Editing The Yaotl (section)

=== Naval Forces ===

'''Type I: Nestship''': The only Yaotl ship observed to rival an Imperial cruiser in size, although like all Yaotl ships it is crewed by a single clan. Nestships are the only Yaotl ships to travel between the stars at sublight speeds, and are built around a central wormhole. The true lynchpins of a Yaotl raiding fleet, Nestships attempt to avoid combat and will scuttle themselves to avoid being captured if necessary; however, it is more likely that a raiding fleet will fight to the death to protect its Nestship, as it represents a huge investment in resources and their only method to return to Yaotl space. Nestships carry large amounts of Drakes, and bristle with automated point defense systems. Paradoxically, they are also more stealthy than smaller Yaotl ships, capable of disrupting an entire system's worth of sensors. 

'''Type II: Corsair''': The main capital ship in Yaotl fleets, roughly equivalent in size to an Imperial frigate. Corsairs are built around a central multi-pronged drive system that allows for extreme maneuverability compared to Imperial ships. Their small size, however, means that they are fairly fragile, something only compounded by the Yaotls lack of void shielding. Instead the Corsair relies on highly accurate automated point defenses and a vast array of electronic warfare devices. When operating in concert, a pack of Corsairs is all but untargetable, as sensor ghosts overwhelm Imperial cognitors and visual targeting is rendered useless by flashy diversions. Corsairs typically operate in Swarms, as their defenses are more potent when used in concert; in addition, though they punch above their weight compared to Imperial ships, concerted firepower remains necessary for Yaotl fleets to defeat larger vessels.

'''Type III: Drake''': At first, the Drake was thought to be a Yaotl interceptor. Recovered wreckage however has revealed that Drakes are in fact highly modified Yaotl, the individual organism being lost in a sea of cybernetic implements. Drakes typically cling to other Yaotl vessels, exposed to the vacuum, until they are within range of an enemy vessel. Drakes rely largely on their stealth to avoid destruction, acting in concert with other vessels to bring down much larger ships. Drakes are quite superior to Imperial interceptors in a dogfight, although should they loose the element of surprise of face overpowering numbers their fragility means they will crumble quickly. 

Making Imperial Navy response to raids difficult is that no two Yaotl ships are exactly alike, each being designed personally by an abnormally powerful Alpha and in many cases in service for centuries if not millenia due to the immensity of the investment required to build a single vessel, resulting in perpetual modifications and an ever-increasing functional disorder. In the rare advent that Yaotl ships are taken intact, the alien workings of their minds is revealed in the nature of the ships layout, a sprawling mass of unfathomable passages and subsystems, many of which are seemingly non-functional but when brought offline having an unpredictable effect. More than one Imperial boarding team has been wiped out by putting a slug in a seemingly aesthetic wall decoration that turned out to, when damaged, cause the local atmosphere to be increased in pressure tenfold, or other such esoteric consequences. Many remark that Yaotl vessels are more akin to space hulks than true starships, but the uncanny functionality these ships demonstrate when in the hands of a Yaotl alpha belies this.