The Rebel Faction

The Watcher, GC R&D to replace the Yunos Class ship

I'm dropping the Yunos Class ship in order to replace it with a more useful ship.

A five-hundred meter ship controlled by an Azguard AI (just our spin on AIs) that has no weapons or shields, precious little armour, and looks like a floating black diamond, christened by Ishon Lord of Shadow as "The Watchers".

The Watcher is not a combat ship, however, it possesses something very valuable, known as the Eye of the Watcher. It is, in reality, a huge generator in two parts, one hanging down like a stalactight, the other standing upwards as a stalacmight. Where the two generators meet is a sphere of Cromite Ore, which sends the carefully calibrated energy signal millions of miles in every direction.

This signal was chanced upon by Azguard scientists when studying the effects of independant AI on warships. Apparently, whenever a ships' computer was used to trace hyperspace routes and plot courses, it temporarily became "visible" in the ether-like existance of hyper-space. This is akin to a computer logging on to the holo-net, as it leaves a port through which the computer can be reached. It is not understood why the port appears, only that hyper-space mapping and attempts to activate a hyper-space drive using such automated information makes it noticible.

Realizing that no one else had discovered it, Azguard scientists immeadietly assembled a powerful machine that could access the computer through this port. Unfortunately the sheer power needed to reach through hyperspace to a computer caused an energy surge in the target computer. The second problem was one of range. The beam would only travel through hyperspace a few inches, making it almost useles.

Then, the brilliant doctor Ivan the okay solved both problems with one device. By adding a ball of Cromite, a metal found on Azguard and used for lighting, a difficult-to-explaine phenominon that resulted in a vast area of hyperspace to become magnetic to the energy waves. Suddenly, scientists were making breakthroughs by the hour.

Now, finally, a finished product, The Eye of the Watcher, is formed. It works simply: the orb creates a field many millions of miles in size in hyperspace that attacts the energy sent by the double-generator, and any ships' nav-computer entering the field by trying to access any type of nav-computer or system. The field is not yet advanced enough to access a computer, however it can blast the hard-drive clean of all nav-data. Also, the after-effects of the data-wipe allow the Watcher to "spot" the target.

Obviously, there's a problem. It might hit a friendly ship. So the Azguards inserted an Azguard AI system. These computer-beings have the power to warp the field, leaving safe spots for friendly ships to pass through. As they are AIs and they have all the time in the universe to make their calculations, these spaces are often just large enough to fit friendly ships.

There was only one thing left: Power. How would they keep power? After much deliberation, it was decided that the best way was to put them in orbit of "Storm Planets" that have huge energy-storms raging around the atmosphere. That way, they can scoop up extra energy from the storms as nessecary.

Calculations prove that it would take only twenty such ships to cover an entire spiral-arm of the Galaxy, and the Azguards are considering a massive expenditure of resoureces to turn all of wild-space into an innavigatable field.

We now move on to the final stage of development, where it will be tested for functionality and safety-regs.