SSV Waterloo

The SSV Waterloo was an Alliance frigate that served in the Alliance for sixteen years before being retired due to the controversy surrounding her use as a training device for EVA marines. She was constructed on Mars in 2156 CE but was not put in service until 2169 CE. She was part of a "wolf pack" group of frigates working in the Artemis fleet, mainly serving as pirates sent deep into batarian space to sabotage their fleet and economy. It also served as a dropship for the Shadow Operators. The Waterloo was involved in the raid on Quarial, a turian science world, where she extracted Shadow Operator Jackson Brumas and his team.

The Waterloo relied heavily upon her prototype stealth system, which involved masking heat signatures. The system failed, however, at the Battle of Cerolee in 2178 CE, where the four-frigate "wolf pack" attempted to ambush a batarian dreadnought in the Cerolee asteroid belt. The stealth system malfunctioned, releasing all of the ship's heat signatures prematurely. The dreadnought opened fire and severely damaged the Waterloo. She was left inoperable and had to be saved by the other frigates, who managed to destroy the dreadnought by detonating an asteroid that had been rigged with a 25 kiloton warhead.

Following the battle at Cerolee, the Waterloo was no longer able to fight in combat, but she was not retired, as Adm. Jim Zerola saw her potential as a training ship. She was transferred to the Alliance training camp on Sedulra, where she was armed and put in orbit and used as a ship to train EVA marines. The exercise was simple - have Kodiak dropships deploy EVA marine trainees and have the trainees move through space to the Waterloo, then board and secure the ship, but to make the excercise more realistic, the Waterloo had real turrets equipped on it. The cannons literally murdered fourteen trainees in one exercise, though one of the survivors, Pvt. Dane Marshal, was promoted to Sergeant. However the deaths caused so much controversy that the frigate was retired, and the incident led to a permanent ban on using live weapons against trainees in the Alliance Military. However the stealth system lived on, with a more advanced version being implemented into the SSV Normandy. The Waterloo's prototype was never credited or acknowledged as the basis.