The First Fleet's starships were not actually as advanced as the Demon Starship.
Although these assault starships had been designed from the Fel Hammer's blueprints, with the ethereals' generous assistance, the Void Aerospace Administration's engineers had selected the one engine whose design best fit Azeroth's engineering principles from the thirteen starship engines Dick had brought back. It was also the least technologically sophisticated.
These starships, hastily built in Ulduar's Spark of Imagination, could not even travel faster than light or perform void jumps, so they could only use the Sargerite Keystone to open a portal to Xakan Planet.
But there was no helping that. A civilization's development was far from something that could be solved simply by obtaining a few blueprints from a more advanced civilization. There was no room for clever shortcuts when climbing the technology tree. In fact, even Mimiron, the smartest fellow in Azeroth, who had personally built these engines, could not understand how they worked.
He could only build them according to the blueprints and ensure that they ran properly.
So, impressive as they looked, strictly speaking, none of the First Fleet's starships apart from its flagship, Tempest Keep, actually exceeded Azeroth's level of civilization.
But it was also thanks to the abundance of blueprints, along with the knowledge purchased from the Consortium at a painfully steep cost in resources, that Dick believed Azeroth's master engineers could unravel these engines' secrets within ten years, then advance toward more sophisticated designs.
And in terms of firepower and durability alone, these nine assault starships far surpassed Fel Hammer-class demon starships. That counted among their few advantages. In fact, even Dick's close friend, Prince Haramad of the Consortium, occasionally marveled at it.
Perhaps because it had never enjoyed a prolonged peace, Azeroth's system of power had already far exceeded