The Valiant, All Sketches, as Delivered to Trageton image - Kyle_K_ski

Over the years, I've been asked what The Valiant class' capabilities are, and this graphic along with the extra quick side sketches, were the ones that were supplied to VINCE TRAGETON right after he agreed to take my first drawing and make it a virtual reality. One thing that I thought was always a bit strange about a lot of the large spacecraft in George Lucas' universe, was how poor their firing arcs were/are. When I designed The Valiant, I made sure that that was not an issue with its weapon layout. The most powerful cannons ride right down the center of the ship, so that they can easily sweep starboard and port, and thus cover an enormous region of space. The number of spacecraft that it carries is sizeable. I referenced official Star Wars technical books to set the number that it carries. In the origin story that I provided to Vince, The Valiant class was an unintentional intermediary stepping stone between the Acclamator and Venator classes to the Imperial Star Destroyer that we all know and love. The late-era Republic and then-young Imperial Navies misapplied The Valiant, treating it as a cruiser, when it really is a significantly powerful starfighter carrier. When it was first deployed, it was sent headfirst into the frontlines. While its weapons systems are formidable, it is not meant to go nose-to-nose against robust capital ships. It was supposed to STAY AT A DISTANCE and launch wave after wave of starfighters and bombers to lay waste to the enemy. Because of the tactical misapplication, its performance was deemed to be "subpar" and the quantity that was ordered was truncated, and it was kept at the fringes of deployment zones. Of course, political corruption played a role so as to steer funds towards other projects that reaped huge and illicit profits for conniving politicians and admirals. The military industrial complex is the same everywhere in the universe, after all! ;-D