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The Hawker, or Hawk is the culmination of the most advanced autonomous starship systems, and although first conceived of by the Trenoc before the Federation, the Hawk series has been spectacularly successful, built around the most sophisticated miniaturised systems available these small starships continuously patrol and observe Federation space.

            Before the Hawker series was created the Federation had already been experimenting with un-crewed starships, most of which were basic strip downs of the smaller vessels, though some of these vessels required a continuous communications link so that their performance could be monitored. However in the late 2140’s a new line of antimatter assisted fusion drive systems become available, though miniaturisation of these systems had already been seen the new package assembled was completely comprehensive, all the engine, driver coil and auxillary systems rolled into a package only a few metres long. These kind of drive packages encouraged design research into a new class of small starships, most designs tried to create a new kind of piloted starship, but these kinds of design ran into obstacles because to make the vehicle safe enough and functional meant a great additional volume needed to be mounted on top of the drive stack. All the additional systems required for crew support and other systems hamstrung the main drive plant as a substantial amount of the energy was required just to keep the thing operating, and this and the additional volume humbled the original flight characteristics.

            Because of the trouble in creating fighter class ships with trans-c capability designers began to speculate on other ideas for these miniature power plants. The hawker series eventually rose from this, as many other ideas such as ‘smart’ trans-c missile ships, and swarm defence groups ran into difficulty because of the gap in design knowledge. The Hawker series was going to build on the existing range of autonomous vehicles, finally giving the Federation a specifically designed template for a range of autonomous vehicles. The Hawker series would use a modified micro-core which generated more power, and could use antimatter reaction vessels, a set-up which perhaps offered the most available energy in the smallest volume that technology could currently supply, on top of this formidable engine stack would be another column of equipment which could be packed to its most space efficient as there was no crew to worry about.

            The first Hawker class vessels emerged as long ellipsoids, with the engine and power generation stack taking up the back end of the vehicle and the stacks of sensor arrays, shield generators and weapons platforms stack atop it at the front end of the small starship. With no crew to accommodate, the design started off with the end to make the most of the available volume, the vessels would only hold a modest reserve of fuel as they would patrol within Federation space, and would have ready access to fuel facilities. The design would be rugged, using hardened equipment tied into strong structural supports, such equipment would need less in the way of protection, therefore defence could be focused close to the hull and so small shield generators could construct an ultra strong shield literally centimetres from the hull surface, rather than have to project a weak field away from the hull of the ship. Other adjustments, and the use of the most start of the art equipment and abandoning some principles of sophistication and redundancy meant that the column supported by the engine was not that much greater than engine stack itself. With such a modest payload the engine could retain its peak flight efficiency, and unlike more sophisticated systems, energy was only drawn from the engine when it was required, so the energy demands were never so high during normal operations.

            The modern Hawks still follow the same design, though they have copied some of the architecture behind the Orca Range. Their structural skeleton is built to accommodate slot in units, so that upgrade simply involves swapping out units, certain integral support systems, such as power distribution, data buses and cabling are integral to the support structure, and therefore do not require the addition of these basic units freeing slots for other units. Because this series of ships has become well established, new components are built to fit within the slots, rather than units modified to fit into them, because the range now draws upon its own set of parts the same economy of space is achieved. Though the main drive core pretty much remains the same, clever use of space has further improved the energy yielded from the same volume.

            The role of the Hawker is pretty much the same, they operate as semi-autonomous units, patrolling Federation space continuously, deciding whether anomalies should be investigated. Though some Hawkers carry AI’s, the majority of them are merely smart machines, and act as an intelligent force that sweeps local space, defence modifications now enables groups of hawkers to come to together and form a self coordinating defence group. The Hawker fleet, though not including those vessels piloted by AIs, form a kind of semi intelligent entity, that self regulates the health of the fleet, the cooperation between all the vehicles mean that ships can break service to be repaired, and other ships will take their place. This kind of intelligent behaviour effectively removes the supervision of the hawker fleet, though now more than ever are the individual craft watched by observers as these craft are now often the first eyes on the scene on any incident, their design although tight on space does boast some of the best sensor technology available. Because of their intelligence and good design they have become more than robotic sentries trundling though Federation space, they have instead become a most powerful tool, not only capable in its defence roles, but also as sophisticated monitors, that can not only alert to anomalies but take readings accurate enough to form the base of proper scientific analysis.