Bristol Fashion, Colony Ship

Shown with an Agincourt Class Dreadnaught and Victoria Class Battleship in profile at left for scale comparison. Also a Manchester Class Cruiser is near the main docking bays.

Unified Colonial Administration - Bristol Class, Long-Range Total Environmental Reforming Colonizer
Length: 59,329 meters (~36.8 miles)

The single largest ship the Colonial Administration builds can carry up to 2 million colonists in stasis and convert most planets with a habitability rating of 0.3 or greater to 0.98 if given the time and assuming the mass of the planet is within a range of 0.87G to 1.09G. If the mass is too extreme in one direction or another, the U.C.A. Corps of Engineers must first complete their surveys and mass-adjustment operations before the colony ship can begin terraforming and seeding operations.

The Bristol Class was designed in the later stages of the First Era of Expansion and revolutionized colonization efforts. Using numerous technological advances and combining the knowledge of various research institutions, specialized landers were developed that could detach from the main vessel. The 6 cylindrical terraforming modules could be dropped on the major axes to begin spewing out atmospheric reconditioning particles and bacterial transformers in the proper sequences for altering or generating a planet's atmosphere. While this is happening, transports form the Colony Ship collect nearby asteroids and comets with the right composition to deposit enough water for oceans and the like as work crews build orbital stations and processing centers for future development of the star system. When conditions improve, the "Seed Ships" can descend and half-bury(or submerge) themselves in the most suitable locations. The Seed Ships then begin dispersing massive amounts of flora to take root followed by cloned adult wildlife and create up to 8 different biomes for the new colony.

When nearing completion, the terraformers start ramping down and the large outer sections unfold to reveal a complement of pre-fabricated structures including landing pads for the entry vehicles the newly awakening colonists begin arriving in, forming the centers of what will be the first major cities on a new world.

The whole process can take anywhere from a decade to more than a century depending on the planet. For this reason, survey ships make extensive scans of prospective colonies and the U.C.A. arranges them in order of ease of transformation and distance from the systems constructing the colony ships. For the process to work, everything must be done precisely and in the proper order. This focus and pride on specifications led the first ship to be named the "Bristol" after the city in England notorious for its immaculate shipping regime.

Colony ships do not carry direct armaments but often have robust escorts due to the level of investment involved.

------------------------

Fans of Star Wars and Babylon 5 will notice some influences from the Bulwark Battlecruiser and Babylon series of stations. Fans of Trigun, good on yah ^___^