The Founder: Part 1

[Soeht]

After voicing her concerns about another ship blocking the superlaser shots by being in a prime location, the engineers assured her that anything below a capital class ship would be nearly impossible to stop the beam. They also added that the resulting explosion would still wipe out anything several possible hundreds of kilometers simply because of the energy behind every blast.

In fact, the engineers went on to say that they could create the superlaser to fire up to several stars’ worth of energy with a fully charge blast.

Because of this, they assured Daella that no shield nor hull would have been able to stop the superlaser. Again, not even a planet would have been able to stop it as well.

Satisfied with how well of a grasp of the situation that the weapons specialists had on the superlaser, Daella adjourned the meeting and departed to get some hours of sleep.

 

[Soeht]

In the next day, Daella went back to the conference room. Velkoz had gathered another group of engineers in order to explain to Daella their development process.

This group was in charge of the targeting systems of the starship.

While it might seem like a cut and dry situation, the engineers knew that they had a huge task to uphold. They told Daella that the superlaser beam traveling at the speed of light was both a blessing and a curse. If the superlaser was only supposed to target planets, this would not have been an issue. Yet since Daella desired that it would be able to fire at capital ships, this was the source of grief for the engineers of the targeting system.

Unfamiliar with the finer details of astrophysics, Daella was unsure of exactly why this would matter. She believed that targeting would be a simple matter of geometry and timing.

 

[Soeht]

The engineers went on to explain to Daella that geometry was not very simple in space. In fact, they told her to abandon the thought of Euclidian geometry in space. This was because of a simple rule in physics dealing with realspace: nothing could move past the speed of light in a vacuum.

Of course, there were tachyons - they were able to move beyond the speed of light in real space. However, the source of those was from hyperspace. The engineers said that this created an issue with targeting due to the theory of relativity - especially when combined with the gravity of a planet.

Basically, it meant that objects traveling at the speed of light - or near it - would be perceived to happen at different points of time compared to two observers with different positions and velocities. This posed a tremendous challenge for the target system engineers.

 

[Soeht]

While at point blank range (the engineers telling Daella that this meant on the order of thousands of kilometers), this was not an issue. However at the distance of light seconds, the engineers said that what the starship might see at the other end might not be where the ship actually was.

Because of this, they had to tie together the subspace network that the One Sith had with the targeting system.

Daella knew why the engineers were so stressed by this issue now. It violated her requirement to have a segregated control system in order to avoid splicers.

The engineers recognized this dilemma and sought her advice on how to move forward. As a representative of the owner, they believed that she would have an idea on what would be best for the One Sith. Daella took the moment to think hard on the issue at hand.

 

[Soeht]

After several minutes, Daella told the engineers that it would be best to have the targeting system integrated with the internal subspace network that the One Sith had. She added that the security of the starship would need to be beefed up in order to prevent any unauthorized access of the superlaser’s targeting parameters.

However, she stressed that the controls to the hypermatter reactor and firing mechanisms would have to be offline and hardwired. The engineers saw no issue with this.

Yet, the targeting system specialists went on to describe in a little more detail about their plans for the targeting system. With access to the subspace network, the engineers said that this would allow the starship to see what starships closer to the target would see as if it was real time. It eliminated the visual time lag as well as help solve any funky issues with simultaniality due to the theory of relativity.

 

[Soeht]

Satisfied with what the targeting system specialists had so far, Daella dismissed them from the meeting and went on to see what the communication system specialists had.

They had the meeting in the same conference room as the rest of the groups. The communications specialists said that things would be fairly standard for a starship. The segregated control systems would be handled by another department. The ship would be able to contact other One Sith ships through subspace.

All in all, there was little that they could add to the discussion. Daella moved on for the day.

Next would have been the shielding experts. This was a topic that Daella knew was going to be interesting. Once she sat down with the shield expert, introductions were made and they got down to business. The expert asked how many shield generators would be required. Daella’s answer was simple: three.

 

[Soeht]

Daella had already gone through a lot of research into shielding during the creation of the Vanguard. She originally wanted three shield generators for the Vanguard, yet was unable to get a power supply for them. Space was also difficult to find.

With a starship over twice the length of the Vanguard and many times greater in volume, Daella believed that it would have been easy to add three shield generators to the hull.

The shield expert commended her choice. He assumed that Daella knew about the specific advantages of having triple redundant shielding. For one, it was not too excessive. While triple redundancy was expensive, one could always try to put sixty four shield generators on a single ship. Yet, the amount of shield generators that would be used in a given battle would be extremely low.

For a triple redundant shield generator, things were different.

 

[Soeht]

The shield expert reminded Daella that it allowed one shield to always be up to guard the ship. Should that one shield need to be taken down, there was always at least one available to immediately take its place. The third shield would be the one under repair, if necessary.

Because of this, triple redundancy was almost perfect. For the ship to be unprotected, it would require the simultaneous breakdown of three shield generators. Unless in the most intense of conflicts, this was a near impossibility.

The expert also told Daella that because the starship used a superlaser, this meant that the shield could be maintained while the superlaser was fired. With the recent turn toward hypervelocity and mass driver cannons, it required that these ships brought down their particle shields to fire the projectiles. This jeopardized the safety of the ship despite the weapons being a massive boon.

 

[Soeht]

Daella knew of the major weakness that such guns held. She sought to exploit it. Yet, she also acknowledged that a superlaser would make any attention to the detail pointless.

The shield expert did have a concern about the amount of power available for the shields. Daella did mention that the superlaser would be consuming a great amount of power. Once all the details were fleshed out, it was very likely that the number of shield generators would have to be reduced to a lower number.

Daella said that this would be acceptable in only the event of a lack of power. She knew that this starship would be a very valuable asset to the One Sith - so, she was searching for means to protect its longevity until the One Sith could afford a spare to use.

The meeting with the shield expert soon came to an end, though. Once more, Daella moved on to the next task.

 

[Soeht]

The next meeting that Daella had to attend was for the engine experts. She sat down with several well-known scientists on the topic of ion engines.

Daella confirmed that the engines for the starship were planned to be ion engines. It was a standard choice for engines, after all. She found no inherent flaw in them. Ion drives were the standard of the day.

The engineers said that they would also be designing lateral thrust vents for the starship. Daella was impressed by the suggestion. This meant that the starship would have been able to rotate within space with more ease in order to aim the superlaser dish at the front.

The experts added that the pull of the engine, would likely prevent the superlaser from being fired near a full charge. Daella took note of this - acknowledging it as a possible weakness of the ship and, thus, something necessary to plan for the Republic to attempt to exploit.

 

[Soeht]

Beyond that, there was not much else that the engine experts had to add. It was a fairly cut and dry approach that they had. Daella knew that there would be no means to have the starship achieve high maneuverability. The best that she could ask for would be that it could accelerate fast enough to get within firing range of a target.

Daella bade her farewell to the engine experts as they left. Her day was officially over. Yet, there was still much more involving the project that she had to help manage. Daella decided to spend the entire night at the Copero shipyards offices.

During that night, Daella managed to get a better, overall picture of the design of the project. She could visualize the starship in action within her mind. She could see how each system interacted with each other.

The design phase was coming to a close. It was time to consolidate it.

 

[Soeht]

In the next day, Daella called a meter for all the division supervisors to attend. Velkoz attended as well, due to being the manager of the shipyard that they were using.

Daella explained to those involved in the Reactive Project that it was about time to begin the procurement phase. To reach that end, they had to consolidate their designs.

In front of each engineer was a datapacket with a collection of standards that the One Sith required the starship to use. It also contained a list of discrepancies that Daella had found in the night before between designs of different departments.

As the meeting went on, some changes were made to the design of the starship. One worthy of note was the placement of the bridge as well as the number of gunners required. The bridge was moved further back in order to avoid fire and the number of gunners for the superlaser was increased to 132.

 

[Soeht]

Some of the items that Daella discussed with previous supervisors also had to be changed. The process took two whole days before coming to its completion.

Daella was satisfied with the progress so far. Now, she had a cohesive design. It had deviated quite a bit from the schematic that Darth Krayt’s holocron gave. Yet given the time and resources that the One Sith had, Daella believed that the new design of the superweapon was a more efficient use of resources that the one that Darth Krayt had.

Closing out the day, Velkoz and the supervisors decided to go out and have some drinks. Daella declined to join them in their revelry. Instead, she decided to get a couple hours of sleep.

Upon waking up, Daella decided that it was time to get ready for the next stage of creating the One Sith’s superweapon. She hoped onto a shuttle and began to make her way to Coruscant.

 

[Soeht]

After a day’s journey, Daella finally reached the galaxy’s center. She landed at the Titan Industries’ headquarters on Coruscant. After entering the building, she met with Jason Kolyat once more.

“I’ve heard we’ve met excellent progress on the design!” exclaimed Jason.

“It’s almost complete,” said Daella with her flat voice, “I must admit that I’m impressed.”

“Of course you would be,” claimed Jason, “I gathered the team myself. They have been keeping me in touch with a lot of their designs. I agree with most of it. Though, creating the starship is always a lot different.”

“What challenges do you see happening in the Reactive Project?” asked Daella.

Replying to her simple question, Jason said, “The biggest design challenge is simply the power feeding this superlaser. At the moment, I seriously doubt we can do much beyond firing it. I don’t think you can get a single shield generator fully powered.”

 

[Soeht]

“That has yet to be seen,” said Daella, “I have confidence that we may see some surprising results.”

“Well, I’m taking more of a management position in this project,” said Jason, “So I’m not too confident in seeing what these people could do in my place as a designer and engineer.”

Continuing with replying to Daella’s original question, Jason then said, “As for another challenge, I see a strong possibility of our shipments getting taken either by pirates or the Republic. I remember seeing a report about you finding an SIS cell disguising itself as a starship manufacturer?”

“That is true,” answered Daella, “The SIS planned to receive design secrets and flaws related to our starships. One of the agents in the cell jumped the gun in trying to obtain the Republic’s bounty on me. I destroyed the entire cell and one of its leaders is still under interrogation.”

 

[Soeht]

Jason perked a brow. He knew that Sith were brutal, yet the petite young woman in front of him sounded like an emotionless killing machine just now. He remembered how he tried to make a pass on her before and wondered how he was able to live past that day.

“I think the Republic and other nations are onto what you have going on here, Daella,” said Jason, “They’re always reading into people’s private business. I bet they’re going mad trying to figure out exactly what we even have in design right now.”

“True,” said Daella, “I agree with your assumption. We need to make sure the routes used for the procurement of supplies is safe from Republic interceptors. The shipments have to travel through the core and into the unknown regions. Should something be intercepted, it might take days before we can recover it.”

 

[Soeht]

“Well, I’ll do my best to make sure that the Republic, or pirates, don’t get their hands on anything of value,” assured Jason.

“The rest of my concerns beyond that are very minor,” added Jason, “Nitpicks from a man gifted in this sort of field. You get that feeling as well, I assume, with Sith… stuff?”

“So long as others’ acts are efficiently productive to my Lord’s vision, I have no complaints,” said Daella without even a smile.

Jason just stared blankly at Daella for a few seconds.

“Well, I think at this point we can get started on the procurement phase,” said Jason, “Will you still be involved with the project?”

“Yes,” replied Daella, “I believe I’ll see the Reactive Project through to completion.”

“That’s great to hear,” said Jason, “Conversations with you are always great.”

Daella just stared at Jason after he made his comment. She obviously did not feel the need to respond to his statement.

 

[Soeht]

“Well, I guess that’s it for today then,” said Jason, “Do you need anything else from Titan Industries?”

After being asked that, Daella handed over a small datachip to Jason.

“While not a starship,” she began, “A colleague asked for this.”

Jason plugged the datachip into his datapad and took a look at what Daella had given him.

“Oh, okay,” said Jason, “I’ll see to giving this to the right division.”

Jason then pocketed his datapad and helped guide Daella to the door.

“So, there’s still a lot of time left in the day,” began Jason, “Would you be interested in grabbing a bite to eat?”

Just at the threshold of the door, Daella gave Jason a cold stare before she answered him with, “No.”

Then, Daella took her leave. It was mid-afternoon in local time. There was still a lot of time in the day that she could use to be productive.

 

[Soeht]

Daella decided to spend the rest of the day at the Imperial Palace. She took a shuttle over to the mighty black citadel overlooking a sizable portion of Coruscant.


Upon entering the Palace, Daella was greeted by Acolytes looking for a powerful master to serve. She was immediately approached by a group of three. They each bowed down before her and asked her to give her guidance to them.

Daella refused.

The group was soon left behind by Daella. She traveled to the throne room in order to have a meeting with the Dark Lord. She immediately was granted an audience with him. Daella paid her respects to him by bowing before him.

“My Lord,” she began, “The Reactive Project will soon begin its second stage of development. I suspect that I will be absent from Coruscant for a long time.”

 

[Soeht]

The Dark Lord told Daella that such was acceptable. He told her that her actions would bring the galaxy closer to his Vision.

Upon hearing those words, Daella looked up to her Lord. She gave a faint smile for a second.

Then, she said, “Excuse me. I must depart.”

Having finished her business on Coruscant, Daella got on a return trip to Copero. She had backed some of her belongings for the trip. She suspected that Copero would be her base of operations for the upcoming months.

The trip itself took a day. Daella took the opportunity to sleep and meditate on the upcoming challenges that she would have to face.

While accustomed to managing major projects, Daella found herself at a loss when there was little she could do in order to deceive someone. Her specialty in deception allowed her to defeat opponents that would logically be stronger than her.

Yet creating a starship with the power to destroy a planet was not something one could just deceive into reality.