Oscv 02 Baleful Eye

After the bloody war with the Word of Creation, the Oraki after action reports singled out the need for a defensive fleet - one to find and engage any who would dare assault their stronghold. In response, the war-weary engineers designed several classes of ships, among them the OSCv-02, dubbed the Baleful Eye by the first human who saw it, in memory of an ancient book.

It hung in the darkness as I arced towards their world, their Sanctuary that forbidden place that had promised me so much in return for the simple trip. Then the sun dawned, the sphere in orbit caught aflame, and the darkness looked back into me like an ancient holo-vid, the Baleful Eye of Sauron.

Spherical in shape, and approximately thirty-five meters in diameter, the external surface of the Baleful Eye largely consists of active sensors and maneuvering thrusters, save for the maw of its primary thruster, and a single arc where its weapon is mounted. Backlit by the faint light of Van Maanen's star, the exhausts of the many maneuvering thrusters cause it to appear to be wreathed in a haze of sooty flame, the slitted eye of a long forgotten horror.
Mounting many hundreds of telescopes and gravscopes across the spectrum, combined with a variety of radar and lidar systems, the Baleful Eye is capable of passively detecting even the smallest of vessels within roughly a light-week of Sanctuary, provided light has had the time and actively detecting them within about a light-day. While it is possible to 'evade' the Eye's detection system by plowing directly inward at massive velocity, and arriving within moments of any image to be seen, few vessels can accelerate to such speeds swiftly enough for this to be meaningful in wartime - most such are seen during the early parts of acceleration from the drop of the ship from Yau-Calabi space, and even a few hours of warning is more than sufficient.

We figgered the ingoing freighters was easy. Hit the afterburners when they come, wipe the floor with the escort before they saw us, redd up the cargo, duck back out into that crazy nebula around the whole star. Well, weren't more than a few hours after we was into our stealth orbit that the fighters popped up on sensors, burning hard. Then the missiles started, and me, I just up and quit. Three squares and a little room beats breathing hard vacuum. -- Lucky John, convicted pirate.

While the Eye is armed, and armored, it is hardly a front line vessel. Rather, it bears but a single, track-mounted heavy maser with which to defend its crew of eight, concentrating almost entirely on its role as an Early Warning System, according to the combined arms philosophy of the Sanctuary Military. From the data it collects, central command is able to dispatch an appropriate response to whatever threatens. It is typically expected to entirely avoid the front lines, and while not exceptionally fast, it is noted as being exceptionally agile compared to the majority of Starkin Federation vessels.

Typically, a pentet of Eyes is deployed in orbit over Sanctuary, while six more hang in orbits roughly three times further out from the central star, three perpendicular to the ecliptic, while the other three orbit in parallel to it. Together, few approaches across the barren star system avoid notice.