Blackgate Class Prison Ship

Designed by Rendili Stardrive two hundred years before the battle of Yavin, the Blackgate was the most successful ship of its class since the Mandalorian Lictor class. Rather than using a ridiculous amount of weapons to defend itself from pirate attacks it made use of a arsenal of deadly internal weapons systems and a crew of Prison Droids equipped to put down riots and invaders both non-lethally and with extreme lethal force. During the time of Clone Wars, many of these ships were outfitted with HK-24P, HK-74P, and IG-86P droids for the defense of its prisoners. Despite being only 400 meters in length, the ship would carry a maximum load of some 45,000 prisoners with an additional crew of 20,000 droids and a small organic crew of 250. If a Blackgate was at risk of being overtaken by outside forces or in the unlikely scenario of prisoners defeating the droid crew, the organic crew would eject the main bridge from the ship which would trigger the meltdown of the ships massive hypermatter reactors and the organic crew's escape vessel would hopefully have enough time to clear the area before detonation. During the days of the Galactic Empire a number of these ships were re-purposed as mobile torture ships to either extract information or to convert captured Jedi into becoming agents of the Dark Side, though the latter of the two was a rare occasion. After the establishment of the New Republic, the Blackgate class would still be in heavy use across the galaxy.