The CSS Metamor, the flagship of the Alliance, is one of the 5 unique city-ship designs currently in-battle with the Empire. She is also the most compact and powerful, owing to being the original escort for the fleet, before the re-purposing.

Since then, work crews have been constantly further upgrading her firepower and livability, to make her capible of supporting the fight for an extended period of time. In this, the ship's highlights will be covered, and explained in due course.

Command and Control

The primary nerve center for the ship is the main bridge, located in the middle of the saucer-section. Stratigicly positioned and protected by an arsenal of defensive weapons, ultra-heavy armor, extra shielding bubbles, and less-known defenses, it is here that the primary command and control functions fall.

The bridge module has been re-worked slightly, to function as the fleet C&C center, with links to the other City Ships, fleet-wide communications monitoring, and other features.

From here, Admiral Davison commands his pride and joy, with one of the largest bridges in known space. The room is a mutilated and elongated ellipsoid in shape, with small alcoves handling his retreat, the lifts to the bridge, the door to the Metamor observation lounge and breifing room, and other features.

The bridge is redundant, with multiple stations for all pursuits along the mid-section, a massive engineering coordination station in the rear extention of the room, multiple controls for the main cannon, and other features.

The 3-way helm station is at the fore of the room, with the primary helm station in the middle, transwarp control to port, and an Auxilary helm control station to starboard, all connected into one large unit, which stands before the main screen, in the forward fifth of the room. Beside the door to Davison's office in the staboard alcove, the security station to handle all local security rests, always manned in these somewhat dubious times.

Interior Conditions

For the first Kilometer or so you penetrate into the ship's interior, it is a depressing place, with closed up corridors, and tight spaces, trying to re-enforce the hull as much as possible, to keep super-breaches from reaching into the interior cavity.

Past that, the ship's city truely begins. Much of the interior space, past that first Kilometer, is completely open and a single space from bow to stern, port to starboard, a huge city-scape, dizzying to the uninitiated. It's airy to the point of making Aerophobics queasy. Much of the space is pierced through with mighty columns of apartments, busniesses, the equivilent of several city blocks in each column, shooting from floor to ceiling, uninterrupted in most spots, except for Central Park.

The majestic, 4 K by 4 K square is a paradise, ranging from woodlands, to a small lake, to open grass areas and indoor stadiums. Equal to it's prognitor in New York City, the massive space manages to cut it's column off halfway up, with the upper portion picking up another quarter of the way up and being supported massively by the other local columns. The way the area is built allows it to fully simulate the feeling of a peek into a normal sky, a bit of normalcy in a ship that has set new records of strangness.

The massive construct is easy to get lost in, and often a person will feel that if they turn around, a corridor that they did not go down will be waiting behind them. Not even the most experienced trail-maker can escape this odd effect, and people are beginning to ask questions about this oddity...

Transportation

With the large size of the ship, a mass transportation system was needed, to move people across the vast distances.

The primary methods of transit is the lift system, and the suspended magneto-rail system.

The lifts are the primary transports in the hullwards, due to the enclosed spaces and lesser traffic loads. They also serve as the primary connectors between the upper and lower levels of the great columns; to ease movement between various levels for utilities correction, errand running, physical couriering, and other single-column traffics.

But, to get from one column to another, the primary means is the suspended rail system lining the open spaces. Running along a magnetic rail system in the ship streching throughout the main space, these rails can move people and supplies fast, efficiently, and did I mention fast anywhere in the ship? Way fast. Now, one could walk across the catwalks from one column to another, but mostly, so far only insane indoor skydivers have attempted this, and several of them have run into these systems.

A typical vehicle unit consists of 4 cars, each capible of carrying 20-50 people, depending on how tightly you pack them in.

Culture

Currently, many of the people aboard the Metamor came from the old United States of America, and the new culture forming aboard the Metamor strongly reflects that. However, the Vulpin contingient has been busy trying to form a new culture for themselves to make their race seem less and less like a fuzzy version of normal humans.

They've been borrowing from many sources, including the Catans, to make a grand mix which would make them unique. So far... they haven't gotten very far, unfortunately.

The big social events aboard the ship usually happen at least once a month, celebrating new-comers from a raid, with a large New Years Eve type party. Much of the celebrations are held in the numerous lounges and in the large central park, in which can be held various events.

With the inclusion of a new training facility for Alliance enlisted personelle aboard, the crowds have gotten... somewhat rowdier, the parties a bit more extreme. This has led to tensions among the original occupants of the ship, but things have settled down with the regulations going into effect govenerning the personelle, along with the new offensive.

People aboard have already started developing an anti-throwaway discipline, after several service announcements demonstrating what can be done with waste have been put out. Much of the solid wastes are now recycled using the plant aboard intended for this, allowing for creation of plastics, and other goods from once un-usable wastes. Metals, and complex devices are recycled into manufacturing plants aboard, getting re-used and revamped to be employed in private and rental craft.