Interstellar travel in the time before the Great War was limited to long journeys with nuclear powered starships. The military began experimenting with tunnel drive starships and production on them was just getting started when the war broke. The first successful tunnel drive starship was the civilian run exploration ship SS Bourke. The Bourke was lost in space with all hands under mysterious circumstances.
The second tunnel drive starship was the SS Sokol and the third was the SS Kelley, both Federation military ships. The Sokol was considered a battlewagon, the largest starship in the fleet’s inventory. While the Kelley was a modest sized cruiser of the same class as most of the inner system military starships of the fleet.
GCU Sokol was the first Class A starship of the nascent Alliance star fleet.
SS Sokol, SS Kelley and Votainion warship. This size comparison chart shows both Alliance military vessels and the Votainion warship of the same period.
Votainion warship close up. The Votainion warships were more advanced and they tended to travel in three groups of three, or nine total. Not coincidentally there are nine houses of Voton and each house provided its own warship to the armada.
Votainion warship head only. The Engineers designed their warships with “heads” that could separate from the main body. This was not done to save the crew, but rather to save the Engineers who navigated the warships and maintained the complicated internal systems. The warrior class were not considered brilliant enough to maintain their own warships.
Pirate ships. An area of space in the Outer Rim known as the Trade Triangle was home to countless bands of pirate ships. There were too many for the Stellar Rangers to effectively control and often these pirates acted in groups to go after regular Federation trade ships. Flaming skulls on their sides marked the bolder pirate ships. All of these pirate run ships were former trader ships and cargo carriers. Most of them had been modified with weapons to intimidate cargo captains.
The Revenge was the best known pirate ship of the day. Details of the Revenge and its captain are revealed in the Starforgers novel.