Mawite Legend
Darkshear-class Swarm Fighter
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a starfighter for the Brotherhood of the Maw.
- Image Source: All images are screenshots of EVE Online's Minmatar Shuttle, taken in the Model Viewer on EVE-NT
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: Sorcerers of Rhand, Nihil smokestone, Way of the Dark
- Manufacturer: Brotherhood of the Maw
- Affiliation: Brotherhood of the Maw
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: Darkshear-class Swarm Fighter
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Durasteel
- Classification: Starfighter
- Length: 4 meters
- Width: 6 meters
- Height: 2 meters (cockpit), 6 meters (wings)
- Armament: Low
- Six Fire-Linked Light Blaster Cannons
- Defenses: Very Low
- Unshielded
- Weak Armor
- Squadron Count: Very High (20)
- Maneuverability Rating: High
- Speed Rating: Average
- Hyperdrive: No
- All standard features
- N/A
- Smokestone Slaves: Darkshears are piloted by barely-developed clones, grown in a mere two weeks. They are utterly insane, possessing little more than motor control and a seething hatred for life... but they're not really the ones flying. Each of these Moon Children is implanted with a chip of Nihil smokestone in its skull, allowing a Heathen Priest using the Way of the Dark to command an entire squadron at once through the Force. In this way, the actual controllers of the squadron sit in safety within a Brotherhood capital ship while their meat puppets fight and die on their behalf, fully expendable.
- Hive-Minded Pilots: Because all twenty Darkshears in a squadron are controlled by the same consciousness, they are capable of incredible coordination, executing maneuvers at the exact same instant and opening up on the same target with pinpoint accuracy... at least, once the Heathen Priests controlling them have practiced for a while. Fortunately, losing a squadron just means starting over with a new one, and the Priest gains experience. This Force-based method of control cannot be interrupted, scrambled, or hijacked by electronic warfare measures, unlike many models of droid starfighter.
- Steep Learning Curve: Because the Heathen Priests operating the puppet pilots are individuals controlling up to twenty bodies at a time, they cannot possibly react as quickly or intuitively as a trained flyboy actually sitting in the cockpit. There is a steep learning curve to operating a Darkshear squadron, and even the Priests who are the best at it operate the craft in eerie lockstep, more like a set of wiggling fingers and toes than a group of individuals making their own informed tactical decisions. This makes it easy for a skilled pilot to fly circles around them, and they can only compensate through numbers.
- Potential for Interception: Darkshear pilots are puppeteered through the Force, and while this protects them from some of the disadvantages of droid fighters, it opens up other vulnerabilites. A skilled Force-wielder could learn the techniques used by the Sorcerers of Rhand to manipulate Nihil smokestone and try to seize control of a Darkshear squadron. Other Force abilities could potentially interrupt the connection, burning through the dark energy that links the Heathen Priests to their slaves. A more mundane solution would be to kill the Heathen Priest, which would leave the Darkshears drifting aimlessly.
- Just Not A Good Fighter: Darkshears are designed to be cheap and numerous, and are built around the principle of being flown by worthless meat puppets. They are not good starfighters. Their weapons are small, and cannot destroy anything larger than another starfighter; they are only designed to engage craft of roughly similar size, and only in groups. Their defenses are even more limited, with only a thin layer of durasteel plating to protect their "pilots" from the unforgiving void. Any direct hit will destroy one, and a glancing hit could still cripple the ship. No sane pilot would willingly choose to fly one of these.
With the elite ranks of the Knyghts badly depleted and countless Divine Eagle-class starfighters destroyed at the Battle of Csilla, the Brotherhood faced two problems: a scarcity of ships and a scarcity of qualified pilots. All remaining marauders skilled at piloting were funneled into Doomsayer program, their expertise needed to operate the complicated craft. But it was clear that the Doomsayers, with their bulky frames, high crew requirements, and consequently small squadrons, could not solve the Brotherhood's starfighter problem on their own. Rather than turn to the Deep Core engineers again, the Heathen Priests turned to sorcery.
The Sorcerers of Rhand had long used the strange and vile Nihil smokestone as a sinister control device. By placing a cranial harness made of smokestone on their slaves, or even implanting a piece of it directly into their craniums, they could use the power of the Dark to turn them into pawns they could puppeteer from afar. Now occupying Rhand and learning from the Sorcerers, the Heathen Priests adopted the technique. They set aside some of their insane Moon Children clones to be implanted with smokestone, then designed a cheap but deadly starship around them. It need not have any comforts or defenses, just be able to kill.
The result was the Darkshear-class Swarm Fighter, a tiny craft designed to be just big enough to hold a human body lying prone. Built of simple materials cheaply strip-mined from the jungles of Lao-mon or broken down by the convicts at the Osseriton Penal Colony, the Swarm Fighters amounted to little more than a few guns strapped to engines. The craft's wings, designed to allow it to make rapid turns and target adjustments, fold down when it lands, allowing the fighters to be stored on racks in great numbers; there are twenty to a squadron. Junior Heathen Priests learning the Way of the Dark control the smokestone-implanted pilots from afar.
As a result, Darkshears are a perfect fighter screen; inexpensive, easily replaceable, and incredibly numerous. They can be sacrificed at will without much loss of resources, and without worrying about losing a trained pilot. The lack of a pilot's initiative and instincts means that they fly in lockstep, each squadron literally controlled by a single mind. As a result, they are more like a set of fingers and toes than a group of independent craft. This means that individual fighters can easily be tricked or outmaneuvered, but also that the squadron learns all at the same time, reacting to how the enemy fights and figuring out how to counter their maneuvers.
Darkshears are a direct reaction to the heavy deployment of starfighter squadrons by the allied defense fleets over Csilla, which easily slipped past the large Brotherhood vessels designed to defeat enemy capital ships. They represent the Maw's opportunity to form their own fighter screen out of a truly staggering number of craft. They exist to block or slow down enemy bombing runs, support the Doomsayers and Divine Eagles in their attacks, and make it difficult for enemy aces to maneuver - even as stronger Maw craft hunt them. Their light weapons can't deal with anything bigger than starfighters, so they generally stay on the defensive.
Front View
Top View
Rear View
