[h2][center]=WEAPONS RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT=[/center][/h2]

Mercer inspected the different papers all lined with descriptions and different readings and data handed to him by Spymaster Martin, of course highly classified however it allowed him to design quite unique weapons and countermeasures. And unique readings from rebelling fronts, high powered munitions, weaving missiles, energy based weapons, of course Mercer did what he could to 'reproduce' these readings but with the current technology impossible. He needed tech from the field to reverse engineer and improve upon, the most recent being from one of the Empire's Xeno populations, Drone tech.

Though useful it has many flaws due to the cost and its inherent vulnerabilities towards hacking, EMPs, and communications Jamming, it was far better to just have pilots who could directly interface with controls rather than to redesign the Drone to make it autonomous or trying to design features to counteract it's weaknesses.

Mercer's designers did create something useful, an energy weapon that can destroy the bonds between molecular and atomic particles, experimental gas based plasma, what the tech's call a [i]Purifier Beam[/i], and several missile countermeasures.

Admiral Langerhan's ship [i]'The Crecy'[/i] has been outfitted with these technologies, in fact radically so, the large Main Line Battleship had very heavy modifications, controlled weapons testing and countermeasure tests were to be conducted.

The entire front of the ship was replaced with a large mechanism that can emit a high powered energy beam similar to the smaller beams weapons on the ship in structure but on a much larger scale, it was made to emit the beam so that when the beam meets resistance it will radiate outwards and cause damage in city wide area, perfect for a rebellion deterrent.

The weapon emits an energy that excite and break molecular bonds essentially making the material break apart, it has a chain reaction effect in a small area, however when magnified that area increases as the energy released is greater.

It required a lot of energy, however the test proved it was well worth it.

[quote]
Though the energy consumption is large we are pleased to report that the extent of the damage is well within acceptable Military range, the damage was described as the target materials crumbling to dust, of course different damaging parterns were observed for different materials that could be used for ship construction and armor however it was still quite effective against those targets only varying a few shots per.

it is more reliable than our tungsten based steel rods that we use as Railgun ammunition, and it is rechargeable, we've given the Crecy a larger reactor, thicker armor, and larger compartments, most of which are built from scratch with new designs from our shipyards, gravity would not be the Crecy's friend however it would allow it to use the weapons systems effectively.

The counter measures however were quite interesting, one being a microwave pulse that messes with missile tracking, these emitters were deployed all over the ship, missiles even with the most advance targeting the Empirium could offer hit off target by five meters, some as far as eight.

The counter measures only work at long range to ensure maximum loss of target, some missiles at closer range will stray towards the ship, in which case traditional countermeasures such as anti-missile Flak and auto cannons will take on the role of taking down missiles.

-Edmund Rorik, Head of Development and Research.
[/quote]

The countermeasures worked with an 86% success rate against a wide variety of missiles except dumb-fire missiles.

Mercer was glad that the data and some of the wrecks of past Xeno ships reversed engineered helped him get this far, however in terms of tech this is all experimental yet to be battle tested, Langerhan's ship The Crecy the lead ship of its fleet would be the perfect test bed.

[center][h3]-Langerhan-[/h3][/center]

He read through all the data files, he saw all the documented pictures, all the statistics, and what ran through his mind was skepticism, this tech needed battle testing, Mercer, Martin, and himself needed this weaponry, Mercer hid the fault in the design quite well under more obvious problems such as the power consumption. A cleverly designed flaw that would reveal itself if the experimental weapons were mass produced.

Mercer was also working on infantry and mechanized weapons for the Empirium, he was in his groove, Langerhan on the other hand as a strategist and tactician alongside Martin felt as if this was risky at best and would advise against it, however Martin is a bold, cold blooded commander, his risk taking is very high reward and if anybody could pull off this sort of work it was Martin.

Martin headed this secret weapons program for the Empirium under the guise of equalizing the odds against the Mekhar, only a select few were allowed to know about the Mekharan front, with the Mekharans so ahead in technology it was vital that the Empirium closed up the gap it was of course easily approved, anything that could end the conflict quicker and with less casualties is always something the Empirium wants, and it benefits in new ways of displaying its military might to the entire Galaxy.

The careful Admiral pondered the thought while smoking his pipe looking across the stars from the Bridge of the Crecy thinking about his distant colleague who took up a different path as a Spymaster, and his alternate persona, The Watchman, always watching over the different events in the Empirium, he wondered what he could see from his position of power and influence.