AP-FILE #201A: PROJECT "HADRIAN"

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Project 'HADRIAN' Report #1

Chantal Noel
19 January, 826 A.S.

Preamble

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My discussion with Jack Daniels has lead to me to further refine my initial projections, our current plan of action will be a grid of 5 main defense installations in orbit of Nauru. There will also be a sensor satellite installed at Lagrangian point 3 of Tuvalu to Nauru. I have also decided to further pursue the idea of Drones as one of the weapon systems for the grid.



Positions

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The coordinates of the installations were suggested to me by monsieur Daniels, these will provide the maximum amount of coverage from approaches, this will include 3 installations on plane with Nauru’s rotation and 2 will be in highly polar orbit running directly from pole to pole of Nauru insuring complete coverage of Nauru from all angles on all axes.

Key:
On-plane Installations: Yellow
Early Warning Satellite: Blue

Armament : I will subdivide this into two further sections, that being the Drones which warrant a project entirely on their own in my opinion and more traditional armaments.

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Artillery Weapons: Each platform will have two distinct primary batteries, consisting of 2x500mm railguns and Particle cannons. Point defense weapons will be rather simple, we will utilize the secondary batteries already employed by the Mako

Railgun Concept

The Railgun’s large bore allows us to introduce specialty ammunition depending on the situation. A particular idea I have is canister shot, like an old ballistic shotgun you have a shell of smaller projectiles that spread out. With the velocities a railgun fires these flechettes would inflict massive damage on smaller craft and even larger unshielded vessels, the shot would severly compromise its outer hull due to the sheer volume of hypervelocity impacts if they get hit by a concentrated cloud of the flechette at closer ranges. Ferrous slugs would be the primary ammunition, its an ancient concept, but its effective and powerful.

Ultimus Turret Concept

The particle cannon is specifically for the threat that the Nomads present, they are by far and away the most dangerous entity to Nauru’s safety. The ‘Ultimus’ particle cannon developed for the Pleco is particularly effective against organic matter, of which the Nomads are exclusively comprised of. Whilst the Pleco’s status as a Gunship limits the Ultimus’ destructive potential, when you place a similar design on a large stationary emplacement we can scale it up to take advantage of the greater space and power supplied by the stations reactor. Its monstrous effectiveness against Nomad vessels does not preclude its deadliness against more traditional foes however. Though due to the nature of particle cannons often losing containment and energy the range of this weapon will be of limited range compared to the Railgun.


Drones: Arguably the most complicated aspect of the defense systems. A screen of drones. This will be a particularly difficult since it has never quite been done to this scale. We must implement a system that allows dozens, if not hundreds of autonomous craft to coordinate with each other and not be vulnerable to any cyber warfare attempts from our enemies. Especially the Artificial Intelligences seen roaming around the edge worlds whom are known to be hostile, their very nature makes any Cyber warfare attempts from them particularly dangerous and hard to defeat.

We have two solutions to this, one is to make the drones completely closed loop and not respond to any external communications sans a few very basic ones such as return to base functions. This will limit the ability to hijack them purely due to the limited amount of remote access they possess. This will be rather simple and easy to implement but will severely hamper the effectiveness of the drones since they will be unable to act as a cohesive unit, merely being a mob of drones shooting hostiles.

The second solution is a lot more complex and would be something I would have to outsource to someone much more learned than I am in the relevant fields. Monsieur Daniels referred to Quantum-Entanglement Communications, this would eliminate any attempts at hostile remote access. My concerns would be its actual implementation, Quantum mechanics are unfortunately one area of physics I am woefully ignorant of and would not even know where to begin in its implementation. However the benefits are obvious, it provides a direct link to the drones, meaning there are no wireless communications to hijack. QEC may also extend the effective range of the drones to the entire system of Delta. We perhaps may be able to also integrate this system into the Mutual Control Network necessary for the entire defense grid, effectively consolidating our work by using the same tech for both CiC and combat purposes.


For the actual drones themselves I propose re purposing our snubcraft, appropriate the cockpit and implement it with electronics and other internals to facilitate autonomous function, most ship’s autopilots can effectively control the engines and thrusters of the ship so we would merely have to expand upon that basic function to include combat maneuvers and weapons. Our current craft work more than well enough already, there is no need for us to design a drone from scratch.

Closing Statements:

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I can deal with the Railgun and the Particle turret parts by myself, Electromagnetism and Plasma are my fields of expertise, the Drones will need to be outsourced to someone experienced in AI and Quantum Entanglement. I just need a quick sign off on this document before we continue further.

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