“I have many enemies, but they are all dead – they just haven’t realized it yet.”
-- Marko Byelodomov (Emperor Markus II, named The Cruel)


During the wars that consolidated his rule as Emperor, Markus II was confronted by enemies who had established fortresses on inhabited worlds in both the Core and the Colonies. Destroying these bases was beyond the capacity of the warships that he had, and he ordered the Fleet’s Board of Design to come up with a solution.

The Board’s solution was to hark back to the distant past. In ancient Terra’s wars, planetbound or ‘wet’ navies had a similar problem that was addressed by a type of ship called a monitor, a small ship with a shallow draft but mounting large offensive weapons. Translating this concept to space, a monitor would need to be able to get into the ‘shallows’ over a planet (that is, low orbit) and use kinetic or similar weapons to strike and destroy the target.

Markus was reportedly delighted with the idea, and ordered the construction of what would become the Mars Ultor class.


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Original crappy sketch by  Walt46

Excellent render art by  NezumiYuki at the request of  Major Matt Mason as a Christmas present. Thanks! :D