Despite the best efforts at acquiring new hulls during their first decades among the stars, the makeshift Gaim fleet still suffered from glaring shortcomings, the most notable being a lack of a design that could go to toe-to-toe with the ships of the line of its neighbors. Despite their best efforts, the Queens found that no power, great or small, would sell them a heavy cruiser hull.
The Queens search coincided with the stunning end of the Earth-Minbari war. Recognizing Earths difficult task of rebuilding their colonies in the wake of the Minbari occupation, the Queens made a bold diplomatic overture to the shattered power. The Queens offered to supply large scale medical and food aid to Earths outlying colonies in exchange for any hulls they could spare. Although the Earth Alliance was typically very protective of its technology the Gaims willingness to step in with aid while other nations still feared the Minbari convinced them to reconsider. As it happened, Earthforce was preparing to scrap a handful of ancient Orestes System Monitors. The ships had been pulled out of mothballs to join the Line and in the battle had all been gutted by Minbari lasers. The EA offered the Monitors to the Gaim, unsure if the insects would be interested in such outdated and battle-damaged technology. The Queens were overjoyed at the offer, and soon finalized the transfer, bringing home the Orestes hulls in tow with heavy EA and Gaim escorts.
These ships were to be the top of the line battle cruisers for the Gaim, and as such they were outfitted with as heavy an armament as the Queens could give them. The human railguns were salvageable, as were the rear-mounted medium lasers, but sadly the heavy lasers mounted to the front, as well as the pulse cannons and standard particle beams were damaged beyond repair on each the vessels. In the empty slots, the Queens fitted Gaim designed weaponry, including the particle concentrator as the ships primary armament. The final result was well armed enough to be dubbed the "Subasa-class Dreadnought."
