The Archon is a fleet cruiser of the 12th Fleet, designed for troop transport and deployment and modified after the fall of Atlas to guard the Hercules. Troop barracks fill its lower decks, with a mess hall staffed by civilians from the Hercules, officers' quarters and a guarded command centre, and a small fighter complement launches from a converted cargo hold. Its vehicle transport fittings let vehicles count as half their tonnage, with up to four loaded or offloaded a round, and Colvin Bay holds the heavy dropships, which is also where the fighters had their final assembly. ‹archon#965751969966858291› ‹archon#987503451787395093›

The Archon class itself was a fairly new design of flagship for the Atlesian fleets, a capable battlecarrier in its own right. The Archon was the first of its class and was rushed into service as the primary military ship of the 12th Fleet, its specialised bays holding two fighters each, for up to ten fighters alongside its many drop pods.

Command

Captain Solomon King had the Archon through the flight from Atlas and the first year of the Fleet. He called for volunteers against the drone hive in Swati Palolas and briefed Akira Aurius when the combat AI first reached the Fleet, describing the 12th as nomadic and searching for a new colonisation prospect. ‹archon#976907677223501826› ‹archon#980865149068017734›

After the Ragnhil Skirmish, having ordered the arrest of the Prime Minister of Atlas, King stepped down on 1/19/3200 and handed the ship to Gonzalo Valderas as captain, with Antog Rialo, a field-promoted civilian, as executive officer. Antog later served as Acting Flag Captain. ‹readyroom#1016109481433772082›

In service

In the Ragnhil Skirmish the Archon was run as an NPC ship, with Antog on the guns and Gilbert Dulac in engineering. Its grav cannon put 34 damage into one of the Reshannan heavy frigates and it went on to destroy both corvettes. ‹ship_combat#1015658979029962872› ‹ship_combat#1015795078683430992›

Its Warfare Training Centre doubled as the fighter hangar, where the wing met the returning Goliath (which fired on them with its sandthrowers), and as a place to train, with sparring units for those on third watch. ‹archon#1001000749146316901›

Over Calypso the soup in the Archon's galley started tilting, and the gravity anomaly led the Macaria's sensors and a drone to a giant warp gate hidden by holoprojectors in orbit. Valderas also asked Garvin, Rowan, Callum Twin-Pines and Crowley for a costed briefing on colonising Calypso. ‹gator_stew_2#1033555499406331905› ‹archon#1021972499073863722›

The Battle of Calypso

At the Battle of Calypso the Archon led the 12th Fleet's line with seven fighters, holding off the Vehendrix Extermination Fleet for as long as it could so the civilians could get away through the gate. Antog rerouted power while twenty crew were trapped in a superheated weapon-control room, and in the second round the Archon was destroyed along with two of its fighters, though another 2,000 people were saved in that time. The surviving fighter-bombers escaped to Carilla. ‹archon#1075521252300705972› ‹calypso_ship_combat_action_log#1077729549925761034›