Eye of the Emperor

"Capacitors at 890 terrrawatts, lens alignment idealized, coolant standing by. Target 109,000,000 kilometers away, ready for firing."

- Final stages of firing the Eye

The Eye of the Emperor is the oldest ship within the Battlefleet Vigilius, an Ironclad estimated to date back to the Age of Strife.

Armament
An ancient ship, the armament of the Eye of the Emperor is far from standard making it a rather situational, if powerful, tool of war.

The Eye
Taking up the front four km of the battleship (five if counting power generators and capacitors), is the gun for which the ship is named. Known simply as the Eye, the gun is essentially a single enormous lance. The only part of the armament original to the ship, the tremendous laser is both incredibly powerful and a giant weakness.

The laser is generated by a gigantic archeo-tech machine before passing through the 120 meter wide barrel, passing through a series of focusing lenses. Due to the sheer size of both the gun, the power generators, and the cooling system, no other guns can be mounted on the front half of the ship. Also due to the size and placement of the Eye it both takes several minutes to charge before each shot as well as cool after while also requiring the ship to be pointed at the target.

Despite these draw backs, the Eye still remains an astonishing weapon of war. The sheer power of the lance allows it overwhelm the void shields of most vessels, allowing it to destroy enemy ships at great distances with a single shot. This has proven especially effective against both the Orks and Tyranids who tend to group ships together allowing the Eye to damage or destroy multiple ships with each shot. It also has proven to be a powerful tool at ship to planet warfare, as a single shot can take out planetary defense's void shields, especially as the laser contains enough energy to cause mass ionization and even fusion in atmosphere it passes through, making so that every shot is accompanied by nuclear explosions.

Rear batteries
Despite the immense power of the Eye, the rear batteries of macrocannons are rather underwhelming. Amounting to less than what is typically found on even cruisers, the Eye of the Emperor is actually rather poor at ship to ship combat, forcing it to rely on the other ships in it's fleet to keep enemy ships at bay.

Flight decks
Positioned near the rear batteries, the flight decks of the Eye of the Emperor primarily contain Fury Interceptors for defending the ship from enemy attacks.

Crew
The crew of the Eye of the Emperor has a noticeably larger percentage of Mechanicus adepts than most Imperial Navy vessels. Making up a quarter of the crew, most are devoted to the maintenance and firing of the Eye, with their Arch-Magos serving as an adviser to the Admiral.