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Chapter 17 - The Wind at my Back, Stars at my feet[]
Everything in space travel is about the numbers.
How much thrust do you have? how long can you afford to drift at a given velocity?
Did you get your angle of approach right?
How much thrust to reduce your speed and match a target's vector?
The designers of the Star League were building warship platforms to support ground warfare, warfare conducted by ground forces on planets with a defined 'down' and 'up', the engineers designed them to be effectively highly mobile Brian fortresses meant to dominate a battlefield from the highest of high grounds, and to contest for that position.
The Clans who contributed to the design of the Nightlord class were of a similar mind. Detection ranges, weapons systems, everything was optimized to contest a narrow band between 'gravity pulls you to the ground' and 'too far to have a measurable impact on the battlefield below'.
Despite the Ares Conventions, then, it needs to be understood: Warship design since TAS Dreadnought has always had, as the focus, the primary duty of orbital control over a planet, and orbital bombardment as a mission priority.
Samantha Diamh commanded a Cutter, a type of ship not optimized for supporting, or even participating, in a ground assault.
Cutters are made for space, with only a tertiary nod to the bombardment mission left in there as an 'also can' instead of primary mission.
"Alright. Time to make the donuts." said Captain Diamh