Gentlemen, we are entering the beginning of a new era for the Steel Legion. These new ships will give us complete dominance in space. I present to you the Metal Fury-class cruiser.
—Ferd Swqaru
The Metal Fury-class cruiser was a starship used by the Steel Legion during the New Republic. It was amongst the first starships to be exclusive to the Legion.
Characteristics[]
Equipped with medium shielding, Metal Fury had somewhat weak armor to minimize costs, and many onboard systems were automated. Their primary purpose was ship-to-ship combat, and for this reason they were given heavy armament capable of tearing apart a Imperial-class star destroyer. However, they were best effective when they struck first, as concentrated fire could cause their shields to falter. Their reactors were very efficient, further increasing the firepower of the ship, but were also unstable and required nearly constant maintenance.
The Metal Fury were equipped with several small hangar bays, which could hold 60 fighters. These hangars often had their bay doors closed, often fooling opponents to thinking the ship had no fighter complement at all.
Metal Fury were moderately expensive, but they were built by droid or slave labor, and the materials from which they were made often came from Legion-owned mines, minimizing their costs. A few were completely automated to save money on crew wages. Occasionally, the Legion would sell old or damaged Metal Furys to pirates for millions of credits.
The Metal Fury-class was designed mostly by engineers at Legion Shipyards, but 8311 also had a hand in its design. As a result, the ship resembled the Recusant class destroyers of the CIS from the Clone Wars, or the Munificent class frigates. Some were even decorated with Confederate emblems, as to confuse anyone being attacked by the ships as to their owners.
History[]
The origins of the Metal Fury came about when 8311 ordered work on Legion-exclusive ships to begin. Technicians at Legion Shipyards began designing various new battleships, but their work was cut short when the Empire attempted to assassinate 8311, forcing him to go underground and causing the Legion to collapse.
When 8311 returned to power and reformed the Legion, the projects for the new Legion ships still remained in Legion computer banks. When the Quarren Ferd Swqaru became leader of the Legion, he discovered the old projects, and ordered them to be put into motion. The designs were finalized and the first Metal-Fury cruisers emerged out of Legion construction shipyards.
Ferd tested out the power of the Metal Fury on a band of pirates who were fighting Legion pirate fleets over a trade route. The pirates proved no match for the Metal Fury, and Ferd ordered them into mass production. Armadas were churned out, and the sight of them was soon feared by merchants and traders all over the galaxy. The New Republic dispatched fleets to stop the raids, but the Metal Fury proved a match even for the major capital ships of the day.
Shortly afterward, the Yuuzhan Vong invaded the galaxy, and war broke out. Ferd switched the purpose of the Legion fleets from piracy to fighting the Vong. Metal Fury proved vulnerable to dread weapons and other Vong biotechnology, but often fared well.
After the war, the Legion continued to use the Metal Fury, alongside their much larger capital ships, the Iron Glory class. They would last into the Legacy era, with the Legion choosing to modify and upgrade them to keep with the times rather than replace them.