USM Valor

The USM Valor was a Destroyer-class warship of the Earth Defense Force, captained in the 2023 remake by Commander F. Cadigan. Far smaller than the USG Ishimura, it still carried formidable firepower. A plaque aboard the ship in the remake records that it was built at the Wanat Orbital Ship Yards in the Sol Sector and launched in 2488. The Valor was destroyed in the Aegis system during the mission the remake calls Operation: WHITE LIGHT, undone by the same Necromorph infection it had been sent to contain. (Dead Space; Dead Space (2023))

Operation: WHITE LIGHT#

In 2508 the Valor was deployed to support the effort to reclaim Marker 3A, an operation undertaken by EarthGov and spearheaded by Kendra Daniels, and traveled to the Aegis system to retrieve the artifact from the USG Ishimura. Its orders, found aboard in the 2023 remake, explain that because EarthGov could not determine the location of Aegis VII, the warship was instructed to move out of local scope range once in the system and wait for a signal from the Ishimura to confirm its position. When the ship managed to raise the Ishimura, thanks to the efforts of Isaac Clarke and Daniels, the Valor began making its way to the planet cracker and reported that it had recovered one of the Ishimura's escape pods. (Dead Space; Dead Space (2023))

That pod was Escape Pod 47, in which the CEC security officer Zach Hammond had trapped a Slasher that ambushed him in the original game; in the 2023 remake, Hammond used it to contain and jettison the reanimated Aiden Chen. The Necromorph aboard it attacked the Marines, and the crew (led in the remake by Commander Cadigan) was forced to mobilize against an infection that spread with terrible speed. An explosion tore through the ship, and the Valor lost control and listed headlong toward the Ishimura. (Dead Space; Dead Space (2023))

The crash#

The Valor crashed into the underside of the Ishimura, lodging itself in the planet cracker's Ore Storage Deck and causing incalculable damage to both ships. The Valor's personnel fought the Necromorphs, many of them former crew, but with more creatures boarding from the Ishimura after the impact the battle was lost. The wreck demonstrated the durability of the larger ship, which survived the collision and continued to drift in the Aegis system. (Dead Space; Dead Space (2023))

Isaac Clarke boarded the Valor to retrieve its singularity core, which he needed to power a shuttle and escape the Ishimura. Fighting through the wreck, he encountered a new breed of Necromorph formed from the ship's Marines. Because the soldiers' suits carried built-in Stasis modules, the creatures they became could move many times faster than a regular Slasher, and they were called Twitchers. During the recovery Zach Hammond was killed, by an Enhanced Brute in the original game and by Chen's Necromorph form in the 2023 remake. Isaac nonetheless retrieved the core, giving himself, Kendra Daniels, and Dr. Terrence Kyne a chance to escape aboard a surviving Executive Shuttle. Daniels later revealed that the Valor had been sent in support of her own mission to reclaim the Marker. (Dead Space; Dead Space (2023))

A warship of its class#

Small beside the Ishimura, the Valor still carried the firepower of an EDF Destroyer. Its armament consisted of a network of heavy cannon batteries arranged in pairs on the upper, lower, and bow sections of the hull, together with a torpedo and missile launch system. In the 2023 remake the ship also carried a single 12-megaton EURYDICE guided nuclear missile, held in its Torpedo Bay as part of a sterilization protocol and intended for use on the Ishimura should the Necromorph infection be present. That warhead was destabilized when the Valor crashed. (Dead Space; Dead Space (2023))

As rebuilt in the 2023 remake, the Valor's interior was organized for its Marine complement of at least sixty-four soldiers of the 3343rd Spaceborne, divided into Navigation, Weapons, and Engineering teams. The ship's main Armory held racks of Pulse Rifles and lockers of Advanced Soldier suits, with a shooting range where off-duty Marines practiced. The Barracks and Mess Hall housed and fed the crew, the Cargo Bay stored the ship's supplies and was where the fatal escape pod was brought aboard, and the Engine Room contained the singularity core and ShockPoint Drive that Isaac came to claim. A Briefing Room and an Infirmary completed the working spaces of a warship built to enforce EarthGov's will and to leave no witnesses behind. (Dead Space (2023))