UNIT ANNUAL REPORT 3201 Executive Summary

Stardate 3201.205 General Progress

The study of Exterminator Artifacts remains as reported in our Interim report slow and dogged by difficulties. This annual report attempts to summarise the progress made over the last year in our various key study areas.

Our main area of progress is in learning a little more on the nature of Exterminator power systems and control interfaces. Work on data protocols remain excruciatingly slow.

In very recent months, UNIT has been somewhat distracted by events at Tuskan, having to divert some investigation towards the study of the crippled Agamemnon. This is not strictly part of our remit, and the need to send an investigation team has significantly delayed our core studies.

Lines of research

Data Technology – examining data communication systems, protocols and processing systems.

Materials Science – the fabric and electromechanical systems of Exterminator equipment.

Linguistics and written language – mainly relating to written signs and language transmission recorded from exterminators.

Operational analysis – examination of known exterminator movements and deployment.

Results Summary

Data Technology

The exterminator computer systems, at the fundamental electronic level are utterly different from any human system ever devised. We have made some very slow progress in understanding the fundamentals of their fuzzy transistor technology. We estimate that we may have some clue as to how their chip technology works by the end of 3202.

Materials Science

We have made considerable progress in understanding how power transfers and electromechanical control systems work on an Exterminator vessel - in fact it might be possible to actually 'fly' an exterminator, in a rudimentary way, by some time next year. This will, even if things go as we hope, still involve attaching quite a lot of human interface equipment to key points in the Exterminator.

Ships

There is little to add to the last report, except that since the Battle of Red Spot we have been looking at the stress factors and acceleration capabilities much more closely.

We estimate that an ESB would be capable of a sustained acceleration of
around 2.76g without being substantially stressed.

From a careful study of their thruster arrays, they may be capable of short-term bursts of up to 5.21g - perhaps for periods of on average 34 minutes at a time.

Exterminator Shadow craft are harder to determine because we do not have any intact
(stopping them generally requires destroying them). From recordings of
Shadow operations, they seem capable of a sustained 10g, plus or minus 1g.

Based on what we now know about exterminator power systems, at maximum 5g or so, the entire power output and nearly all stored power of an ESB would be directed to thrusters. At 2g it would be able to engage with either it's main armament, or it's close in defences but not all of both.

Linguistics

There has been virtually no progress in the highly frustrating field. Until we crack the Exterminator's data protocols, or find a mythical forerunner MajoDomo unit to help us, progress is effectively at a standstill.

Operational Analysis

Further study has been completed on Exterminator tactics and objectives. Our current theories of their origins and long term strategy fall into 5 strands

Strand 1 'Exterminator Universe Theory': The Exterminators represent a widespread machine intelligence the occupies a substantial proportion of our galaxy, and is spreading like a virus. This is a deeply pessimistic view because it postulates that the attacks we've faced are just an outpost of a much larger 'culture' - which in due course will simply defeat us by sheer weight of numbers. This cannot be tested, though we recommend a programme of very long range probes to explore to distances of 1000-1000 parsecs for evidence of such an infestation of machines.

Strand 2 : 'Little Lost Robot Theory' : The exterminators are a lost or dormant collection of defective super warships - perhaps left over from some ancient forerunner war, or some other species' war. These have entered our space, and on finding something to fight have started a 'combat and build' subroutine. This might explain their disjointed tactics and why they seemed to lack staying power. This is an optimistic strand because all we have to do is find and destroy them all and the threat ends.

Strand 3 : 'Ancient Enemy Theory' : The Exterminators have been sent by an ancient and advanced enemy of the Forerunners and are trying to find the Forerunners and fight/destroy them. The implications of this are that there are more exterminators either in transit or lurking. Whoever or whatever sent the Exterminators will, presumably, receive a report that the Forerunners could not be found. Whether the putative Ancient Enemy will be minded to divert it's enmity towards humanity is unknowable. But this strand postulates further, even stronger, attacks in the future when reports of the outcome of the initial battles reach their 'master'. Like long Strand 1 - long range probes might reveal this enemy - but if it is a civilisation that was contemporary with the forerunners (or as one variant of this theory goes, an escaped Forerunner AI super battleship) - they may be hard to find.

Strand 4: 'Conspiracy Theory'. The Exterminators have been built, in secret, by a human polity for obscure purposes - perhaps to 'unite warring humanity against a common foe' or some such idealistic drivel. This theory can be discounted as much too unlikely.

Strand 5: 'Current Alien Enemy Theory'. That there is a relatively nearby alien civilisation that we have not yet found that has built the Exterminators to test our defences without revealing their own nature or location. This might infer a civilisation that does not like to take personal risk and it might even infer that they find humanity a great threat. This would suggest searching for this species and negotiating a settlement to the conflict. Like Strand 1, long range probes might reveal the location and extent of any neighboring civilisation.

The Agamemnon Study

A UNIT Team was sent to Tuskan to investigate the mysterious malfunction of the ESS Agamemnon. Despite interference and delay brought about by a nearby space battle, and the pilfering of some of our key equipment, it became clear that the Agamemnon malfunctioned as a result of a number of unlikely but entirely explainable accidents. There is clearly no sign of any outside interference, and the ship is not harbouring an AI or anything like it. The ship's computer's hardware is incapable of supporting and AI protocols in any case.

UNIT is satsfied that the Agamemnon is safe and may be disposed of as the Earth Navy see fit.

Annex A UNIT Composition:

Project Director

Prof Ali Hussein Akhbar Sirian Ministry of Science and Robotics

Chief military advisor

Admiral Akiyoshi MSN

Chief Intelligence Advisor

Commodore M Minski Union of Xyon MOSSAD

Project Team Leaders

Prof Q, Vadis Sirian Institute of Advanced Cybernetics

Prof J Homme Venerian State University No. 7(Oith)

Prof N Oliveri Imperial Institute of Science

Prof D Grohl Potomax Technical College

Prof M Lanegan School of Linguistics, Xynam

Consultation advice: Professor Gratermass