Chapter 3 War(ships) by Other Means
The Palmerston class diplomatic ships did not lead happy lives, every single one was destroyed by the various new species they were attempting to communicate with. Indeed in the majority of cases it was the attack on the Palmerston that confirmed the alien in question was indeed hostile, the remainder being destroyed fleeing systems after a survey ship became the first victim. That said, the Palmerston class were not considered the most cursed ships in the Fleet. This was partly because the Navy resisted the idea of any ship being 'cursed' as being unduly superstitious and counter to the principles of Anglo-Futurism, but mostly it was because the ships were not technically in the Fleet. Instead they had a strange hybrid status; directed and paid for by the Foreign Office, but under the operational command of the Admiralty and they reported through the naval chain of command. Any blame for failure ended up with the the Foreign Office as would the credit for any success, though the later was something of a theoretical possibility.
The Admiralty were not actually xenophobic as the Ajax Affair demonstrates, but they had a very robust approach to first contact. In the early years of exploration there were hopes the galaxy might friendly or at least neutral, however the loss of many survey ships soon disabused them of this attitude. By the time of the Crusading Years the Admiralty had evolved the belief that there was no point bothering to talk to any new species until some Dreadnoughts had been about the Queen's business and dished out the good news to the species' homeworld. One this had been done, and both sides had a proper appreciation of the situation, then there could be time for productive talks. Naturally the Foreign Office fundamentally disagreed with this and had allies across the Imperial Parliament, their attitude was that just because every single alien species the Empire had met thus far had been initially hostile, it did not mean the galaxy was intrinsically hostile. As it was surely better to jaw-jaw than war-war then repeated efforts should be made to better communicate with future contacts, hence the Palmerston class of diplomatic ships.
This did not quite work out as intended and, after the destruction of the 3rd ship, the imaginatively named Palmerston III (the class were destroyed faster than they could be built, so additional names were not required), there was talk of revising the design. Just as the Admiralty had insisted on involvement in the class, as part of the general policy of trying to stop any other department operating aether vessels, so the main Britannia design office submitted a proposal.
Curzon class Diplomatic Ship 30,000 tons 774 Crew 5,255.5 BP TCS 600 TH 3,600 EM 0
6000 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 8-86 Shields 0-0 HTK 151 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 37 PPV 81.6
Maint Life 3.06 Years MSP 6,456 AFR 267% IFR 3.7% 1YR 1,032 5YR 15,483 Max Repair 900 MSP
Captain Control Rating 3 BRG AUX ENG DIP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months Morale Check Required
Bristol Sabre Mk.II 30kt (3-50) MJD Max Ship Size 30000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Rolls Royce Griffon Mk.III MPD-1800 (2) Power 3600 Fuel Use 50.31% Signature 1800 Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 3,209,000 Gallons Range 38.3 billion km (73 days at full power)
Sterling Mk.I Twin Coil Turret (16k) (5x6) Range 30,000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 30,000 km ROF 5
Marconi Type 901 TFC 192-16000 (2) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 16,000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Barr & Stroud Type 200MWS 1.5m/R1 (1) GPS 84 Range 17.1m km MCR 1.5m km Resolution 1
Racal Type 250EMWS 700k/R1 (1) GPS 21 Range 8.6m km MCR 771.7k km Resolution 1
TRE Asprin Mk.I 10kMx ECM Projector
As the 'C' name implies the ship was based on the 30kt Cruiser hull, in this case a modified City class jump cruiser. At this point two of the Palmerstons had been lost to massed missile strikes, the other to heavy energy fire of a type which had not previously been encountered, with the benefit of hindsight we know this was from Sourmagh Combine particle beams. The design therefore focused on heavy armour to cover the energy weapon fire and massed Sterling twin coil turrets to protect against missiles. Records indicate there was talk of swapping the Sterling turrets out for Goalkeeper Mk.I CIWS systems, a more cost- and mass-efficient solution, but there was hope to keep the Curzon inter-buildable with a standard cruiser hull and the internal rearrangements required by the swap would have been a change too far. A moderately long range, considerable endurance, the latest TRE counter-measure system and a sensor suite focused on missile detection rounded out the design.
The Foreign Office was concerned that, despite the lack of offensive weaponry, the ship was still very clearly a warship. The Admiralty felt it wise to avoid mentioning that anyone who had been on the receiving end of a barrage of 0.303' solidshot would probably disagree about the lack of offensive weaponry point, but accepted that it was indeed very much a warship. The Imperial Parliament in contrast was aghast at the cost, the ship was over ten times more expensive to build and the annual operation and maintenance cost was estimated at almost 85x more than a Palmerston, while no MP would ever publicly agree that talk was cheap they had expected the ships to be so. The Admiralty conceded the cost point as well because their position on the matter was clear, they argued that by the time you put enough point defence and armour on a ship to protect it against a plausible strike the ship had become heavy cruiser sized (and priced) vessel. The naval architects could thin the armour and provide fewer turrets, but that would be worse than useless as such a vessel would still be expensive, still be a warship but would be destroyed by strikes of the size that had struck the first Palmerstons.
It was ultimately therefore cost that killed the Curzons, Parliament was unwilling to put up the extra money and the Foreign Office refusing to countenance cuts elsewhere to pay for them. The Palmerston class would therefore solider on, the Admiralty making an official objection and issuing warnings, but still taking on operational responsibility for them. This was not just Naval devotion to duty and respect for political control, there was a harsh and dark logic at play. An often overlooked fact is that it was not Royal Navy sailors being sent out in ships the Admirals thought were death traps, because diplomatic ships were manned by Foreign Office recruited crew and officers. If the mandarins of King Charles Arcology cared so little for those in their charge, and could somehow find a ready supply of volunteers to replace those lost, then the Admiralty were not going to waste valuable political capital fighting the issue and certainly not concede the point that anyone other than themselves were allowed aether ships.
This leaves us with the question of how the Curzons would have performed, certainly the missile barrage from the Vistonida cruisers that destroyed the Palmerston IV would easily have been resisted and the ships would have had the speed advantage to escape any attempt at an energy beam engagement. Equally the class would not have suffered the fate of the Palmerston V during it's disastrous first contact with the inhabitants of Hartha III, a more comprehensive sensor suite would hopefully mean the Surface To Orbit weapon emplacements would have been detected and, even if they had not, the heavy armour would have allowed a Curzon to survive at least the first barrages and so have time to flee. There is of course the question of how effective they would have performed as diplomatic ships, that being the actual reason for their construction. On the positive side their increased suitability would give them more opportunity to engage in diplomacy or at least bring home their crew alive so lessons could be learnt. But on the negative side the Foreign Office is likely correct that they would be viewed as warships and this would perhaps count against any diplomatic efforts. The example of the diplomatic module equipped Dreadnought Ajax is instructive, though of course in that case it is perhaps less surprising given the size of a Dreadnought. Bluntly however the Palmerston class never actually achieved any diplomatic successes, and as noted were all destroyed by enemy action, so it is hard to see how the Curzon class could have done any worse.
