You can't hide on a plot of wealth forever, because eventually your enemies will get up and personal.

It's over half a century after clone genesis, they have expanded to reach the nearest neighboring systems within several light years by fusion rocket. They have also expanded their mediums for warfare.

Capital destruction yet to have reason for, acquisition of the colonies are the goal. To kill on the grounds of non-conformity to any concept they choose, turf war climbing to the interstellar scale.

To give a rundown simply put. Any spacecraft can essentially become a warship at this period of development. No supermaterials, no shielding. All it takes is one projectile and speed, and you can blast away an entire hemisphere in one fell swoop. If you want the planet to colonize, you can just place a backed threat to immobilize their stellar forces, and then begin a ground assault. Up to this point everything was easy, but now comes the atmosphere.

You have a massive interstellar spacecraft with a tightly packed stockpile of dormant soldiers in the hundreds of thousands, all that you need to do now is bring them to the surface. That is where the dropship comes in.

Essentially a box with a bunch of fusion bell rockets fused to its sides, the dropship Mk I served as a key conveyer of clone infantry for the majority of pre-thordonian society.

So often was warfare practiced by those who lack ethical appeal, that these dropships became a symbol of atrocity and pain. Even going so far that soldiers would be equipped with some of the most rudimentary weapons to save resources. They would come down from the skies, rush out of the troop holds and begin slaughtering colonists by the millions with cast iron blades and spears. Technology thinned as much as it stretched greatly and it remained largely in the heavens.

Fortunately, it would not last like this forever. As interstellar travel diversified and developed; became more mainstream, colonies grew from just being last resort havens of clone life to extensions of society. Trade, and dedication would bring about a flourish of sublight travel and occupation that would expand its free access from the lucky few to the independent many. And the dropship's reputation will change to reflect the respectable and virtuous sub-modern unified military.