Dr Forbidden of DDS Research has taken time out from his busy schedule to answer some questions on current developments at the DDS.
US : Dr Forbidden, how has the war changed how DDS Research is currently working? Have some projects been cancelled or postponed?
DF : Strangely enough there has been very little effect so far on what we have been doing. When the war started we held a review of all current projects to see if we could re-prioritise but the projects were either close to completion (and thus changing things would have just added unnecessary risk into the latter stages) or long-term projects that throwing extra resources at would be pretty pointless as they still wouldn't be ready in time for the war (unless it lasts for years). The major event that has changed how DDS Research works has been the arrival of Dino worm-drive.
US : Can you elaborate?
DF : With a working worm-drive to examine we obviously are no longer working on the base technology. Instead we are now trying to understand how it works in the short-term, how to maintain it in the medium-term, then how to improve it in the longer-term. Ironically some staff have been reallocated from the worm-drive project to our traditional propulsion project.
US : Some of our readers will be shocked with that Doctor, they might assume that worm-drive makes traditional superluminal drives obsolete.
DF : Far from it! One aspect of worm drive technology a lot of people have yet to grasp is that (at the moment at least) the length of the jump is fixed. Current drives jump a ship 5 light years at a time. Now obviously if your destination is less than 5 light years away you'll have to make the rest of the journey using existing drives. Thus we are continuing to improve them.
The Gluon drives used in the Panthers are due an upgrade soon which will see a modest speed increase though much work nowadays is going into reliability and efficiency.
US : Moving onto weapon systems, are any new projects in the pipeline that you can mention of course?
DF : The Z InterPhase or Zip cannon is of course generating a lot of interest. We think now we can begin field trials before the end of the year. I think this could be a game changer in the war the TPM was. There are other things happening but of course its best we do not mention those!
US : Dr Forbidden, thank you!
