Malak Class Battleship

The **Malak** (English: "Angel") class battleship is the first traditional space warfighting vessel created by the Ghaz. It also served as the capitol ship of Rashidun before being replaced by the Malak Elohim Class.

## Technical and Development History

In terms of naval strategy, the Ghaz have been behind due to their
desert homeworld. Most combat vessels are retrofitted transport ships,
or simply massive mobile cannons.  A proper battleship or cruiser has
been largely unheard of. Most being deemed not worth the funds to
maintain.

Due to the intensifying situation that lead to the Guild War
however, Denizcilik Shipyards decided to make another attempt that would
 become known as the Malak.The Malak was not completed by the end of the
 Guild War. Following the conflict, its construction became a joint
effort between XuraCorp, MIC, and Denizcilik to make the flagship for
independent armed organization, Rashidun. The Malak class in some ways
in is a heavily modified Musharaf. While large portion of the ship is
still dedicated to its main spinal weapon, the ship’s aft section has
been expanded to accommodate the storage of up to 50 battlesuits and
hosting a number of particle lances. Most notable is the return to
linear weapons to advances in energy efficiency, both in delivery of
magnetically accelerated projectiles, but also in micro-vacuum
technology, increasing the energy available to launch the projectiles in
 the first place.

As what seems to be a trend with the Malak class, he second ship of the line was still under construction during the Battle of Rodull. Following the extensive damage taken by the RMV-Malak, it was mothballed, while the incomplete vessel was upgraded with Formian technologies, becoming the Malak Elohim class, with its first vessel being the Malak-A.

## Equipment and Design Features

* 12x *Electromagnetic Catapult:* Designed to launch battlesuits into battle.
* Many x *Anti-Particle Dispersant Launcher:* Fires a canister that can be remote detonated to disperse a cloud of material that absorbs the heat from particle weaponry.
* *β Nanolaminate Armor:* In addition to its protection, this armor acts a an Active Camouflage system that allows the equipped vessel to be rendered effectively invisible to eyes and most sensors. The more complicated nanomachines that make up armor can replicate the vessel's surroundings to mask it visually, as well as deflect sensor waves and contain the ship's Ahab waves. However energy emissions, such as using the fusion thrusters or engines can reveal its position.
* *MIC-Pattern Energy Shield Generator:* Built from the ground up to work with Ghaz systems and structures, allows for more efficient shielding than prior Vordr-adapted shield systems.

## Optional Equipment

* *1x Time-Phased Mirror:* An enormous sphere with perfectly reflective surfaces which reflects light along a short span of time as well as space. This reconciles space-time in the vicinity of the structure, capturing and adjusting the immediate light of any nearby object and allowing the transit of large amounts of mass without producing major causal damage; a blunt but effective form of reconciliation ideal for use in conjunction with a large number of slipspace portals. The reflections seen by observers aboard a ship near a time-phased mirror are vague and indefinite, often only appearing as small, green glints or outlines of what might have been a distorted version of their own reflection from moments later, or, conversely, another ship reflected eons earlier. They register on sensors as colder than interstellar space, and echoe back any attempt to analyze their internal composition or structure.

## Fixed Armaments

* *3x MIC-Pattern “Zhulfiqar” MKII 1000mm Tri-Barrel Linear Munitions Cannon:* The ship version of MIC’s revisiting of linear accelerator weapons, the Zhulfiqar MKII replaces the use of torpedoes with a flexible and devastating weapon system. Each Zhulfiqar MKII is turret mounted and fed by its own dedicated ultracompact vacuum reactor. Rounds are initially launched via plasma charge, and further accelerated by magnetic coils. The three barrels low the weapons to be programmed for a variety of firing patterns.  The Malak class mounts all 3 turrets on its aft section, with two being on top and one being on the bottom. The weapon weapons can also be loaded with different amunitions as the target requires.
	+ *EM Scrambler Warhead:*The projectile consists of a number of high-power field generators meant to distort and disrupt enemy shields. Depending on the strength of the shields and the angle of the attack, can even force enemy shields to turn in on and deal damage to their projecting vessel. The projectors burn themselves out in a matter of seconds, relying on carefully timed assaults or remote activation.
	+ *Nano-Precision Warhead:*Projectile is coated in nanolaminate armor to increase durability. Opposite to NLA’s usual usage concentrates the force of the impact on the tip to increase penetrating power against enemy armor.
	+ *Plasma Munitions Warhead:*A hybrid warhead. While its outer shell resembles traditional linear ammunition, its interior contains a plasma-based discharge system like a torpedo. Small AI built into the warhead actually allows the projectile to burn some of its reactant material to make course corrections to improve accuracy at extreme ranges. This allows the weapon to intelligently trade power for accuracy as need be.

* *12x Xura-Pattern Alternating High-Energy Particle Lance:* A turret-mounted particle lance intended purely for combat. It cares less about fine precisions, favoring direct power and range. Xura’s patented alternating charge allows subsequent attacks after an initial hit have improved accuracy. Adjusting the focusing coils allows the weapon to fire a concentrated beam, or spread for a wide-angle lower power attack adept at hitting smaller craft. Four are mounted on the ship’s prow while the rest are spread across the ship’s aft section, guaranteeing any enemy faces at least 6 lances from any angle.

* 24x *80mm multi-barrel Shredder CIWS:* The Shredder is a common Ghaz Weapon that is similar to an automatic shotgun. It uses a plasma-based reaction to fire its shells, providing a cleaner combustion as well as being used to superheat the shot. This results both in increased range as well as lethality as the pellets are molten.

* *1x MIC-Pattern Dimensional Disruptor Cannon:* Inspired by the ‘Slipspace Drivers’ used by Archdruid Darthr’s “Brimmir” battlesuit, the DDC weaponizes the ship’s Slipspace drive. Producing Slipspace ruptures stable enough for a ship to enter and exit is a delicate and complicated process. As a weapon however, this is not a concern. The front half of the ship, and even some of its aft sections, are dedicated to high-power cycle particle accelerator field projectors. These create what is known as an “Óttarr Field” in front of the vessel. This field is typically used to generate microscopic black holes. Because of their low mass, Hawking radiation gives them a lifetime of around a nanosecond (or potentially a little longer than a whole second), before they evaporate into useless thermal energy. In that nanosecond, the engine manipulates them into forming a rupture between normal space and the slipstream. The large number of projectors on the vessel allow it to create an unstable Slipspace rupture many times larger than the stable ones used for proper Slipspace transits. Due to the unstable nature of the rupture, it lasts for a shorter time, but any matter that gets caught in the area of effect is scattered at a molecular level across Slipspace and real space.

## Trivia

* Out of universe, the ship derives its name and role largely from the Pegasus class from *Mobile Suit Gundam* with its name being derived from the Archangel from *Gundam SEED.*
* A 'Malak' in Ghaz mythology is believed to be the sometimes troublesome guardians of their ancestors. As most of Ghaz mythology is based on distorted stories of their origins, its likely the Malak are in fact the Nisser.