Raphiel-class Frigate

Raphiel-class Heavy Cruiser

"Prepare for jump to hyperspace and start warming up the secondary particle beam cannons, we're going to blast holes straight through those rebel ships as soon as we get there!"

- Commader Aine Lowen of the GSS-410 "Apollyon"

The  was a ship developed and produced by Vestyr Shipyards, a private starship manufacturing company based on Gundelia.

Details
Produced several years prior to the clone wars, it was originally intended to be a competitor to the Dreadnought-class Heavy Cruiser, however the Dreadnought would come to be a more favored ship, leaving the Raphiel in service of Gundelia, where it would be favored over the Dreadnought.

When the Clone Wars broke out, gundelia would be one of the first systems to voluntarily donate their ships and manufacturing capabilities to the republic, aiding them with special models of Raphiels and later Maelstrom-class battlecruisers. After the Clone Wars ended and the Empire was established, Gundelia remained independant however would remain loyal to the Empire, allowing Imperial ships to pass through the gundelian system as well as using the Vestyr Shipyards to produce star destroyers for both Imperial and Gundelian use.

Production
Designed and produced a few decades prior to the breakout of the Clone Wars as a comercial warship for private defense fleets. Unfortunately due to having to compete with the much more popular Dreadnought-class Heavy Cruiser, the ship would never be purchased outside of the Gundelian Systems.

The ship would be under constant production for several centuries, coming up to a total of 3 variant models, a pre-clone wars model, a clone wars model and a post-clone wars model.

Prior to the Clone Wars
The ships of this era would be used to patrol the gundelian border as pirate activity was very common around the gundelian systems. As such they were very lightly armed and mostly utilized an extensive array of tractor beam as the primary offensive tools.

During the Clone Wars
During the Clone Wars these ships would have their main tractor beams removed and had the power routed to their new heavier weapon systems. In this era they would often be used to protect important military assets such as deepspace stations and holonet transceivers across republic space.

After the Clone Wars
After the Clone Wars, the ships would remain in use by the Gundelian Defense Fleet, and would often work alongside Imperial warships whenever any rebel activity was detected in Gundelia or the nearby systems.

These ships would be equipped with the first prototype particle beam weapons, which would come to be a staple of gundelian warships during the Galactic Civil War. The new models would come to confront Rebel warships and often decimate entire rebel fleets with these new weapons.

Obsolescence
These ships would never come to be retired, with the older models being kept up to date with the current Raphiel Model via constant refits and updates.

Behind the scenes
This ship was created using the Lego Digital Designer.

The Raphiel-class was originally designed to be a parasite ship of the larger Sariel-class Battlecruiser and the first model was a tiny one with little detail. However it would be the first ship built as a tiny model to become fully detailed.