Site 62 - Schatten Research Facility - LAB 66B ARCHIVE Wrote:Archival Record 31D - TEXT ONLY - BEGIN SHIP REQUISITION ACCOUNT VESSEL DESIGNATION: BDM|RNC-Brynhildr CHASSIS: DONAU CLASS CRUISER
OPTIMAL OPERATIONAL DURATION:24 months MAXIMUM OPERATIONAL DURATION:INDEFINITErefer to Shed Meat Protocol
REFIT NOTES: Significant alterations to the Bridge, all command control consoles removed and rerouted to [REDACTED].
Addition of Hangar Bay.
Addition of Logic Engine [REDACTED}
Addition of command and control room with long-range communications array SESSION LOG - END
Site 66 Archive - TIMESTAMP REDACTED Wrote:ENCRYPTION: PL07 D3V1C3 COMMID:Flotillenadmiral Siegfried, BDM| U-Flotte LOCATION: BDM|RNC-Brynhildr Thuringen Dry Dock
Effective immediately:
UKORP Interdiction Taskgroup "Steuerberater" will deploy to Frankfurt and adopt an aggressive posture of attrition.
Brynhildr will proceed to Munich to take me to the KAM base of operations on Raubling. <MEETING LOGS>
REPORT COMPLETE
FLOTILLENADMIRAL SIEGFRIED, KAI - BDM| EXTENDED LOGISTICS DIVISION
Site 66 Archive - TIMESTAMP REDACTED Wrote:ENCRYPTION: PL07 D3V1C3 COMMID:Flotillenadmiral Siegfried, BDM| U-Flotte LOCATION: BDM|RNC-Brynhildr SCHATTEN Dry Dock
The Brynhildr will be returning from the front for repairs and refit. We've been forced to engage on several occasions in both Thuringia [x] [x] and on the Frankfurt front [x [x].
I have noticed that the logic core has performed almost to human spec. Almost. There have been several times where I have had to manual override the flight controls to giving the enemy our broadside. This is something we will have to debug.
Per the archived combat reports, we are unsatisfied with the current loadout of the Brynhildr. Given that the new mass driver prototypes are scheduled for testing soon, I am diverting the pre-production models to the Brynhildr for my personal inspection.
REPORT COMPLETE
FLOTILLENADMIRAL SIEGFRIED, KAI - BDM| EXTENDED LOGISTICS DIVISION
Site 62 - Schatten Research Facility - LAB 66B ARCHIVE Wrote:SESSION LOG [TIME STAMP REDACTED] - EXPERIMENTAL WEAPONS TEST LAB - BEGIN ARCHIVE - Cruiser Class Mass Driver Project "MAULER"
Herr Siegfried,
We've received the stablized exotic particles that we requested, and are fabricating the last pieces of the mass driver coils now.
As I have stressed before, these weapons are prototypes and have not yet been rigorously tested for the operational safety margins for field usage. I cannot emphasize enough that it is inadvisable to engage in combat outside of controlled settings for these tests.
Since I know you are eager to accelerate the trials to field testing, I have taken the liberty of transferring several of my design and protocol development engineers to the Brynhildr to keep the prototypes running.
I have also taken the liberty of retrofitting the obsolete standard issue engines to MND Spec. SESSION LOG - END
BDM|RNC-Brynhildr Bridge Log - LAB 66B ARCHIVE Wrote:SESSION LOG [TIME STAMP REDACTED] - AUDIO TRANSCRIPT AND LOG TEXT ONLY - BEGIN
Technician H. Gruber: "Director, I wasn't told you'd be on board - what can I do for you?"
Director K. Siegfried: "I'm just here to talk to an old friend. How is he doing today?"
HG: "We're finishing up our maintenance and backup cycle after this week's sortie. There was some unusual dopamine spikes when we first hit the nebula, but synchronization rates and combat performance held within acceptable ranges throughout operational time."
KS: "Excellent. I'd like a complete report sent to my terminal as soon as it's complete. I can handle the resuscitation cycle from here - I would like some privacy, so please take the rest of the day off."
HG: "Yes sir, thank you."
Technician H. Gruber disembarks to Schatten Berth.
KS: "I apologize for not visiting more often - with the war finally concluding, there's been more work playing politics than coordinating a civil war."
TERMINAL: You have your duties just as I have mine. We both know our lives and time ceased to be our own once we joined the service.
KS: "Yes, of course - but that doesn't mean we need to bear it alone. How are you?"
TERMINAL: I will admit, the novelty of being a glorified brain in a jar in a warship has worn off quite some time ago. My only human interactions are with my technicians who find working on a ship that is also their commanding officer a little disconcerting - and people over the local secured network before they find out who I am.
KS: "I can only imagine."
TERMINAL: To be fair, we were never all that social. Even before the integration.
KS: "No, I suppose we weren't. If it's any consolation, people view the Director in a similar fashion. There's the usual sycophants, sure - but the majority are so worried about doing the smallest thing to warrant disappearance."
TERMINAL: Yes, I remember similar circumstances when we were Flotillenadmiral.
KS: "It was easier to slip out from the personal guard and get around unnoticed back then. Now, I can't even visit our favorite cafe near the university without our security detail finding out and clearing the entire city block "for my protection," they say."
TERMINAL: Hilde must have hated that.
KS: "She would have."
TERMINAL: Ah. We haven't found her yet?
KS: "No. As far as I can tell, she was arrested in the first months of the coup. I was under house arrest then, and you were in mothball. We have a taskforce to locate and repatriate all those who have gone missing, but there are just so many and..."
TERMINAL: I understand. She would not appreciate special treatment. I'm sure we'll find her soon enough.
KS: "I owe it to the both of us to make sure she's safe."
TERMINAL: Indeed.
KS: "I fancy a pleasure flight."
TERMINAL: Where would you like to go, Director?
KS: "It's just us here. We have no need for formalities."
TERMINAL: Very good. The Sigma gas clouds were absolutely beautiful when we flew there last.
KS: "I'm detaching the umbilical and clearing us for passage out of the Westerwald. You are in control now."
TERMINAL: Let's touch that horizon. SESSION LOG - END
BDM|RNC-Brynhildr Bridge Log - LAB 66B ARCHIVE Wrote:SESSION LOG [TIME STAMP REDACTED] - AUDIO TRANSCRIPT AND LOG TEXT ONLY - BEGIN
TERMINAL: You've gotten old.
KS: So I keep hearing. How have they been treating you? Well, I hope.
TERMINAL: As well as I could expect while quietly floating on years on standby.
KS: Yes, I am sorry to hear that they don't quite know what to do with you. Things aren't quite so dire anymore, so those that look at the fruits of our desperation can only just recoil in horror at the lengths we've gone.
TERMINAL: I'm sure they'll reinvent this wheel once we find ourselves under the next existential threat.
KS: Until then, you'll be the only working prototype as far as I know. Though, I'm not sure how many other organizations have tried exactly what we have.
TERMINAL: I hear our maintenance grants have begun to dry up.
KS: I've taken the liberty of pulling a few strings with the appropriations committee, and made some arrangements with a handful of patent licensing fees - there will be enough to reinstate you to active duty and to pay for periodic refit and maintenance for at least another few decades.
TERMINAL: Excellent. I was dreading the idea of spending my twilight years as a grotesque paperweight. To what do I owe this pleasure?
KS: I have reactivated myself to active service in an advisory role to the Buro, and I'll be needing a new base of operations - that is, if you'll have me.
TERMINAL: Of course. I think we both know there isn't much of a choice in this.
KS: I thought as much. I'll have the maintenance teams begin refits, there's some modernization to be done on your main engines and weapons systems. The head technician will upload the specs for you to peruse. We have just under a week to finish and make way to Thuringia for a major deployment. SESSION LOG - END
BDM|RNC-Brynhildr Bridge Log - LAB 66B ARCHIVE Wrote:SESSION LOG [TIME STAMP REDACTED] - AUDIO TRANSCRIPT AND LOG TEXT ONLY - BEGIN
TERMINAL: So, did we end up finding Hilde?
KS: We did. Now, she's a jar of ashes hidden in the foundations of her old lab space, where the particle accellerator used to be. It's where she would have wanted to be put to rest.
TERMINAL: And the ones responsible?
KS: They all developed a highly aggressive and inoperable form of glioblastoma in a very specific part of their brain stem. All of them lived just long enough to witness their friends and families helplessly watch as they slowly wasted away.
TERMINAL: I don't think she would have appreciated that.
KS: Grief makes monsters of us all. Not even those traitorous pigs deserved what happened. SESSION LOG - END
Büro des Marinenachrichtendiensts BDM|RNC-Brynhildr, Frankfurt System
ADDRESSED TO:
SCHATTEN RESEARCH FACILITY
DEPLOYMENT ORDERS
I am told that the Brynhildr has completed all refit and maintenance work orders and is ready for deployment.
In preparation for an upcoming operation, we will be relocating the Brynhildr to Weimar orbit.
We depart within the hour.
In the event that something is to go wrong during the shakedown cruise to Weimar or during the subsequent operation, a contingent of repair technicians are to remain on heightened alert for rapid deployment on LV-Gram, Schatten Drydock.
Flotillenadmiral Kai Siegfried Büro des Marinenachrichtendienstes
BDM|RNC-Brynhildr Voice Transmission to AESIR Facility, Office of The Director - LAB 66B ARCHIVE Wrote:SESSION LOG [TIME STAMP REDACTED] - AUDIO TRANSCRIPT AND LOG TEXT ONLY - BEGIN
TERMINAL: I hear you have been reappointed as Director. Congratulations are in order.
KS: Interim Director, while we determine what happened to Director V. We're still investigating the circumstances of her sudden disappearance - she'll resume her duties once she returns.
TERMINAL: It is something of a pattern, isn't it? The last five Director changes have been due to the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of the one before? Your first Directorship and subsequent sudden retirement was no different.
KS: Directorship is a service, and a difficult one at that. We serve as long as we can, until we can't.
TERMINAL: Hopefully your tenure will end in another voluntary retirement. I wonder what the end of my service will look like - if there is ever to be such a thing.
KS: I'm told that you're functionally immortal in that proverbial brain in a jar that is your central core - provided you get periodic treatments of neural progenitor stem cell grafts every sixty years or so, and the tank is maintained.
TERMINAL: I do not mind this state of being, but it would be nice to have arrangements for the end.
KS: The bioethicists on staff have told me as much. They suggested giving you a way to self-terminate your current instance - we do have backups of your engrams going quite far back. It wouldn't be a trivial process to flash clone and imprint a new core with a backup - but it's possible. You are the last surviving instance of a failed project. I'm sure the Board is only keeping you around to appease my ego, the expenses of maintenance don't quite justify your combat efficiency - though your service record is quite satisfactory. Don't worry, I have allocated enough funds tied to various patent licenses and investment accounts to keep you maintained well after I am dead.
TERMINAL: That's rather tragic. A sad, unremarked end to a mind trapped in servitude - punctuated only by decanting a replacement. Is that the only thing I have to look forward to?
KS: What about a retirement planetside in a few decades? We don't have the capacity to give you a normal human body without crippling your mind - but I'm sure we can set your core in a lab and give you some telepresence avatars to control. You will never be a civilian, but you could play as one.
TERMINAL: I'll think about it.
KS: As long as I am alive, I will try to make your existence easier. I am an old man, so don't take too long to decide on arrangements. SESSION LOG - END
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