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Description
The Akinakes-class battlecruiser is the fastest, most maneuverable ship in its class known, surpassing even Australian, Ahrugan and Naradi battlecruisers in speed and agility. It is also a deception given form. The first part of the deception comes in the name, as the Akinakes is named for a Greek dagger used by Sparta and other city-state’s hoplites. The name was applied more in reference to the similarity in shape than any illusion of a lack of size or scale, as the Akinakes is huge. This is the second part of the deception, as the Akinakes rivals a battleship for firepower- including the potential to carry anti-planetary missiles (APMs), in spite of IATR restrictions- and its size falls within the Battleship spectrum. However, by classing it as a battlecruiser (and paying the right bribes to ensure it was registered as such), Spartan Group managed to develop a warship that could bring battleship potency into conflicts where such is normally restricted.
Firepower notwithstanding, where the Akinakes truly shines is her ability to move like a giant fighter. She is built around an astounding twelve gravitic drives, eight dual-core drives for propulsion and maneuvering, and four additional single-core drives dedicated solely to maneuvering. This gives the ship a phenomenal acceleration rate of 4 AU/hour, allowing it to reach a little over half the speed of light from a dead stop in sixty minutes. The additional gravity drives reduce its effective mass significantly, allowing the Akinakes to have a maximum relativistic speed of .8C. With a top speed of 80% of the speed of light as opposed to the conventional 60% of other battlecruisers and large starships, the Akinakes is difficult to catch.
More than being a speed-demon, however, the vessel can move like an angry serpent, as well. The maneuvering drives increase the Akinakes’ agility to be comparable to a light frigate. While she is certainly a huge target, being the better part of three kilometers in length, her speed and ability to turn or perform radical aspect changes at flank speed make her very, very hard to hit. This has proven to be a selling point that more than makes up for her hefty price tag, nearly eight times the cost of a conventional battlecruiser. An additional edge that the Akinakes holds over the competition is her use of multiple AIs governed by a central hub AI. Each of these five AIs is a class IV AI, with one each dedicated to weapons control, navigation and maneuvering, damage control and systems ops, defense and small-craft traffic and tactical control, and ship’s infrastructure systems and life support. A single class VI artificial intelligence acts like a non-commissioned officer, receiving orders from the meat-body captain and translating them into specific task orders for each subordinate AI.
The existence of a dedicated weapons systems AI proves to be a significant boon considering the numerous weapons the Akinakes sports. Forward firepower is withering, with ten heavy AP lancer spinal mounts, two heavy APPC spinals, eight heavy APPC cross-spinals, twelve tri-barrel heavy APPC turrets, six heavy AP lancer turrets, four medium APPC turrets, twenty light AP lancer turrets, eight variable-ordnance missile silos that are factory-built to handle APMs for any customers who are able to deploy such WMDs, two Hellstorm 100-shot ASM silos with enough missiles for twenty volleys, fourty Dillinger 20-shot SSM batteries with twenty volleys’ worth of missiles, one hundred twenty 50-shot LRM batteries, and hundreds of point-defense turrets. Force multipliers come in the form of twelve fighter bays and six small-craft hangers able to deploy thirty-six eight-fighter squadrons (for a total of 288 fighters) and twelve Condor-class dropships and nearly twice as many shuttles respectively.
While her speed and agility make her hard to hit, the Akinakes does not rely on her ability to dodge as a defense. A thick hide of nanofield-enhanced atomically-bonded metallic hydrogen/carbon-tourine composite battleplate between twenty five and sixty meters thick sheaths a honeycomb superstructure made of carbon-turine interweave with tensor field structural supports. This makes the Akinakes as tough as many navies’ battleships, again causing many critics to demand she be re-classed. In fact, due to a pending sale of fifty Akinakes-class battlecruisers to the Andali Confederation, the European Union became so unnerved that they demanded Spartan Group cancel the sale or the EU would levy sanctions against them through the TAN security council.
Spartan Group’s response was polite, professional, but boiled down to “kiss our collective mercenary asses.”

Copyright 2009-2011 Dark Nova Games
This artwork and any image based off of it is the exclusive property of Dark Nova Games. All rights reserved. Any other use of these artwork images, without the expressed written consent of Dark Nova Games, is strictly prohibited. This image is copyright protected by United States and International Law.

Description
The Akinakes-class battlecruiser is the fastest, most maneuverable ship in its class known, surpassing even Australian, Ahrugan and Naradi battlecruisers in speed and agility. It is also a deception given form. The first part of the deception comes in the name, as the Akinakes is named for a Greek dagger used by Sparta and other city-state’s hoplites. The name was applied more in reference to the similarity in shape than any illusion of a lack of size or scale, as the Akinakes is huge. This is the second part of the deception, as the Akinakes rivals a battleship for firepower- including the potential to carry anti-planetary missiles (APMs), in spite of IATR restrictions- and its size falls within the Battleship spectrum. However, by classing it as a battlecruiser (and paying the right bribes to ensure it was registered as such), Spartan Group managed to develop a warship that could bring battleship potency into conflicts where such is normally restricted.
Firepower notwithstanding, where the Akinakes truly shines is her ability to move like a giant fighter. She is built around an astounding twelve gravitic drives, eight dual-core drives for propulsion and maneuvering, and four additional single-core drives dedicated solely to maneuvering. This gives the ship a phenomenal acceleration rate of 4 AU/hour, allowing it to reach a little over half the speed of light from a dead stop in sixty minutes. The additional gravity drives reduce its effective mass significantly, allowing the Akinakes to have a maximum relativistic speed of .8C. With a top speed of 80% of the speed of light as opposed to the conventional 60% of other battlecruisers and large starships, the Akinakes is difficult to catch.
More than being a speed-demon, however, the vessel can move like an angry serpent, as well. The maneuvering drives increase the Akinakes’ agility to be comparable to a light frigate. While she is certainly a huge target, being the better part of three kilometers in length, her speed and ability to turn or perform radical aspect changes at flank speed make her very, very hard to hit. This has proven to be a selling point that more than makes up for her hefty price tag, nearly eight times the cost of a conventional battlecruiser. An additional edge that the Akinakes holds over the competition is her use of multiple AIs governed by a central hub AI. Each of these five AIs is a class IV AI, with one each dedicated to weapons control, navigation and maneuvering, damage control and systems ops, defense and small-craft traffic and tactical control, and ship’s infrastructure systems and life support. A single class VI artificial intelligence acts like a non-commissioned officer, receiving orders from the meat-body captain and translating them into specific task orders for each subordinate AI.
The existence of a dedicated weapons systems AI proves to be a significant boon considering the numerous weapons the Akinakes sports. Forward firepower is withering, with ten heavy AP lancer spinal mounts, two heavy APPC spinals, eight heavy APPC cross-spinals, twelve tri-barrel heavy APPC turrets, six heavy AP lancer turrets, four medium APPC turrets, twenty light AP lancer turrets, eight variable-ordnance missile silos that are factory-built to handle APMs for any customers who are able to deploy such WMDs, two Hellstorm 100-shot ASM silos with enough missiles for twenty volleys, fourty Dillinger 20-shot SSM batteries with twenty volleys’ worth of missiles, one hundred twenty 50-shot LRM batteries, and hundreds of point-defense turrets. Force multipliers come in the form of twelve fighter bays and six small-craft hangers able to deploy thirty-six eight-fighter squadrons (for a total of 288 fighters) and twelve Condor-class dropships and nearly twice as many shuttles respectively.
While her speed and agility make her hard to hit, the Akinakes does not rely on her ability to dodge as a defense. A thick hide of nanofield-enhanced atomically-bonded metallic hydrogen/carbon-tourine composite battleplate between twenty five and sixty meters thick sheaths a honeycomb superstructure made of carbon-turine interweave with tensor field structural supports. This makes the Akinakes as tough as many navies’ battleships, again causing many critics to demand she be re-classed. In fact, due to a pending sale of fifty Akinakes-class battlecruisers to the Andali Confederation, the European Union became so unnerved that they demanded Spartan Group cancel the sale or the EU would levy sanctions against them through the TAN security council.
Spartan Group’s response was polite, professional, but boiled down to “kiss our collective mercenary asses.”

Copyright 2009-2011 Dark Nova Games
This artwork and any image based off of it is the exclusive property of Dark Nova Games. All rights reserved. Any other use of these artwork images, without the expressed written consent of Dark Nova Games, is strictly prohibited. This image is copyright protected by United States and International Law.