The Mammoth is a heavily-cuztomized Mercurian-made starship belonging to the Platinum Lion Salvage & Discovery Co., a newly-formed treasure-hunting outfit which recently moved into a hangar in the South Dockyards of Titan Garden. Originally built as a long-term aquatic research vessel, the Mammoth sports a roomy bridge with a separate gunnery deck connected just below it, a common arrangement among Mercurian craft. It is a large ship with spacious rooms designed to provide extravagant creature comforts to staff and crew stationed in remote locations for extended periods of time. Its many crew quarters were originally designed for pairs of four-high bunk beds, but have been refitted to provide ample space for one crewmember each- these crew quarters are set on a number of decks below a primary research coordination room, which itself has been converted into a spacious and fully-furnished crew lounge. The large bay windows along the ship's broadsides provide both the crew quarters and the lounge an unobstructed view of the beauty of their surroundings; an electro-reactive interior film allows individual sections of this window to be tinted to a crewmember's preference, for when they don't presently want to enjoy the sights and get some well-earned sleep. The Mammoth sports a full and well-stocked galley and a separate mess hall, so crew don't need to take their meals into the lounge area with them. With generous sleeping quarters, entertainment and dining accommodations, as far as starships go, being stationed on the Mammoth can feel like living in a five-star hotel. Not bad for a salvage company.
The most striking features of the Mammoth are its large cylindrical cargo hold and its long, extending observation pod. The Mammoth is a sizeable craft, but even considering its scale it boasts a staggering capacity for cargo, outstripping even that of the Ermine. Inside the cylindrical cargo hold a network of gravmesh panels create a simulation of centrifugal force without requiring rotational energy- in essence, the entire interior of the Mammoth's cargo drum is walkable surface, meaning no interior surface is designated as a wall or ceiling, the entire space is traversible and, crucially, able to hold valuable salvage. In the lower half of the cargo cylinder four panels serve as cargo bay doors; one, two or all four can be opened to allow Platinum Lion's salvage crew to move and store large volumes of reclaimed goods with ease. This cylindrical space was originally intended to sit below the water line in an aquatic deployment, opening to allow submersible craft to move into and out of the floating research vessel, but in its current configuration its four bay doors can be opened at once to descend on and entirely consume small-scale salvage sites, allowing them to be fully investigated from the safety of the Mammoth's own interior cargo space. During normal operations, however, crew will move from the cargo hold to the salvage site with one bay door open, and all loading and recovery operations can be supervised from The Trunk, an extendable observation pod that grants crew leaders an unobstructed view of the job site. From this pod a supervisor can control the angle of the ship's many floodlights, or direct the four pivoting microthrusters to make small adjustments to the angle of the ship in relation to a shipwreck. When in transit this pod retracts behind the cargo drum, preventing it from knocking into anything on takeoff or landing. Additionally, the Mammoth is fully capable of non-aquatic landing in spite of its drum-shaped undercarriage; two pair of curved, extendable landing legs are visible on the outer edges of the bottom half of the cargo drum, these legs pivot outward from a central hinge and can be extended to provide a stable landing platform that keeps the Mammoth's hull elevated off the ground.
Being modified for use in treasure hunting and shipwreck salvage, the Mammoth now sports a number of custom features designed to compete with other salvage crews in being the first to stake claims to the most lucrative prizes. Mercurian starships are known for their powerful engines, but the Mammoth's stock thrusters have been upgraded with a pair of top-of-the-line Little Bastard KM-78 Knuckledusters on either side of a column of KB-406 "Detention Hall" bank thrusters, giving the Mammoth a tremendous amount of forward thrust, exceeding even that of the Jackrabbit II. A pair of XXL forward forcefield projectors serve to deflect small debris and other hazards from the Mammoth while it is charging forward in transit. When it arrives at a salvage site, the Mammoth employs an array of weapons meant to protect a salvage claim, or push a rival crew off of their own. On its top deck, a sustained twin-photon cannon turret is able to project steady beams or staggered-fire pulse volleys at ships threatening a 178-degree range of space above the Mammoth, controlled from a dome at the aft of the ship. Two banks of four missile tubes each allow the Mammoth to fire a broad range of munitions at targets in its flanks; these can be used to deploy illuminating flares or percussive charges meant to break up dangerous asteroids, but the ship tends to be stocked with more hostile munitions. The Mammoth's main weapons, however, are The Tusks: a quartet of cutting-edge anti-ship multicasters, cannons which fire solid munition inside of a large projected laser beam. Multicasters are a fairly new innovation and until now have only been spotted on a select few Star Navy battlecruisers, their combination of energy and solid munitions able to wear through forcefields quickly and put significant damage onto ship hulls quicker than a Warp Engineer might expect their ship's shields to hold. The Mammoth is currently the only civilian starship registered with a complement of multicasters.
Among the Outer Belt's salvage companies, no one had heard of Platinum Lion before they began moving into their new hangar in Titan Garden. Buck and the Port Construction Crew have been busy tearing down the old hangar and building a larger one in its place, drawing the attention of locals curious what sort of ship with license to dock inside Titan Garden would require such an extensive upgrade to its hangar. The old lot used to belong to Frank Luckey's Wreck Recovery Company, a long-time salvage crew who worked with Titan Control to reclaim and clean up known, recent shipwrecks in the Outer Belt. They weren't treasure hunters the way Red Raven or Timberwolf were, but once Platinum Lion moved into their office, some of the salvage crews began to realize they hadn't heard from Frank Luckey's in a while. Wherever they were, they didn't seem to be on Titan anymore. In their place was parked a massive ship with enormous capacity and some of the newest hardware orbiting Saturn; most dockworkers had only ever seen parts like these in catalogs or on forum posts. The Mammoth has made its presence known in the South Dockyards, and more than a few shiphands have been stricken with a deep and abiding envy for those private quarters and plush accommodations. Among the licensed salvage companies, however, some crews dismissed this new presence as a gaudy flash in the celestial pan. Amy, captain of the Jackrabbit II, has seen a few crews try their hand at shipwreck salvage, taking it for easy fortune and disappearing into the void without a trace. Bryce, captain of the Ermine, has made a note to look out for the Mammoth turning up as a potential salvage site, already counting the credits he could get for that gleaming hardware. Neither captain paid the Mammoth too much thought, as they each had the other to worry about.
The Mammoth, however, sat in its newly-built hangar and waited. It hadn't taken off on any scheduled flights of its own, but no one paid it close enough mind to notice. That is, until both Red Raven and Timberwolf caught the same lead on the wreck of the Dromedary- overheard at the Ox & Carriage, an old United shiphand recalled the site of a cargo hauler that'd been dragged out of the trade winds by an unusually-aggressive shaded whale. She was carrying corporate tribute to the Ganymedean Grand Bloom, a prize of substantial value, but she'd been lost for forty years and no one has ever reclaimed it. He lamented the loss of some item of sentimental value he'd left aboard that ship, but it was a different sentiment that quickened the hearts of the Red Raven and Timberwolf crews. Neither Amy nor Bryce wanted the other to beat them to such a rare claim, their two crews scrambling to finish their drinks, pay their tabs, spin up their ships' engines and muscle ahead of the other on Old Titan's runway. There was treasure to be found! It was business as usual for the two rival salvage companies.
Then, and only then, did the Mammoth also clear for takeoff.