Intergalactic Summit

While looking for the stories of the making of our ships, I discovred that the Avatar was originaly made for being the transport vessel of the Amarr leader.

Now I am wondering if the Empress do still use it for her movements within the Empire space or something smaller.

What ships do our leaders actually use ?

You misunderstood.

You are thinking of the "Amarr Emperor Ship" which is a much larger ship.

There are actually two classifications of titans, just as there are two classifications of carriers. There are "Iapetan" titans and "Promethean" titans. The first group consists of ships many times larger than the titans we are familiar with. These are the true flagships of the four empires, and are more than capable of easily destroying their smaller cousins. The Prometheans are the smaller, weaker, more economical children of the Iapetans. They consist of the Avatar, Erebus, Leviathan, and Ragnarok hulls.

The Amarr Emperor ship is not only older, but it is even larger and arguably stronger than any of the Iapetans.

Like Ms.Oniseki said, the big four each possess one or more of these massive lapetane titans. However they almost never use them for whatever purpose. For one, these things are slow, making them rather useless for transportation. Secondly they are prime targets. If a hostile group caught whiff that one of these things was being deployed, they would be very quick to attempt to damage or destroy it. Obviously, they wouldn't go out alone, and so there would be a massive support fleet for these things. This applies to all super capital ships really.

Also, most of these Lapetan are old. While they are probably kept in good condition, they're outdated technologically speaking.

As you can imagine, flying out in the biggest ship you can get a hold of is risky, expensive, and just inefficient. Most leaders seem to prefer Battleships. I know Empress Jamyl was in an Armageddon class on two major occasions. One during her coronation and the other during the one day war where she deployed her super weapon against the Elder fleet.

I believe Tibus Heth used to fly around in a Raven, however he did command the Shiigeru during the forementioned conflict.

Generally it seems battleships are the preferred class of ships that our leaders fly in. They have enough defense to ward off attackers, large enough to provide luxurious accommodations for their passengers, and still maintain a fair degree of mobility.

Your observations are misguided as usual.

Jamyl was in a battleship for her battle with the Elder fleet because she was in seclusion and hiding until that moment. Commandeering any ship much larger would have likely been rather.... noticed.

Her coronation seems to have used the same vessel, likely for propaganda purposes. Nothing beats arriving for your coronation in the vessel that turned-the-tide against an invasion fleet, yes?


And since when does the size or speed of a ship have anything to do with how slow it moves across the cluster? Distance has no meaning for jump capable ships. A to B can be 1 lightyear or 10 lightyears, it matters not.

Additionally when one is commanding one of the Imud Habrau, I imagine they come to you.


Despite these vessels being old I imagine they are far from outdated. One does not strip a planet of its minerals only for something to be forgotten and tossed away.

Your own Dominixes have seen service for decades and decades since the Federation/Caldari independence war. The hulls are continuously upgraded with regards to weapon and shielding systems.

It would be stupid (although I don't put it past the Imperials), to keep their holy flagship so vulnerable. I will believe the same is the case for the other Empires.

Their tactical usefulness might be another story, but these massive ships are not outclassed by their comparatively minuscule progeny.

Exactly my point. A titan or any supercap would have been easily noticed by both the Amarrians who believe she is dead and the Elder attackers. However, one doesn't need to be in hiding to see the benefits of using a smaller capital or even a subcap ship rather than a massive behemoth.

You have a point regarding the coronation.



Race an interceptor across 10 systems while you pilot a freighter and see how that works out for you.

As for jump capable ships, they require a cyno to jump to, another logistical issue with these big ships. What this means is that if a cyno isn't deployed for whatever reason, the Empress or whoever is sitting idle and vulnerable to attack.

When it comes to moving VIPs, the best thing you can do is keep moving. Most of the time, the attack will not come while on the move, but when you are sitting still (with several exceptions of course).



That's because Dominixes are massed produced and their designs are available to the public. When something is in such constant use and the design is open, it gets updated quite frequently. On the otherhand, these Lapetans are no longer being built and have been sitting idle for decades. Some have even never been used.





Maintaining these things is expensive. I'd imagine most of the Empires allocate the bare minimum of funds to keep these things operational.

And I did not mean to suggest these ships are outclassed by smaller titans. Provided a Lapetan has a competant support fleet, has been updated and well maintained, it would easily slaughter scores of their adversaries.

I believe her Majesty flew an Abaddon on both of these occasions.

Oddly, I don't see why you would use such a massive ship to transport your leaders. Not just for Fred's reasons, though they seem sound. Mostly because an imperial leader doesn't need a ship of that size. All the staff, crew, and weapons would be relatively pointless.

It's small wonder she wouldn't fly in one of the largest titans in the fleet, at least. It's a bit overkill.

A ship that big can destroy smaller ships just by sucking them into it's gravity well and letting them crash into it.

It makes sense, when you think about it, especially given current fleet tactics as I understand them. If you know that your target is on board the largest ship, then no matter how large it is you can focus fire for a few moments and destroy it. If you have to take your best guess between otherwise identical battleships that can get to warp more quickly, you've a more complex problem on your hands.

First: "It is nothing so banal as intimidation."

Second: Standing on its own, your question about how intimidating the unknown might be is foolish. Would you care to think about it a tad?