UNI 2.0 challenge

Uni Design Revision
Starting in 5045 shortly after the Science Council announced, that the Union had officially passed all markers to make it a Tech level nine (TL 9) society, the Capital Ship Development Bureau was tasked to develop a new UNI Design standard that would bring the Fleet to TL 9.

Three Approaches
Three approaches peculated to the top and each approach received considerable funding to create a fleet wide workable concept (from shuttle to Dreadnought) and built a prototype battle ship for the next millennia. the whole initiative is supervised by Commodore Archibald Bull, lead of the CSDB
 * The Seenian Approach - under the Auspice of Dr. Foster
 * Uni Design 2.0 - under the Auspice of Admiral Heinrich Donnerwetter
 * Big Fish Project - under the Auspice of Admiral Mc Elligott

The Seenian Approach
Dr. Foster (the head of Xeno Research and along with his team foremost authority on Seenian tech were convinced that the ideal move forward towards a "new fleet" and new design is to completely adapt Seenian technology instead of inventing new stuff or mixing other tech into the original Uni Design.

He of course has to compromise as not all Seenian tech is yet understood. But he wants to put all resources in retro engineering the Seenian solutions.

Here is Dr. Foster in his own word summarizing his approach:


 * Dr. Foster said. “Ever since the Eternal Warrior returned with the Devi, we gathered and compiled every bit of hardware,artifact and information on that advanced civilization. We analyzed every bit of data we could find in the archives of the Saresii. We refitted the Devi and learned much about Seenian technical approaches. This body of knowledge exponentially increased since we received the Dom and all the Lyrec Battleships. We basically took these ships apart. Combined it with Union tech and put it back together. Not to mention the many thousand smaller ships. We are in possession of two Seenian depots that had been sealed until recently. The decision was made to open them after the Ancient Gates had been activated with the full blessing of those who initially wanted to keep them sealed. The second is filled with many more Lyrec ships, hulls, parts and we believe the supplies to complete a second Karmat. A sentient piece of Seenian technology assisted us with understanding much and more so with guidance to conduct safe research. We also have the full cooperation of a robot called the Master Servant. The machine leads a workforce of Seenian engineering robots. To summarize the our proposal, we are still far away to reach the same level as the Seenians, but we are on the right track. So if we use what we inherited, change or adapt our designs to follow this lead, we have fulfilled what the Union asked us. We propose to gradually replace all our Battleships and subsequent all our Mil Tech with Seenian design as basis and unravel the rest till we can create on the same level. We do not invent but retro engineer what is already there and we know it works.”

The Lyrec II Battleship class was developed as a test of Dr. Foster's approach.

Uni Design 2.0 Proposal
The easiest of the three approaches to implement, Uni 2.0 was championed by Admiral Donnerwetter,and his argument is also very logical and practical. He explains:


 * ”I am the voice of the second camp. It became known as the Uni Design 2.0 . My main arguments against the Seenian approach were already pointed out by the Admiral of the Fleet. The main reason we implemented Uniform design was to stream line and simplify maintenance, logistics and repairs. Before this we had Terran battle ships, Ult and Saran ships and every manufacturer and ship builder designed and built their own version. Every ship type needed different parts and required different munitions. Do you know we lost battles not because we didn't have enough ships or crews but because they could not use the munitions we had. There were cases known with warehouses full of Shiprocs and a fleet of Saran Battleship urgently needing ammunition, the Fleet was defeated because the Shiprocs did not fit their launch tubes. Servicing the Devi had been a nightmare for centuries. Servicing the new Seenian giants is not much easier. Technicians know where Power coupling 66A3 is in every Union Battleship, no matter the Class or the size or the year. By the Uniform Design Doctrine it is always in the same section, uses the same color coded connectors and is removed by the same tools.

In a ship yard there is time to consult a tech or expert AI to figure out what part of the ship does the same thing, but in Battle when you need to replace that coupling wearing a protective suit, maybe in Zero gravity or while the ship is tossed and turned due to weapon impacts you don't have the time. I can, and that is no boast find and replace the 66A3 in every Uni design battleship in under 5 minutes, with one arm tied to my back and blindfolded.”

He smiled. “It is to this day the test any Engineering cadet must complete in under 15 minutes, handicapped in some way, blindfolded or under simulated emergency conditions.”

The Uni 2.0 group not only designed and built a 400 ship class conforming to the proposed revision of the Unified design, it also modified fifty recently decommissioned ships to the new standard as well. Even so, the total cost was less than that spent on the Big Fish Project.

Big Fish Project
Admiral McElligott initiated Project Fish many centuries ago. Central to this project was a new type of ship. While in theory it was to be built with the UDD in mind, only about 10% of the ships design followed it, because almost everything in this ship did not exist before, as far as we know it no Seenian concepts existed. Almost everything was invented and developed for that ship. It took centuries to built it. One reason was the the great secrecy and the other was the need to develop new production methods to turn never before realized concepts into parts and systems. In 5020 the ship was ready and given to the most unusual crew our combined civilizations ever assembled and I think it is safe to say it will never be repeated. This crew took the most advanced ship we could built and customized it, altered it and improved on it, throwing pretty much everything that was left of UDD out the window.

But Admiral McElligott saw in this ship the seed for our next era of ships and initiated said Project Big Fish, building a battleship based on the USS Tigershark and keeping its base design philosophy as base line, take the best of what all our combined civilizations have to offer and throw any other rule of limitation out the same window. McElligott never liked to put our eggs into one basket. He decried the Union's reliance on basically two weapon systems. The Translocator and the Loki torpedo. Yes we greatly improved on the original concept, but the base function is the same.

There are good chances now, that we are indeed the biggest kid in our neighborhood. But the door has been opened to the Universe and it is simply foolish to assume we are the most advanced and biggest kid out there.

The arguments are the same as those against the Seenian route, plus our approach is by far the costliest. The Tigershark, her development and her three upgrades cost us as much as an entire battle group but the investment had been returned a thousandfold. Now the new ship didn't need to be built with the same level of secrecy or had to be developed over centuries, but she is still the most expensive battle ship we ever built and ninety percent of her systems are classified Blue-Blue-Red.”

The Orca class of 200 battleships was designed and built to prove the concept behind the Big Fish Project.

Results
After building and testing new ships based on all three approaches it was decided to create an amalgam of the three approaches.

The new Uni Design would be centered around the Seenian Approach modified in such a way that the ships built after Seenian samples would have the same unified engineering principle at its core as the original Uni design meaning same tools and same part philosophy.

the vast majority of elements found in Union Ships that had no known Seenian equivalent came from the Uni Design 2.0 approach. Only a few elements came from the Big Fish Project, in most cases those being Seenian Tech that had been improved by the crew of the USS Tigershark.