Assassin-class should have been able to hold their own both in long-range missile duels and close-in combat but during the fighting in the Armageddon War all six warships in this class were annihilated in the first few minutes of the conflict and thus their full

potential has never been discovered. A secondary battery of advanced plasma guns was also installed on these warships to discourage small enemy ships from closing to short range and also deter ramming attacks. The Assassin-class was a pet project of Admiral Rheinhardt Cho and his battles with the PSU Congress for funding of this class were legendary. His conflict with the Admiralty and BuCon over the design of the class surely shortened his career within the Navy and led to his early retirement on New Beijing (sadly he did not survive the Hre'Daak attack on that world). Even the public got involved (after seeing Admiral Cho on GalTV), collecting credit's for the classes' construction and the planet Darkover donating to the entire class resplendent decoration for the Admirals quarters on-board each warship. Note: later JAG investigations into the theft of this classes' design by Darkover agents was never proved.

   Other features in this class include a very advanced cloaking device, hyper-heuristic interfaces in the CIC, black hole point defense systems, and large parasite bays for launching smallcraft. Warships in this class included the Assassin, Apocalypse, Admirable, Ascendant, Audacious, and Attack.

Continent-class (Pc3)x6

   The Continent-class were designed as a fall-back class since primary beams were not often used in the Pan-Sentient Union Navy. In fact, without the strenuous efforts of Skymarshal Ellen Devore, it is doubtful that the Continent-class would have ever saw the light of day. Primary beams are energy intensive and thus only fire every other minute and that has been their downfall, that and their overly large size for a beam weapon. However, primaries have proved to be very useful in some combat situations and in the Wargames of 2247 and 2261 it was shown that a fleet equipped with even light primary beam-armed forces would have a decisive tactical advantage over their enemies and thus Skymarshal Devore's approval of the Continent design. Installation of a small secondary battery of rapid-fire gun-missile launchers (Wa2) allowed the ship to screen against hostile smallcraft as well, these launchers also packed a substantial punch against enemy warships when armed with antimatter warheads. During the fighting at Red Rocks, only the PSNS Asia was able to significantly damage the enemy Hre'Daak battlemoon, seconds before she was destroyed by enemy beam fire. In fact, every single PSU supermonitor was destroyed within the first two minutes of that battle, showing the overwhelming power of Hre'Daak weaponry. The Continent-class also had one of the heaviest defensive suites mankind has ever made, including hard screen technology and globular shields.

   Overall, the class was underpowered and out-ranged by most other weapons systems and in the future all primary beams will most likely be regulated to bases and asteroid fortress defenses. Ships in this class were the Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and the Australia.

Drake Belgrano-class (Rh3)x6

   Named after famous Earth explorers, the Drake Belgrano-class supermonitors were built around a large core of heavy bombardment missile launchers, and their enormous magazine requirements were built right into the design as well. The concept of extremely large and long-range missile strikes appealed to the PSU Navy,

which built dozens of these warships (although only 6 were built in time for the Armageddon War). Tremendous defensive shields and armor were built into this class, including advanced nanobot damage control unit's and self-repair mechanisms in critical sections of the ship. A secondary battery of Wa2 launchers and a small number of plasma guns rounded out the design. The Belgrano-class had its supporters (and critics) but few were as enthusiastic about the design as Fleet Admiral Jacob Yellowstone, who at the time of their construction was the head of BuCon. His efforts made sure that the class survived the infighting in the PSU Congress and got full funding. In light of it's' heavy bombardment battery, very few warships could withstand a single salvo from a Belgrano-class, nothing short of a superdreadnought could survive such an onslaught. In fact, until the discovery of the Tolat ASBM launchers, the Rh3 was thought to be the longest-ranged missile launcher design in history. However, these missiles were completely ineffective against Hre'Daak weaponry and did little to no damage to the enemy battlemoon. In the end, the Drake Belgrano-class has continued full construction after the war ended and a few went on to make a name for themselves fighting in the Orion Cantons and the Frontier, taking out enemy warships and pirates long before they could bring their own weaponry to bear. This class also deployed the PSU Navy's first gigaton warheads during the Slaughter of Alpha Centauri.

   Only six warships in this class were finished before the Battle of Red Rocks, the Drake Belgrano (command ship for Fleet Admiral Braun), Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus, Zheng He, Ponce de Leon, and the Vasco da Gama. Three others were destroyed (half-completed) in orbit of Terra when the Hre'Daak Arbiter arrived and reduced the planet.

Legacy-class (Wa2)x3

   When first constructed in 2440, the Legacy-class had the largest number of missile launchers that any interstellar navy up until then had ever seen. With an enormous array of launchers (30 Wa2) and huge magazines of missiles to back them up, the second generation advanced gun/missile launcher was exceptionally deadly to both smallcraft and warships. Armed with anti-fighter weapons, the Wa2 fielded huge amounts of missile volleys that also proved deadly efficient against enemy smallcraft like fighters and gunboats. Equipped with antimatter warheads, the Wa2 were capable of instantly annihilating nearly any known Threat vessel at medium-to-short ranges, including larger capital warships like dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts. While Wa2 batteries were normally equipped on PSU naval ships like heavy cruisers and battlecruisers due to their small size, the Legacy-class devoted a huge section of her internal space to these versatile weapons. All three initial ships were constructed in orbit of Galloway's World and were delayed for some time due to financial wrangling within the PSU Congress.

   A well-rounded warship that was capable of fighting at medium-to-short ranges, the Legacy-class performed admirably during the Armageddon War, even though none of the vessels in the class survived the conflict. While numerous examples of this ship were built during and after the war, only three ships were built in this class before the fighting began: the Legacy, Fortune, and Victory.

Renaldo Chavarra-class (Fvcx3)

   An extremely versatile class, the Renaldo Chavarras' were constructed after some debate with the PSU Naval High Command and commercial shipbuilders that were contracted to construct them. These supermonitors had large batteries of capital variable focus beams (Fvc), which proved their worth in the initial Battle of Red

Rocks. Realizing that the forcebeams were not effective against Hre'Daak vessels, Captain Gulhooley changed tactics and used their primary beam nodes instead, inflicting some damage on the Arbiter before his ship was destroyed by enemy fire. The variable focus beam was a late development for the Terran Navy and

quite a dust-up ensued when it was proposed to the newly formed PSU Navy as a viable weapon for capital warships the size of a supermonitor. The argument for this class was that primaries fire every other minute so a large number of them was needed, while the variable focus beam component gave it flexibility in short range

combat. Also to ward-off small enemy ship attacks, these ships were also loaded with a small number of box missile launchers equipped with CAM missiles. Politically this class had a large number of supporters with the PSU military and dozens more were built during and after the Armageddon War ended.

   A warship built with tremendous short-range firepower, the Renaldo Chavarra-class was named after the Second Bug War hero Admiral Chavarra, who died defending the Reformation world Leviticus against bug hordes. All three vessels (the Renaldo Chavarra, Armstrong Brock, and Richard Rickert, ie "Big Dick") were built in orbit of Raider's World and fought in the Battle of Red Rocks.

Resolute-class (HET3)x6

   The Resolute-class supermonitors were designed as pure energy-beam combatants, intended to force open enemy warp points and gut defending warships and bases with their withering hetlaser fire. Hetlasers built into the Resolutes were of a very advanced design. As interstellar races advanced, the destructiveness of their

weaponry reached astonishing proportions, to where a single missile strike or beam weapon hit could literally tear a warship in half. The same destructive power came in the Third Generation Hetrodyne Laser developed and fielded by the Pan-Sentient Union. A powerful laser weapon, hetlasers had been developed to a point where their fantastically adaptive optics could no longer handle the power load without burning out within seconds of activation, until Vice-Admiral Yang’s development team created the ring laser at Utopia Maria in Jurado orbit. Normally during combat a standard warship would rotate on it's axis to allow all of it's standard weaponry to

fire, but with the advent of the ring laser that process was no longer needed. With the new HET3, adaptive optics are built in “rings” around the hull, giving the hetlaser a huge advantage in firepower over it's stationary predecessors. Laser energy could be expelled anywhere along the laser ring and is constantly shifted to

prevent optical burn outs, thus giving the HET3 laser a new level of firepower. While this new weapon design was highly effective against normal warships of the same design and tech level, it was totally outclassed by the high-tech Hre'Daak warships and all six supermonitors perished in the Battle of Red Rocks.

   Some Orion designs were very similar to the Resolute-class and proved effective in handling rebellions and coups across the Orion Cantons after the war ended. The Resolute-class also had a small section dedicated to drone fighters which acted as inherent escorts and suppressed enemy fighters in combat. Ships in this class

that were constructed before the war ended were the Resolute, Renown, Resolve, Redemption, Restitution, and the Remarkable. Due to their extremely long build time requirements, nearly two dozen new warships of this class were completed after the Armageddon War ended.