Emperor's Shield

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Vessel Info

The Vibre-class Assault Cruiser was designed for practically one purpose, and it fulfills that purpose rather well. After the fall of the Empire, the remaining Imperial factions fractured, and their supply lines broke down with them. No longer able to rely on the mandates of a far-away Coruscant, they had to make due with the supplies that were available to them.

Amongst those "resources" was the freighter traffic of other factions, which were deemed fair game. Thus, the VAC was designed for the purpose of privateering, coming in close to their target, knocking them out of action with their heavy ion cannon, and then deploy their spacetroopers to capture the helpless vessel. All current accounts show that this ship class is extremely effective at its' designed purpose.

History

Clan Scholae Palatinae acquired the Emperor's Shield and it's sister ship, the Emperor's Sword, at the end of the Fifth Great Jedi War as part of its' well-earned spoils of war. The specialized nature of the ship class has lent itself readily towards covert privateering operations, and so it has been acting in that capacity in the outlying systems near the Outer Rim, right past Hutt space, preying off of Hutt convoys. It single-handedly has been responsible for a great amount of the plunder that the Clan is able to collect and trade for the things that it needs to perform its' day-to-day operations.

Action

The Emperor's Shield and the Emperor's Sword both usually do not operate with the Clan fleet, as the specialization of the ships do not lend themselves to full-scale capital ship combat. Furthermore, despite the fact that it's called a cruiser, it is actually about 50 meters smaller than the Victory or the Palpatine's Hammer, so the ship is relatively small. With a crew of 45, it must pick its' battles carefully.

Despite this, the Clan leadership believes in being prepared for any eventuality, and as such the Emperor's Shield occasionally participates in Clan fleet operations. It, along with the Emperor's Sword and the Palpatine's Hammer are paired with the Dark Predator for either special boarding missions or flanking maneuvers. In such cases, the VAC's depend on the Dark Predator and the Palpatine's Hammer for protection until they can do what they do best.

With the extremely high cost of sensor stealthing the Victory, the Clan sees potential in using the VAC's in special operation roles, as they are already sensor stealthy. Before this could be tested, the outbreak of hostilities in the Sixth Great Jedi War prevented the Clan from pursuing this, although rumors have it that with the conclusion of the war, the time may be right to exploit this possibility. A possible liability to this is that the crew of the Emperor's Shield are all mostly new, giving them a "Green" rating. Successful completion of missions may change this in the future.