Peacemaker

[Ala Crescent]

Abstract

As we approach what we believe to be the physical limits of electron-based computing systems, KSA has been looking into alternative schemes that rely on different mechanics such as photonic systems or quantum entanglement. However, a major roadblock has already been foreseen. No matter how powerful processors become, within the confines of realspace, they will never be able to exceed the speed of light. This is why it has been decided to develop an entirely new scheme which relies on the use of quantum mechanics applied to hyperspace. A hypercomputer.

Within the realm of warfare, individual vessels will be able to leverage the computational power of entire server clusters. Better predictive targeting and countermeasures, real time astronavigation. The possibilities were endless for such a potent force multiplier.

However, such an undertaking requires a development of entirely new computer architectures and fabrication methods to make more efficient use of materials. Several new exotic materials, including substances exhibiting paranormal qualities, are now being investigated.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 32

After testing hundreds of base materials and alloys as a replacement for polymer and graphene transistors for project Minerva, the lab made a breakthrough with pyronium. It’s always been a well-known fact that pyronium is an incredibly energy dense material, even in comparison to other substances like diatium. For this reason, it has often found use as energy storage solution, or for military applications like armor.

That’s been about the limit of its use, but I have considered something else studying pyronium more in depth. One of the reasons it’s able to store so much energy is because pyronium is naturally able to create its own localized hyperspace matrixes using some of the energy it has absorbed as a catalyst for creation. At this time, it’s not quite clear to me whether or not the charged pyronium is creating its own pocket dimensions of hyperspace, or portals into greater hyperspace for storage, but what I’m thinking is that atoms of hypermatter within these matrixes could be assembled into processing clusters much like those of a quantum computer. Entangled hypermatter atoms capable of processing and transmitting data hundreds or thousands times the speed of light.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 54

Before focusing too much of my efforts into pyronium applications, I want to see if my concept of entanglement in hyperspace is even possible. I’ve been coordinating with Doctor Isaac at the Quance facility (Kiribian Moon) for testing within the hyperlab.

We’ve started very small, starting with by trapping a few pairs of the hypermatter atoms within grids of tachyon beams, mirroring the operation of an optical lattice for holding together baryonic atoms.

To great joy, after some fine tuning of the impulses of tachyon beams, we’ve had some success entangling the trapped hypermatter atoms. Now, transmitting information is a whole new ballgame, but none the less, this is a great achievement. I’ve given my team a couple days off for a job well done. A lot of use have been working for several days straight without taking a weekend or vacation. It’s quite tempting to continue, but honestly, I feel like I’ll burn myself out if I keeping pushing.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 79

Gradually, with some tinkering, we’ve been able to maintain increasingly larger clusters of entangled hypermatter atoms with tachyon grids. As stabilization methods have improved, we’ve been able to begin transmitting data between the atoms. I’ve started to look into developing some tests to benchmark the prototype against our current lineup of memristor neural networks, which are some of the most powerful computing solutions available.

I’ve placed more of the team on studying pyronium applications as it looks like Minerva can continue on this track of development. Meanwhile, Doctor Isaac is looking to branch off into a new project with the progress we made. A hypercomputer made for mass production. It’ll work on the same mechanics as the Minerva, but will forgo much of the miniaturization techniques that I’ve been investigating with pyronium as it’s not required.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 85

The prototype is absolutely killing benchmarks and running circles around our neural networks. Simply by the virtue of being able to process information above lightspeed, it’s able to surpass the performance of these systems, making them look like simple datapads by comparison. I think even the consumer grade of these machines will be amazing after we perfect the compilers. I wish Dr. Isaac the best of luck.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 108

So we’ve been trying to apply the techniques developed with the prototype at the Quance facility, but we’re having some issues applying this on the micro scale. Initial thoughts were a problem with the miniaturized beam splitters that we’ve been employing, but it looks like the culprit is the pyronium itself. The fields it creates can become relatively unstable depending on the energy levels itself. Not unexpected, but the exact levels of fluctuations have been difficult to work with all the same.

The issue may be with the refinement process of the pyronium itself following extraction. Current methods don’t seem to suffice. For theses reasons, I’m going to bring in our psionics to see if they can’t help us out with the process by applying some of their expertise in metallurgy. I’ve also contacted Arisa Yune for consultation from her remote location on Klatooine, as she has advanced knowledge refining materials as shown during the upgrade project for the Famos.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 120

We’re finally making some headway now.with the assistance of the psionics. They’ve been able to refine the pyronium to a degree that we’ve never been able to with standard machining methods. The matrixes being produced by this batch of pyronium has reached the level of stability necessary to keep the processing clusters intact.

There’s been an unforeseen element to the Force-based refinement being used by our psionics. As the material is being imbued with the Force, we’re seeing some strange behaviors with the material itself. I had Arisa look at it, and she told me that it will allow the system to detect events through the Force, much like a holocron or another Force-imbued item. On top of the raw processing power of the unit, it now has the potential for precognitive detection. This opens the door for functions like real time astronavigation.

However, I have no idea how to harness this feature being non-force sensitive, so I’ll be leaning on Yune to help our team work on the code to get it to work properly with the rest of the unit.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 133

The coding is starting to come together, and so we’ve started running some benchmarks similar to those used by the prototype. The Minerva is only a fraction of its size and energy demands, but we’re seeing a similar level of performance.

I think we’re just about ready for prime time. I want to throw this thing out for some real world testing as it has been passing lab tests with flying colors.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 157

For our initial tests, we started off pairing the Minerva unit with an air defense network consisting of attack satellites, orbital guns/launchers, drones, and PDCs (point defense cannons). Opposing the network was a drone force being directed by a Subutai unit, which in essence is a neural network optimized for combat operations.

From the very beginning, the Minerva controlled network dominated the Subutai drone force, and as time went on its performance against Subutai only improved as it learned its tactics. This included anticipating the ways that Subutai would adjust to counter previously employed tactics. It’s hard for most to gauge the performance of the system in the moment, but it was almost like it was deploying countermeasures and shifting formations before the opposite drone force did something, Subutai still thinking about the past. That’s quite incredible, even knowing the processing speed on paper.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 174

Programmers are rolling out the third iteration of the coding for the unit. Up to this point, we’ve been running the Minerva with heavy restrictions to prevent the achievement of sentience. Now we’re going to move ahead with the imprint process. Working with Arisa and other psionics, we’ve developed some new profiles to account for the Force imbuement process. We’ve begun the imprint process with a single unit, who we’ve dubbed Althea. “Her” profile is modeled closely after General Relina Howle. The flag officer is known to be thoughtful in her approach, exercising restraint and management skills that we think would make for an ideal template for Minerva. A scenario that we’re trying to avoid in our Minerva is ruthless behavior that calls large amounts of casualties on both sides. Warfare is and will continue to remain a battle of perceptions as well as a test of wills.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 193

Following the imprinting process, Minerva has received a comprehensive ethics education in line with Kiribian values. The use of the template development from Howle’s profile has made this process easier, reaffirming the value of the imprinting process rather than allowing AI to develop completely on its own without a guiding influence. The reckless development process of other manufacturers has shown the KSA the folly of going that route.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 217

As the education process has been completed, we’ve been constantly testing Minerva with a whole host of simulations and live training exercises. As we’ve allowed for deep learning, the unrestricted Minerva unit is now not just simply reacting, but actively developing countermeasures that up to the strategic level. It’s not just considering one battle, like say a Subutai unit, but making decisions to affect the outcome of future conflicts, to cripple its opponents very ability to wage war. As hoped, it acts with public opinion in mind, and has been good about limiting casualties.

At this time, we’ve began imprinting many other units with the hopes of seeing a similar level of progress in their development as witnessed with Althea.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 223

I’ve cleared the use of Althea by Arisa and a different team working on a new ship modeled after the Nirvana, codenamed Pathfinder. The Pathfinder’s mission will take it through the Deep Core on a route from Kiribi to Tython. The route is quite well mapped by the Spacy, but we’re going to have the system running blind, forcing Althea to conduct astrogation in real time.

However, before that test, we’re going to take some practice runs with micro-jumps in system. We’ve arranged a course filled with pulse mass mines to harmlessly simulate large celestial bodies.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 234

The practice runs against the network of pulse-mass mines has gone well. Althea has developed an interesting strategy that enables her to skirts close to the simulated gravity wells to reduce timing. What’s she’s been doing is diverting power from weapon systems (as they’re largely unneeded during hyperspace) to power up the compensator fields to escape the pull of celestial bodies, applying a similar tactic used against Vong vessels employing dovin basals.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 240

Arisa and her crew have successfully made the journey from Kiribi to Tython. In her report, Arisa reported Althea as being cautious during her initial run, understandable as this is one of the few platforms that I know of to attempt real time astronavigation. Still, despite the prudent behavior travel times were in line with standard plotting methods.

On the return trip to Kiribi, however, there was a significant reduction in travel times as Althea had time to review her performance and devise improvements. For testing purposes the Pathfinder was equipped with a military grade class 1.0 hyperdrive (significantly slower than the Nirvana’s class .3 hyperdrive), but with the use of real time astronavigation, the hyperdrive performed like it was a class .8 hyperdrive. There was no changes to the performance of the hyperdrive at all, but merely greater efficiency at plotting routes closer to celestial bodies to emulate that performance.

An interesting tactic that was observed was Althea boosting the strength of the compensator fields by diverting power from weapon systems, allowing it to skirt closer to the so-called “red line” of the pull of celestial bodies without shearing starship in half. This is a similar tactic used by vessels engaging Vong ships equipped with dovin basals.

Another interesting tactic. Rather than trying to avoid celestial bodies, Althea actually used them to her advantage, using the slingshot method with some celestial bodies like black holes to significantly increase the Pathfinder’s velocity through hyperspace.

Arisa is requesting that she be allowed to take the Pathfinder out on additional flights throughout the Deep Core and beyond. She feels that more real world exercises will only help Althea devise new strategies to continue to shave time off of travel routes. I’m going to approve her request, and share the data from the test flight with some of our other Minerva units.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 275

In addition to tests in physical combat and navigation, we’ve also been looking at how to best apply Minerva in cyber warfare. Offensively, exploiting holes within systems (zero day attacks), and cracking encryption.

Simply by virtue of computational power, Minerva units tasked for for slicing have had little issue breaking some of the simpler encryption schemes developed by binary system through brute force tactics. This is no surprise to me, as even a basic astromech can slice into military systems without too much trouble.

More sophisticated encryption schemes utilizing methods like quantum keys generation or lattices are giving Minerva trouble, but as most organizations don’t even bother to employ such problems, then this isn’t a huge issue at this time. If they become a more common facet on the cyber front, then I think the Minerva units will be able to adapt.

Placing Minerva on the defensive, it has been interesting to see the units devising their own evolving encryption schemes to thwart attackers. Another tactic being used is overloading attacking systems with self-generated junk data every time they fail to slice keys, making their task exponentially more difficult.

My assessment is that Minerva units will be best used defensively in cyber warfare, while backtracing attackers for retaliation.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 283

Arisa has returned from her expedition piloting the Pathfinder. Since the first voyage through the Deep Core, Althea has seen a vast improvement in her navigation skills. Though I’m not sure if that’s all through her own development, or by interfacing with Arisa who is known to utilize some Astrogation techniques as a psionic. I’m going to see about running independent trials without outside influences to see if this effect can be replicated without that kind of specific influence.

Althea herself has been good about guiding individual vessels, but now we’re going to run some tests where she will be coordinating the movements of an entire formation. The Spacy has long favored blitz attacks against enemy formations, so the ability for Althea run calculations for each ship is crucial.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 290

There were some hiccups with Althea leading movements, but like her first time traveling, I think that’s just from a lack of experience. It’s funny monitoring Althea. Her intelligence vastly outstrips my own, but I feel like I’m taking part in raising a child. While Althea was originally modeled after General Howle, she’s taken on a lot of qualities from Arisa. This is reflected in the formulation of tactics to minimize casualties with a focus of crippling opponents instead of outright destruction. Reasoning being that a defeated enemy given some breathing space will be more compliant in the long run. In other words, mercy. Interestingly, Althea has been developing alternate solutions that rely on the proactive use of soft power to end conflicts before they begin. A real peacemaker.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 295

Aris was nice enough to grant access to her personal AI, Cresh, to the lab so that we could work more on the cyber warfare front. The Atrophos unit is quite the sophisticated, back up by large data center servers, so we’re expecting more of a challenge for our Minerva units, particularly the ones still operating in restricted mode.

For one exercise, we pitted hooked Minerva unit “Sobek” into a battle net running Mithril security software. Instead of a data center analysing data from a local Mithril client, all that data is being rerouted to Sobek, and it will also take care of real time tracking.

As we had hoped, Cresh really put Sobek to task. Not necessarily in processing power, but in using sly techniques to circumvent some of the Sobeks’s strengths. Cresh’s attacks methods are also improving with each attempt.

However, overtime, Sobek did eventually match and overcome Cresh’s attack methods. He got a bit cheeky too, working his way around our networks to actually shut down remote access for Cresh altogether. Now that action wasn’t within the original parameters for the test in a sandbox network, but the creativity is welcome.

After plugging Cresh back in, we continued running some new tests stressing Sobek on multiple fronts, having to also work battle management while also protecting networks. Through these exercises we wanted Sobek to learn how to become more efficient in developing solutions rather than throwing raw power at the problem.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Day 313

Arisa has been appointed commander of a new ISAF mission to Silver Space. She along brought Althea to direct her forces from her flagship, making this first time that a Minerva unit has seen live combat scenario. This was also the single longest flight time for the Minerva, from Klatooine to Dallalt in the Outer Rim where there are fewer established routes.

At Dallalt, the Silver Jedi Order was pursuing a humanitarian mission that including helping to solve matters of local corruption, as well as eliminating a holdout of rogue Sith elements.

Initially the operation began as a low-intensity conflict against a poorly organized group of insurgents, but the fighting quickly escalating into a full scale air battle as pirate vessels associated with the Sith insurgents on the ground joined the fray. Manning a single Hyuna Star Destroyer, Althea would then find herself pitted against several enemy vessels.

This was an unexpected development, but also an important test to see how well Althea could work in real world conditions where there were no controls.

While enjoying numerical superiority, the pirates’ C2 was grossly inefficient in comparison to Althea being managed by a cyberized crew. Althea took full advantage of the Hyuna’s systems, leaving the enemy vessels in a state of disarray as they were harassed by starfighters while also being bombarded by jamming arrays and mass driver volleys. Meanwhile, the enemy starfighters efforts at successful bombardment were completely stymied by preternatural deployment of countermeasures on Althea’s part.

What I found most impressive about Althea’s performance was the lack of casualties while maintaining combat efficiency. Where possible, capital ships and starfighters were disabled rather than outright destroyed. Considerations in response included the risk of fallout upon the local population on the surface.