Okay. So not only were the machines constructed using pirated Imogen “smart skin” technology but they were controlled using equally pirated/unlawfully obtained HIGHLY CLASSIFIED military technology. Talk about playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes!These guys hit the trifecta. You KNOW those two mokes are only a small part of the over all scheme. Got to be moles in Imogen and Imperial R&D. My money is on security people in on it. Somebody had to be looking the other way while the AI modules were going out the door. You have to wonder how the skin left Imogen property without the discrepancy being noticed.
Still a lot of parts missing from inventory that can’t be properly accounted for.
Have you ever done COMSEC inventory? Every. Piece. MUST. Be. Accounted. For.
No slop. No “meh”.
military.. unit did a “gun run” (go shoot at target) and when cleaning up found , One(1) round missing,,. four hours later the missing round was found ,,
it rolled and stuck in a little cubby…
Never did a COMSEC inventory but I did have a QC workcenter inspection that went through my shop’s bench stock inventory with a fine toothed comb. And as for Robnot’s missing round story, with all the possibilities for supply personnel (and others) to profit from missing inventory I can see accounting for every round. Question for Rob. How did they know the exact total number of rounds the unit expended at the range? I’m a total ignoramus regarding Army procedures and training. Is every trooper expected to fire a precise # of rounds? I only went to the range a couple of times (qualified as “marksman” back when I could still see) and it’s been too damned many years since I went to a USAF range to remember proceedures. I would’ve shot expert but my bad right ankle hurt so damned bad in the kneeling position that my eyes were watering. At that time I was only 2 years removed from having my right ankle rebuilt and the angle required of it when kneeling on one knee hurt so bad it made me nausious.
Let’s see if I can recall………It’s been a few decades……….
Whole, sealed crates (two ammo cans/crate) are brought to the range. Known number of authorized rounds at the start.
Crates & cans are broken open, magazines loaded. Number of loaded magazines known, magazines hold “X” number of rounds, total number rounds loaded known.
Rounds fired downrange. Now there is a mix of unfired rounds and fired brass.
Fired brass is policed up, la-de-dah-de-everybody. Brass is taken to a separate central point and counted/weighted, number of fired rounds known.
Any/all UNfired rounds (duds, stuck, jams, dented, etc) taken to a different central point. All magazines are checked and UNloaded of any/all live rounds. Unfired bad rounds + unfired emptied magazine rounds are counted.
Unfired rounds + fired brass = number of rounds loaded into magazines. Check before and after count.
(unfired rounds + fired brass = # rounds in magazines) + number of rounds still in cans = total number of rounds brought out to the range (sealed crates/cans)
The Range Master can count down to the accuracy of a single round. And he has the authority to hold EVERYBODY at the range until all rounds are accounted for, and the range is cleaned up to HIS satisfaction.
Don’t get me started on inventory inspections in a military hospital.
Civilian hospitals are a joke, if drugs disappear they cover it up.
A military hospital? We had a vial of Curare disappear from inventory. Everyone from every shift
was called in and kept there for almost a week while CID searched not only the hospital, but
everyone’s home and barracks.
My wife was not pleased when they showed up at our house, but when she learned why they were
there, served snacks and drinks.
CID found the vial in a Captains house, hidden in a toothpaste tube. He was planning to murder his wife.
He went away for life in Leavenworth.
PC,
Thx for reminding me….a Sqignal unit I used to be in down at Ft Huachuca, AZ…..an alert was called, and weapons handed out willy-nilly, not necessarily your own weapon, no signatures on hand receipts. NCOs bullied their way into the arms room, and the poor schlub of a (Pvt?SP4?) armorer wasaan’t seasoned enough to tell everyone to fuck off and get out of HIS arms room.
After the alert, weapons were returned, and a weapons count done. Oops! One weapon missing. An M16 (full auto version of the civilian AR15 for all you civilians out there). Someone realized during the clusterfuck that they had a weapon that was NOT theirs, and was NOT accounted for. EVERYBODY in the unit was recalled back to post (even the ones living in housing and off post) and sequestered in the barracks. CID and MPs were called in. Everything was torn apart, searched high and low, everyone interrogated. Nada. Zilch. This went on for two weeks (a month?). No one was allowed to go home, everyone was restricted to the barracks. That sorry someone had managed to hide that purloined M16, and get it off post. Somehow. I’m sure heads rolled, but I wasn’t there for the after party. Ahhhh good times.
It’s been 34 years since the last time I qualified on the M16. The USAF knew how many rounds were fired because they had planned every one of the 50 shots.
Like “Load the magazine with 5 rounds”. I never heard of any discrepancy in counting the rounds. But I only fired real 5.56mm ammo once in boot camp,
then it was .22LR rounds fired with some hokey adapters, 50 rounds once a year to “requalify”. That’s nowhere near enough practice – I could be fairly accurate
with my own rifle, but with an issue M16 I might have had trouble hitting a barn at 300 yards.
Where the Air Force got really, really strict was with inventorying the tools and parts at the end of each shift. ALL tools were accounted for and signed for before you went home,
and you had also better be able to account for every screw and rivet. A tiny screw sucked into the intake of a jet engine can wreck it, so imagine what a lost screwdriver would do.
I also heard stories such as a wrench left in the cable channel under the control stick jamming the controls, and I personally found a loose washer that was left inside the
bomb release control box and migrated to short across switch terminals, causing the F-111D to drop a practice bomb on the runway while taxiing.
But in spite of all that inventory work, we had a lost tool come back into the shop with a module from the airplane, several years after the module had last been worked on.
This was a Doppler navigational radar; it sits in the belly of the airplane and sends out four beams ahead, to the rear, and to the sides, to measure the actual speed and direction over
the ground. In the older airplanes, it is mounted in a cradle that lets it move in pitch and roll to stay level to the ground even though the airplane is pitching and rolling.
To test it, we have to lock it in the 0,0 position, and our toolbox has a pin with a spring clip to do this. This module came back from the airplane still locked with one
of those pins. I don’t know how the techs that left it in the module ever got released to go home.
And that confirmed what I always suspected about the usefulness of the Doppler radar – it had been effectively disabled for years before either the pilots or the ground crew suspected!
The F-111D was loaded with a much more precise Inertial Navigation System, can update this with a radar measurement of any precisely located object along it’s path,
and if everything else fails the aircrew has a sextant and chronometer. The only time they even turned on the Doppler was if that multi-million dollar INS failed.
Most of our repairs were to the leveling cradle, because with no power to the unit it just slopped around until something mechanical broke – and then maybe a few more
years before anyone noticed. They should have been running with it on and the results being compared to the INS as a check on both systems, but way back
in 1968 someone wrote the software to take the less accurate Doppler data over the INS. Apparently they then forgot how to update the software, because
30 years later it was still backwards.
.If they had been then Aaron, as Technology minister, would have been aware of their development. Somehow I do not see the empire developing – or sanctioning development of – AI driven humaniform automatic devices for pretty much any purpose. For one thing they would not be needed since.labor is.relatively plentiful. For another the moral.and ethical.considerations.- which I outlined a couple of episodes back, would be terrible. They just fought a war (are still fighting it?) to free a whole.planet of beings “purpose built” to be slaves. From where I sit a device such as Annie or Andrew piloted by a sapient AI would be morally and ethcally equivalent to the Catians. I sincerely hope we homo saps never succeed in creating strong AI. I can just hear the arguments against considering such entities “people”. Hell! If an unborn human being only achieves “personhood” by virtue of passing through the birth canal (and these days possibly not for up to 72 hours afterward) then what chance would a wholly non-biological (as Scot Bieser calls them) “artiperson” have? Singularity be damned! I fear for a world where sentient artificial beings capable of bemoaning their lot are used as slave labor and/or cannon fodder in high-risk activities. Talk about a “brave new world”!
this is me.. I think they are making ‘smart’ machines, not sapient,, not knowing that some have become “sapient”..
we have smart machines now that can fool some…
so ,, yes i agree,, we dont need machines to do ‘ … ‘ we have enough now.!!!
Oops. I screwed.up that one. Thought I had gone back to where the Pride was.contacted.by the puppies. I still think all in all “Vicious” would be a great name fo a.dog ship.
This is where a Captain earns his/her pay. They have to keep track of EVERYTHING under, and NOT under, their command.
Any little “oops, I forgot” or “oops, didn’t think of that”, can result in loss of life & hardware.
A good Captain may seem to be a stickler for details, but often, that’s a good thing.
Just the debris from a fight is bad enough. Unexploded ordinance is bad enough in 2D on a planets surface (mine fields, still digging up stuff dropped in WWII), but now have to worry about the much larger 3D space! A good neighbor will help as much as possible keeping your orbits cleaned up :}
panels 2 an 3,, smile you are on Dragonfly camera.. every Dragonfly now knows what you look like..
I also notice they are being flanked by the Mavia and Tabitha.
It looks like the bad guys are going to get “Cat Scratch Fever”. Looks like the Horned Ones are running out of power with a weak signal.
Okay. So not only were the machines constructed using pirated Imogen “smart skin” technology but they were controlled using equally pirated/unlawfully obtained HIGHLY CLASSIFIED military technology. Talk about playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes!These guys hit the trifecta. You KNOW those two mokes are only a small part of the over all scheme. Got to be moles in Imogen and Imperial R&D. My money is on security people in on it. Somebody had to be looking the other way while the AI modules were going out the door. You have to wonder how the skin left Imogen property without the discrepancy being noticed.
Getting good, folks!
Is it possible they were built at Imogen and walked out the door?
Still a lot of parts missing from inventory that can’t be properly accounted for.
Have you ever done COMSEC inventory? Every. Piece. MUST. Be. Accounted. For.
No slop. No “meh”.
military.. unit did a “gun run” (go shoot at target) and when cleaning up found , One(1) round missing,,. four hours later the missing round was found ,,
it rolled and stuck in a little cubby…
Never did a COMSEC inventory but I did have a QC workcenter inspection that went through my shop’s bench stock inventory with a fine toothed comb. And as for Robnot’s missing round story, with all the possibilities for supply personnel (and others) to profit from missing inventory I can see accounting for every round. Question for Rob. How did they know the exact total number of rounds the unit expended at the range? I’m a total ignoramus regarding Army procedures and training. Is every trooper expected to fire a precise # of rounds? I only went to the range a couple of times (qualified as “marksman” back when I could still see) and it’s been too damned many years since I went to a USAF range to remember proceedures. I would’ve shot expert but my bad right ankle hurt so damned bad in the kneeling position that my eyes were watering. At that time I was only 2 years removed from having my right ankle rebuilt and the angle required of it when kneeling on one knee hurt so bad it made me nausious.
Let’s see if I can recall………It’s been a few decades……….
Whole, sealed crates (two ammo cans/crate) are brought to the range. Known number of authorized rounds at the start.
Crates & cans are broken open, magazines loaded. Number of loaded magazines known, magazines hold “X” number of rounds, total number rounds loaded known.
Rounds fired downrange. Now there is a mix of unfired rounds and fired brass.
Fired brass is policed up, la-de-dah-de-everybody. Brass is taken to a separate central point and counted/weighted, number of fired rounds known.
Any/all UNfired rounds (duds, stuck, jams, dented, etc) taken to a different central point. All magazines are checked and UNloaded of any/all live rounds. Unfired bad rounds + unfired emptied magazine rounds are counted.
Unfired rounds + fired brass = number of rounds loaded into magazines. Check before and after count.
(unfired rounds + fired brass = # rounds in magazines) + number of rounds still in cans = total number of rounds brought out to the range (sealed crates/cans)
The Range Master can count down to the accuracy of a single round. And he has the authority to hold EVERYBODY at the range until all rounds are accounted for, and the range is cleaned up to HIS satisfaction.
Don’t get me started on inventory inspections in a military hospital.
Civilian hospitals are a joke, if drugs disappear they cover it up.
A military hospital? We had a vial of Curare disappear from inventory. Everyone from every shift
was called in and kept there for almost a week while CID searched not only the hospital, but
everyone’s home and barracks.
My wife was not pleased when they showed up at our house, but when she learned why they were
there, served snacks and drinks.
CID found the vial in a Captains house, hidden in a toothpaste tube. He was planning to murder his wife.
He went away for life in Leavenworth.
PC,
Thx for reminding me….a Sqignal unit I used to be in down at Ft Huachuca, AZ…..an alert was called, and weapons handed out willy-nilly, not necessarily your own weapon, no signatures on hand receipts. NCOs bullied their way into the arms room, and the poor schlub of a (Pvt?SP4?) armorer wasaan’t seasoned enough to tell everyone to fuck off and get out of HIS arms room.
After the alert, weapons were returned, and a weapons count done. Oops! One weapon missing. An M16 (full auto version of the civilian AR15 for all you civilians out there). Someone realized during the clusterfuck that they had a weapon that was NOT theirs, and was NOT accounted for. EVERYBODY in the unit was recalled back to post (even the ones living in housing and off post) and sequestered in the barracks. CID and MPs were called in. Everything was torn apart, searched high and low, everyone interrogated. Nada. Zilch. This went on for two weeks (a month?). No one was allowed to go home, everyone was restricted to the barracks. That sorry someone had managed to hide that purloined M16, and get it off post. Somehow. I’m sure heads rolled, but I wasn’t there for the after party. Ahhhh good times.
points at that.. yes that.!
It’s been 34 years since the last time I qualified on the M16. The USAF knew how many rounds were fired because they had planned every one of the 50 shots.
Like “Load the magazine with 5 rounds”. I never heard of any discrepancy in counting the rounds. But I only fired real 5.56mm ammo once in boot camp,
then it was .22LR rounds fired with some hokey adapters, 50 rounds once a year to “requalify”. That’s nowhere near enough practice – I could be fairly accurate
with my own rifle, but with an issue M16 I might have had trouble hitting a barn at 300 yards.
Where the Air Force got really, really strict was with inventorying the tools and parts at the end of each shift. ALL tools were accounted for and signed for before you went home,
and you had also better be able to account for every screw and rivet. A tiny screw sucked into the intake of a jet engine can wreck it, so imagine what a lost screwdriver would do.
I also heard stories such as a wrench left in the cable channel under the control stick jamming the controls, and I personally found a loose washer that was left inside the
bomb release control box and migrated to short across switch terminals, causing the F-111D to drop a practice bomb on the runway while taxiing.
But in spite of all that inventory work, we had a lost tool come back into the shop with a module from the airplane, several years after the module had last been worked on.
This was a Doppler navigational radar; it sits in the belly of the airplane and sends out four beams ahead, to the rear, and to the sides, to measure the actual speed and direction over
the ground. In the older airplanes, it is mounted in a cradle that lets it move in pitch and roll to stay level to the ground even though the airplane is pitching and rolling.
To test it, we have to lock it in the 0,0 position, and our toolbox has a pin with a spring clip to do this. This module came back from the airplane still locked with one
of those pins. I don’t know how the techs that left it in the module ever got released to go home.
And that confirmed what I always suspected about the usefulness of the Doppler radar – it had been effectively disabled for years before either the pilots or the ground crew suspected!
The F-111D was loaded with a much more precise Inertial Navigation System, can update this with a radar measurement of any precisely located object along it’s path,
and if everything else fails the aircrew has a sextant and chronometer. The only time they even turned on the Doppler was if that multi-million dollar INS failed.
Most of our repairs were to the leveling cradle, because with no power to the unit it just slopped around until something mechanical broke – and then maybe a few more
years before anyone noticed. They should have been running with it on and the results being compared to the INS as a check on both systems, but way back
in 1968 someone wrote the software to take the less accurate Doppler data over the INS. Apparently they then forgot how to update the software, because
30 years later it was still backwards.
.If they had been then Aaron, as Technology minister, would have been aware of their development. Somehow I do not see the empire developing – or sanctioning development of – AI driven humaniform automatic devices for pretty much any purpose. For one thing they would not be needed since.labor is.relatively plentiful. For another the moral.and ethical.considerations.- which I outlined a couple of episodes back, would be terrible. They just fought a war (are still fighting it?) to free a whole.planet of beings “purpose built” to be slaves. From where I sit a device such as Annie or Andrew piloted by a sapient AI would be morally and ethcally equivalent to the Catians. I sincerely hope we homo saps never succeed in creating strong AI. I can just hear the arguments against considering such entities “people”. Hell! If an unborn human being only achieves “personhood” by virtue of passing through the birth canal (and these days possibly not for up to 72 hours afterward) then what chance would a wholly non-biological (as Scot Bieser calls them) “artiperson” have? Singularity be damned! I fear for a world where sentient artificial beings capable of bemoaning their lot are used as slave labor and/or cannon fodder in high-risk activities. Talk about a “brave new world”!
this is me.. I think they are making ‘smart’ machines, not sapient,, not knowing that some have become “sapient”..
we have smart machines now that can fool some…
so ,, yes i agree,, we dont need machines to do ‘ … ‘ we have enough now.!!!
I worked for an inventory company at one point. We were sent to inventory an airline maintenance hanger parts room. I got to inventory cotter pins. ( https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwipnovjx8P0AhXFIWAKHSV9Bg4YABAJGgJ0bQ&ae=2&ei=L-unYZ_ZC8SJoASwlZSwBA&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAASEuRokxW6DAZ9XqBJdbQYVxrbng&sig=AOD64_1zo49OJGMQXnFs0FY5e-k8PsvT7Q&ctype=5&q=&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjfrIPjx8P0AhXEBIgKHbAKBUYQ9aACegQIAhBi&adurl= ) Turns out I couldn’t inventory them by the usual method for hardware of this type. I had to count them. They weren’t giving us a hard way to go. A mechanic had to account for every part he took out of the parts supply as well as every part he took off the plane. Yes it’s time consuming and costly to do this, but when my rump is in a airplane seat about to take off, I feel a little bit better knowing someone was made to be that OCD about maintenance.
Welcome, Curtis. I hope you’ll keep commenting here.
(Reading the comments is my reward for writing the comic!)
Weak commo signal from the dreadnought (not-so) “Vicious”?
I’d still be careful. Could still be a trap.
Just so you know, “Vicious” is the Dogshuan ship. TGW-865
TGW-865, panel 5. It’s the Core Worlds dreadnaught.
Oops. I screwed.up that one. Thought I had gone back to where the Pride was.contacted.by the puppies. I still think all in all “Vicious” would be a great name fo a.dog ship.
This is where a Captain earns his/her pay. They have to keep track of EVERYTHING under, and NOT under, their command.
Any little “oops, I forgot” or “oops, didn’t think of that”, can result in loss of life & hardware.
A good Captain may seem to be a stickler for details, but often, that’s a good thing.
Just the debris from a fight is bad enough. Unexploded ordinance is bad enough in 2D on a planets surface (mine fields, still digging up stuff dropped in WWII), but now have to worry about the much larger 3D space! A good neighbor will help as much as possible keeping your orbits cleaned up :}