The Byotai Navy

I’ve been working on the background and designs for the Byotai Navy for use in thelatest Star Crusader books, as well as for the covers of related series. Here’s a little of the background as well as images of the many ships used. For more information visit the Byotai page on this website.

The latest novel in my Star Crusader series features several epic space battle but until today you’ve only seen images of a single ship. Battleship Furiosa features prominently on the cover of the book bearing her name. But what of the rest of the fleet? In the last few days I’ve started to upgrade my website with images of every ship in the Star Crusades universe. First up are the Byotai, and their powerful fleet. I will add more images and specific technical data such as dimensions, crew and weapons over the next week or so. The fleet of today combines elements of the old fleet along with the latest post Narau treaty vessels.

AN ANCIENT PRE-NARAU TREATY FLEET

Pre-Narau Treaty Byotai fleets are based around battleships, with escort destroyers. Support squadrons include attack wings of first generation Cohort class ships. The Byotai use fewer, larger ships than the other races. Early Byotai fleets consisted of heavy ships with short ranges, and a requirement for many replenishment bases. Most are now lost, destroyed or scrapped. They suffered against the more agile and faster Biomech ships of the past, especially when bases were lost. They form the second tier as a heavy reserve. Though slow, they are the most powerful ships in existence outside of the Biomechs.

POST-TREATY ERA SHIPS

Post-Narau Treaty fleets retain heavy weapons, but the ships are faster, fitted with high-tech tracking equipment and more flexible, plus capable of operating with Helion and other ships. They carry massive membrane solar arrays for harnessing solar winds for high-speed travel. Known collectively as dragonflys in the Alliance.

If you’d like to know more, please visit the Byotai page on this website.