Tuoctlo Hookships

Tuoctlo ultraheavy siege cruisers, more commonly known as Tuoctlo Hookships, are a type of militarized spacecraft created by the ancient Tuoctlo civilization to fight in mysterious, nondescript wars lost to history. Though only a stark few still exist, these ships are notorious for being some of the largest and most powerful spacecraft to ever exist in The Cluster, dwarfing even the tremendous Coalition Hypercruisers. Likewise, many civilizations have attempted to track down and make use of such ships, sometimes succeeding with devastating results.

Design
Like many creations of the Tuoctlo, Hookships are truly gargantuan spacecraft, spanning over 18,000 mi (28,968 km) in total length, and 22,000 mi (35,406 km) in total width (from the tip of one hook to the other). This makes them some of the largest vessels created by any civilization in The Cluster, dwarfing the ultraheavy cruisers of many other civilizations. Like most other Tuoctlo spacecraft, Hookships are powered by a series of internal antimatter reactors, and make use of extremely efficient Tuoctlo-built Fissure Drives for FTL travel. The entire ship is sheathed in Tuoctlo Blackmetal, an extremely durable material reminiscent of Vuokra Voidmetal. Only weapons of a similar caliber to Tuoctlo weapons are capable of doing significant damage to Blackmetal, which means Hookships are practically invulnerable to the weapons of technologically inferior civilizations.

The nickname for this particular variant of Tuoctlo ship comes from its unique double-hook design. Though the ship is cylindrical on one end, this shape gradually splits off into two extremely wide hooks on the other end, giving the ship its distinct shape. As it turns out, this design feature is not purely aesthetical. The splitting off at the other end of the ship is intended to make better use of the ship’s spinal-mounted antimatter railgun, the single most powerful weapon possessed by Tuoctlo Hookships. Encompassing most of the ship’s interior and running down a significant portion of its length, the entire ship is built around this prodigiously large railgun, which accelerates huge canisters of antimatter at close to the speed of light, firing them at whatever is unlucky enough to be directly in front of the ship. These projectiles strike their targets with so much force and are so explosive that they have the capacity to destroy planets, so naturally, no known spacecraft are capable of surviving this impact. It is believed, based on the precision of the weapon, that the Hookship’s railgun was not originally intended to be used against celestial bodies, but the sheer power of such a weapon creates frightening speculations about the scale of space combat millions of years ago.

In addition to this railgun, Hookships are equipped with a plethora of antimatter weapons and advanced plasma weapons of varying size and design all across its hull, most of which are concentrated around the front side of its hooks. Most of the Hookship’s weapons face towards the front of the ship along with the railgun, indicating this type of ship was intended to fight its enemies facing forward, as opposed to turning broadside like many other types of spacecraft. However, due to their immense size, Hookships can only turn very slowly, making it difficult for them to constantly face smaller, more agile craft, and serving as further proof that these ships were designed to fight craft of a similar gigantic size. Despite this slow turn speed, Tuoctlo Hookships are not to be trifled with. Their ancient weapons are incredibly destructive, and, combined with the ship’s nearly impenetrable armor, Hookships are powerful enough to obliterate entire armadas of smaller enemy vessels. The only major weakness of the Hookship is, ironically enough, its most powerful weapon. The Hookship’s antimatter railgun fires through a small aperture at the front of the ship’s armor, which shuts whenever the weapon is not firing. In the short time between the firing of the ship’s railgun and the closing of this aperture, a ship can fly into the firing tube of the railgun, traveling all the way down to the antimatter canister storages. A single shot to these canisters can trigger a catastrophic detonation large enough to destroy more than half of the entire ship’s hull, knocking out its primary weapon and a portion of its power supply. This tactic has been used to incapacitate numerous Hookships, as it also destroys the ship’s Fissure Drive generators, rendering them immobile and, eventually, powerless.

Usage
There are only a select few in the entire history of The Cluster that have had the privilege of finding a Tuoctlo Hookship, and even fewer have gotten to commandeer one. So far, five hookships have been discovered: three in the Triangulum Galaxy, one in the Andromeda Galaxy, and one in the Milky Way Galaxy. The exact number of Hookships left in The Cluster is not known. The most conservative estimates suggest there are only one or two other Hookships aside from the ones known to exist, while some say there are dozens of Hookships scattered across the darker, more remote parts of space. It is impossible to say which claim is more accurate, as Hookships have very faint energy signatures that make them extremely difficult to detect against the background radiation of space. Likewise, the few Hookship discoveries made by certain people or races are monumental achievements, usually occurring only by random chance. Logically speaking, a lower estimate makes the most sense, as the resources and technology required to build a ship of such a size, let alone several, would be enormous, limiting the amount of Hookships the Tuoctlo could realistically field.
 * The first Hookship was discovered in the Andromeda Galaxy. The Apiison Horde found a Hookship nestled inside of a gas giant, and pulled it out to study it. They eventually found a way of reactivating the ship and proceeded to use it against their enemies, the Frechra Confederacy and Alab Empire. This Hookship was destroyed in the Battle of Iltata.
 * The second Hookship was discovered in the Milky Way Galaxy. After gazing into Un through the Nightmare Telescope, the Only Hierophant explored the rest of the Un system and discovered a Hookship orbiting the star. He saw this ship as a sign of the star's divinity, and chose to make it his personal flagship, using it as the bulwark of his forces during the Black Crusade against the Qutixma Worlds. Ever since then, this Hookship has been used by the Infinity Guild to maintain order within the civilizations they preside over, and has never been destroyed.
 * The third Hookship was discovered in the Triangulum Galaxy, as was the fourth and fifth. This Hookship was found in a stellar drydock by Heq-Heq Kufot, who proceeded to commandeer it for the Claw of Heq-Heq. Though they threatened to use it against the Jian’Tur Federation, the Hookship was stolen before this could be accomplished, and was subsequently used by the Jian’Tur Federation to destroy the Claw of Heq-Heq, as well as numerous other enemies opposing them. It was eventually destroyed in the Battle of Mavmalor.
 * The fourth Hookship was discovered by scouts of the Cotith Collective, drifting in deep space. They studied it so as to reverse engineer portions of the Tuoctlo technology, but never activated it, as they had no need for such immense firepower. Supposedly, it continues to drift through unknown portions of old Cotith territory even today.
 * The fifth Hookship was discovered by the military of the Ghuldashi Exiles, orbiting the star Enumlip. It was reactivated and used against the forces of Red Six Trillion during the Second Vuokra Invasion, giving the surviving Ghuldashi Exile forces enough time to retreat to the Milky Way Galaxy. It was quickly destroyed in the Battle of Tibenmro.

The design and raw power of Hookships has created interesting speculations as to what they were intended to be used against. Design-wise, they are siege cruisers, built around a single, high-power weapon intended to be used against tough targets from long distances. Some have theorized that, due to the their incredible size, Hookships were intended to be used against Vuokra battlecruisers, which are of a similar size class. This is further supported by the fact that many technological feats of the Tuoctlo are reverse-engineered from the Vuokra, and that, realistically, the Vuokra can only be defeated by civilizations of a similar tech level to them. Since the Tuoctlo, and almost all aspects of their society, now cease to exist, it is obvious that the Vuokra eventually overwhelmed them and destroyed almost everything they had built, which would account for the surprising rarity of Tuoctlo artifacts despite the massive extent of their civilization.