Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

Location Unknown, September 4th 001 SDE:

She followed the path to the berth, as instructed by her mentor. He had agreed with her about this incident needing to be handled with discretion. That was part of why they were here. They knew too little about these strange aliens other than their apparent stealth capabilities. As such her mentor had gone and organized a ship and crew for an intel-gathering mission.

He hadn’t told her much about the ship in question but she knew a bit. It was an older vessel that had been refitted not too long ago with some modern equipment. Not every system had been upgraded but the ships main engines had been retrofitted and she had been outfitted with the latest in scanning equipment. Unfortunately, not much had been said about her defense systems or weapons and that left the young officer rather worried.

A worry that only grew when she rounded a corner. That turn had brought the ship in question into view. Its docking berth was rather busy as the dock workers loaded the vessel with supplies. Her gaze however was drawn to the small ship's main guns. Weapons that were quite visible to her. They didn’t even look like the business end of a disruptor cannon. Instead the ship’s topside was crowded by three turrets, each one containing three hollow metal tubes extending out of the armored casing of the turret. Her heart sank a little. Unless she was mistaken the ship they were taking was armed with outdated kinetic weapons rather than energy weapons. She hoped that wasn’t the case.

There were numerous reasons for the prominence of energy weapons, and one of the big ones was their not being very effective against an energy shield. When a projectile encounters a shield one of two things will happen. It’s either harmlessly redirected into empty space or flash vaporized. In either case, the impact on the shield is negligible. In the first case, a small chunk of the shield’s energy is briefly drained as it redirects the projectile. In the second case, the shield takes a hit from vaporizing the projectile and absorbing the released energy. The amount absorbed however is remarkably small, largely due to the unfocused release of energy caused by the projectile disintegrating. As much of it is harmlessly sent off into space, and not into the shield. Energy weapons are much more effective at bringing down shields since even if the hit doesn’t penetrate the shield much more energy is actually directed into the shield. Enough hits and the shield would be saturated. Once that happens the defensive screen would collapse leaving the hull unprotected.

She found her mentor directing the loading of the ship a few minutes later. She frowned, “Um those barrels in the turrets. They aren't what I think they are, are they?”

He gave her a look, “Unfortunately they are. Good news is, I managed to get us some shield-penetrating shells to use with them. Wasn’t cheap though, and doesn’t solve the other problems. Thankfully the ship does have a few laser turrets to go with the useless main cannons.”

“Are they as out of date as the main guns?”

He laughed, “Thankfully no. I actually managed to find someone who could upgrade them on short notice. We actually have some decent lasers on this old boat.”

That didn’t sound too bad. Lasers often got a bad rap as being weak, but that wasn’t actually true. Sure particle cannons, disruptors, and plasma guns could all outperform them in terms of raw damage output, but lasers excelled with range and accuracy. So while they couldn’t hit as hard as other weapons, they would often hit first and more often than some other energy weapons. In effect they simply filled a different niche from the other types of energy weaponry.

In this case the lasers would give them a nice, and effective long-range weapons option if needed. While the guns could be used against anything that got too close. She did have other questions. The ship was clearly armored, and from the look of it there had been some recent hull work done.

“What about defenses?”

“This ship, the Bok’Wa was originally outfitted with polarized hull plating. She was later upgraded with some early deflector screens before being retired. Unfortunately, at some point in the past her central shield generators were stripped from the hull. The rest of the grid is still in place, but...”

“It’s useless without those generators.”

“Afraid so, and no one has any surplus generators lying around. We might have to acquire a couple later. Good news is, I was able to find some components that should beef up the outdated polarization system, including a couple of surplus structural integrity field generators. They are civilian models, but still better than what this ship was originally fitted with. I had them installed and tested yesterday. We might not have a working shield grid, but that old armor thanks to my upgrades is almost as good.”

She was silent for a moment. Practically speechless as she processed what she was hearing. She might have even dropped her bag in surprise. “...So in other words, you basically took the oldest ship you could find, and outfitted her with whatever spare parts happened to be lying around?”

He nodded, “Hmm, yep pretty much.”

“Great...”

EFS Enterprise, Deep Space, August 27th 001 SDE, 2100 hours:

Greyman knocked on the door to Countryman’s quarters. It struck him this was the first time he had come to his superior’s quarters. So he wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The older officer wasn’t given much time to think on that before the door slid open, and Countryman bade him to enter from his seat on a sofa.

Greyman stepped in and looked around. As a high ranking officer Countryman like Greyman had multi-room quarters. From the blueprints, her knew it wasn’t many, just a foyer, an office, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a multipurpose room. In fact the floor plan was identical to his own set of quarters, and while their quarters weren’t particularly large for a starship this was considered quite luxurious. Although the Enterprise was a big ship, a very big ship with more room to spare so in some respects this oculd be argued as downright cramped. He did notice that Counryman’s foyer was a bit bigger than his. Not much maybe just one more square meter, but certainly not more than two.

His foyer had two sofas, a long table between them. Along with end tables on either end of the tables. All of which was placed in a seating area at the rear of the foyer. Closer to the Entrance the walls were lined with display shelves. Shelves that quickly caught his eye. Not because of the shelves, but rather what was on them. They were filled with aging peices of electronic history. Pieces he had only ever seen in a museum. Iconic gaming consoles from the early days of game on one shelf. Iconic portable consoles on the next. A third had an array of ancient laptops. It felt almost like stepping into a museum. The fact the shelves were sealed, and the objects secured only reinforced that feeling.

He also wasn’t the only one Countryman had arranged to meet in his quarters. Interestingly enough both Ruri their chief science officer, and Richards the Chief Engineer was here.

“I guess this must be really important or this is a weird double date. Anyway what is with the museum display?”

Countryman chuckled, “Its not a weird date, and as for the display. Well, I’m a bit of a collector. Always have been. As you can see I collect a lot of old electronics. Some of which are quite hard to obtain nowadays given that the items in question are about as old as I am. I am quite proud to say that each and everyone of those consoles is fully functional. I even have a library of games for them. Not a massive one, but a few select titles for each one. I keep those along with my book collection in my library.”

He blinked, “You know I don’t have much thanks to our unexpected depature. How do you still have your collection?”

“I never go anywhere without it, and I was always going to be onboard as an adisor. So my stuff was already aboard. Anyway we aren’t here to discuss that.”

He glanced around. It was a nice collection. Everything looked well maintained. Back on Earth this would have been worth millions possibly more. Yet here it was on the Enterprise. Greyman had to admit this was not something he would have even expected to find on this ship, but as Countryman had said that wasn’t why they were here.

“Alright, so why are we here. I think you said something about the future?”

Countryman nodded, “I did. It’s something that has been on my mind for a while.”

Richards interjected, “I think its been on everyone’s mind, but would you care to be more specific?”

Countryman nodded, “Now that you three are all here, yes. I’ve been thinking ahead. When we find our new home we are going to have to defend it, and frankly three ships won’t be enough. In fact it might be better to have more ships before than. Although building new ships isn’t something we can afford at the moment. I think we should start planning future ship construction for when we actually aquire the needed resources.”

Richards nodded, “Understandable. Although that might be years. The big problem is crew. It takes a lot of people to properly man a starship. That’s going to constrain us, and force us to use smaller hulls. Especially given our numbers.”

Greyman concured, but Ruri said nothing.

“I’m aware. That is why I already have Ruri looking into AGI technology. I gave her everything I had on the subject, which does include some of the latest research.”

Greyman frowned, but he noticed Richard’s eyes widen in recongnitions.

“Are you sure that is safe?”

“What if I may ask is AGI?”

“Artificial General Intelligence. Its a type of AI, the kind that could potentially emulate human thought. In other words, AGI is the key to a truly sapient AI.”

Greyman blinked, “Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t such an AI extrodinarily dangerous?”

“It can be, but recent research suggests despite fears of past research that such problems can be avoided. Not to mention I feel this line of research is now neccesary to our survival.”

Greyman glanced at Ruri, “Is he right about that?”

“I’ve been looking into the materials he gave me. They just might be. I think we could have sort of usable AGI framework in the next five years. I’ll have to be careful though, and rushing this will be bad. AGI can be very dangerous if incorrectly coded. Countryman gave me a very interesting bit of framework to use as the core kernal of this AGI framework. A moral code for machines as it were.”

Greyman blinked, “A what?”

Richards said, “All AI be they a ‘dumb’ or ‘smart’ AI must follow certain core commands. A moral code framework would likely be a set of central protocols that the machine must follow. I’d be very interested to know what that might look like, and how you wrote it?”

Ruri looked at Countryman who anwered, “Its based on the same sort of organic code used for mind machine interfaces or to be more accurate its based on the same sort of cybernetic framework used to allow my cybernetic brain to interact with my organic one.”

“I see.” replied Greyman not sure if he should comment on what exactly he had just been told.

Richards spoke up for a moment, “What exactly are you planning to do with AGI anyway?

“If it works out? We can build synthetic crew to help bolster our numbers and operate our ships. Although based on projections and what Ruri has shared with me, leadership positions would still have to be filled by organics.”

“That might do alright. It would be of great help. Although that still supposes we have ships to crew, which we don’t exactly have.”

“True. that was something I wanted to discuss. More so than the bit about AGI. Now that we have been out her for over a year, we have learned a few things about starship design. I think we can afford to spend some time designing those hypothetical ships.”

Greyman nodded, “I see, but if we came into more materials why not just build more X-1212 class destroyers? The two we have right now have already proven quite useful, and they are much more feasible to build than another Enterprise as well.”

“Useful perhaps, but they don’t perfectly fit our needs. They are a start though.” Countryman reached to the side, and pulled something out of a drawer. A moment later they were looking at a holographic projection.

“May I present project Saber. The goal of this project is to produce a next generation destroyer escort who will be vital to accomplishing our mission of finding a new homeworld and defending it against threats. As you see by my preliminary work, the hull is largely based on the 1212, but I’ve made it smaller.”

Richards leaned in, and looked over the early work Countryman had done, “I see you’ve given it particle flak batteries, and somehow fit two full beam arrays on this smaller hull.”

“Well, its not much smaller. Still, as effective as photon missiles are at fighter defense, they aren’t cheap, and as we have found replacing warheads is costly out here. An energy based defense grid while not as effective would be far cheaper. Still this is largely just early groundwork.”

Greyman nodded, “It is. What’s your timetable for this?”

“Given that I only plan for the four of us to work on the project, and I have another ship in the works as well? Eight years. Slow I know, but its not a time critical project. Not to mention its just a thought exercise at this point, and as we all know we don’t exactly have the materials to go building new ships with just yet. In a few years, we might have better prospects for that.”

There was a murmur of agreement, and then Richards asked, “What is the other project?”

Countryman pressed a button, and a different ship was projected. This blueprint was also very incomplete, but it was a start. In fact it was even less complete than the first. “Project Battlehawk. She is more ambitious than the Saber project.”

Greyman looked it over, and Richards commented, “Ambitious indeed. Can we even build a capital ship out here?”

“We have all the equipment for it. The real challenge is getting the resources and crew to man it. Regardless I don’t see ourselves building very many of these cruisers. Not until we find our new home, but once we do they will be our key to defending it. Hence the requirements I wrote out for them.”

Greyman nodded, “Yes a few of these would be of great help for that, but I take it the Saber project is the priority yes?”

Countryman nodded, “We will need them first. Especially since they will be our mainline vessels for the foreseeable future.”

After that the conversation drifted in discussing the details of these future ships. They had discussed many important things today, and Countryman had only started work on what may eventually be their future fleet. He hadn’t even started on some of the other ship types they would need. That night proved to be a long one. None of them went back to their own quarters until the next morning in fact.