February 14th, 003 SDE
Countryman read over the reports. The battle at Mune had been a victory, but not a cheap one. Sure all three ships had survived and they had lost no one in the fighting. On paper it looked to be a massive victory, but there were the hidden costs. They had been forced to leave the system before they could finish processing all the new fuel they were gathering. The last few years had eaten a fair amount of their fuel reserves and more battles like that would only further drain their reserves.
Of more immediate impact was the battle damage the Coto and Umikaze had sustained. Richards had already begun the repairs, but it would take a few weeks to complete. A loss of time, but also spare material. Something that was even more costly since they had entered an area that was more minerally depleted than other regions they had traveled through. With fewer sources of easy minerals with which to resupply the fleet, battle damage was something he would have to keep a closer eye on. Sighing he stood up, put the reports away and made his way out of the office. He had a few people he was going to have to talk to.
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The older lady walked into the lab, she was one of the higher ranking admirals working for clan Minara. With the recent events she had come here to consult the scientists on a few things. She had sent them what they needed yesterday and they called her in, saying they had something today. The admiral was more than happy to have such swift subordinates.
A younger girl looked up from her desk and smiled, “Admiral! Good afternoon!”
“So what did you find?”
“About the alien warships? We studied the recent battle at Mune 337 and reviewed previous battles and noted a few things. Now first about those new lightning cannons of theirs, we have a couple of ideas on why they didn’t use them before and a basic idea of what the weapon is doing.”
“Hmm? An idea on why?”
“Well as near as we can tell, the cannon fires a short duration but high intensity charged ionic plasma stream and when I say charged I mean highly charged. That beam lasts just over a second and delivers more energy than a hundred plasma torpedoes.”
Her eyes widened, “A hundred!? You’re joking right?”
The value wasn’t insane on first look. There were ship systems that could draw that level of energy, namely shields and more notably the warp drive. Some high warp designs drew that much power per second to operate at maximum output and ships could output many times that due to the myriad of demands on their power plants. Regardless they were talking about an energy weapon here, not a torpedo. Not to mention plasma torps actually drew less energy than they outputted. Largely due to the system they used. Many ships carried physical plasma rounds, with a prepackaged igniter charge. This allowed torpedoes to be fired with less draw on the reactors, but did come with a few disadvantages.
"I'm not."
She frowned, "but this is a beam weapon we are talking about, not a torpedo."
"Yes, and I think that is why they didn't use it before. As far as we can tell it's a very energy-intensive weapon. I have done some math based on what we can see, which gives me a rough idea on how much energy they are using. Our alien friends must have some fairly impressive fuel cells as that weapon will chew through fuel quite quickly.”
“I can imagine, we used to have a real issue with plasma torpedoes eating through fuel, they were potent, but a ship would run out of fuel real quick using them. Modern igniter charges did wonders for fixing that issue.”
“Yes well, with this beam weapon, I don’t see a way for them to do something like that.”
“Hmm, meaning that the more we force them to use it, the more fuel they burn. Hmm, I guess if we kept fleets near any major fuel source and an eye on the local ports we could keep them from refueling.”
“A battle of attrition might in fact be your best bet sir, but the casualties will not be small.”
“Oh? You have something else to add?”
“The Refuge flag is effectively invulnerable, we won’t be able to bring it down with traditional weapons. Those new concussion cannons being developed for the Yinta II might be able to penetrate that armor, and maybe some of our more recent torpedo designs. Anything else won’t get through the plating as its got Erudite in it.”
“Erudite!? You sure?”
“The scans are clear, the composition of the plating is primarily titanium-based and includes a mineral I don’t know, but I can confirm Erudite in the composition. The other two ships have nearly identical metallurgy but they don’t scan positive for Erudite.”
The Admiral was familiar with Erudite. The military didn’t use it, but some of their enemies did. It had very desirable properties for armor, but it was hard to come by, impossible to synthesize and consequently very expensive. Still it was far cheaper and easier to work than Neutronium. Erudite was often and quite erroneously called the poor man’s Neutronium. The two materials were quite different, but they both shared a few key properties. “I’m impressed that they were able to build a ship that big with an armored shell of Erudite.”
“Well the armor is one thing but we have also learned something about their dispersion plating. The plating itself does not seem to actually be responsible for the observed dispersal effect.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
She tapped a few keys on her console and pulled up battle footage, only it was moving quite slowly. Several plasma rounds could be seen moving at a snail's pace toward an alien hull. As they drew closer, the rounds started to expand, soon ballooning to a large size before splashing against the hull and spreading out further as a roiling wave of fire. Before fizzing out and revealing a pristine unblemished hull. As if fiery death hadn’t just struck the plating. “Okay... that is a little wierd.”
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“Near as we can tell the ship is surrounded by some sort of dispersal field. Any energy bolt that hits the fields begins to disperse. By studying the footage we have noted weaker plasma rounds will disperse sooner and faster, while heavier rounds will resist the effect longer. “
“Some kind of weird energy shield then?”
“I’m not sure I could call it that. Traditional shields are there to protect the ship either by trying to redirect incoming fire like a deflector would, or absorbing it the way a traditional energy barrier would. While this field acts to disperse incoming energy, but unlike a shield its not that useful. All it does is force incoming energy rounds to hit a wider area than they normally would. Resulting in reduced penetration, and increased surface damage. Well I guess it has some applications if you plan to invest in armor, a good ablative plating or something like our friends have would be about right for that.”
The admiral nodded, that explanation left a lot out but it did cover the most basic of the basics. Still she had to wonder if the alien shield couldn’t be improved into something actually capable of protecting the ship. Maybe even combined with a more traditional energy shield? Still it was just a line of thought and she had more important matters to pursue, “Any idea on how to compensate for this alien defense field?”
“Well obviously torpedoes would be effective, any physical projectile can pass through without disruption. I think a further look at antimatter warheads might merit some investigation, but with some research into better containment fields, we can likely do just as well with plasma torpedoes. I would also suggest an in depth study of the alien weapons, they are likely to be more effective against their own defenses than our weaponry.”
“Hmm? You think so?”
“It would only be natural, we developed weapons specifically to counter our own defensive technology. Pulse cannons being the latest such weapon, especially with their variable settings they can be tuned to be more effective against different targets. A skilled gunner can tune them on the fly for optimal effect against any target. We just need to figure out a way to optimize them against the alien armor.”
“In that case forward this data to the other weapon labs, in the meantime I’ll keep you updated with any new information.”
With that, she left while making plans for attrition warfare. That wasn't going to be fun, but what else could they do at this point? If they waited this growing menace might slip the net, but waiting might mean fewer losses. On the flipside, if they left this new menace alone, it might grow into something truly threatening and they would have lost their chance to nip it in the bud while it was still small. The current piracy issue was something caused by failure to act. Besides she now had an idea on how to bring them down. She just needed to place her ships, and keep them from mineral-rich sites and fuel sources while working to wear them down. Those cannons of theirs were terrifying with how they could bring down shields, but if they truly were that energy-intensive they were also the key to bringing the enemy down. Little did she realize what this decision would mean for the future of the confederation.
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Countryman stepped out of the lift and made his way down the hall. While he needed to have a conversation with Richards, he wanted to check in on Rose first. As he drew near the classroom he found Ruri leaving the room. He smiled, “Ruri, I presume you checked in with Rose?”
She nodded, “I did, its impressive how quickly she is learning and adapting. I ran a few tests and comparisons on her thought patterns. They are remarkably similar to yours, but I am already seeing some divergence.”
“Well they are based on my own, she was trained off my own code. However, since my cybernetic coding is by its very nature both organic and adaptive we should see divergence as she learns.”
“I do wonder how much of you will remain in a year, ten years, a hundred.”
Countryman shrugged, “No idea. Its never been done before, I can make a few guesses.”
“So can I. My theory is that some of you would always be there. To some degree humans are shaped by their parents and her coding is technically human as well.”
Countryman gestured down the hall and shook his head, “Not entirely. Williams isn’t entirely wrong to call me a machine. I’m as much a walking computer as I am a man. I literally think in code, which also means I understand computers in a way others never will.”
Ruri shifted, “That reminds me, I never did ask, but what was it like when you interfaced with the Enterprise computers?”
He blinked, that was awhile ago. Considering he hadn’t done that since Cantra. He looked up as he considered the question, “Honestly, its hard to describe, but in short for all intents and purposes I was the ship and the ship was me. It was like the ship was an extension of my being. It was why I was able to do what I did.”
“Fascinating, given you could do that. Would the ship even need a crew, or can just a few cyborgs pilot it?”
“Good luck with that, controling the entire ship is quite taxing, especially in battle. There was a reason I didn’t just do everything. Not to mention it would require someone who was fully adapted to a brain implant like mine and the Enterprise isn’t something I would recommend. There is a reason most cybernetic interfaces are found on fighters and shuttles. The largest ship your average cyborg could hope to control properly is a corvette.”
Ruri paused and looked at him, a cute expression on her face. “I knew you weren’t average, but I guess you were actually extraordinary.”
“Well I put a special system on the Enterprise, but even with it assistance is required. There are a lot of systems involved, to the point you really need quite a few minds working together to properly control the ship.”
“Noted,” replied Ruri.
“Why the question?”
“I was considering if an AGI could control the ship.”
He shrugged, “Something to test, but I would rather not do that now.”
“Wasn’t planning it, Rose is a first gen. We are years away from that.”
“Well we also need to consider how Rose was trained. Along with the impacts that would have on future AGI’s based on the same code base. They will be more human than conventional computers, which makes them prone to some of our own fallacies.”
Ruri nodded as they boarded the lift, “I can see the logic there.”
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They spent the lift ride discussing the finer points of AGI development and soon arrived on the main engineering level. The two of them navigated the halls and soon found Richards in her office. Countryman stepped inside and Ruri followed. “I wanted to discuss the repair plans for the Coto and Umikaze.”
Richards smiled. “I was actually getting ready to discuss that as well.”
Countryman took a seat, and Ruri interjected, “I have a few ideas that might speed up the repair time...”