Full Immersive Distributed Operation or FIDO was all the rage a few years ago, indeed back in 2106 it was proclaimed the future of the DDS. What is FIDO, well it is a virtual crewing system where crew can operate parts of the ship remotely from secure bases like the FIDO Centre on Solaris (known as the "call centre"). For the last few years the DDS has been quietly refining FIDO and during the war it has started to come into its own.
One ship after a recent battle suffered heavy casualties but was able to operate with no fewer than 8 distributed crewmen (2 onboard a nearby ship the rest on Solaris). This allowed the ship to be bought safely to a home port for repair whereas without FIDO it may have required the transfer of extra crew to help out, not always possible of course.
The next stage of FIDO will be to give a visual feedback to present crew that there are virtual crew also working "aboard". Holography is possible at a later stage but now being trialled is augmented reality using the present crew's IFG goggles (which are worn in a combat situation). Tests in the field have been successful and it will be rolled out to the rest of the fleet later in the year.
