Star Knight Saga Lore: The Arrowhead, The Solar Guard's Classy Cruiser

General & Technical Data
Class: VGSS-CS-M42
Name: Arrowhead
Ships of the Line: Arrowhead, Crockett, Magellan, Lewis, Clark, John Smith, Ponce de Leon, et. al.
Unit Type: Cruiser
Manufacturer: Shipwright's Guild, Earth.
Operator: Vatican Solar Guard
First Deployment: AD 2990
Length: 200 meters
Width: 40 meters
Height: 20 meters
Crew: 30
Armament: One primary beam cannon in top nacelle mount (fixed forward), two secondary beam cannons each in dorsal and ventral universal turrets, missile launchers x2 (recessed into hull, ventral side), personal defense cannons x20 (five per side recessed in arrowhead)
Compliment: Four Legionnaire-class mecha (aft hold)

Technical & Historical Notes

The Vatican Solar Guard began its modernization program well before the Matter of the Milky Way began, starting with its cruisers and battleships. It replaced the venerated, but aging, Ranger class of cruiser with the Arrowhead beginning in 2990, with the aim of making a proper successor that was an all-around upgrade. Being the most likely independent capital ship to operate alone beyond Holy Terra, it needed just enough capacity to be useful in whatever capacity it needed to display.

The design emphasized advances in automation to vastly reduce the amount of crew required, which in turn allowed the ship to be far smaller than the Ranger it replaced. With speed and resilience being prized by Shipwright architects, Arrowhead came out to be cruiser with surprising agility for a ship of its class. Some call it a corvette for Admiralty-tracked senior captains, and others a pocket battleship masquerading as a cruiser, but none call it ineffective- not alone, not in formation.

Its combat performance before the Matter began, it went against poorly-organized opposition such as your typical space pirates and heretical cults. Not one ship of this class had so as a scratch laid against it in such actions. It faced real opposition for the first time in action against the Red Eyes Armada as Arrowhead, Lewis, Clark, and Ponce de Leon participated with the battleship Oklahomain the reprisal campaign upon Hell's Heart in AD 3001.

Properly tested in combat, Arrowhead and its sisters proved its worth and the class would go on to be regular sights across the galaxy during the wars that would follow and define the core of the Matter of the Milky Way's many tales. It would serve well in many fleet actions and isolated encounters, with the last of the class being retired in AD 3030 where it became part of the Guard Archival Museum in orbit over Mars near the Barsoom War College.