Sapphire (Pathfinder Ship)

The Identity Crest of the Pathfinder Ship Sapphire incorporated some design elements from the crest of the planet Sapphire.

Sapphire, also known as Pathfinder-05, was the fifth ship in the Pathfinder series of long-range, extremely heavy, multi-generational ships that constituted the vanguard of the Odyssey Project.

Construction

Sapphire was the fifth Pathfinder Ship to be built. It was built in tandem with the fourth Pathfinder Ship, Republic. It was named for the planet and colony of Sapphire. It was constructed at the Odyssey Project Shipyards over a period of [Approximately] 20 years beginning in [Approximately] SY 6960/AS 7284/APR 874.

Command and Crew

• Shipmaster: Prime Commander Illyia Wolfram
• Executive Officer: TyroCommander Darian Orange
• Chief Navigator: Lt.Navigator Riddick ‘Butch’ Exeter
• Tactical Officers: Tactical Lt. Commanders Patrick Quinn and Matthias Quinn
• Systems and Operations Officer: Engineering Lieutenant Titania Weiss
• Chief of Science Core: Lt. Scientist Tarry Mayfield

Sapphire left the shipyards with a crew of 7,000 exactly. Its mission was to explore the sectors of Antlia, Vulpecula, and Equuleus.

Worlds Charted

• Sandwave -- Sandwave was a desert world, ruled by a very old aristocracy where court intrigues abounded and the ruling class feared a Messianic god-king who was fomenting rebellion among the nomadic desert tribes. After a battle in space with an Aurelian scout ship, a survey team from Republic crash-landed on the surface. With the help of a gifted teenage boy, they escorted the Princess of Aldara to the capital city in time for her coronation, thwarting the efforts of an Aurelian assassin who was sent to kill the princess, prevent her ascension to the throne, and forestall the uniting of the planet’s forces against the (Aurelian-instigated) rebellion
• New Andover – Sapphire discovered that the entire human population had been replaced by ‘The Vorm,’ a species of worm native to the planet. The Vorm learned to mimic human behavior and form, but were not actually intelligent. They simply acted out the behavior of the colonists whose forms they had learned to duplicate. The Vorm also learned to mimic the landing party, and the ship had to carefully identify the real crew before allowing them to return to the ship; lest they all be replaced by Vorm.

• Auburn was a really nice colony, with golden skies, sparkling lakes, and forests of red-leafy trees. Also, there were a lot of horny centaurs galloping around in the red forests for some reason. And temples of marble filled with comely underdressed maidens. And beer, really good beer.

• Furlong - Furlong was discovered as a thriving human colony in the Equuleus sector. It had an ideal climate for agriculture and the best viniculture in the entire sector. It was also close to two other thriving colonies, Boon and Fortnight.
• Ao - A world whose atmosphere and the peculiar spectrum of its sun washed out color into pastels and a near-grayscale landscape. It's a crazy world where criminals pick out their victims from police line-ups. Sapphire attempted unsuccessfully to mediate a peace between the cowboys, gangsters, and Vikings that vied for control of the planet.
• Arroyo - Arroyo is a desert planet in the Antlia sector populated entirely by human-form androids.

• Good Hope – Sapphire helped the colonists revive their ancient founders, Kane and Able, from the stasis chambers that had preserved them for centuries. Unfortunately, the colonists had forgotten that the two were rival warlords, whose feuding had threatened to destroy the colony. In order to prevent that happening again, they had to trick the old Warlords into returning to stasis.

• Whitewater -- Whitewater colony had fallen back to a pre-technological condition, albeit a somewhat thriving one. The planet, like almost all the worlds of the Perseus Quadrant, was struck by a ‘White Plague,’ in this case, one that caused nearly all the population to lose its ability to retain long-term memory. Over the time, their culture has adapted so that lack of long-term memory was the norm. They use a simplified language, simplified alphabet, and simplified math because that’s the only amount of learning people can retain. The crew of the ship developed a treatment for the condition, and some personnel stayed behind to aid in transitioning the colony back to functionality.

• Fortnight – The brave actions of Sapphire’s crew, the Quinn Brothers specifically, saved the colony from obliteration when its old colony ship, placed in a centuries-wide orbit after depositing the colonists, threatened to crash into the planet’s surface, where the detonation of its engine cores would have resulted in an Extinction Level Event.

• Taiga – The crew of Sapphire, in particular, the Quinn Brothers especially, became village heroes by slaying a horrible beast. They were rewarded with access to vast subterranean deposits of Palladium and Protactinium, which were urgently needed to repair the ship’s weapon systems.

• Epoch – The Epoch colony was succumbing to environmental cataclysm. The terraforming equipment that was supposed to transform it into a habitable world has begun breaking down, and with it, the planet’s climate is giving way to storms and earthquakes. The crew identified the problem as a malfunction in the planet’s geothermal-based terraforming equipment; but were unable to persuade the planet’s leadership to take the difficult steps necessary to avert the eventual disaster.

• Sybil – A planet hosting a human society where multiple personalities are the norm. The inhabitants have contempt for those with only a single personality, whom they refer to as “monos.” Also, the residents of the planet are obsessed with hats.
• Iconia -- Prime Commander Wolfram arbitrated a dispute between rival continental powers of the planet Iconia, the Primarians and the Antiarchonians. The planet had been in an alternating state of hot and cold wars for centuries that left some parts of its surface decimated and uninhabitable.

Second Aurelian War

Upon the breakout of the Second Aurelian War, Sapphire was pressed into service as command ship of the Seventh Expeditionary Force. This fleet led the liberation of Furlong and Boon colonies from Aurelian occupation during the Fifth Allied Counter-Offensive. Following the war, the ship returned to Furlong to help repair the environmental damage left by the Aurelian occupation.

Fate

Sapphire was decommissioned following the Second Aurelian War. The ship was placed in orbit of Sapphire, where it serves as a museum, academy, rather mediocre comedy school, casino-resort, and a location for diplomatic receptions.