NASA Voyager 19 Mission Control Center, Log 2376-07-04
Johnson: "Telemetry check."
CANE: "Quantum Relay Communications Online."
Kim: "What's the new estimated time to get the data? Do we have RDS online?"
Kane: "Let's say 10 minutes, or 15 minutes. The data will be ready."
Kim: "Fly, MMACS"
Jonson: "Let's go."
Kim: "Controller configuration ready, 7-17."
Anderson: "Anyone know the thermostat reading?"
Halleran: "The reading is green and the background radiation is very low."
Johnson: "Communication has been established. Navigator, are you there?"
Traveler 19: "I'm here, the command center."
background cheers
Johnson: "How was the trip?"
Voyager 19: "78 light years later, all I can say is it's long. I'm entering the anomaly now. Ready to download sensors."
Kim: "Download in progress. What...flight, can we check the telemetry again?"
Johnson: "Telemetry check."
Halleran: "The temperature is in the red, repeat, the temperature is in the red."
Kane: "The QRC is on edge. Communications are spotty."
Traveler No. 19: "--ING(i
g)——Ke——Danger——p
obl——. "
Johnson: "Can someone please clean up that transmission? Review it?"
Kane: "We've lost communications. QRC is down."
Halleran: "The temperature reading is black. Mission down. Mission down."
Johnson: "Okay, guys, listen up. Keep all discussions in recorded DVS loops only. No data and calls, no signaling. Let's see what went wrong."
"Field trip!" Sakura said in a cheerful voice. The three of us were in the back of an HM3 transport drone, holding on to the high edge of the cargo bay. It was like sitting on the back of a dump truck with our arms Hold it high above your head and grab the edge of the wall. If we were humans, the ride would be painful, like riding the subway and barely reaching the safety railing above your head. Worse, since the drone is suspended for Handling several metric tons in low gravity. Our weight barely touched the scale, so we were actually riding without any suspension. You might think that, from the journey through the carefully constructed corridors between rooms , it's not a big deal. But these corridors are heavily trafficked. The corridors are littered with random rocks and debris dropped from the tails of transport drones en route to the refinery, as well as bits and pieces that have met a similar fate. This is provided by Transport The drone rumbled like it wasn't there. I know the hallways are swept regularly to keep passages clear, but it still had us walking around like marionettes.
On top of that, the corridors were crowded with drones of all kinds trying to fly from one place to another in the same ten-meter-long corridor. Each corridor is one-way, providing a 10-meter-wide passage for drones. Incredibly, there's enough room for two lanes of traffic, with the occasional impulse-engined drone flying across the vast space above. I didn't see any of the scary HM2 mining drones passing this way, which makes sense. They are unlikely to fit.
It can be said that the vehicles are one after another, and the distance between the drones is only a few inches. The side corridors alternate between turning traffic exits and crossing traffic bridges. The density is amazing. I'd seen it on camera, but seeing it in person, so to speak, was something else.
"How do you cope with all this?" I asked Sakura.
"I assigned six NI-5s as traffic controllers. The drones handed over control on the main road and gained local control on their way out."
"Are all roads like this?" I asked.
"Pretty much," she said matter-of-factly. “This is why I need a rail system. By centralizing and optimizing transportation, I will be able to reduce cross-gain traffic by 63%.
ymed traffic volume, the rail system will be able to handle 413% more freight capacity. Transport vehicles like this will be used for local transportation from rail hubs to factories, or from factories to rail hubs, while utility drones will be able to traverse outposts within railways at greater speeds and with less power consumption, increasing their of uptime, so, of course, once on site, they become more productive. Fortunately, thanks to the optimal layout of the factory and the strategic placement of the warehouse, most shipments take less than a kilometer to transport. "
In my mind, I promoted the design of the railway system to second place, right next to the Ma which I am now finalizing.
After k-III design. The remaining journey takes less than 30 minutes. Once off the main road we entered a new corridor with very little traffic. This corridor is lined with various types of rooms. As we moved forward quickly, I even caught a glimpse of three HM2 miners polishing raw rock from the camera in the corridor.
Finally, we entered a cave space that was completely different from other caves. The transport drone stopped and we climbed out. The space is a cube, 400 meters long on each side, with empty metal cradles extending along the walls to the ceiling. There is another door on the other side of the cube that leads into the hallway. But in the center of the floor is a set of massive blast doors. I know because I designed this room and the blast door is five meters thick. Behind these doors is a second layer of thicker blast doors. This is the first hangar for attack drones.
Cradles on the walls will soon be filled with attack drones, with the first ones now being completed by drone manufacturers. When completed, this room will have 200 assault drones on each wall, and 800 across the entire room. In addition, each drone will be equipped with a drone supply ship, which will be responsible for minor repairs, rearmament and refueling. This is the first one, but even as we gawk at this shiny new facility, a dozen more are being dug around the asteroid. But we're not looking for vacancies. Waiting for us in the far corner were ten figures - the first of our new internal defense drones. As we stood there staring at the room, the entrance to another corridor opened, and just 200 meters below the wall we entered, four more drones walked in, in formation. Started to take up position.
It can be said that we walked over to review the troops. Agrippa stepped forward and began broadcasting to Sakura and me. I was hooked. I was involved in their design, so I'm very familiar with their specifications. But there's a huge difference between understanding which pieces I've integrated and why they're important. I relied heavily on Agrippa for this part. My main concern is balancing utility and power consumption.
"Allow me to introduce the Guardian Infantry Drones," he began. "These units are designed for close combat scenarios such as Ga
ymed outpost defense, ship-to-ship invasion and ground combat. There are currently four variants - infantry, heavy infantry, sniper and support. "
I can only recognize three of the ones in front of us. The drones are all humanoid and based on Boston Dynamics frameworks rather than my own designs. That's because Boston Dynamics actually produced a similar device for military use, and we used that as a template. It wasn't designed for space or an asteroid environment, so we made some modifications to figure it out. Each Guardian has two centimeters of composite armor on the arms, head and legs, and three centimeters of composite armor on the torso. The core of this composite armor is titanium, with several layers of industrial ceramics on top. Ceramics help prevent HEAT bullets from penetrating the titanium layer, which increases the armor's strength and hardness against common ammunition. The armor makes these units look bulky, and the thick domes and faceless heads give the impression of bulky shoulders. The armor is dark gray and black, ideal for camouflage in space.
"Infantry units have a rifle on each forearm, using 5.7x28 mm bullets with a muzzle velocity of 716 m/s. Under Earth's standard gravity, their effective range is up to 200 meters. The ammunition is fed horizontally, and each magazine can Holds 50 rounds of ammunition. Each unit carries 6 standard reload magazines, 18 reload magazines, and 4 grenades per unit. The support version uses the same design but focuses on logistics and field support. They are responsible for basic repairs, ammunition and recovery of damaged units.”
I looked at the Guardian that Agrippa pointed out to me and noticed the square rectangle above each forearm and a barrel opening above the wrist. Additionally, the radiator protrudes in a wave-like pattern above the forearm to help dissipate heat from the weapon.
"Heavy infantry units, on the other hand, have thicker armor and an additional shoulder-mounted heavy machine gun. This short-barreled design fires 12.7x99mm copper-jacketed tungsten carbide at up to 100 rounds per minute in full-auto mode. Utilizes the soles of the feet and knees With electromagnetic anchor points on their shoulders, heavy infantry can anchor themselves and utilize multi-mounts on their shoulders to aim and use their heavy artillery. Finally, the sniper variant uses a longer barrel for improved accuracy and uses a 12.7×99mm high-explosive Incendiary/or HEIAP. These bullets have the same 12 kilojoules of energy, have a tip to help penetrate heavy armor and explode outward in a 30 degree cone upon entry. These are tank killers. Oh, and one last feature - They have electromagnetic palms, so the units can climb any metal surface and even hang upside down, firing their primary weapons when needed," Agrippa said, concluding the brief presentation. He skipped the battery system scattered throughout the body, the complete suite of camera sensors, and the NI-5 cortex on the torso that operates the drone. He bypassed the encrypted identification friend or foe system that identifies each Guardian, preventing friendly fire.
"Oh, oh, oh!" Sakura said. "I have a question. I thought guns wouldn't fire in space."
"That's what black powder weapons are," Agrippa said. "The modern gunpowder we use actually contains oxidizers as well."
"Why don't we use a hypervelocity coil gun?" she asked.
"We actually have a ridged coil gun on an attack drone," I said. The energy cost of firing the weapon means Guardians can only fire two or three rounds, and the barrel needs to be replaced after nine or 10 uses. The attack drone is much larger and therefore can have a sturdier, thicker barrel and can fire up to 600 rounds before needing to be replaced. "
"I should like to give them also to the heavy ones," said Agrippa angrily. "It's one shot, one kill. But the logistical complexity is unnecessary."
"Then the same goes for lasers?" Sakura asked.
"That's right," said Agrippa. "Not to mention, the diffraction of the beam reduces the range so much that even with a large aperture pulsed laser array, a heavily armed adversary could easily ablate the beam and essentially get rid of it. We do have two on the attack drone Quad array laser turret, but it’s mainly used for missile defense, destroying radiator systems, targeting enemy weapons systems.”
Behind us, a hallway door opened. We turned around and saw a large attack drone rolling in. I could almost hear Agrippa squealing with excitement, even though he said nothing. This was our first external defense force. The aircraft appeared sharp and deadly. It was narrow, like an ancient Earth fighter, but its wings were short and thick. The purpose of the wings is not to fly, but to house the massive laser array. The LAC's fuselage also houses a single coil gun that runs along its central spine so that firing does not interfere with the LAC's flight path. The matte black paint helps hide the craft from easy observation. I'm very impressed with the engineering of it.
"These are our light assault craft, named Wasps. Each Wasp carries 500 depleted uranium, steel-jacketed 20mm coilgun ammunition and four phased array laser turrets on each wing. They have ion engines to provide thrust, and solid rocket afterburners to achieve the sudden transition to Delta-V. We coated them with the latest stealth technology, with radar absorbing paint and optical dispersion angles to make them difficult to detect by sensors or eyes ,” said Agrippa, his excitement seeping into his narrative.
"Heavy assault craft, when?" Agrippa asked.
Saku
a confirmed: "The first station will be offline in 3.2 days."
"In three days, the first Scorpion heavy assault craft will roll off the assembly line. The Scorpions are the toughest. Each has an ablative fullerene-coated reactive armor capable of withstanding more damage than the Wasp, sacrificing maneuverability For the price. They mounted a 70mm ridged coil gun with a 300-round load. They also had twin-turreted 20mm Gatling cannons, warhead droppers, not supervelocity, and an underbelly four-phase laser turret with For point defense. Both the Scorpion and the Wasp can extend their radiators for cooling when needed, but retract them during combat as the radiators are the primary target."
"Sounds amazing. If the radiator is a big target, why don't we use heat-seeking missiles?" Most of my knowledge of weapons was limited to video games, but they were rooted in reality.
"The cost of fuel for rearmament," Agrippa replied. "On Earth, having a carrier with fighters, entering and rearming then returning, this pattern makes little sense in space. Deliberately dumping delta-v to catch up or slow down to a carrier, refueling time and re-armament The cost of getting into engagement range is meaningless. "I plan to add missile boats later for strategic attack, but due to production constraints and the need to deploy missiles defensively, that won't be until next year at the earliest," he said. "We need fleet speedboats, ammunition ships and Guardian assault carriers first."
"None of this will do us any good if they hit us with an asteroid again," Sakura said darkly.
"Then we'll have to hide in our asteroid and hope to be hidden in the dark," I said.
Saku
"I'm building coilgun emplacements on the ground, but progress is slow," said A. "Work is slow since we can't change the terrain a lot and want the bunkers to be camouflaged. Fortunately, the ammo boxes and barrel change system It will be done before the actual artillery. So when the guns come online, they'll be ready to fire immediately."
"A small favor," said Agrippa. "What about the missile launch tubes?"
"Well, the tricky thing was getting the launch system to work. Nikola's design called for a six-gun cylinder with missiles loaded from the missile bay underneath the launch tube. But we struggled with the ball bearing design on the rotating track. trouble."
"Well, we're working out some logistical issues. But that doesn't solve our 'eggs in one basket' problem," I said.
"Well, that's easy," Sakura said.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Spread to more asteroids. We have a decent number of space drones now. We'll find the right candidates and then get down to business."
Not a bad idea. If I could find a way to safely divide our genetic reserves into multiple parts, we could create one or more secret bases to hide and build upon. Despite all the building we're doing, our resource reserves are actually growing faster than we can use them. We're still limited on some things like volatiles and platinum group metals. In fact...
At this moment, Agrippa interrupted my thoughts. “I really like this idea. In fact, I’m in favor of having it in Ga
Build military bases around ymed. If we build concentric circles of bases, we can provide defense in depth, prevent invasion, and layer our offensive capabilities. "
"There's a question..." I started.
"Yes, if someone maps out our base and discovers that we have a hidden headquarters, we won't be able to hide it," he said. "But if we placed 'center' bases randomly throughout the asteroid belt, and if we happened to be somewhere where two spheres overlap..."
Saku
"I could make an outpost starter pack," said A. "It would be the optimal amount of drones and supplies to build a series of hangars and factories, but design it with military production in mind and we could build it in a few Build a fleet of drones and supplies within the month, especially if we can move supplies across ships that they can't produce."
“We do have extra material,” I said. "We seem to be mining faster than we can produce."
"It's going to get worse," Sakura said. “Despite increased drone production, our production will begin to outpace our factories. I have streamlined the core mining team and begun backfilling the maze of corridors with scrap. The new grid mining has increased our rare earth Production of metals, platinum group metals and silicates. Additionally, we capture more volatiles, although we store most of them. We need the atmosphere at some point."
"We can't build factories fast enough, can we?" I said. The germ of that idea came to the back of my mind again.
"Okay, so we can't go everywhere at the same time," I said. "Sakura, even you have a limited ability to focus. Add a data center to your starter package. You need to include a plan to have new NI-19s online to manage each outpost independently."
"Oh," Sakura said, a little hurt in her voice. Damn, she thought this was a reference to her, I thought. I made a split second decision.
"Every new NI-19 will listen to you, Sakura," I said. “You have the final say on the implementation of the project plan.”
Sakura seemed to perk up immediately. What happened to make her so sensitive to feeling marginalized? I don't want to cause trouble, considering she's already proven her worth. I was wondering if there was a way to help her become more independent and able to make bigger decisions on her own.
"It also provides great redundancy," Agrippa said. "We should do the same thing with NI-15 to coordinate the defense of each new outpost."
"We're producing new quantum entanglement communication devices, right?" I asked Sakura, mostly to get confirmation.
"Yes," she said. “This is our most advanced manufacturing facility to date.”
"Then we'll have instant contact. What's the bandwidth?"
"They are the newest human designs in our database," she said.
"Ah." I called up the specifications. 16 terabits per second. We will be able to transmit some important data between these locations. Very good. "Let's make sure we include at least a few hundred petabytes of storage. Might as well make a copy of our archive. I'll be in charge of setting up the data center once it comes online."
As we speak, the second Wasp has flown into a cradle above the first Wasp, very close to the blast door. A series of umbilical cables snaked out of the wall and connected to the Wasp. More Guardians came in, one every few minutes now. At this rate, we could find hundreds within a few days.
"I need to start training new guardians. Saku
A tunnel was dug leading to a series of caves which I intended to use as a 'boot camp'. "
"Why boot camp? Don't they already know what to do?" I asked.
"Of course I can fit all the plans in the world into it," said Agrippa. "But knowing and understanding are two different things. You design these drones but you don't understand their value until you see them, you don't really understand their purpose until you see them in action. Experience trumps book knowledge. These NI-5 needs experience, so I have to do my best to give them experience.
