Constructing a monster(DEV THREAD)

[Neive Undant]

“How much power does it need to fire?”

Sitting on the desk of Admiral Wilken Fallon was a manila file labeled “Project: Monstrum.” Inside was a design for a brand new weapon, and a powerful one at that.

“Well, it would need a main reactor twice the size of the original Star destroyer reactor, and firing the weapon would shut down all non-essential systems on the ship.” Said Kreber Fallon, an imperial engineer and Wilken’s brother.

“You understand how costly a thing like this could be, both in credits and resources? Not to mention the risk the ship would be in every time it fired?” Admiral Fallon asked.

“Yes, of course, but with the proper fleet to back it up, it could effect overly decimate any ship it aimed at in one shot, or obliterate any ground target you wanted. This weapon could wipe out a military installation the size of Sundari!” The engineer explained. Admiral Fallon nodded as he opened the file, examining the plans.

“Well, alright then. I’ll contact my superiors and send these plans their way, see if they’ll approve them. If so, we may see them begin the project in a matter of rotations.” Fallon said, causing his engineer brother to smile, pumping his fist in excitement.

“Yes! I knew you’d understand!” He said.

Begin Development: Project Monstrum
Post requirement: 30

[Neive Undant]

The structure of the Star Destroyer took top priority, as the structural integrity of the ship, with the weapon and the amplified reactor, would need to be reinforced beyond what normal ISD’s were, perhaps even stronger than the larger Allegiance Super Star Destroyer, though the structure, in design, had major changes to allow for the placement of the larger reactor and the weapon itself.

On holo-projector, it looked more like an Interdictor-class, with two large capsules on the bottom, but lacked the same on top as the Interdictors had.

The workers of the Kuat shipyards got to work immediately, engineers and architects both preparing the details of the ship before a single beam was molded. The ship would have to be evenly weighted, with a focus on thrust to prevent it from jolting backwards once the weapon was fired.

Electricians were also working on plans for the weapon, drawing up how most systems would be on a circuit that went through the weapon, in order to divert all power to the laser when it fired, aside from artificial gravity and life support systems, which would bypass the wiring and go directly from the reactor to the ventilation and other systems it was meant to perform for. Every light, navigation system, and holo-computer would shut down the moment the ship fired, except for one issue that the electricians ran into.

What about the targeting systems for the weapon itself?

It was discussed for hours on the method, most not wanting to bypass the weapon for another system but some wanting to ensure that the weapon can be quickly moved if it needs to adjust its aim before firing. Finally, it was decided to bypass the weapon, sacrificing that bit of energy to keep the targeting computers running through the firing process, allowing the weapon handlers to observe the target as it was fired upon when the time came.

After weeks of preparing and shipping the materials, the first beams that would make up the structure of the “Monstrum SSD” were set into place in the shipyard of Kuat, a bit of work taken off the engineers as they were told the ship will most likely never see an atmosphere and will stay in orbit or space for its full lifespan, not needing to reinforce the hull further to withstand a planet’s full gravity.

The frame for the ship would be under construction, a set of 4 durasteel beams running down the middle, outside edges, and the bridge base of the ship, with sets of dual beams connecting them together and making up the frame of the bridge itself. Single beams were used as connectors on the front end of the ship and on the bridge, keeping everything stable and sturdy and used as studs for when the armor would be attached.

One team began installing the transparisteel on the sides of the ship and the bridge, to be used as windows, while another began attaching the beams to be used for the interior, beginning with the bridge and the hangar.

[Neive Undant]

The engineers for the Monstrum SSD were hard at work once the framing was done, installing the first sheets of steel flooring on the hangar. Additional framing beams were added to the hangar’s ceiling and floor to hold the fighters that would be docking within, a smaller-than-normal hangar built within the ship to make more room for the two main parts of the ship: the new imperial weapon and the main reactor.

As soon as the flooring for the hangar was finished, construction crews were brought in on 5 different transports coming in from the surface, all of them with the gear to survive the space walk they would be taking in order to work until the hangar and rooms around it were properly ventilated and sealed well enough to be given a life support system once the reactor was set up.

The crews got to work first on the Hangar’s walls, welding and bolting them to the beams behind, a panel at a time, adding on the secondary support structures after each panel to cover up the welds and to add the depth in the walls that imperial ships were nearly known for.

Next were the doors, which weren’t to be installed, but the doorways and the tracks behind them could be prepared, so that when the power was running, the doors would be ready to install and power immediately.

Once the sets of doorways were ready for the doors, the workers turned their attention to the frame for the shield on the edge of the hangar. They bolted the shield frame around the edge of the hangar’s entrance, leaving the wiring on the inside of the wall to be connected after the reactor was up. The shield frame went fairly easily, with only one engineer slipping and drifting out into space, never to be seen again unless he somehow made it into the atmosphere and burned on entry.

With a majority of the hangar now completed, and the construction crews now in the ship, they split up into 4 teams, each of them picking a hallway and putting down the panels for the floors, walls and ceilings, with holes in each ceiling panel for the lights when they were ready to be installed.

One team built their hallway all the way to the future reactor room, another making it to the laser maintenance bay, and the third team making it all the way to the cafeteria, further towards the front of the ship(which they designed purely to spite the officers on the bridge.)

With the hallways done for the moment, the main focus would now turn to the main reactor, and soon, the main laser system.

[Neive Undant]

Once the hangar was finished and the workers made their way through the hallways, another crew began working on the wiring around them, unrolling hundreds of yards of wire to snake through every opening possible in the hangar for the lights, door mechanics, and the computers that would control the clamps on the TIE fighters and other ships.

The lights and door mechanics were simple, but soon enough, the shipments were landing in the hangar for the larger equipment: huge tracks made for the ceiling clamps. It would be much easier to do at the moment, without the artificial gravity weighing down the equipment, but moving such a large object without slamming it into the walls or ceiling was a challenge on its own.

The workers were able to bring the tracks to the ceiling and bolt them down, sliding the clamp mechanics into the tracks before bolting a sheet of metal to the front to prevent the clamps from sliding off the track and falling onto the floor of the hangar, or the ship it was holding.

Once the clamps were ready, the wiring was connected to the track, which relayed the power to the clamps without the need for connecting and limiting their movement with wires once it was powered.

With the first set of clamps complete, 4 more were made, spanning the width of the hangar to allow at least 20 fighters places in the ceiling storage, to allow other ships and more fighters to sit on the floor once it was in operation.

Next, the wiring was ran to the barrier on the edge of the hangar. It was ran to the conduit at the top of the grid, which would power the entire system to allow the barrier to activate when ready.

Light fixtures were installed to the ceiling of the hangar first, then to the hallways around the hangar, following the work of the other crew. However, once they reached the main reactor, the men took a detour around to the room that would eventually hold the ship’s weapon, as planned, and connected to a single, large conduit that they temporarily bolted to one of the beams of the room as a placeholder.

The electricians then went down the next hallway, installing the light fixtures and wiring up to the conduit as well.

[Neive Undant]

The barracks and the mess hall were the next areas to receive wiring, wall and floor panels, along with dozens of feet of transparisteel, giving the men within windows to look out into the vast galaxy with, or to view ongoing battles if such was the situation.

Sections of grey and black counters were pulled into the cafeteria, bolted to the metal floor With square slots on the top of the counters to prepare for trays of food to be placed and kept warm by hot plates that the electricians would install after life support systems were ready.

Sets of bunk beds were floated into the barracks, no mattresses on the beds for the moment, only black metal frames that were measured evenly and bolted to the floor, followed by rows of lockers attached to the walls.


A new crew entered the ship through the hangar, which was focused on welding the exterior walls of the ship to the beams and creating air-tight seals on the corners of the exterior to ensure the life support systems will work properly. Through the hangar, the mess hall, and the space in-between, which would be used as a cargo hold until the workers were ready to work on it.

With the Barracks and the mess hall done, the makeshift cargo hold was plated and the workers put their tools there with magnets holding them to the ground while they moved to work on fleshing out the rest of the ship, namely putting plates on the engine room, reactor room, and towards the bridge.

[Neive Undant]

Nobody understood how much effort went into the construction of a Star Destroyer.

Crew Chief Pullman, who now led a crew working on the water recycling plant, grumbled to himself.

There were fifteen other crews working on the plumbing of the station at the moment, building sinks and toiletries that would drain into pipes that would eventually reach the plant, and another set of pipes would connect to the finished plant and send fresh water out to fill the toilets and prepare the sinks for use.

"I want six men preparing the drainage tanks first, and the other four need to start on the digesters!"

While sewage needed some extra processing before it was pulled into the primary clarifier, without any gravity, there was no need to rush about getting the plant ready step-by-step. Instead, Pullman wanted to make sure that the clarifier was ready before the drainpipe crews were close. He would worry about the sewage flush mechanic as soon as the clarifier was done and the storage tanks were prepared.

It was said by the engineers on Kuat that the trooper barracks would even need a grit removal system in case they ended up on tough terrained planets before returning to the ship, but Pullman thought that was a bunch of Karabast. How many troopers would leave enough sand and dirt in the sewage that it would cause a problem in the filtration that the biosolid digesters couldn't handle?

Pullman ended up having to help one of the crewman with the digester, as its connection was faulty. One replaced seal later, and the biosolid digesters were ready, and the first clarifier's storage tank was ready.

Next on their list was the skimmer arms and the aeriation basin, though the reason for that name here was unusual. On most planets, aeration basins were essentially farms for insects that would feed on whatever micro-organisms were left in the water. However here, wanting not to have an insect infestation on the ship, the aeriation basin was used to hold a chlorine contact chamber that would filter the water much more efficiently and wouldn't contribute to millions of insects populating the area.

Pullman let eight of his crew work on the aeriation basin while he had two crewman hold parts of the skimmer arm in place while he bolted and welded them on, near the top of the first clarifier. This skimmer would collect the grease and oils out of the water and send it into a drainage tank that would expel the substances. While this ship ran on recycling and efficiency, Pullman doubted anyone would want that grease to be reused for anything, especially since expelling it didn't cost the ship anything but small pockets of air every week.

By the time Pullman finished the skimmers and ran their lines back to the drainage pipe for expulsion, his crew had, miraculously, finished the aeriation basin, the chlorine contact chamber, and were getting started on the final clarifier!

Pullman was impressed by his team, being able to not only get their job done, but to take the initiative to move to the next task without being asked.

Was it Moranis that was taking charge? Maybe he was destined for a promotion as soon as Pullman moved to general foreman of the crews. He'd like to see it, though Moranis needed to be patient. You don't move up until someone else moves on, Pullman had always said.

With a few more work days, the final clarifier was ready, an extra return-activated sludge pump was installed to send any water not ready for the clarifier back into the aeriation basin, and the plant seemed fairly close to being done, as soon as the pipe crews arrived.

[Neive Undant]

While thousands of workers continued plating the walls and floors of the facility, and more still built on the plumbing for the facility, their jobs seemed safe in the face of the crews outside the ship.

Welding on armored durasteel plates onto the hull and preparing swivel connectors on the sides of the ship for turbolasers and other defenses, two crews worked near the bridge, on the deflector shield generators.

Stabilizer beams were welded to the top of the bridge in two spots, ensuring the dome structures were secured to the bridge and had no room to wobble. Then, the power couplings were floated into place, bolted down to the electric pathways. One worker on each side began running the wiring down towards where they would connect to the circuit dividers closer to the main reactor.

Meanwhile, with the power couplings in place, the shield matrixes were locked in place and wired in, and the shield accuator was placed on top, bolted in to the matrix. Ensuring the connections and wirings were secure, and the matrix and accuator could both spin properly without grinding any of the metal or wrapping the wires up, the crew moved on and began welding on the bottom of the armored shell.

Generator banks were connected in between spaces in the accuator to connect to the matrix core, and projector relays were bolted to the outer beams to send out the shield itself.

As the bridge was being plated and transparasteel panes were placed along the bridge front, the rest of the shield generator's armored shells were completed, only the relays sticking out from the armor to protect the generators and still allowing the shields to project without issue.

All of this completed, and only three workers pushed off of the ship without their harnesses equipped. One was saved by a nearby co-worker, but two floated out into space without a way to reel them back in without quite literally bumping them with a ship, which couldn't happen because of the transports' tight schedule on flying working to and from the shipyard.

Nonetheless, the shield generators were completed and more plating was attached to the hull, making the ship look slightly more like... a ship.

Why a mostly normal sized Star Destroyer needed four bubble shaped parts of the hull similar to an interdictor, despite not having any of the parts needed for a gravity well, was beyond the workers' understanding.