Kal
Whispers
- Intent: Test just how many significant weaknesses I can shove onto a single Starship*.
- Image Source: Junker by Fred Gambino
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: Perfectly Balanced (Six (-2) Significant Weaknesses) | Ol' Sadow
- Manufacturer: Greystone Mercantile
- Affiliation: Greystone Mercantile
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: The Fool's Gambit
- Production: Unique | One of a kind, thank the Force.
- Material: 'Three score and four metals shoved together into a nameless alloy vaguely reminiscent of laminanium'.
- Classification: Prototype Corvette
- Length: 144 metres
- Width: 49 metres
- Height: 47 metres
- Armament: Extreme
- Turbolasers, Starlances, Torpedo Tubes, Starhammers, and a battering ram.
- Defences: Extreme
- Prototype Deflector Shield ('Enhanced' 'Adaptive' Molecular Shield)
- Impervious to tractor beams, but (somehow) not pressor fields.
- Hangar Space: Average | 0 Squadrons
- Single Craft Hangar: Yes; fighter or shuttle.
- Manoeuvrability Rating: High
- Speed Rating: High
- Hyperdrive: Helldrive
- The Fool's Gambit sports an eclectic mixture of prototype (or occasionally salvaged) systems - it can generally be assumed that it has everything a comparable corvette would, though whether or not it works as intended is another question entirely.
- Reinforced boarding tubes allow the crew to board other vessels (or abandon ship).
- Good thing, too, since it doesn't have any escape pods. Spacesuits will do.
- The Fool's Gambit is controlled by an unstable AI known as Alpha who is, unfortunately, quite mad. While capable of strokes of strategic genius, he has been known to shoot allied vessels, vent 'rude' crewmembers, and loudly recite haikus to drown out orders.
- The Fool's Gambit is outfitted with a prototype stealth system that should theoretically make it undetectable against literally every sensor in existence. While it always works on crystal gravfield traps, one part or another is always on the fritz, ensuring that standard sensor suites can detect it just fine. It does, at the very least, make targeting locks and positive identification rather difficult.
- Unfortunately, most foes are able to recognise 'unstable ship-shaped sensory anomalies' as a threat.
- A discreet surveillance system feeds performance data back to its builders; the Gambit's true purpose is testing.
- It Just Works: Under ideal circumstances, the Fool's Gambit punches far above his weight.
- Alpha Knows Best: Alpha, the Gambit's AI, is the only entity capable of comprehending and by extension controlling its arcane systems. Unfortunately, he is also disobedient, stark raving mad, and cursed with poor depth perception (psychological, his sensors are fine).
- Volatile Weaponry: The Gambit's weapons have a tendency to violently explode if destroyed (or occasionally lightly grazed).
- Spray and Pray: The Gambit's accuracy leaves much to be desired - worse yet, Alpha sometimes picks its own target.
- Ionize Me Not: The Gambit's prototype shields are far more vulnerable to ion weapons than normal deflector shields.
- Hell and Back: The Gambit's hyperdrive 'doesn't work properly' - it has to rely on an especially dangerous Helldrive.
- Kugelblitz: The Gambit's reactor core is a highly unstable microsingularity; it is liable to implode if 'mishandled'.
The Fool's Gambit is a poorly-designed, garbled mess of a vessel that can be relied upon to surprise even the most prescient of captains. In the rare circumstances where its eclectic collection of arcane systems works as intended, it can seem nigh-indestructible.
While this might well be true for the ship itself, due to its remarkable capacity for self-repair and daring escapes, crew, allies, and objectives are another matter entirely. Life insurance premiums have been known to quintuple by briefly setting foot aboard.
*I'm sorry.
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