Board Thread:Custom Lore Development/@comment-26444332-20161227210541

After the crushing defeat of the second Consortium Starfleet in the Battle of Avidich, in which their Rakshasa and Vanaras enemies proved their superiority in starships, the Aetanii decided it was in their best interests to re-imagine their navy from the ground up, stripping down their older, slower vessels and replacing them with entirely new designs that were better, faster, and more powerful then their antiquated forebears.

The previous incarnation of the Aetanii starfleet more resembled the modern Terran Alliance fleets in form and design: boasting versatile laser arrays and torpedo launchers, along with a non-streamlined design built for maximum firepower. Their primary ship, the Keiken'na-class destroyer, was fielded in large numbers, with the Battle of Avidich boasting well over forty thousand of these cruisers in the ferocious battle for the vital planet.

After the destruction of their fleet, the Aetanii decided to make a change, relying on the Type I Shinsei-class battlecruiser and the then-new LF-1 Hikari-class starfighter to win them the day in the subsequent wars against their mortal foe.

In this day and age, the Aetanii fleet focuses on speed and firepower, relying on powerful sublight drives and superior weaponry over armor and shields. While all Aetanii ships are equipped with two types of shield, static and defensive, they do not provide much in the way of protection: an Aetanii's main weapon is their manueverability, which complements and reflects their abnormally agile and reflexive physiology.

The staples of the fleet are still the Shinsei and the Hikari: though, the fact that the Shinsei-class is now at Type XVII, and the LF-series of starfighter has advanced to their twenty-third iteration, marks that they have not stopped with improvements to their dependable warships.

The Aetanii fleet classification for a battlecruiser is more of a classic, modern interpretation, rather than the "spacy" definition of "heavier than a battleship": their definition is "a starship that relies on overwhelming speed and firepower, at the expense of armor".

Aetanii weaponry has long progressed past the "laser stage"; rather than using lasers and generic energy torpedoes in combat, like younger civilizations, they prefer to use their advanced plasma systems, which can output fire rates that surpass many other missile barrages. If their pulse weapons can't see them through, their interdiction cannons (similar to an incredibly powerful gauss cannon) certainly will. And for missiles, they always have their versatile and destructive neutronic torpedoes for that.

For all that, the Aetanii prefer to utilize their reflexes in more personal combat, reflective of their nature. The majority of their battlefleet is not, in fact, starcruisers: rather, they are starfighters.

While the ever-present LF-23 Hikari will always be the superiority fighter of choice for the Consortium, it is not the only fighter they possess. The FB-89 Harikēn and the A-3 Netsu are two examples of fighters often used by the Aetanii navy, while their elite Reasoner pilots utilize their incredibly fast and maneuverable (and very sensitive) I-1 Nisshoku interceptors to seek out and eliminate enemy pilots and aces. The advanced and quick SI-12 Hinode strikefighter is often used on solo missions and assault runs on larger vessels, while the old but dependable HF-67 Yami starfighter is used for system defence and battlestation squadrons.

The most common type of starfleet the Aetanii field are their generic patrols, typically only one or two Shinsei battlecruisers, along with a few support vessels like the dependable Haretsu escort cruiser, or the Hari-class frigate. Larger starfleets, like the Grand Fleet when engaged in full combat, can total well over six million ships (many of them starfighters).

(Sorry, but I haven't got any pictures at the moment. All I can say is that the Shinsei-class and Hikari-class both resemble the Nova-class battlecruiser and Miy'til starfighter of the Hapan Consortium. Most Aetanii ships are sleek, slender affairs, that give a needle-like impression.) 