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There was a discussion on the Star Ranger forums about how to represent ships from the Culture series of books by Iain Banks in Full Thrust. Although I think that Full Thrust is too "low tech" to properly represent Culture ships, let alone their warships, I could not resist making one up anyway.
Click on the image to download a PDF version.
And now I'll let the Culture GCU Why Not Poke the Crocodile? explain itself.
Mass: 720
Yes I'm several kilometres long. But I'm not fat. It's lots of internal space for my friends.
Classification: cruiser
Please don't introduce me as a HyperMegaDreadnought again, it gives people the wrong impression. The Culture sends us GCUs out to explore strange new worlds and meet interesting people. And we can take care of ourselves, so "cruiser" if you have to be all military about it. I think of myself as a tourist.
FTL: advanced
I'm not a hitchhiker.
Main drive rating: 4 (advanced)
Sightseeing shouldn't be rushed. If you want to run away, that's probably the best outcome for all of us.
Hull: 144 (advanced)
Weak? Well, being pummelled is not my idea of fun. If you really want to meet some Culture tough guys, I know some Rapid Offensive Units.
5 x Graser-2, 5 arc
We call them CREWs, Coherent Radiation Emission Weapons. Good for zapping things. Er … sorry. Hope that wasn't a valuable asteroid.
3 x pair of SML launchers and magazine with 8 ER loads. (2 x FP, 2 x FS, 2 x broadside)
These "missiles" are chunks of Collapsed Anti Matter which I can displace near other ships. They blow up nicely. Maybe I'd better not demonstrate that just here.
2 x advanced screen
We use force fields a lot in the Culture. Since I seem to have strayed into a rough neighbourhood, I'm mostly keeping them extended defensively.
16 x PDS
Flyscreen really. These are displacer and manipulator fields that I used to protect against debris impacts. When you're my size, fighters and missiles count as debris.
2 x fighter hangar
This wasn't my idea! A week ago there were shuttles in there. Some of the drones converted it, and now they're dressing themselves up as Cylon Raiders or X-Wings.
3 x FireCon
2 x ADFC
I'm not that good at multitasking with weapons. But we're built with redundancy.
2 x superior sensors
I like to take pictures
2 x ECM systems
In the Culture, poking around in other people's electronics is considered rude.
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