Named after Rear Admiral Adelaide Lola, the first Lola-class vessel entered service in 2345, shortly after her death. From that day to this, there have always been Lola-class WarShips in service to the Terran Hegemony, the Star League, and the Clans. They were designed to be inexpensive vessels with enough firepower to perform escort duty in the Periphery and dependable enough for picket duty in the Terran Hegemony. The first Lola III entered service with the Hegemony Navy in 2662 and quickly become one of the main destroyers used by the Star League.
         The fall of that nation, the Exodus of the Star League Defense Force, and the Succession Wars that followed brought an end to the design in the Inner Sphere, and the Clans that grew out of the exiled Star League had little use for many of the WarShips that survived the civil wars. They placed many WarShips, including the Lola III-class Darius, into Brian caches where they would still be sleeping today had the Clans not invaded.
         They activated the Darius, and her sister-ship the Nelson, to escort the Wolf's Dragoons to the Inner Sphere, thinking that an old Star League ship like her would blend into the fleets of the Inner Sphere. They did not know of course that no WarShips at all survived in that region of space, and so the Dragoons mothballed her again, leaving her to sleep until after the Clan Invasion.
         Throughout the 3060s she served the Dragoons well, and in the opening rounds of the Word of Blake Jihad she helped liberate Northwind from the Word. Then she returned to Outreach to avenge the death of the Nelson, Athena, and all the other dead Dragoons. After that, she became one of the primary WarShips involved in the long campaign against the Word. She sustained heavy damage at New Home, and the Dragoons returned her to Outreach to make repairs and to install an array of secondary weapons to deal with the deadly Word fighters.
         After that, she became one of four WarShips to lead the invasion of Caph, final Word line of defense and home to three full divisions of troops that had to be eliminated before the Star League could hope to hit Terra. She also fought throughout the five year campaign to liberate Terre. She has rarely left Outreach since returning home after that war, her primary mission being to defend that world from any repeat of the orbital assaults the Word used so often during the Jihad.
         The Darius is a reliable craft, her baffled-deadspace system utilizes a cushion layer within the ship's armor to absorb the impact of weapon hits. Although now protected by more sophisticated armor composites than available when she first launched, this technique still boosts her armor protection at a relatively low cost, at the expense of mass. Her larger-than-normal engines, used to compensate for that mass, result in cramped conditions aboard the vessel, but few Dragoons turn down the honor of serving aboard one of the two surviving Star League vessels in their charge because of mere comfort.
         The Darius' primary armament consists of several massive naval lasers, which have tremendous range but cause little damage to other capital ships. A number of small-caliber autocannons add considerable firepower, but can only engage targets in the Lola's broadside arcs. The Lola also carries a number of missile systems such as the Barracuda and the powerful White Shark. An array of anti-fighter lasers and autocanons allow her to strike back against enemy fighters, though her heat dissipation system was not redesigned during their installation so they must be used with caution. A squadron of aerospace fighters completes the vessel's armaments, although these fighters usually do little more than protect the Lola against enemy fighters. For custom's work, a quartet of shuttles, most often Battle Taxis, can base out of her main launch bay and smugglers have learned to fear the approach of the Darius.