Security Orbital

Tau Portal

Tau Orbital Defense Station

Security Orbitals defend Tau planets from space borne threats. ^[1]

Overview

Tau Security Orbitals are space stations that function as a stepping off point when it comes to long interstellar journeys, and as formidable battle stations at both strategic areas of space and in planetary orbit. The main routes between the Tau Septs are marked with security orbitals, which are also used as communication relay points.

The Air Caste is the one that operates and maintains the security orbitals. Most of the Septs of both the Second Sphere Expansion and the Third Sphere Expansion relied on modular way stations and orbitals that could be quickly deployed. Permanently-situated security orbitals are also used by most of the primary Septs and a small number of the older established secondary star systems. Which are normally stouter than other single-point planetary defenses, and are neither as complex or as large as full void stations.^[3][4]

Armament

Orbital stations that the Tau called "kir-norsla", possess dozens of powerful shield generators. They were heavily armed with massed gun batteries of both ion cannons and railguns which are able to cover all arcs of fire around the station. In addition each station also has three to four defensive turrets mounted around the station's hull.

These orbital stations are usually equipped with Tau shielding equivalent to that found on their starships, and possess sophisticated tracking systems similar to that which is carried by the Skether'qan (Messenger)-class Starship. Being fixed defensive orbital platforms, these battle stations are not equipped with a self-propulsion system.

Each orbital station is the hub of a networked systems of defensive satellites. When used to protect a planet, a network of these orbital constructs enshroud the world under a lattice grid of firepower patterns. Resulting in a deadly gauntlet that destroys any spacecraft that dares enter high orbit. An assault on an orbital station by spaceborne troops faces gun turrets, protective drones, and its garrison of Fire caste warriors equipped with void suits.^[3][4][5]

Images

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  Tau Security Orbital Station^[4]

Sources

• 1: http://web.archive.org/web/20031203220242/http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/QUATERMASTERS_STORE_PRE_ORDERS_11.html (saved archive page, dated December 2003, last accessed 10 February 2016)
• 2: http://web.archive.org/web/20031207030157/http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/tausmallstation.htm (saved archive page, dated December 2003, last accessed 10 February 2016)
• 3: Battlefleet Gothic 2010 Compendium, pg. 166
• 4: Imperial Armour Volume Three - The Taros Campaign, pg. 216
• 5: War Zone Damocles: Kauyon, pgs. 12-13