Those of you who have been following the Cerberus posts here know what a flexible and powerful design the Series 3 Military variant was. You also know practically none survived the war and that the Cerberus and most of the 12th Cavalry gunboats were destroyed in a single skirmish at the Battle of Sturges. Which begs the question: What could have happened to so swiftly shift the balance of power to the Alliance?
What happened was the Alliance Fast Attack Ship (AFAS) – the boat responsible for taking space superiority away from the Independents and making the gunboat all but obsolete. First deployed in significant numbers at Sturges, the AFAS was a sleek and maneuverable short-range fighter created with one purpose – destroy the Independents advantage in the ship-to-ship guerrilla battles that had defined space combat up to that point in the war. As such, the AFAS was small and quick, making it difficult for the gunboat’s railguns and plasma cannons to target. It had minimal armor, which it traded in favor of a couple small caliber turrets and two big cannons on the front.
The tactic it used to down a gunboat was simple and effective: Attack in small three-ship wolf packs. While two AFAS hem their target in, firing turrets while staying clear of the gunboats big weapons, the third drops in behind and cuts loose with those forward cannons.
Among the Alliance the AFAS were known simply as gunboat killers. Among the Independents, they were called “Shinigami”, fast and silent death for anyone caught on board a ship like the Cerberus.
We asked Sean Kennedy, the CG designer who did our Cerberus renderings, to bring the infamous AFAS to life following the design specs developed in the original Firefly timeline. Below are the not-quite-final renderings of that ship. We think Sean really outdid himself and couldn’t wait to share these with you Core-Techs:
So this the nasty little critter that too the 3′s out. Cool.
It looks like a Manta Ray. A cool deadly one though.
Now that’s gonna make some shiny wallpapers.
Lovemunkey – first time I saw the roughs on this, it reminded me of the Flying Sub from Journey to the Bottom of the Sea. That’s a good thing, as that’s always been one of my favorite ship designs!
Michael – really? I mean, it looks *awesome* cool, but would you lower yourself to having an Alliance Firefly-killer on your desktop?
OMG! AWESOME write-up. Lots and lots of fic potential there, to say nothing of RPG goodness. Dude, you guys are amazing! Got any more?
Hey there Mary – yes, there is much on the drawing board. We’ve been very lucky to be able to tap some of the big brains behind a bunch of the creative for Firefly and Serenity as we’ve developed this “extended ‘Verse” content. There is literally years worth of work behind fleshing out timelines and the like.
I’m really hoping to post the part of a Cerberus short story here sometime soon. Got something percolating, as it were
But maybe before then we should post the Firefly timeline?
Stuff like this makes me wonder why there aren’t a bunch of books of stories from the Firefly universe.
god of death huh? cool design, damn purple bellys
Here’s what I was thinking for wallpaper. Surely there had to be at least one battle that those little critters lost…
Great job on the AFAS. Would love to see a rendering of the Walden the salvage vessel from “Out of Gas”.
Thanks all! Glad you like the design.
Deckplans!
I demand deckplans!
Oh, and stats for it, too.
Deckplans? I take it you want to use it for the RPG.
I’d love to see stats and deckplans for Cerberus and the ASAF. I could see a story either during the war at the Battle of Sturges, members of the crew who had to evacuate after getting shot up trying to find their ship at the same battle or mercenary/Robin Hood/Dust Devils storyline. Also do you have any more pictures anywhere?
Got another question Did the Browncoats have capital ships? clearly nothing Alliance Cruiser size but at least tsomething that could stand up to a warship? Did they have tanks? If thet had either of these things could you send me the Links? Sheh-sheh
Deckplans! Absolutely! Would you like help creating them? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the body looks like it’s based on a Serenity-type shuttle.
I love Sean Kennedy’s work, but I’m going to have to put in a dissenting opinion on this one. Why make a gunboat that looks like a modified firefly shuttle at all? Why not something completely original?