AATiPDC Chpt 16

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==Chapter 16 - An American Tanker in Prince Davion's Court==
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===The Ides of March - Part 1===
NAIS College of Military Science
Avalon City, New Avalon
March 15th, 3029
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Now that General Hodges is finished with his Mechwarrior training, he throws himself back into his work at NAIS; his stabilization and rangefinder systems are now coming into use, and selected units are being refitted with his electrothermal-chemical autocannons. All of General Hodges; attention is now occupied with finishing the development work on the MBT-70 Patton-II tank project. This vehicle is intended to be a radical advance over every other armored vehicle in the Inner Sphere; it will incorporate all of General Hodges’ new technology and will have certain design features that will make it more survivable than any other ground combat vehicle.
For armament, the Patton will have a 150-mm electrothermal-kinetic autocannon in the turret; the difference between an ETC autocannon and an ETK autocannon is that the entire bore of an ETK weapon is the combustion chamber, rather than just the breech. Ammunition for the main gun is carried in a circular magazine located below the turret; which magazine having a capacity of 60 rounds. Secondary armament is carried in a mini-turret located on top of the main turret; this armament is a gauss gatling machinegun that can serve in the anti-personnel, anti-missile and anti-aircraft roles. For fire control, both weapons are stabilized, have multi-spectral rangefinders and advanced targeting computers.
At 70 tons, the Patton-II MBT is far better-protected than any ground Combat Vehicle or Battlemech (with 50% of its weight going to armor). In game terms, the armor is hardened (taking half-damage from all attacks), with no weight penalty and incorporates improved stealth technology (targeting penalties for attackers are +1 at short range, +2 at medium range, +3 at long range and +4 at extreme range); the front glacis of the turret and hull are sloped at an angle of 60°, meaning that effective armor thickness is doubled against line-of-sight attacks. The sides of the turret and the hull are sloped at 30°, which increases effective armor thickness by 50%; targeting penalties against sloped armor are +2 for a 60° slope and +1 for a 30° slope.
Beyond the armor that a Patton-II MBT carries, the hull and turret are designed to be as tough as possible. In game terms, the structure of the hull and turret are considered to be reinforced at no cost in extra weight. The hull is divided into three separate compartments, each with its own ;internal armor. The crew compartment (four men) is forwardmost; the turret mount and magazine are in the middle compartment while the power plant and transmission are in the rear compartment. The interior surfaces of the hull and turret are protected with a spall liner against the possibility of attacks with HESH munitions; there is also a fire-suppression system. Lastly, a Patton-II is fully-protected against NBC attacks, with the life support system capable of being fully-sealed for up to 72 hours (even underwater).
Performance-wise, a Patton-II’s tracked motive system allows it to move faster than a vehicle or Battlemech of the same weight and engine size. The engine is a 210-rated XL fusion reactor, which allows it to cruise over open country at 43 kph and sprint at 65 kph; on paved roads,the tank can cruise at 54 kph and sprint at 85 kph.
Once the Patton-II’s design and performance specifications have been finalized, the plans are turned over to Corean Enterprises so that a number of the tanks can be built for testing and evaluation purposes; the initial contract is for 12 examples (with an option to expand the order to 48 if circumstances warrant it), with all costs to be paid by General Hodges out of his own pocket. Unbeknownst to the First Prince, General Hodges and other elements of the AFFC hierarchy, circumstances are now developing where an operational unit of Patton-II's would have been highly-useful.
On the afternoon of March 15th, 3029, General Hodges returned home for meetings with representatives of Corean Enterprises and a private meeting with Dr. Banzai and Professor Samuel Muyskens (Dean of the NAIS College of Finance). For the meeting with the people from Corean, matters are pro forma, consisting of little more than signing the procurement contract and seeing that the funds transfer from General Hodges’ personal account goes through. Once this meeting concludes, Professor Muyskens and Dr. Banzai arrive.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen; thank you for coming. You’re both in the know about who I am and where I came from; my origins are one of the Federated Commonwealth’s most closely-held secrets and must remain so for as long as humanly possible. Dr. Banzai, per our previous discussion, you’ll be my go-between with those computer people, the ones who want to license my computer technology.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Before I examined for what passes as state-of-the-art computer technology in the Inner Sphere, I had thought that, after 1,000 years and more, computers would be far more advanced that they were in my own day. The degree of surprise I felt when I discovered this was not so can scarcely be exaggerated. The most advanced computer systems in existence are the CPU of the M9 Pavise battle station and the Tacticon B-2000 Battle Computer from the CP-10-Z ‘Cyclops’. When I examined the specifications for these systems, I found that one of my laptop computers has several orders of magnitude more processing power than the M9 Pavise CPU.”
“How is that possible? The M9 CPU is considered to be the highest achievement of Star League computer technology….”
“Dr. Banzai, the differences in the computer technology that I know and the technology that you are familiar with stem from the differences between my history and yours. For example, in the history that was, computer technology underwent a series of radical design changes; these changes resulted in ever-smaller and more powerful machines. A good deal of these advancements came about as the result of improved chip fabrication technologies. The first of these was the P-Type metal-oxide-semiconductor logic process (or P-MOS), which came out in June, 1960. This was followed by the C-MOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Substrate) single-gate process in February, 1963 and the Multi-Gate MOSFET (Metal Oxide Substrate Field-Effect Transistor) process in August of 1984. As a result of these continual improvements, the size of individual integrated circuits shrank from 20 micrometers in 1968 to just 5 nanometers in 2018; the continually-shrinking size of integrated circuits was illustrated by a principle called ‘Moore’s Law, which was formulated by Gordon Moore in 1965 when he was head of Research & Development for Fairchild Semiconductor.”
“Gordon Moore? Don’t believe that I’ve ever heard of him…”
“There’s one difference between my history and yours, Dr. Banzai. Moore’s Law stated that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every year until 1980, after which the rate would slow to doubling every two years thereafter. Of course, the law doesn’t apply to such technologies as quantum computing, optical computing and DNA-based (or biological) computing. Computer technology as you know it diverged from what I knew because in your history, Gordon Moore was never born and the C-MOS and Multi-Gate MOSFET processes were never developed; This is why your computers are massive compared to the ones I know.”
“Very true, sir; the M9 Pavise CPU is the size of a small house.“
“Dr. Banzai, where your computers have it over mine is in the areas of reliability and data storage capacity. In the Inner Sphere, you can leave a Battlemech in storage for 500 years, come back at that time and its computers will still boot up. Back in the 20th and 21st centuries, a computer owner would be lucky if his machine lasted for five to seven years or so…”
“What?? That makes no sense at all.”
“It does from the standpoint of a computer manufacturer; the principal is called ‘Planned Obsolescence’ Computers and other machines in those days were designed to work for a certain period of time, then begin to break down (thus requiring the purchase of a new machine when the cost of repairs became too great). Look at it this way; why would a company want to make and sell a computer that never wore out? Such machines would be very popular for a short period of time, then the company would go out of business because their machines didn’t need to be replaced..”
“I see.”
“As for comparison of data storage, my desktop computer has a 16-terabyte hard drive and my laptops each have a 10-terabyte drive. Your computers have similarly-sized drives that hold upwards of hundreds of exabytes; that’s several million times greater.”
“What do you want me to tell the computer people?”
“Tell them that you are in touch with an individual who has developed radically-advanced CPU technology. I am familiar with the manufacturing processes that I have described, and I am also quite skilled at computer design and programming. In exchange for being shown how to manufacture new computer chips according to the design principles I mentioned (and how to build and program computers to use them), I will require a royalty payment of 5% for any product that incorporates my technology. This is certainly a great deal of money; however, manufacturers who get with the program and do business with me are going to have to invent new branches of hypermathematics to describe the insane amounts of money they’ll be making.”
“Is that all?”
“Not quite. At another time, I’ll tell you about something called the Internet…”
“I’m looking forward to it, sir.”
Having listened in to the discussion thus far, Professor Muyskens speaks up and says “General Hodges, I presume that you called me here to discuss financial matters.”
“I did, sir. Like Dr. Banzai, you’re in the know about my origins. Therefore, I’d like to use you as my financial intermediary…”
“How so?”
“To begin with, I have recently been settled with a very large amount of money by the AFFC Department of Military Administration; I wish to invest a certain percentage of it in the Steiner and Davion stock markets.”
“What percentages do you have in mind?”
“Ten Tera-bills in the Davion market and the same amount in the Steiner market; these monies are to be apportioned, with one-third in stocks, one-third in bonds and one-third in Index-Linked mutual funds.”
“Very well; that shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish. What else did you have in mind?”
“I have an extensive library of 20th and 21st-century music and video recordings (songs, movies, TV and documentary series; that sort of thing). I have studied popular culture in the Inner Sphere since my sudden arrival and I have determined that some 90% of the material in my library is currently unknown. I am in need of additional development capital for my Landhold in the Bristol system; I therefor propose to license the broadcast of my TV and documentary series to any interested networks for the sum of 2,500,000 D-bills per episode; in the history that I came from, such monies were called ‘syndication’ fees. As for movies, there will be a 30% commission due me from any and all revenue generated by the movies I release. Finally, the songs I have in my library will be handled somewhat differently; each and every public venue who wishes to play my songs will pay an annual license fee of 500 D-bills. For sales of the songs to individuals, my cut will be 50% of the net proceeds.”
“I’ll reach out to my contacts and put your proposals before them.”
“Thanks, Doc. When you talk to those people, tell them that I’ll be grateful for their business.” There is a slight, businesslike pause as a thin smile crosses General Hodges’ face, then he says “If they choose not to do business with me, I’ll find someone else to be grateful to.” Just as the meeting concludes, General Hodges’ and Dr. Banzai’s personal communicators start to go off.
Hodges thumbs his communicator and says “Lancer Six-Actual here. What’s the situation?”
“Sir, this is the watch officer in the Communications Section at Mount Davion. Our early warning network has informed us of numerous bogies inbound from New Avalon’s pirate jump points.”
“Do you have any information on the composition of the incoming?”
“The number of DropShips indicates that possible enemy strength is regimental-level or greater.”
“Very good, Inform command staff that I’ll be there in ten minutes; Lancer Six-Actual out.”
“Professor Muyskens, we’ll have to continue this discussion another day as it seems that someone with more balls than brains is coming to crash the party. Dr. Banzai, you had better make tracks…”
The two men leave as General Hodges begins to suit up. Just before he heads out the door, Kym Sorensen comes up with a worried look on her face and says “Jim, I just got the word on my communicator. Do you think that it’s House Liao or Comstar?”
“Don’t know just yet, dear; if it’s those ****** toaster-worshipping Ma Bell wanna-bes in Comstar, they must have gotten information about what we grabbed from Helm and New Dallas, and are coming here to break stuff and set things on fire. If it’s Romano Liao’s merry men, they’re coming here because Psycho-Bitch grew a massive hateboner for me after the way I humiliated her on Terra.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You’re in charge here until I return; if I don’t come back, there’s a hard copy of my will on my desk on my desk. You’ve got the access codes for my Infiltrator Armor, so you can use it and any anything else in the magazine to defend the property. ”
Hodges and Sorensen exchange a quick embrace, then he’s out the door. His last acts before getting into his car are to belt on his sidearm, pocket his St. George and St. Barbara medals and to tie one of Kym’s scarves around his right arm, after the manner of a knight carrying his lady’s favor when going into a tournament or battle.
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