08-27-2026, 05:13 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-27-2026, 05:20 AM by Alexander Talion.)
Alex smiled and looked at Jez, "You're right, on all counts. That's also why we're all in here together. This is a team thing. By the way, to both you and Mister Coppola, welcome to your first official table meeting like this as Department Heads. You're right to ask those questions, but remember that it is so that we can advise out Captain, who makes those decisions. We give him the tools, possible ideas of how they might work or how we might be able to help, but He's the one who needs to decide what tactic to turn it into, what advantage it allows him to exploit and so on. We do our best in here so that he can do his best with what we hand him."
He took a breath and began, "First point, no, this is not a direct attack. At best, it creates a weakness to exploit with follow up direct attacks, but mostly it becomes a distraction, an anomaly, something that is unexpected and pulls a brick from the foundation of what the enemy thinks they know. That makes the faith in the rest of their plan unstable. One brick can be ignored, but several makes them question everything they know and what they don't know. Why aren't we running yet? Why aren't there more ships here yet? Questions that they get to worry about. As a fighter, if you can move in a way that opens your opponent to an attack, even if you don't take advantage of it, they know as well as you do that you could have and that they made a mistake."
Alex looked to the CO, "To the question of control, it is multi-level. The default can be as simple as if we lose the encrypted link, they can't be shut down and the Cardassians will literally have to go out and scrap these things off of the hull manually. Even if they send automated robots out to do it, it takes time. It only takes a few keystrokes to make it so that if threatened, the bots link the shield conductivity to the unit or people trying to remove them and they have to be destroyed from a distance to do it safely, using phasers and such to remove them, but they're still able to transfer most of the energy laterally, so even that might take a while and they will not be happy about that. Remember that these things work on a hive concept and can run complex program sequences, at least until they get reduced to about a handful of units, in which case they can be given a default command, but by then they will have already accomplished their mission."
Looking over to Coppola, he said, "This leads me to the second point, targeting. The native program operating these was originally adapted from the same targeting program we use to assist Tactical in finding and locking onto enemies from the Bridge. This was deliberate, so that it could primarily be able to have fine distinction in target selections. With our link, we can actually designate very specific target locations right up until they actually make contact after deployment. So, your weapon can be guided and even switch target right up until impact. In fact, you can use them as remote sensors to help suggest targets, if you so desired. The program is not Cindy, but it has been in development for years now, so it is pretty smart. It is designed to be multi-purpose and in this case, it wants to cause chaos with enemy systems, because it started out knowing how to look for vulnerabilities in targets as a primary directive. I'm sure that's something Tactical can find something to do with."
Looking back at Jez, Alex continued, "Third, Yes, we're counting on Cardassians being Cardassians. We don't go for the direct shot, because they design their defenses to be effective against a frontal assault. The easiest way to reduce our threat with these would be to shut down their structural integrity fields and drop their shields, that would leave our bots to very little effectiveness unless we directed them to do something else once that happens. The odds of them simply dropping their shields, well...that would go against their grain and would require them to adapt faster than they tend to. However, if they bring their systems back online, the bots are still there and can still carry out their programs and they haven't solved the situation unless they are willing to talk instead of fight. Also, I want to point out that these have not been combat tested, but they have actually been tested on our own hulls to see what would happen. They were tested in the lab first, but then they were tested on actual systems to see how effective they were. Some of that video recording was not simulation, it was from tests that Lieutenant Thorn has completed over the years. Her and I have a shared interest in such programs. My field is more with Drones and programs like Cindy. For Thorn, it is more about Damage Control, Search and Rescue inside areas of a ship that are damaged and too dangerous to send people in without good information and so on. Instead of Cindy, she has DeeDee."
Alex looked at the CO and added, "I'll leave the conversation at this specific weapon of choice for now. If things get very dangerous, we might discuss other options, but...I would prefer if we never had to explore what I would consider a worst case scenario...Sir."
== Tag all ==
He took a breath and began, "First point, no, this is not a direct attack. At best, it creates a weakness to exploit with follow up direct attacks, but mostly it becomes a distraction, an anomaly, something that is unexpected and pulls a brick from the foundation of what the enemy thinks they know. That makes the faith in the rest of their plan unstable. One brick can be ignored, but several makes them question everything they know and what they don't know. Why aren't we running yet? Why aren't there more ships here yet? Questions that they get to worry about. As a fighter, if you can move in a way that opens your opponent to an attack, even if you don't take advantage of it, they know as well as you do that you could have and that they made a mistake."
Alex looked to the CO, "To the question of control, it is multi-level. The default can be as simple as if we lose the encrypted link, they can't be shut down and the Cardassians will literally have to go out and scrap these things off of the hull manually. Even if they send automated robots out to do it, it takes time. It only takes a few keystrokes to make it so that if threatened, the bots link the shield conductivity to the unit or people trying to remove them and they have to be destroyed from a distance to do it safely, using phasers and such to remove them, but they're still able to transfer most of the energy laterally, so even that might take a while and they will not be happy about that. Remember that these things work on a hive concept and can run complex program sequences, at least until they get reduced to about a handful of units, in which case they can be given a default command, but by then they will have already accomplished their mission."
Looking over to Coppola, he said, "This leads me to the second point, targeting. The native program operating these was originally adapted from the same targeting program we use to assist Tactical in finding and locking onto enemies from the Bridge. This was deliberate, so that it could primarily be able to have fine distinction in target selections. With our link, we can actually designate very specific target locations right up until they actually make contact after deployment. So, your weapon can be guided and even switch target right up until impact. In fact, you can use them as remote sensors to help suggest targets, if you so desired. The program is not Cindy, but it has been in development for years now, so it is pretty smart. It is designed to be multi-purpose and in this case, it wants to cause chaos with enemy systems, because it started out knowing how to look for vulnerabilities in targets as a primary directive. I'm sure that's something Tactical can find something to do with."
Looking back at Jez, Alex continued, "Third, Yes, we're counting on Cardassians being Cardassians. We don't go for the direct shot, because they design their defenses to be effective against a frontal assault. The easiest way to reduce our threat with these would be to shut down their structural integrity fields and drop their shields, that would leave our bots to very little effectiveness unless we directed them to do something else once that happens. The odds of them simply dropping their shields, well...that would go against their grain and would require them to adapt faster than they tend to. However, if they bring their systems back online, the bots are still there and can still carry out their programs and they haven't solved the situation unless they are willing to talk instead of fight. Also, I want to point out that these have not been combat tested, but they have actually been tested on our own hulls to see what would happen. They were tested in the lab first, but then they were tested on actual systems to see how effective they were. Some of that video recording was not simulation, it was from tests that Lieutenant Thorn has completed over the years. Her and I have a shared interest in such programs. My field is more with Drones and programs like Cindy. For Thorn, it is more about Damage Control, Search and Rescue inside areas of a ship that are damaged and too dangerous to send people in without good information and so on. Instead of Cindy, she has DeeDee."
Alex looked at the CO and added, "I'll leave the conversation at this specific weapon of choice for now. If things get very dangerous, we might discuss other options, but...I would prefer if we never had to explore what I would consider a worst case scenario...Sir."
== Tag all ==