Originally posted by High Max
There are only 2 Golgathas?
The concept was "not all of your eggs in one basket". The Golgotha class was designed to counter the Sathanas...but not typically as a single ship but in a small group. If a Sathanas fleet were to invade a star system for instance, a group of 3 Golgotha class ships would sit just outside of the Sathanas' range, and blast them as they came through (basically one by one).
The Meson cannon, although powerful, will not fell a Sathanas in a single typical burst. The weapon can be stretched to incredible destructive limits (upto the levels of the Shivan weapons) but at incredible cost to the vessel firing it. In terms of the fiction of the story, a Golgotha class firing a prolonged Meson beam is just as likely to blow itself up as it is to blow up its target.
Unlike some campaigns that have come and gone...there are no super ships in BWO. The Golgotha class is as "realistic" as possible.