Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Hiding in Plain Sight (Dev Thread - Larraq, Mandos, open)

Arrbi Betna walked through the powered doors of Mandal Hypernautics' office in Sundari, ignoring the ground floor receptionist. He wore his armor and carried his revolver, but otherwise only carried a worn notebook with him. He stepped into the lift and punched the number for the top floor. After waiting a minute or two, he stepped out of the lift and approached the secretary for the main office.

"Is the owner in?" was all Betna asked as he drew even with the desk.

"Uh, yes, but he's prepping for a meeting. You'll have to wait," the woman said, a bit confused.

"No need, I'll let myself in," he stated, his tone brooking no argument.

Before the woman could get up to stop him, much less move her chair away from the desk, he was already opening the door to the office. He stepped in and spotted who he was wanting to see sitting at the head of a long table. The other man was reading through a sheaf of reports, invoices, and notices, obviously prepping for the meeting at hand. Arrbi tossed the notebook on the table and watched the thing slide forward, stopping a few inches from the considerable stack of paper. Inside the notebook contained all of Betna's notes, formulas, and prototype designs for a working prototype of active camouflage.

"I want to work out a deal," Betna stated without preamble or introduction as he placed both hands on the table and leaned forward. He knew @[member="Captain Larraq"] would bite, the question was how hard.
 
@[member="Arrbi Betna"]

Larraq arched an eyebrow and looked over the man's shoulder at his secritary that stood in the doorway. She made a simple gesture and turned to walk away. The message it conveyed was simple. "Don't look at me, what was I suppose to do?"

Sighing, Larraq dropped the papers he had been sorting through back onto the desk and leaned back into his chair. For a while, he said nothing. He just sat in his chair and stared at the mandalorian standing in his office. Finally he picked the mug of coffee from his desk, pulled it close to his face, and said a single sentence before he began to sip at the liquid within. "You have three minutes." The implications were obvious. Whoever this man was and whatever he wanted, he had three minutes to sell the idea to Larraq.
 
Betna wasted no time.

"Active camouflage," he stated simply and flipped open the file. "A series of micro cameras embedded into the armor or clothing, either as paint, a hardened coating, or perhaps a series of fiber optics woven throughout. Wire it all to a single source, or two for redundancy, and hook up a specialized processor. That processor takes in the data of the area around the wearer and projects a holofield a few millimeters from the user. That holofield mimics the terrain and area around it, making the user appear invisible to the naked eye."

The Mandalorian pulled a few pages from the file and laid them out for the CEO to look at. One was just a series of mathematics while another was a general outline of how the systems would line up and work. The third was a pair of concept renders for the system, detailing how exactly it would appear in the field.

"Well, 'invisible', so to speak. Essentially, you can still be spotted, but only if someone is actively looking for the telltales. From the way it would work, it'll create a shimmer of sorts, but not a highly noticeable one. When crouched or prone and still with the device online, you would more or less be undetectable as the field would hide thermal signatures, but you could still be spotted using magnetics as it's hard to hide any magnetic anomalies in the field. Slow movement makes the shimmer more noticeable as the processor would need to keep up with the movement around it, but it would still be maintainable to an extent, just less stealthy. Fast movement, quick gestures, and the like would cause faster movement than the processor can keep up with, but if you install a failsafe for the thing to shut off before it overloads, you'll keep the processor from frying, but you'll become visible. I'd guess also installing a program that when the user returns to a speed or position that the processor can handle, the field would automatically restart, but you could also turn it on and off manually through a HUD system."

@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
@[member="Arrbi Betna"]

Larraq absently glanced at the papers on his desk without moving. He simply sat, drank his coffee, and listened to the man that was making him late. "And I'm guessing you... what... want me to buy this from you?" Larraq said to the mandalorian in his office. "Some rough sketches, a basic outline of an idea, and no proof of concept." Larraq continued as he sat down his mug of coffee and picked up one of the -unnamed mandalorian-'s papers. "No estimated power requirements, not even a reference to what gauge of wire to use between cameras. I do not have time for half thought up ideas to be thrown onto my desk while I am preparing for a meeting." Larraq said in annoyance as he pulled his pistol from its holster and placed it on the table in front of himself. "You had three minutes of my time more than you deserved. Now you've got thirty seconds to get out of my sight before I start putting holes in you."
 
Betna sighed once and took a step back from the table. He held up both hands as if to give up the point.

"If you insist," was all he stated and then disappeared. A slight shimmer on the air stood where he was, but for all intents and purposes, he was completely transparent. One could look through and see the secretary's desk on the other side, though the image was slightly distorted.

"Now, can I continue? Or do you still want to try and shoot me?"

@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
@[member="Arrbi Betna"]

Larraq was caught off guard by the mans sudden disappearance. The shimmering outline of his humanoid figure was unmistakable as it stood on the other side of his desk. But as he stared directly at the results of the device, he instantly realized the tactical value it possessed. It wouldn't hold up against thermal vision or any form of advanced sensors, but it could sure as sunshine hold up against the naked eye. From a distance anyway.

Whatever tactical value this technology represented on the ground, Larraq was indifferent and uncaring. What his mind immediately thought of was the implications for naval tactics. Marine boarding teams with repulsors and void suits made with this technology could all but walk up to a hostile ship and arm explosives or force entry without risking detection. Vehicles and starfighters could be equipped with this technology as well. Maybe they could even get a corvette or a frigate equipped with this tech... It wouldn't do anything to stop the enemy sensors from picking up the ship, but it would make targeting them nearly impossible. And if they could manage to pair it with existing Sensor Mask technology... then they would truly have a cheap alternative to current stealth tech.

"You could have just walked in here like that... It would have saved us some time here." Larraq said dryly as he picked up some of the papers and reviewed them again. "But now that I've seen this thing in action I think I can agree with your points. It's not a perfect system. But it's definitely something worth selling."
 
"Now what fun would that have been if I'd walked in like this instead?" Betna said as he deactivated the prototype system. "Besides, your security may have seen me and thought I was a threat. Name's Arrbi. I'm from the Betna clan."

Betna popped the seals on his helmet and set the thing on the table. He then pulled a chair over with his foot and sat down before pulling more papers from the file and spreading them out.

"The system has its failings though," he continued. "Namely, the bigger the item or user the system has to cover, the less effective it gets. I could put it on an Ewok and have it ding-dong ditch the Sith Emperor's door all damn day, but I try to put it on a Wookiee or anything bigger and it starts failing if you so much as twitch. Stationary targets, like maybe a building or something you could pull off 'cause that's completely stationary, but if you open an external door it could shut off. Same with shooting at it. The camo is a temperamental thing right now. I know how to fix the bugs, but I don't have the means or programming knowhow to go through and pick out every segment of code. I also don't have the materials for better performance."

Betna snagged a small pouch from his kit and set it on the table. Opening it, he set a small patch of cloth, a square of armor plate, a power source, and a small box. Everything had wires and connections running from it and it looked like each could connect to the other.

"Method is simple. This cloth here has fiber optic receptors built in, both holo field emitters and receptors. When both power and the processor are running to it," Betna plugged the processor and the power source together then plugged the cloth's wires into the processor. The cloth immediately took on the transparency of glass and one could see 'through' it to the table beneath. "The receptors pick up the area around it and mimic it from all sides. Only problem that I can find, and it's just with the technology, not the methodology, is that it'll distort it somewhat. It's because it's a solid object as far as I can find, not actually transparent. Also, you'll notice the shimmer and the outline. Thing is, the eyeball can pick out the outlines and the faint shimmer of the holofield at close ranges, but at long ranges it's harder to spot. Much harder. Now, I can do the same thing with the armor," he matched word to action and plugged the armor into the processor. It, too, became 'transparent'. "You'll see that you get the same results. Though with the armor the fiber optic wires are much, much thinner and adhered to the armor through a coating. Same concept, though."

Betna slid the items to Larraq to handle if he wanted and leaned back in the chair.

"One other thing I should mention. I think the field can nullify thermal imaging, but because of the nature of holofields, I don't think it'll block magnetics or other types of vision. Also, while it makes the user 'transparent' it doesn't let light through, so you have to be careful to mind your shadow. It also doesn't work where there aren't fiber optic lines, so it won't emit over exposed skin or objects without the wiring. Otherwise, it works great. I sat in the park for a few hours on a park bench out in Keldabe with it on and almost got sat on a few times. Once I didn't mind, though. Very pretty young lady. Almost jumped out of her skin when I said 'Hi', though."

@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
"That's... special." Larraq said as Betna talked about his antics on a park bench. The limitations of the technology on large targets was an immediate disappointment, but it was nothing that couldn't be worked on with time and research. Either way, the technology only needed some fine tweaking before is would be sellable. "Alright Betna. You've sold me on the product. So what exactly are you looking to get out of the deal?"

@[member="Arrbi Betna"]
 
"Honestly, I'd like to see it have the bugs worked out for easier production," Betna said with shrug. "Other than that, I'd be happy for royalties off the thing and to have my name as the creator. Oh, and to have one of the updated and non-buggy versions for my own use."

Antics aside, Betna had plenty of uses for the thing. The active camo would work wonders in his role as a sniper, but would also give him an edge in the field in recon roles as well as operating behind enemy lines. Overall, it was just a very useful thing to have regardless of the role he was in.

"Oh, and I would like to keep this technology withing both Hypernautics and with the Mandalorians. I don't want anyone else getting their mitts on it."

@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
Larraq sighed and rubbed his forehead after @[member="Arrbi Betna"] made his terms known. He wasn't a fan of limiting his potential customers, but he was also fond of keeping the best of his products close to his heart. And by his heart, he meant within the Mandalorian clans.

"I can agree to most of that Mr Betna. But I don't see how restricting the sale of this technology to Mandalorians will be profitable. The technology itself, sure. But products created using the technology? I just can't agree to that." Larraq said as he reviewed the paperwork in front of him and the mandalorian before him. "I'll pay your for the prototype and blueprints. And I'll give you a sample of the end product. But I'll not tie my hands with unnecessary agreements."
 
"There is option C," Betna said with a shrug. "You could just subsidize me."

Not many knew, but Betna owned his own company. While small and, admittedly, rather niched in its product range, it was highly advanced for its size. Plus, it helped that Mandos were a varied bunch and many still liked using old fashioned slug throwers. That meant Betna's munition company made enough profit that his clan didn't go hungry on a regular basis.

"I own Mythosaur Munitions, located on the eastern side of the city. Right next door to that coffee shop with the cartoon Ewok outside? It's maybe two or three blocks over from here."

@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
Larraq hadn't grown up in Sundari and sure as hazmana didn't know every corner of the city. But oddly enough, he thought he might know the coffee shop @[member="Arrbi Betna"] was talking about. He hadn't realized there was a munitions shop near it. Let alone a good one. "I've never heard of your company." Larraq said as he pulled out his datapad and began scrolling through information on the small company. "What exactly do you have to offer Mandal Hypernautics as a long term partner? All I'm really seeing here is a lot of hand made ammunition and some scrapped together tech."
 
"Admittedly, not much," Betna said with a shrug. "Mostly ammunition on most small arms calibers and a couple of novelty ammunition types, namely the coin shot. Concepts and ideas, though. I do those in spades."

Betna scratched at his cheek a bit, his fingernails rasping on the stubble. Time to shave again, it seemed.

"The active camo was a kind of pet project, but I have other designs that are just paper right now, and one that's pretty much an idea. Couple of designs for fin stabilized bullets. Another for a rocket assisted projectile. The one on that's just a concept is a really big gun. Slug thrower type artillery. I haven't really done much with it because I don't have the facilities, materials, or time to do much more than mull it over. With Mandal Hypernautics backing me up, though, I could probably fiddle with it more. Get a working prototype up and running. Bore diameter is about 400mm, but I figure I can go both bigger or smaller with it. It'd just be a bit bulky is all. Field piece maybe."

@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
Larraq drummed his fingers on the table top as he contemplated the offer. From the sound of it, the company had nothing to offer that he couldn't just as easily get from another source. It wouldn't be a particularly expensive investment should he accept it, and if it failed to live up to his expectations he could just as easily liquidate the company's assets to cover his expenses.

"What the sheb. I'll go for it. Consider yourself under the umbrella of Mandal Hypernautics." Larraq said to @[member="Arrbi Betna"]. "Anything else that needs my attention before I get to my meeting?"
 
"Not that I know of," Betna stated simply. "I'll get in contact with your people and start transferring information and getting paperwork set out. I'll also swing by and have your techs look at the camo, see if we can get it working better. That should take a day or so, it's not too complicated."

With that, Betna stood and offered [member="Captain Larraq"] a handshake.

"Pleasure doing business with you."
 

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