Archive Light Cruiser Lux Sapiens

Dimensions: 4.2 km long, .5 km abeam at fins
Mass: 20.9 megatons
Crew: 35,000 crew, 25,000 servitors approx.
Accel: 6 gravities max sustainable acceleration

The light cruiser “Lux Sapiens“, built in 392.M38 at the Lathe Worlds space docks, was originally designed to serve in the fleets of the Adeptus Mechanicus. As a Lathe class monitor-cruiser, it represented the typical hull design utilized by the Mechanicus’ Explorator fleets.

During the Angevin Crusade, which took place thousands of years ago and aimed to consolidate the Calixis Sector, Lux Sapiens played a significant role. It served alongside the Imperial Guard and Navy, providing support and contributing substantially to the war effort of the crusade. However, the rigors of the Crusade took a toll on the ship, causing irreparable structural flaws.

After the Crusade, tech-priests recognized the ship’s compromised combat capabilities and Lux Sapiens was recommissioned for the Ordo Administratum. Its new purpose was to transport and safeguard a vast array of Imperial documents produced by newly found Sector, serving as an archive ship dedicated to the task of transporting Imperial records and documents across the Calixis Sector and even beyond.

In the later millenia the Archive Cruiser Lux Sapientia, under the command of the Ordo Administratum, had its primary purpose shifted from a vessel of combat to a hub of vaults and archives for the Imperial bureaucrats. As the ship transported invaluable Imperial documents across the void, its wealth of information and throne gelts steadily grew, necessitating significant refits and modifications to accommodate the expanding librarium vaults and its safety.

The decommissioning of the ship’s weaponry allowed for the repurposing of available space, transforming once-armed compartments into sprawling vaults, meticulously designed to preserve and organize the vast amount of documents amassed across the sector. The interior of the cruiser became a labyrinthine network of librarium vaults, each section dedicated to different branches of Imperial bureaucracy and their respective records.

The vaults are meticulously maintained and cataloged by an over-burdened teams of scribes, archivists, and Adeptus Administorum curators. Every document, parchment, data-slate, and ancient tome is carefully organized and stored, ensuring restricted access, and when needed, a retrieval if authorized to do so. The sheer volume of knowledge contained within the Lux Sapientia is stupefying, representing a vast repository of parchments, data-slates and scriptures from countless worlds, several sub-sectors, and multitude of Imperial citizens.

Within the ship’s hallowed halls, the bustle of activity is constant. Scholars and bureaucrats from various Imperial worlds visit the Lux Sapientia seeking approval, guidance, or clarification on matters ranging from history and legal codes to logistics of storing documents and conducting the administrative rituals. The ship has become a center of bureaucratic exchange, fostering the collaboration and dissemination of methods of archiving among the Ordo Administratum.

The crew and staff of the Lux Sapientia are vetted from the servants of Ordo Administratum for their expertise in handling and preserving important documents. Administratum clerks diligently manage the administrative functions, ensuring the smooth operation of the ship’s extensive network of vaults. Scribes meticulously copy and transcribe chosen documents, ensuring their preservation for the Imperial archives. Archivists curate and maintain the vast collections, guarding it against decay, damage, fungus and heresy.

The Lux Sapientia became not just a bloated floating archive, but also a sanctuary of bureaucracy and Imperial secrets. It houses scholars, historians, and experts in various academic fields who are dedicated to the guarding the knowledge of the keywords and to the preservation of the established Imperium’s archives. The ship’s halls echoes, in low voices, with poisonous administratorial debates, ancient conservation lectures, and heated arguments about duodecimal cataloging system of the Imperial archives, as the administratum seeks to bury the secrets held within the countless tomes and records.

Over the course of a thousand years, the Lux Sapientia grew in reputation and importance. Imperial administrators across the Calixis Sector came to rely on its vast resources, often seeking the wisdom and guidance contained within its walls. The ship became a nexus for the Imperium’s commitment to archiving, a beacon of documentation amidst the administratorial chaos of the Empire of Humanity.

Characters

  • Chartist Captain Durhan Insognia
  • Navigator Rachell Grossklaus
  • Vetustissimus Custos Bibliothecae Anthemius Krzewinski
  • Grand Bibliotheologist Felia Göethe
  • Administrator novice Albrecht Brüegel
  • Administrator novice Nübius Filk
  • Duodecimal System Servitor Kl.32.7

Hull type: Lathe-class monitor-cruiser

Machine spirit: Dwindling Core, -10 to Pow, Cannot power up lance weapons, The crew accustomed to power glitches provide re-powering the unpowered component as a free action with crew rate skill check once per a Void Turn.
Past histories: Battered Hull, -5 to Hull Integrity, +10 to Tech-use skill checks aboard the vessel.

Speed: 5 Manoeuvrability: +9 Detection: +15
Hull Integrity: 58 Armour: 15 Void Shields: 2 Turret Rating: 1
Pow: 49/50 Space: 60/60
Weapon Capacity: Prow 1, Port Decommissioned, Starboard Decommissioned
Crew Rate: 30 Population: 102/100 Morale: 102/100 Creed: Average

Essential components

  • Jovian Pattern Class 3 Drive Pow: +50 Space: 12, Dwindling Core -10 to power production
  • Strelov 2 Warp Engine Pow: 12 Space: 12
  • Standard Gellar Field Pow: 1 Space: 0
  • Single Void Shield Array (1) Pow: 5 Space: 1
  • Commerce Bridge Pow: 1 Space: 1, Extra Stuff whilst doing Trade Objectives, unconventional component installation. Commerce Bridge is designed for transporter ships and suits poorly for the control of ship’s weaponry. -10 to BS checks. Note: As ship’s BS based weaponry has been removed so penalty has no actual effect.
  • Voidsmen Quarters Pow: 2 Space: 4
  • M-100 Auger Array Pow: 3 Space: –

Supplemental components

  • Good quality Cargo Hold & Lighter Bay Pow: 1 Space: 1, -3 Manoeuvrability, Extra Stuff whilst doing Trade/Criminal Objectives, +5 to Acquisition checks
  • Luxury Passenger Quarters Pow: 1 Space: 2, Extra Stuff whilst doing Trade/Criminal/Creed Objectives (x2)
  • Empyrean Mantle Pow: 5 Space: 0, When Silent Running Tests to Detect, -20%; Extra Stuff whilst doing Criminal Objectives; External Component
  • Fire Suppression System Pow: 2 Space: 2, If Bridge is powered and undamaged, extinguish one fire in a Component -10% Tech-Use; Once per Strategic Turn
  • Best quality Extended Supply Vaults Pow: 1 Space: 4, Increase Morale Permanently by 1; x3 Time Ship can remain in Void without Crew/Morale Loss; +1 Hull Integrity when making Repairs, +5 to acquisition checks
  • Administratorial Vault ”Parchment copies of year 780.M41 population census and collected tithes of Calixis Sector” Pow: 1 Space: 1, +10 to Bureaucracy and Common Lore (Administratum), In transit to Terra. Access restricted.
  • Librarium Vault ”Syncopic Collection” Pow: 1 Space: 1, Dubious and suspicious texts and books confiscated by Ecclesiarchy, Ordo Arbites and Inquisition in various Imperial worlds. In transit to the cellar vaults of the Inquisition. Access restricted.
  • Librarium Vault ”Most Venerated Imperial Poetry of M37“ Pow: 1 Space: 1, +10 to Common Lore (Imperial Creed), Scholastic Lore (Legend), Permanent collection
  • Librarium Vault ”Genealogies of the Noble Families of Calixis Sector“ Pow: 1 Space: 1, +10 to Heraldry, Common Lore (Nobility), Permanent collection
  • Librarium Vault ”Authenticated samples of the Imperial signatures, seals and stamps of Calixis Sector M41” Pow: 1 Space: 1 +10 to Bureaucracy, Forbidden Lore (Administratum), Permanent collection.
  • Xenos Vault ”Reliquiae Victae; The collection of sanctioned Imperial studies about the writings, the symbols and the artifacts of inferior races“ Pow: 1 Space: 1, +10 to Forbidden Lore (Xenos), -5 to Crew morale, Permanent collection, Restricted access.
  • Trophy Room Pow: 1 Space: 1, Extra Stuff whilst doing Exploration/Trade/Criminal Objectives “A vast collection of the official Imperial portraits of the Emperor, the Primarchs, the major saints and the legitimated war heroes of the Imperium“
  • Sensorium Pow: 1 Space: 1, Increase Morale Permanently by 2; +10% Charm & Commerce conducted on the vessel
  • Medicae Deck Pow: 2 Space: 1, +20% Medicae; IBx3 patients treatable
  • Good quality Promenade Pow: 1 Space: 3, +3 morale, plus 50 on Crime or Trade Endevours, +10 to Acquisition checks
  • Arboretum Pow: 2 Space: 3, Increase Crew Population Permanently by 2; x2 Time Ship can remain in Void without Crew/Morale Loss
  • Crew Reclamation Facility Pow: 1 Space: 1, Reduce Crew Losses by 3 (Minimum 1); Increase Morale Losses by 1

Weapons

  • Prow: Mine-layer Bay Pow: 1 Space: 4, Enough Mines for 3 Deployments; +20% Tech-Use deploys mines in a spread of 4VU’s; see Battlefleet Koronus page 39
  • Port: Not installed
  • Starboard: Not installed

Upgrades

  • Best Quality Cherubin Aerie, Decrease Morale Permanently by 1; Extra Stuff from completing Objectives (x0.5)
  • Best Quality Overload Shield Capacitors, Once per day/combat encounter, void shields are refreshed after being overloaded; Increase Void Shields permanently by 1
  • Star Chart Collection, Reduce Warp Travel times by 1d5 Days; Extra Stuff whilst doing Exploration Stuff (x0.5)
  • Vaulted Ceilings, Reduces Space 3, Increases Morale Permanently by 5

Special

  • Commerce Bridge is designed for transporter ships and suits poorly for the control of ship’s weaponry. -10 to BS checks of the ships weapons.
  • Trade Endeavour points x
  • Criminal Endeavour points x
  • Creed Endeavour points x
  • All Endeavour points x
  • Dwindling Core, -10 to Pow, Cannot power up lance weapons, The crew accustomed to power glitches provide re-powering the unpowered component as a free action with crew rate skill check once per Void Combat Turn.
  • Ancient Hull, +10 to Tech-use skill checks aboard the vessel.
  • +10% Charm & Commerce conducted on the vessel

!GM notes!