Trident Industries

Trident logo from 2314 to the faction's disbandment.

**Trident Industries** (abbreviated **TI**, **TRI**, or simply **Trident**) was an interstellar ship production company and military unit prior to it's disbandment in late-2315. Trident's former CEO was Jake Lancia. Trident were well-known for producing and supplying ships, as well as licensing production, to such notable factions as Nova Fleet Dynamics and Thryn Monarchy, and many vessels were also available on the open market. In addition, they had fleets of their ships that could be called on to defend Trident or allied assets whenever needed. In 2315, their net income was 28 trillion interstellar credits. Trident had merged with NFD in late-December 2315 to form Trinova Technologies and is no longer active on it's own.

In mid-2316 Trident reformed under the name Trident Foundries. This new faction has only the general memberships and style of the old faction in common with the original.

## Description

Trident was a medium-sized company that specialised in designing and constructing medium-sized vessels. It had recently expanded its scope to include larger vessels, namely the *Exodus* Heavy Destroyer and *Gladiator* Heavy Cruiser, prior to it's disbandment.

## Fleet

*Main article: Ships manufactured by Trident Industries*

### Design Philosophy

Trident's early ships were all about putting as much forward firepower on as possible, to the detriment of defences. This had caused considerable early failures on Trident's part, most notably in the early stages of the Battle of Vergesso.

Later Trident vessels of 2314 began to incorporate heavier shielding, as armour technology was not at a decent level yet. This helped considerably with battles in the NASS Galaxies.

Vessels of 2315 were highly firepower focused again, with little thought given to defences, though this wasn't to their detriment this time as the enemies they were facing weren't able to deal enough damage in the first place.

## History

### Pre-history

With the economic collapse of 2152, many Trident-built colony vessels, some several kilometers across, carried hundreds of thousands of Old Earth citizens to a remote planet in what is now known as the Nass Galaxies, where they rebuilt a technologically-advanced society in relative peace.

The destruction of their planet in 2312 forced the surviving population to live a more nomadic lifestyle, on large stations or on refitted variants of the colony ships that bought them to the Nass Galaxies in the first place. Militaristic elements of the population banded together in early 2313 to form the mercenary company Cobolt, which was moderately successful.

### 2313

In January 18, 2313, Jake Lancia entered the Nass galaxies, using nothing but an old *Dauntless* blockade runner. He soon discovered a mysterious man going by the name of Mr Crazy, who led the Cobolt faction that was well established. Jake and Crazy agreed to mutual trade agreements.

By February, cooperation between Jake's band of misfits and Crazy's Cobolt was such that they agreed to merge, along with a skilled privateer going by the name of Hammy, into one larger faction. The faction was to be named Trident Armada, in honour of its three founders and restoring part of its original name.

After suffering debilitating attacks from many pirates and privateers, Mr Crazy decided to move and rename the fledgeling faction. Trident Industries was later formed as a result of this.

In March, Trident engineers successfully completed a prototype for the *Quantum*-class Frigate, a powerful vessel that would become the mainstay of Trident and allied fleets for more than two years (despite being downgraded to a corvette in May 2315). The vessel was put to the test no more than eight hours after its creation, as an old Cobolt *Dreadnought*-class Frigate was stolen from the former Cobolt HQ. The new vessel successfully returned with no damage.

Later in the month, a privateer stole the original prototype *Quantum* and added several enhancements. He then took the improved vessel into battle against Trident defense forces in orbit of Trident HQ. The defense forces included five first-generation *Quantums* and three *Freedom*-class fast attack frigates. The privateer managed to wipe out all those ships, one by one, splitting the defense ships’ formation apart for easier pickings. The privateers' vessel suffered no damage at all, which puzzled Jake and Mr Crazy enough that they went on to heavily upgrade one of their remaining *Quantum* frigates with additional weapons, shields and thrusters, naming it the SR2.

When that same privateer returned again a day later, Trident had enlisted the help of the neutral faction Unity for assistance. They bought a huge battle cruiser to the Trident HQ and opened fire on the privateer. The first volley dissipated it's shields, the second disintegrated the rear half of the ship. Despite this the privateer pressed his attack, destroying Jake's upgraded *Freedom* Frigate before finally being destroyed by Mr Crazy's *Quantum* SR2.

In May it was declared that Trident held dominion over the Nass galaxies.

In June, station TRS *Starbound* was established. This was a large *Starbound*-type station, the first of its type, that provided vast interior space and exterior docking. At its peak in July, it held six SR2 *Quantums* and carried as many as 100 personnel and eight officers. To go along with this, a large network of *Watchtower*-type Outposts were built to serve as communications relays and resupply stations for the rapidly-growing Trident, which was now an Empire in all but name. These stations were built along the fringes of Trident territory in locations such as above the planet Caramenujor II and in the Alliance's former home system of Rakata.

#### The Antzakes War

In July 2313, a new member joined up. The new guy, going by the name of Antzakes, joined up because he wanted war. When he found that Trident was no longer at war with anyone, he mutinied and stole a WIP destroyer as well as destroying TRS *Starbound* itself in an act of cruelty. Jake and the Trident Fourth Fleet expended a lot of resources tracking Antzakes and his rebel cell down months after the incident. The later few months became known as the Antzakes War.

One of the only large-scale battles between Trident forces and Antzakes' rebel cell was over the planet Caramenujor II on the fringe of Trident's territory. Antzakes bought a mostly-complete variant of the stolen WIP destroyer along with several stolen and modified *Quantum*s against Trident's force, which included the destroyer TRV *Titan Killer* and the Alpha Quantum TRV *Alpha*along with several *Quantum* SR3s*.* The commander of the *Watchtower* Outpost in orbit was forced to scuttle his base to prevent it from falling into rebel hands, and the Trident fleet was beaten back and lost three ships. Many smaller skirmishes around Trident's territory would continue into August, with the Trident lines slowly being pushed back towards the ancestral homeworld of Vergesso.

August was, in addition to being a month of rebuilding, a pivotal time for the Trident war effort as Antzakes' stronghold had been found; however the Trident forces lacked the resources for a direct assault. The only real breakthrough was the completion of a prototype of the SR3 *Quantum*, which was never pursued further because of power problems, instability and lack of resources.

In late 2313, Antzakes was eventually caught by Trident forces after a fierce final battle above the remains of *Starbound*. The battle was celebrated by Trident citizens as 'the Vengeance of *Starbound*'.

Much history beyond this point has been lost.

### 2315

In February, Trident began advertising job positions on the multiversal networks. It was in this time that Trident leader Jake Lancia agreed an alliance with Nova Fleet Dynamics, and Odium faction Atlas Alliance (at this point called *Alliance Armada*) unsuccessfully attempted to turn the fledgeling faction towards the dark side.

In March, the Great Novgorod Republic and Thryn Monarchy offered alliances to Trident. They accepted both offers.

In June, Trident set up shop with the *Prometheus*-type station TRS *Prometheus*, in the GenXNova Galaxies. Trident-operated *Munichs* teamed up with NFD vessels to retaliate against hostile factions in the GenXNova Galaxies in an operation which has become known as 'Operation Cleanup'.

In late June, Trident, NFD and Thryn founded the Nest of Orion (N.O.) alliance, which was a military alliance. It was made in response to the Odium threat at the time.

In early July, Trident joined other N.O. forces in declaring war on Dread Syndicate, a large and hostile faction. Trident also dispatched two *Brawler* Frigates to assist Thryn vessels in defending their home planet Rotterdam from Odium forces led by Aceface and the CRS *Tank*.

    In August, Trident, as well as NFD, restructured into more community-based factions. This was in response to Ridik's statement that Odium was being rebranded into Euro-Corp Syndicate and was also becoming more friendly, which was revealed in late 2317 to be a ruse to lower NFD and Trident's guard enough to allow infiltration. It is unknown if any infiltrator gained access as a result of this.
In late October, Trident was offered an alliance by the Order of Bogatyrs. Trident accepted this almost immediately. Later that month, Trident left the failing N.O. alliance, leaving only NFD, GNR and House Dimir left in the alliance. The alliance was later dissolved entirely.

    In November, Trident produced new vessels and awaited the go-ahead to return to the Elwyn Galaxies.

In early December, Trident merged with NFD to form the super-faction Trinova Technologies.

### 2316

In April, the decision was taken to resurrect Trident as a shipyard brand, a sub-division of Trinova Technologies. This new shipyard was to be named Trident Foundries and use the same logo as the old faction.

## Legacy

Trident Industries would be remembered by Jake Lancia and Plaz in 2316 and 2317 as the 'golden days' of their multiversal careers, bringing law and order to numerous galactic clusters.

The resurrected Trident Foundries, led by former Industries leaders Jake and Plaz, used much the same ships and aesthetic styling as the old faction, maintaining museum stations and immense archives to remind citizens of Trident's illustrious history.