"FIDO is the future of the DDS!" Dr Forbidden proclaimed at a media briefing held at DDS Research. What is FIDO? It stands for Fully Immersive Distributed Operation and is a synergy of distributed operation, VR technology, holographic projection and improved encrypted laserlink communications. What does that mean then? Well it means that DDS personnel can work on a ship even if they are really lightyears away (most likely at the large DO Centre being built on Solaris) and using Virtual Reality their end and a holographic projector on the ship for all intents and purposes it will be like they are really there.
"This will bring a high degree of flexibility to the DDS." Dr Forbidden said, "For example, an Isometric frigate encounters an asteroid and needs to run a geological analysis for minerals. They have no one with geology expertise aboard however. No problems, someone at the DO Centre or another ship will have the expertise they require and using FIDO they can then become part of the ship's crew and work and interact as if they were really there. This will also be highly useful in combat and engineering situations."
The Quasar ILU and Velocity VS will be the first ships to have full FIDO capabilites and the hope is that every ship in the fleet will have this by the end of the decade. The Terran Sea Block 2 has an earlier version of the technology which lacks the holographic technology though personnel elsewhere can work on the ship. Its possible if funds can be found the final examples of the Terran Sea will have full FIDO.
Dr Forbidden also hopes that before long FIDO will be perfected to the extent that crew members forget where they are. "We hope that crew will soon need reminding if they are on Solaris or actually on a ship! In future we may be able to have full FIDO crews in highly dangerous missions allowing us not to risk our most valuable asset : our people."
