Defiant (starship)
| Defiant (starship) | |
|---|---|
| Type | Spacecraft |
| Universe | Cytoverse |
“We were nomads among the stars then... We were a community made up of communities, traveling the stars together. Part mercenary fleet, part trade fleet. Our own people. ”
The Defiant is a battle cruiser[2] and the biggest spaceship in a small, independent, nomad fleet of humans.[1] It crashed on Detritus after being targeted by the Superiority and attacked by the Krell,[1] at the conclusion of the third Human War.[3] It is said to be larger than Igneous Cavern.[2]
Fleet
“She could make them travel the stars, one of the few who could... The distance between stars is vast, Spensa. And only someone with a specific ability could engage the engines. ”
The fleet is comprised of one main ship, the Defiant, four smaller ships, the Yeong-Gwang,[4] the gunship Antioch,[5] and two others, as well as thirty starfighters.[1] These ships are made up of a combination of trade and mercenary vessels.[1] The Defiant is the only ship in the fleet that is capable of cytonic hyperjumps, with the other ships attaching themselves to the Defiant before the jump occurs.[1]
The ship's hyperdrive and engines are controlled by a cytonic. The ship can move without a cytonic, however, its FTL capabilities would be inaccessible.[1]
The fleets crews are multicultural[6] and made up of many divisions including; command, scientists, engineers, marines, and gunners. It is unclear whether the many cultures that can be found within the fleet are dispersed across the ships or whether different ships originated from different countries on Earth. The engineers of the Defiant are treated as outsiders by the rest of the fleet's crew due to their cytonic abilities. As it was known by members of the fleet that the Superiority also possessed such abilities, this similarity likely further alienated the engineering crew.[7] As the engineers were the first to be able to explore space, this distrust may also stem from jealousy.[1] It was rumored that the engineers were in collusion with the Krell, which may have further fueled tensions between the engine crew and other sectors of the fleet.[8]
History
The Defiant's fleet were not involved in the third Human War, however, were targeted by the Superiority none the less.[9] During the war, the Defiant found it increasingly more difficult, as well as dangerous, to contact space stations and planets, and as such did not know of the Superiority or the Krell at the time that they were attacked.[1] When the war ended, the Superiority deemed humanity to be too brutal, uncivilized, and aggressive and ordered that all human fleets surrender to their authority.[10] The people of the Defiant considered themselves separate to the humans involved in the war, and when they refused to surrender, the Krell were sent after the Defiant and its fleet to capture and contain the group.[10]
“I was terrified, in my little heart, because the ship kept shaking from their fire. We were in chaos... I stood in the alcove, watching the red lances of light, and could hear the stars screaming. A little frightened girl by a bubble of glass.”
The day the Defiant crashed, the engineers and scientists, mutinied against the command and military staff aboard the ship, after the Krell had surrounded the fleet and begun to attack the vessels. At some point during the battle, an explosion occurred on the bridge. The captain called down to the engine room, giving Spensa's great-grandmother her commands, however, she disobeyed. She brought the fleet to Detritus, using her cytonic abilities, in the hope that the fleet could use the planet's defense system as protection.[1] However, the jump Spensa's great-grandmother made proved to be beyond her capabilities and she died.[1] Fired upon by the planet's orbital defense platforms, the fleet barely made it through Detritus's outer shell before it crashed onto the surface of the planet, destroying its engines.[7]
The electronic archive of the Defiant survived the crash, however, was destroyed, along with a majority of the senior leadership and professionals of the fleet killed, when the Krell dropped the first Lifebuster bomb, not long after the humans arrival at Detritus.[11] Following this event, the people of the Defiant's fleet formed separate colonies based on the duties they performed in the fleet, living in groups of less than one hundred people to avoid detection, until they were unified during the Battle of Alta.[2][11] Different populations settled in different caverns with the marines colonizing Vici Cavern[4] and the crew from the Antioch settling in Bountiful Cavern.[5] The distinctive lifestyle features of these different caverns may extend back to the original groups aboard the Defiant.
Legacy
Some technology, such as light-lines[12] and holographic projectors,[13] survived the crash, as well as the subsequent destruction of the fleets electronic archive, however, much of the knowledge possessed by the fleet was lost.[12][7] Some information of Old Earth survived, including histories and philosophical writings, and is stored in the archive building at Alta Base.[14] Before the crash, light-lines were used by the engineers while they worked on ship machinery in zero gravity.[6] Schematics of starships also survived the ships destruction.[15]
Knowledge of cytonics, both human and Superiority usages, has faded as time has passed, however, rumors of such abilities have persisted through to present day.[7] While the humans of the Defiant were aware of artificial intelligence, it is unclear if they themselves possessed this technology or the knowledge of how to create AIs.[7] If this was technological knowledge that the crew of the Defiant once possessed, it has since been lost to time.[7]
Knowledge of the mutiny is suppressed, where possible, by modern day officials, who believe that it would cause division if it became wildly known.[8]
Trivia
- Descendants of the engineers are known as the Motorskaps, based off the old words for engine crew.[2] It is unknown if the original engine crew of the Defiant were also known by this name.
- The people on Detritus call themselves Defiants after the flagship of the fleet.[2]
Notes
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Skyward chapter 45#
- ↑ a b c d e Skyward chapter 1#
- ↑ Starsight chapter 29#
- ↑ a b Skyward chapter 8#
- ↑ a b Skyward chapter 7#
- ↑ a b Skyward chapter 14#
- ↑ a b c d e f Skyward chapter 27#
- ↑ a b Skyward chapter 44#
- ↑ Starsight chapter 28#
- ↑ a b Skyward epilogue#
- ↑ a b Skyward chapter 17#
- ↑ a b Skyward chapter 3#
- ↑ Skyward chapter 9#
- ↑ Skyward chapter 37#
- ↑ Skyward chapter 6#