Upwell Fortification Variant 'Kingbird'

Working through its member corporations within each of the "Big 4" empires, the Upwell Consortium has secured contracts to enhance counter-insurgency efforts against marauding pirate gangs and their capsuleer supporters. Analyzing the problem of responding to pirate insurgencies, taking into account lessons learned by fortification efforts during the Triglavian Invasions, the Upwell Consortium chose to source a large quantity of Bustard-class hulls from the Lai Dai corporation.

As a highly-protected but less massive hulls than the large Orca-class, the ship provided a sound basis for a variant class of fortification constructor aimed at enhancing the ability of empires to assert their sovereignty against pirate insurgents: the "Kingbird". The ship was then specially adapted to be able to deploy and service the counter-insurgency weapons platforms that are placed at strategic locations within systems where anti-pirate operations have elevated the system suppression to high levels.