"We won't be selling any of the military tech to anyone. It'll all be exclusive to ARES." Aron, who had been quiet throughout the meeting, finally opened his mouth and disputed some of Alexander's points about selling weapons in a grave tone.
"So you agree with the idea of releasing the information to the public about entering the defense industry to cover letting our weapons enter the field without attracting too much attention?" Alexander asked.
"Although I agree with it, as it'll be a trusted source of information to quell the rumors floating around, I don't see the reason we can't just step out of the shadows. It isn't like we don't have the power to protect ourselves, even though we can't really project it outward quite yet," Aron replied.
Everyone raised an eyebrow, since they knew that Aron was nothing if not cautious, more cautious, and even more cautious. If he claimed to be second in the world at keeping secrets and staying hidden, nobody else would dare claim to be first. He even went so far as to camouflage the weapons used in the Eden-Esparia conflict to look like the weapons they had illegally bought from shady gray-market arms dealers during the Edenian revolutionary period.
"From your expressions, I see that you're surprised. But everything's obvious if you compare our circumstances then and now.
"In the past, we didn't have enough boots filled to warrant the release, or protect the weapons, but things have changed. Now we have the eighth-largest military, judging by the number of active duty members. The two ahead of us—Iran and Pakistan—are only ahead of us by about 50,000 soldiers. We should surpass them in a month or two, and then we'll be the sixth-largest military power by number of active duty enlistees," Aron explained.
"Also, the country is stable now. Not only are our citizens no longer in an active revolution against their government, but we also have a stable source of income combined with a growing export economy. So we have to change our mindset and act like the country we are, and not like the country we used to be," he finished. His inner circle definitely had to join him in shifting their mindsets.
"So, are you going to be putting all of your military tech into active service?" Alexander asked. He needed to be certain of Aron's plan in order to gauge how he should act from now on.
"No, we're going to do it in phases. We'll start by releasing a few recruitment videos and promotional propaganda, then announce your decision to develop a national defense initiative. Together with that, we'll start using the equipment we've been keeping warehoused, but consider it 'secret'. Let the rest of the world speculate whatever they want to. It isn't up to us to explain, but for them to come up with reasonable explanations.
"We can then just subtly spread the most believable of their own speculations, just to muddy the waters." Aron was firm in his vision and had already planned everything out, step by step.
The humans in the room nodded, showing they had an understanding of the general direction Aron would be taking, while the AIs spun up a few more fractions of their computing power to update their parameters and generate new plans of action.
"Nova, work on it. Make it appear as natural as you can without seeming too absurd. That includes our new ships and aircraft." It was time to move on to the next topic of the night.
[Yes, sir,] Nova responded, then went silent again.
Athena took over and began her presentation. [With an adequate number of sailors in the Navy, it's about time to divide our fleets into task groups.] She paused for a moment as the display screen popped up a naval infographic. Then she continued, [For starters, we'll divide the pacific fleet into five task groups.
[The Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western fleets will be jointly referred to as the Pacific fleet, or Home Fleet. Their task is to defend the regions in all four quadrants. Three of them—the Northern, Southern, and Western fleets—will be defending Edenian waters. The Eastern fleet will be tasked with defending Esparia's territorial waters.] The display switched to a nautical map of the surrounding waters counted as Edenian and Esparian territories. Territorial waters were generally agreed to be twelve nautical miles of water from any country's coast; beyond that was international waters, where territorial law didn't hold sway and gave way to international maritime law.
The display switched to a detailed breakdown of ships in each task group of the home fleet. Each of them would consist of two subfleets, one for training and one for active patrolling and defense. The subfleets would each contain an Odin-class battleship, two Thor-class heavy cruisers, four Mjolnir-class cruisers, eight Heimdall-class destroyers, and sixteen Njord-class frigates. All ships would be armed with batteries of Heracles' Bow Mk. IV coilguns.
The decision had been made to switch from railguns to coilguns for a number of reasons. First, maintenance requirements. Although atomic printers negated the need for extended downtime in order to maintain equipment, they still required the correct resources. Atomic printers weren't alchemists, after all, and couldn't transmute one element to another. So if something called for steel, for instance, the raw materials of carbon and iron—plus any others for specific alloys, like magnesium, manganese, aluminum, or others—were still necessary in order for the printer to create it. Since the operation of coilguns and railguns differed, and coils didn't rely on contact rails to propel projectiles, the material requirements were lowered. Over time, that would save a lot.
Second was the performance. Even with Aron's advancements in materials sciences, there would always be fundamental limits to the stresses materials could have applied to them. Coilguns, unlike railguns, didn't require any physical contact between the projectile and the "gun", thus eliminating one of the material requirements entirely. The only material requirement for a coilgun was a superconducting material capable of pushing enough charge through it at a reasonable operating temperature, and Lab City was already dozens, if not hundreds, of generations ahead in that area.
Third was increased range and accuracy. While the railguns that the US Navy were using were capable of launching a projectile at Mach 6 up to a distance of 110 nautical miles (about 126 miles or about 200 kilometers), testing of the Heracles' Bow Mk. IV coilgun in Lab City had revealed a pinpoint accuracy range of 500 kilometers, and a projectile velocity of Mach 14. So, coilguns had a longer range and higher velocity than railguns, which meant they were far more devastating as a weapon.
Lastly—though Aron would likely rather die than admit it—was just the sheer "cool factor". Coilguns were just plain cooler than railguns.
The only advantage that railguns had was that they had lower requirements for capacitor banks and overall availability of electricity. But given the advanced technology at Aron's fingertips, thanks to Lab City's constant work in a greatly time-dilated environment with literally unlimited resources at their fingertips and zero budgetary constraints, the current Thunderbolt Mk. XIII capacitor was more than compact and efficient enough to offset the sole advantage that railguns had over coilguns. And when combined with Aron's fusion reactor tech, comparing railguns to coilguns would be like comparing a potato gun someone made in their backyard to a "rod from god" kinetic space-based weapon.
[Each task group in the home fleet will be responsible for interdiction, patrolling, and counterpiracy operations in Edenian or Esparian territorial waters. The training fleet would be for live training and switching out so maintenance downtime won't affect our ability to defend ourselves....] Athena continued detailing the breakdown for the home fleet, including personnel numbers and specific tasks and areas of operation.
[The second major fleet will be the Merchant Marine. They'll be responsible for escorting civilian shipping convoys and counterpiracy operations in international waters. The Merchant Marine will consist mainly of destroyers and frigates, with a reaction force of one heavy cruiser and two cruisers in case more standoff firepower capability is needed. It'll also incorporate gunboats to board and chase pirates if and when they're encountered.
[Later, when we're ready to project our power outward instead of focusing solely on defense, we can build a reaction fleet.]
As Athena spoke, the display continued updating. The plan was for the Navy to become the largest single military entity in Eden and Esparia, as from the next day onward, all enlistees would be entirely dedicated to becoming sailors.
[The new admiralty will be appointed following an assessment period to discover people who are suitable for the positions. Any questions or concerns?] she finished. There were no questions, though, as everyone at the table knew they would be given folders with detailed information inside.
Athena's presentations continued for each branch of the new military structure with occasional breaks for questions and revisions as the humans at the table came up with new ideas to incorporate into the structure.
After more than eight hours of meetings with no breaks, but without anyone losing focus thanks to their genetic enhancements, the changes were approved and Athena was given the go-ahead to implement the changes in ARES once the meetings had finally been concluded.
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