Sanctifier-class Support Cruiser

The Sanctifier-class Support Cruiser is a unique Sangheili warship, using new and untested technologies to support a fleet in battle, assaulting the enemy's ability to coordinate, while augmenting allied ships with a number of technologies, improving their accuracy, coordination, and even protecting them from harm.
==History==
Like much of the new innovations utilised by the SOS, the Sanctifier was created in an ad-hoc manner, to hastily meet a battlefield requirement of the nascent forces. As the young organization came under attack from all sides, they faced the increasing threat of subversive weapons, instruments of war designed to effect a warship by stripping it of its shields, or affecting its capabilities to target, or coordinate. 
During the 3 month siege of Saranal, raiders used such technologies to their advantage. While massively outnumbered, the raiders used electromagnetic weapons to disable ships, and used electronic warfare to assault the Sangheili's sensors, preventing them from communicating with one another or returning fire. Boxed in, and being whittled down, Shipwright Suriv 'Vol and a small team of Huragok hastily refitted a damaged to combat the enemy. The ship's launch coincided with the end of the siege, no small fact. When the enemy launched their attack, they found the defenders were not just ignoring their electronic attacks, they were, in fact, becoming more accurate. Likewise, their communications seemed untarnished. Running out of patience, the raiders fired a barrage of EMP weapons at the lead carrier, and baulked as the carrier's shields went down, only to suddenly return, a column of light connecting it and the refitted battlecruiser. The raiders fell apart, crushed by the vengeful defenders. 
The legend of this ship spread, and soon the Republic tracked down those responsible. They commissioned Vol to bring about a whole new ship design based on this marvellous creation, in hopes of making their fleets ever deadlier. 
==Design==
Unlike most Sangheili designs, from the Covenant era, or beyond, the ship reverses the slender lines, with a large, bulbous front and a slender rear boom carrying the engines. The rear boom also carries defensive batteries. The front end, roughly shaped in a semi-circle, with two fan-like structures on each side. It's heavily armoured and stacked with weapons, protecting the Sanctifier arrays and the reactors, as well as carrying its offensive and defensive armament and hangar bays. 
The ship has a moderate, but respectable armament. It has numerous plasma cannons, and pulse lasers, positioned in defensive positions to protect itself. Likewise, its point defence batteries are positioned in order to protect itself from fighter assault, especially from the sides and rear. Its main armament are the two so-called 'Sanctifier Arrays'. Heavily modified energy projectors, they function similarly to the shielding emitters carrier by Huragok during their few frontline operations with the Covenant. This concentrated beam overrides and re-energizes shielding emitters, allowing it to restore the shielding to damaged ships. Likewise, it can bolster the shielding of other ships, making them significantly tougher. It has two of these and can use both simultaneously, at the cost of significant energy drain. 
The ship has incredibly heavy armour, focused especially around its front, making it ponderous in battle. To compensate, it has shielding far tougher than most ships of its size and can take an incredible amount of punishment. This allows it to continue supporting its allies, even as it undergoes significant attack itself. It is fitted with an overabundance of reactors, with two large primary reactors, and four secondary. This allows it to feed the power-hungry sanctifier arrays, without entirely compromising its own defence. To operate both, it is usually forced to drop output from another sub-system, such as weapons, engines, or even it's own shields. 
However, the arrays aren't its only means of aiding the fleet. It is fitted with numerous sensor arrays, affording it incredibly acute sensors, enabling for it to have high accuracy, at long ranges. This is teamed with a potent communications system, using encrypted laser burst transmissions, allowing it to accurately and instantly communicate with any ship in its line of sight, and share it's sensor data, making friendly ships even more accurate. 
==Role==
The Sanctifier-class is designed not for attack, or defence, but for support. It not only protects other ships with its shielding capabilities, but it also uses its sensors and communications to make them more accurate, and facilitate communication better. It excels in these roles, protecting allied ships that have suffered damage, or shoring up ships on the offensive, making them that much tougher for the fight. 
These ships are usually assigned to a large squadron, jumping between members to protect. Squadrons can also establish protective shields around planets, allowing them to halt attacks and landing parties. They also protect freighters from raiders too. 
Category:Cruiser classes
Category:Covenant ships