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The following is based on The Mongoose Publishing RPG books and contradicts canon sources. |
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The Clanfleet is the space fleet of the Drakh.
Overview[]
The majority of the Drakh live and die aboard their mighty clanfleets. It's what made the Drakh an invisible enemy to the Vorlons and now to the Interstellar Alliance. They are a race with neither a homeworld nor colonies, dwellng in space. Each clanfleet consists of at least one clanship, a Templeship, and dozens to hundreds of support ships. Clanships are gigantic vessels, dwarfing the ships of other races, with the average clanship being 60 km long with a crew of 4 million Drakh. Literally spaceborne cities that contain shipyads, factories, and habitats. A clanship is capable of surviving for years at a time without being resupplied. The rest of the ships rely on the clanship resupplying them over long periods. It is equipped with massive jump engines that can open vortices large enought for a clanfleet to travel through simultaneously, which lets hundreds of ships in clanfleet to travel in a single group.
Due to the importance of clanships the Drakh rarely risk them in battle. They are valuable weapons of war, and their impact in any battle would be immense, the loss of a clanship would doom nearly any clan. Only the largest and most powerful clans have the ability to operate multiple clanships and therefore may be able to survive the loss of a clanship. Much smaller than clanships but equally important are the Templeships. Here their priests run the cloning banks that produce new Drakh, as well as the many of the organic components needed for the fleet. These vessels are the seats of the Drakh Entire, and are the Drakh vessels most intimately associated with the Shadows. The rest of the ships in a clanfleet, are far smaller but still incredibly impressive vessels in comparison to those of the Younger races. For example, the Drakh cruiser is a mid-sized vessel in a clanfleet but it rivals massive ships like the Sharlin or Warlock class. Unlike those ships which are purely combat ships, Drakh vessels are multi-role vehicles. The Drakh cruiser is not only a warship but also a carrier, a research station, a training ship, a flying city, and so on.
Clanfleets roam the borders of known space, where they remain hidden fro the larger races. Ragtag, fugitive fleets that are known to many species, via their legends, appearing as heralds of the coming darkenss which eclipses their sun for a day or more as the fleet passes. The largest recorded clanfleet was assembled in a war ten thousand years ago, which consisted of eight clanships, 12 Templeships, and over 3,000 smaller ships. Within a clanfleet, there is constant traffic between the various ships. Most of it consisting of small shuttlepods flitting between the vessels, but the Drakh have also produced long flexible carbon-fibre tubes that function as semi-permanent connections between a convoy's ships.
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Drakh Carrier.
The structure of all clanfleets is the same, with Drakh scouts operating far ahead, searching for any dangers, enemy forces, or useful resources. Behind the scouts is a force of military carriers and cruisers, who secure an area before the clanfleet's vanguard arrives. The clanship is like a comet's head, trailing behind it in a long tail is the rest of the fleet. The factory ships and residential vessels remain close to the core, while the mining ships, tankers, and other harvesters are usually on the fringes. Throughout the long tail are the carriers, functoning as transportation centers for shuttle traffic. Surronding the entire fleet is a swam of Raiders and escort ships, with the battlecruisers functioning as long range patrol vessels. The Templeship flies beside the clanfleet, but slightly separate from the fleet, reinforcing the impression of its sanctity. For the Drakh, a shuttle flight to the Templeship is a pilgrimage. Templeships always have an escort of battlecruisers and fast destroyers.
The clanfleet is able to forage on the move, using numerous small raiders and scouts that operate ahead of the main fleet. If the raiders enccounter other ships, they may attack and capture them, which are brought back to the main fleet where they are stripped of anything that can be used. The Drakh are highly skilled at disguising their activites as normal piracy and raiding. Sometimes, the clanfleet will descend upon a world to loot it of its resources. When doing so they target pre-spaceflight worlds, as they are less able to resist a Drakh harvest raids. The Drakh are so efficient, that they only harvest planets every few decades.
Technology[]
Drakh ships have hulls that consist of a bio-organic composite that has been interwoven with gravity-drive coils. Unlike the hulls of Vorlon or Shadow ships they aren't alive but they are grown like living material into preprogrammed shapes. These hulls are weaker than conventional hulls but that weakness is more than compensated by their ease of construction and the gravitic shielding the Drakh employ. Hull plates fuse nto each other, creating bonds that lack seams, weld lines, or other weak spots. For power generation the Drakh use Shadow technology, bioreactors that are capable of producing virtually infinite power over time. The Drakh don't understand the principles of how they work but have learned to both maintain them and clone new reactors. During emergencies they supplment their energy reservies with fusion reactors. To fuel these reactors the fleets harvest hydrogen from the upper atmospheres of gas giants.
Ships[]
Motherships[]
Carriers[]
Cruisers[]
- Drakh Battlecruisers
- Drakh Light Cruisers
Temple Ships[]
- Drakh Templeships
Scouts[]
- Drakh Scouts
- Drakh Heavy Scouts
Fighters[]
- Drakh Heavy Raiders
- Drakh Light Raiders
- Drakh Fast Destroyers
Miscellaneous Ships[]
- Drakh Shield Escorts
- Drakh Couriers
- Drakh Shuttles
Modified Alien Ships[]
- Human Cargo Haulers
Sources[]
- Babylon 5 the Roleplaying Game's sourcebook: The Drakh
- Babylon 5: A Call to Arms (Game)'s sourcebook: Fleet Lists