The Alliance Heavy Cruiser Artemis is the first of twelve Eumenides class battleships. The Eumenides class starships are based on the Gaia pattern battlebarges previously used by the Furies chapter. The upgrade incorporates changes to virtually every system, including propulsion, weapons and defensive systems, the main power grid, and a substantial overhaul of the basic spaceframe of the vessel. Disregarding performance improvements, the Eumenides class is more suited to ship-to-ship combat and support than the Gaia class, which was designed in the 36th Millennium as a heavy combat troop transport.
The bridge of the Artemis is the central command location of the ship. The main bridge is located on deck one, directly above the ship's central data links, and incorporating direct links to engineering, support and tactical systems. The bridge has isolated habitation and tactical support systems, and can continue to function and control the Artemis even in the event of complete life support failure in other sections of the ship. The main bridge is protected by the full thickness of the Artemis's hull armour, plus triple-redundant hull shielding. In the event of damage to the main bridge, a blast-shielded transport system allows transfer of ship control to the auxiliary bridge on deck twelve in less than thirty seconds.
The Artemis is controlled by three main bridge stations: tactical, engineering and command. The tactical station regulates and coordinates the ship's weapons and shielding systems, propulsion control and short-term navigation. The engineering station is a link to the main engineering complex located on decks nine and ten, providing instant feedback on main power to critical systems and additional engineering functions as they are required. The command station is operated directly by the ship's captain, and provides instant information and control on the ship's major systems, as well as a computer-enhanced tactical display. In the event that the captain's attention is required elsewhere, the first officer's station duplicates ship command. In addition, the bridge has eight secondary stations, each one configurable to a variety of systems. In battle these stations are used to provide more complex control over major tactical systems, while in non-alert situations they provide control access to less-critical systems such as communications, sensors and fleet command, which are incorporated into the tactical and engineering stations during battle.
Artemis is powered primarily by a controlled antimatter reaction, produced inside the antimatter accelerator located in the engineering complex. Deuterium refined by the ship's magnetic ramscoops is fed into the accelerator where it is channeled into a controlled matter stream, which reacts with antimatter stored inside the accelerator, within electromagnetic containment fields. The antimatter containment systems incorporate the highest level of redundant back-ups on the ship, as an uncontrolled release of antimatter would result in the complete destruction of the ship.
Power produced by the accelerator is fed into the ship's Electro-Plasma System, which acts as a short-term reservoir from which other ship systems draw power. Direct power links to the accelerator are active during alert conditions, but when not in combat only propulsion maintains direct power, with other systems switching to EPS power to increase energy efficiency. In the event of accelerator failure or shutdown, the EPS and main power links connect to a standard Imperial fusion power core, composed of three nuclear fusion reactors operating within the ship's fusion torus. In the event of catastrophic failure, the accelerator and/or any of the fusion reactors can be ejected from the ship.
The Artemis was the first Imperium-manufactured starship to be fitted with the hyperlight drive mechanism. The integration of the new drive system with the existing power distribution system was achieved through a controlled phasing of the EPS power grid, which allows other ship systems to draw power from the EPS while maintaining the constant level of energy input vital to the maintenance of the hyperlight field coils within the main drive nacelles. While not in use, the hyperlight field coils are maintained at minimum power levels by the fusion torus.
Tactical Control is a coordination system for weapons, shields and missile defenses, passive and active sensors, fleet control, and propulsion. These systems are controlled through a series of algorithmic routines allowing fast reaction to battle situations with a minimum of crew involvement in the actual execution of bridge commands. The bridge Tactical station is programmed by default to present threat assessment and possible counter-strategies in a hostile situation, giving the bridge crew the freedom to assess and respond according to variables outside the Tactical system without having to manually control the separate systems.
In battle the Artemis maintains five separate shield generators, providing forward, aft, port and starboard shield arcs, as well as an emergency hull shielding system. Key locations such as the main and auxiliary bridge, the engineering complex and the emergency crew support zones on decks seven and eight are protected by additional layers of hull shielding, incorporating both EPS and isolated power systems. Each of the five primary shield generators has isolated power relays, allowing the shields to continue to function despite heavy damage to the ship. Shields are kept at 90% of capacity, allowing reserve power to be directed to specific shield grid locations in the event of localised shield impacts. In addition to energy shielding, Artemis has fourteen interceptor cannon batteries to detonate incoming warheads, each battery consisting of six weapons, firing 9000 rpm combined.
The Artemis has seven primary weapons arrays: one in each quarter, plus two additional forward weapons arrays and one array configurable for either forward or aft fire arcs. The primary weapon is the phased pulsar, a combination of Imperial laser technology with the Eldar Pulsar weapon used in heavy battle tanks and titans. The phased pulsar fires an interference beam along which it transmits high-energy pulses of laser energy in a set pattern. The interference beam interacts with the target's shields, allowing the Artemis's tactical computers to estimate the target's shield frequency and modulation sequence through reflections returned through the beam. This information is used to set the beam sequence for the energy pulses, allowing a maximum of the weapon's energy to be directed into the target's shield generators, rather than being re-emitted by the shields as heat and light.
As well as the phased pulsars, each weapons array carries a battery of high yield laser cannon, commonly known as lances. Although the weapons are basically unchanged from Imperial designs, the annular confinement beam surrounding the laser is controlled by a bioneutronic feedback system, allowing a tighter beam and therefore more armour penetration power in the weapon. Separate from the weapons arrays are the ship's twelve main gun turrets, each carrying twin electroplasma blasters. These weapons are a modification of Imperial plasma weaponry, with the addition of electromagnetic stabilisation and containment, allowing the weapons to be fitted for higher energy levels without the risk of overload or coolant failure.
Artemis has five warhead launchers, four in the nose and one rear-facing. These are configurable for practically any type of torpedo or missile. Standard armament for the warhead launchers is either Zeus pattern 'driller' torpedoes or Trident-3 pattern multiple warhead missiles.
Artemis's Operations Centre is a coordinational facility located on deck four, responsible for the analysis and correlation of data from all of the ship's sensor systems. During battle the Operations Centre functions in tandem with the ship's tactical computers, providing a second level of battle intelligence beyond the capabilities of mechanical analysis. During non-alert status, the Operations Centre performs analysis of all external sensor data, and has access to engineering and flight control systems which can be cross-linked to Ops data to provide a constantly-updated report on ship status.
External data is collected by either the primary sensor array located on the forward hull of the ship, or the lateral (secondary) sensor arrays built into the ship's hull. These provide most common particle, electromagnetic and warp readings, and can be configured to detect a wide range of phenomena, depending on the needs of engineering or the bridge. The sensor arrays, in their standard configuration, are able to detect local mass via gravitic analysis, conduct pattern recognition to extreme visual range, detect standard energy profiles from other ships' reactors or weapons, and monitor local warp space for possible activity.
Additional equipment that has been installed or upgraded from Imperial specifications allows detection of most types of cloaking field, such as the types used by Dark Eldar slave cruisers, and automatic computer-enhanced compensation to reduce the effects of wave distortion used by Tyranids and Necrons to prevent reliable sensor data being obtained on their ships. Imperial camouflage screens, although rarely used in battle, can be compensated for by a bi-directional analysis linking gravitic and electromagnetic sensors. In addition to ship-to-ship tactical analysis, the Operations Centre is equipped to function as a command centre for a ground-based force while Artemis is in orbit, providing both battlefield recon data and orbital barrage support.
When Artemis is with the Alliance fleet, the Operations Centre is responsible for fleet control. Using interlinked non-sequential logic pathways within the Ops computer network, fleet coordination is achieved with a minimum of intership communication. To facilitate fleet control, the Operations Centre maintains active flight data links with the carrier ships in the fleet, although if necessary the Ops computer is capable of coordinating fleet manoeuvres based solely on Artemis's own sensor data.