[Private Meeting Room]Bumblebee wrote:"You need to try to calm down, Red. All of us here are friends and we all want our ship to be safe. After all, it's basically our home too. […] In addition, too much surveillance and audio equipment would make everyone feel uncomfortable. Everyone needs their own personal space you know? That being said, I don't mind volunteering to help you set up equipment where it's necessary."
In a way, Red Alert felt like Bumblebee was right. He did need to put a little restraint.
But what if…?No, he’d need to hold himself a little more professionally for now. “A-apologies, gentlemechs, I think I might’ve gotten a little carried away there…” he said, his voice getting quieter. “As for… the camera and audio feeds, I suppose we could limit it to the important zones… although what shouldn’t be covered might be a bit ambiguous, and I don’t want to leave anything potentially important unsecured.” He cleared his throat, regaining the volume in his voice. “Ultimately, we would need to install equipment that is beneficial in both the short and the long term.”
Trailbreaker wrote:“Red, if I may. You’ve made some great points, and while I agree with Rook and Overclock to an extent, I’ve found it often comes down to how our personnel operate. I accept my ‘fair share’ of the blame for what happened, and I’m curious what other changes you think would work best.”
Rook interjected to respond to Trailbreaker. “That’s also a bit true. As much as the technology and upgrades would help, we need a bit of change in our behaviour and culture around here as well. Being a closely-knit fleet would definitely do much to boost our morale, especially in difficult times such as this.”
Red Alert gave it a bit of a think, and nodded his head. “Ye-yeah, I think that would be useful. Although, where could we start? W-we’re definitely not trying the Decepticon approach to remaining alert…”
Rook had an idea, and immediately responded, “Perhaps we could set up certain “mock” operations, in standard squad sizes, of about 4-6 per unit. I used to take part in trials like these with a few others several metacycles ago, and it does help to bring mechs together as part of one army.”
Overclock sat silently, brooding about the fact that he may have to work with mechs outside his comfort zone.
The security officer put a digit on his chin, and turned back to Rook. “That is actually similar to something that I, uh, wanted to propose eventually, but I’ll get back to that later.”
Smokescreen wrote:One thing I didn't hear you mention was cyber security. Even with appropriate firewalls installed, our ships' computer systems can still be vulnerable to attack. Maybe a program could be uploaded that would essentially divert a hacker's attention away from the more important systems. It would make them think they've already infiltrated those systems when in reality they're only looking at the diversion program, which, of course, would contain nothing but false data.
Scrap, I forgot to mention all the digital plans! “Uh, yes, Smokescreen. That is a sound idea, and something similar is part of the plans, although your idea… sounds reasonable. I w-will talk to Prowl and Blaster about the implementation of such a programme. We already have high-security encryptions planned for our comm-lines, and this would, uh, definitely strengthen our technological sector.”
Ratchet wrote:"I'm for it. All of it. I don't know how we can capture a mech like Megatron and have him magically escape, but we did. That can't happen again. To say nothing of the fact that Optimus may not seem like it now--but until I figure out what slag caused that turn of his, he's a threat. We shouldn't treat him like he's a threat, but we shouldn't be ignorant of it, either. Now, I've installed a killswitch that may save us if it happens again...but it could very well override it just as easily. Whatever technology did that to Optimus is uncharted waters as far as I know. Trust me when I say that issue has all of my attention right now, so if you just needed my two cents for how to proceed here...well...there it is. Do what you need to."
“Ratchet, you’re definitely top gun for our medicals here, so uh, I’m hoping you’ve got Optimus covered as much as possible. In the event that an…
incident… like that one before occurs again, w-we need to have a first response team at the scene immediately.” Ratchet, unfortunately, had to leave early. “T-thank you for attending, Ratchet. Your input was v-valuable.”
He then turned his attention to the Special Ops Director, “So uh, Jazz, I’d like to ask you for a favour, since you’re Special Ops and all.” Red Alert paused, and brought up a holopad with some information on it. “In order to aid with the… unification of our fleet’s troops, I-I was wondering if you could start some training programmes for Autobot soldiers, to prepare them for the kinds of patrols we would need to keep the security. T-there should be plenty of active patrols around the fleet as well as around Autobot City, though I’m sure that I could communicate to Prowl about that in some way. These programmes could very well be integrated into the mock operations that Rook mentioned earlier. In fact, I’ve got a few suitable locations right here…”
As he tapped something on the holopad, a blue, holographic globe representing Sol-3 appeared above the conference table. On it, several red markers began to appear, faintly pulsating. A large green marker appeared on the continent of South America, and a similar, smaller one appeared on the continent of Africa. There was also an orange marker at the very bottom of the globe.
“The coordinates shown in green towards the western half are of Autobot City. That is to be the primary base of operations for us on Sol-3, as I’m sure you all know. The coordinates in green towards the central continent of…” he paused to read the name of the continent, “...Africa show the location of an outpost that was supposed to be built, but was abandoned because of the whole Fallen mess. It would be, uh, in our best interests to have an outpost that is closer to some of the larger continents, especially as the Africa continent is prone to much human conflict.”
He highlighted some of the other markers, notably the orange one. “T-that is currently where Perceptor and Wheeljack’s expedition team is. From the logs that I received, they are looking for a certain resource that might allow better combat capabilities. A resource like this should
definitely stay out of Decepticon reach.”
A red marker, somewhere in the middle of the Asian continent began to flash slowly. “That is one of the p-points of interest that I thought to be useful to have a mock operation in. A location known as Kashmir by the local humans, it’s faced… a lot of conflict, according to the database. There are some humans that apparently do not take part in the conflict, but are affected by it. I think it w-would be useful to be accustomed to humans, if we take into account the Decepticons’ presence here on Sol-3. If they take this planet down as well, we’re going to be facing a seriously large toll… and we can’t afford to have that!”
Another red marker lit up. This time, it was north of Autobot City. “That’s Detroit, in North America. We had a team go there as well before, but again, the Fallen and all cut it short. It would definitely be useful to go back and establish presence, considering that it is a major human city, with close access to many human military facilities.”
He turned to Jazz, Kup and Rook. “If, uh, you don’t mind, I’d like to appoint you three as the primary commanders of any such missions. In terms of who will accompany you as part of the unit, well, that I think you can figure out for yourself.”
He tapped his holopad again, replacing the globe with a few statistics and graphs. The graphs in particular had multiple columns, some for
current and some for
projected. “These are numbers about our, uh, fleet, at the moment. The projected figures are where we should be aiming for, with response rates, resource allocations, etc. Aside from that are our military specifications,” he said, with a sigh, “As you can see, we’re c-comparatively behind the Decepticons. They have a functional gestalt, superior firepower and…”
Oh for PRIMUS’S SAKE, not those things! “...Phase sixers.”
“The proposed changes and improvements so far won’t be enough. We need to bring ourselves to the same technological level as the Decepticons, if not better. Although we have a gestalt of our own in the works, we can’t afford to simply rely on that, as well as our powerhouses, like Omega Supreme. We need to have all scientists and engineers developing innovations as well.”
He took a step back and sighed.
Primus, how long have I been talking?! Hopefully they didn’t start making their own plans during that… hopefully it wasn’t too boring… The security chief leaned back. “Any, uh opinions? Questions?”
