Ship building was a central part of the IHE's first Manifesto. Each colony needed its own SDF, in addition to Mordecai herself. Construction of the Mordecai took most of the IHE's resources, and the notion of maintainging a fleet didn't even enter the minds of any of the IHE's engineers or scientists until the group was well in the Andromeda.

Fighting the Monte Yarrow proved one thing: The Mordecai could prevail, but it was hard work. The ship would have to stay behind its reflex shield while bombarded by Monte Yarrow Meson beams while the Iconoclasts fought trhough the Monte Yarrow mecha and distracted the enemy vessel long enough for the Mordecai to user her main gun.

The first move to change this was to use a troop carrier to deliver Shock Divers to a planet's surface, leaving the troopers more refreshed and ready for combat than if they'd dived themselves, relegating actucal atmosphere diving to shock troops. These dropships, based on the Zentraedi design, saw massive casualties during a variety of campaigns due to the fact that they were unarmed, and their Iconoclast cover could not account for the superior numbers of the Monte Yarrow. Therefore an armed dropship was designed, which evolved into the design presented here, a modular multipurpose vessel.

Ships: