- Edited
Anno Domini 2159: Humans discovered how to create FTL drive. NASA, European Space Agency, Chinese, Russians, Indians and number of private corporations started their intergalactic exploration into nearby galaxies. The FTL drive isn't very powerful yet.
Anno Domini 2211: With tremendous wealth gained from mining asteroids and planets with raining diamonds, private corporations got greedy and began fighting each other in the name of intergalactic credits, plundering every planet and asteroid in sight.
Anno Domini 2212: Big international summit in New Delhi ended up with a fiasco. Not a single government wants to act against corporations. Tax dollars are more precious after all. Alien rights movements protest.
Anno Domini 2215: New, progressive, and quite young Pope got elected. Domenico Stelarini is just 80 years old (humans now live up to 130 or so). Suddenly he realized that the Bank of Vatican has HUGE amount of money. He said "ok then", gathered few of his most favourite disciple cardinals and founded the Vatican Space Program to protect the Space from anarchocapitalistic corporations. To become the Hand of Justice in Space.
Anno Domini 2228: After the series of unmanned flights, Vatican succesfully send their first manned vessel into the orbit (and beyond!) It was named NSS Servus. (Vatican uses the prefix Navis Spiritus Sancti for their vessels). Servus didn't have any guns or shields. Just a heat shield for atmosphere reentry and a bottle of Holy Water. It was launched by classic 3-stage rocket. The mission with 2 members of the Swiss Guard on board ended more than great and Vatican decided to continue.
Anno Domini 2232: Vatican managed to build their first weaponized vessel. Its name was NSS Apostolo (with 12 crewmembers on board haha). Vatican didn't have much experience with modern warfare so they used the style similar to the medieval reconquista frigates with cannons on a side. Budget was only for one side tho And there wasn't enough money for FTL drive . (the price is under 80K so you can start playing with Apostolo right away from the beginning). They made 12 of them and used tem for guarding earth atmosphere against space pirates. Vatican managed to get some money from it too.
Anno Domini 2241: Vatican got enough money fighting pirates near Earth so they could afford a REAL space battleship. It was named NSS Cruciata (Crusade) and was fully loaded battle work horse. It was coloured in honorary colours of Swiss Guards and also most of the crew were Swiss Guards (the rest of them were mercenaries. Christians tho! As far as I know.) It used Ion Cannon and cannons and FTL and other things and it was really good for a few years. Vatican made 23 of them so far, only 4 got destroyed and continues to make them even today!
Anno Domini 2247: The pope Stelarini is getting old. He admires his soldiers and their space adventures and wants to see space with his own eyes. He got blind se he got bionic eye transplants. . So he hires Lamborghini CEO to design a spaceship for him. The Papal Spaceship.To get resources, Pope ordered to create mining ship NSS Aurum. It used crossing Ion Cannons to crush asteroids and then used special vacuum-vacuum to vacuum the ores. It was succesful. They made quite a few of them. They had rockets for the tougher asteroids out there.
Anno Domini 2256: Pope has to rest a bit. He names his camerlengo Antonio Bellumi the Space Warchief. Bellumi is a cool young guy. Bellumi used one of the scrapped prototypes and made his own spaceship. He called it NSS Malleus Maleficarum. (It really looks like hammer). The prototype was supposed to be long range-shielded-rocket-launching-ship. Malleus is basically the same, just a little improved. And red.
Anno Domini 2257: The Pope can't walk anymore so he got an exoskeleton for both legs (to walk) and arms (to pray). His ship is being built slowly.
Anno Domini 2259: Bellumi ordered to improve the NSS Cruciata. He named the new, improved, bigger and more luxurious model NSS Helvetorium Cohortis. It's not used for everyday warfare like Cruciata-class ships are, but it's meant to act like Guarding ship to NSS Malleus Maleficarum. So when you see the big hammer-like spaceship with 2 Helvetorii on side, you bet it is the Vatican Warchief Bellumi. Meanwhile, the pope got prosthetic lungs because he could't breathe.
Anno Domini 2267: The Papal Spaceship is complete! Its name is NSS Pontifex and it's the biggest and most awesome ship in the fleet. It has everything. Rockets, lasers, ion cannons, golf course, swimming pool, chapel, relic room and so on. It was paid by credits gained from confiscating pirate goods, mining asteroids, and emitting indulgences. Stelarini became the first Pope to ever be in Space.
The pope doesn't even need spacesuit by now. He is basically a robot. His ship is always accompanied by three Helvetorii and a couple Cruciatas. He is shooting pirates, corporation ships and minig asteroids.
He basically became what he despised the most.
The end.
So grab the NSS Apostolo and relive the story for yourself!
EDIT: Oh and they also built a space station SSS Eden but it sucks so Vatican doesn't talk about it anymore. It has a park in the French style in the middle. Marble floors and corinthian pillars. Docking ports to resupply Cruciatas too. Kinda cool. Pope likes to walk around and look at stars and shit. Bellumi plays soccer on it.