Diranor Cadain
Artorian Royal Intelligence
ARROW - Artorian Royal Reconnaissance Operations Web
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: A story facilitator and minor faction perk in the Outer Rim.
Image Source: Ralph McQuarrie concept art
Canon Link: N/A
Restricted Missions: Loose an ARROW (1,157 words)
Primary Source: Artificial Intelligence | Haven Command
PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Manufacturer: Artorian Royal Intelligence
Model: ARROW - Artorian Royal Reconnaissance Operations Web
Affiliation: Artorian Royal Intelligence, Government of Artorias
Modularity: No
Production: Unique
Material: Electronic components, source code, data hub
SPECIAL FEATURES
An incredibly sophisticated supercomputer AI, ARROW is a data processing and retrieval tool for use in planning and executing Artorian Royal Intelligence operations. It assists analysts and handlers by patching together thousands of data streams to create a complete picture of target beings and events, allowing them to set effective mission parameters and plan contingencies. It assists field agents by providing them with real-time mission data and instructions, walking them step by step through building floorplans, hacking strategies, targeting data, and anything else they might require. It is largely dependent, however, on a strong connection to its data hub.
ARROW's analysis subroutines are contained in a datapad carried by each agent. Actual data for it to analyze, however, must be downloaded or observed.
DESCRIPTION
The Artorian Royal Reconnaissance Operations Web was designed to facilitate Artorian Royal Intelligence’s expansion from maintaining the planet’s safe isolation into influencing regional events to protect Artorias and its interests. With hundreds of field agents bringing in thousands of data streams every day, a central hub was needed to coordinate incoming information and assist field agents in making snap operational decisions so that human error did not place the lives of Artorian citizens in danger. Housed in a massive data hub in a secret facility beneath the Great Ocean, ARROW now serves as the primary coordinator of ARI operations and analysis.
For analysts working at the central hub, ARROW is an efficiency enhancer, matching similar data across the reports of hundreds of agents to create a cohesive picture of people and events of interest to Royal Intelligence. These reports allow ARI’s operational coordinators and agent handlers to plan effective missions for the agents of Artorias. For the agents themselves, ARROW is a vital source of on-the-spot information, providing blueprints, dossiers, planetary profiles, navigational and targeting data, and other useful facts that can mean the difference between life and death on a mission. To both groups, ARROW is indispensable.
STRENGTHS
+Rapid Analysis: ARROW is an incredibly sophisticated, self-aware supercomputer. It can cross-reference ten thousand data streams, each providing millions of packets, to find and collate references to one individual, and it can do it in seconds. Adaptive to new situations, it checks data learned by agents in the field against its own records in real time. If an individual is wanted by any galactic government, that being can be immediately identified, along with a list of associates and assets. If agents are pinned down in the stairwell of a public building, ARROW will find them four escape routes before they can say “I have a bad feeling about this.”
WEAKNESSES
-Personnel Requirements: In order to fully analyze and draw connections between data streams, ARROW’s data hub needs to be staffed by over 500 personnel inputting and updating operational parameters and priorities at computer stations. Analysts and technicians at Haven Command sleep and eat in shifts, three different crews each taking an eight-hour chunk of the day to man their stations. If something were to happen that would prevent these personnel from working, ARROW would be unable to add cohesive data to its databanks, and information would quickly become out of date and inaccurate. This would put field agents in great danger.
-No Signal: ARROW depends on a connection to the data hub on Artorias to provide its full range of information. If that connection is severed by signal jammers, too great a distance, or the destruction of the data hub, the AI loses much of its effectiveness. As such, it is limited to operations in the Galactic North if the agent wants it to retain its full capabilities. The smaller copy carried by the field agent can still observe local conditions, perform calculations based upon data it perceives, and access some parameters and data related to its last programmed mission, but it cannot access the wealth of information that is the bulk of its purpose.
-Knowledge, Not Action: ARROW can perform incredible feats of calculation and bring up vast wealths of data to help agents and handlers plan and survive their operations, but it relies on others to actually put that information into practice. It cannot fly a starship, move an elevator, or open a door, and though it can tell an agent how to do all of these things with great precision, its inability to act physically introduces the possibility of human error. Left alone, it is nothing more than an incredibly expensive encyclopedia. It is a tool, not an independent operator, and while an agent or analyst can continue to work without it, it cannot accomplish anything without them.
