SCMR Chpt 82

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==Chapter 82 - Self Configuring Modular Robot==
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This type of war wasn't even common during the Age of War...
...when all the Great Houses and the Terran Hegemony were waging hard warfare on one another with massed fleets. The reason then, and the reason now, is that deep space interception is a right nightmare to achieve, and by 'nightmare' we mean, extreme difficulty level tasks.
The LCN's convoy raider doctrine added a piece of technology, and it's a hell of a lot easier now. Detection satellites aren't new technology. Like space mines, everyone has built one, and in the heyday of the Star League, star systems had several at major points.
What makes these different, is the addition of FTL communication. Simple FTL commo, relying on a fighter-sized fusion plant, non-reflective coatings that are also tuned to serve as receptive antennas, and a large number of passive sensors crammed into what amounts to body the size of a light capital missile. power-duration and endurance is measured in months, the devices are kept stationary using simple, low-output ion thrusters. When a pulse hits the reception array, it sends a squeal on the black-box.
The result, is that anything set up to receive will catch that squeal, and the sats will send an encoded copy of what the sensors are picking up.
effectively, anything jumping into a system within a few thousand kilometers of a known point, will set off one that has been laid there, summoning the entire 'patrol', or even squadron, whom are waiting in off-axis locations to listen for that squawk.
Interception becomes a lot easier, when you know where to point your telescopes, and the devices are low-powered and passive, making them hard to detect for warship sensors optimized to look for emissions in the Electromagnetic Spectrum.
Space is big, if you don't know what to look for, you might never see it.
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