Zanar-pattern light cruiser: Difference between revisions

While classified as "light cruisers" by the UNSC, the Covenant intended them to fill a role more analogous to [[police cutter]]s to patrol inhabited star systems, conducting routine inspections and enforcing travel laws.{{Ref/Reuse|Warfleet72}} After the war, ''CRS''-class cruisers became the backbones of fleets owned by Covenant remnants, serving in combat roles against [[human]]ity and the [[Swords of Sanghelios]].{{Ref/Reuse|Warfleet72}} Crews of ''CRS'' cruisers generally regarded serving aboard one as a stepping stone to more glorious service aboard the Covenant's Examiner ships, such as {{Pattern|Varric|heavy cruiser}}s, and would take risks during combat to prove their worth in hopes of reassignment.<ref name="Warfleet64">'''Halo: Warfleet''', ''Examiners'', ''pages 64-65''</ref> They regarded escorting Executor-type ships and their disgraced crews such as the {{Pattern|Sinaris|heavy destroyer}} as a more distasteful assignment, and could never be relied on to do more than their basic duties.<ref name="Warfleet61">'''Halo: Warfleet''', ''Executioners'', ''pages 60-61''</ref> When the Prophets took their Procurator-type ships and fled Covenant space in the wake of the [[Great Schism]], they held many light cruisers whose crews remained loyal with them.<ref name="Warfleet68">'''Halo: Warfleet''', ''Procurators'', ''pages 68-69''</ref> As with other small attack craft employed by various Covenant fleets, ''CRS'' cruisers didn't have permanent crew quarters, instead rotating fresh crew members on between missions.{{Ref/Reuse|Warfleet72}}

===Superstructure and hull===

Resembling a luminous manta ray,<ref>'''Halo: First Strike''', ''page 205''</ref> the ''CRS'' is essentially a smaller, weaker version of the {{Class|CCS|battlecruiser}},{{Ref/Reuse|EVG}} with the ''Zanar''-pattern light cruiser originally spawning as a stable mutation of the class' ''Elefen'' and ''Ket'' design patterns. One notable difference is that the ''CRS''-class (at least those used by [[Jul 'Mdama's Covenant]]) bears green lights, as opposed to the white-blue lighting on the ''CCS'' class. The control coils of ''CRS''-class light cruisers require careful fine-tuning to prevent disorientation and hallucination when operating at full power. In addition, in rare cases the sensor arrays of these ships subject to aberrant mutations during fabrication that make them appear friendly to Forerunner defense protocols.{{Ref/Reuse|Warfleet72}}