StarCitizen:Casse Aerospace

Casse Aerospace was a StarCitizen:Human spacecraft design and manufacturing concern that operated for two decades in the early 27th century. It was founded by a former StarCitizen:Roberts Space Industries (RSI) engineer named StarCitizen:Leonard Casse to produce the StarCitizen:Cosmo Sloop luxury spacecraft, released in StarCitizen:2604. With the advent of the StarCitizen:Second Tevarin War, Casse changed direction to develop a dedicated military spacecraft, the Hurricane. Following its founder's death in StarCitizen:2615, Casse Aerospace failed to produce further successful spacecraft and ultimately went out of business. StarCitizen:Anvil Aerospace purchased the Hurricane design and returned it to service in a modernized form in response to the StarCitizen:Vanduul threat in StarCitizen:2878.<ref name="galactapedia">Template:Cite RSI</ref>

History

Early years (2599 to 2604)

As soon as the assembly line began rolling out the StarCitizen:RSI StarCitizen:2600 Starbright he had labored on for close to four years, Casse announced at the beginning of 2599 that he would be leaving to start his own company. According to later biographers, Casse described his time at RSI as a constant struggle. From the first instance when his suggestions were passed over due to his junior status, he felt that good design was too often sacrificed to placate a hierarchical organization trying to justify its own worth.

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As soon as you have a ship manufacturing company where almost half the people who work there have nothing to do with manufacturing ships, you're going to have problems

He intended Casse Aerospace to be different. He hired only a small team of people whom he trusted to do quality work at the standards he demanded, and then left them to do it. Everyone's opinion carried equal weight, with all final decisions left to himself. The approach was unorthodox for ship manufacturing, but under Casse's vision and guidance, the flat organization worked.

In StarCitizen:2604, Casse Aerospace released its first ship, the limited-run StarCitizen:Cosmo Sloop. A leisure craft with a focus on ease of use, the hull premiered the open circle signet and curved wings that Casse would use on all his future designs. Reviews of the craft were positive, but the timing of its release proved to be its undoing.

The StarCitizen:Second Tevarin War had begun the year prior, and with enemy forces pushing through Humanity's defenses, the personal leisure craft market collapsed. With its fortunes riding on sales of the Cosmo, Casse Aerospace struggled to keep the fledgling company afloat and decided that the best course of action was to join the war effort.<ref name="portfolio">Template:Cite RSI</ref>

The Hurricane (2605 to 2610)

The StarCitizen:Tevarin fleet had undergone significant technology upgrades during their exodus, and the UEE Naval forces were having a difficult time overcoming the new StarCitizen:phalanx shields. In StarCitizen:2605, Navy officials called upon the Empire's ship manufacturers for a solution. Though he had never worked on a combat ship before, Casse knew that the credits such a lucrative contract would bring could save his company, and so he set about designing a solution to Humanity's problems.

Analyzing battle footage of Naval forces engaging the Tevarin led Casse to conclude that trying to overwhelm the Phalanx shields was a losing proposition. The bulk of the damage that the Navy was able to inflict occurred when a Tevarin was caught off guard. The goal of his design was to increase the frequency of those opportunities and maximize the damage inflicted during them. To help his ship achieve this goal, he borrowed a page from the enemy's playbook. If the Tevarin operated in teams of two, one StarCitizen:pilot and one StarCitizen:shield operator, his ship could also be manned by a team, a pilot and a turret gunner. The design he submitted to the Navy stood in sharp contrast to those submitted by industry leaders like StarCitizen:Aegis, and it surprised many when the Navy granted a contract to the unusual contender. Casse Aerospace immediately began work on what would become the Hurricane.

Launched late in 2607, the Casse Hurricane suffered some setbacks during the testing phase. Though pilots liked the power-to-weight ratio and the extra punch its quad-turret offered, the high degree of coordination needed between the pilot and gunner had a steep learning curve. Because of this, the Hurricane did not enter active combat until 2609. While they were used to good effect in a few instrumental actions, the war ended shortly after their deployment in 2610.<ref name="portfolio"/>

The fall (2615 to 2623)

Trying to capitalize on the success of the Hurricane, Casse Aerospace used the goodwill it had garnered to win a contract designing a long-range patrol ship suited to guard the growing Xi'an front. However, before that ship could be finished, Leonard Casse died in StarCitizen:2615 after being involved in a deadly in-atmosphere collision. Reeling from the loss of its founder and leader, Casse Aerospace attempted to finish the project, but without Casse's personal involvement, military officials lost confidence and pulled the plug.

Surviving off continuing Hurricane sales, Casse Aerospace attempted to return to its roots and release an updated Cosmo, but again, without Casse behind the project, it was not a commercial success. The company's prospects were dire, and when the Navy announced that the Hurricane would be retired from active duty, it signaled the end. The market was soon flush with surplus Hurricanes, and any remaining new sales dried up. With few options remaining, the board sold the company to an investment firm in StarCitizen:2620.<ref name="galactapedia"/> From there it passed through several hands before falling into receivership and becoming a footnote of history for the next century.<ref name="portfolio"/>

The next generation (2772 to 2871)

When J. Harris Arnold was in school, he was preoccupied with the works of Leonard Casse. To him, the largely forgotten engineer represented everything he loved about ship design. When he eventually started his own ship manufacturing company, Arnold drew heavy inspiration from Casse's business model and ships for his own designs, using such signature elements as the curved wings and open circle signet. The similarities were such that Arnold and his fledgling company, Anvil Aerospace, were sued by the holding firm that had bought the rights to Casse's designs. Arnold settled the case by purchasing all of Casse Aerospace's portfolio himself. Now the owner of Casse's legacy, Arnold sought an opportunity to put the company's original designs to use, but one did not present itself for close to seventy years, until the StarCitizen:Vanduul War.<ref name="portfolio"/>

Influence

While Casse Aerospace bears the name of an engineering legend, the company itself faded from memory for all but the most dedicated ship enthusiasts. That remained the case for over a century, until Anvil Aerospace resurrected one of Casse's designs and, alongside it, interest in the man himself and the ships he built.

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Good design solves a problem, bad design creates new ones.

An StarCitizen:Edleson Design Institute Hall of Fame inductee in StarCitizen:2902, Leonard Casse holds a place in the annals of history as one of the top spacecraft visionaries of the StarCitizen:Messer Era. While the general populace may consider his creation of the Hurricane fighter the most enduring part of his legacy, his effect on the industry overall is not limited to that one design. Cited by ship design luminaries such as J. Harris Arnold, StarCitizen:Silas Koerner, and StarCitizen:Jules Parliegh as a prime source of inspiration, Casse's influence can be seen in many spacecraft flown today. From the RSI StarCitizen:Aurora to the Anvil StarCitizen:Hornet, several of the Empire's most popular vehicles trace their lineage to Casse's vision.<ref name="portfolio"/>

References

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