Erd-Sathanai

These vessels appear to be modeled after the dreaded Sathanas. Built through the cooperation of Tyranthraxus's magic engineers and the priests of the Dark God Chaos, the Erd-Sathanai represent the Merge League's proper entrance into the "My-Nation-Has-A-Military-Spacefleet" club.

The Erd-Sathanai make up most of the active combat vessels of the Merge League's aerospace force, the Brigade of the Arcing Talon.

Varieties of Erd-Sathanai

Erd-Sathanai (which, in the same forgotten tongue that named the Sathanas, simply means "Little Sathanas") come in three sizes: small (Bloodhawks), medium (Deathspiders) and large (Warbirds).

Bloodhawks

These smaller vessels are fighter-scale Erd-Sathanai. They support a pilot and co-pilot/tailgunner who sit with their backs to each other in the cockpit. The pilot has full control of maneuvering and throttle, and two dark-force projectors that together cover a 180 degree arc in front of the craft. The tailgunner has control of two identical projectors, covering the craft's rear.

The Bloodhawk is unique in that it has a bi-lateral design; at any point, the pilot and co-pilot can switch off roles, and the vessel's forward section will become its aft, and vice versa. This gives the Bloodhawk enormous versatility in mid-air combat, allowing it to change directions quickly and with little fore-warning to opponents.

The Bloodhawk fills the role of an aerial skirmisher; it is not a ship-killer, and has little in the way of anti-capital ship weaponry. That said: the dark-force projectors it sports are incredibly powerful for fighter-scale weaponry. A squadron of Bloodhawks concentrating their fire on a small capital ship can readily chip away at shield integrity, softening up the target for a larger Erd-Sathanai vessel to deliver a killing blow.

Deathspiders

The Deathspider is a light frigate-scale vessel. It takes its name from its arachnoid design, having several growths lancing off from the main hull that vaguely resemble a spider's legs. These are actually many, many, many dark-force projectors. Because of its multiple armaments, the Deathspider fills the role of a supporting gunboat. From the sheer volume of weapons it sports, a Deathspider easily holds its own against comparably-sized vessels from other national spacefleets. It is often supported by one or more squadrons of Bloodhawks.

The Mergers are toying with the idea of expanding the Deathspider's arsenal by integrating Scandian-made ship-scale weaponry, especially something in the way of missiles (which the Mergers lack) or even a Super-volt coil.

Warbirds

The Warbird is the largest of the Erd-Sathanai designs. They vaguely resemble smaller versions of the Sathanas, being only about twice as large as the Deathspider. It is far from the miles-long battleships of the Great Powers' fleets. Nevertheless, the Warbird is not a threat to be taken lightly. Like the Sathanas, the entire vessel is capable of projecting thick, powerful beams of dark-force from virtually any point on the vessel's hull. Even so, the Warbird is a very slow-moving craft and depends upon its smaller, faster support vessels to win engagements.

Like the other Erd-Sathanai ships, the Warbird lacks much diversity in its armament. It is also the toughest of the three Erd-Sathanai to destroy, having a very thick hull and powerful dark-force based energy shielding. A key weakness of the Warbird is its inability to fire on multiple targets at once: while the Warbird's dark-force projection weapon can fire from any point on the ship's hull, it can only fire one beam at a time. This leaves the Warbird open to being surrounded and overwhelmed during its main gun's cooldown time -- which again underscores the Warbird's need for support from swarms of Bloodhawks and Deathspiders.

Sathanas 2?

It's not known where this rumor first started, but the Merge League is supposedly either building or looking for a "Sathanas 2" to serve as the flagship of its fleet of Erd-Sathanai. Depending on which version of the rumor you hear, priests of Chaos, Thanatos and Tauroch are helping to construct a new Sathanas-like vessel with all the deadly features of the original -- or, in another version of the rumor, the Dark Wrath actually built two of the demonic spacecraft and one remains undiscovered somewhere in the Web.

Performance

The Merge League heaped expectations upon the Erd-Sathanai, leading up to its confrontation with the GSF. To be a successful experiment, the Erd-Sathanai would need to provide the Mergers with a decent capacity to engage the Guardian star vessels on an even footing.

Large-scale aerial battles between GSF starfighters and flocks of Erd-Sathanai Bloodhawks have dominated the skies of both inhabited Merge worlds, and the League has even been able to push out beyond the Guardian blockades to put its battle fleets beyond the atmosphere. At least half of this success has been due to Guardian surprise at the appearance of the Erd-Sathanai, and the expectation that a Fringe-world nation would be unable to stand up to the might of the most powerful national spacefleet in the Web.