Atropos

Atropos
Vessel Profile
Type	WarShip
Class	Nightlord

History

As of 3061, the Nightlord-class Battleship Atropos was a WarShip within the Clan Goliath Scorpion touman. Having been recently acquired by the Goliath Scorpions, the Atropos was serving in the five-ship naval star known as the Wild Hunt Battlegroup as a military escort to Gamma Galaxy.

In January 3072, the Atropos was involved in the battles on Brim, in which elements of Delta Galaxy landed intending to capture a Clan Snow Raven enclave only to discover that the enclave was in fact guarded by forces from the Society.

Galaxy Commander Lincoln Dinour ignored the attempts by the Society forces to declare a batchall and ordered his troops to attack, resulting in an intense firefight that ranged outside the original combat zone and into a nearby terraforming research area. Stray shots breached the seals on a number of containment tanks within the research area, resulting in a massive explosion that destroyed many of the defenders and the majority of the Scorpion forces. This outraged Dinour, who believed that his forces had been led into a deliberate trap, and he responded by ordering the Atropos to raze the entire enclave once the surviving Scorpion forces had withdrawn.

The enclave included both a city with more than two million civilians in it as well as a factory producing the Sylph; a Clan Star Adder enclave lay nearby, and the Star Adders were so horrified at seeing the Scorpions killing so many people that Star Colonel Erik Marghar of the Star Adders issued an immediate Trial of Reaving against Dinour and demanded that the Trial be resolved immediately. Dinour accepted, and forces from both Clans squared off on the surface of the planet in a battle that saw the Star Adders narrowly emerge victorious - only for a waiting Society force to overwhelm the Star Adder troops in turn.

In June 3073 the Atropos was one of five vessels amalgamated hastily into a new star - the Alpha Naval Reserve Star - and deployed to the Foster system in an attempt to reassert the Goliath Scorpion presence in the system following the disastrous loss of Gamma Galaxy and Loremaster Kyrie Ben-Shimon in the system a few months beforehand. Deploying alongside the Aegis-class heavy cruiser CGS Corona Borealis, the Lola III-class destroyer CGS Auriga, the Congress-class frigate CGS Bernlad and the Sovetskii Soyuz-class heavy cruiser CGS Serket, the various ships transported both the remains of Gamma Galaxy and the entire of Beta Galaxy, and discovered when they entered the system that there was no trace of any forces on the world other than those from Clan Steel Viper.

The resulting Trial of Possession for two Steel Viper enclaves on the surface began cordially, but were disrupted by the actions of a Goliath Scorpion warrior who had unwisely used necrosia to excess during the duel, resulting in the battles quickly becoming a free-for-all with the Goliath Scorpions ultimately seizing control of the two enclaves after deploying elements of the Alpha Naval Reserve Star to strike key targets from orbit.

Following the battles on Foster, the Scorpions merged the remains of Beta and Gamma Galaxies together and moved to Glory, arriving in-system in September 3073. Glory was home to Kindraa Mattila-Carrol, one of the many Kindraa within Clan Fire Mandrill and allies of the Goliath Scorpions. When the Scorpions arrived they found that the shattered remains of the Kindraa were trying to hold on to their enclave at Portage in the face of repeated strikes from Steel Viper forces. Under the command of saKhan Kelton Myers the Scorpions moved to assist their allies, only to be intercepted by two Steel Viper WarShips, the Potemkin-class cruiser CSV Ophidian and the Aegis-class heavy cruiser CSV Silver Snake. The Steel Vipers declared the Scorpions to be dezgra - a consequence of the earlier battle on Foster - and immediately attacked, with the Ophidian inflicting heavy damage on the Auriga at range.

Both fleets promptly launched aerospace fighters and DropShips; a brutal fight ensued as the Steel Vipers attempted to disrupt the Scorpion forces trying to land on Glory. The Scorpions destroyed the Ophidian and heavily damaged the Silver Snake, but lost the Auriga, Corona Borealis and Serket before the Silver Snake and the remaining Viper fighters were driven back.

The Scorpion ground forces worked with the Kindraa Mattila-Carrol forces that stalled the Steel Viper attacks, but the Kindraa Mattila-Carrol forces were then overwhelmed by the Steel Vipers after the Vipers ambushed the Scorpion and Mattila-Carrol leaders during a Trial of Refusal, killing Khan Carrol. The Scorpion forces managed to rally with the support of orbital fire from the Atropos, leaving the Scorpion forces to absorb the Fire Mandrill civilian population following the battle.

The Atropos was destroyed during the Annihilation of Clan Steel Viper in December 3075.

Bibliography

• Field Manual: Warden Clans
• The Wars of Reaving