Sea Urchin is the head of DDS Technology and thus is in charge of the technical powerhouses behind the force including DDS Engineering and DDS Research. He gave the following Q&A with the technical media:
Q : When will EA-X become common-place in the fleet?
A : We are rolling it out as fast as we can, all new ships since the late Summer have had it though our production facilities are still not sufficient to retroactively apply to existing ships yet. A new factory is currently being built on Liberation and when that is online late next year we hope to then get going with applying the energy absorbent layer to the rest of the fleet. It will still take a number of years though.
Q : Two legacy platforms, Pulsar and the Kalahati Tuul, have been withdrawn this year. One major reason being the higher maintenance cost of older ships. Is the Starsystem also under threat?
A : No, the Starsystems will still be in service at the end of this decade. Unlike the Pulsars the Starsystems are secondary assets and so are not pushed as hard as the Pulsars were. This eases the wear and tear and lessens the need for maintenance. If we got rid of the Starsystems then we would need some ships for the training and R&D role anyway so there would be no saving. If, for example, we redesignated some Isometrics then we would need to build new MCS to replace them. No i think that will have to wait until we have plenty of Corkscrews.
Q : How much work is being put into traditional propulsion now that worm-drive is here?
A : Not quite as much but still a heavy investment. Our focus has changed though, no longer are we striving for as much power as possible but now we are more interested in efficiency and ease of maintenance. The next generation of engines will reflect these changes of focus.
Q : We know that the Dinos and Clones have more or less worked out how to protect against TPM-1 and other powers are probably close too, are you worried about TPM-2 being negated soon?
A : Not worried, it is obviously a strategic concern but no weapon remains invincible for ever. The key thing to note though is that no one has worked out how to shield against a phasing weapon rather they have developed stratagems to trick the phasing mechanism or have spaced shields to limit damage. We are working on negating both of these defences both through a more active phasing mechanism, dephasing countermeasures and higher yields. I am confident our weapons will remain effective well into the future.
Q : The new generation of Bolitic info-weapons seems to have defeated DDS defences lately, is this a concern?
A : No, as with the last question the battle between the designers of offensive weapons and defensive counters never ends. We are also working on our next generation of IWC and will be rolling out an interim cyber security enhancement DDS wide early in the new year.
Q : When will the DDS field offensive cyber weapons?
A : Maybe we have already [laughs]? It remains a secret of course but i can say that we are working on a range of cyber warfare options.
Q : What piece of technology a foreign power possesses do you wish the DDS had?
A : The Tarbotian EMP weapons they used to destroy the ABBOs are highly interesting. We have been analysing telemetry and sensor data and also some ABBO "carcasses" but haven't worked out yet how they managed to make their EMP weapons quite so deadly. It would be a useful weapon to have in our arsenal of course.
