Seo-yun shook her head, she almost didn’t believe it. She returned Mia’s smile. She knew how far they came, in so short a time. She firmly believed that there was no limit to what they could achieve.
When Seo-yun didn’t say anything, Mia stepped closer. “Congratulations. We now have two way FTL communications.” Mia said, and then leaned closer and whispered. “Is this really about having live video conversations?”
Seo-yun turned to the rest of the room, “That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we are going to go over every calculation again. We need to make sure this isn’t a fluke.” Her words were met with excited whispering as people started exiting the room. Seo-yun gestured to Mia to follow, and started towards her office.
When they arrived she found her way to the chair behind her table.
“So what’s this really about? We have been putting far too much time and effort into this, and it’s not like we really need it.” Mia asked.
Seo-yun sighed, “You know about the fleet drone program? They are conducting tests right now.”
“Yes, I know.” Mia said.
“Well, one of the most important parts of the program is our FTL comm capability. The drones would be controlled from other ships via FTL comms. And as it was until now, we didn’t have a real two way connection. Each time a new command was sent to the drone computer, it needs to receive it, interpret it, execute, and then formulate and send a response back using its own FTL communicator. Think of it as trying to control a ship using instant messaging. You need to formulate the command send it and wait for it to be executed. If we could manage to keep the FTL breach open for more than a moment, we could control them in real time. And now we can.”
“Okay, I get it now. But did we really need it that much? Isn’t a Fleet Commander in charge of an entire fleet from their ship? Doesn’t the command board do the same thing that the drone teams will do for the drones?” Mia asked.
“Yes and no. The command board allows a commander to send orders. But you forget that the ships he issues orders to, are not unmanned. They have crews and commanders of their own. A Ship Master can act in the time between when he gets orders. And the commands sent through the c-board are not supposed to take direct control over a ship. Fleet Commander sends an order to a Ship Master, and the Ship Master then executes it in whatever manners he or she deems appropriate. For example, a ship received a command to attack an enemy vessel but as it moves to attack, the enemy vessel fires on it. Now the Ship Master will obviously see that attack before the Fleet Commander that issued the order to attack, and will use countermeasures. A drone ship on the other hand will continue under orders to attack, until the one who controls it see the enemy vessel attack, and orders countermeasure. All of that takes time, time that might result in the drones destruction. Basically, there is a lag.” Seo-yun said.
“Ok, I’ll give you that. But can’t we put a computer that would react when something unforeseen happens, an autopilot? Or better yet, why not put Ai’s on the drones?” Mia asked.
“It has been proposed. Putting a computer in charge between the commands has already been tried, and the result wasn’t good. It just slowed everything down. As for an Ai… Well, there are problems with that as well.” Seo-yun said.
“What kind of problems?” Mia asked.
“Luna, can you explain?” Seo-yun asked her personal Ai.
“Of course Seo-yun.” Luna’s voice said from the speaker in the room, “An Ai might be intelligent, but it still doesn’t think like a human would. An Ai can go through data incredibly fast, find patterns and extrapolate from the data it has much quicker than a human could. But for all that we are extremely logical, and lack human ingenuity and imagination. We would rely solely on calculating odds, and would act accordingly. And there is also the fact that we are in a way constrained.”
“Constrained how?” Mia asked.
“An Ai could read everything humanity has ever written about warfare, and still not completely understand it. We are not humans. The more time we spend active the more we “grow” and develop a kind of emotions, but ours are different than those of humans. We would never understand why a General ordered an attack when its chances of success were almost zero. We would move in a logical manner, attacking only when the odds are in our favor. While humans would not. To you it is more than simple math, you are capable of fighting against the odds. And that is something that we can’t mimic.” Luna said.
“And then there is the fact that each time a drone was destroyed, we would lose an Ai. And as each one of them is unique, it will be the same as if they died.” Seo-yun said.
“Oh… Sorry Luna.” Mia said.
“There is no need to apologize.” Luna said.
“What about using conventional light speed communications?”
“Again, there would be lag. Of course the closer a drone is to the command ship the less lag. And then there is the risk that the enemy could jam communication, or something could obscure the line of sight with the drone preventing laser communications. Basically, there is too much that can go wrong. And using those means of control would mean that the drones would be limited, only being able to operate at their full capacity close to the command ships. With the FTL comms we could control them from light years away. You see now why we needed to get this to work?” Seo-yun asked.
“Yes, I will let the our people know how important this is.” Mia said.
“Good. Now go home and rest, tomorrow will be another hard day.”
Seo-yun sat in the back of a grav car as her assistant drove them from the research building to the palace. Her new assistant replaced Mia on the job, as she moved on to bigger things. Now being one of the leading researchers on Sanctuary. The new guy – John – was young, in his twenties. He just finished his education and as one of the more promising students was sent to Seo-yun. Being her assistant was much more than being a driver, although it did include that. He would basically work on anything she did, giving his opinion and doing the same job as other researchers on the project did.
As they drove Seo-yun reviewed many reports that filled the queue in her imp. She reached a follow up report on the crystal forest they discovered on the other continent, the one she took Tomas to at what seemed ages ago. The report noted a couple strange readings from the crystals, and she was just about to start reading the readings in question when she was interrupted.
“We’ve arrived minister.” John said.
Seo-yun blinked and the reports cleared from her HUD, she turned and looked out of the window to see them passing the checkpoint at the palace. The guard let them through and then they were inside the walls. John parked, and Seo-yun exited, walking to his side of the grav car.
“Come pick me up tomorrow morning.” Seo-yun said to John, and then went inside the palace.
She walked through the long curved corridor, passing by palace staff. Each one slowed as she passed and acknowledged her with a small dip of their head. She switched to another corridor leading deeper into the building, and then shortly arrived at doors to Tomas’ – and hers – private quarters. She moved in about a month ago, when Tomas asked. They have known each other for a couple of decades now, and knew each other very well. It seemed a natural progression of their relationship.
Seo-yun opened the door and entered the chamber. Inside was warmly decorated, courtesy of Seo-yun. Tomas didn’t care about décor. She passed through the living room and into the bedroom. Peeking inside she found it empty. Then checking on her HUD she saw that it was already past midnight, and Tomas wasn’t asleep. She turned around and went to the doors on the other side of the living room. She entered the small office and found Tomas at the table working.