RWI Eclipse

The RWI Eclipse is the pride and joy of Captain Jack Roberts, and the personal starship of him and his team during the Green Drone War. As the first Eclipse-class Science Corvette, it was fitted with extensive high-tech components, and more and more of its systems were upgraded or retrofitted as the war went on, such as the addition of shields and new weaponry.

The Eclipse served the Captain and his crew through the majority of the war, taking them to many planets and facing many GDA (Green Drone Armada) enemies. However, it was ultimately destroyed at the final battle of the war, when it was blasted by an Atlas Superlaser beam from the GDA Controller’s Super-Dreadnaught. A month after the war’s end, Jack Roberts, now promoted to Admiral, had a model of the original Eclipse-class design in his office on Cyrus Station over Icarus, as an homage to the vessel.

The Battle of Ravcor
After Captain Jack Roberts and his team assisted Captain Jonathan Hunter of RWI (Red Wood Industries) and his Daedalus-class Battleship, the RWI Valiant, Hunter delivered them to a space station where the Eclipse was docked in. The team, now officially part of RWI and on a special assignment to retrieve the Artifact from the GDA, traveled to the lava planet Ravcor, where they set up a base of operations in an abandoned CNL (Crazy North Logistics) outpost.

At some point, Jack used the Eclipse to ferry him to a meeting with key RWI personnel. When he returned to the base, joined shortly after by Captain Hunter’s reinforcements, his team attacked the GDA’s ground base on Ravcor. The Eclipse arrived shortly after and offloaded RWI marines. The team then used the Eclipse to escape the base with the Artifact, though the ex-DRF (Drone Reactionary Force) member Papple was left for dead.

After a long struggle of repelling the invading GDA forces, the team again used the Eclipse to escape the planet for good. When they were fired upon by GDA infantry, they used new shielding technology obtained from RWI. The Eclipse later helped the Valiant and its escorting Phoenix-class Assault Frigates, the Achilles and the Griffin, destroy many GDA destroyers in Ravcor’s orbit. However, the frigates were destroyed and the Eclipse and Valiant retreated from the system once the GDA Commander appeared in his Command Dreadnaught.

Defense of the Artifact
While the Eclipse and the Valiant underwent hasty repairs in a nebula above the icy planet Demus, they encountered a GDA listening and transmitter station hidden in an asteroid field. They were then reinforced by two CNL Frigates, which were soon destroyed, and later the RWI Discovery, to which they passed the Artifact and the Valiant’s crew. Soon afterward, another battle with multiple GDA Destroyers and fighters occurred, causing even more damage to the Valiant.

Bashful, Dr. Craz, and a handful of other team members stayed aboard the Eclipse or piloted the V-203 Fighters of the Valiant when Jack, Commander Sam Reed, Castle, and Finn crashed the Valiant on Demus. They quickly located them and landed on the planet to set up a small outpost, as the Eclipse could not hold up against the several GDA destroyers still in orbit.

Eventually, the team used the Eclipse to attack a GDA ground outpost and steal coordinates to a shipyard in orbit, but sustained damage that took Finn, the head engineer, over an hour to fix. Jack also installed two Telion anti-fighter turrets on the ship’s sides. When the drones counterattacked, the Eclipse fled the planet and they stealthily took over a GDA fuel depot in orbit.

While Jack took Reed, Castle, and Bash to infiltrate the GDA shipyard, Craz, Finn, and the rest of the team temporarily modified the Eclipse with a rotor gun. The Eclipse, along with a stolen GDA destroyer, escaped from the system just as the Command Dreadnaught arrived to thwart their plans.

Reunion with RWI Command
The Eclipse and the stolen destroyer jumped to an unknown planet where they encountered a derelict CNL Carrier. Shortly after, the GDA, seeking to ensure they could not replicate the Atlas Laser technology, ambushed them again. But, thanks to the timely arrival of Captain Hunter and a trio of Phoenix-class Frigates, they managed to FTL-jump back to Icarus, the capital planet of RWI.

Jack and his team were then given temporary command of the RWI Tigris, a Defender-class Frigate, while the Eclipse was being repaired and retrofitted at Cyrus Station. The team left the ship at Icarus when the GDA invaded the planet, however it is unclear where the Eclipse was and how it wasn’t damaged by the battle.

The DRF Hive
Twenty-four hours after the Artifact was stolen back by the GDA during the Battle of Icarus, the Eclipse was returned to Jack and his team. By this time, it’s default missile launchers were replaced with more powerful missiles and torpedo launchers, as well as a new targeting system known as WeaponCore.

Grand Admiral Adam Williams of RWI order the Eclipse crew to investigate a mysterious signal in what was once a DRF Hive that was lost in space. While Finn, Morslupus, and Owen salvaged nearby deactivated DRF frigates, the team found Papple alive inside the hive. However, something caused the DRF drones to reactivate and attempt to kill the team. They made it to the Eclipse, and using a strategy of micro-FTL jumps enacted by Jack, managed to hold their own against several now-reactivated DRF ships before being critically damaged and forced to retreat from the system.

The Search for Admiral Ellis
The Eclipse managed to jump to a planet within CNL space, where Jack received orders from Williams to help CNL retrieve a missing admiral, Sven Ellis. After some quick repairs, the Eclipse landed on the planet, but due to unstable atmospheric weather conditions, the corvette was grounded temporarily.

Once the team found the Admiral, they were quickly besieged by GDA fighters. Due to some quick thinking and advanced programming techniques made at an unknown time by Jack, the Eclipse managed to fly itself in with the help of DJ, an Artificial Intelligence unit, and extract the team and return the Admiral to CNL space. Once back on Icarus, the Eclipse underwent more refitting. Its side thrusters were improved and its main Mk.1 Battery was replaced by a 'Little David' heavy cannon.

The Invasion of P3-X2
Jack and the Eclipse’s crew were sent as an advance party to the GDA stronghold world P3-X2, where Jack and his Colonist Survivors used to reside and fought the DRF fleet, before the main invasion force led by Grand Admiral Williams arrived. After investigating the nearby wreckage field of their colony’s old starships, the Eclipse was piloted inside the asteroid of Watchtower Station by use of the Waffle Iron 2.0, constructed by Craz before the GDA attacked them and drove them from Watchtower. Once the massive invasion fleet arrived, the Eclipse exited the Waffle Iron 2.0 and joined the Tigris and many other ships in destroying the GDA blockade. The corvette flew around the battlefield, drawing fire from the destroyers as the fleet slowly blasted them to pieces.

Once the blockade was broken and the ground operations began, the Eclipse was left in orbit. Things began to fall apart for the Allied Fleet - the Controller had taken the Artifact aboard his GDA Super-Dreadnaught and was fleeing the system, and Jack’s team could not assist as they were trying to evacuate Captain Sarah Hawk and the survivors of the RWI Discovery’s crash-landing. Using a relay from the RWI Osiris, Jack summoned the Eclipse down to the planet using DJ and the team also evacuated.

Aftermath
As the RWI and CNL joint fleet was pummeled by the retreating GDA forces, the Eclipse rejoined the battle in space. The Commander’s Dreadnaught and supporting Destroyers dealt heavy damage to the fleet and the Eclipse before, out of nowhere, a small RCSP battle group led by Jack’s old friend, Commander Venom, emerged and aided the Allies in escaping. Jack later left the Eclipse again to use the Phoenix-class frigate RWI Bristol to bombard a GDA outpost on a rocky moon. They stole supplies from the base to repair the Eclipse and the fleet.

The Battle of the Black Hole
The Allied Fleet rallied at Icarus for one final assault against the GDA fleet before the Controller could unleash the Artifact’s power. The Eclipse took part in the initial battle, helping greatly as the fleet smashed through the GDA Destroyers and, soon after the RWI Zheng-He was critically damaged, the Dreadnaught.

Jack left the Eclipse in the command of Lieutenant Morslupus, an RWI marine, and Ensign Finchy, another former DRF member, while he and the rest of the crew boarded the GDA Super-Dreadnaught to destroy it and the Artifact once and for all. However, a blast from one of its Atlas Superlaser cannons cut through the Eclipse’s advanced shields, destroying the bridge with Mors and Finchy along with it. The remains of the vessel drifted into the hull of the Super-Dreadnaught, and the ship was no more. Jack and the team, once their mission was accomplished, later returned to the RWI flagship RWI Apollo via Valkyrie-class Dropships and learned of the Eclipse’s destruction.

Legacy
One month after the Battle of the Black Hole and the Eclipse’s destruction, Jack was promoted to Admiral. In his office in Cyrus Station, a display case with a model of an older version of the Eclipse could be seen, as a memorial of the ship.

It is unknown at this time whether or not anymore Eclipse-class Corvettes were built by RWI’s shipyards after the war. It is also presumed that the Eclipse itself was the only of its class in service during the war.

Characteristics
The Eclipse was a fairly small warship, being a corvette, but was sometimes even more powerful than other RWI ships. Though it had no heavy cannons, save its main static cannon and missile launchers, it was well armed with Vulcan mini gun turrets and could hold its own against most enemies. It was adept at taking down GDA fighters.

Interior
At the front of the ship was the bridge. Being a science corvette, it had a large viewport revealing 180 degrees of vision for the bridge crew at the front. The bridge also had stations for six crew members and a captain’s chair, as well as a holotable in the middle.

The ready room was one room behind the bridge. It contained two cryo pods, a medical bay, medical scanner, cargo access, and a desk and screen for Jack.

Beyond the ready room was a sort of crew area, containing cargo containers, a private bathroom and shower, a bar counter, and a small kitchen and vending machine. There was also a stairwell leading down to the airlock and deploying ramp.

The next room was a small hangar bay. This used to be connected to the crew room before a Jack put a wall dividing them in order to save the whole ship from venting oxygen when the hangar door was open. The Artifact was stored in this room for a brief time, and rarely did the crew ever store a ship inside. A landing gear on the ceiling docked the small ship to the Eclipse.

Finally, the engine room was the last, and according to Finn, the most important room on the ship. It housed the FTL jump drive, Deuterium reactor, oxygen generators, and shield modules and control table. It also had a console for the engineer to work at. Housed inside the hull were also hydrogen tanks, cargo containers, and conveyor pipes running throughout the ship.

Exterior
The Eclipse had hydrogen thrusters in every direction - namely, two large ones facing forward and backward. It’s main side thrust before modification, however, were high-tech ion thrusters from Azimuth Industries. They were weak in atmosphere, so the team installed side hydrogen thrusters in each direction near the bottom of the ship. The ship also had Tier-Four atmospheric thrusters to keep it aloft in atmospheres.