UENS Typhus---The
Typhus is the 37th’s primary ‘warship’, a Soviet-era Russian Typhoon-class SSBN, built hastily and late during the Global Civil War, that got sold to the French Navy after the arrival of the Visitor/ASS-1/SDF-1 and the Russian Federation was busy cleaning out its old equipment and settling post-Truce reparations in anticipation of the UEG modernization programs using reverse-engineered alien technology. Though initially pleased with acquiring such a piece of hot-$#!+ Soviet technology, with an eye towards replacing/supplementing their Le Triumphant-class SSBNs, also rendered effectively obsolete overnight by the Visitor, after a some effort to convert and adapt the vessel(including trying to refit the tubes and silos to use the new ‘standardized’ missiles being promoted by the nascent UEDF), the French Navy decided to wait and see what would shake out from the UEG modernization programs in the way of new designs, and the Typhoon was shifted to naval reserve. The vessel survived the Rain of Death by being on a shakedown/orientation cruise to a remote French island possession, and with the effective extinction of France as a nation, turned over to the post-Rain UEG Navy. After a few years of trying to find a purpose for the sub, which showed the accumulated signs of Soviet neglect and half-hearted French tinkering, the UEGN gave the ship one last modernization makeover as part of an effort to give one of the UEG’s members with redeveloped ports work in handling big naval contracts. But with most of the effort and resources going to developing the UEG’s space forces, the wet navy got short shrift in budgeting, and the refit yard quit halfway through the attempted upgrade. Ultimately the old Typhoon was downgraded to reserve-mothball status(especially after the Russian component of the Southern Cross launched its Typhoon-successor, the Leviathan-class SSBN, based on the Beachmaster, and optimized for nuking alien alien warships in near orbit), and ultimately was assigned to the 37th, rather than the scrapyard.
The Typhoon SSBN’s original Russian name forgotten(TK23?), the vessel was known as the ‘
Typhon’ in French service, but a clerical mistake at the final refitting yard got the vessel renamed the ‘
Typhus’ when it was turned over to the 37th. Unfortunately, the name stuck, especially among outsiders. Despite various attempts by its crew to re-instate the original class-name as its official ship name, make the name into a more mellow ‘Typh’, ‘Typhie’, or ‘’Typher’, or call it something else (like the ‘Rapine Storm’), the 37th winds up, in the end, calling their ship the ‘Typhus’ after all(“Okay, everybody report back to the Typhus! I mean the Rapine Stor---oh hell.”). Worse, many of the regular crewmembers are becoming known as
typhoids...
Of course, it's possible that the sub has hidden episodes in its history...maybe its hasty construction during the GCW resulted in deaths among the workers, or it suffered an accident or two prior to being turned over to the French...maybe the FRENCH ran it aground a couple of times, or had some accidents trying to refit it....nnd that's just before the UEG got ahold of it after the Rain of Death...
And who knows where it was refitted? India, Korea, Indonesia, South Africa?