Core ship/Legends

Lucrehulk-class core ship After the Battle of Naboo, the Galactic Republic ordered the Trade Federation to disband its military forces.

The crafty Trade Federation pretended to comply with this command by apparently disassembling most of its battleships, only to transform their centrispheres into Lucrehulk-class core ships.

Characteristics
While fully capable spacecraft in their own right, the core ships were also able to reattach themselves to the outer ring hull of a battleship and thus to resume their role as command cores.

Core ships were designed to be capable of planetary landing, and equipped with massive repulsorlift suspensor units installed on their ventral section. In addition to these repulsorlift units, a ventral ion-thruster allowed for rapid take-off and escape from orbit. The core ship was also equipped with numerous landing legs, though the landing gear may have required repulsorlift assistance to support the hull in launch posture for any length of time.

The hierarchical arrangement of living quarters on a core ship resembled that of Neimoidian hives. The command bridges, executive suites and treasuries were located in the core ship's upper pole and towers. Lower levels were for junior managers, publicists and droid storage, and on at least some variants, much of the hull above the ship's equator served as a single vast hangar bay and flight deck.

The lowest levels were given over to engineering areas and conference rooms, areas habitually shunned by high-ranking Trade Federation officials, who preferred to use droids to perform the demeaning and difficult responsibilities of deal with outsiders or complex equipment.

History
The basic type of core ship was a transport equipped only with point-defense laser cannon, designed to carry supplies around the Galaxy. During the Battle of Geonosis, core ships successfully withdrew legions of battle droids from the planet's foundries in the face of the Republic assault, and during the Clone Wars, they transported military equipment and troops to countless worlds.



There were also combat-capable variants, destroyers equipped with heavy weapons and droid starfighter swarms that could match the Republic's medium capital ships. In 21 BBY, the Separatist force deployed to secure Spaarti Creations on Cartao consisted of a core ship equipped with three C-9979 landing craft and around five thousand battledroids.

Later on in the Clone Wars, a ship of this type, Gahenna, was involved in an orbital duel above Honoghr and subsequently crashed on the planet, while two more of the same design participated in the Battle of Rendili, where they proved an equal match for two Acclamator-class assault ships. When a third Acclamator and five Dreadnaught-class cruisers of the Rendili Home Defense Fleet had their firepower added to the battle, the two were destroyed.

At least one core ship, Unlimited Projection was modified for long-term planetary deployment as a semi-permanent surface base on Utapau as the headquarters of General Grievous; this may have been the same core ship that the Separatist commander was seen traveling aboard a few months earlier.

After the Clone Wars, the remaining Trade Federation battleships and core ships were sold to the Corporate Sector or other organizations.

Behind the scenes
It may be that the militarized core-ships were identical with the spherical cruisers referred to as Geonosian Dreadnaughts.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
 * Hero of Cartao in Star Wars Insider 69
 * Death in the Catacombs in Star Wars Insider 79
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars
 * Star Wars: Republic Commando
 * Star Wars Republic 68: Armor
 * Star Wars Republic 70: The Dreadnaughts of Rendili, Part 2
 * Star Wars Republic 71: The Dreadnaughts of Rendili, Part 3
 * Star Wars: Clone Wars
 * "Chapter 22"
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Star Wars: Battlefront
 * Star Wars: Battlefront II