Yagad-Tich

The Yagad-Tich or Megatortoise is the largest ship of the Rigellian fleet, a supercapital battleship developed in the aftermath of the Biophage. They are essentially an anvil upon which the enemies of Rigel, and the Federation, are expected to break. These ships have the toughest defensive systems in known space, still even marginally better than the larger and more modern Ambassador-class ships used by Starfleet. Their weapons performance, while lesser than an Excelsior-A or Kaldar-bis, is still respectable.

A refit for the Yagad-Tich is now being worked on, substantially increasing hull and armor strength, along with a more minor increase in weapons strength and sprint speed.

Background
Several proposed warship designs had been on the desk of the fleet committee since the early 2290's, most of which could be described as, essentially, a better armed turtleship variant. These designs were rejected both because of the better versatility of the existing turtleship designs, and due to fears of the Rigellian government becoming too trigger happy if it had a large fleet of battlecruisers at its disposal. Yagad-Tich was chosen both because its superfreighter-like size meant that it would not compete with turtleships for existing military berth space, and because the investment in a smaller number of more powerful supercaps would encourage the government to employ them for defensive operations only. Furthermore, while Rigelian shield and hull technologies are second to none in known space, their weapons were somewhat lacking; try as they might, the engineers could not design a turtleship-sized vessel with firepower to match a Federation excelsior or a Romulan heavy warbird without severely compromising its valuable shield and hull strengths. Only a super-capital dreadnought would do.

Hull(s)
The twin hulls of the Yagad-Tich are heavily redundant, each hosting their own command center, computer cores, environmental control centers, and (most importantly) anterior deflector dishes, enabling the megatortoise to continue operating at nearly full capacity even after sustaining severe hull damage. The dual shield system is further amplified by an array of secondary dome-deflectors positioned near the aft flanks; in addition to improving shield integrity and helping regulate their coverage over the ship's entire 2.5 megaton bulk, these ancillary domes are designed to absorb any power surges from shield damage, acting as a kind of ablative armor to keep the main deflectors safe. The domes also work in tandem with the array of sensor blisters that run along the megatortoise's spine in the experimental "shield sensor" system that uses the shields to relay sensory signals from different angles. Though this system is less powerful and more energy intensive than the turtleship's large conventional sensor banks and astrometrics labs, they allow a large amount of the Yagad-Tich's hull space to be saved for extra armor, shock absorbers, and secondary EPS conduits. Even with this system in place, however, the Megatortoise is never meant to be deployed without escorts to sight for it.

Propulsion
The megatortoise's propulsion system is remarkable in two respects. First, the quad-nacelle system - adopted in order to avoid having to build larger and more exposed dual-nacelles to accommodate the vessel's size - uses a "warp funnel" nacelle pylon system that links the field of the port and starboard pairs and then acts as a surrogate for the Line of Sight requirement, the nacelle pylons maintaining a clear path to each other through the ship's central gap. In essence, each "wing" of the megatortoise acts like a massive warp nacelle for LoS purposes, even if the nacelle rods themselves are of conventional design. Second, in addition to the primary warp core located deep in the aft dorsal hull, the megatortoise has a backup core - normally kept offline and completely seperated from the EPS systems - in the ventral hull just below the warp field gap. The Megatortoise is thus the only ship in known space that can escape at warp after being forced to eject the core; the smaller secondary warp core is much weaker and has only a limited fuel capacity, but is still sufficient for escape purposes.

Tactical systems and shuttles
Phaser banks, torpedo bays, and escape pod racks dot the outer hull wherever a break in the armor can be afforded. While the choice to dot the Yagad-Tich with numerous cruiser-scaled weapon ports rather than a smaller number of capital grade superweapons leaves it somewhat undergunned for its size, the relatively smaller breaks in the armor and less volatile EPS corridors needed to power these smaller weapons makes for a better armored, more reliable package that can remain in the fight long after its better armed counterparts have been disabled. The distributed placements of the weapon ports also affords the megatortoise unusually good coverage; a feature that stood out in particular to the Rigellian fleet committee when they considered the waves of suicide-shuttles employed by the Biophage. The megatortoise's shuttle bays are located in the aft overhang of the dorsal hull, just above the impulse engines. The same entrance also doubles as the primary warp core ejection terminus; needless to say, there are thick walls and SIF systems in between the port and starboard shuttle bays, and the ejection tube that separates them.

Crew factors
The nine hundred souls who crew the Yagad-Tich live in spartan conditions, compared to those of most Rigellian ships. Crew quarters are located throughout the ship, so that each serviceman can get to his engine room, torpedo bay, sensor blister, or command center with only a short walk or turbolift ride. The relatively small recreational spaces are a continual source of complaints among the crew, as are the dual mess halls that minimize the sense of shipboard community in favor of keeping every crewman near his station at all times. In retrospect, the engineering team admits that they might have gone slightly overboard with the post-Biophage paranoia when they designed the last minute touches before construction began. Morale is likewise unhelped by the presence of an internal EPS venting system modeled after Starfleet's own, meant to scour Biophage-infected ship sections clean of all life. On the plus side, the crew take comfort in the Yagad-Tich's ten racks of escape pods located at each cardinal corner of the ship; wherever you're stationed, escape is easy should the unthinkable happen and the Megatortoise's shields and armor both fail. Each escape pod bay is also linked by a single hallway to one of the ship's six transporter rooms, ensuring a swift evacuation to the escape pods for all crew members regardless of internal hazards.

Refit Proposals
With the first Yagad-Tich earning the respect of the entire quadrant in the Licori War and a second under construction, the Rigellians are already considering the possibility of a refit to compensate for their battleship's weaknesses. A redesign of the crew areas has already been put forward that should improve living conditions and allow for more community without compromising battle-readiness; the resulting morale boost will both improve performance, and increase the ship's effective Presence (in contradiction to its original design philosophy; the offensive role played by the Yagad-Tich in the Licori war has caused some considerable rethinking). For a time, Rigellian representatives were also engaged in secret talks with the Seyek Union, regarding acquisition of the monstrously powerful Photon Lance weapon. A certain Rigellian engineer believed that she could redesign the megatortoise's anterior hull and EPS channels to accommodate a photon lance with only a minimal tradeoff in armor strength, and turn the Megatortoise-A into the single deadliest warship class in known space.

Unfortunately, the ship's low maximum warp - originally not considered a major drawback due to the Yagad-Tich's planned defensive role - is less easily solved.