A more advanced Military Station designed to defend Abwehran-held systems and house the ships of the Abwehran Weltraumflotte.

The Bulwark-class Military Outpost is a culmination of advanced technology the Abwehran have designed or received up to this point. It has heavier armor, greater shields, and enough weaponry to defend itself from attack. It is also the first station built to house a KIOS Smart AIM. While many believe putting a self-learning AI onto a military outpost is highly dangerous, recent experiences with the SAIM Prototype, Brunhilde, have convinced many of the High Command that it is necessary.

Designed to be built by the new Ulican-class Mobile Construction Ships, the Bulwark is smaller than the old Military Orbital Space Stations. But it is far more powerful that the “Abwehran-made monstrosity”, what most foreigners have called the MOSS. Current plans are for the Bulwark to replace the Military Orbital Space Station in Meltra, Schongebiet, and Himmel Der Bergleute while being built in any other system the Abwehran obtain.

While being smaller than the Military Orbital Space Station, the Bulwark Outpost will utilize such technologies as:

• KIOS Smart AIMs
• Sectional Defense Field
• Military Station Tri-Armor
• 400mm Anti-Ship Railguns
• Mark II Combat Drones

The Bulwark-class Military Outpost acts as:

• A focal point for system defense efforts
• Resupply bases for sections of a Fleet that are assigned to the sector.

The Bulwark Outpost is a large disc that has two box-like protrusions that mirror each other radially. On these protrusions, there are launch bays twelve Launch bays on each side, two docking arms above, and two docking arms above. Each Launch Bay is for escort craft of Frigate and Destroyer size while each docking arm is for cruiser sized vessels. At 90-degree angles from each protrusion, there are a couple of large docking arms for larger vessels. These docking arms also have a pair of docking arms above and below for Cruisers.

With the monstrous Military Orbital Space Station becoming obsolete with the new technologies on the rise, the Abwehran Star Empire has been designing a more cost-effective and advanced station for its military forces outside the Jaspis System. Research and design of the new Bulwark-class of Stations started in YE 29, but progress was slow until contact with CSEIA in YE 30. With the access to new technologies and higher learning, Kaiserlich F&E increased their staffs and began to split into multiple divisions to 'catch up' with the rest of the universe.

The Bulwark Military Outpost was in charge of a group of scientists whom had been researching into Nerimium, a strange heavy alloy found in Democratic Imperium of Nepleslia and the mysterious NDI. A sample had been given to them by CSEIA for study and the group of scientists dove into the effort with glee. It would take them months before deciding to use Nerimium in actual construction. With the creation of Military Station Tri-Armor and the Sectional Defense Field from another research group in YE 31, the main technology needed for an improved military station was there. It would be several more months of over-night work to complete the blueprints.

Class: Ay-P3-1a Type: Military Orbital Station Designers: Kaiserlich F&E Manufacturer: Abwehran Imperial Yards Production: Seven (One per System) Fielded by: Weltraumflotte Cost per Unit: 450,000,000 Credits (150,000,000 KS)

Crew: 172,838

• 1 Base Commander
• 96 Command Center Personnel
  • 3 Operations Officers
  • 3 Chief Intelligence Analysts
  • 60 Communication Specialists
  • 30 Intelligence Analysts
• 75 Tactical Command Center Personnel
  • 3 Operations Officers
  • 72 Tactical Operators
• 163,330 Engineering Personnel
  • 280 Engineers
  • 1260 Damage Control Specialists
  • 500 Armorers
  • 150 Machinists
  • 4000 Mechanics
  • 157,140 Technicians
• 8100 Medical Personnel
  • 2610 Doctors
  • 5490 Medical Technicians
• 900 Support Personnel
  • 300 Caretakers
  • 600 Duty Quartermasters
• 336 Boat Bay Controllers

Marines: 5980 (10 Battalions strength)

Pilots: 1440

Civilian Government Employees: 200.000

Maximum Capacity: There are accommodations for 400,000 people. About 1,200,000 people can fit aboard in an emergency, but the station would be extremely cramped.

Length: 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) Width: 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) Height: 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles) Decks: 875 (4 meters each)

Continuum Distortion Drive: N/A Hyperspace Fold Drive: N/A Sublight Engines: N/A Range: In-System Lifespan: 100 years Refit Cycle: Every Two Years

See Damage Rating (Version 3) for an explanation of the damage system.

• Hull: 250
• Shields: 200 (Threshold 3)

A large section of station dedicated towards plants and livestock, each level of the Agricultural Section is actually twelve meters in height to provide ample space. While farms are the most common of facilities in the Agricultural Section, recreational parks can also be found here to provide a place for military men to relax. Civilians employed by the government work in these areas. About 10% of the Bulwarks volume is comprised of the Agricultural Section.

The Bulwark Outpost has nearly 100 Armories located in docking facilities and other critical points of the station.

The Command and Control Center is more like a combination of a starship bridge and a Central Information Center with the design comprised of a sphere reaching a radius of 20 meters. In this sphere, twenty chairs located on a central platform are placed facing outward with their own consoles. These chairs are for sensor/communications operators, each responsible for a section of space in the Bulwark's detection range. A second platform is located just underneath the first with ten more seats which are for intelligence analysts. Above the first platform is a much smaller platform which contains the Base Commander, the Strategic Officer, and the Chief Intelligence Officer.

Large areas of storage space, there are cargo storage areas near Docking facilities, the Agricultural Sections, food preparation areas, and even the Fabrication Center. Storage areas near the Docking facilities tend to be the larges and hold stores for resupplying warships and strike craft with the necessary ammunition, food, water, and fuel. Each of these storage areas is dedicated to a certain type of necessity for safety from volatile substances and contaminants.

Agricultural Section storage areas are more straight forward and are used for storing the variety of produce that can be harvested year round. Storage areas for kitchens and restaurants on the Recreational Level are normal divided into refrigeration and dry-food storage, while Fabrication Centers hold all the materials needed for construction.

In the center of the Bulwark Outpost, the Central Command Computer Center (CentComp) is a massive room that contains a trio of CU-24 computers known as the Triumvirate. Three Smart AIMs form the Triumvirate's primary operating systems (one with in each core) and hold reign over numerous Program AIMs that they delegate operations too.

The Bulwark Military Outpost contains 50 Computer Centers with each CU-24 computer running a Program AIM operating system. All of these computers are networked together and form a networked consciousness known as the Senate. Answering to the Triumvirate and the military personnel on board, the Senate is responsible for delegating operations to all Virtual Intelligence Models in their hierarchy.

With large amounts of volume in the Bulwark, Crew Cabins are a lot like apartments on planets. Varying in size, Crew Cabins are classified by Rank and Marriage Status. Furnishings and basic entertainment equipment are provided.

A Bachelor Cabin is one of the smallest cabins on a Bulwark. There is a main room with a small kitchenette and a small bedroom with bathroom.

Cabins for Married individuals are much larger than their Bachelor counterparts. There is still a Main Living Area with appropriate furnishings and entertainment center, but the kitchenette is replaced with a separate room for both kitchen and dining area. There are two bedrooms: a Master Bedroom and a large bedroom for other dependents. Two bathrooms are provided as well.

Luxurious Cabins for visiting dignitaries and high ranking officers, VIP cabins are structured much like Married Cabins. The main difference between the two is much larger volume for the VIP Cabin.

In order to make damage control efforts more efficient, the Station has been divided into twelve pie-sections. Each circular pie section is then divided vertically into 25-deck sections. A single Standard Damage Control Center then commands repair efforts in these sections and resulting in the formation of a damage control network. There are about 420 Standard Damage Control Centers in a single Bulwark Outpost.

Large protrusions extending from the station proper, the Docking Arms are needed so that warships larger than a destroyer-type vessel can access the support facilities of a Bulwark Military Outpost.

Sixteen protrusions located above and below the Large Warship Docking Arms and Launch Bays are responsible for supporting Medium-sized Warships. Everything from small cruisers to Battlecruisers can be found here. Each Protrusion can handle one Cruiser Division (3 Cruisers) and one Light Capital Ship Division (3 Battlecruisers or Escort Carriers).

Four large protrusions located 90-degrees from the Launch Bays and in between two pairs of Medium Warship Docking Arms, a single Large Warship Docking arm can handle a single Heavy Capital Ship Division (2 Battleships or Carriers) or a single Dreadnought.

There are 40 Drone Hives that appear like blisters along the circumference of the Bulwark Outpost. Each Drone Hive alternates with the Strike Craft Hangers and contains 20 Construction Drones and 20 Combat Drones.

For a station the Bulwark's size, a single engineering section wouldn't be enough to power all of its systems. Thus, the Bulwark has the equivalent of fifty Standard Large Warship Engineering Sections. Though many components of the Large Engineering Sections have been removed, such as the Hyperspace Fold Generator, the amount of Fusion-Fission Reactors is enough to power everything necessary.

The Fabrication Center is a large Factory with multiple robotic assembly lines and takes up a large section of space. Spanning two decks in height and nearly 3 squared Kilometers of horizontal surface area, the Bulwark's Fabrication Center was built to provide military craft with replacement parts, ammunition, and even produce more Strike Craft and Combat Drones.

Large, Cavernous facilities used by Escort type warships for docking and maintenance. There are twenty four such facilities on a single Bulwark with each Launch Bay able to hold anything from Destroyers to Frigates and even Corvette style craft. A single Launch Bay can hold an entire Destroyer Division (3 Destroyers) plus a Frigate Division (3 Frigates) and two Corvette Divisions (six Corvettes) on its own. On a logistical note, the Launch Bay has enough room to service ten Small Transports.

The Bulwark Outpost contains a central Laundry Facility where all laundry is taken to be cleaned. Filled with Commercial Laundry facilities and Dry-Cleaning equipment, the Laundry Facility can clean nearly 40000 tons of clothes a day.

Small passageways that technicians have to crawl through, they are large enough for an adult Abwehran male to crawl on his hands and knees.

A single Bulwark Outpost carries several hundred thousand personnel at any one moment. To provide proper medical care to everyone there is one central hospital and 420 Abwehran Standard Medical Bays. Each Medical Bay is located in a Damage Control Section on the station and are run by two Doctors and four Medical Technicians. The central Hospital is located centrally on the station and has a staff of thirty Doctors and 150 Medical Technicians.

The Outpost Commander's Suite is different from the usual quarters on board a Bulwark Outpost. While spartan in decor, it has the largest volume of all living quarters. A six room apartment, the Suite is divided into a Master Bedroom, Day Cabin (Office), Living Room, Kitchen/Dining Room, and two Bathrooms. The Master Bedroom is large enough for Outpost CO and his spouse(s) with multiple beds or just a single large bed and appropriate furnishings. A large Bathroom is attached to the Master Bedroom, but the Master Bedroom also has doors leading to the Day Cabin and the Living Room. The Day Cabin is the Outpost CO's office and leads to the outside corridors, though another door also leads to the living quarters of the Steward responsible for the Commander. The Living Room is a rather large room that is furnished with sofa-beds so that children can live there too. The Living Room also leads to the Kitchen/Dining Room, the second Bathroom, and the Outside Corridor.

Standard spartan and utilitarian passageways are used for everyday foot traffic are quite common on the Bulwark, but there are also a series rings located at various points of the disc. These rings are much like ring of a tree in pattern and are used to get personnel to locations on the massive station quickly and efficiently.

Several decks worth of entertainment and support facilities, the Recreation Level contains restaurants of various types, bars, brothels, and park areas so that the crews and dependents can relax and have fun. Also located in the Recreation Level are shops and educational facilities for dependents.

All Strike Craft Hangers on a Bulwark Outposts are similar to the Standard Hangar Bay that will be found in future carrier-type vessels. Each Strike Craft Hanger has enough volume to hold 6 Squadrons (90) of Fighters and 6 Schiffchen. There are 40 Strike Craft Hangers lined across the circumference of the Bulwark Outpost and alternate with the stations Drone Hives.

A spherical facility with a trio of platforms in the center, the sphere of the facility is used to project a image of the area surrounding the station. The center and smallest platform holds a single Operations Officer who is in constant communication with the Command and Control Center. Both Platforms (above and below) hold twelve Tactical Operators each. These Tactical Operators control the weapons systems of a single pie section, the top platform controlling the dorsal weaponry and the bottom platform the ventral weaponry.

The framework of the Bulwark Outpost are much different from standard military design. Using trusses of hollow Durandium Alloy instead of the usual titanium, they then replace the depleted uranium filling with a Nerimium filling to create the strongest framework of the Abwehran Star Empire. The hull composition is the standard Military Hull Composition the Abwehran use with the new Military Station Tri-Armor covering it to provide the toughest defense possible.

The Bulwark Military Outpost carries an unprecedented 53 CU-24 Quantum Computers with three of them using Smart AIMs and the rest using Program AIMs.

• Radio
• Station Laser Communication
• Sound-Powered Telephones
• Station Subspace

• Station Gravatronic Radar
• Infrared Spectrometer
• Imaging Scanner Package
• Station Subspace Mass

The Bulwark Military Outpost uses a compartmentalized design to protect areas against catastrophic decompression and hull breaches. The station also has six Station Escape Podss per Damage Control Section (2520 Pods in all) to facilitate quick escapes in case of station destruction.

The Bulwark Military Outpost's primary source of clean air comes from the plants found in both Agricultural Sections and Recreation Level. A series of Artificial Photosynthetic Life Support Systems provides waste filtration, emergency rations, and a back-up air recycling system for the station.

While the station is an immobile, orbital fortress, the Bulwark contains nearly 100 Station-keeping Fusion Engines located at precise intervals to maintain a stable orbit around its host planet. This is mainly due to the fact that standard maneuvering jets are unable to provide the thrust necessary to keep such a massive vessel in orbit.

The Bulwark Military Outpost uses the newest Sectional Defense Field as well as the older Hazard Shield in a dual layer energy field system. Each Damage Control Section contains a single generator for the Sectional Defense Field to create a full Defensive screen around the station (420 generators in all).

• Ion Cannon: 240, 4 SDR
• 400mm Anti-Ship Railgun: 240, 4 SDR
• 240mm Laser Turret: 240, 3 SDR
• Gatling Laser Cannon: 480, 1 SDR
• Anti-missile Laser Emitter: 240, 1 SDR
• Long-Ranged Anti-Ship Missile Launcher: 480, See Missile Tech
• Short-Ranged Anti-Ship Missile Launcher: 960, See Missile Tech
• Short-Ranged Anti-Fighter Missile Launcher: 960, See Missile Tech

• 800 ASD1 Construction/Repair Drones
• 800 Mark II Combat Drones

• 3600 Walküre-class Multirole Space Fighters
• 240 Schiffchen

• Destroyer-types: 92
• Frigate-types: 92
• Corvette-types: 144

• Cruiser-types: 48
• Light Capital Ships: 48

• Heavy Capital Ships: 4-8

• Small Transports: 240