Terran Trade Confederation

Class: Retort
Type: Pinnace
Dimensions: L = 25 m, W = 11 m, H = 7 m
Main Weapon: One 100/10 Mark IV Mod 2 STS Rail Gun
Role: Patrolling In-System, Flanking

Description: The Retort Class Pinnace is a product of the Terran Insurrection. At that time, the Terran Trade Confederation (back then, the Terran Trade Company) only had the Talon Class Pinnace. While this was sufficient for in-system defense, it left the Company fleet strongly ineffective on the offensive. This was because the Talon's irregular dimensions (35x13x9) only allowed for a maximum of 16 pinnaces to be transported to battle by one Liberty Class Freighter! To fix this, the Company comissioned Starscream Poweryahts (a Company subsidiary that usually produces high-performance poweryahts for affluent yaht-racing clubs) to design the Retort Class Pinnace. They did not disappoint. The Retort features the best small, high-performance engine that Starscream could build; which powers four, compact racing-thrusters, a small sensor suite, a one-man life support filter, and its only weapon: the Mark IV Rail Gun. All of this sheathed in a light armor carapice and still measuring only 25x11x7! Because of these dimensions, six Retorts can fit within a 25x25x25 meter carrier module, allowing for a Liberty Class Freighter to carry ninety-six Retorts to battle!

Blueprint


Cockpit View

Carrier Pod

Class: Retaliation
Type: Corvette
Dimensions: L = 91 m, W = 25 m, H = 23 m
Main Weapons: Two 100/8 Mark II Mod 0 STS Guns
Secondary Weapons: Eight 50/5 Mark III Mod 1 AA Guns
Role: Patrolling, Light Escort, Flank Protection

Description: The first warship of the Terran Trade Confederation, the Retaliation is a product of The Fall. In the opening years of The Fall, when the Imperial fleets began withdrawing from the Outer Systems and piracy was on the rise, the Terran Trade Company decided to stop relying on infrequent Imperial patrols take measures to defend itself. The pirates, allows a problem for the “less important” outlying provinces, were becoming bolder with each year. They had begun building small flotillas of fighters and pinnaces and then started waylaying whole convoys of unprotected trade ships!

This had to stop. In response to both the increased attacks and the Empire’s refusal to make any decisive reply, the Terran Trade Company decided to build a warship capable of defending its convoys. That ship was the Retaliation class corvette. It was not very remarkable, having eight 50/5 Mark III Mod 1 anti-air guns for dealing with the pirate fighters and pinnaces and only two 100/8 Mark II Mod 0 ship-to-ship guns for anything larger. It also had light armor and a modest shield emitter. What was astonishing about this ship was that it was the first non-Imperial warship to dare to include an FTL drive!

This was a risky move, because up until then, the Imperial Fleet was the sole protector within the borders of the Empire and no one knew how it would react to such a large entity as the Company building warships. Luckily for the Company, the short-sighted Empire just reacted by placing a tariff on all imported cargo into the receding Imperial territory. This allowed the Company to make a killing, despite the tariff, as it expanded its newly protected trading fleets into territory that had been abandoned by smaller, unprotected trading companies!
The Retaliation is one of the pinnacle ships that helped make TTC what it is today!

Bridge Facing Aft

Description: The first warship of the Terran Trade Confederation, the Retaliation is a product of The Fall. In the opening years of The Fall, when the Imperial fleets began withdrawing from the Outer Systems and piracy was on the rise, the Terran Trade Company decided to stop relying on infrequent Imperial patrols take measures to defend itself. The pirates, allows a problem for the “less important” outlying provinces, were becoming bolder with each year. They had begun building small flotillas of fighters and pinnaces and then started waylaying whole convoys of unprotected trade ships!

This had to stop. In response to both the increased attacks and the Empire’s refusal to make any decisive reply, the Terran Trade Company decided to build a warship capable of defending its convoys. That ship was the Retaliation class corvette. It was not very remarkable, having eight 50/5 Mark III Mod 1 anti-air guns for dealing with the pirate fighters and pinnaces and only two 100/8 Mark II Mod 0 ship-to-ship guns for anything larger. It also had light armor and a modest shield emitter. What was astonishing about this ship was that it was the first non-Imperial warship to dare to include an FTL drive!

This was a risky move, because up until then, the Imperial Fleet was the sole protector within the borders of the Empire and no one knew how it would react to such a large entity as the Company building warships. Luckily for the Company, the short-sighted Empire just reacted by placing a tariff on all imported cargo into the receding Imperial territory. This allowed the Company to make a killing, despite the tariff, as it expanded its newly protected trading fleets into territory that had been abandoned by smaller, unprotected trading companies!
The Retaliation is one of the pinnacle ships that helped make TTC what it is today!

Description: The second warship to be commissioned by the Terran Trade Confederation (then the Terran Trade Company), the Reprisal is a well-rounded light destroyer. The circumstances of its commission are well known. The Fall was well into its middle stages, the Imperial Fleet had completely abandoned all but Central Systems, and pirates had become bolder than ever. Somehow, a few larger pirate bands had cobbled together a few light cruisers, and even more astonishing, had gotten a hold of several decommissioned Imperial frigates [many historians believe that these came from corrupt officials and officers who were discreetly funding the pirates for a hefty cut of their profits],and had begun terrorizing the now insufficiently protected trading convoys of the TTC and other companies like it.

The Company was then faced with a complicated problem, on one hand, the Empire both refused to protect their convoys and restricted the size of non-Imperial warships, and on the other, both the Empire and the TTC relied on the steady inflow of trade goods from the Outer Systems. The Company needed a ship that could fight off older (but larger) ships and still be within the Empire’s size restrictions. The result was the original Reprisal class light destroyer. It had two ship-to-ship guns and a small, fixed MAC cannon for dealing with the older decommissioned frigates, and was nimble enough to outmanuaver slower, yet more heavily armed heaps that the pirates claimed were battleships but were more accurately classified as small light cruisers.

It was the perfect ship for the restrictions set for it, however, in spite of the success of the Reprisal {or more likely because of it] many key officials within the Empire [the same ones who would lose on their investments in the pirates] urged the Emperor to penalize the TTC for “building a fleet to threaten the Empire.” The Emperor leveled a new, impossibly high, tariff on all Terran trade. When the Terrans were unable to pay, the Empire sent a fleet to occupy the Terran homeworld. This, of course set led to the Terran Insurrection and, eventually, the Terran Trade Confederation.

While the Reprisal class light destroyer has received many refits over the years since its first commission, it has remained a staple of Terran power and protection.