Crane-class Composite freighter In 193, the Valis system went through a succession of uprisings that left the dominant government quite weakened. Dangerously close to bankruptcy, the planet could no longer afford its oversize military fleet. After securing the borders through a diplomatic agreement with the Hegemony against century long exploitation rights for the rich asteroid fields, the government went on to tackle on rebuilding the infrastructure in ruins. The idea was to fund the reconstruction by selling half the ships of the fleet, and keeping only a quarter of them in active duty to maintain the fragile peace. That sale attracted a lot of propositions from rather shady groups from every nearby stars. Worrying to willingly arm pirates, and not eager to further reinforce the local presence of the Hegemony in the system, the sale was postponed until they could have the insurance these weapons would never be used against them. The obvious solution was to disarm them, but then nobody would buy them. These were warships, even removing the mounts wouldn't create much usable cargo space without a serious refit of the interior space.
The decision was taken to only sell Eagle class cruisers, redesigned as fast, lightly armored freighters to reduce the cost of the modification. The specification document asked to remove all but one turret, but also add two small drone bays in the space emptied from the frontal armament. The launching doors would also be used to load the cargo with great efficiency. This new class of ships was to place itself as an alternative between Mule and Venture class freighters. Fast as a Mule, but with the Cargo space of a Venture, and a drone system to avoid any damage should the ships encounter pirates.
Sadly, the redesigning took quite some time, and the first conversions didn't go that well. While the Crane class Composite freighter is now a commercial success, the Valis system had to sink deeper under the Hegemony influence to secure reconstruction funds and avoid a total breakdown of the Planet infrastructure. Now the government is but a puppet of the Hegemony, but the system is renowned for its ship refitting industry and talented engineers in converting existing ship models.
TTC Demeter, Farm ship In cycle 182, Tri-Tachyon engineer Mark Stanlor discovered a way to fine tune shields emitters so that they could filter the stars dangerous radiations while letting the light pass through. This could finally allow space culture to become a viable solution for non terraformed worlds by preventing the degeneration of the crops.
At that time, a bottleneck in Paragon class power-plants production left several unfinished hulls taking space dust in shipyards. Nobody know exactly how he managed to get several execs to support his project, but Mark was allowed to buy one of those for one symbolic credit. He then sold back the fortress shield emitter to finance a general reconversion of this hull into a massive mobile space farm. Using several loopholes in private armed ship legislation, he managed to keep 2 of the large turrets mounts, but the rest was removed to accommodate a vast flight deck for shuttle loading. The large central space was floored, closed by a dome on each side, covered with earth, watered, fertilized and connected to a massive environmental system to keep the conditions perfect for the cultures.
The domes had their own shield system tuned for filtering radiation, but in case of an attack or an asteroid shower, Mark wanted to be able to deploy a normal combat shield. The problem was, both couldn't be activated at the same time. As close to a sun as the ship was expected to sit, the few seconds of exposition during combat shield raising would suffice to burn the crops to a crisp. To avoid that he managed to create a jump-start system that would allow an the shield to raise almost instantly, at the cost of large flux production.
The ship was named Demeter and launched in 185 for it's test flight. Thanks to it's on-board genetic labs and the ideal conditions for growth, the first harvest occurred 2 months later. It was a tremendous success, the fruits and vegetables where sold in a mater of hours to the greatest restaurants and chefs for more than 100 times the normal price. That's when Mark revealed his true objective: having proven the viability of the concept, the ship was now for all intents and purpose his! And the sudden surge in wealth of the execs that supported his project raised many suspicions on how he managed to negotiate such a generous contract. Then, instead of selling rights to build other farm ships, he jealously kept his prize and now sell high quality product to the most luxurious establishments in the sector.
BHL Titanic VII, Armored passenger cruise liner After the terrible battle in the Coral nebula, the Onslaught class HSS Incorruptible managed to get back to the nearest Hegemony base only to discover the damages received were too great for repair. Most of the ship was salvageable but restoring the two arms housing the TPC's would require to effectively cut them off and attach new one. The overall structure would have been be much weaker and the ship was branded non-combat worthy and destined to recycling. Hearing of this, the Black Hole Line company sent an offer for purchasing the demilitarized hull. The Cruise company was seeking to find a second breath by offering more exiting travels close to the most violent stellar phenomenons. The well known sturdiness of the Onslaughts would allow them to make this plan a reality without endangering the life of their passengers.
The arms and most of the space formerly occupied with weapon was converted in luxurious dining rooms and cabins, pools and tennis court... while the former cramped crew quarters were kept for the new personnel. Another major modification was the removal of two third of the engines: high speed wasn't a requirement and with all the weight gained by removing the armament the main engine was enough. This operation only possible thanks to the high modularity of the core epoch ships allowed to accommodate more storage area and fuel tanks for longer trips.
The ship was re-branded BHL Titanic VII by the CEO of Black Hole Line, in spite of the opposition of his counselors: the Titanic VI catastrophe was just fading from the collective memory and many employee saw in this name a bad omen. For her's maiden voyage, she is going to offer her passenger an incredible spot to observe a rogue giant plunge into a white dwarf. The ticket have been all sold the first week.
ISS Blitzkrieg, Heavy blockade runner This decommissioned Conquest has been bought back by a small fret enterprise without most of it's weapons. After extensive modifications it as been re-purposed into an armored freighter with limited carrier capacity. Now free from the "dead weight" of heavy weaponry, the venerable engines can finally give all their measure, making this ship the fastest capital sized freighter in the sector. And what it can't outrun, the fighters and medium armament left can take care of. With this single ship as their asset, the small freighter enterprise is now a major player, specialized in blockade running and fret contracts in unstable regions.
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