The Nerimian Armory: A Glossary of NDI Technological Devices

 

A

Achilles Targeting Unit

The Achilles Targeting Unit is a powerful targeting system that is a component of the Oracle Interface battle computers. Utilizing the powerful short-range radar systems of the warship the computer illuminates enemy targets with the radar systems and scans the physical surface of the targeted unit, finding structural weakpoints in enemy armor. By making very slight modifications in the targeting of the ships' beam weaponry, the Achilles' unit can more effectively penetrate armor. Missile and torpedo guidance systems are automatically updated by the Achilles to defeat enemy countermeasures and better track enemy units.

 

AIM (Artificially Intelligent Manufactory)

The AIMs are the cutting edge of NDI industrial technology. Massive installations spread out over many square miles, most are actually mammoth space stations, while others are placed on moons, even some exists on planets like Antares or Dylar III. The AIM is a small city unto itself and operats 24 hours a day. Automated, computer controlled and equipped assembly lines, massive nanolathes, zero-gravity construction chambers, and a host of other high-tech manufacturing techniques make the AIMs critical to the military and industrial secotors.

B

C

D

Direct Electronic Unification System [D.E.U.S.]

Some people call D.E.U.S. the next generation of the original Oracle Interface technology. In truth, the D.E.U.S. system is the ultimate C3 (Command, Control, and Communications) system. As a part of the SLICS computer heirarchy, the D.E.U.S. system coordinates fleet activities completely, linking together all Oracle systems into a massive tactical network that runs off the SCRIBOL programming language and makes the SLICS configuration possible. The D.E.U.S. serves as an intermediary system between the individual-level Oracle computers and the high-command's GoldenG.A.T.E. computer. Only flagships such as Suzaku dreadnoughts are equipped with D.E.U.S. systems.

E

EMS- Electro Magnetic Spectrum

EMS is a wide range of emissions generated by 'modern' fighting vehicles and even power armor equipped infantry. The EMS spectrum was scanned for 'artificial' signals that did not occur normally as background radiation from the sun, from the Earth's magnetic poles, etc. Anything out of the ordinary (i.e. not occurring naturally in nature) could be tagged as a target. Target emissions and documentation was included in every database onboard a vehicle. Discrepancies were easily identified, and then correlated based on known information on a unit by unit basis.

F

Felix Converter

Developed by Phoenix Corporation scientist, Alpheus Togra, the Felix Converter is a system that utilizes abnormal nuclear forces in Element 115 to effectively generate true energy-to-matter and matter-to-energy conversion.T ogra rejected 500 years of scientific learning, stating that matter could be easily and permanently altered at the molecular level and steadfastly maintained that the necessary knowledge and tools to allow such transmutation could be uncovered in his lifetime. Matter, he explained, like all of reality, is more than a sum of its parts. His research focused on element 115, first discovered on Io by the prisoners there. Element 115 had the atomic makeup of an isotope, but the stability of an element. Most of Togra's contemporaries believed that element 115's rate of degradation was radically slower than most isotopes, immeasurable with modern instruments, but Togra disagreed. He claimed that by unlocking the secret of element 115, he could transform Earth, even the entire galaxy, into a 'paradise'. Although he was considered one of the great thinkers of his age, sensible people feared that Togra's obsession with element 115 was merely another megalomaniacal attempt to 'turn lead into gold'. Togra countered "If I can tame the soul of matter, what need would I have for gold?" Using element 115 as a catalyst, he was supposedly able to transmute matter on a very small scale. He claimed he would now need only to design and build a number of reactors to allow near unlimited matter conversion.

The end result was the Felix Converter, the reactor that allowed nearly unlimited matter conversion. While one version of this reactor is used on ships equipped with Stellar Converters, several large versions of these converters exist produce mass quantities of neutronium, xentrotium, which fused together can create Xintium alloy.

 

Feral Acquisition Targeting SYstem (FATS)

All modern vehicles, mecha, infantry, even starships carry some form of FATS in various names and varying degrees of efficiency. The FATS system was the subdevelopment of the 'smarter bomb' technology, a trickle-down effect, have you. The technology and theory hat made weapons able to survive against enemy active defense systems also made it possible to identify, track, and target enemy units. The installation of FATS on nearly every NDI military unit was just a part of the evolution of the modern fighting weapon. Using FATS, enemy units could be identified acoustically, by a specific energy signature, by their scalar wave 'shape'. Basically anything that could be used to identify a ship, FATS was designed to home in upon that characteristic and destroy the target. This makes all NDI precision guided weapons extremely accurate and capable of defeating enemy active defense systems (point-defense lasers, anti-missile missiles, et cetera) at least half of the time.

G

GoldenG.A.T.E.

The GoldenG.A.T.E. supercomputer mainframe is the NDI's signature comptuer system, the pinnacle of artificial intelligence technology. First developed in 2020 by the scientists Franlink Geralds, Hugo Arsenault, Richard Tyson, and Jalen Evans (Hence the reason that 'G.A.T.E.' is an acronymn), the GoldenGate Project was commissioned by the government of the Nerimian Confederation to give its military forces a superpowerful computer system that dwarfed every other computer system known to man in terms of sheer computing power and resources. Unlike NERV's MAGI system, which is mainly designed to run every aspect of the NERV bases and the operations of Tokyo-3, GoldenG.A.T.E. is a system dedicated specifically military operations. Initially, it was designed to conduct military research, its first breakthrough was the development of the faster-than-light (FTL) fold drive, which allowed Nerimian spaceships to travel between starsystems in a matter of minutes instead of years.

What makes GoldenG.A.T.E. such an extremely powerful system is its intense ability to learn, its advanced neural net processors capable of tripiling the system's knowledge every two and a half days. It is a self-evolving computer system, constantly upgrading its own capabilities to make it ultimately more efficient in its everyday operations. GoldenG.A.T.E. is personified as a female, a feature that seems ultimately more authoratative than a male personification.

In GoldenG.A.T.E.'s most simplistic form, she is an extremely advanced battle computer. It is the original combat control system onboard the N.S.S. Bastion, the NDI's first interstellar warship. It is capable of controlling all combat operations and feeding intense loads of information to the crews of NDI warships at one time. Furthermore, it is able to store all combat data that it collects during combat to upgrade missile systems and force field generators so that if such an enemy is encountered again, they are more easily dealt with. This was GoldenG.A.T.E.'s original function, however as it began to upgrade itself, it created another system named 'Oracle' to fufill its role as a ship's combat computer.

Today, GoldenG.A.T.E. exists as the core computer system of the NDI, continuing to devise new and better strategies as well as develop new and better technological systems for the NDI. It's location is in the NDI High Comamnd Fortress (Codenamed "Green-One"), buried under nearly 3,000 feet of solid rock.

GoldenG.A.T.E. is the developer of the SCRIBOL computer language, the basis on which Oracle and D.E.U.S. battle computers operate. It is the third, and most vital part of the NDI's strategic computer heirarchy. It serves as the central node to which all other NDI battle computers link into to spread information throughout all NDI military units.

H

Hermes Hyperspace Communications Array

The Hermes Hyperspace Communications Array is the standard hyperspace communications system of all NDI interstellar vessels and orbital space stations. Based on the same basic technology of the hyperpulse drive, the hyperspace communications array is essentially a gun that fires high-frequency energy pulse containing the information. The pulse travels the distance near immediately, much like a FTL drive, and its range is theoretically unlimited.

Hyperspace Fold Drive

The biggest and most important discovery that the NDI yielded to humanity was the ability to fold space. This discovery even before the Zentraedi showed up in orbit over Earth and joined humanity in peace offered the prospects of travelling great distances in a short period of time, and would allow humanity to stretch out from the Sol system and investigate star systems that it could only the past have viewed from afar. The name however is not entirely correct as a fold drive would in fact fact directly fold the space around a ship making travel from one point in the universe to another instantaneous. What the fold drives of the NDI Spacy, Draconians and other races do is push the ship into hyperspace a dimension adjacent to our own dimension but one where distances are far smaller. For example to travel 1 lightyear at maximum sublight speeds would take a ship 5 years at 0.20 of lightspeed. However if the ship were to fold it would only take it 6 minutes to travel the same distance through hyperspace.

Hyperion-C Artificial Intelligence System

The Hyperion-C Artificial Intelligence System is the standard CPU system of the NDI Spacy's mighty XF-14 Tempest and XB-29 Pulsar Veritech Mecha. These CPU systems were developed to give the NDI a viable Veritech fighter drone in the event that severe manpower shortages would occur. The end result was the Hypersion-C AIS, a CPU with the equivalent capability of a early human (Homo erectus), and like a real brain, the two hemispheres work in tandem. The Hyperion-C CPU is trained in a wide vareity of tasks, including flight, movement, combat, and recognition of and obedience to authority. It was also taught rudimentary communication using a mission-specific vocabulary including via both visiual and radio cues. After proficiency was achieved, the CPU was mass-produced with the "trained" neural connections already built-in, and the pre-trained CPUs were installed in the lifeless shells of the XF-14 and XB-29 Veritech, and were then subjected to further training in their new bodies. The CPUs continue to learn by experience during their entire lifetimes, eventually developing a simple animal-level personality. Periodically, squadrons of fighters are called back in for retraining, to insure that newly-learned experiences do not cause loss to discipline or of basic skills. This retraining involves more conventional exercises, like those human pilots might be subjected to, as well as reviews in simulators of selected excerpts from manned fighters' and other Veritech flight recorders. In combat operations, several Veritechs were attached as wingmen to a piloted craft, which serves as an analogous role to a wolf pack's alpha male. In case of seperation from the leading piloted craft, the Hyperion-C can operate the unit independently, with an efficiency dependent upon the unit's level of experience. Field experience shows that under these circumstances, the orphaned drones will rally around the nearest piloted craft, or, if one cannot be immediately found, the most experienced of the nearby drones, until a piloted craft can be sent to assume leadership.

At the beginning of each new production run, the most experienced, disciplined, and skilled units are recalled. Their CPUs are scanned, and their neural connections - in a sense, their experiences - copied into the new basis for the next generation of pre-trained CPUs. These new units begin service as a mental 'clone' of the parent CPU they were copied from, but diversify as yet more experiences are acquired.

I

J

K

L

Lightning Shield

The Lightning Shield is one-half of all NDI standard force field systems, consisting of a high-energy electromagnetic field that fluctuates constantly, creating a very powerful barrier that can prematurely detonate enemy missiles and torpedoes a long time before they ever strike their targets. While the Lightning Shield doesn't have a 100% success rate, it can take the sting off heavy missile attacks to make it easier for point-defense systems to take out the remaining warheads. It is effectively useless against beam weapons.

M

N

Nanolathe

O

Oracle Battle Computer System (GS and XS series)

The Oracle series of tactical combat computers were the most advanced computer hardware systems ever devised when they were first developed in the early part of the 20th century by Oracle Microsystems. Equipped with tremendous processing power, the Oracle computers were the first true artificial-intelligent computer systems. The Oracle system gained this ability through the utilization of the SCRIBOL (Self Contained Reprogrammable Instruction Battlefield-Oriented Language), which was a powerful computerized language that maximized the capabilities of the Oracle hardware. Oracle GS and XS series computers are standard on all NDI Spacy vessels, where as smaller, more compact version of Oracle hardware is carried on the NDI's mecha and powered armor units. The Oracle is one-third of the SLICS computer heirarchy.

P

Point Defense Systems (PDS)

The rise of guided and 'smart' weapons (and later 'smarter' weapons) pushed the armored vehicle to the brink of extinction as a battlefield species. Survival of an armored vehicle on the 21st century battlefield required many facets of operation and defense. Electro Magnetic Spectrum (EMS) search and scan made it very hard to hide a vehicle or anything remotely powered from detection. Countermeasures already included ECM, ECCM, variable construction armor, better armor materials, hybrid armor designs, speed, thermal baffling, sound baffling, sound imitation, etc. One of the types of defenses introduced during the 21st century was the Point Defense System, an 'active' type of defensive countermeasure which used a high speed projectile firing weapon (usually an autocannon of some kind or type) to target and destroy missiles, artillery projectiles, rockets, rocket grenades and the occasional inconvenient infantry unit automatically. The best known of the PDS systems was the "Phalanx" PDS used by the Tatsumaki IIa and Memphis guided missile warships. The Phalanx PDS was a fast-reaction, (VRF) very rapid-fire 8 millimeter electrically driven tri-barrel 'gatling' gun system equipped with its own dedicated FATS and ALS systems. Early pre-21st century Phalanx systems were large, bulky, and provided old 20th century United States Navy ships with a terminal defense against anti-ship missiles that had penetrated other fleet defenses. The first generations of Phalanx were designed to engage anti-ship cruise missiles and fixed-wing aircraft at short range. The Point Defense System (then also known as the CIWS Close In Weapon System or Sea-Whiz (C-Wis)) automatically engaged functions usually performed by separate, independent systems such as search, detection, threat level evaluation, target acquisition, target track, weapon firing, target damage assessment, target destruction confirmation, kill assessment, next target detection and / or cease fire.

Q

R

S

SLICS (Squadron Level Integration and Countermeasures System)

The SLICS is a complex system of battlefield computer networking among the high-performance tactical combat computers that are a part of every NDI warship, armored vehicle, Veritech mecha, and even powered armor infantry. The SLICS system is fully managed by the TRIAD of NDI combat computer systems: Oracle (standard-issue), D.E.U.S. (command-level), and GoldenG.A.T.E (high command level). The SquadNet intergrated each individual NDI military unit into an operational unit and doctrine solution that was greater than the sum of its individual parts. In essence, it is the ultimate force-multiplier. Utilizing SLICS, an entire squadron of Veritech mecha or a squadron of NDI warships could function as one greater effective unit, instead of as many lesser effective individual units. What one unit knew or could detect with its sensors, the entire force structure knew equally well. All information from one unit was instantly available to every other unit in the theater of operations -- and ultimately to every other unit within the entire NDI force structure. Target reference and engagement, target spotting, and intergration into the mass of data which made up the 21st century battlefield became the norm. The entire theater of operations worked flawlessly and seamlessly as one mobile unit, pooling resources and operating on a squad level instead of the individual level as had been the case before SLICS. Efficiency as a military unit as increased dramatically, as combat losses have decreased by the same level.

Scalar Wave Radar

Some consider the Scalar Wave Radar the NDI Spacy's ace in the hole, mainly due to its ability to identify hostile threats even if they are provided with cloaking technology. The radar reads changes in the proverbial sea of energy that makes up space. As warships or other stellar objects move through the sea, they make waves, making a visible change in the sea of energy. Warships have a drastically different wave signatures than asteroids and comets, which allows the radar to diffrientiate between the two types of objects. The Scalar Wave Radar was developed as a by-product to the Zero-Point Energy generator, which could harness the ubiquitious source of energy in space.

SCRIBOL (Self Contained Reprogrammable Instruction Battlefield-Oriented Language)

The most revolutionarly military programming language ever developed, SCRIBOL is responsible for the open-ended architechure which made hardware such as the Oracle GS and XS series battle computers so worthwhile to the functions of the NDI military forces. SCRIBOl is packed-oriented and easily modifiable on the fly (MOTF) by the hardware running it. Operating requirements are steep, but the immense power of the Oralce, D.E.U.S., and GoldenG.A.T.E. systems are more than up to the task at hand. SCRIBOL was produced in individual packets of code that actively sought out and found other SCRIBOL-oriented packets, linking to them and modifying the initial code of both packets to seamlessly intergrate the two programs. The new program would search out any other program exhibiting a 'find me' key, and integrate that program into the fold, so on and so on until all available programs were assimilated into one larger, seamless program. Hardware operating under SCRIBOL protocols lent new meaning to the term 'plug and play', the hardware and its software would integrate itself into the whole. When it was unplugged, destroyed, or removed, that bit of software that controlled the hardware was ejected by the SCRIBOL assmilators and the whole program modified itself on the fly (MOTF) to operate without the hardware and accompanying software. SCRIBOL was the first artificially intelligent language developed by Oracle Microsystems and is the basis for the Oracle and D.E.U.S. battle computers.

Smarter Weapons

The advent of smart bombs created what was termed a 'Nintendo War' in the last decade of the 20th century where the public was witness to live feeds of laser guided bombs being directed through narrow exhaust ports of buildings, or hitting individual armored vehicles in prepared positions in the desert. As weapon technology paced itself along nicely with the increasing sophistication of computer and target attack programming, the 'bomb' got 'smarter'. The so called 'smart bomb' graduated to a 'smarter bomb'. The introduction of viable Point Defense Systems (PDS) and Area Defense Systems (ADS) meant that if a guided weapon was going to reach the target, it would have to have some form of intelligence. While not 'aware', some of the weapons guidance systems used during the wars of the 21st could be said to have definitely been 'feral' in nature;about as smart as a rabid dog. The weapons actually 'wanted' to destroy the target. Smarter bombs and munitions, once 'awakened' searched for a target like a hungry animal, and after a target lock was acquired, the weapon existed only for the destruction of the acquired target, almost in such as a way as to be sexual in nature.

Smarter bombs are precision guided munitions (PGM). With the advent of the PDS and ADS and the associated tactical doctrines that appeared with their use, PGMs had to get 'smarter' just to survive. Ground hugging PGMs came in fast and low to avoid PDS systems. Even the lowly man portable anti-tank missile carried by the infantryman of the 21st century was a quantum leap over anything anyone in the 20th century could have dreamed possible. And if you thought the weapons were smart, you need to see the defensive countermeasures that were produced to deal with these weapons! Vehicle crews went from periods of abject horror to periods of feeling completely invulnerable, depending on whether the weapon or the defense technology was ahead at the time.

Sub-light Drives

Anti-Matter Impulse Sublight Engines adorn the rear of the immense ships that travel through space carrying people and mecha between planets and moons. Only the larger ships of the various fleets of the galaxy are able to use engines large enough with enough thrust to reach sublight speeds. The maximum that they can reach is 0.20 of the speed of light, roughly 37000 miles per second. They rarely travel at this speed as mecha are unable to keep up being only able to attain a maximum atmospheric thrust of Mach 40 (the latest VF's.) Also weapons ranges do not exceed 100,000-200,000 miles and combat would be impossible at such speeds. Travel at this speed does however draw the problem of something the size of a pin head being able to punch through a ships hull as it travels at sublight speeds and destroying the entire ship, hence the reason why starships feature magnetic shields that function the same as a planets atmosphere in pushing aside/repeling minor space debris. The magnetic shields of vessels are not strong enough to contain an atmosphere but they do protect against micro-meterorites. Newer impulse drives are capable of propelling some ships at .40 the speed of light.

T

Time/Space Anchor

The Time/Space Anchor is a device constructed from Khydarin Crystals that firmly anchors whatever it is attached to firmly in the time/space continuum, rendering attacks that use dimensional and planar warping capability to deal their damage ineffective. The anchor must be turned off before a warship can execute a hyperspace fold, however.

U

V

Variable Fighter

The most advanced and most noticeable and not forgetting most famous of the advanced technologies of the NDI. The Variable Fighter, (also commonly referred to collectively as Veritech,) have been at the forefront of technology advances from the VF-1 Valkyrie through to fighters such as the VF-32 Hellstorm. These transforming mecha combine both speed, deadly weaponary, agility and adapatability into an aesthetically pleasing form. Capable of transforming into three different modes it allows the VF's much more adaptability than previous fighter designs which were non-transformable. A Veritech can perform tasks such as air/ground/space combat, rescue missions involving pulling civilians from damaged buildings and much more. It is this reason that the NDI have made the VF the workhorse of their forces.

W

X

Y

Z

Zero-Point Energy Generator

The ZPE generator is a powerful generator that could draw upon the ubiquitious energy source that is present in space everywhere. Argus Millitech scientist, Arleius Creed, was able to develop a generator that could draw upon this energy source effectively, and as a result, it became the primary source of energy for all NDI vessels, mecha, and other assorted units.

Zyro Shield

Zyro Shields are another standard-issue NDI force field system designed to defend against enemy beam weapon attacks. Zyro Shields are multi-phased systems, the battle computer of its parent warship capable of raising or lowering the shield's frequency in accordance with enemy beam weapons. After a few shots, the shields can totally adapt to enemy beam weapons, forming a near impenetrable defensive screen against beam weapons. Mega particle beam cannons and disruptor cannons can defeat the shields.