Designation: Zentraedi Factory Satellite (pre 2013) Space Station Equality (post 2013)

Names and disposition:

Space Station Equality

In service.

Complement:

(pre 2013)

• Crew approx. 10,000,000 Zentraedi of all types and ages.
• Life support limits were for about 15,000,000 Zentraedi.

(post 2013)

• Crew approx. 50,000.
• Population approx 2,500,000.
• Life support limits are for about 10,000,000 micronian sized people.

Dimensions:

• Length: 135,000 meter (main body), 256,000 meter (over all).
• Height: 68,000 meter (over all).
• Width : 128,000 meter (over all).
• Mass : 2.1E14 metric tons.

Propulsion systems:

• Main power system: Craft specific Protoculture-fueled Reflex furnace clusters.
• Space Fold: Craft specific spacefold engine clusters. Although the fold is conformal to the bases' surface, starships can be carried inside the Satellite.
• Manouvering thrusters: Craft specific, very extensive, plasma attitude and low speed propulsion system. The thrusters are distributed around the factory.
• Planetary Capabilities: None whatsoever. The Satellite can not approach Earth sized terrestrial bodies within 10,000 km without fatal tidal stresses on the connecting stalks between the ancillary bodies and the main body.

Endurance and mobility limits:

• The dry stores endurance is effectively infinite; the Satellite is a production center for dry stores.
• The mecha consumables supplies (mainly missiles) are effectively infinite, as the Satellite produces mecha consumables in very large numbers.
  The missile magazines for the ship's own launchers are effectively infinite, as the Satellite produces missiles in very large numbers.
• The Reflex furnaces can function for about 40 years at normal usage levels before an energizer rebuild is necessary.
• The fold systems were not designed to be used for folds of distances greater than approximately 10 kiloparsecs, for safety reasons. If longer voyages are required, the Satellite must conduct multiple fold jumps.

Weapon Systems:

• Defensive fleet: A Zentraedi defense fleet was permanently assigned to the Satellite. This fleet included originally over 300 monitors, 3000 heavy cruisers, 600 command battleships and 8 flagships. In addition, several thousands of other Zentraedi ships were usually nearby for pre- and post-deployment supply and maintenance.
  This defense fleet was mostly drawn into the Grand Fleet prior to the Zentraedi Holocaust, and during the Terran assault on the Satellite no monitors and only one flagship were available, in addition to a small number of heavy cruisers that were limited operational due to protoculture shortages.
• Touwhaug Rasar 481 (3000): A missile launcher mounted in a pop-up turret, firing anti-mecha/missile missiles, though the projectiles can guide on point-blank enemy ships. When the missiles are released they are already on their intercept vectors, or very close to them. Each turret has a reload time of 3.6 seconds and a magazine with a 100 round capacity. They are mounted for spherical coverage.
  The missile system used is the SAA-1 Granite (Gliquoun Touwhaug), a weapon with a conventional blast fragmentation warhead of 278 kg and an atmospheric range of 112 km at a speed of Mach 7.5.

Electronics and special equipment:

(pre-2013)

• Starship manufacturing facilities: The Factory Satellite contained extensive starship production facilities. There were 18 building docks of 5,000 meters length, 648 building docks of 4,000 meters length, 636 building docks of 3,000 meters length and 1200 building docks of 1,000 meters length. In total, over 2500 starships could be under simultaneous construction, although this was rarely ever achieved.
  In sustained maximum production mode the Factory Satellite could build and equip in two weeks: 3 Nupetiet-Vergnitzs flagships, 36 Queadol Magdomilla command battleships, 72 Quiltra Queleual general purpose vessels, 100 Thuverl Salan heavy cruisers, 6 Rineunadou Lojmeuean monitors and 200 Tou Redir picket ships.
• Starship repair and refit facilities: The Factory Satellite contained extensive starship maintenance facilities. A total of 2500 starships of all classes could be contained in the various individual docks and the large communal docking holds. The throughput of ships differed with their damage or disrepair, but typically 4500 ships could be refitted and repaired in one week.
• Naval Auxiliary production and maintenance facilities: The Factory Satellite contained sufficient production lines for Auxiliaries to equip and restock all starships under construction, repair or refit with their alloted numbers of Auxiliaries.
  In one week, these production lines could built 10,000 total Quell Quallie recon and assault carriers, Frand'lar Tiluvo re-entry pods, Reg Elgan shuttle craft, Onyap Recuno recovery pods and Fub Relau tankers.
• Mecha production lines: The Factory Satellite could produce sufficient mecha to equip the new construction, restock the ships under repair and refit and replace attrition in large areas of the Robotech Empire. In one week, the mecha production lines could produce 1,250,000 mecha of all types, although the production of Quaedluun-Rau mecha was limited as the production lines were still in the process of construction themselves.
• Ammunition production lines: The Factory Satellite contained extensive ammunition production lines. For example, over 50,000,000 missiles of all types could be produced in one week.
• Zentraedi production facilities: The Factory Satellite contained sufficient cloning chambers and first stage training facilities to produce one third of the Zentraedi population expansion and replacements.

(post 2013)

• By 2013, all building docks were still in various stages of dysfunctionality after extensive battle damage. Over the years, the Robotech Defense Forces and the Expeditionary Forces refitted a number of the smaller docks for use as shipyards and repair docks.
• Several production lines were set up to produce Terran auxiliaries and mecha by the Robotech Defense Forces and the Expeditionary Forces.

Air group and mecha complement:

• There was no organic mecha complement. However, many mecha could in an emergency be manned and launched from the Satellite.
• There was an extensive mining and prospecting fleet based on the satellite.

Design notes:

The Robotech Factory Satellite consisted out of a main body, housing various ship yards and mecha production lines and the mining fleet, as well as the major service systems such as the Reflex Furnaces and the drive system, and four ancillary pods. The largest of these ancillary pods housed the cloning and training facility, the three smaller pods the 1200 building docks for Tou Redir class scouts and the various ammunition manufacturing facilities.

The main body had one accessway as large as the accessway installed in the Homebase, which opened on the main docking bay. This bay housed incoming vessels prior to assignment to a repair dock, and newly constructed vessels in the final stages of fitting out. All construction and repair bays in the central body (3800 total) could be reached from this bay. However, auxiliary access doors were located around the periphery of the main body. These were not as capacious as the main access doors, however. Mecha production was located above the shipyard, with most lines being dedicated to the Regult Battlepod, and the Queadluun-Rau production lines were the least numerous when the RDF conquered the Satellite, though plans existed to replace many of the older lines with Queadluun-Rau production lines. Due to the lack of resources plaguing the Tirolian Empire in its later stages, this was never completed.

The lower levels of the Satellite were dedicated to the hangars for the mining fleet, raw material storage, ore converters and heavy industries. Produce from this level was used in all other sections of the Satellite. Two service levels were located between the lower levels and the shipyards, and a third service level was located between the yards and the mecha production lines. These levels housed the furnaces, computers and engines of the Satellite. Large reinforced stalks connected the main body with the ancillary pods. Through these stalks the raw materials were shipped to the production centers in these secondary asteroids.

There were no major defensive installations installed on board, the Factory Satellite was always meant to fold if attacked, leaving the defense to its defensive fleet. As a consequence, the Satellite only mounted anti-mecha and anti-missile defense systems.

It is estimated that in its lifetime the Factory Satellite produced circa 13,250 Nupetiet-Vergnitsz flagships, 160,000 Queadol-Magdomilla command battleships, 440,000 Thuverl-Salan heavy cruisers, 320,000 Quiltra Queleual general purpose vessels, 26,500 Rineunadou Lojmeuean monitors, 885,000 Tou Redir pickets, 88.5 million naval auxiliaries and a staggering 11+ billion mecha. This all in addition to munitions, crew and all other items necessary to man and fight this war machine.

History:

The Robotech Factory Satellite began its life as asteroid QDFG85638205 consisting of iron, silicates, and some amounts of rare Earth metals such as titanium, molybdenum and vanadium. This asteroid was discovered by a Tirolian prospector team in 1678 AD as one of a great number of asteroids in the system known as F875485. The system contained a number of Ganymede-sized planets, three gas giants and the aforementioned asteroids. There were no habitable worlds, but the lifeless rocks were very rich in metals, and the gas giants could be mined for hydrogen and hydrocarbons. In addition, the system was out of the way of the areas hit by the Disciples of Zor, and thus became a prime candidate for and finally the site of a Tirolian mining and manufacturing operation. The system, renamed Frakhla, specialized in Zentraedi equipment ranging from starships to boots.

In 1760, the asteroid that would become the Factory Satellite had been mined for several decades, the process hollowing out large fractions of the rock. At this time the Masters, reasoning from a viewpoint of efficiency and security, decided to concentrate the manufacture of Zentraedi warships larger than a Thuverl Salan heavy cruiser as well as the Rineunadou Lojmeuean monitors in one easily defended spot. With the shipyards would come ancillary production lines that could produce 33% of the Zentraedi mecha, as well as one third the Zentraedi cloning capacity and the main Zentraedi repair base. Only the main production lines for the Thuverl Salan cruisers, Quiltra Queleual vessels and Tou Redir pickets with their required mecha factories were to remain distributed around the Empire. In addition, rare designs such as Border Fleet vessels would continue to be produced in Tirolian facilities and their annexes. After an inventarisation, the asteroid chosen as the site for the new facility was QDFG85638205.

The asteroid, now known as the Zentraedi Factory Satellite (FS), was hollowed out further, covered with armor plating, and its chambers equipped with the machinery necessary for its operation, such as life support, engines, reflex furnaces, internal transport and product storage and manufacturing sites. In 1807, the FS became operational when the first Queadol Magdomilla command battleships slipped its moorings and joined the fleet, although most of its manufacturing capability still remained under construction. In the following centuries, the FS produced most of the Zentraedi flagship, monitor and command battleship strength, in addition to what still amounted to a sizable fraction of the Thuverl Salan heavy cruiser, Tou Redir picket and Quiltra Queleual GP vessels, though the FS was not the main contractor for these classes. The FS also served as the repair and scrapyard center of the Zentraedi war machine, and produced half of the Zentraedi themselves, although their training had to take place on training planets or in the Homebase. In 1890, the FS was expanded upon by the addition of four smaller asteroids, connected to the main body by reinforced stalks. These sub-bodies concentrated the cloning facilities in the largest subassembly, and the ammunition and Tou Redir lines in the other assemblies, leaving the main body free to concentrate on the larger vessels and their auxiliaries.

In 2013, the FS, as all other Imperial installations, was suffering from protoculture depletion. The first services that failed were the cloning and repair facilities, shortly later followed by the internal maintenance. What remained operational degraded at a fast rate after that, and then the production lines (and the defending fleet) were wrecked beyond the capability of the Tirolian Mercantile Empire then to repair by Zentraedi forces fleeing the defeat of Dolza by Breetai and the people of Earth.

In 2013 the Terrans and their allies located and attacked the FS under the command of Breetai, and the attacking force diverted the attention of the defenders long enough to strike crippling blows in their ranks, and took control of the FS within the hour. After several days of emergency repairs, the FS was folded to a geostationary orbit over Earth, and renamed to 'Space Station Equality', although the nomer 'Factory Satellite' has remained in almost parallel use to this day.

In 2024, after the departure of the SDF-3 Pioneer, the Factory Satellite was loaded with additional supplies, and then folded with the Robotech Repair Factory Fraternity to a deep space rendez-vous with the Pioneer mission fleet, to serve as a space habitat and production centers for the Expeditionary Force.

See additional notes.

Return to Zentraedi Naval Index.

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