CMS Terra Nova
The Sovereign Colonies Mass Driver
The CMS Terra Nova was a Sovereign Colonies mass driver left derelict among the fleet orbiting Tau Volantis after the S.C.A.F. expedition of 2311. Two centuries later it became a waypoint for Isaac Clarke and the home of a Unitologist cult that worshipped the Brethren Moons.
The CMS Terra Nova was a Sovereign Colonies mass driver, the largest vessel in the fleet that carried the S.C.A.F. expedition to Tau Volantis in 2311. Left derelict among the orbiting flotilla after the expedition collapsed, it lay abandoned for two hundred years until Isaac Clarke and John Carver passed through it, and later until the remnants of the Unitologist Circle turned it into a temple to the Brethren Moons.
Service at Tau Volantis#
The Terra Nova was used by the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces during their expedition to Tau Volantis in 2311. Her commanding officer was Valery Dietz and she was piloted by Tucker Edwards. During the excavation of the frozen world, Necromorph specimens and Markers recovered from the planet were stored aboard her alongside the bodies of dead S.C.A.F. soldiers, a practice Commander Dietz opposed, wanting the specimens transferred off his ship. The Markers brought aboard spread the same dementia that had doomed every other Marker site, and tensions rose among a crew already strained by managing constant shuttle flights to and from the dig sites.
Most of the Terra Nova's crew were killed during the cleanse order issued by General Spencer Mahad in 2314, and those who survived the purge were slaughtered by the Necromorph lifeform carried up from the planet. The ship was left adrift among the rest of the flotilla in orbit around Tau Volantis.
Design#
The Terra Nova was a CL-13 class spaceship classified as an ADT 60 Mass Driver, serving in the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces' AC-P fleet. At roughly 530 meters she was about a third the size of the later USG Ishimura, which was commissioned more than a century after the Terra Nova's disappearance. As the largest ship in her fleet she acted as a cargo and resupply vessel, a hub for shuttle operations, and a carrier for the smaller craft stowed inside her cradle.
The ship was built around three major sections, Fore, the Conning Tower, and Aft, linked by an internal tram. Working with limited technology, her builders crammed cargo into every available space, including access corridors and overhead storage. The most distinctive feature was the cradle, enclosed by seven pairs of extensible arms that clamped onto and ferried smaller ships; cargo shuttles entered the cradle to unload, transferring their bundles to guide rails that ran alongside the tram. The Fore section housed the bridge, ship communications, the primary cargo bays, filtration controls, and cradle operations. In many respects the Terra Nova class was the forerunner of the great planet crackers that followed.
Arrival of Isaac Clarke#
Two hundred years after the expedition, Isaac Clarke traveled to the derelict Terra Nova to repair the CMS Crozier, which lay in the Aft Station. He fought his way through the ship's many sections against the mummified remains of the crew to reach the tram system, where the survivor Austin Buckell directed him toward a supply cache in the Conning Tower near the Mid Station. There Isaac contended with traps that the pilot Tucker Edwards had set centuries earlier, having sealed himself in the Conning Tower during the slaughter of the crew. After surviving the traps and finding Edwards' corpse, Isaac made his way to the Aft Station and began repairs on the Crozier, eventually freeing a shuttle and returning to the CMS Roanoke. The Terra Nova was left in orbit with the rest of the flotilla as the team launched aboard the Crozier to land on Tau Volantis.
The Unitologist cult and the return to Earth#
After Isaac and Carver escaped Tau Volantis in a stolen shuttle, they reached the Terra Nova to find that most of the surviving members of the Circle had gone insane and formed a radical Unitologist cult that had made the ship their church. The Unitologists who remained sane, among them Randall Carr, had tried to jury-rig a ShockPoint Drive from one of their shuttles to the ship's reactor in order to fly the Terra Nova back to Earth, but they were killed by the cult before they could finish. Isaac and Carver took up the work, restarted the engines and overloaded them far beyond their designed parameters to feed enough power to the drive, then entered ShockSpace and returned to Earth. They arrived to find that the Brethren Moons had already reached the planet and were attacking it. One of the Moons rose in front of the Terra Nova and seemingly crashed into it, leaving the ship's fate unknown.
Frequently asked questions
- What was the CMS Terra Nova?
- The CMS Terra Nova was a Sovereign Colonies mass driver, the largest ship in the fleet sent to Tau Volantis in 2311. It served as a cargo and resupply hub and carried smaller ships in its cradle. Abandoned after the expedition failed, it drifted with the rest of the flotilla for two hundred years.
- Who commanded the Terra Nova?
- The ship's commanding officer was Valery Dietz and her pilot was Tucker Edwards. Most of her crew were killed during the cleanse order issued by General Spencer Mahad in 2314 or by the Necromorph outbreak that followed.
- What happened to the Terra Nova at the end of the saga?
- After escaping Tau Volantis, Isaac Clarke and John Carver reached the Terra Nova and overloaded its engines to power a jury-rigged ShockPoint Drive, taking the ship to Earth. They arrived to find the Brethren Moons already attacking the planet, and one Moon rose in front of the ship and seemingly crashed into it, leaving its fate unknown.
Sources
- WikiCMS Terra Nova — Dead Space Wiki entry
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
Related entries
CMS Crozier
The CMS Crozier was a battered Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces transport shuttle abandoned in the flotilla over Tau Volantis. Repaired by Ellie Langford's team two centuries later, it carried Isaac Clarke down to the planet before breaking apart in the descent.
CMS Roanoke
The CMS Roanoke was a Sovereign Colonies orbital command platform that served as the flagship of the Galactic Expedition to Tau Volantis. Left adrift in a mine-saturated flotilla after Scenario Five, it was the first wreck Isaac Clarke and John Carver boarded on reaching the frozen world.
USG Ishimura
The USG Ishimura was the flagship of the Concordance Extraction Corporation and the first Planet Cracker-class mining ship. After recovering Marker 3A from Aegis VII in 2508, it became the site of a catastrophic Necromorph outbreak that wiped out its crew and bound its name to the history of the Markers.
Austin Buckell: Marker Ops Scientist
Austin Buckell was a scientist on an EarthGov Marker Ops research team on Keyhole Station, recruited from the EDF Corps of Engineers. He joined Ellie Langford''s expedition toward Tau Volantis and died of his wounds at a waystation on the planet.
Brethren Moons
The Brethren Moons were gigantic, intelligent space-faring Necromorphs and the ultimate source of every Marker signal. Formed by a Convergence Event, they spread Black Markers across the stars to seed new civilizations, harvest them, and birth more of their kind in an endless cycle of extinction.
Conning Tower
The Conning Tower was a compartment aboard the CMS Terra Nova in the flotilla orbiting Tau Volantis. After Scenario Five, the pilot Tucker Edwards barricaded himself there, killed his captain, and rigged the chamber with lethal traps and dormant Necromorphs before taking his own life.
Mentioned in13 entries
Brethren Moons
The Brethren Moons were gigantic, intelligent space-faring Necromorphs and the ultimate source of every Marker signal. Formed by a Convergence Event, they spread Black Markers across the stars to seed new civilizations, harvest them, and birth more of their kind in an endless cycle of extinction.
CMS Crozier
The CMS Crozier was a battered Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces transport shuttle abandoned in the flotilla over Tau Volantis. Repaired by Ellie Langford's team two centuries later, it carried Isaac Clarke down to the planet before breaking apart in the descent.
CMS Shackleton
The CMS Shackleton was a Sovereign Colonies warship sent with the flotilla to Tau Volantis two centuries before the Marker convergence. Reduced to a field of mine-strewn wreckage, it was the first vessel of the lost fleet that Isaac Clarke passed on his arrival at the frozen world.
Cyst
The Cyst was a stationary Necromorph that grew out of the Corruption and served as a living mine. It excreted organic pods that detonated on impact, attacking anything that came near without distinguishing friend from foe.
Earth
Earth was the human homeworld and the center of all human activity in colonized space. Strained by an energy crisis, environmental collapse and the Resource Wars, it was the site of the buried Black Marker, the seat of two successive world governments, and the final target of the Brethren Moons.
Isaac Clarke
Isaac Clarke was a ship systems engineer for the Concordance Extraction Corporation who survived the Necromorph outbreak aboard the USG Ishimura, became a host for the Markers'' replication blueprints, and spent years hunted by EarthGov and the Church of Unitology as he fought to destroy the Markers.
Jacob Danik
Jacob Arthur Danik was a high ranking Unitologist and leader of the militant sect known as the Circle, who waged war on EarthGov to free the Markers and pursued Isaac Clarke to Tau Volantis, where his actions awakened the Brethren Moons.
John Carver
John Carver was an Earth Defense Force sergeant who lost his wife and son to a Necromorph outbreak on Uxor and joined Isaac Clarke on the expedition to Tau Volantis to destroy the apparent source of the Marker signal.
Randall Carr
Randall Carr was a Unitologist of the Circle and Jacob Danik''s second-in-command. After Danik''s death and the failure of Convergence on Tau Volantis, he tried to lead the survivors home before a new flesh cult overran them.
Scraper
The Scrapers were deranged Unitologists of the Circle who turned to a new flesh cult after the failure of Convergence on Tau Volantis. Wearing sacks over their heads and clawed contraptions on their arms, they mutilated themselves as offerings to the Brethren Moons.
The Cult Leader
The Cult Leader was a former member of the Circle who proclaimed himself Prophet of a new Unitologist cult aboard the CMS Terra Nova. He acted as the voice of the Brethren Moons, tormenting Isaac Clarke and John Carver as they fought to warn Earth.
The Hunters (Tau Volantis)
The Hunters of Tau Volantis were Regenerator-type Necromorphs formed from the Sovereign Colonies Deep Dig Team, men who went mad near the Markers and carved Marker symbols into their own flesh. Sealed away for two centuries, they were loosed again on the CMS Terra Nova and the frozen planet.
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