The Kepek Commonwealth has colonies all over the galaxy, however, not all of them are planetary. The Interstellar Colony Fleets act as roaming colonies, overseers of planetary colonies and space-station settlements. There are several types of ship that make up these fleets, and they all play a part in the fleet.
There are hundreds of these roaming fleets in the galaxy today, but some of the most famous ones include:
The Gurex
The Meatep
The Menmat
The Kabrax
The Xidak
As the fleets are so large, they are treated as nations all their own. As such, every colony fleet has its own flag and insignia, printed on the flagships' back end. The ships of the fleet are also painted in the colours of their flag to aid in identification from a distance. Likewise, their flags are required to display the top-down silhouette of the ship at the top and bottom of the design
Every fleet has a single flagship, whom the whole fleet is named for (e.g. The Tabiren fleet is named after the ICF.Tabiren, it's flagship). Colony Flagships are the largest of the colony ships by far, and are one of the largest structures that the Kepek Commonwealth produce, short of actual planet-sized space stations. They provide housing for millions of space-dwelling Kepek and can provide shelter for the rest of the fleet in the event of an emergency, being large enough to store the entirety of the rest of the ships in it's docking bay, located at the tail of the ship. In fleets with especially large fleets, any ships that don't fit inside the docking bay can be attached to the ship's exterior magnetically.
Ship Prefix (in english)
ICF (Interstellar Colony Flagsip)
Length:
8,000km
Housing Capacity:
10-30 million
Max number per fleet:
1
flagships ships are traditionally named after places from The Kepek's home planet of Xebrik, usually cities or nations whose names survived through history. However, as time goes on, the commonwealth has been more accepting of new sources for names. The ICF. Meatep, for example, is currently the latest colony Flagship in the commonwealth and was named after the captain's first daughter.
AIGAS (short for Artificial Intelligence Guided Assistant System) is a form of AI assistant installed into many Kepek Commonwealth ships, including the ICF's. In these colossal ships, the AIGAS assists with piloting, monitoring the ship's surroundings to ensure nothing collides with it, docking at space stations, ensuring the ICF captain adheres to galactic traffic laws, keeping track of the number of passengers on board and maintaining their overall living conditions, warn the maintenance crew of any potential issues and much, much more. the AIGAS is the brain of the ship, and while they do still require a captain to oversee them, they can mostly run autonomously thanks to this system.
Interstellar Colony Flagships have two main propulsion systems: thrusters and a warp drive.
The Warp Drive installed is purpose-built for the Interstellar Colony Flagships. It is capable of moving the flagship via rippling space around it, allowing for high-speed travel at a relatively low fuel cost. It can also create large-scale wormholes for warp-jumping when faster-than-light travel is needed.
When slower speeds or more precision is needed, however, the standard thrusters are used. This creates propulsion by igniting a liquid fuel source, and is much safer to use in close proximity to other ships, planets and space stations, but much more costly. The thrusters are located in a number of places across the ship, including a set of movable "wings" at the top. These wings, when extended, make an "X" shape and can be moved and even fully retracted when not in use.
All Interstellar Colony Flagships are covered in a coat of chromatashift paint, allowing them to change their colour and markings (such as the name and insignia) using the ship's AIGAS, without having to expend huge amounts of money on repainting them. It also allows the paint to change colour to send signals to other members of the fleet if communication systems fail. For example, an SOS signal can be given by periodically darkening and lightening the colour of the ship.
Powering what is essentially a flying continent is no small task. There are a multitude of ways these colossal ships generate power, and many use a combination of different methods!
Ships that spend a lot of time in or around star systems or other high-energy objects often have a system of panels that can turn radiation into usable power (similar to a modern solar panel). This energy is then used to power the ship's internal systems, provide electricity to the ship's inhabitants and power the Warp Drive. Any excess power is stored in a series of batteries so the ship can maintain power, even when not close to a star system or other source of radiation.
Many ICFs also use a liquid fuel source, which is used specifically for powering the thrusters and low-speed engines.
Ships that spend a lot of time in interstellar space often have bioreactors to act as an additional source of power or thruster fuel. These reactors turn organic material into power, though they are unpopular among many Kepek who view them as unethical due to the fact that replicated organic material (that being organic tissue that was either cloned or created in a lab, rather than being harvested from a living being such as an animal, plant or person) doesn't seem to produce the same energy output, and so naturally produced organic material must be used. To keep the process as ethical as possible, there are many laws surrounding what can and can't be used in bioreactors, put in place by the Kepek Commonwealth and any creatures raised for the purpose of creating bioreactor fuel must be treated with respect and dignity, with many cultures even seeing those raised for this purpose to be sacred.
Older Interstellar Colony Flagships don't have much in the way of built-in defence, as it was assumed nothing would be able to harm a ship this large. This was an oversight, to say the least, and resulted in many tragedies during the commonwealth's early days. Now, these older ships have dedicated Defence Ships as part of their fleets. These ships are stored in the flagship's docking bay and deployed when threats to the fleet are detected, which can include other hostile ships belonging to pirates, or even talbek.
Most of the modern Interstellar Colony flagships do however have defensive turrets and repellent shields as well. The name "repellent shield" is somewhat misleading, as the "shield" acts more like an EMP, creating a blast of energy around the flagship that shuts down any electronic systems, including most smaller ship's life support systems, making them deadly to any hostile ship that gets too close.
In the event a catastrophic system failure happens, passengers on the ship are evacuated to the top section of the flagship, which can become an emergency escape pod and detach from the rest of the ship. The emergency escape pod has a basic warp drive powerful enough to get it to the nearest inhabited star system, as well as powerful thrusters to aid in escaping from threats.
Housing ships are exactly as the name describes, ships dedicated to housing citizens of the fleet and are what makes up the bulk of the fleet. They typically come in 3 size classes: High, Medium and Low Capacity. Low Capacity ships are most often used for farming and housing that more closely resembles rural living on planets, where as medium and high capacity more resembles city life.
The bulk of the fleet's population is normally found in these housing ships, and travel between housing ships and the flagships is normally very easy. When the fleet needs to warp, or when there is an attack on the fleet, the housing ships are the first to be docked in the flagship.
Ship Prefix (in English)
LCH (Low Capacity Housing ship)
MCH (Medium Capacity Housing Ship)
HCH (High Capacity Housing Ship)
Length:
Varies, typically ranges from 100km to 600km
Housing Capacity:
Variable
Max number per fleet:
unlimited
Deployable Defence ships are tiny (competitively speaking) fighter-style ships that are kept inside the flagship until needed. When a threat to the fleet is detected, these ships, driven by expert pilots are deployed to act as the fleet's first line of defence.
Not everything can be teleported, and so Interstellar Colony Ships act as ferries between the planetary and station colonies. However, due to the large size of the Flagship, it can be difficult to get the ship close enough to the smaller planets and stations without causing damage. That's where the ferries come in. Ferries act as the in-between for the colony flagship, the planetary and station colonies and even between the larger fleet ships while in space. There are two classes of ferries: organic supply ferries, which carry organic cargo like food and supplies that can't be teleported, and Passenger Ferries, which carry people.