She's not some rock-hopper. She's the flagship of the MCRN's Jupiter Fleet. Battleship. Quarter-million tons of bad news.
— Alex Kamal

The MCRN Donnager was the flagship of the Martian Congressional Republic Navy's Jupiter fleet. The Donnager is the namesake of the Donnager-class.

Destroyed before the Ganymede incident, she played a highly active role in protecting Martian shipping lanes, putting down piracy, and protecting Martian interests in the outer system.


The MCRN Donnager was a large battleship, almost 500 meters long and weighing approximately 250,000 tons. This made her significantly larger than her UNN counterparts, the 270-meter long Leonidas-class battleship or the 376-meter long Truman-class dreadnought. Not only did she dwarf all the competition, her sheer size allowed her to carry a small support fleet within her hull.

Donnager Ortho Views 2

The Donnager seen in its tower block-like configuration.

Like most MCRN ships, she was sleek and angular, covered in thick armor plating. Shaped not unlike a long broadhead arrow tip, with the four engine nacelles fanning out resembling the fletching of an arrow. Each nacelle housed an RT-10 'Kaminari' Epstein Drive. She was designed for long periods at high-g.

Like most ships, she was built in the "office tower" configuration: each deck one floor of the building, ladders or elevators running down the axis. Because of this layout, constant thrust takes the place of gravity. At nearly five hundred meters long, it was the size of a 130-story skyscraper.

Halfway down her frame were two enormous doors which led into her expansive internal hangar. Positioned just in front of the hangar doors were two enormous VX-12 "Foehammer" ultra-heavy railgun turrets, each longer than a Martian frigate. At her nose were 6 large-bore torpedo doors.

She was painted in the MCRN colors of black and orange.

Armament Edit

  • 14 x configurable torpedo tubes, 6 fore and 8 aft; fixed missile silos capable of firing torpedoes with a variety of warheads from conventional to plasma to nuclear.
  • 2 x VX-12 Foehammer turreted ultra-heavy railguns. Although only used in CQC (close-quarters combat) as they were ineffective at long ranges compared to missiles, they were superior in range and accuracy to any other railgun in the system short of the UNN's orbital defense satellites. Turret mounts for two additional railguns, but these go unused for fear of overloading the power core and instigating a critical meltdown.
  • 59 x Nariman Dynamics 40mm point defense cannons (PDCs) positioned all along the ship's hull for defense against incoming missiles and close range enemy vessels.
  • Internal hangar bay for up to eight support ships such as patrol destroyers and frigates. At the time of her destruction, only the damaged Knight shuttle and MCRN Tachi were docked here.


At one time Bobbie Draper's MMC unit was attached to the Donnager.

Operation Silent Wall Edit

Operation Silent Wall was an MCRN operation to help safeguard terraforming materials bound for Mars. The operation was led by Theresa Yao and the Donnager. The operation, the first since the completion of the Martian Fleet Modernization Program, would take 3 years and would be a resounding success.

During this time, two of the Donnager's accompanying Corvette-class fast-attack frigates, the McCabe and the Valenza, were replaced with four of the new Morrigan-class Patrol Destroyers, the MCRN Damascus, Inceni, Avalanche, and Hamali-Stewart. This would allow the battleship to cast a wider net and discourage pirate activity within a larger area, protecting the Martian convoys much more efficiently.

Eros IncidentEdit

After losing contact with Phoebe Station, the Donnager was dispatched to find out what had happened to the facility and its inhabitants. When it arrived, it found everyone dead, their bodies having been incinerated, and that all the computer cores had been destroyed.

Rescue Edit

The Donnager later picked up James Holden, Shed Garvey, Alex Kamal, Naomi Nagata, and Amos Burton from aboard the damaged Knight shuttle. Mistaken in the idea that the MCRN had just butchered the Canterbury and now were coming to finish the job, Holden sent out a broadcast blaming the Martians for the Canterbury's destruction. Captain Yao had the group detained and interrogated. Holden's message had aggravated the already tense relationship between the UN and MCR that was on the verge of boiling over into all-out war. Yao and Lopez, the ship's intelligence officer, tried to convince Holden to recant his claim, but he refused.

Donnager Point-Defence

The Donnager firing PDCs.

Final Battle Edit

Whilst Holden and his crew are in their quarters the Donnager comes under attack from the 6 presumed Belter ships that had been trailing the Knight shuttle.

Lieutenant Kelly along with his marines then released the surviving Canterbury crew and escorted them to the hangar to reach the Tachi. Whilst Marine Gomez provided cover fire.

Although Kelly is wounded however managed to board the Tachi; ordering Alex Kamal a former Martian Congressional Republic Navy pilot to fly the ship out of the Donnager. The Tachi escapes in a high-g burn; however, the wounded Lieutenant Kelly is crushed to death inside of his armor.

Suddenly, an incoming ship was detected heading towards Donnager at full burn. The ship could not be identified, but Captain Yao assumed it was just another OPA belter ship. However, upon arrival, it was revealed to be not one, but six mysterious craft linked together. Breaking apart, they jammed the Donnager's communications and moved in to attack, firing eleven plasma torpedoes. The call to battle was sounded, and the Donnager fired back with twenty torpedoes, destroying one ship. While her PDCs shot down most of the enemy's torpedoes, two missiles got through, one impacting one of the ship's engines nacelles (with little effect) and the other damaging the Donnager's reactor, melting a huge hole in the ship's rear.

The five remaining attackers entered the minimum range for missiles, and Donnager powered up her two Railgun turrets, taking out two attackers. Concentrated fire from the PDCs destroyed one more. Much to the surprise of the command crew, the "bandits" fired back with their own Railguns, pounding the Donnager until she was forced to shut down her damaged drive. Her pummeled defenses now offline and venting atmosphere, the remaining attackers launched boarding pods and unknown combatants swarmed into the ship.

Holden, having realized that the attacking ships are identical to the Canterbury's killer and that these unknowns were trying to set the Martians up, was sent to be evacuated by Lopez and some Martian Marines along with data on the attacking ships. The other Canterbury survivors were also rescued, at which point Lopez received word that Yao had set "condition zero"; Donnager was going to self-destruct.

The Marines and Canterbury crew made their way to the hangar where MCRN Tachi, a Martian missile corvette, was docked, but the hangar was swarming with enemy boarders. The Martian Marines were killed, Lopez was fatally wounded, and Amos Burton was shot in the leg, but Alex Kamal took control of the Tachi and, using the corvette's PDCs, blasted their way free of the ship and escaped.

Destruction Edit

"I didn't think we could lose."
Theresa Yao, moments before the Donnager's destruction
Back on the Donnager, enemy boarders attempted to breach Donnager's CIC, but Yao activated the self-destruct mechanism, vaporizing the Donnager and everyone left on it in a nuclear fireball. MCRN Donnager, the pride of the Martian Navy, was no more.

The Donnager proved the might of Martian vessels in combat. Despite having a relatively inexperienced crew, isolated from fleet support, outnumbered, and assailed by six advanced and well-armed vessels no one had ever faced in battle before, the battleship managed to kill four of the enemy ships in direct combat and denied the enemy the intel they came to retrieve, making the battle a costly loss for the Protogen Corporation.

Since Lt. Lopez died of his wounds aboard the Tachi, his body was the only one of the Donnager's crew that could ever be recovered.

Media Edit

  • Concept Art of Donnager exterior
  • Concept Art of Donnager Hangar Bay
  • The Donnager near Jupiter
  • Fighting stealth ships
  • Railgun fire
  • still frame Donnager tattered and banged up
  • A render of the Donnager.
  • Another render of the Donnager.
  • The Donnager's primary railgun turret.
  • The Donnager's engines burning.
  • The front of the vessel.
  • Detail view of the front of the ship.
  • Detail view of the mid-section of the ship.
  • Detail view of the engine block of the ship.
  • Orthographic view of the ship's front and engines.
  • Detail on the side of the ship.
  • Wireframe view of the model of the ship used in CQB.
  • The hi-poly model used in CQB.
  • The hi-poly model used in CQB.
  • The hi-poly model used in CQB.

Trivia Edit

  • Donnager virtually means "Thunderer". The cognate deity in wider Germanic mythology and paganism was known in Old English as Þunor and in Old High German as Donar (runic þonar , stemming from a Common Germanic *Þunraz (meaning "thunder"), and in old Norse, as Thor. The modern German word for thunder is "Donner".

