The Guardian-class cruiser is a medium-sized hybrid ship design that’s a cross between a scaled down Venture-class and a carrier with Feron- and Isan-inspired design. It gets its “Dolphin” nickname from a bottlenose dolphin-like silhouette, including a long, narrow protruding section of its flight deck that resembles a bottlenose’s distinctive snout. While it has enough heavy and light cannons to hold its own in ship-to-ship combat, it’s most important for carrying a group of SMB-X (pronounced “sim-BEX”) heavy gunboats designed specifically for the Dolphin. The SMB-X is a modular gunboat consisting of a crew/engine section and a weapon/utility pod, and, during combat, an SMB-X can fly down the upper or lower section of the “nose” to rapidly swap a spent weapon/utility pod for a reloaded one or even a different type to change combat roles on the fly. The Dolphin entered service shortly before the turning point in the War, as Malleon shipwrights attempted to incorporate some of the advantages of the other factions’ ships onto a Malleon-style design. While the Dolphin wasn’t the reason the War shifted in the Malleon-Isan Allies’ favor, Malleon propaganda dubbed it “the ship that turned the tide,” and it became a point of pride among patriotic Malleon. Even during the Armistice, Malleon continued to wear dolphin symbols on their clothes and as tattoos to show their loyalty and solidarity.

The Dolphin is a twin-hulled design, 730 yards in length, with an ovoid upper and lower hull resembling a dolphin’s body in silhouette, including upper and lower “nose” sections where the two hulls meet to form the Dolphin’s flight deck. The Dolphin’s bubble between the two hulls is armored all the way around, except in between the two nose sections. Dolphins launch their SMB-X using a rail system that first takes the crew/engine section from internal hangars onto the flight deck, then, using the Dolphin’s “nose” as a runway, first mounts the desired weapon/utility pod onto the SMB-X then catapults the fused gunboat out of the ship. For broadsides, the Dolphin has four decks of heavy turrets and two decks of light turrets, arranged less densely than on other Malleon capital ships to allow for more point-defense cannons. Each hull has two large exhaust ports, stacked vertically so that the four of them together suggest a dolphin’s tailfin. As with the larger Eminence and Venture classes, the Dolphin is too large for the negative shimmer effect to give it much camouflage.

The Dolphin, designed at a time in the War when traditional Malleon naval strategy was failing, is the Malleon’s most versatile capital ship. In large battles, Dolphins act as reserves for the formations of Venture-class battleships and the Bulldogs and Porcupines they use as close support. On defense, Dolphins reinforce the parts of the formations under heaviest attack, with broadsides to engage enemy capital ships and its SMB-X groups configured as interceptors to dogfight small fighters, keeping pressure off the battleships so that they aren’t forced to break formation. On offense, Dolphins go in for the kill after the battleships’ suichodori forces enemy ships into vulnerable positions, using both its broadsides and its SMB-X groups configured as bombers.

But the Dolphin’s main contribution was as a multi-role vessel on patrols and in smaller engagements. As the Feron forced the Malleon to retreat and destroyed many of the Venture-class ships that traditional Malleon naval strategy relied on, Dolphins began to enter service and slow the Feron advance with unconventional and guerilla tactics. Between the Dolphin’s speed, firepower, and adaptable SMB-X groups, the Dolphin excelled at disrupting Feron supply lines. Dolphins were so effective at disrupting lightly escorted Feron shipping that the Feron were forced to pull key ships away from the front lines to serve as escorts for its most important supply convoys, taking some pressure off Malleon defenders. Then when the War turned in the Malleon’s favor, Dolphins reversed their role: Escorting vulnerable Malleon supply vessels and patrolling for Feron ambushers.