An International Emergency [closed]

[Allanea]

It was a massive emergency.

War approached, and, for once, Allanea had not the resources to fight it. Her forces tied up on the fronts of the Freemen's Crusade. Her navies, battling numerically superior Chaos battleships in orbits of innumerable worlds. Her troops, bleeding out in the mountain valleys of Parsis Nine and in the snowy plains of Taikhagu and the Death-Forges of Felrune. Among the stars, Allanea had met its match – the Great Devourer.

Yet it appeared that despite this, a war would happen. The ESUS nations wanted war, it seemed, and for this reason, the Rupil system was being fortified. The Allaneans had opposed this course of action in the Senate, and had already fought down a war resolution – but it was obvious that war would happen. They could not, nor did they want to, fight this war. They viewed the newest conflict as petty foolishness - and yet honor mandated that they assist their allies.

Therefore, weapons and war materiel were required. The hidden funds, amassed during the infamous scams of Allanea, were now brought out in secret, and forges across various allied worlds were already ringing with the sound of labor. Yet the final brick had to be laid yet upon the wall.

The brick was Rupil. There, upon the conjunction of many trade routes, did Allanea's allies plan to build a fortress-system.

The Allaneans regarded the idea with the utmost disdain. They opposed the war, and the President's staff questioned the very notion of fortress systems.

Yet the President's will was clear.

The Novanians were not to be left to perish, even if Allaneans believed this said perishing would stemmed from their own stupidity.

Therefore, a special emissary was sent to the Queendom of Zero-One. It was one Trevor Mendarsky.

He was famous in certain circles – mostly for his business talent, but also for the fact that a vast percentage of his body had been replaced by metal augmentations. Artificial muscle supported his spinal cord, universal plugs allowed him to connect a variety of devices to his brain, a pair of machine hearts beat in his chest, and so forth. Therefore, some flunky within the Department of State believd this man would find it easier to interact with the machines at Zero-One.

And now this man was flying a white Diplomatic Gravitic Seaplane to Rhea, at absolutely breakneck velocities. On his chest, he carried a sealed vellum package – still, after all those millenia, the best way to transfer secure diplomatic messages.

Attention traffic control... this is Trevor Mendarsky, Grand Ambassador Plenipotentiary, United States Governer, authentication code... this is an international emergency... I need to see an avatar of the Queen, please direct me to a safe landing zone, repeat, this is an international emergency. This vessel is entirely unarmed, please direct me to a safe landing zone..

[Zero-One]

The Queendom's relationship with the Allaneans has, throughout its long history, always been complex, particularly to outsiders. To the uninitiated observer it could seem that the various scams, screw-overs, and strategic orbital bombardments should have established an eternal enmity between the two nations and, certainly, there are factions in both countries who could probably do without the other. Still, there were objectives behind the seemingly arbitrary abuse, objectives since met. Allanea may still be something of a pariah in Zero-One's usual circles, but that was never the point. It's not that much of a stretch that someone as admittedly Machiavellian as 'Queen' S.H.O.D.A.N. simply manipulated things both in front of and behind the scenes in order to align Allanean interests with her own. In this, she has been quite successful.

This explains why, despite a troubled history, the Allanean courier is guaranteed safe passage through the fortifications of Saturnspace to Rhea despite violating regulations by falsely declaring emergency on public channels (that right is reserved solely for flight or safety emergencies). The Allaneans have always been chaotically libertine--except when they decide they want to be mechanistic--and so this bit of asocial behavior akin to crying 'fire' in a crowded auditorium is quickly explained away as a cultural quirk to the appropriate authorities.

Arrival, landing, always the same, always procedure, and once one's heard of one form of it one's heard of all of them. All that matters is that Trevor and his precious vellum package meets, in short order, one of the many grey-skinned gynoid avatars of the Master Control Program herself, by and large the sole important functionary of the mechanoid government. From there the narrative can proceed unmolested.

[Allanea]

The Allanean Department of State is not without its rules. Certainly, all remembered the days when the Allanean diplomatic effort was hampered – crippled! - by the fact the nation was represented by a rag-tag cabal of... basically, stereotypical Allaneans who hated ties, scoffed at the very notion of rules and dress codes, and used four-letter words to address foreign dignitaries. Years of reform had been necessary to accomplish what the mechanoids would now behold.

Dressed in an immaculate dark-blue uniform with gleaming gold buttons adding a tasteful – and hopefully not too gaudy, the Grand-Ambassador knelt on one knee before the avatar – the Diplomatic Service Manual already lined that out as the default term of greeting royalty – handing S.H.O.D.A.N the vellum package, sealed with the personal seal of the President of the United States.

It held a hand-written letter – clearly hand-written to simplify authentication. A human might find reading the handwriting difficult, but no doubt S.H.O.D.A.N could read any kind of handwriting.

Your Majesty!

The first thing I must do is thank you for the advice you gave me. I have gotten over her, finally. I respect her still – as a brilliant and admirable sapient being - but I have gotten over her. I am free. In the long run, of all sapients it is to your advice that I owe this new freedom.

My agent has already informed you that an emergency is occuring. He is correct on this count.

Right now, Your Majesty, I feel a whole lot like a stereotypical film villain – I have the urge to scream out that “I am surrounded by fools”. Surely you do not track events outside of Sol. In brief – IRON has attempted to 'claim the Galactic North' as a publicity stunt, and the Hermes alliance had ended up in a standoff with them. Now some of the more... militant members of the Extra-Solar Union seek, for a reason that eludes me, to provoke a fight with one or both of of these alliances!

Their plan is to settle a system situated on key trade routes of both alliances, and of course to fortify it as a base for an informal 'peacekeeping force' (my diplomats had fought down a proposal for a formal one). Logically, this is a giant provocation.

Now, I do not in any way shape or form condone these actvities. However since they are occuring I suspect it would be best for Allanea to be involved – through funding via the Ringworld Foundation and other funds, the defenses of Rupil system. Not only so we could be best placed to help negotiate peace, but most importantly, because it would be wrong to let our allies get killed by the Janarrii. Even if its their own damn fault.

Which is where you come in. A bank transfer is already prepared, to purchase a set of several hundred Monocorporation ground-based defense turrets (I am told KEW and missile launchers would do best), to be installed on the major planets of the system, and other weapons installations to be implanted upon the system comets, asteroids, and so forth. Sensor arrays are also needed. I defer to my experts, and your wonderful engineers too, on the details

I am no engineer, but I think the best thing would be to bring in a form of ready-made turret (perhaps made out of second-hand starship arms turrets? I am sure you have some old ships you can afford to put to the saw.) to be installed by melting the soil below them into slag and lowering gently into the magma as it cools – similarly to the ZMI automated bunkers, except bigger. Much bigger.

As I understand, you will probably rig your systems with the traditional MonoCorporation Omnidirectional Nucleonic Thrust devices, a.k.a. 80M8. I believe an emergency drive like this would be just the thing – especially if I had a backup starter for the drives.

As a final note, it will probably be impossible to rapidly install everything. As such it may be good to set up two stages of construction - a 'stockade' setup where the first rapid-construction devices are brought in, and a 'fortress' setup, which will be more thorough and long-term.

The man delivering this message carries legal empowerment from both the Allanean Government, the Nivensky-Ringworld Foundation (Kevin Nivensky sends his regards), and myself as a private individual. He can negotiate the deal on my behalf. Should emergencies arise – aside the existing emergency of impending interstellar total war, you can always raise me on FTL-comms.

Sincerely yours,
Alex.

[Zero-One]

The gynoid 'queen' allows herself the quirk of one green-pulsing fiber-optic eyebrow as the diplomat kneels. She takes the package, unseals it, reads the letter, then holds her eyes on it for a full second afterwards because it would be disconcerting if she simply handed it back after glancing at it. The pretense of reading gives her time to think about what's being asked.

First is that they have no idea what they're doing. Or, to be more precise--since she does pay attention to things--they have a primitive idea as to what they're doing but that's sufficient since the people they are surrounded by have more primitive ideas. They are, to a large degree, trapped in the flat- and linear-thinking methodologies of planetary campaigns when it comes to space war. Unfortunately, there is only so much that can be done about that.

After spending the rest of her alloted second going through probability analyses, future trend extrapolations, and likely threat responses based on adversary memetic makeup, she hands the letter back with a smile on her coppery lips. "I see." Her voice is deep and feminine, the sort usually associated with classy whiskey-and-cigarettes femmes fatales common in early cinema. "Grand-Ambassador, arise, and please walk with me--sitting across a table would be more comfortable, and more polite, than you staying on your knees, no?"

She leads the way with a statistically calculated balance between quickness due to the 'emergency' and politeness with the statistical error covered with a bit of flair and preference for letting things that really aren't too vital but others worry far too much about slide. The Ghost of Citadel Station, after all, is known to have a low sense of humor. "Is there anything I can have brought for you? I'm certain that, in your rush, you did not stop to make sure your biological functions were properly nourished." Ultrasonically scanning someone's gastrointestinal system to determine that they haven't eaten in a while, when combined with near-IR bloodflow distribution and pheromone analysis, is probably cheating, but it gives her an opportunity to live up to her prescient reputation. Sure, she never talks like a robot--'you didn't stop to eat' would be more natural for her--but again, low sense of humor.

Upon reaching the tiny 'break-out' conference room a short walk away, she indicates a chair to Trevor before throwing herself comfortably into the one across from him, awfully sloppy for royalty but it suits her and her particular rampancy. She figures she may as well start breaking down those preconceived notions now that they've been reinforced, all for reasons which are by now public record. Everything about the break-out room--indeed, everything about the old habitation sectors of Node Zero--is comfortable but utilitarian and cold, like a hospital suddenly abandoned in a non-violent rapture event. It never held life, not naturally, at least, not enough to influence it organically; instead, it has been kept clean, antiseptic, and comfortable but dead. The mechanoids like it that way.

Of course, Shodey could have met the poor man in the districts of Node Zero that have since been colonized by the Sirenum ex-Kajali and other biologicals who had decided, for whatever reason, to become subjects of the Queendom, but... yes, anyway.

"I do believe that the MonoCorporation can be of assistance in this," she prefaces, smiling slyly, "speaking, of course, as one of the directors on the board rather than as Master Control Program. The MonoCorporation and the Queendom are two separate things, after all." It's not quite a lie, nor is it quite the truth. "In fact, we can offer everything requested... for a price, although I can think of a few better ways to accomplish the reported goals. I understand that you are authorized to speak in terms of negotiating purchases and deliveries, Grand-Ambassador, but are you authorized to speak in terms of strategy?"

[Allanea]

“Mmm, perhaps tea and a bar of milk chocolate if they are available – and if this will not offend your Majesty.”, the Grand Ambassador replied. Chocolate and high-sugar tea are known to restore at least the sensation of being well-fed, and both chocolate and caffeine are known to assist brain function. Therefore, the Grand Ambassador consumes them when attempting to resolve difficult issues.

“I possess... a limited, and purely theoretical understanding of the concepts involved. The President had instructed me to defer to your judgment in matters of tactics, strategy, and technology – within reason, of course. In essence, only the raw elements of the task are not amenable to change – the system is Rupil, and we have to fortify it in two stages – short-term and long-term. For the short-term stage, speed is a factor.”

“I have also been briefed, before departure, of the diplomatic situation concerning this... very regrettable standoff. I will endeavor to assist your Majesty to the best of my ability.”

[Zero-One]

"Very well, then." Shodey leans forward in her chair, steepling her fingers as one of the standard-production android frames common in Zero-One intrudes in the room just long enough to deliver the requested tea and chocolate. It's acting on a dog-brain, since most mechanoid intelligences have absolutely no interest in serving organics. "Luckily, it is the short-term phase that will probably be most effective long term. Planetary facilities are predictable targets and, once they are located, easily neutralized with practically no fuss whatsoever. Any adversary with even the slightest justifiable pretense of competence will send reconnaissance assets ahead to scout out the location of planet-side defenses and, unless those defenses are particularly exotic, it must be assumed that they will be detected. Therefore, I don't think that emulating ZMI is a good idea in this case... and I don't say that because ZMI is a competitor; I say that because it seems in this case ZepManInd is probably wrong."

She shrugs slightly, Ancient Egyptian-style collar glinting with lapis lazuli for a moment with the motion. "The best option instead is to disperse low-observability burst-FTL missiles throughout the system, preferably in debris fields if any are available. Networked into a situational awareness system, they can rapidly deploy and react to threats upon detection. Combine these with burst-FTL mobile killsats to provide gun support, countermeasures for use against adversary C3 networks, warheads that use FTL interference methods to scramble incoming targets over an area, and active dazzlers for use against enemy sensors and you have a multi-layered, multi-vector fluid defense against adversaries. The more time spent building it up automatically means increased reserves. The long-term solution is to continue building these bulwarks and reinforcing them with planetside displacer-based launchers, field generators, and camouflage."

The gynoid seems to think for a moment. "Additionally, most adversaries expect conventional attack. Both the short-term and long-term solutions should cover the full spectrum of attack, including things like nanological vectors to either corrupt, subvert, or otherwise infiltrate enemy attackers." She smiles slyly. "Do you think these sorts of things will be sufficient?"

[Allanea]

“Nanoweaponry... formally speaking, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of strategic supplies of leftover nanoweapons and “grey-goo” type weaponry in the Department of Research, Evolution and development. Certainly I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of secret storage depots of thousands of orange fifty-five gallon drums filled with them, if you get my drift.”

“As for the guns, this seems sensible. As far as I understand, the idea is to spread a variety of small killsats, guns, observation sats – perhaps even sensordust – in the debris field and asteroid fields. Something like the CAPTOR mines of the twentieth century, except – in space. I think it's a great idea. Of course, I do have a few minor questions:

“How would the whole Pile-O-Guns be commanded? How big are we going to go with these? And of course, you realize that the Jannarii are great fans of this silly “Minovsky dust” of theirs. This system... how will it deal with the fact the Jannarii will probably want to fight at fisticuff range?"

[Zero-One]

"Oh yes, those silly particles..." Shodey shakes her head and chuckles. "They generate a gap in sensor fields, no? Aim for the center of the hole and do terminal guidance via LIDAR and optics, since they don't do anything to the visual range. Failing that, I have some very nice Minovsky radiation seeker heads that can make things work on the tried-and-true HARM principle. Once one weapon has a firing solution, this can be transmitted to the rest of the defenses through the tactical network, immediately removing any advantage such stealth systems may offer. As for the command method for the pile-of-guns... I would tend to recommend something with a very rapid response time, which suggests mechanization on some level. That, however, is something for the end customer to specify, don't you think?"

She waits a few moments before the ambassador can bring up she missed a part. "Impact, area of effect, and beam warheads do not have minimum ranges. Set the warheads to explode if they lose contact with the missile bus and any advantage to trying to engage missiles in melee..." S.H.O.D.A.N. fails to suppress a giggle at the idiocy of such a suggestion. "...is completely eliminated. For added effect, line the missile casings with nanological vectors in order to infect and subvert anyone foolish enough to try."

[Allanea]

“Very well. So just so we're clear, what kind of scale are we talking about for the initial and secondary deployment? Thousands of missiles? Millions? Exa-ultra-hexa-alpha-tons?”

[Zero-One]

Shodey purses her lips in thought, casts her slit-pupil'd eyes to the ceiling, and taps the side of her jaw with one long, thin surgeon's index finger. "It depends on the volume of space that needs defending, the size of the expected attacking force, the geometry of the system, the likely effectiveness of the weapons against known adversarial technologies assuming doctrinal action, and the like." Looking back down at the table, a complex equation appears on the surface in classic laser red.

"Luckily, I either know or can insert acceptably accurate estimates for the variables involved. Within a margin of error, it should be..." The equation changes to two numbers. One number is bigger than the other.

The order of the number is rather large.

"This will be rather expensive, I'm afraid, considering the time-frame and the fact that current production lines for the appropriate products will have to be augmented by universal constructors until less-expensive tooling can be made to gain economies of scale. It's like using a high-precision mill used for shaping gems to carve hammers out of iron, you see. Of course, if some delay is allowable, then the use of universal constructors can be skipped and we can just call the time it will take to manufacture tooling a lead time where you'll just have to accept reduced--well, I say 'reduced,' 'initial' is more accurate--production rates."

[Zero-One]

Later, after a little more negotiation, a bit of data flits through the 01MC financing and orders department...

x10,000 Tons Sensordust...................................................................................10 million quatloos
x3,000,000 FGM-S [Missile, Guided, Faster Than Light, Stealth]......................3 trillion quatloos
(subdivided with bomb-pumped GRAZER, kinetic impact and explosive/frag warheads, as 40/40/20. Long-range guidance is via sensor net, terminal guidance is optical)
x1,000,000 FAMRM [Anti-Minovski-Radiation Missile]......................................1.5 trillion quatloos
(see above, but with anti-Minovski-Radiation guidance as an option)
x500,000 FJFM[Jammer missile on the FGM-S body].........................................750 billion quatloos
x500,000 FJFM[Dazzler missile on the FGM-S body].........................................750 billion quatloos
x100,000 KSFS [Kill-Satellite, Faster-Than-Light, Stealth]...............................1 trillion quatloos
(equipped with ERASER gun which doubles as dazzler technology)
x100,000 SSFS [Sensor-Satellite, Faster-Than-Light, Stealth]...........................1 trillion quatloos
x10 Ground-based sensor arrays........................................................................10 billion quatloos


Preliminary cost estimate: 8.02 trillion quatloos, assuming surcharges for handling, and unexpected problems.

And that's business! The rest is industry, infrastructure, and the fact that mass production is something of the mechanoids' forte.

[Allanea]

The Allaneans are satisfied. Very soon – within weeks, in fact -, several of the massive Habakkuk transports arrive at Rhea, and begin loading with the priceless weaponry. Very soon, they shall be at Rupil.

[I believe this resolves it]