Cabal Warship

[Michael]

Centuriesbefore the events of the Red War, Dominus Ghaul exchanged the solitary cruisers of Calus's space fleet for swarms of close-quarter frigates designed to be independent, small, and highly maneuverable and adaptable. This was in response to the Hive threat, whose usage of space-time rifts let them close distances instantly and forced the Cabal to fight them at extremely close ranges.[2] During the Cabal's occupation of Mars, scores of warships could be seen stationed about the Sol System, from the ruins of Freehold[1] to an abandoned warbase on Phobos,[3] including an abandoned fleet on Mercury.[4] In the aftermath of the Skyburners' offensive on the Dreadnaught, two warships can be viewed in a hologram on the bridge orbiting above and below Saturn's rings.[5]

During the Red War, a fleet of ships along with Carriers attacked the Last City. The Tower was destroyed by swarms of long ranged rockets.[6] During the course of the war, Shaxx's Redjacks were able to board and acquire some ships for the Crucible.[7] Cabal warships belonging to the Skyburners were also seen docked at Firebase Hades during the Guardian's mission to steal Thumos's Harvester. When Val Ca'uor attempted to seize control of the Leviathan from Emperor Calus, he brought a massive fleet of Red Legion warships to assault Calus's ship. These ships would also bombard the Celestial Observatory with Drop Pods and missiles during Ca'uor's battle with the Guardian Raid team sent to stop him. Most of the ships in this fleet were decimated by the Guardians using the Leviathan's formidable armaments.[8]

During the Clash of the Chosen, fleets of Imperial Cabal warships and command carriers were seen in the skies of the Cosmodrome, Nessus, and Europa when the Rites of Proving for aspiring members of Empress Caiatl's War Council were taking place. Shortly after Mars reappeared, Caiatl sent a fleet which included at least one Cabal warship to confront the Lure over the Cradle. This ship was first spotted by Ikora Rey and Eris Morn as it flew past their camp while carrying a gigantic cannon which it lowered onto a nearby Cabal bunker.

Cabal Warships were built to replace the solitary, elegant cruisers that Emperor Calus favored during his reign of the Cabal empire. Small frigate types by Cabal standards, are described by Calus as "ugly, hasty, and crude", individually expendable, and built for brute force and close-range combat.[2] Other models were illustrated by the Skyburner's command ship, Dantalion Exodus VI, being deployed as a warship-sized boarding pod against Oryx's Dreadnaught on the orders of Ghaul, and remaining largely intact.[9] This is after the Awoken offensive failed in the Battle of Saturn, where the Harbingers left not a mark upon the Hive vessel's armor.[10] They are also capable of deploying Mining Landers, Injection Rigs,[11] drills, long range-missiles (for other models) and boarding pods.[2] They have four main engines,[12] with a six-engine variant serving as Ghaul's flagship, the Immortal.[13]

The Immortal is not the only known six-engine variant, however, as the Almighty has three within its Skybox flying around above. They are serviced by carriers.[2] The Red Legion utilized other warship classes capable of long-range combat during the invasion of The Last City; there are larger battlecruiser variants of the mainline warship for orbital bombardment and carrier operations. These ships boasted greater armaments and could carry multiple Land Tanks, Goliath Tanks, Threshers, and Harvesters on-board. An example is the warship Retribution.[7][14] They may either be surviving examples of Calus's elegant "instruments of state", or converted and retrofitted per Umun'arath's specifications into the Red Legion's fleets.[citation needed]

By the mind of Match, Shadow Councilor to the True Emperor. Upon the Leviathan, helpless to alter its course. Today I pour salt from the Y-goblet so that my ancestors may roughen their skin. My every thought and purpose for my Emperor, Calus, once and future sovereign.

It is the opposite of everything Calus wanted for his people. Even the new Cabal's ships are expendable. These are not the beautiful deterrents of Calus's armada; they are ugly, hasty, and crude. The crews live in their armor, prisoners of their duty, escaping only through music and games smuggled into the battlenet. One popular pastime, I understand, is to draft personal "fleets" and "legions" from among real Cabal ships and soldiers, competing with comrades to win the most victories. Of course it is very bad luck to draft your own unit.

I suggested that the War Councilors invite Calus to observe one of Ghaul's carrier groups attacking a Hive war moon. He came because he knows the value of pretending to care. But even the shape of the fleet hurt him; Ghaul and his tyrannical ally Umun'arath have abandoned proud, independent cruisers (instruments of state, Calus liked to say) for swarms of frigates that suckle fuel from enormous fleet carriers. The Hive's portals leave no time or space for elegant vector dances, so these new ships are built for brutal exchanges at point-blank range.

We felt other Psions at work, hiding the traitor fleet from the Hive as they scattered drills and boarding pods in the war moon's path. A strike at the surface was not enough; someone would have to bring a planet-cracker warhead down into the moon's viscera. Caught up in the excitement, I asked one of the war councilors how we could possibly prevail against the Hive, who were so old and so powerful.

She compared our Cabal to a seagoing warship and the Hive to a submarine. They might dive into deep metaphysical layers of existence, where we are no match for them. But in the ordinary universe, the Hive are like a submarine on the surface: still dangerous, but not invincibly so.

Dantalion Exodus VI is a location on the Dreadnaught and a Cabal warship. It was rammed into the Dreadnaught to serve as a beachhead under orders received from a deep space signal,[1] having previously functioned as a warship for the Skyburners.

According to Cabal myth, the first Emperor was a hero named Acrius who allegedly took the sun. [17] In the earliest days of this new empire, the Cabal emperor ruled alongside the venal military aristocracy known as the Praetorate, which allowed the people to suffer so the Legions who served them could grow. [18]

Upon Calus's Inauguration, he had the wasteland cleared of any stone or plant in order to have a desert of pure white. Three days later, a violet pavilion was constructed and Calus's court was recreated in every detail. [19] The first act of his coronation was to send the Consul into the wasteland as a symbol for the revolution he would soon bring. During his reign, Calus decided to purge the corrupt Praetorate and he and his imperial guard marched into the temple where the former Cabal senate convened and assassinated them. [20] He then granted citizenship to the various Legions and set Evocate-General Umun'Arath as Primus of All Legions. [18]

During this time, Calus moves the Capital to Torobatl so it could be closer to his people, throwing parades daily as he bought from the local market places. Following his "great purge", Calus spoke to the people at Dau'uss, announcing that he had repossessed the wealth and plunder of the Praetorate elite. [18]

Centuries after destroying the Psions' clairvoyant OXA Machine, word reached the emperor that it had been rebuilt on the moon of Brand. The Evocate-General then sent her ships to bomb the moon but Calus stopped her ships and instead proposed an alliance with Otzot, the Psion which rebuilt the machine. [18]

Calus's reign was not without personal troubles. He was wary of Umun'arath, his Evocate-General, for her paranoia and obsessive fixation on war. His own daughter and heir, Caiatl, grew up similarly despite his efforts.

One of Calus's pleasures was the coliseum, and one day, an albino gladiator named Ghaul made his first appearance there. Ghaul's patient skill and unusual coloration soon made him a favorite of Calus's, and the Emperor eventually made him Primus of the Red Legion, where his talents would be put to better use. Calus grew to love Ghaul like a son, and believed they were kindred spirits who both envisioned a newer, more perfect world. Ghaul's association with The Consul and members of the Praetorate worried him, but not enough.

Behind Calus's back, Ghaul was in fact organizing a coup with the Consul and some of Calus's closest friends and advisors: Umun'arath, Shayotet, Otzot, Moli Imoli, Iska'al, and Caiatl. Ghaul launched his coup in the dead of night. With the Emperor too popular to simply execute, Ghaul, his Red Legion, and the Consul arrested Calus and a number of supporters in his own court and exiled aboard The Leviathan, taken far from the Empire along a pre-programmed course.

On the Leviathan, Calus wallowed in despair for an unknown amount of time until a strange event shook him out of his stupor. The Leviathan had come up against an expanse of utter nothingness, shorting out the navigation systems and the course the conspirators had set. Calus looked into the void and came to an understanding, believing that it had chosen him to carry out a great victory on its behalf. From that point on, Calus was changed, and took control of his own fate. He sought revenge.

With control of the Leviathan back in his hands, Calus set out on a long voyage of his own, "[plumbing] the secret places of the cosmos", visiting strange realms and old ruins. This cemented both his conviction that his hedonistic philosophy was correct and his intent to retake his empire. Along the way, he gathered forces to strengthen his Loyalists. He created the Shadows as his elite champions, allied with aliens such as the Clipse and the Sindu, and sent messages promising that whoever slew his conspirators would be given great wealth and glory. Eventually, he set a course for the Sol system, which the Red Legion was planning to assault. He sent his Shadows to assassinate Ghaul and failed, but he learned of other warriors in the system that might serve his purposes.

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