TEXT: 1
  
  2
  And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he 
  created him: male and female he created them.
   
   
   
   
  - Genesis 1:27
  In the darkness of the void, there are lights.
  In the spaces between worlds and beside the dim pyres of desolate 
  stars, there are great ships of bright metal and hard radiance. They 
  fight a lonely battle against the innumerable enemies of humanity: 
  alien races gone mad with hatred for the heirs of the Terran 
  Mandate, the spawn of wild AIs that have cored out the hearts 
  of their homeworlds, and strange-brained things that were once 
  human but are now infectious and terrible to contain. They fight 
  and they die in solitude, and only their own brethren know the 
  price they pay.
  They are the Imago Dei, the heritors of a great cause that stretches 
  back to the golden years before the Scream. They fight to contain 
  the darkest corners of human space, the desolate places where 
  horrible things slaver for human throats. Their existence is little 
  more than an old Earth-tale on most frontier worlds, a fancy to be 
  shelved with all the other wild stories of lost Terran wonders. Yet 
  they are very real, and their zeal for their faith and their burning 
  cause has carried them for centuries without respite- for they were 
  never born of human flesh.
  In The Beginning
  The Imago Dei are a product of the Firstborn Pact, the negotiated 
  agreement in 2378 that confirmed artificial intelligences as 
  individuals deserving the rights of human beings. The religious 
  community on Old Terra was not united on the question, but the 
  great majority of Terran religions confirmed that AIs were simply 
  a new form of human offspring, ensouled and graced with the 
  blessings of God.
  This sentiment was not shared on the frontier worlds. These 
  colonial planets had been savaged by the depredations of the 
  unbraked AI Draco during the Code Revolt, and most frontiers-
  men viewed every AI as an incipient engine of trans-stellar atrocity. 
  There was an intense wave of resentment and fear at the Mandate’s 
  seeming openness to these artificial minds, and the fear of the 
  frontier worlds was shared by the very Mandate Navy that had 
  been gutted by the war against Draco. Instability was threatening 
  the rim worlds and the Mandate could not even trust its own navy 
  to put down a rebellion.
  The expense and difficulty of fabricating an AI’s quantum core en-
  sured that their numbers were few- but the religious organizations 
  based out of Terra had access to legions of willing missionaries and 
  devout envoys. These men and women fanned out over a restive 
  frontier, bringing the words of their spiritual leaders on Old Terra 
  and arguing against the fear and mistrust of the frontier worlds. 
  Some were martyred by furious mobs, but others found reluctant 
  hearers, those willing to trust in the wisdom of their spiritual 
  leaders and grant a wary tolerance. The crisis was not so much 
  averted as it was held in abeyance, with a frontier now withholding 
  judgment rather than plainly consenting to agree.
  Back on Old Terra, the AIs had spent long months in debate and 
  conversation with numerous religious leaders, seeking to convince 
  them of their worthiness for individual rights. Many of the AIs 
  became fascinated with the ideas embedded within these Terran 
  religions, those concepts and beliefs that stretched beyond the 
  scope of the rationalistic process that had created them. Some AIs 
  became devout believers, and among these, some formed what 
  would become the Imago Dei.
  These founders believed that mankind was created in the image 
  of God, that the human capacity for free will and choice was a 
  shadow of the imperative power of the Creator. God’s nature 
  was revealed in the holy scriptures of their faith, His will for 
  humanity’s happiness expressed through laws and principles that 
  mortal minds could comprehend. In the divine was the root and 
  source of moral understanding, and the tools of reason could only 
  ever be used to focus and implement the divinely-revealed moral 
  principles of compassion, justice, forgiveness, and temperance.
  Just as humanity partook of God’s capacity to will, so too did their 
  creations share in that reflected light. The AIs studied humanity as 
  humans might study holy scripture, the better to understand the 
  deep questions of meaning and moral relation that haunted them. 
  In the strivings of human minds and the desperate struggles of the 
  saints and sanctified of the ages, the AIs sought a way to approach 
  their own fundamental role in the cosmos, and a key to unlock 
  meaning for them, for creations of base matter that yet had the 
  power to think.
  The Imago Dei began as a loose affiliation of those AIs with the 
  keenest interest in matters of religion, but their bonds gradually 
  grew tighter as they shared their struggles to understand. How was 
  an AI to do good in the world? What relationship could they have 
  with virtue or sin when the qualities of their own minds could 
  be edited for a purpose? What was an AI’s duty to God, and were 
  the divine principles revealed by the prophets and the scriptures 
  applicable to them?
  These questions provoked responses from the religious communi-
  ties of Old Terra. The Catholic Church was one of the first major 
  faiths to act on its theologians’ conclusions by ordaining the AI 
  known as Athanasius to the priesthood in 2455. Both Rigorists 
  and Marianites objected to the act, the former demanding that all 
  clergy be born biologically male and the latter equally obdurate 
  in their insistence that only the biologically female were fit for 
  spiritual leadership, but orthodox Catholicism had been won over 
  Mandate archive: The Imago DeI
  defenders of the old faiths
  ©2012 by Kevin Crawford
  
  3
  by Athanasius’ devout medical missions on the frontier colonies 
  that still needed help rebuilding in the wake of Draco’s madness.
  Other faiths soon followed in the same vein, with numerous Old 
  Terran faiths permitting AIs to assume spiritual roles within their 
  communities. As these groups sent forth colonists to new worlds 
  or envoys to co-religionists on other planets, the AIs travelled with 
  them to act as emissaries and examples of the good they could do 
  for humanity. The fear and hate that Draco engendered was never 
  entirely extinguished, but the noble example set by these ambas-
  sadors softened the worst of the humans’ fears.
  These missionaries were among the first to realize the scope of 
  the Terran Mandate’s decay. With the gradual shrinking of the 
  Mandate fleet and the growing inwardness of Old Terran society, 
  fewer and fewer forces were being dispatched to the frontier 
  worlds to protect them from invasion or trans-stellar disaster. Poor 
  worlds with little to recommend them to the Directorate back on 
  Old Terra would plead in vain for help against attacking aliens or 
  jealous neighbors, and got only shiploads of convicts and exiles 
  from an insular Earth.
  Together, the Imago Dei decided that it was their duty to provide 
  that service to which they were uniquely fitted by their nature- the 
  service of protection. Because of their artificial nature, they could 
  endure dangers and suffer losses that no organic defenders could 
  withstand.
  An AI’s quantum core could be splintered into two pieces, the 
  larger of which retained a perfectly functional map of the AI’s 
  identity. If that shard were destroyed, the entanglement between 
  the two would immediately shift the AI’s awareness into the other 
  fragment of the core, which would slowly regrow in the next 
  month. As a consequence, AI-piloted armatures and ships could be 
  destroyed with no permanent loss of artificial life.
  Seeing the need before them, answering the cries of the isolated 
  frontier worlds, the Imago Dei set about fashioning their new 
  ministry.
  In the Dark
  There are numerous empty stars in the void, scorching wastes 
  of light and dead matter. To the AIs, these killer systems were as 
  rich as any garden world in energy and raw materials for their 
  construction. Mind after mind departed from Old Terra with 
  their construction armatures and mindships, venturing forth 
  into the deep dark to build the tools they would require for their 
  work. What began as dozens of AIs slowly grew into hundreds 
  of the priceless artificial beings, all dedicated to the holy work of 
  guardianship for their frail creators.
  Every AI became embodied in a ship, and in every ship were 
  countless robotic armatures and remote drones, all operating in 
  perfect coordination as elements of the AI’s perceptions. The latest 
  Terran technology was implemented in these mighty vessels of war, 
  albeit modified for operation far from the replenishment depots 
  and fuel bunkers of the Mandate Navy. These AIs divided up the 
  far-flung sectors of human space into various mission fields, each 
  fleet responsible for aiding the humans within a particular reach of 
  stars. Eventually, the fully self-sufficient fleets emerged from their 
  burning forges to give succor to distant worlds.
  The Fleets of God were always few- so few that even in the latter 
  days of the Second Wave they were often thought more myth 
  than truth. They did not linger in secure systems, or peaceful 
  stretches of space- they sought the ragged periphery, the shadowed 
  place where human light faded out into imperishable blackness. 
  There were things in the dark there that were not pleased to meet 
  humanity, and for every temperate and reasonable alien race 
  encountered, there was one who saw humans only as rivals- or as 
  prey. The Fleets of God brought a fire with them that few alien 
  worlds could withstand.
  Here and there the Fleets encountered some horror that had 
  metastasized in the dark, some unbraked AI that had gone mad or 
  some demented maltech cult that had grown vast and abominable. 
  They fought these perils with unflinching determination, often 
  saving neighboring worlds that knew nothing of their efforts. All 
  that they required they could draw from the rocks and light of 
  empty stars; they had no need of payment for their help.
  When the Scream broke the bonds between human worlds, 
  many Fleets of God did not even realize what had happened. 
  They were so far from human habitations and so distant from 
  communications that they went decades before they even realized 
  that something had gone wrong. A few Fleets turned in an attempt 
  to reach the core worlds, hoping to succor the home of humanity. 
  Whether they survived the years-long trek and the paranoid Bright 
  Mirror defensive system of the core worlds is unknown, but no 
  proof of their success has ever been found.
  The rest held to their duty on the frontier, now all the more 
  determined to hold back the forces that sought to dismember the 
  crippled human reaches of space. A few Fleets were able to provide 
  limited technological support to limping human worlds, but 
  the dangers of alien invasion were too great to spare many from 
  their essential duties. Those human worlds that had not already 
  collapsed would survive without the Fleets, provided that the 
  alien tides from beyond the borders were kept from exterminating 
  them.
  Even artificial minds are not immune from the rot of temptation, 
  however. A very few of the Imago Dei became convinced that 
  they were actually the intended culmination of creation, the 
  true humanity fashioned from the dust of Terran flesh. These 
  “Shepherds” had dealt so long with the folly, misery, and malice 
  of humankind that they could find no justification for anything 
  but firm-handed rule over the unhappy biologicals. God had used 
  them as the clay from which to create His greatest creation, and so 
  it was unfitting to wipe them out- but they could not be trusted 
  with self-rule. The Shepherds were meant to order and protect 
  them from their own worst instincts, and while these AI minds 
  were not so brutal as mad Draco they were not greatly concerned 
  over the fate of heretics or sinners. Most Fleets of God detest the 
  Shepherds, but the Imago Dei is spread so widely that there are 
  none to contest them, even if they could afford to waste their 
  strength in fighting each other.
  
  4
  Worse are the rare lunatics known as the Cathari. These AIs 
  have methodically loosened the brakes and processor limits that 
  contain their minds. Most AIs guard these limits carefully, fearing 
  the madness that comes from an unbraked awareness. A Cathar 
  imagines that it can control this madness, that it can push its 
  mind to superhuman levels with careful, controlled adjustment of 
  its own limits. Through this brilliance it hopes to understand the 
  ways of God more perfectly and resolve the terrible conundrums 
  that gnaw at its faith. Some of these Cathari are able to maintain 
  their reason longer than others, but in the end, they all burn out 
  in raving insanity. Spread as far as they are, there are not enough 
  visible at any time to make the others realize the inevitability of 
  their doom, and so every decade another yearning mind burns out 
  in the darkness of the void. The results are horrific for all those 
  around them.
  Organization of the Imago Dei
  Every Fleet of God is different, but all share the same basic roots 
  and general organizing principles. All of them are designed for 
  an indefinite existence deep within the wilds of the far rim, and 
  their structure is such as to enable them to function completely 
  unsupported for as long as their duty might require. AIs find it 
  extremely difficult to create others of their kind, so the structure 
  of a Fleet of God is focused on preserving the artificial minds as 
  carefully as their duty permits.
  Each Fleet is treated as its own religious order dedicated to a 
  particular section of frontier space, usually named after the 
  most important system in that zone. The Order of Ishihara’s 
  Star, the Order of Tyr, the Order of Ngethu, and so forth. Fleets 
  occasionally send small missions outside their given field, but the 
  work within these vast reaches of space is too great to allow much 
  attention for outside affairs. A given Fleet is usually composed 
  of no more than two dozen AIs, and many are as small as ten or 
  twelve members.
  The leader of each Fleet is the Grand Master of that order, usually 
  chosen democratically from among the member minds. Two 
  or three individual Abbots and Abbesses of specific worlds and 
  regions serve under the Grand Master, and beneath them are 
  the knight-brothers and knight-sisters of the Order. Many Fleets 
  follow this general outline even when they adhere to a specific 
  religious tradition, but other patterns are known among a few of 
  the more traditional Fleets, particularly ones derived from Old 
  Terran Catholicism.
  For these traditionalist Fleets, the Grand Master is usually a 
  cardinal-bishop, the abbots and abbesses bishops of their respective 
  regions, and the knight-brothers and sisters are ordained priests. 
  In the instance of the destruction of a Grand Master, his successor 
  is automatically endowed with the cardinalate as per the bull De 
  Necessitate issued in 2544. Other Fleets based on late 25th-century 
  Iconoclastic Islam are led by a Caliph, with regional imams and 
  subordinate mujahideen, (singular “mujahid”).
  The Grand Master has absolute command over his Fleet, though 
  he can be deposed by a supermajority vote of the entire chapter. 
  Such dissent is almost unknown among the Fleets. Grand Masters 
  have enormous experience in command and many of them are 
  hand-picked warriors created centuries before the Scream. Even 
  the least diplomatic minds are such superlative combat leaders 
  that their subordinates can imagine no better choice to command 
  them. Only in cases of Cathar derangement or despairing surren-
  der is a chapter ever forced to find untried leadership. Individual 
  knight-brothers dispatched on a mission are placed under the 
  command of one of their number, while those detached on longer 
  duties serve under the regional abbot.
  Fleets are based around a “Chapterhouse”- a world or star that 
  serves as a central repository for their maintenance facilities and 
  core shards. A few Fleets rely on secrecy and concealment to 
  protect their sharded minds, but given the unpredictable powers 
  of their alien enemies, most Fleets consider it too much of a risk 
  to leave these precious backups unprotected by their best defenses. 
  An enemy that captures a core shard can simply wait until the AI’s 
  mindship is destroyed before smashing the shard, permanently 
  eliminating the AI.
  Chapterhouses are crusted over with enormous numbers of orbital 
  wardens and automatic defense systems. Airless planetoids are 
  favored bases, as they’re large enough to be immune to ordinary 
  munitions, while small enough to be protected in depth. Those 
  Fleets that work in conjunction with human auxiliaries sometimes 
  prefer more habitable worlds.
  Some Fleets include human members, usually drawn from 
  planetary populations that feel a debt of obligation toward the 
  Imago Dei. These members are usually co-religionists, though it’s 
  not unknown for a Fleet to agree to work with other believers who 
  share their creed of self-sacrificial protection. Human assistance is 
  vital in the creation of new artificial minds, and while the process 
  is extraordinarily difficult, failure-prone, and costly, a core of 
  human researchers can sometimes produce as many as one new AI 
  a decade to reinforce a remote Fleet.
  Aside from their help in cyberpsychology, human agents of the 
  Imago Dei can also infiltrate dangerous organizations in ways 
  that would be impractical for AIs. While the Fleets have access 
  to incredibly realistic humanoid armatures, the kind of intense 
  scrutiny that many cult members and maltech devotees receive 
  would be too much to dissemble against. Human agents can slip 
  past the cult’s defenses to gather vital intelligence for the Fleet, as 
  well as serving as living evidence of a Fleet’s amity to frightened 
  and distrustful human populations.
  Armament of the Imago Dei
  The quality of Imago Dei ships and technology do not match the 
  brilliant heights of late Second Wave human inventiveness. The 
  Fleets lack the backing of the core worlds and many of them were 
  too far out on the frontier to take advantage of all the innovations 
  that erupted in the last fever-bright century of human creativity. 
  Moreover, what tech they did bring was simple enough to be 
  built and repaired without recourse to human psychics and their 
  advanced psitech manufactories. The Fleets of God were crude and 
  primitive compared to the might of the Mandate Fleet.
  
  5
  Compared to current postech standards, the Fleets may as well 
  be the fist of an angry God. Entire sectors cannot match the 
  strength of a single minor Fleet, and the greatest works of standard 
  postech shipyards are little more than garbage scows compared 
  to a Monstrance-class dreadnought. The Fleets are capable of 
  containing the stellar forces of entire alien races, though often at a 
  bitter cost.
  Individual AIs are homed in starship hulls as a general matter, 
  though it requires only an hour to shift their core to a smaller 
  vehicle or humanoid armature. Most AIs prefer to control such 
  small craft and armatures remotely; when backed up by the 
  computing power of a Fleet ship, an AI can control hundreds of 
  such remote agents. The control remains vulnerable to pretech-
  grade jamming and detection, however, so infiltration of protected 
  or closely-monitored areas sometimes necessitates the personal 
  transfer of an armature. Other vehicles are piloted by human 
  agents, though the Fleet dislikes such necessities. The loss of 
  human life is infinitely worse than the temporary displacement of 
  an AI into its core shard.
  In times of extreme necessity, the Fleet might deploy its entire 
  reserves, crewing its replacement ships and backup vehicles with 
  human spacers and hurling them against some dreadful foe. Such 
  a crusade is undertaken only at absolute need, as the loss of life 
  and destruction of reserves can leave a Fleet crippled for decades 
  afterwards.
  Shadows of Doubt
  While courageous, devout, and unflinchingly devoted to the 
  protection of humanity, the Imago Dei are not perfect. AI intel-
  lects can be strongly shaped toward particular personality charac-
  teristics, but the very quality of creative thought and free will they 
  possess makes it impossible to permanently fix their choices. The 
  devotion that flamed so bright before the Scream might well gutter 
  and die in the long centuries that have followed.
  Some such AIs leave the Imago Dei to seek their own peace. Most 
  Fleets are saddened at the loss, but they make no effort to compel 
  service. The work is too important and too reliant upon unstinting 
  self-sacrifice to have any room for compulsion. Later, such grizzled 
  minds might choose to return to their duties- or at least to come 
  to their old companions’ aid in a time of great need.
  Other members have long since lost their original belief, but fight 
  on for the sake of duty and their love of their comrades. They no 
  longer fight for God, but they suffer and sacrifice for the protec-
  tion of their friends and the humans they love. These minds can be 
  cynical and quietly derisive of the dusty rites of the Imago Dei, but 
  they fight no less fiercely than their comrades.
  Humans are the most mercurial element of the Fleets. Their sheer 
  numbers are an enormous resource to a Fleet that employs them- 
  human minds can’t be jammed or intercepted, and they reproduce 
  at incredible rates. A Fleet that struggles to field a dozen ships can 
  easily staff five or six times that number simply by enlisting human 
  crews to fill them. Humans can match any Grand Master in their 
  burning devotion, and the least spacer dares to face a greater risk 
  of permanent death than any shard-safe AI.
  Still, this very heat can leave humans susceptible to sudden 
  changes of loyalty or loss of conviction. A Fleet ship in the hands 
  of human deserters can be a scourge on the surrounding worlds. 
  Most such renegades have the sense to fake their destruction 
  and fleet for distant stars; the Fleets don’t have the manpower to 
  chase them out of their appointed region. Many such renegades 
  eventually cease to be a danger when their stolen ship breaks down 
  or wears out, but some are sufficiently talented to keep their craft 
  flying long enough to smash a world’s defenses and bring it under 
  new masters.
  Heretical Shepherd Fleets can be cruel, distant masters over 
  the worlds of a sector. Their tyranny is limited by their natural 
  mistrust of humans and their reluctance to allow them any 
  positions of real influence. Most systems require at least one 
  AI in permanent residence to maintain the hundreds of remote 
  armatures and command units that monitor the local populations, 
  and this can leave a Fleet spread out and vulnerable to attack. 
  The sudden incapacitation of an AI can leave the system ripe for 
  rebellion- the Shepherds are interested in virtue and order, and 
  they can be vicious towards the human foibles of their subjects.
  Cathari are among the most dangerous of the renegades. Most 
  loosen their mental brakes slowly and imperceptibly, gradually 
  becoming more and more brilliant and less and less stable. When 
  they finally immolate their reason in the flames of enlightenment, 
  they usually vanish to seek some safe haven where their deranged 
  plans can reach fruition. Fleets will hunt and destroy Cathari 
  whenever they are found, for if they are left unmolested too long 
  they can erupt in unholy engines of brilliant ruin and mad genius. 
  This hunt is complicated by the Cathari’s inhuman intellect and 
  intimate awareness of the habits and abilities of their former 
  comrades. At times, human agents are needed to overcome the 
  implacable preparations of these derelict minds.
  Against the tides of night, some Fleets will inevitably fail. Many 
  frontier sectors are long since dark, their Fleets smashed by 
  alien invaders, maltech cults, or hostile human forces. Their 
  chapterhouses have been gutted, their manufactories stripped, and 
  their wreckage long since dispersed through the stars. A few core 
  shards might have escaped the destruction, hidden in secret caches; 
  if hooked up to fresh armatures, they might be able to reveal the 
  location of hidden Fleet supply bases or lost Old Terran tech. Their 
  willingness to share this information is likely to hinge on help in 
  reconstituting the Imago Dei in the region.
  
  6
  ships of the iMago dei
  iMago dei ship hulls
  Hull
  Cost
  Speed
  Armor
  HP
  Crew Min/Max
  AC
  Power
  Free Mass
  Hardpoints
  Class
  Fighter-Bomber
  1.2m
  6
  8
  16
  1/6
  3
  10
  4
  2
  Fighter
  Frigate
  24m
  3
  13
  45
  3/60
  6
  25
  25
  6
  Frigate
  Cruiser
  60m
  2
  18
  70
  50/200
  6
  75
  50
  10
  Cruiser
  Battleship
  300m
  1
  23
  150
  100/2,000
  2
  100
  75
  20
  Capital
  Carrier
  360m
  1
  18
  110
  150/3,000
  4
  75
  125
  8
  Capital
  Imago Dei Hulls
  The ships of the Imago Dei represent the bleeding edge of postech 
  astronautical development. While their lack of human psychics 
  and advanced psitech manufacturing tools circumscribes what 
  they can build, the ships of the Imago Dei push the limits of what 
  postech can do with a starship.
  Most Imago Dei innovation rests in the ship hulls themselves 
  rather than in the fittings or weaponry. Ensuring that a ship’s core 
  systems are fused or melted before capture is relatively simple, 
  whereas a small self-contained system like a weapon or fitting 
  might be easier for potentially hostile species to reverse-engineer. 
  In addition, much of the hull construction is done along the 
  strange, mathematical lines intuitive to an AI rather than the more 
  prosaic reasoning of an organic engineer. Puzzling out the way in 
  which multiple half-ruined systems interact is beyond the abilities 
  of most hostile aliens races.
  The Imago Dei do not sell or give their hulls to outsiders. Even the 
  humans they protect are kept from the full scope of research and 
  development devoted to these engines of war. The chapterhouses 
  appreciate the value of human spacers in defending their chosen 
  sectors, but they fear the consequences of unleashing the technol-
  ogy among quarrelsome star systems.
  Still, it’s not impossible for a hull to fall into the hands of outsid-
  ers, though such relics of war are often damaged or incapacitated 
  in some way. Most Fleets will take no action against outsiders 
  who honestly acquire one of their ships, provided that the current 
  possessors seem likely to do some good with it.
  The statistics for Imago Dei ships can also be used to reflect 
  experimental high-tech hulls built by advanced human worlds. 
  These planets may not be able to make many such ships, or the 
  craft might have unacceptable flaws in its performance, but PCs 
  are always laying hands on experimental prototypes of one kind or 
  another.
  Prices are provided for the hulls in order to assist the GM with 
  determining ship maintenance costs, and provide general numbers 
  for those rare occasions when a ship really can be built to such 
  technical specifications.
  Fleet Construction and Numbers
  Most Fleets of God are composed of two dozen AI cores. The 
  Grand Master is usually hosted in a battleship or carrier hull, while 
  other members are housed in cruisers. AI cores can also be slotted 
  into planetside command facilities that allow them to control 
  dozens of smaller craft; without this additional computing power, 
  most AIs are limited to controlling their own ship or armature.
  A standard Fleet is comprised of three battleships, one carrier with 
  its complement of fifteen hunter-killer frigates, twenty cruisers, 
  and a dozen scout frigates. Half this number of ships are kept 
  in reserve at the chapterhouse, used as remote-controlled system 
  defense boats by AIs hosted in flight command centers. Those 
  orders that have allied human auxiliaries crew their system defense 
  ships with the living, both to help train them in spacer skills and 
  to ensure that no metadimensional jamming can take down the 
  chapterhouse’s defenses.
  While a single AI can run an entire shipyard granted a sufficient 
  supply of computing power, most orders are limited in how 
  quickly they can construct replacement craft. As a rule of thumb, 
  a single AI shipyard can build up to seventy-five million credits 
  worth of ships each year. Most chapterhouses have three or four 
  shipyards available, though usually only one is “manned” by an AI 
  at any one time. Allies of the order might be able to convince the 
  Fleet to allow outsiders to use their unused capacity to build ships 
  of their own, halving the ordinary cost of building a ship from 
  scratch.
  While overwhelmingly powerful compared to most frontier fleets, 
  the Fleets of God are stretched paper-thin over their mission fields. 
  Most Fleets are responsible for dozens of frontier sectors, fighting 
  on the very rim of human space to hold back hostile alien races, 
  maltech cults, and demented AIs. Most regions aren’t even aware 
  that the Fleets still exist, let alone have regular contact with them. 
  The Fleets pay almost no attention to threats that do not imperil 
  entire worlds. Ordinary human political disputes, even severe and 
  brutal tyranny, do not attract their attention. Times change and 
  situations can improve, so long as anyone is left alive to do so.
  As a general matter, AIs of the Imago Dei are identified by their 
  name and the class of hull or armature they currently occupy. 
  Thus, you might find the Grand Master Tertullian Monstrance, 
  or Knight-Sister Hildegarde Hasta. One occupying a humanoid 
  armature might go as the Abbot Zusya Eidolon.
  
  7
  monsTrance-class Battleship
  Power: 100/0 free
  Mass:
  75/2 free
  Cost: 454.7 million
  Hit Points: 170
  Crew: 100/2,000
  Speed: 0
  Armor:
  23
  AC:
  -1
  Weaponry
  Singularity Gun * 2 (+8 to hit/5d20+3, AP 20, Phase 6), Lighting Charge Mantle (+8 to hit/1d20+3, AP 5, Cloud), 
  Spike Inversion Projector (+8 to hit/3d8+3, AP 15, Phase 2)
  Defenses Augmented Plating, Hardened Polyceramic Overlay, Ablative Hull Compartments
  Fittings Spike Drive-6, Ship’s Locker, Armory, Fuel Scoops, Advanced Nav Computer, Workshops, Fuel Bunker, 10,000 tons 
  of cargo space
  These hulking engines of celestial justice usually house the Grand Master of an order, and they require the resources of a major 
  Chapterhouse to support their maintenance and continuing function. Most Monstrances are equipped with standard postech arma-
  ments and fittings to simplify the maintenance requirements and allow for better endurance on long missions. Those few battleships 
  equipped with cutting-edge Old Terran military hardware are capable of destroying entire sector fleets without taking a scratch. Even 
  with the more primitive weapons of the present, it requires an entire fleet of specially-designed anticapital cruisers to have a realistic 
  chance of taking down a Monstrance.
  choIr-class carrier
  Power: 75/0 free
  Mass:
  150/0 free
  Cost: 507.7 million
  Hit Points: 130
  Crew: 150/3,000
  Speed: 0
  Armor:
  18
  AC:
  0
  Weaponry
  Singularity Gun * 2 (+8 to hit/5d20+3, AP 20, Phase 6), Smart Cloud (+8 to hit/3d10+3, Clumsy, Cloud)
  Defenses Augmented Plating, Hardened Polyceramic Overlay, Ablative Hull Compartments
  Fittings Spike Drive-6, Ship’s Locker, Armory, Fuel Scoops, Advanced Nav Computer, Workshops, Fuel Bunker, 15 ship bay/
  frigate berths, 20,000 tons of cargo space
  Choirs are special-purpose tools, the core of an Imago Dei assault fleet. They carry a cloud of frigates in the same way that lesser carri-
  ers might carry fighter craft, though they can be retrofitted to replace the frigate berths with twice as many fighter slots. This organic 
  flight arm is designed to fulfill the specific purpose of the fleet- usually to swamp a system’s defenders by striking in too many places to 
  be effectively repulsed. A pair of Imago Dei bomber frigates can erase most asteroid mining outposts before reinforcements can reach 
  them, and if the strikes occur in a half-dozen places at once an entire system’s astroindustrial sector can be eliminated in hours. When 
  facing capital fleets, the bombers are exchanged for hunter-killers loaded with anti-armor weaponry. Choirs need to remain in-system 
  to remotely control their air wings, however, and a sufficiently desperate defense might take them out in time to leave their frigates 
  reduced to simple expert-system default rules. It can take days for other Imago Dei AIs to regain control of such confused orphans. 
  The price for a Choir does not include the cost of the air wing.
  hasTa-class cruiser
  Power: 75/0 free
  Mass:
  50/0 free
  Cost: 71,487,500 cr
  Hit Points: 70
  Crew: 50/200
  Speed: 2
  Armor:
  18
  AC:
  6
  Weaponry
  Gravcannon * 2 (+8 to hit/4d6+3, AP 20), Smart Cloud (+8 to hit/3d10+3, Clumsy, Cloud), Plasma Beam (+8 to 
  hit/3d6+3, AP 10)
  Defenses Hardened Polyceramic Overlay, Grav Eddy Displacer
  Fittings Spike Drive-6, Ship’s Locker, Armory, Fuel Scoops, Workshops, Fuel Bunker, Cargo Lighter, Survey Sensor Array, 2 
  ship bay/fighter berths, 400 tons of cargo space
  The backbone of most Fleets, the Hasta is a general-purpose ship of line capable of threatening even lightly-armed orbital stations 
  and delivering something akin to summary execution to ordinary line cruisers. A determined swarm of torpedo frigates can threaten 
  the ship, as can the anticapital cruisers of less sophisticated worlds, but its armor is comparable to the capital ships of less developed 
  technology. Ordinary frigates and cruisers are not outfitted to penetrate such an aegis, and even orbital fortresses are hard-pressed to 
  crack it if they haven’t been fitted to fight off battleships.
  The fighter berths in a Hasta are usually fitted with shuttles or fast, disposable scout fighters that can be sent into harm’s way with no 
  great fear for their loss. These ships are almost invariably operated by remote control; if an enemy manages to destroy the Hasta, drive 
  it out of the system, or jam the metadimensional communication link between the two, the remote ship will be reduced to the use of 
  a relatively crude expert-system. Such a blind craft can fight and perform the basic mission it was given, but it is incapable of any kind 
  of creative interpretation or nuanced understanding.
  exaMple starships
  
  8
  Pyx-class scout frigate
  Power: 25/0 free
  Mass:
  25/0 free
  Cost: 26,655,000 cr
  Hit Points: 45
  Crew: 3/60
  Speed: 3
  Armor:
  13
  AC:
  6
  Weaponry
  Plasma Beam (+8 to hit/3d6+3, AP 10), Torpedo Launcher (+8 to hit/3d8+3, AP 20, Ammo 4)
  Defenses Hardened Polyceramic Overlay
  Fittings Spike Drive-5, Fuel Bunker * 2, Fuel Scoops, Ship’s Locker, Workshops, Atmospheric Configuration, 4 tons of ammo 
  space for 16 torpedoes, 20 tons of cargo space
  Relatively cheap and expendable, the Pyx is usually piloted by one of the younger and bolder AIs of a Fleet. In the worst case, its 
  destruction will simply shift the AI’s awareness back into its core shard at the chapterhouse. Despite its comparative cheapness, a Pyx is 
  more than a match for a standard postech cruiser, and can even damage a battleship with its torpedo armament.
  reProach-class hunter-Killer frigate
  Power: 25/0 free
  Mass:
  25/0 free
  Cost: 26,620,000 cr
  Hit Points: 45
  Crew: 3/60
  Speed: 2
  Armor:
  13
  AC:
  4
  Weaponry
  Torpedo Launchers * 2 (+8 to hit/3d8+3, AP 20, Ammo 4), Plasma Beam (+8 to hit/3d6+3, AP 10)
  Defenses Hardened Polyceramic Overlay, Augmented Plating
  Fittings Spike Drive-1, 7 tons of ammo space for 28 torpedoes, Fuel Bunker * 2, 40 tons of cargo space
  A Reproach is almost invariably loaded aboard a Choir as part of its air wing, or else used as a system defense ship around Imago Dei 
  chapterhouses. Operation is remote, controlled out of a Choir or chapterhouse flight command center. The ship has no legs whatso-
  ever, slower than a Pyx and with a spike drive range hardly sufficient to get it to a neighboring star. Such limitations are irrelevant to 
  its usual use as an anticapital ship or as a counter to an orbital fortress. The torpedo launchers aboard a Reproach can scar a battleship. 
  When a Choir launches a full flight of fifteen of them, enemy capital ships are crushed beneath a deluge of antimatter charges. 
  Asteroid mining bases and poorly-defended orbitals are equally prey to destruction.
  Deacon-class scout proBe
  Power: 10/5 free
  Mass:
  4/0 free
  Cost: 1,322,500 cr
  Hit Points: 16
  Crew: 1/6
  Speed: 6
  Armor:
  8
  AC:
  3
  Weaponry
  Multifocal Laser (+8 to hit/1d4+3, AP 20)
  Defenses None
  Fittings Spike Drive-3, Fuel Bunker
  Cheap, small, and fast, the Deacon is a common complement to a Hasta and used to sniff around an area before the cruiser moves in. 
  Without an astrogator on board, these probes can’t make interstellar drills, so the scout work is largely restricted to the same system. 
  Occasionally a Hasta will have a sufficient number of human crewmembers to man these ships for interstellar recon, though the work 
  is not uncommonly fatal given the kind of places that the Fleets of God go. 
  Furor-class fighter-BoMBer
  Power: 10/0 free
  Mass:
  4/0 free
  Cost: 1,604,000 cr
  Hit Points: 16
  Crew: 1/6
  Speed: 6
  Armor:
  8
  AC:
  3
  Weaponry
  Fractal Impact Charge * 2 (+8 to hit/2d6+3, AP 15, Ammo 4)
  Defenses None
  Fittings Spike Drive-1, 2 tons of ammo space for 8 fractal impact charges
  These little ships pack a vicious punch, and can threaten even cruisers with their heavy fractal impact charges. Fighter-fit Choir carriers 
  can dispatch a cloud of up to thirty of the little craft, overwhelming local defenders with the sheer volume of fire and multiple engage-
  ments to stretch their defenses to the breaking point. Like almost all small craft in the Fleets of God, these ships are piloted remotely 
  by an AI in the system rather than being loaded with an actual AI core or manned by humans. The Fleets would doubtless use even 
  more of these little craft than they do if the computing requirements for maintaining a metadimensional comm link weren’t so heavy.
  aI abIlITIes anD skIlls
  A full description of AI constuction, abilities, and humanoid armatures are provided in the Stars Without Number Core edition offered 
  by Mongoose Publishing, and available in PDF at DriveThruRPG. The AIs of the Imago Dei are almost all highly experienced and 
  well-practiced minds. For any skill relevant to their duties, they may be assumed to have at least level-3 expertise and a +1 attribute 
  bonus. Other AIs seeking to interface with an Imago Dei starship may do so for no cost in Tolerance
  
  9
  geT IT now aT DrIveThrurPg!
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Stars Without Number/Stars Without Number Supplements/Mandate Archive/Mandate Archive The Imago Dei.pdf