Hawker

There was a time when Hawker Aerospace Engineering was the pre-eminent military spacecraft design contractor in all of human space. During and immediately after the War of First Contact the space docks of the Hawker system worked tirelessly to bring human fleets up to full fighting strength. For centuries after Hawker Aerospace was synonymous with Terran military might. They became more and more powerful within the growing Satellite Charter and acquired the Merriman, Dresden and Togusa systems to expand their ship-building capabilities, changing their name to the Hawker Federation.

Unfortunately, after several centuries of dynamic growth the company came under the stewardship of a series of men and women who lacked vision or flexibility. The Terran acquisition of shield technology from the Saurians ushered in a whole new era in military ship design, but the Hawker Federation, confident in their stock contracts, failed to incorporate this technology into new design templates. Younger, more dynamic companies, however, embraced this technology wholeheartedly, and soon the Hawker Federation found itself being left behind.

As firms such as Hark Williams, Works Raptor and others came to dominate the market, the Hawker Federation was forced to suspend operations at many of its outlying facilities. Eventually the company turned its attentions to civilian ship design and through fiscal restructuring and the mothballing of most of its out-system assets, salvaged much of its prestige within the Terran Hub.

When the Directorate broke its contracts with Terra after the Terran War, the Satellite Charter was thrown into a frenzy attempting to find alternative production and design sources. The Hawker Federation was again slow to respond, bringing only a small number of its military shipyards back online to assist with refit and repair duties. The Federation was not immune to the complacency that infected much of the Terran Alliance, and failed to see both the patriotic need and the profit potential in repurposing their shipyards despite the dire warnings of Anton Kurak and his compatriots.

Once the Dindrenzi hurled their first attacks into the Storm Zone, however, the ancient energy and dedication of the Hawker Federation was one again aroused. All work on civilian transport and merchant shipping was halted as the workforce of the Hawker systems was doubled, and then redoubled, to bring all of their orbital yards back online. In addition, they have been exhausting themselves to bring their own outdated naval vessels back into service while work proceeds to replace them with more advanced models. Much of the more recent upgrading, such as shield technology, has been done with the assistance of their primary alien trading partner the Xelocian Imperium.

The future and pride of this ancient house travels with their battleships and cruisers, currently arrayed outside of the Hawker systems. They have been deployed both with frontline Terran units and forward into Fathoms Reach as smaller picket units on their own. The Hawker battleship is particularly powerful despite its age. With integrated security bulkheads, retro-fitted shields and a daunting array of weaponry, it can hold its own against any contemporary foe. In addition, each Battleship is assigned its own covert operations group from the Hawker Intelligence Corps, the department tasked with corporate espionage against the Directorate, in cooperation with the Aquan Prime Terquai, for the last several decades.