Note - Charybdis is basically a kilometre long Particle Beam Cannon with a ship built around it. The sphere holds the powerplant (a lot of power is required) and most of the machinery

Viewed from the front you can see the nose of the Particle Cannon in the centre with the three heavy railguns in the corners of the triangle. There are also three batteries of Torpedo Tubes facing ahead

does it need a crew, or is it automated? and does Chrybdis mean anything?

Hi nezzerus,

The crew complement is 1100 (which includes the personnel needed for the two squadrons of Aerospace Fighters carried internally). The bridge is buried deep inside the ship (where it should be).

As for the meaning of the name:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charybdis

The sister ship is called Scylla needless to say :-)

Ummm... That's what why you typically don't send a ship like this out alone. This type of vessel is the meant to the be the center of a battle group with smaller ships to screen her flanks.

Certainly Charybdis cannot deal with Capital Class opponents from the rear but she's not entirely defenceless against missile strikes from that direction.

As well as the 14 Directed Energy Weapon Turrets that can fire sternwards (they are primarily there to ward off enemy fighters and missiles) there are also considerable numbers of automated anti-missile mass driver weapons for point blank work (which would be too small to see properly at this scale).

Actually turning on the main drive would be a pretty effective point-blank defence in itself when you think about it.

Stealth is relative. It's really reduced Radar Cross Section not total invisibility and if you're putting out enough wattage through your active scanning its only a matter of time before you see the incoming weaponry (at which time the weapons officer makes a horrified "Yipe", or something more obscene, and starts throwing everything he/she can bring to bare along that direction). Charybdis also has visual sensors which considering her size could easily be the scale and resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope

Anything non-nuclear with enough of a warhead to cause Charybdis serious damage is going to be pretty big even if conventional explosives have improved a lot in 500 years... her hull isn't exactly thin.