Barbarossa (ship)

The Dark left the Windfall system not only isolated, but also ill-equipped for ship building, since it lacked both a wharf and capable engineers. For nearly four decades, the inhabitants largely had to make do with an aging fleet of stranded ships that were taken by surprise by the Jump Gate shutdown. The few remaining engineers in the system were mainly occupied with maintenance, but experimented when they could with custom ship designs. They slowly learned the craft, and became creative with the resources they had to hand. Most of their custom creations were built from repurposed luxury mass traffic vehicles, spare engines disassembled from the leftover fleet, and various parts from scrapped ships that were beyond repair. It was only in 821 (NT), after the Jump Gate to Avarice opened, that a proper supply of resources allowed the engineers to finally abandon their custom creations and develop blueprints for mass production. Arguably, those blueprints still bear the hallmarks of the haphazard designs of the past.

With the reconnection of the Jump Gate between Avarice and Windfall in 821 (NT), a new vital, and highly contested, trade route opened. The first ships to transport food to Avarice, and building materials to Windfall, were mostly ancient relics from before the Dark. These ships were quickly left inoperable by the actions of pirates, and were replaced by the Raleigh, a courier developed at the Aurora Casino. Soon afterwards, the Alliance of the Word's Wharf began operations, and started producing Commonwealth transporters. It took the Solid Ice Union, a worker conglomerate of ice miners, until 823 (NT) to complete development of their own freighter, the Barbarossa. With its high speed and decent number of turrets, Solid Ice Union captains in their freighters would soon come to dominate the trade between Windfall and Avarice, fending off piracy and even attacking other freighters to fill up their own cargo holds.

After designing the Barbarossa, Solid Ice Union engineers attempted to develop a destroyer, but lacked the required knowledge to design its weapon systems. These attempts were cut short by a moratorium imposed by the Syndicate, who distrusted the already well-armed Solid Ice Union, and threatened a civil war should they attempt to militarise further.