The Batman Legacy Batcraft

This is the culmination of an idea for the continuation of the Batman series. Basically, the story takes place over 700 years in the future, when the world is governed by an extreme totalitarian military. The goverment has become selfish and paranoid of superheroes. So, long before the actual start of the story, there is a massive extinction of most of the worlds huperhumans, or the Abnormals, as the military calls them. So, in this world of military rulership gone crazy, comes the Order of the Dark Knights. The Order is the legacy of the Bat Men, a secret society of costumed law enforcers, much in the vein of the original Batman. This secret society has taken upon it self the responsibility of shielding the government from the actions of it's people. A batman is assigned to a city, and it is his or her job to keep the rule of law, without the government finding out. Not because of a Batman's worry of being found out, but because of the governments zero-tolerance for any type of crime. Any and all criminals face an immediate death penalty, so a Batman is put in place to prevent a crime from occurring.

The way that the Order of the Dark Knights works is much akin to how professional football works. The Order uses scouts sent all over the world to find potential candidates for Knighthoods. Once those people are found, they are dicreetly given the choice of joining the Dark Knights. If they choose to join, they are secreted away to a spaceborne training academy, where hundreds of other potentials are trained in the ways of the Order. If a candidate passes the rigorous tests, they are given the rank of Ward, and assigned to partner with a seasoned, professional Knight for a few years of real-world combat training. If they survive a course of 3 years of Ward training, they are usually given the rank of Knight and thier own Batcraft. If they fail, they are stripped of thier ranks, but not dissasociated with the Knights. In many instances they are still employed by the Knights, still recieving a fair stipend of income through hidden bank accounts as they perform specific duties best suited to civillians.

If a Ward is elevated to Knight, they are given a Batcraft. A Batcraft is the most all-purpose vehicle ever built. There is literally no place that this vehicle can't go. It is a hovercraft built to operate in gravity wells up to 12g, and operate in atmospheres from 0-700. Given it's shape, the Batcraft is mistaken for being smaller than it actually is. The standard Batcraft is nearly 35 feet in length and exactly 13 feet wide. When fully equipped, it weighs in at 25.8 tons. The rear compartment actually houses a small apartment with sleeping and cooking facilities for long hyperdrive trips between Mercury and Neptune. While in space, the Batcraft's only means of propulsion is the ribbed fin in the back compartment, which is really a replaceable super-light drive engine. There is not point on the Batcraft where the armor is less than 6 inches thick, and as such is a mostly defensive vehicle. The engine of the Batcraft is a Sysiphus N75, a system that can constantly support an object 75 times it's own weight for up to 7 years. After seven years, a Batcraft has to be overhauled, which is a very dangerous time for a Knight.