Arms of the Destroyer

[Billy Boy Mark II]

Sorry if I missed this, but I was reading Kill Zone today and reached the novella Arms of the Destroyer. In it there is reference to the Draconis Combine having a vigilant class corvette and the Lyran Commonwealth having a Commonwealth class cruiser as late as 2940.

It's always been my understanding that the LCS Invincible was the last major Lyran warship and that just prior to it's loss in 2843 it destroyed the last four Combine warships. The last Mako corvette was also destroyed in 2841.

Now I can follow that the LCS Invincible is not listed as the last warship, just the last major warship - but I would assume that a Commonwealth class cruiser would constitute a major warship. While the Combine has no warships after 2843 according to the lore I know.

Yet almost 100 years later this story has both a major cruiser operating for the Lyran Commonwealth and the Combine has a corvette under an undistinguished officer. This seems to conflict with my understanding of the lack of warships by this point.

Can someone clarify if this has been formally retconned and I just missed it?

[Adrian Gideon]

There is no retcon. The short story Arms of the Destroyer has a number of issues and as of this writing we haven’t published any corrections for it.

It may be simplest to mentally adjust the dates to 100 years earlier when you read it.

[Billy Boy Mark II]

There is no retcon. The short story Arms of the Destroyer has a number of issues and as of this writing we haven’t published any corrections for it.

It may be simplest to mentally adjust the dates to 100 years earlier when you read it.

Thank you for clarifying that for me. I did genuinely wonder if perhaps there was just a typo with the dates.

The other thing I thought of after this was that the Soyal class ship is referred to as the FSS Kali - which seemed strange, given that the Federated Suns has never been listed as one of the factions which operated these giant cruisers and FSS Kali seems a strange name for a FedSuns Warship. I'm assuming that's another of the issues you mentioned above.