UNSC Newcastle

"Enterprise."

- Motto of the HMAS Newcastle.

The UNSC Newcastle (: DDG-73), originally commissioned with the HMAS prefix, was the sole surviving pre- orbitor that was originally built for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) before being transferred over to the. Named after the city of Newcastle, New South Wales, the Newcastle was the second ship of the Canberra-class to be built. Like all members of her class, she was constructed in the Simpson desert-based Anderson Shipyards, with many of her components and superstructure blocks manufactured by BAE Systems Australia. Despite beginning construction in 2127, issues with the development of a self-sustaining, Australia's inexperience with shipbuilding and the required imports of many necessary components meant that she suffered numerous construction and testing delays. She was finally launched in 2131, and was commissioned following a lengthy set of space trials in 2135.

As part of her duties, the HMAS Newcastle participated in training exercises alongside the much larger United Republic of North American fleet, performed extended border-patrol duties, and guarded the merchant vessels travelling between Earth and Mars. Her defining moment before the was during the Belt Piracy Crisis, where she proved her necessity by capturing or destroying twelve hijacked freighters and fighting a rogue Indian Orbitor to a standstill.

Unfortunately, technology quickly overturned the few refits the Newcastle had, and by 2158 she was among the ships being considered for decommissioning in favour of a. Thankfully, the eruption of the in  and the escalation in conflict saw her potential scrapping being put on hold for the duration of the. Already seeing some action unlike many of her later and more capable successors, she would be donated to the newly-emerged as part of the Australian contribution. She would see most of her time in combat against the remnants of the Martian People's Republic, either guarding the vulnerable logistical ships they preyed upon or screening the carriers. Despite the skill of her crew, she was forced back for repairs on six occasions due to ambushes from their adversaries before being relegated to a training ship.

When the Interplanetary War finally came to a close, the UNSC initially considered scrapping the Newcastle or using her as a target ship. Fortunately, a concerted effort by Australian naval veterans saw them volunteering as the caretakers of the long-obsolete Orbitor. Set down in a dock between Newcastle and, she became a memorial ship dedicated to all Australian servicemen who lost their lives in space. Kept in working condition, she would remain spaceworthy even by the. It was during this conflict that the Newcastle was finally destroyed, being used as a fireship in a vain attempt to stop the invasion of Sydney. There are currently no plans in place for a replacement replica, and due to the reconstruction of the country taking priority, it is likely that her legacy will be forgotten to future generations of humanity.

Construction
The Newcastle, then known only as DDG-73, was fabricated in Anderson Shipyard's Drydock 2, with her keel first being laid down on May 24th, 2127. She was assembled from fifty-six prebuilt modules, of which only sixteen blocks were constructed on-site. Rather, the vast majority were supplied by BAE Systems Australia, who were able to keep a constant flow of components in an effort to speed up construction. A number of precautions were taken on the part of the shipwrights to avoid the unacceptable delays which plagued her immediate predecessor, DDG-72, which was currently undergoing space trials. As a result, much of the manpower who worked on it were transferred over to the new ship, with redundant management positions slashed to reduce bureaucratic inflexibility and even played a role in the formation of a supplier's alliance. All this was promoted as resolutions which would lead to a far speedier construction period.

In spite of all this, however, DDG-73 became well-known for its incredibly-long development delays which saw it taking far longer to build than any other space vessel for the RAN. This was characterised by a long period where prospective modules supplied by BAE had to be dismantled and reconfigured on-site, either thanks to internal systems not meeting the ever-changing standards, incompatibilities with the rest of the frame, and even faulty machinery which saw them being damaged while being integrated into the rest of the ship. This was compounded by the addition of temporary components, which sometimes saw some sectors of the ship suspending construction once the desired replacement had arrived at the drydock. In response, beginning in late-2129 the entire management team at the shipyards were fired without compensation due to internal investigations, beginning with supervisor Joshua Howles. In addition, BAE announced that they were working with the RAN to help resolve construction issues and ensure that imported parts met new quality standards - measures which were never elaborated upon. This was quickly followed by the company and by extension the Australian government employing a media blackout on construction of the starship, with unverified rumours of mounting issues only being passed through word-of-mouth and tabloid news networks

Despite the measures, it is confirmed that a major accident occurred during its construction. In 2130, after being carefully uplifted into the zero-gravity drydock Torres Station, a test-firing of the portside booster resulted in a massive explosion which engulfed Materials Storage Sector 2, killing seven workers and injuring twenty-three others. A further four people would die from their wounds before they reached the hospital at Darwin, with the nurses of the Royal Flying Doctors Service being unable to save them. Construction would be halted for the duration of a follow-up investigation. The findings revealed that two petroleum cans were not cleared from the testing strip, detonating close enough to ignite radioactive waste being temporarily stored nearby.

This catastrophe had the unwanted affect of drawing the first cases of international criticism, first by the United Republic of North America's Admiral Arran Forbes and later Northrop Grumman's CEO Hambish Keith. Both personalities blamed the ultimately-preventable tragedy on a loose enforcement of adequate emergency drills and a poorly-equipped workforce that was plagued with management issues. Keith would make a public statement calling for not only the cancellation of the remaining Canberra-class, but also the rest of their planned orbital fleet until they could find an alternative supplier. Regardless, construction of DDG-73 continued, and a renewed effort to finally put an end to the embarrassment and danger of her construction by the Australian government would put an end to the internal troubles. She was planned to be delivered to the RAN by October 2131.

In June 2133, a BAE public relations spokesperson confirmed rumours that DDG-73 had indeed been delivered to the RAN, and contracted refurbishment on undisclosed systems was being performed underway with its testing. This would be the last official report prior to her commissioning on October 22nd, 2135, when she was finally bestowed her new name of Newcastle.

History
Although fully crewed ahead of its commissioning on October 22nd 2135, the Newcastle was deployed on her first mission three years later in 2138. Placed under the command of Captain Kanon Rei Satou, she was deployed on an extended patrol around to investigate seismic disturbances alongside the research vessel Gordon Garradd. Although believed otherwise by intelligence services at the time, both ships were on a genuine mission to investigate a recent increase in moonquake frequency. Using the opportunity to test both her sensory equipment and propulsion engines, the Newcastle made at least nine close-orbit passes of the satellite over its seven-month-long patrol, with two of these passing within one hundred kilometres above the moon's surface. Despite fearmongers stroking theories of the largest wildcat operation in the Sol system being the cause, the survey discovered that the collapse of a low-density gas pocket one thousand kilometres into the mantle was to blame. Logging the anomaly, the Newcastle returned to Earth.

Interplanetary War
"There was never a point where we had any technological advantage. Orbitors like the Newcastle were long out-gunned, outmanoeuvred, and out-performed by ships built in the 2150s, let alone frigates built after the Rainforest Wars. We only got lucky - those kills we got were thanks to either support from other ships, or in combination with mines. And even with them, she took her casualties - but in spite of all the hull breaks, she kept pulling through in ways the Perth or Sydney couldn't... (It will) be a sad day when the Admiralty decides to scrap her. She deserves immortalisation."

- Captain (ret.) Christine Knowles, during an audio interview, c. 2184

Original configuration
The UNSC Newcastle was built as part of the Australian Space Defence Program (ASDP), an ambitious plan put forward by then-Opposition leader David Harrison to field ten spaceborne warships by 2130, to complement the two they already had in service. While the Australia-class base ship was created to fulfil interplanetary force projection and coordination, and the Desert-class spaceplane fulfilled all minor roles including logistics, the Canberra-class combat orbitors was expected to engage similar-sized ships in theoretical combat situations. Such a ship was expected to shoot down missiles and with a variety of missiles, deploy their own strikecraft and probes for reconnaissance purposes, and provide fire support to planetary armies.

Measuring 183 metres in overall length and weighing in at over ten thousand metric tonnes, the Newcastle was smaller than most modern in the twenty-sixth century. She had a very shallow arrowhead profile, which starts with a blunt nose which houses most of the ship's sensor equipment and her eight primary lifeboats. Despite not being designed for operations within a planet's atmosphere, her hull is streamlined and curved to maximise armour thickness while increasing internal volumn. At the aft was a free-standing bridge tower, complete with its own escape pods, rapid-fire autocannons, and chemically-fired countermeasures for defence. Later refits expanded on her secondary combat information centre located deep inside it to better protect the crew, and the bridge tower was reconfigured as an observation deck, communications tower, and planetary map room. There is a 'cut' of missing superstructure on both the dorsal and keel sides, which exposes the ship's mission pod and cargo docks. This mission pod was normally outfitted as an expanded crew habitation and relaxation deck, a research module, an early rotating artificial gravity centrifugal, or even a secondary nuclear fission reactor. Even with overlay ceramic armour and defensive anti-missile autocannons, this remained a constant concern for the crew that occasionally affected the morale of the crew on all Canberra-class starships. On the keel was an external hangar bay that could be used to launch at most two squadrons of aircraft or dropships, although due to manpower issues it was sometimes left completely empty.

The Newcastle was not as well armed as it should have been, having been forced to comply with the Space Armaments Regulations enforced by the and their signatories. Its only effective weapon systems laid in its two pods of Mark 81 Horizontal Launch Systems, which fired RIM-90N Battleaxe heavy missiles from a combined magazine of twenty-four. Four Phalanx 3B 20mm close-in weapon systems provide defence against fighters and missiles, which are capable of firing in excess of 6,000 rounds per minute. Three ten-inch Mark 18 ship-to-ship cannons are fitted, although their positioning means they are unable to fire upon a single target. As stated by the UN, they had no nuclear weapons during this time, nor boasted any weapons which could inflict any sort of damage on the planet below. This reduced their resiliency but at the time their weapons were considered to be the apex of what was permitted.

To protect itself, the Newcastle was capable of deploying a variety of countermeasures specifically suited to breaking target locks, provide alternative targets for missiles, and disable enemy ships. The most celebrated system it had during this time were three oversized wireless communications arrays, which curled up around the wide-spectrum flare launchers. While nothing revolutionary having been overengineered to accept shared intelligence, targeting calculations, and increase the crew's awareness of the battlefield, they were capable of filtering out battlefield static to directly access the enemy computer systems. This allows a crack team of electronic warfare operators to affect everything from weapon performance, to permanently corrupt their sensor displays, to even hijacking their propulsion systems for particularly-unprepared vessels. To protect herself against guided missile threats, she has six Maloo decoy launchers which were later developments of the nulka countermeasure. Unusually among decoys, Maloos emitted RADAR-jamming signatures in addition to infrared flares and signatures copied from its host mother ship. This was due to the rise of missiles which were built to chase jamming emissions if the presence of far more attractive targets were present. Reflective emergency smoke emitters, multi-purpose decoy launchers, and ferrous shrapnel dispensers were also part of its defensive arsenal.

Originally, the Canberra-class was designed to utilise the largest-practical fusion reactor at that time, which provided far more power and reduced nuclear emissions at the cost of using expensive Hydrogen fuel. Unfortunately, due to development issues the Newcastle was forced to rely on up to two nuclear fission reactors for power. In case of reactor sabotage or damage, there were dozens of photoelectric panels mounted all over the orbitor. While unable to supply power to even a single point-defence turret, they were capable of independently powering the emergency life support systems, ion engines, and backup communications antennae for just over a month, and slowly recharged the ship's capacitors and batteries during general operation. Unfortunately, to minimise costs the wiring in each panel was organised in series and ceased to work if a shadow passed over a relatively-small portion. To provide quick acceleration, either to quickly reach destinations or pursue other ships, its five primary engines were fed by submerged within a liquid Oxygen-Hydrogen solution in a directed chamber. While this magnified the push of the igniting fuel, this did little to extend the time between refuelling.

2160 refit
"If it wasn't for the new weapons, I couldn't imagine she would be able to give some Ionian yacht a black eye."

- Helmsman Natalie Ashford

The objective of the Canberra-class' sole refit was originally intended to totally overhaul the warship, a decision which would have allowed it to launch from drydock in almost brand-new condition with capabilities rivalling those of a completely-new ship. Sadly, due to a rapid escalation in violence and the cost in replacing the obsolete electronics far outstripping the original construction cost, the UNSC limited all upgrades to those augmenting its tactical capabilities. This was mostly extended to weapons and armour, although some computer systems were retouched to bring them up to modern standards.

The Newcastle ' most obvious addition was its expanded battery of ship-to-ship cannons. In place of its original three turrets were replaced with four much heavier ASC-II Stonebreaker 356mm (14") naval guns that slowly fire primitive kinetic slugs designed to buckle armour. These were supplemented by twelve smaller Mark 38 208mm (8") naval guns that acted as its short-range defensive armaments. Although they lacked power, they could accelerate their slugs to a far higher acceleration than the Stonebreaker could, increasing range and could cycle through thirty rounds per minute, so they acted as the Orbitor's general-purpose guns. Its eight missile cells were replaced with modernised Mark 90 Launch Systems, which could accept all standard-issue heavy ship-to-ship missiles used by the preceding United Nations Colonial Peacekeeping Force. Normally, these were armed with RIM-84F cruise missiles for extended-range warfare, however, after 2166 the Newcastle was host to a mixed arsenal that also included RIM-157 SAMs and RIM-61K orbital bombardment rockets. Even its four torpedo tubes were left intact, updated to Mark 119s, and they were used primarily to lay siege against larger, reinforced opponents that the Orbitor would have trouble with. For anti-air defence, ten automated M79B Outlaw 30mm (1.2") CIWS were fitted.

The Newcastle was planned to receive a full upgrade of its armour, which would compromise of durable bismith-tungsten plating with a depleted uranium reactive armour overlay to its belly, which would have allowed the warship to now reliably take multiple hits from impacting warheads and medium naval guns. Unfortunately, after leaving refit most of the materials scheduled for the Newcastle were constantly redirected to any new vessels currently being built, so only vital areas of the ship were given a thin layer of the new battleplate, and the proposed belly armour was dropped. Instead, hardpoints were added below its mission pod, which could tow a variety of cargo trailers and stations for resupply purposes.

Complement
"The Newcastle was renowned for its well-trained personnel, famous throughout the world for their courage, skill, and professionalism. It is they who proved that advanced technology was not the key to victory, with their allies often remarking how they fought with an viciousness and bond that was rarely seen in other armed forces at the time."

- Kelly, during a tour of the ship.

Like most other orbitors at the time, the Newcastle had only minimal fighters and soldiers, relying on them only for reconnaissance and shipboard investigations that she was unable to perform. These were often the most understaffed areas of the crew; it wasn't uncommon for the Newcastle and her sisters to enter the field with only the minimum required soldiers, with no aircraft at all. In the RAN, she carried no bombers due to public outcry regarding their intended use, and as such she was only outfitted with an experienced squadron of interceptors and dropships.

Acting as a reliable supplement to the orbitor's average sensor suite, the eight F/I-41 Magpie STOL interceptors were tenacious attack craft which were deployed deep in enemy territory to identify and pacify small strikecraft which could post a considerable threat to the Newcastle. With a small target profile, Magpies were hard to detect and difficult to hit in dogfights. While they could hold their own, they were not particularly agile when compared to their peers at the time - as a result, the Magpie was required to engage any opponents at extreme range. While it only had four hardpoints for heavy munitions, they had an expansive missile bay which could carry dozens of MAA8 Duelist missiles, firing in rapid succession to make up for their inferior destructive potential. As workhorse aircraft, however, Magpies could be fitted with a mission-specific towcable to carry a 'trailer' of heavier weapons or more often consumables to be dropped off at a previously-specified destination for when more suitable foreign aid vehicles were unavailable. The specific unit which operated these formidable aircraft varied, with the most famous being the 13th Naval Squadron.

Battle honours
As with all other ships that had names recycled from previous RAN vessels, the UNSC Newcastle inherited the battle honours awarded to its seaborne predecessors that previously were operated by the ADF. It was originally suggested to the Federal Government that it may be possible to instead maintain two different lineages of the name due to the very different missions and roles that the Orbitor undertook, although this was ultimately disregarded in favour of setting a precedent to treat all future space-faring vessels as traditional warships.
 * East Timor, 1999–2000
 * Persian Gulf, 2002–2003
 * Pakistan, 2067
 * Asteroid, Belt 2146
 * India, 2154-2155
 * , 2162-2163
 * , 2163-2167

Notable Crew
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Captains

 * Captain Kanon Rei Satou
 * CPTN Christine Knowles

Bridge Officers
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 * Lieutenant Commander Natalie Ashford