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LTT 9001 Wreck Is Dated To Blackbeard's Time

:::From New Anglian Interstellar News Network::: Updated 04:17 Albion Standard
Time June 27, 2179

Fomalhaut (Albion Times) - Metal taken from wreckage believed to be
Blackbeard's "Revenge" dates to the time the pirate's flagship was built as a
Federal Stats Europa 'merchant vessel' in the early 2100s, scientists said
Wednesday.

Star charts and maps from the early 2100s also bolster archaeologists' belief
that the wreck, found strewn across the surface of LTT 9001 III, is the
remains of Blackbeard's flagship, which disappeared in 2137.

"So far, everything we've found seems to correlate pretty much to the time
period the starship would have been built or the same period the construction
techniques would have been used to build the ship," said Henry Nathan, a
conservator with the Royal Stellar Archaeology Unit.

Blackbeard, whose real name was Sir Warren Teach, ruthlessly prowled the
spacelanes between Santa Maria and Fomalhaut before he was killed in November
2137 in the Fomalhaut asteroid belt by NAC naval forces.

Since the wreck was discovered in October 2176, archeaologists have
been racing to confirm it is the "Revenge", a medium-sized cruiser
that Blackbeard armed with 2 PF-9 Starlance beams for preying on
merchant ships.

A number of anti-ship guns, ranging from some Mk 8s to the massive
Mk 30 beam cannon, have been found at the site, and titanium plates and other
artifacts link the wreckage to Blackbeard's day.

Scientists are studying the results of a recent stellar cartographical survey
to determine whether other weapons or artifacts are lying buried in the ground
around the wreck, including any of the dozen smaller
anti-ship cannons the ship was armed with.

The search was slowed after government legislators cut off funding earlier
this year, and researchers said metal from the wreck is being ravaged by the
corrossively toxic atmosphere of LTT 9001 III.

Although work at the site has come to a standstill, Royal archaeologists hope
funding will be found to salvage sections of the hull lying under a protective
layer of dust and sand, before the planet's atmosphere corrodes everything.

"I'm hoping that there's enough hull structure left down there to at least
determine where exactly the ship was manufactured," Nathan said. "The hope is
that we can fully salvage it, bring the whole thing back."

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Oooh, more pirates to add to my listing.
I take it that it's a ~70 mass Q-ship with 2 PT + 1 class-4 & several
class-1 batteries with heavy armouring?

'Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
Commodore Alfred K Hole - RNS Indy's Folly [CB]
Captain Nicolette O'Teen - RNMS Golden Spear [CB]
EBD Medusa

> -----Original Message-----

> Oooh, more pirates to add to my listing.

I was using the battery designations as the ranges of the weapons. Thus
a Mk 30 cannon is basically a Class-3 weapon with a range of 30 - the
reduced ranges are to reflect a lower level of technology in the weapon
systems at that time compared to the 'current' time of the FleetBook. So in
effect what I was envisioning is that you take the current stats for beam
batteries, reduce their max range by 6, and then divide evenly as
per normal (eg, max range of a Class-2 is 24; in the 'distant past' it
was 18, and the break point damage potential increase was now 9, not the
current 12). The Needle Beams were the PF-9 Starlance (PrimeFocus-9,
where the Needle Beam being considered was the MT version (range 9), not the
FB version (range 12). I was also abstracting a little for some weapons
(the 'dozen smaller anti-ship cannons' would be represented by 2 or 3
Class-1s and a PDS suite or two).

As for Blackbeard's ship itself, I was envisioning this as a real
honest-to-god medium cruiser of mass 50-60 (the FSE subsidized the
construction of this vessel, which on paper was a merchant ship, but
in reality a glass-chinned warship), a little armor, a couple of needle
beams, a single Class-3 (1-arc), a pair of offset Class-2s, 2-3
Class-1s,
a PDS or two, a couple of FireCons, a little armor, and thrust between
4-6 (need to be fast enough to overhaul merchants, and still give the
local naval units a tough time catching you). An FTL drive, of course, and a
weak or fragile hull to fit everything in. It wasn't necessarily
meant to go head-to-head with a warship, but to pound the snot out of
merchants and freighters. Plus a little bit of room for cargo, although
Blackbeard typically had captured freighters 'just offboard' who would come in
and carry the plunder away. His 'fleet' of combat ships would
consist of the above-mentioned cruiser, a destroyer or two, a couple of
frigates or corvettes, and a few converted merchant ships. And a handful
of freighters for plunder-taking. I aim to write up a scenario detailing
the final battle between Blackbeard's fleet and a NAC naval unit. But that
won't be done for a few weeks yet, as I'm outta here for a while to drag my
sorry butt up the side of Rainier.:)

Mk