Re: mehawk@peak.org

Varan's using the Raven ship?  That makes sense.  A lot of the control
surfaces are controlled through pulleys already, so rigging the ship
so it could be run by Illithids in a pinch would be fairly simple.

The Illithid's have very sophisticated ships already, but a pure
Illithid ship wouldn't have the incredibly exposed weapons modules.
Nor would such weapons be crewed by slaves, because you couldn't have
an Illithid overseer stationed there, and the weapons can be turned on
the ship itself.

The Beak Ram is a great way for light-fearers to board an enemy ship unseen
without being exposed on the decks.   Although Psionic Illithids should
be able to Dimension Door boarders into position, they can't do it to
places they can't _see_.

If the ship were used by Boyarny Varan, the wings would be likely to be
painted in gaudy and decorative fashion.

I wouldn't be too surprised to see a Thoric triple helmed Battleship
designed on similar principles to the Raven ship.  Any ship with the
speed of a Thoric Tradesman and topped out in terms of heavy weapons
would be a formidable foe indeed!  If you took the Thoric Tradesman,
mounted the sails on the _sides_ of the propulsion units and mounted
Turreted heavy weapons on the top and bottom of the propulsion units
instead, you could get a _formidable_ barrage.  You could easily
get eight more Heavy weapons on a tradesman, all with an impressive
field of fire.

Michael Sandy