The HMS Venture is the oldest operating extrasolar starship in the Royal Equestrian Fleet. It was created originally under the name “HMRS VENTURE” and was the first ship to successfully travel outside the Equestrian system to research a nearby solar system. The ship had operated for many years after, continuing it’s role as an exploration ship but when the war broke out the few ships Equestria had were ordered back to defend Canterlot from the Changeling forces that had amassed. The ship was left in a dire state but what was salvageable was kept in storage. The ship was eventually repaired and re-classified to resume it’s service but this time as a reconnaissance and special operations ship and was refitted heavily, with the name being one of the few things not replaced or modified.
 
The ship operated practically non-stop until it was forced to sit idle for months just before it’s next upcoming mission as the captain felt she needed to step down because she did not feel ready for the responsibility of the mission which stood before them. It would be one of the most dangerous ever undertaken by a starship captain, requiring the ship to fly deep into Changeling space. One Lieutenant Thrasos reluctantly took command of the ship and would pilot it for many years into the future.
 
The Leyliner drive system (Original idea from BrutalityInc) works by first absorbing tiny particles of magic irradiated from a nearby stars, this seems to occur due to stable dimensional rifts in the center of stars that tiny pockets of “magic” (particles that are surrounded by a pocket of there own dimension’s forces) flow from. These tiny particles are attracted to one another and create large invisible links between stars. The absorbed particles are transported into the L-Drive core which compresses the small pockets of the arcane dimension into a small rift (this is very unstable and any errors within the drive core can be catastrophic). This unstable rift is pulled towards a star’s internal rift far quicker than the smaller particles and allows the ship to be dragged along with the current of the Leylines at speeds far exceeding that of light.