The Kuat Drive Yards Venator Class Star Destroyer was the mainline warship of the Galactic Republic
during the Clone Wars. The ship was designed by accomplished engineer Lira Blissex and
introduced in 22 BBY, shortly after the outbreak of the War to serve as the backbone of the
Republic Navy. The Standard Venator was 1,137 Meters long
and 548 Meters wide. The most visually distinctive feature of this ship, were the dorsal blast
doors that ran along the spine of the vessel, these doors retracted to reveal a huge landing
bay running almost the length of the ship, and dozens of hangars and garages connected
to it. This bay allowed the Venator to launch or land its entire fighter complement in a
very short time, and repair or refuel them during combat with much greater ease. The
Venator had two command towers, with the starboard tower serving the purpose of a standard helm
and command Bridge, and the Port tower being devoted entirely to the control and coordination
of Starfighter operations. The Venator Class represented a return to
aggressive power—projection by the Republic, though the Venator was a very capable Battleship,
its main function was that of a Starfighter Carrier and launching platform for planetary
invasions. Each Venator carried 192 Starfighters of either V-19 Torrent or V-Wing Class, as
well as 36 ARC-170 Fighter Bombers and 40 LAAT Republic Gunships. In addition to this
impressive air wing, the Venator also carried 24 All Terrain Tactical Enforcer Walkers,
several ground attack shuttles and 2000 Clone Troopers, allowing the ship to deploy a sizeable
army to a planet’s surface using its LAAT Dropships, or easily repel any hostile boarding
action. The Venator carried a class 1.0 Hyperdrive,
affording it an effective travel range of 60,000 lightyears and powerful sublight engines
capable of limited atmospheric flight. In combat the vessel was armed with 8 Heavy Dual
turbolaser turrets, 2 medium turbolaser cannons, an array of 52 point defence lasers and 4
heavy proton torpedo tubes, each carrying 16 torpedoes. The standard crew complement
of a Venator Class Star Destroyer was 7,400, and the ship carried enough supplies to last
for 2 standard years without restock. The Venator’s weapons loadout is unusually
versatile for a KDY design, offering an effective point defence grid and even mid-range torpedo
weapons in addition to their normal offensive arsenal. This kind of adaptability would be
noticeably missing from later Imperial Warships, where lack of point defence and total focus
on mainstay turbolaser batteries became a frequently exploited flaw.
While Venator Class vessels are not capable of landing directly onto a planet’s surface
like the smaller Acclamator Class Assault ship, the vessels are designed to be moored
at surface-level docking facilities on Republic worlds. This allows orbital dockyard space
to be freed up, and massive ground forces to be loaded and unloaded from the capital
grade vessels without the need for groups of shuttlecraft.
The Venators eight DBY-827 Heavy Turbolaser emplacements are maintained and operated by
extensively trained clone gunnery crews and serve as the vessel’s most effective offensive
weapons. The batteries are able to alternate the intensity and energy usage of their blasts
between various settings over a number of range-bands to perform either rapid and high-damage
close-range broadsides, or deny free access to wide areas of space by laying down fields
of suppressive fire. The Venator’s 8 aft-mounted engines were
fed directly by the ship’s enormous hypermatter annihilation reactor, this reactor was placed
beneath the lower structure of the main command tower and buried beneath thick layers of armor,
making it easily the most well protected part of the ship.
During the Clone Wars, the Venator Class was crucial to almost every standard battle line
or formation employed by the Republic Navy. The ship served as the centre of a conventional
battle group, either employed alongside more vessels of its own class, or flanked by Arquitens
and Consular Class escort vessels. The Venator is emblematic of the general lack of variety
seen in the Republic’s fleet, where the Confederacy deploys a number of ship types
meant to fill specific roles within a formation, the Republic have instead chosen to delineate
most major fleet functions into as few designs as possible, with the Venator serving as the
definitive multi-role platform. This is most likely due to the extremely rapid assembly
of the Republic war machine at the start of the Clone Wars, demanding as much functionality
as possible from whatever vessels could be designed and produced in short order.
The bridge and ATC towers of the Venator Class share almost identical layouts, featuring
a wide panoramic spread of viewports and a pair of operations pits below the main level.
This layout affords a commanding presence to the senior officers and allows them to
easily delegate orders to operations staff from almost anywhere on the main level. This
design was extremely popular and went on to become the standard configuration of almost
every major warship bridge in service to the Imperial Navy following Order 66.
A number of Venator Class Star Destroyers serving within the Open Circle Fleet were
modified on the orders of General Anakin Skywalker to carry heavy SPHA Turbolaser cannons within
their ventral hanger bay. This provided a partial solution to a problem that has plagued
Kuat-style capital warships for decades, the lack of ventral weapons systems. The unexpected
addition of these turbolasers led many confederate warships to their destruction, as CIS commanders
had grown used to escaping the bulk of enemy fire as they pass beneath the mass of a Republic
warship. When targeted properly and at close range, these SPHA turbolasers were known to
cut down Munificent Class Star Frigates in a single shot.
The Venator Class was extremely popular among Republic Officers and Jedi during the Clone
Wars, for its extreme versatility and effectiveness as a command ship. However, following Order
66, the Galactic Empire only briefly used Venator Class ships before abandoning them
in favour of Imperial Class Destroyers. This was because Imperial High Command did not
believe that the Venator, being primarily a Starfighter Carrier, was in keeping with
the Tarkin Doctrine, electing instead to develop ships more focused toward Intimidation and
Superior Firepower. Some Venator Class vessels did endure within
the empire as traffic inspection craft or training ships for fighter wings, the vessel
served well in these roles largely thanks to its large flight decks, but the ship’s
premature removal from front-line combat duty was still decried by many.
Despite its abandonment by the Galactic Empire, several decades later, the Post-Imperial Faction
known as the First Order would go on to find a renewed appreciation for the role of Starfighter
Carriers. Developing the Resurgent Class Star Destroyer, whose design borrows heavily from
that of the Venator Class. For many years the Venator Class Star Destroyer
served as the greatest symbol of the Galactic Republic’s Naval Power, and contributed
to countless victories for the Clone Army, from the Battle of Rhen Var to the Invasion
of Utapau. Names like “Resolute” and “Negotiator” would go on to become almost as legendary
as the Jedi who commanded them, and their presence on the battlefield would always be
cause for concern to any Separatist Commander standing in their way.