Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a planetary shield generator for Lucerne Lab's customers
- Image Source: here
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A[/URL]
PRODUCTION INFORMATION
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Labs customers
- Model: Bulwark-class Planetary Shield Generator
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Modularity: None
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Planetary shield generator components, Argentum series Matrix Armor, Calor-series Bio-Computers, ferrocrete subterranean superstructure, agrinicrete internal shielding, Beskar Blast Doors
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Shutter-style shield: Like the Nyalsan II Planetary Shield Generator, the Bulwark uses interlocking shield facets to form a single cohesive barrier. These facets can be lowered individually to allow ships and weapons fire to pass through at the operator's whim.
- Roughly equivalent to a GenCore Level I Shield Generator in terms of scale and power, making it effective at protecting up to a planet's hemisphere from moderate orbital bombardment or even more concentrated bombardments over smaller areas.
- "Smart" Generator: The Bulwark uses programming originally derived from the Aspis-class Shield Generator, allowing it to instinctively react to the battlefield based on programmed parameters.
- Radiation Overshield: Thanks to a software patch released in 864 ABY following the invasion of Sarka where radesh oil coated battlecruisers penetrated through a Salyrini's shield entirely undamaged,Bulwarks now produce a radiation overshield in front of their primary shielding barrier. This radiation field is designed to interact primarily with organic matter and technology, especially that used by the Bryn'adul. This biohazardous radiation can physically disintegrate and degrade substances such as radesh oil to make such penetrations significantly more hazardous and unlikely in the future. Additionally, this radiation shield interrupts the ability of Debauchers and similar technologies to sap energy away from the shield itself by causing energy currently getting drained from the shields to instead interact with the radiation overshield, diverting it to create a cascading chain of micronuclear reactions which instead enhances the strength of the radiation shield. This results in less energy from the Bulwark to be available to feed the Debaucher and other similar technologies/creatures. This radiation shield is less effective the farther away the Bulwark's primary shield barrier is from the generator itself, offering relatively low resistance to the unusual Bryn'adul technologies when at the upper reaches of the atmosphere (the depth of atmosphere inhibits this radiation overshield from being formed). Conversely, the closer the shield is brought to the generator, the much more powerful this radiation overshield becomes, especially as a planetary shield generator typically has a lot of power to drawn upon. This could cover a small city or base with truly impressive defensive staying power that could last for days against these unusual bryn'adul technologies, but the radiation produced would also likely be catastrophic for local flora and fauna. Consequently, many commanders plan on reducing the radiation overshield's maximum radiation levels to lower levels which are still formidable obstacles to Radesh-coated objectors and other Bryn'adul shield disrupting technologies.
- Expandable Coverage: Bulwark's hemisphere of protection can be expanded and decreased to cover different areas, allowing it to better adapt to different situations.
- Automatic Management: Sensor feed can automatically adjust shield positions to optimal positions based on written protocol or by priorities set by the shield operators. Because the machines and programming can react quicker than most organic operators, this makes surprise attacks or sudden shifts in fire less effective. Bulwark's shields can also automatically programmed to block incoming craft trying to navigate through the shield.
- Density Shifts: As Bulwark expands, its individual shield facets become more elongated and consequently less dense and easier to penetrate.
- Auto-Deceived: The Bulwark's auto-direct system can also be fooled by canny opponents because it only reacts to stimuli, rather than trying to figure out enemy tactics. This means that canny opponents can use feints, tactical misdirection, or electronic warfare to trick the Bulwark's auto-direct feature.
The Bulwark-class Planetary Shield Generator is Lucerne Labs entry into the planetary shield generator market. As a shutter-style planetary shield, Bulwark is typically more flexible than the older encasement-style shields like the WorldArmor-9 because it uses individual shield facets and arranges them to form a cohesive barrier. This means that the individual facets can be switched off, such as to allow ships or weapons fire out of the barrier, or the facets moved around to buffer areas of the shielding under considerable attack, effectively making it a layered shield system. The Bulwark's shield can also be expanded and shrunk at will, allowing it to protect areas as large as half-hemisphere of a typical world. It more commonly is used to cover smaller areas, such as large cities, military bases, or geographic regions. When covering smaller areas, the shield facets have a much greater density which makes them more resilient against concentrated attacks. In this regard, the Bulwark's basic shutter shield technology is utterly unremarkable. Most of its competitiveness on the marketplace is actually comes from its partially automated command and control features.
By using the ability of Lucerne Labs proprietary Bio-computers to better distribute load-processing, Bulwark's control systems not only are able to easily maintain static control over the individual shield facets, but they also have more computing power to manage individually manage individual shield facets in a dynamic environment. This means Bulwark can easily move multiple individual facets or turn them on and off at will. But to do this, it needs to do this smartly based on information and programming parameters. Information to the Bulwark is typically fed by a local defense sensor network comprised of nearby friendly starships, ground-based sensors, and satellites. Parameters are set by the shield's operating crew into algorithmic software derived from the Aspis Shield System. This software allows Bulwark to instinctively react to stimuli at far greater reaction speeds than most organics can muster. A Bulwark can quickly layer areas of shielding to better withstand a sudden assault or to block an incoming craft. Conversely, it can better account for the actions of friendly forces in the area, such as briefly dropping a section of shielding to allow a damaged craft to pass through while blocking its pursuers. But this ability to instinctively react to situations also makes it possible for skillful opponents to exploit openings that might not otherwise exist, such as through hacking or skillful electronic warfare. Because of that, the shield's operating crew needs to carefully monitor and oversee Bulwark's automated reactions while they continue to provide strategic direction for the Bulwark unit's overall mission objectives.
Because of the potential power of a Bulwark to hold back enemy offensives, the Bulwark has significant internal and external protection. The outer infrastructure, such as the projection dish and its support, is layered in Argentum series Matrix Armor. But the majority of the Bulwark system is typically buried underneath the ground. This includes the bunker for its crew of a dozen individuals, the actual shield generator, and often the power supply. These subterranean areas are contained in bunkers made out of ferrocrete with internal agrinicrete shielding. Access to these areas is typically controlled by biometric devices such as code cylinders and beskar blast doors.
Updates 4/5/2021:
-Added "Radiation Overshield" section to "Special Features"
-updated format to current template standards and updated links according - no other content changed
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