The Odyssey

The Odyssey with a Squire in the foreground.

The most ambitious ship ever created by Humanity, The Odyssey is a deep-space exploration city-vessel, designed to fulfill every potential purpose required to house a military crew, a civilian crew, and even a civilian population in a self-sustained environment. The ship, a vessel of Victory, recently departed on her lengthy mission to explore deep and uncharted space with too little funding and a skeleton crew. It is the largest ship Victory or any of the Big Four have ever constructed and is entirely unique.

History

During a CONON meeting, it was once proposed that the Big Four nations of Humanity on Terra Nova band together to create a deep space exploration program, an international effort to chart the stars and new planets, to better everyone, and to expand Human knowledge and understanding of Nova Refuge. Funding was initiated and the first plans underway when disagreements arose regarding the concept. Gradually, each of the Big Four pulled funding and involvement in the project - except Victory, which stood firm. With tensions rising on Terra Nova and every other nation not wanting to risk spending incredible amounts of money on such a dangerous and altruistic endeavor, Victory poured everything they had left into the project, eventually finalizing The Odyssey. The ship herself was fully functional and extremely impressive, sparing no expense, but only a very small skeleton crew of volunteers came forward, leaving The Odyssey in capable hands but still severely understaffed when she set off on her mission.

Crew

The crew of The Odyssey as she began her first mission consisted of only about a hundred crewmen, counting both military and civilian personnel, underusing the ship's massive capacity and even far below the originally intended minimal crew. Among those hundred are the following, some of the most important figures and heads of the ship...

• Captain Valerie Chase - Ship captain and ultimate commanding officer
• Commander Alexander Cutter - First officer and head of ship security
• Lieutenant Andrea Winters - Head communications officer, diplomat, and expert in all languages spoken, written, and motioned
• Doctor Henry Darrow - Head scientist, in charge of nearly every branch of research on the ship; a civilian
• Oom - Head medical officer and chief biologist
• Major John Atlas - Head of most ground exploration missions undertaken so far; not part of the original crew
• Lieutenant Aaron Rivers - John Atlas's lieutenant and right-hand man, accompanies him on all ground missions

Design and Capacity

The Odyssey is designed to comfortably house many thousands of individuals, not all of whom must work the ship itself. Considered the first Human "city-ship," The Odyssey has numerous sections designed to simulate ordinary life in a city. This includes, but is not limited to, the vast apartment decks that resemble housing structures, even equipped with balconies overlooking open marketplaces, lining the open and windowed center of the ship. Other decks and floors are dedicated to farming and food production, waste processing, education, military training and housing, armor and weapon production, and more. Given the current status of the ship with her extremely minimal crew, many of these sections are not up and running at this time, but the capability exists. In addition to living space, The Odyssey also carries multiple smaller starships, including her signature Squire vessels used for scouting and planetary landings and even several Paladin class vessels, among others.

Appearances

The Odyssey will be featured very prominently in the upcoming series The Song of the Stars as the ship upon which all the primary characters work and reside.