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| Idiot’s Array
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Corellian Engineering Corporation
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Baleen-class heavy freighter
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Bulk freighter
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675,000 credits (DJB)
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426 meters
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Tractor beam x 2
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6
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2
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15 to 30
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- Mobile Base for The Wildcards
- Freighter
- Smugglering
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Background and Layout
The Idiot’s Array, also known as '"The Idiot", is a Baleen-class heavy freighter used by the Wildcards. The cavernous hangar bay allows each member of the team and various visitors to land their respective ships. Large enough to fit several YT-1300 Light Freighters with room to spare, it also has refuelling and repair stations….for a cost.
Beyond the hangar bay, the Baleen is the main cargo area. This area has large detachable containers, and are able to hook to other ships via umbilical. Each member of the team is assigned a cargo container for their personal use. These pods, however, are permanently attached to the ship.
While the ship is slow at sublight speeds, it does have a highly upgraded hyperdrive as well as a heavy-duty shield generator that can withstand most fighter bombardments. It lacks any exterior weaponry but does have a few surprises. Inspired by seeing a Star Destroyer crash into a planet, Takota designed a crude kinetic weapon system. Several of the cargo containers are filled completely with water. These containers can be detached and aimed via targeting computers. Even while at slow sublight speed these containers hit a target at a fraction of light speed. At full shields, even a Star Destroyer will not escape unscathed.
Tasks & Schemes
The Wildcards, while employed by Odan-Urr, also accept work from outside sources. Many of the team members are on well-established terms with the Tincles the Hutt syndicate. Through this connection, they are able to obtain work as Bounty Hunters, protection, smuggling, ect. While these jobs are not condoned by the Council of Odan-Urr, the team has an unspoken agreement that Odan-Urr will look the other way as long as the work does not conflict with work required by the clan.
Upon reappropriating the Idiot’s Array, the team began refitting the bulk freighter into a moving bazaar of sorts. Inside the cavernous landing bay, you can find refuelling, repair, and illicit refitting services for a price. The bay also allows the Array to capture blasted hulks of other ships for salvage operations. Further back into the cargo containers, one can find a variety of shops in several of the containers. These range from small cantina’s, gambling houses, and short term quarters. These businesses are owned by members of the team, or by third-party vendors under the agreement that a fair portion of their income is given to the team.
Locations & Locals
The Bolthole
Situated at the port side of the main hanger, the Bolthole is an informal name for a cluster of repair bays and workshops built into the main deck plating. While individually built and owned at first, necessity, benefit and the odd hostile takeover gradually forced the cluster of ad-hoc facilities to merge into a single group. Each area is an eclectic mix of archaic and new elements, from pillaged First Order TIE Fighter racks repurposed as docking mechanisms to a multitude of R2 units which date back to the days of the Rebellion. Given how often the Bolthole's various owners and droids rework, strip out and replace items, no single part of the facility remains the same for very long.
It has changed hands several times since its "founding", and the current owner is a Sullustan engineer by the name of Verdu Nadeich. A former member of the New Republic navy, Nadeich typically keeps to herself, neither condoning or opposing the more morally questionable activities among the crew. Having taken control of the Bolthole following the death of its previous owner - or "mysterious disappearance" as several bounty hunters insist - Nadeich has put considerable time and effort into upgrading its systems. Often utilising Imperial and New Republic technology most engineers write off as little more than engineering legends, she has ensured that pilots resident to the Idiot's Array have an edge over their competition.
With much of the deck plating beneath stripped away and encroaching on the level below, Repair Bay 01 is reserved for heavy corvettes and larger ships. Capable of storing and working on anything up to a light bulk freighter, a number of telescopic holding arms keep the ship aloft over various mechanical workshops, assembly stations and power outlets. This effectively allows Nadeich's workers to treat the Bay as if it were a miniature deep dock, using small repulsorlift platforms and emplacements to easily access any part of the ship's exterior for rapid heavy duty repairs. Some of the more extreme cases have seen the Bay being used to partially disassemble large segments of ships to repair severe structural damage, only to reassemble them upon completion. It also serves the dual role of a disassembly yard, breaking down salvage on the few occasions it is brought in to the ship.
A vertical platform built into one wall, Repair Bay 02 is a contrast to its opposite. Better suited to starfighters or pleasure yachts, the platform utilises a set of twin grapples to lift the ship off of the ground, and then use multiple tool-equipped mechanised arms to deconstruct, repair or dispose of parts. Rather than a full work crew, this entire system is governed only by two engineers, and a single droid brain built into the platform itself, taken from an R4 agromech droid. This allows the facility to have much faster turn-around times with its repairs, but it is ill-suited to heavy duty work.
The Fortunate Few
Supply and demand is a basic rule of the galaxy, and a place like the Idiot's Array is no exception. While the ship is officially a self-governed nation of individual groups, it lacks the facilities to sustain itself. With food only arriving via infrequent shipments and parts to keep the ship flying often proving to be in short supply, action needed to be taken to ensure its future. The Fortunate Few would become the group who saw to these needs, acting out of their own initiative at first before being more officially organised into a structured coalition of individual vessels and their captains. The idea behind the group was simple: Through occasional meetings, communications and updates, each captain would see that a resource they were short of was supplied to the overall vessel. Those in the best position to obtain what was needed would then claim it, and bring it back to the Idiot as required.
The need for these supply runs rarely superseded the smugglers' own goals, but would be seen as an additional objective. While hauling a hold full of spice, a captain might be expected to procure a number of power converters compatible with the main reactor of a Baleen heavy freighter. Or, in other cases, they might even liberate spare parts from a salvage yard while taking a haul for themselves. While the group has no overall hierarchy or distinct leader, its members remain devoted to its goals out of the understanding that their service is a necessary one to maintain their way of life.
The benefits of being a member of the Few stem largely from a degree of protection granted due to their role. While the costs of procuring any items are covered by each Captain in question, repairs to their ships are often prioritised by local mechanics and handled at a discount. Each is usually ignored by the groups who steal, rob or swindle individuals for all their worldly goods, and even the resident small-time crime lords turn a blind eye to their activities. So long as a member of the Few doesn't push their luck, they will be able to attend to their needs without the usual risks associated with hives of scum and villainy. Well, most of them, anyway.
Plankowners
This is the list of the founding member's of the Wildcards BT and the first crew of the Idiot.