Silhouette (starship)

I: HISTORY
The original history of the ship known as the Silhouette is unrevealed prior to Kienan and Toriares' purchase of the run-down light cargo ship as a mobile base of operations. Kienan named it after his lover at the time and the three of them spent much of the next two years outfitting the ship with more advanced equipment. Great care was taken during the upgrade period that the ship would not change substantially in terms of visual verification or power signature--the goal was to have a ship that was, to all appearances, a private tramp freighter that would quickly pass all checkpoints and cursory inspections.

Generally, the upgrades took one system at a time, starting with the installation of a new computer core, then moving to an advanced sensor suite, improved engines, higher-grade armor, and more advanced weaponry.

Ultimately the ship would come into Kienan Ademetria's sole possession and he would further improve the ship, specifically in terms of its Space Drive (increasing its efficiency and startup time and installing an ability to open an access point remotely) and improving the ship's armor and weapon systems.

During this period, the Silhouette's crew would see its biggest expansion, as Vain, Mirage, and Conscience would come aboard. While Kienan would dictate the final stage of the upgrades, it would be the Marionettes who finalized them and actually finished the installation and added construction.

Soon after this, Kienan and the Marionettes would store their fighters taken in the raid on Zwei Base aboard the Silhouette, and have been based there ever since.

When Conscience was nearly destroyed by the cyborg Gold, Kienan and Kilana Montero moved quickly to devise a way to save her. Their solution, ultimately, was to plug her surviving components directly into the Silhouette's computer core. While this action prevented her from going offline, being tried into and monitoring the trillions of systems, coupled with the lingering aftereffects from her injuries caused her to become more distant, and generally, barring extraordinary circumstances, Conscience generally only speaks in terse, one-word sentences.

Following the conspiracy that drove Kienan and his compatriots from Kuran Colony, the Silhouette has now become their permanent home, as they attempt to stay one step ahead of the various factions that are hunting them. The story is ongoing.

II: WEAPONS AND DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS
In terms of design, the Silhouette is old and borderline obsolete, a design abandoned in the course of the Rigellian war. The stock profile of the ship is a light freighter, consisting of a main bridge module at the fore, main engine cluster aft, crew quarters amidships. Unusually for a ship its size, the living quarters are large and quite comfortable, and Kienan has further modified them for added conveniences. Surrounding the living quarters are three cargo pods--one each at port and starboard and a dorsal mounted pod. These pods were initially designed to be detatchable to facilitate ship to ship cargo transfers, but Kienan has redesinged them with a different philosophy in mind.

Since the modifications to the ship began, the cargo pods have been redesigned into cargo sleds. By initiating an entry point into Space Drive, the cargo pods can be modified to be launched in front of the ship and into the entry point, providing a boost to the cargo pod's occupants (typically one of the ship's support craft) without requiring an expenditure of fuel on the craft's part. In one instance, Kienan has even used one of these cargo pods as destructive weapons, having fired one at short range to distract a pursuing vessel.

The typical complement of support craft for the Silhouette is three fighters, one shuttle. Even with the destruction of Kienan's Nighthawk stealth fighter, the two Angelfish fighter craft and Kienan's Starblade Reiven are usually kept in launch-ready condition in the catapults in the Silhouette's cargo pods. Kienan's shuttle, the Ruby Vroom is typically launched from the secondary landing bay amidships. This has been the standard deployment of all support craft for the Silhouette.

The engines of the Silhouette have been completely overhauled, and now have a much shorter startup-to-full-output time than the stock engines. Kienan has also fitted the ship with an advanced model Space Drive, capable of much faster activation and recharge than typical for ships this size.

One unintended result of this is that, owing to compatibility issues with the Space Drive and the gravitic centrifuge that provides Earth-normal gravity to the ship is the existence of a "G-room," a room wherein Kienan can alter the level of gravity as needed. Kienan uses this room for training.

The Silhouette's systems have also seen numerous upgrades. In addition to several hardware and software updates to the ship's computer core, perhaps the most notable is the installation of Conscience to the computer core. The merge has curiously added a 600% jump in computing efficiency to the ship's systems. In addition, having a sentient consciousness aboard ship has proven a more effective solution to the problems of real-time transmission encryption, outside system incursions and anti-tracking protocols.

The Silhouette's sensor and communication suites are highly advanced as well, comparable to Earth military sensor packages. At maximum range they can do full and detailed scans of entire sectors of space, providing a full range of astrometric data in seconds. The Silhouette's communication package can provide real-time encrypted communication between parties ten sectors away with no appreciable decline in quality. The communications systems also have continuous backdoor connections to a number of news feeds and communication networks, including the Imperial Rigellian Information Net. The access and display network has been upgraded to allow for normal monitor and holographic display.

In addition, the bridge has several hardpoints that tap into ship's systems, allowing for multiple workstations to be plugged in depending on the needs of the crew. Kienan has also upgraded the infirmary and research bays frequently over the years for various projects from weapon fabrication to research on the clone known as Jayla-2.

Defensively, the Silhouette has a number of layers of redundant protection. The primary layer of protection is the layered crystalline ablative armor that reinforces the hull. In addition to providing protection from projectile weapons, the crystalline layer can also absorb and dissipate most energy blasts. An unexpected side effect of this armor coating is an inability of standard sensors to penetrate the interior of the ship. To cover this anomaly, the ship generates a false sensor image to outside scanners in keeping with Kienan's desire to maintain a low profile.

The primary deflector shield can repel most astronomical debris up to the size of a medium-size asteroid. In combat situations, the Silhouette can deploy a Class 9 force field, capable of surviving sustained fire from a UEF Bishamon-class Destroyer for an extended period of time. In addition, Kienan has also tied in the shields to the targeting system, which analyzes incoming fire and directs the shields to maximum strength at the projected point of impact, creating what he calls "pin-point shielding." While an effective surprise tactic, as the Silhouette will not register as running shields-up, it is generally only successful when facing one target, and when faced with multiple-fire vectors, it can be overwhelmed.

The Silhouette carries a number of weapon suites, most carefully disguised as sensor stations or docking couples. The main weapon--a heavy-graviton plasma beam fired from the bow of the ship is capable of destroying a small picket ship in a single shot and can cripple a destroyer-sized ship. Secondary weapons include crystal pulse lasers mounted amidships, which are typically used to burn through shields and cause heavy damage to larger capital ships. Additional weapons include concealed gun batteries for repelling starfighters, gravitic charges, and dummy escape pods, loaded with explosives and magnetometric guided charges to repel boarders.

However, despite these advantages, Kienan prefers to run from battles whenever possible, as he has designed the weapons and armour to cripple the opposing ship and quickly escape from his pursuers.