Minerva

***Minerva*** was an extensively modified *Iapetus*-class battleship that served in the Terran Alliance navy during the Third War in Heaven. As the flagship of Admiral Song Fen in the 14th Fleet, it saw action at the costly battle of Icrivis as well as during the battle of Vermilion.

## Design

### Dimensions and Role

The design of the modified *Iapetus*—or *Minerva*, after the first of the two ships to be completed—class was based primarily on a desire to mate the *Iapetus*'s formidable gunpower to the communications facilities necessary to lead a full-sized Alliance battlefleet. As command ships, they were to be larger, faster, and stronger than their contemporaries: a source of confidence on the battlefield, as well as an important bastion for the fleet's admiral and their command staff. Due to their role—as gunline combatants and as fleet flagships—they were afforded greater protection and expense than the already-costly *Iapetus*: a Terran parliament, weary of military expenditures at a time when peace seemed poised to fall across the galaxy, authorized just two ships. These were *Minerva* and *Euryale*.

At 1.7 kilometres long, the *Minerva* twins were the largest battleships classified as such that were built for the Terran Alliance fleet: their relatively thin dimensions in both height and width were enabled by this, allowing them to present a smaller target to an enemy ahead of the warship.

### Hull

The *Minerva*-class battleships shared the same aggressive geometry and basic box shape of an *Iapetus*, but also featured smooth curves and canards: this was influenced by the fleet's flagship, *Furious*, which also used curved hull plating to deflect and reflect beam cannons and lasers harmlessly. In many ways, they resembled Alparan ships more than Alliance ones for that reason.

A feature that was mostly unique to these ships (it also featured on the *Styx*-class battlecruisers and a few other experimental ships) was that their hull had a transparency forward that wrapped around the bow dorsally and ventrally, similar to the Alparan flagship *Barbarossa*: this transparency was not a detriment to the ship's fighting ability—it was built of a new, experimental type of translucent armour steel—and housed sensitive and experimental cloaking technology, allowing these battleships to shield themselves from prying eyes if they so chose.

Like *Furious*, *Minerva* was coated with an ablative material over her exterior hull in order to harmlessly dissipate or redirect energy-based fire: to hide the coating from analysis, it was covered in several gleaming black coats of paint. Where equipment and other thrusters protruded, they were made to shine silver: and unlike other Alliance starships, *Minerva*'s laser cannons were made to fire violet-blue beams instead of red in order to distinguish her more powerful cannons from the enemy. However, they could be easily switched to red—something Song Fen made use of at Icrivis, switching colours in order to confuse her opponents as to what munitions her flagship was firing.

### Power

Despite their larger size, the *Minerva*-type command battleships had fewer power generators: they mounted just twelve, though these twelve generators were larger and more capable than even the *Iapetus*'s own high-output plant. Ten were of the Alliance's standard cold-fusion type, but two were Lucaelian-designed ionization reactors: artificial miniature stars encased in Dyson spheres, they were the most efficient power-generation systems in the galaxy bar none.

The ionization reactors were part of the background for the success of these ships: since they could run on just the two reactors at normal capacity, the traditional Alliance power generators could be devoted to increasing the potency of the subsystems, dramatically enhancing their effectiveness.

### Propulsion

For engines, the *Minerva* class was equipped with the same layout as the *Iapetus*: three Class 1e ion-impulse nacelles located in the rear section of the craft, with two smaller—but still quite large—Class 3e drives on the sides, forming an asterisk. While relatively 'low' speeds were generally preferred for combat, the *Minerva*s could work up to 315 km/sec² if the situation called for such measures.

Manoeuvres were handled by a number of drive vents and directional thrusters located on various surfaces of the ship: they could be shuttered with armoured panels when not in use.

### Armament

Much like the *Iapetus*, the *Minerva* and her sister *Euryale* were exceptionally well-armed: their primary weapon was, as in the *Iapetus* and their *Luna*-class counterparts, a massive spinal superlaser. This 'burnthrough laser' model was even more powerful than the one used in *Iapetus*: fully equal to an *Atlas*-class Star Dreadnought's own boring laser, it could even threaten smaller moons and dwarf planets. Thanks to the *Minerva*'s power generating abilities, it could even use this weapon while continuing to go 'weapons free' with its heavy gun battery, despite its higher output.

The heavy gun armament of the *Minerva* command battleships was somewhat different in form and function than an *Iapetus*. For one, they carried turbocharged 41-cm super-heavy laser cannons—the only Alliance starships to do so—and for two, those guns were not mounted in turrets: instead, they were fixed and forward-firing, with most around the bow and a few on the canards and wings. There were thirty-six (36) main guns: equivalent to twelve triple turrets and the same number as an *Iapetus*'s turreted armament. There were some benefits to the disposition: the guns were easier to service, they did not provide an easy target for enemy battleships, and it concealed the true firepower of the ship. However, the most significant drawback was the loss of firing arcs: even with being able to tilt the focusing lenses so that the laser could fire in a relatively wide arc forward, the ship's flanks and rear were 'blind' to supporting gunfire from the main battery, meaning the *Minerva* and *Euryale* were entirely reliant on keeping their distance from an enemy, staying in fleet formation, and their secondary armament to protect them from attacks against the sides.

For a heavy secondary armament, the *Minerva* was armed with broadly the same weapons as *Iapetus*: twenty-eight (28) triple 20-cm laser batteries, strewn across the sides of the ship for complete coverage and to stop a cruiser or destroyer in their tracks. However, while the guns remained the same, they received new mounts: much like their 10.5-cm, 6.5-cm, and 2-cm batteries, the 20-cm guns were in new 'disappearing' turrets which could be withdrawn into the hull for maintenance under normal conditions. This also had the added benefit of concealing the total number of guns and making them serviceable in combat.

The 'light' battery was composed of the standard Alliance dual-purpose 10.5-cm twin laser cannon turret, a versatile weapon family that had seen service—in one type of mount or another—since the Ravasect Wars. With a very high rate of fire, excellent effective range, peerless tracking system and ability to be shuttered into the hull when not in use, they were useful weapons which were the mainstay of the Alliance's active defenses. A *Minerva* carried four more twin mounts compared to *Iapetus* thanks to their longer hull, allowing them that much more ability to defend themselves from bombs and torpedoes.

Medium-range point defense was handled by a reliable battery of fifty (50) quad 65-mm laser batteries: upscaled 20-mm snappers, they could engage targets outside the 'kill zone' of the 20-mm lasers, but within the optimum range of the 105-mm cannons. Like the 105-mm dual-purpose artillery, these weapons proved highly successful from their introduction; they first saw service on the *Pandora*-class maintenance carriers during the Razorbird Crusades.

For close-in defenses, the *Minerva* battleships were equipped with over three hundred 20-mm laser cannons in a mix of twin and quad 'snapper ball' mounts - so-named because they could snap a crewman out of their seat from the G-forces if their harness was not secured. The guns could be controlled remotely in their default setting or operated on-site by a single gunner. With a sustained 'burst' mode of 10,000 shots every minute, they were capable of burning clean through an entire swarm of torpedoes launched at close range and were one of the most well-regarded point defense systems in the entire galaxy.

Additional armament was backed by large numbers of 50-mm laser blasters, swarm torpedoes, and missiles; the former were for close-range broadside combat, where their relatively slow firing rate for calibre (only about 3,000 shots every minute) was made up for with hitting power: they could burn cleanly through a metre of starship hull armour if given a continuous track on the same spot for less than seven seconds. However, these weapons were not particularly effective against shields.

### Defensive Systems

The *Minerva*-class battleships had, broadly, identical arrangements to the protection of an *Iapetus*: their primary difference was that their internal plating increased the minimum thickness from 375-mm to 450-mm, and the gunports and turrets—as well as the bow—were reinforced to a uniform 3,000 mm thick. The bridge and ionization reactors, due to the expense of the equipment, were guarded with a double layer: the outer layer of 3-metre-thick plating was Murrcioun charged plasma armour, and the inner layer was protected by its own independent shielding system.

## See Also

* Alliance battleship *Euryale* — *Minerva*'s sister-ship and the flagship of Vice-Admiral Malachi Izzard.
* Alliance battlecruiser *Furious* — The original testbed design for much of *Minerva*'s communications equipment, and the flagship of the Grand Navy of the Terran Alliance.