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Approved Starship The Knight's Helm

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Skye Mertaal

Ba'slan shev'la
Skye Mertaal
Character Bio
​
Intent:

"You can't stop the signal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere."​

To place in a tech sub the home and mobile base of operations for the Information broker @Jonathon Patches and his crew, the Knight's Helm, a ship he's had since 2002. This ships is basically starwars version of Mr. Universe's from Firefly's mobile base of operations, with the main databases hidden in a different facility. As one of the premier Information Brokers with a colorful and established history for more than a decade, the Knight's Helm exemplifies that to the fullest extent, with heavy sensor modifications, an advanced super computer for his databases, and a stealth package to keep him hidden while he deals in his trade.

Originally a YT-1300 light freighter, it has gone through a small reboot of nomenclature, as the writer didn't quite realize the lack of passenger capacity ( rooms ) that the YT-1300 has. Thus, a hand wave and a tiny retcon makes the Knight's Helm a YT-2400 light freighter. For ease of convenience, providing the stats of the Outrider as another comparison of the stats of a YT-2400 smuggling vessel, not including all the additional sensor suites and modifications made specifically for information gathering.

Development Thread:
The bulk of the roleplays from 2001 -2005 from the original that guy's craftshop Ez Board had been wiped in the 2005 Ez board mass server wipe when it got hacked. I've attached the Hall of Fame to prove Patches's roleplaying status as one of the top five neutral roleplayers in December 2002.
Manufacturer: CEC
Model: YT-2400 light freighter
Affiliation: Independent | Jonathon Patches and Crew.
Water Refresher is claimed by the women!
Modularity: Yes
Production: Unique
Material: Reinforced titanium armor.
Description:
The files on Jonathon Patches childhood are sketchy at best, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Born to a middle class Corellian family, their history and names have been stricken from the records - Patches doing. What is known, is scarce: his mother died when he was young, his father having mysteriously vanished some years prior to his mother's death while working for Corsec, his body or whereabouts never to be found or heard from again. Alone, and resorting to petty thievery and cons on the the streets of Corellia, a local crime lord by the name of Har Stubbs took Jonathon under his wing.

The Knight's Helm is a YT-2400, originally owned by Har Stubbs for the smuggling operations he would send Jonathon and Har's daughter, @Siara Kai out for. Favored by smugglers, the starship featured the YT series trademark saucer-shaped hull and starboard-mounted command pod. Like most Corellian designs, the YT-2400 was fast, tough, and endlessly modifiable. As it was one of the ships used by Har Stubbs for his smuggling ring, it already had smuggling compartments were scattered all throughout the Helm, allowing for hiding places for those questionable goods that needed to pass through inspections. It had hidden sensor-shieldd cargo sections hidden and installed under theHelm's deck-plates that provides easy storage for smuggled cargoes and even to hide the crew. To aid with cargo, two Phylon C5 tractor beam emitters were installed along with fright loading arms, utilizing electromagnetic clamps as well.

Siara, a prodigy shiptech and fellow infochant in training who worked alongside Patches, was the one who made the first major modifications, replacing the original engines with three KonGar KGDefender military-grade ion engines stolen from the advanced engineering department on Taris. The factory issue hyper-drive was also replaced with a modified SoroSuub Griffyn/Y2TG hyperdrive, giving the Helm a Class 0.75 hyperdrive rating.

When Jonathon finally rebelled against Har after years of working under his thumb, it was on this very ship that Siara told Patches to make his escape with. He would leave Corellia in a blaze of glory, destroying Stubb's facility in the process while leaving Siara behind...

Once out on his own, Jonathon quickly learned the value of information. At first, it was to keep tabs on Har and always stay several steps ahead of him. However, as time went on, Jonathon found that information was also a useful tool and if need be, a weapon. It was through this that he began to heavily modulate the Knight's Helm at first for his smuggling operations, and for luxury. The sonic shower was expanded in the captain's quarters into the storage area next to it (18 on the diagram), allowing for a sanisteam and a waterbased shower to be installed along with the existing sonic shower. A water reservoir held enough water for the economic use of the water based shower if so desired, to be refilled at any spaceport with enough water access. An encrypted combination airlock and ocular scanner added a level of security to prevent theft. The addition of a slave circuit allowed the remote control of the Helm's systems through Patches's encrypted datapad and comm device.

The Helm was not made for sustained combat, instead it was outfitted for a quick get away and stealth. Through he prefers to ourtrun or trick his opponents, Patches hasn't negleted to improve the Helm's weaponry either. The ship originally came with a total of 13 weapon emplacement points, with only 6 used in the stock configuration, allowing for easy modifications to the stock frame. Improvements were made by the addition of a pair Dymek heavy laser cannons, mounted on dorsal and ventral turrets. The standard Corellian 1D servo mounts provided a 180 degree range of fire above and below the ship. These cannons were hand-modified by Patches to improve both firepower and range, and could be fired from the gunnery wells or from the cockpit. The Helm was also armed with a pair of forward firing concussion missile launchers built into the cockpit tube. Each launcher contained a magazine of three missiles each. It also had a ventrally mounted, concealed, anti-personnel repeating blaster cannon near the loading ramp.

As the years went by, Jonathon relied less on smuggling and trading of tangible goods, and more on the exchange of information and data. At first, it was mostly small time stuff; cargo manifests, and checkpoint pass codes. Patches's has registered the Helm in hundreds of different ports under dozens of different names, and the ship's transponder is programmed to broadcast several identity codes. More upgrades came next. A job with Byblos Driveyards had the Information Broker 'acquire' a set of advanced Kuat Drive Yards, Novaldex, and Nordoxicon shield generators. These shield generators provided the Helm with warship-grade shielding, allowing it to survive laser hits that would destroy an ordinary YT-2400 -- though only for a limited duration, as the Helm's engines aren't designed to provide the incredible power necessary to run shields of this grade.

Despite the armor, Patches prefers to not test his ship's hull, which is understandable given the number of times it has been patched. Instead, Patches relies heavily on camouflage of a different sort to avoid combat or other unpleasantness. This is when he began to retrofit the Helm more to coincide with modifications to suit in terms of improving the Helm's sensors and added a countermeasures package, adding a rectenna sensor dish. This also included a Hypercomm array and Hyperspace transponder which was capable of tapping into hyperspace based transmissions, such as those broadcast by the HoloNet and Hyperradios, as well as communications through subspace. A set of high-grade sensor suites were tied into the Helm's over-sized rectenna sensor dish. Powerful sensor jammers also protected the ship in combat, which masked the vessel behind a screen of sensor static or false responses, and it can also block transmission from nearby vessels. Though these last modifications were highly illegal, they helped him to avoid unnecessary conflicts. The ship was also outfitted with a sensor array that could detect minute changes in the ship's mass, which could be used to find homing beacons.

Through his brief stint as a smuggler, he developed various contacts and "associates" throughout the galaxy, and the one thing they all had in common, was a need for information; whether it was shipment details, security layouts, or the whereabouts of a mark or target, they all needed it, and Jonathon was becoming increasingly good at providing it. The first mate's cabin (4) was completely renovated to install an advanced computer system by Illicit Electronics was installed to control and manage the vast information and databases he'd acquired, turning one of the larger storage rooms into his surveillance base of operations, where a holonet transceiver would constantly monitor the flow of electronic traffic.

As the years went on, and his lists of contacts grew, so did his network of contacts, and the services they required; fleet positions, planetary defenses, and government overthrows. By the age of 22, he found himself in charge of one of the largest information networks in the galaxy, with contacts in the republic, empire, trade federation, jedi and sith. At his peak, he had information on everything and everyone. There wasn't a military leader nor government official that wasn't in his pocket; or with the right persuasion, could be. If there was a trace of someone on the holonet or on a datapad, it was likely Patches knew about it. He bartered and traded information amongst all of them, never taking sides, and profiting quite well in the process.

With the funds he earned, he purchased a Corellian Corvette, named it Excalibur, and had it refitted to hold six T-65C X-Wings, known as Knight Squadron. He had some influence in the Conquest of Caprica, the downfall of the Trade Federation, and the Independence of Velusia. His ability to stay neutral was what kept him off the radar, and often kept him alive at times. It was this neutrality though, that ultimately led to his downfall. Once it was learned that he was dealing information to both sides, his allies became few and far between. A trap was sprung, and most of Knight Squadron was destroyed, along with his flagship, the Excalibur limped away from battle, never to be seen or heard from again. It was assumed the nav unit failed, and the ship jumped into lightspeed into a moon or asteroid. That was seven years ago...

A couple of years ago, he popped up on the grid again, accounts of his dealings with various factions quickly spreading. His influences could be seen at various battles, trials and political struggles; his reach amongst the Galaxies most powerful appearing to have never wavered. With his databanks freshly updated, and his list of contacts increasingly growing, it didn't take long for word of his return to spread, nor the list of people that sought his services.

His return to Information Brokering after a five year absence had him quickly rise once again into a leadership position within the Underworld, only this time, choosing to work on his own, with only the Helm as his mobile base of operations. Favors and trades of goods for his information services had him met Io Akima, slicer extraordinaire, who after a quick interaction of being tied to a chair, agreed to offer her services in exchange of Patches being her holovideo partner.

Io also installed a SuperFlow IV droid brain from Hanx-Wargel as a type of central computer for the Helm, provided by the infamous holofaker and slicer [member="Io Akima"]. This allowed so that most of the Helm's major systems could be accessed through the cockpit or the engineering station in the main cargo hold. The myriad ship control functions were funneled through the SuperFlow IV droid brain, and then heavily modified by Io Akima to streamline the ship control functions without incident, upgrading his encryption suite on his personal databases with military encryption codes that even the Bothian Spy network would have trouble cracking... Unless you were Siara Kai, whose intimate knowledge of the Helm gave her a an edge up in cracking it's security, as proven when she stole the ship from Patches's in a stunt to gain his databases and flush him out into the public.

It was then that he met the Zeltron smuggler @Deagan Hunt, a former Rebel SpecOp's operative who quickly became a close friend and confidante. With Deagan's background in smuggling and shiptech, he provided the most recent modifications in Sullust like he'd done with his ship, a YZ-1200 by the name of the Valkyrie,allowing the streamlining of the Helm in hyperspace by controlling the warp of the space-time continuum around her, allowing the Helm a top speed without her blowing up into a cloud of space dust. A Quadex power core and jury-rigged components ensure a three-standard-minute start-up sequence for the hyperdrive then. He installed a KapriCorp acceleration compensator and a Geileg 20m-cp strobe/continuous-beam. These upgrades finally cut down more of the Helm's cargo space to it's current 100 metric tons.

A series of events and a moon-dropping soon brought an actual crew of misfits and exiles to the Helm, finally providing occupants to the four passenger cabins. A machine shop, sizable galley and living suite with an autochef and medbay (overseen by @Tahira Solo) provided ample room for this particular motley crew. All in all, the Knight's Helm looks like a battered out of date stock light freighter, but there is much more than meets the eye. Over the years Jonathon Patches has repaired, rebuilt, and modified the ship with whatever parts he could acquire. Tramp freighter looks aside, one thing is for sure, the Knight's Helm is a home.

And rue anyone that dare put one single dent on it.


Classification: Light Freighter
Role: Blockade Runner | Smuggling | Home | Base of Operations
Height: 8.27m
Width: 26.7m
Length: 21m
Power Core Generator/Reactor: Quadrex Power Core w/ Power Cells
Hyperdrive Rating: .75 | Back up Class 8
Minimum Crew: 1 or 0 (with slave circuits)
Optimal Crew: 3
Armaments:

Hangar:
Cargo:
Non-Combative Attachments:
Passenger Capacity: 6
Cargo Capacity: 100 metric tons
Consumables: 2 months
Sublight Speed and Maneuverability: 4
 
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