The Solaris was first identified by the Imperial Navy during anti-pirate operations in the Yurol Nebula. The offensive was designed to drive the pirate fleet of Prince Ilmarth of the Soul Reavers out of the nebula and into the waiting guns of a second Imperial fleet. From the start the operation was in trouble. Several Solaris class vessels were involved in running skirmishes with Imperial escort vessels as they swept through the dense asteroid belts of the Arikar system. The Imperial escort squadrons found themselves heavily outgunned in short, intense gun duels fought at very close range. Three Imperial vessels were lost and three heavily damaged before the escort vessels were ordered out of the Arikar belt to the relative safety of the main fleet. The huge asteroid fields provide the pirates with too many hiding places and too great an advantage in mobility. The Imperial Admiral was unwilling to risk the larger vessels needed to match the Solaris’ firepower in such treacherous conditions. Changing plan, a blockade was constructed against the Arikar system, but the speed of the pirate vessels allowed them to slip through the cordon with ease, out-running Imperial patrol vessels. After an unproductive year the operation was deemed a failure and eventually called off. To this day Ilmarth of the Soul Reavers is still at large in the Yurol Nebula. 
Later analysis of the failed operation identified a squadron of three Solaris, led by the Void Serpent, supported by six smaller vessels holding the Arikar system. The Solaris has much in common with its sister ship, the Aurora, and is often mis-identified as such by inexperienced captains. Faster than the larger cruisers, they are used in combination with Eldar escorts to launch highspeed raids, or to add weight and firepower to the first wave of a larger Eldar attack.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
