Science Vessel

The science vessel was a terran starship used for general exploration and scientific research that also served as a battlefield support craft. Stationed throughout the Koprulu sector to study anomalous phenomena, science vessels became invaluable in wartime for their detection abilities and their capacity to project defensive matrices, EMP bursts and irradiation against enemy forces. Used heavily by the Terran Confederacy and later the Terran Dominion, the expensive vessel was eventually supplanted in the support role by the raven.

The Explorer-class#

Science vessels had been in use since at least 2478. The terrans of the Koprulu sector built the Explorer-class to conduct a wide range of research and development projects, stationing them throughout the sector and beyond to study anomalous phenomena and, early on, to search for alien life. The Confederacy's Epsilon Squadron used science vessels extensively for border surveillance and study, and Explorer-class commanders and crew were required to hold a base of experience in any hard science and in electronic warfare.

The primary function of the science vessel was the employment of its detection abilities. With the appropriate equipment it could also create a defensive matrix, generate a short-ranged EMP that could alternatively be detonated at a distance by a launched warhead, and irradiate a target with a high-energy stream of radioactive particles, a technology derived from nuclear waste disposal that saturated the target with damaging energy. A titan reactor could be installed for greater energy output. Every science vessel also carried Ghost Program files, stored in a secure room at the bottom of the vessel, in case a ghost required the kind of medical aid the program euphemistically called repair.

Wartime service#

When contact with the protoss and zerg devolved into open warfare, military authorities requisitioned many Explorers to provide electronic warfare and support for forces in the field, as well as to aid the research and development of new weapons and technologies. One Explorer-class vessel, the Amerigo, was attached to Alpha Squadron in 2500 and deployed to Char, where it was boarded by zerg led by Sarah Kerrigan, who sought the old Ghost Program files aboard in order to undo the psychic conditioning that suppressed her powers.

After the war the Terran Dominion substituted the raven for the expensive science vessel in the battlefield support role, finding the smaller craft cheaper and more flexible.

Later classes#

During the Second Great War, Jim Raynor and his Raiders developed a new Raiders-type science vessel that could carry out hull repairs through nano-technology while retaining the irradiation function of its predecessor; the Dominion Armed Forces were later seen using this type as well. The experimental Kurzweil-class, designed by Valerian Mengsk, was in service by 2505, and one such vessel, the DS Brin, was prepared for long-term exploration of the Koprulu sector and the xel'naga artifacts scattered throughout it. A robotic drone known as the mini science vessel was also used to provide security and detection for terran facilities.