The Merkavah

STS Freighter
K-H5 Argo-Theseus Class Freighter

A mid-sized light freighter that’s been altered overtime by its crew to become a multipurpose and general cargo ship. It's an older ship with archaic systems relative to current advancements in space travel (retro futuristic aesthetics of the Millenium Falcon, the Nostromo, the Event Horizon/Lewis & Clark, Serenity), but well maintained; designed to support an 6-8 person crew (max 20 people on board), but they've figured out how to make it work with 3.

This class of freighter is modular and designed for both space travel (a tug boat for large container ships) and frequent atmospheric re-entry (spaceplane adjacent), making it most useful as an interplanetary transport vehicle, especially in systems that lack widespread interplanetary transit networks or have a need for transporting personnel/resources to and from orbit (see the STS Company). Most K-H5's are equipped with point defense canons (PDCs) as a means of defense against space debris, but are of course used in close combat with other ships. While not fast, it has exceptionally precise maneuverability in a vacuum.

Crew

Core crew members share responsibilities and titles are more of a formality.

Spotify Playlist - STS Merkavah Radio, the idea is this is what they'd collectively play over the speakers on the ship plus some ambient OST music

Liveries

It's insignia is that of four interlocking wheels with the central wheel having two fiery wings. The imagery and name are associated with "the heavenly throne-chariot of god" - the ship does no live up to that name. The Merkavah does not don the STS liveries on it's hull, but the crew have STS "uniforms" which they wear as needed.

300

Locale & Purpose

The Merkavah operates in the outer systems which are a collection of planets that have small settlements and are largely uninhabited. Most importantly, the larger intergalactic powers tend to not visit.

The crew are contracted by "The WRITING/Merkavah Setting/Lore/STS Company" to maintain/fix outpost communication instruments/devices across the outer systems in addition to usual transportation contracts. The crew of the Merkavah was given very little information about these outposts beyond how to maintain/fix them - they don’t care who the client is so long as they keep getting paid. Between (or occasionally during) Company contracts, the crew conducts semi-legal side business (salvaging and reselling materials, smuggling, possible rebel activity if the narrative calls for it) as a means of extra income and/or bartering for supplies when planet side. The Merkavah isn't officially aligned with any of the STS sub-factions save for the contacts Gus inherited from Marco, but they have been known to work with sub-factions from time to time.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Meredith Nolan © <% tp.date.now("YYYY") %>