Vengeance (Vengeance-class)

"Sariss! Prepare the Vengeance for hyperspace."

- Jerec

Vengeance was a slender, black KDY Super Star Destroyer that served as the flagship of the Dark Jedi Jerec in the years before and after the Battle of Endor.

It was commanded by Captain Sysco.

Characteristics


Vengeance was more than 10 kilometers long, and was named after Jerec's old Star Destroyer, which he commanded some time prior to the Battle of Yavin.

The most striking feature of the ship was its slender frame, which was more narrow than standard Star Destroyers, almost sword-like in comparison to the usual dagger shape. Contrasting its length was its height, which was little more than 150 meters and with downward-sloping armor dominating most of the frame. The ships bridge was extensive, but also covered much of the command tower, unlike most other KDY warships.

Vengeance had a cluster of engines, consisting of three primary engines, two secondary engines flanking the vessel and six auxiliary engines clustering around the primary ones.

Little is known about the capabilities of Vengeance, except that it carried a number of TIE/ln starfighters and was shown to defeat a small CR90 corvette. A "turbolaser battery 5" was mentioned as taking out the ship, which indicated that it had at least five gun batteries.

The ship class which Vengeance belonged to is unknown. Other ships of the same size were mentioned, but it's unclear whether they belonged to the same class or another with similar dimensions. The only thing known is that it was one of the larger Super Star Destroyers of the era, which put it in the range of being a Star Battlecruiser or a Star Dreadnought.



History
The ship began construction some time before the Battle of Hoth, as Jerec donated his Vengeance II to Admiral Kendal Ozzel's Death Squadron whilst waiting for the larger vessel to be finished.

Jerec used Vengeance as a meeting place for him and his Dark Side Elite in the following years.

Some time after the Battle of Endor, Jerec used it to travel to the planet Dorlo. There, he sent down a task force led by his Dark Jedi underlings to find and capture the fugitive Jedi, Qu Rahn.

The ship was last seen taking Jerec and his Dark Jedi to the planet Ruusan, the location of the Valley of the Jedi. Accompanying it were a large transport and a small task force of Imperial-class Star Destroyers.



It is quite possible that Vengeance was one of three Super Star Destroyers from Black Sword Command, since the other two were never accounted for, and neither was Vengeance. In 10 ABY, several possible sword-shaped warships were seen near Byss, during the campaigns of Emperor Palpatine's clones. One of them may have been Vengeance herself.

Behind the scenes

 * Vengeance's slim form contrasted greatly with its wide array of engines. This feature indicated a possible designation of this type of vessel as a battlecruiser, following the definition of "battlecruiser":
 * Designed to hunt down and outgun smaller warships (or merchant ships in the case of the pocket battleships), and outrun larger warships that they could not outgun. Originally, to achieve this, they deviated from the standard practice of providing a ship with sufficient armor to protect against its own guns. The weight saving from the reduced armor allowed more powerful engines to be fitted.




 * However, if its armor is described as handling barrages of similarly sized warships, "battleship" would be more fitting as a designation.


 * Some fans have given this ship-type the provisional name of Vengeance-class, as Vengeance is its only known representative and in some systems (both in real life and in the Star Wars Galaxy) classes are named after the first ship built or the first one commissioned. However, this is not a canonical name and it's not certain this class followed that rule. The author Curtis Saxton also treats the type as a Star Battlecruiser on his fan site, but no official source has corroborated with this interpretation.

Appearances

 * Dark Forces: Rebel Agent
 * Dark Forces: Jedi Knight
 * Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II