old republic hammerhead class cruiser endar spire

The most successful warship in the history of Star Wars was the Old Republic Hammerhead Class Cruiser. (The name is too long, so allow me to shorten sometimes as ORHHCC, or Hammerhead or otherwise.) As it is clear from its name, the ship worked at the time of the Old Republic, so its history looks back at least 3000 years. But the sources said that it is even an older construction. The Hammerhead-class cruiser was used by the Old Republic Navy during the Old Sith Wars, during the Mandalorian Wars, and during the New Sith Wars faithfully and successfully serving the Old Republic forces in the front lines. This "wonderful machine" is one of the most successful warship design in galactic history, the Hammerhead can be seen even nowadays, thousands of years later, in tasks like sector defense, cargo transportation, convoy protection and other strategic tasks, just think of the fact that it showed up in the Rebels which was much later created, or in Rogue One.

This was a cruiser, although it is considered to be the future, ancestor of the smaller Praetorian-class frigates. It served at the fronts, performing fleet orders as acourier, or functioned as a command ship organizing big fleets around it. It was real heavy-duty workhorse of the Old Republic fleet, but it was also a common sight near the Old Republic allied worlds. This ship undertook independent military operations alone, in contrast to Foray-class blockade runners, which were never seen without a supporting fleet. ORHHCC was able to enter the atmosphere to fight, and then land on the planet's surface. The spaceframe resembled the later Consular-class cruiser and the CR90 corvette, with which the Jedi often travelled, remember the scene when Qui-Gon and Obi-wan arrived to Nute Gunray's Lucrehulc in Ep1's beginning, though this may have been coincidental. They also bore a large resemblance to the EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate of the Galactic Civil War era, due to the vertically elongated bridge on the prow of ORHHCC origin is clearly indicated.

In 3956 BBY the cruisers appeared to possess at least seven turbolasers. Most of the guns were on the hammerhead, on the ears were twin cannons, there was a rotating triple battery under the chin, and single turbolaser cannon mounted atop the hammerhead bridge structure all facing forward. This has become the weak point for the construction, because only the chingun was able to fire to the two side directions, the ear guns statically looked forward, the head cannon was reconfigurable sideways, but it was therefore difficult and slow. Therefore, within a few years many so-called "quad-laserspoint" batteries were installed around the hull, which were able to provide fire sideways and even backwards with merciless force. From this time, this new construction was used by the Old Republic. Even further improvements was applied, making ORHHCCs every day stronger and stronger. The development included a newer, stronger ion engine. At first, the machine had two wing and a tail ion engine, it was later developed a four-engined spacecraft, as was seen on the Endar Spire and the Harbinger. The cruiser was very fast with three engines, with a thrust that allowed the spaceship to function as a cargo ship. Full of cargo and personnel it was faster than anything. The ORHHCC with four ion engines is now possessed such power like a freight train, but not as trudging with 20 kilometers/hour while pulling 10 wagons filled with heavy fuel tanks, but I imagine as if the Japanese magnetrail train would pull the same load with 300 kilometers/hour. It had such a brutal thrust, that it was able to push to the ground an AT-AT (four-legged walker Imperial), according to the Rebels. I mean the ion beam that was erupting from the back of the ORHHCC was so strong that it upset the four-legged walker behind it! But if this machine takes the task a bit more seriously, pressing her head to an Imperial Star Destroyer it can suppress it sideways, while the Star Destroyer was fighting against it with all of its power. We could see in Rogue One that an old ORHHCC freighter pushed a Star Destroyer to another Star Destroyer, and then she pushed the two together in the protective shield of Scariff with overwhelming force. Nevertheless, that construction has not been named, and was not included in the Rogue One picture encyclopedia, despite all the scrappy machine were presented, for my biggest sadness that ORHHCC was not mentioned. But why it should be, right? She has only won the battle for the rebels, who cares...

Hammerheads were first deployed in the Great Sith War, it served then at first in the Old Republic fleet. They are mass produced in the postwar period in such quantities that Rendili Hyperworks completed in every ten days a new ORHHCC, and they had done it for years, just pouring out the many Hammerhead cruisers from the factories. The Hammerhead was the backbone of the Old Republic fleet, all organized around it. During the Mandalorian Wars thirty years later, they were there on the fronts. They were there in the unfortunate battle of Malachor V, when the superweapon called Mass Shadow Generator, designed by Bao Dur, was used during the battle, which destroyed not only the Mandalorian fleet, but the third of the Old Republic fleet within range. A lot of ORHHCC were destroyed then. But fortunately there remained some, helping the Old Republic forces in the fight against the Sith throughout the war.

The ORHHCC was popped up the first time in the 2003 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game. The game starts onboard of such a vehicle, on the board of the Endar Spire, where the tutorial takes place, where the amnesiac Revan makes his first steps. The spaceship was Bastila Shan's flagship, she struck on Revan's ship with this ORHHCC, and dragged the wounded Sith Lord back here that the Jedi would reimburse him back to the Light. But Malak attacked the Spire with overwhelming forces to destroy his former Master, Revan and Bastila. Bastila left the damaged ship, so Trask Ulgo, an Old Republic soldier assisted the awakening Revan, who does not even know who he is, where he is, and what happened to him. He got some clothes and some weapon, and he was trying to leave somehow the smoking but still operational Endar Spire. The vessel can be enjoyed only partially for us, it is just a few corridors that we can see. The player might seek for a solution, we would like to save the faithful ORHHCC somehow, that seems it would have been stayed operational just to protect Revan. We want to save her, we want to escape somehow from Malak's fleet, take the ship to a spaceport, repair it, but unfortunately this is not possible. Endar Spire defended Revan till its last breath, but in the end it did not take any more Sith fire, there were no other option, that to take an escape pod and to leave the Endar Spire, that eventually crash down to Taris. Towards the end of the game when the player crash landing with the Ebon Hawk down on Lehon, the player can see another Hammerhead-class ship crashed among the rocks on the shore. It is possible (although not 100%) that it was the ORHHCC that Revan and Malak used when they had been searching the Starforge. During their journey they got here, and of course their ship also crashed onto Lehon, like the Ebon Hawk, and every ship that got into the Starforge's protective shield. In the final scene of the game many ORHHCC pop up, as a part of the Old Republic fleet during the siege Starforge. In the game's sequel, in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords the ORHHCC returns, while on Peragus, we have the opportunity to get into the Harbinger. The ship was much more walkable, the creators wanted to give the fans more fun and more information. The Jedi Exile, Kreia and Atton enters the Harbinger to take the drift chart, which is vital, without it it is not possible to navigate among the many floating, drifting debris, and asteroids around Peragus. They download it from the bridge of Harbinger, then load it to the Ebon Hawk to be able to escape from Darth Sion and his Sith assassins, who were arriving to Peragus with the Harbinger. The player will have the opportunity to go through the whole ship, not just admiring the bridge, but also the entire deck, including the crew quarters, medical bays, a meeting room, and even the engine room, and the fuel filler parts, through which they need to go to return to Peragus docking area, which is the only way to get to the Hawk, due to the closed sections, explosions, gas leaks, which were all made by HK-50, when he executed effectively the entire staff of Peragus within only a few hours. In the second timeline trailer for the Star Wars: The Old Republic, a new and more heavily armed variant of the Hammerhead-class is seen above Coruscant. This was later revealed to be a separate class, theThranta-class. Leland Chee has confirmed that the ships seen in the Knights of the Old Republic games are of the same class that was named in Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, but that the version of the book and that of the game may have different specifications, considering that they are used approximately three thousand years apart from one another.

The wreckage of a Hammerhead-class vessel can be seen on the volcanic world of Mustafar in the expansion for Star Wars Galaxies, Trials of Obi-Wan. Why it is there and how it came to be is never explained, however, with the simple implication that it is only a long-crashed Republic warship. Maybe once it turns out what was the function of the machine, what was its name, or other data of it.

The Hammerhead-class cruiser was the Legends inspiration for the canon Hammerhead corvette, which made its first appearance in "A Princess on Lothal," the twelfth episode of the second season of the animated television series Star Wars Rebels, released on January 20, 2016. Leia gave the Rebels 3 such cargo ships, one of them turned up the Imperial walker that I mentioned above.

The Hammerhead-class cruiser was one of the longest serving classes of ship in the Republic military, with versions of it being maintained in active service for according to conservative calculations for at least 3000 years fighting reliable, successful and invincible, always at the front lines, through eras for the defense of the good cause.