Traumatized Carrier-Loving Mess
Novella-class Heavy Cruiser
Out of Character Information:
- Intent: To create a mainline warship capable of combating a growing Mawite threat.
- Image Source: (x)
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source:
- Bothan Assault Cruiser - (x)
- Manufacturer: Galactic Alliance (x) - Various Military Shipyards
- Affiliation: Galactic Alliance - Galactic Alliance Defense Force (x), Various planetary defense forces.
- Market Status: Open-Market
- Model: Novella-class Heavy Cruiser
- Production: Minor
- Material:
- Classification: Heavy Cruiser
- Role: Ship of the Line. Troop carrier. Command Ship.
- Length: 850 meters
- Width: 118 meters
- Height: 120 meters
- Armament: (HIGH)
- Broadsides (Combined Port and Starboard):
- 6 x Octuple Heavy Turbolaser Turrets
- 12 x Dual Heavy Turbolaser Turrets
- 12 x Mass Driver Turrets
- 8 x Ion Cannon Turrets
- 12 x Variable Ordnance Tubes
- Internal Capacity to Carry 450 Warheads.
- 26 x Quad Automated Point Defense Warhead Launchers
- 30 x Point Defense Laser Cannons
- Dorsal Spine:
- 1 x Dual Mass Driver Turret
- 10 x Point Defense Laser Cannons
- 2 x Quad Automated Point Defense Warhead Launchers
- Ventral Spine:
- 8 x Point Defense Laser Cannons
- 1 x Quad Automated Point Defense Warhead Launcher
- Forward-Mounted:
- 3 x Torpedo Tubes OR 2 Fixed-Position Mass Driver Cannons
- 1 x Tractor Beam Projector
- Broadsides (Combined Port and Starboard):
- Defenses: (HIGH)
- Durasteel Hull. Reinforced heavily with Trimantium lining.
- Point defense laser cannons. Point defense warhead launchers may be utilized in intercepting small craft and incoming missiles.
- Cruiser Deflector Shielding - Military Grade - Layered
- Hanger Space: (VERY LOW)
- 1 Starfighter Squadron (Port and Starboard hanger entrances)
- 1 Support Craft Squadron (Underslung hanger bay)
- Crew Complement:
- Optimal: 350 officers and enlisted personnel. Integrated droid brains.
- Skeleton: 240 officers and enlisted personnel. Integrated droid brains.
- Passengers:
- 400 marines - Shipboard Security / Land Detachment
- Maneuverability: (AVERAGE)
- Speed: (AVERAGE)
- Hyperdrive: Equipped
- Primary: Class 1.0
- Secondary: Class 8.0
- Standard Propulsion Systems - 6 Ion Drives (x)
- Standard Helm Systems (Avionics, Navigation, Communication, Maneuvering Jets, etc.)
- Standard Scanning Systems
- Autoloading Systems for Various Weapons
- Life Support
- Standard Damage Control systems. Emergency bulkheads
- Distress Beacons and Recording Devices
- Consumables for two years running on Optimal crew amounts.
- Barracks for marine complement
- Shipboard Facilities:
- Internalized C.I.C (Combat Information Center)
- Port, Starboard, and Ventral hangar bays
- Medical Suite
- Cargo Bays
- Escape pods and Lifeboat Deployment Stations
- Ammo Stores
- Advanced Targeting Systems.
- Countermeasure Facilities (Repair Drones, Missile Deactivators)
- Advanced Power Distribution capabilities - Can precisely and rapidly redirect power to a variety of subsystems from individual sections of the vessel, especially with the assistance of a shipboard A.I.
- Gunnery / More Dakka: The broadsides of the Novella bristle with weapons, from heavy turbolasers to ordnance tubes, granting it better chances against the heavy warships of the Brotherhood of the Maw.
- Internalized Command Center: Once more, unlike its contemporaries in the Hidar line, the command and control center of the Novella is tucked behind its plates of armor within the ship’s central axis, largely protected from enemy fire.
- Hot Needle of Death: The bow of the Novella class maintains a rather narrow targeting profile for its size. But at the same time, the vessel can bring each of its 12 broadside mass drivers and its dorsally mounted dual mass driver to bear on an enemy ahead of it. Ship commanders may utilize the vessel’s advanced power distribution protocols to shunt large amounts of power to forward shields and charge head-first toward hostile vessels, hopefully guaranteeing critical hits before retaliation is possible.
- Vulnerable Engine Block: The engine array of the Novella is a clustered handful of ion drives mounted mere meters from each other and taking up the majority of its aft silhouette. Should the vessel loses its shields, hostile ships may disable all impulse engines in one salvo.
- Low Hanger Count: Compared to cruisers of similar size, the hanger capacity of the Novella is rather limited. Standard deployments see the vessel equipped with one support squadron, typically limited to troop carriers, and leaving but one squadron’s worth of space to be allocated to offensive small craft.
- Rockets go Boom: If the Novella’s shields are disabled, it presents yet another undesirable target for enemy bombardment; well-placed shots to its broadside ordnance tubes may detonate the ammo supplies behind them, crippling the majority of the cruiser’s weapons.
- Advanced Power Distribution: Though the vessel’s power distribution protocols can be utilized to great effect, they have widely been considered too ambitious for the time. These protocols are prone to extreme failure without supervision from the vessel’s atypically large engineering crew. Some commanders have chosen to remove these protocols entirely, fearing a breakdown mid-battle.
- The Novella is ultimately better suited to taking on single battlecarriers or smaller support ships. Given sustained bombardment from a larger hostile task force, practice has shown that the vessel will fall quickly. Despite the strength of its armor, any number of targets (clusters of power distribution relays, ammunition storage bays, engines, magazine chambers) can be disabled and further be made to send violent chain reactions throughout the vessel, nullifying the armor almost entirely.
From the fears sparked by the costly Invasion of Korriban came the need to revitalize the Galactic Alliance’s deeply scarred fleets. Among members of the admiralty came calls for both the modification and rapid deployment of civilian vessels, and the further creation of brand new classes of vessels equipped with everything necessary to prevent another massacre. Those seeking the former devised a war-time variant of the Hidar-class frigate, while proponents of the latter began development of the Novella.
Owing to the complexity of the design, and to the larger focus on the other members of an accompanying new class program, the creation of the cruiser slogged away as the months went on. The Second Great Hyperspace war hadn’t yet grazed Alliance space; their time could be allocated for reinforcing every step of the process. But this peace of mind would hardly last for long. Amidst the design process, the holonets erupted into a panic; the Brotherhood had reached Coruscant and broken through Alliance lines. Fearful of another such incident, production of the Novella-class was thrown into a higher gear, designers and engineers working around the clock to launch the first of the line from spacedock.
Within two months, the ANV Novella would set off from the Core.
The Power Distribution Net:
With its designers granted enough time, at first, to pool in ideas, the Novella-class was devised with an elaborate network of power relays capable of rapidly and precisely redirecting power from various systems into others. Unlike the systems aboard most vessels, which typically could only redirect power from collective subsystems, the Novella's power distribution net could draw power from certain rooms and the individual systems within them on the fly. At first, the addition was widely considered plausible, and its potential for unique and decisive tactics could not be overlooked. Only in practice would the net's crucial flaw be demonstrated. Before the ANV Novella, the class's premiere ship, could be released from spacedock, a catastrophic failure occurred in the net, largely disabling power to a variety of systems. When engineering crews eventually managed to address the source of the failure, they found a single faulty relay station to be at fault. Before any new members of the class could be produced, the design would be revised to drastically complicate the nature of the Power Distribution Net with a flurry of redundant relays and conduits. Despite such efforts, a large complement of engineering officers and an onboard droid brain would be required to safely monitor the individual relays for signs of failure and address any problems that were to arise.
This feature wouldn't be very widely accepted by the captains of newly launched cruisers, and large swathes of these officers had been known to request drastic simplifications of the Power Distribution Nets implemented in their vessels. These less precise versions could only draw power from collective subsystems as a whole (kinetic weapons, energy weapons, shielding, and engines.)
Last edited:
