Venator Class Cruiser

The Venator Class Cruiser is a large starship that originally served The Republic Navy as its primary ship class during the Test Wars. This was due to its versatility as an aircraft carrier, a star destroyer and as a capital ship all in one. While it is officially classified as a Star Destroyer, the Venator is at the tail end of this classification. Once the Venators were assimilated into the United Imperial Navy they were given the class of "Medium Cruiser", as that is a role that the Union needed filled. This was the only reason that the Venator was kept in service, as most vehicles and ships created by the Star Forge for the Test Wars were scrapped for production of newer ships, primarily because knowledge on how to repair the ships was not wide-spread. These ships first fought against the Union, along with the CIS, The Empire and all the other Test War factions within the Star Forge. Of all the factions, the republic did the second best and a lot of it can be owed to the Venator. Once The Republic made a treaty with the Union and entered into Union service, as with all Star Wars vehicles, the ship's laser cannon armament was swapped for traditional ballistic gravity cannons, capable of shooting a shell at a sustained trajectory. This was done to keep ammunition for the ships readily available after the Star Forge was destroyed. The Venator served until January 2019, when the United Imperial Navy restructured itself, retiring most ships and replacing them with 21 large key ships. Several Venators were sent to become museums, the rest were scrapped and landed in remote locations, awaiting scrapping. In total, around 10,000 Venators survived both the Test Wars and the subsequent scrapping to serve within the United Imperial Galactic Navy, relative to other Union ships, the Venator was a rarity but they did aid greatly in planetary takeovers and long-range fire support.

Operators

 * Republic_flag.jpg Republic- The Republic fielded a great number of these ships during the Test Wars.


 * Flag_of_the_United_Empire.jpg The United Empire- The United Empire utilized a small portion of the original Venator fleet after the Test Wars, going on to serve until the restructuring of its military.

Trivia

 * As was the same with other Star Wars vessels, the Venator was one of the few ship classes in service with the Union to have energy shielding, a technology the Union did not know how to engineer very well itself.