Risk Assessment

Author's Note: Spent quite some time doing some research here. Hopefully I got everything right. As always, if you're an expert and you wanna share some feedback, please join the discord server. Also doing some experimentation with the style after reading some works from accomplished authors (Sanderson, Tolkien, Orwell, Scalzi, etc) instead of just japanese webnovels. Lmk what you think.

Read up to three weeks ahead! Chapters up to 198 are now out for corresponding Patreon tiers!

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– –

Bureau of Information, Technology Division

Ragna, Gra Valkas Empire

Naguano took a sip of his coffee, the bitter liquid sliding down his throat like a weak balm against the grim reality that lay before him. The report from the Third Conquest Fleet sat on the table, the dreadful pages staring up at him with cold detachment. He had read it three times already, hoping against hope that the words would change, that the numbers would somehow rearrange themselves into a more acceptable truth. Of course, reality wouldn't be so kind. They remained the same, a damning indictment of the Gra Valkan Empire's technological inferiority.

Across the table, Heimdall sat in silence – a mirror image reflecting the same resigned weariness that Naguano felt in his bones. They had worked tirelessly, pouring every ounce of their knowledge and expertise into the countermeasures that were supposed to turn the tide of the war. As he had long suspected, it was simply a pipe dream. The Americans, with their advanced missiles and their seemingly endless resources, had rendered their efforts futile.

Naguano glanced down at the report again, the words blurring together into a haze of despair. The chaff and flares, the electronic countermeasures, the decoys - all of it had been for naught. The American missiles had cut through their defenses like a hot knife through butter, leaving nothing but destruction and chaos in their wake.

Naguano shuffled through the stack of radar track printouts, the chaff corridor deployment data refusing to make sense. By procedure, the decoy clouds had formed with perfect density - he'd overseen the countermeasure bombardment himself. And yet, the overlaid missile trajectories arced through the clutter unperturbed, beelines to their eventual targets.

He grabbed the thermal imaging stack with a weary sigh, desperate for any glimmer of an answer. Flares - their trusted friend against the old infrared missile seekers. They'd theorized their use against potential Kainian missiles, and confirmed the theory by cross-referencing with American materials. But frame by agonizing frame, the evidence only compounded his team's impotence. Bright heat plumes blossoming from each pyrophoric canister...only for the missile gimbal tracks to abruptly shrug them off like drifting sparks.

Naguano's hands clenched dimly on the table, the knuckles paling. He knew the procedures, the countermeasure doctrine, better than anyone. This debacle defied everything in their defensive scriptures.

Heimdall leaned in, taciturn gaze sweeping over the same damning proof. "Like the chaff had no impact in breaking their missile lock," he muttered, a tone more dire than mere observation.

Naguano nodded, feeling the first chill prickles of dismay. "And the flares..." He shoved the thermal stack towards his colleague. "Just a couple seconds and the missiles are already disregarding and re-biasing away from the plumes."

An ominous pause stretched between them, two scientists intrepidly unspooling the worst thread of revelation.

"You don't think..." Naguano couldn't even give voice to the heresy brewing in his mind. Heimdall's eyes flicked upwards, a similar suspicion already metabolizing behind that furrowed brow.

"Real-time multi-sensor integration?" The older man exhaled a leaden breath. "Correlating, resolving conflicts between radar and thermal optics on the fly?" His voice trailed off, the implications sheer vertigo.

Numbers, figures, data metrics. Naguano desperately pivoted to the system logs – telemetry records from radar and photographs obtained by high-speed cameras. He tried scouring the granular outputs for some rebuke to this technological shadow looming over them all, to no avail. The finely-hewn digits only damned them further.

"Just look at these aimpoint refinement rates," he muttered in hollow tones, sliding the readouts across to Heimdall. "Orders of magnitude tighter than we even projected in our modeling sims."

Naguano internalized the stark truth with a silent nod. Heimdall did the same. A mere glimpse at those numeric updates revealed a perpetual, dynamic closing of the decision loop utterly alien to their analog processes. The precision was...profane.

"Some sort of advanced discrimination capability," Heimdall spoke at last, words dripping with the sick dread of epiphany. "Able to actively filter and reject whatever it deems non-threatening, at update rates our klystron tech can't even..."

His sudden quiet was more deafening than any thunder. The elephant barged in from oblivion.

"Unless..." Naguano started, then faltered at the audacious prospect gestating. "How is real-time cognitive signal processing like that even possible?"

Heimdall's jaw worked in wordless exertion as he marshaled his own attempt at an explanation, against a phenomena that seemed to curdle any rational model they possessed.

"From the field reports," he began, slowly, "the missiles registered our countermeasures as...non-existent. Complete failure to deviate or react, even with optimized deployments."

"Corroborating accounts," Naguano murmured, nodding along with grim recollection. "The same inexplicable ignoring behavior, again and again."

"So for them to disregard the flares and chaff so completely..." Heimdall trailed off, as if groping for the profane utterance that completed their collective revelation.

"It would require real-time cognitive filtering," his words landed like a death knell proclamation. 

"Instantaneous binary decision-making on inputs...classifying any non-conforming signal for seamless nullification."

An awestruck silence gripped them in its maw. Naguano stared, unblinking, only the subtle working of his jaw betraying the desperate patching of his worldview's rupture.

"That level of...integrated discrimination?" He shook his head with automatic denial.

"Machine cognition of that magnitude..." Heimdall could scarcely give voice to the thought that hammered their psyches into submission.

Naguano let his gaze drift, the abyss of their ignorance yawning limitless. Only one tendril, one whisper of sanity reached out to lash them back from the brink.

"You know..." he started, voice low with the weight of sanction. "I happened to see American computers during my time there. I told you about my visit to the USS Midway museum, yes?"

Heimdall's subsequent nod was pensive; without another word uttered, he could already sense where the conversation was headed. Yet, he couldn't help but seek more information – if not to dispel the conclusion they arrived at, then at least to give some finality to this terrible new reality.

It was a truth they had long known of, just one they didn't want to admit until now. "Well, I managed to talk with some of the American locals – tourists from across their own country, if you can believe it." All he could muster was an awkward laugh, an acknowledgment of the small surprise before he pulled the trigger.

"And?"

"And these locals – well, I asked them about the devices all the Americans seemed to hold in their hands. I noticed that the Americans not only used them for taking pictures, but also tapped away at them relentlessly, eyes glued to these small screens. Some of them held these devices to their ears, talking into them as if they were telephones. And so, I got curious and asked one of them what these devices were."

Heimdall frowned, but leaned forward at the same time. No matter how shocking the revelation was, he simply had to know.

"He called them phones – smartphones to be exact," Naguano continued, "and each one of these phones was connected to that 'Internet' we learned about a few months ago. Each phone also contained an integrated camera, an integrated, well, phone, various apps for productivity and entertainment, and an integrated television. All in one package the size of this tiny notepad here." He held up the very emphasis of his message – a yellow notepad barely larger than his hand.

Just the implications on computer miniaturization were enough. He dared not gild the horror with further flourish. Despite that, Heimdall knew. His eyes flashed with the same splinter of revelation, then comprehension...then resignation.

"By Valhalla," Heimdall sunk his face into his hands. "Where's the Emperor? Why do we have this bumbling buffoon in charge?" He then lifted his head up in shock – realization. "Fuck, we need to submit our analysis to the Department of War…"

"It'll go through General Siegs before it ever lands on Marix's desk – if it ever lands on his desk," Naguano corrected himself, though he wasn't so sure of that procedure himself. "In any case, I've heard General Siegs is a reasonable man. Let's just compile what we know; after all, we're not the ones who have to report to the Chancellor," he shrugged.

Heimdall sighed, the only thing he really could do at this point. "Alright… Let's get started."

– – 

Carlisle Corporation Headquarters, Ragna

Drescher dreaded having to reopen these particular conversations so soon. But the newest production analytics laid out in his briefing materials could no longer be avoided or dismissed as mere transitory setbacks. He steeled himself as his colleagues filtered into the room, already detecting the simmering tensions.

"Gentlemen, I regret having to reconvene on such short notice. But the latest production analytics raise...concerns that can no longer be dismissed as mere transitory setbacks."

The first voice of dissent, as expected, came from Executive Vice President Erhard Ruckert - the unapologetic ultranationalist forever pledging fealties. "With all due respect, Herr President, I must object to this persistent defeatist talk before it takes root!" Ruckert's tone carried bitter reproach. "Have we not already sacrificed dearly in service of total war against the American threat?"

Vanmeer, their Chief Financial Officer, rolled his eyes. "Here we go with the party loyalty script again..."

Drescher half expected a rise out of Ruckert, but it seemed his zeal proved impervious to such digs. "Our esteemed Chancellor Marix made the difficult choice to safeguard our territories," he proclaimed, head bobbing with conviction. "Yes, production has been strained - but these are the inevitable costs of preserving our sovereignty and way of life!"

Vice President of Manufacturing Rodrick Kressler, yielding to his typical waffling impulse, offered a reluctant nod. "Erhard does make a fair point. We all knew such disruptions were to be expected in service of checking American expansionism."

Indeed, he had thought the same. Ruckert's fanaticism had been instrumental in securing the most lucrative contracts from the government, but the situation was different now. Drescher raised a calming hand before this ideological quagmire could devolve further. "Let's remain lucid and objective here." He flipped open the impact report. "I'm simply outlining the newest operational data so we can respond accordingly while still supporting the Chancellor's campaign aims."

He knew their attention must be squarely focused. He forced his voice to remain steady as he absorbed the figures anew, knowing their impact could no longer be soft-pedaled. "However, these projections indicate over 35% production shortfalls across all military product lines by next quarter's conclusion." The shortages were becoming increasingly dire as vital supply shipments from the colonies were being consistently destroyed by enemy submarines - a crucial logistics hole their navy seemed powerless to stem. That was also to say nothing of the drafts, that kept stealing men from their workforce.

"And that's us being conservative with deficit modeling against expected replenishment rates," their Chief Operating Officer, Frierich Ehlert, tacked on. "If we factor in rising costs from material and real transport line disruptions, we're possibly looking at… well, production shortfalls exceeding 40% year-over-year. If we lose our production facilities like Rikshögen Shipbuilders, then –"

At this, Ruckert's expression curdled into one of indignant dismissal. With a flippant wave of his hand, he scoffed, "The Chancellor's commitments are iron-clad! Our demonstrated perseverance and output will be justly recompensed once his strategies prevail against these temporary setbacks. Plus, our facilities are deep inland. Their missiles can't possibly fly past a hundred miles of our defenses, let alone five hundred!"

The stubbornness was almost admirable in its stark denial of reality itself. But Vanmeer would have none of it. He threw his arms up to emphasize his sarcasm, "Yes, yes! Let's gamble everything on empty regime promises while deluding ourselves to reality!"

His sardonic jab seemed to grant Kressler license to voice more measured dissensions. "As unpalatable as it is, Dietrich raises a fair point," the man sighed, fist clenching subtly. "Our reliance on Marix's solvency borders on something approaching institutional ruin. Currency devaluations and the loss of our production assets cannot be discounted if this conflict extends, and this is precisely what the Third Conquest Fleet's catastrophe suggests. Maybe… maybe we should start exploring transitional alternatives."

The rebuke proved a bridge too far for the zealot's sustaining mythologies. Ruckert's fist pounded the glossy table like a judge's gavel silencing all reasoned discourse. "Materialistic TREASON!" he cried, spittle flying in his frantic ire.

"Our forefathers spilled rivers of blood building this glorious empire – and you would abandon the Chancellor's righteous struggle at the first whiff of hardship?!" Ruckert leveled them all with a sweeping glare, finger-jabbing in accusation as his voice took on a preacher's heated cadence. "Make no mistake - while the economic thinktanks here see only numbers and spreadsheets, I hear the war cries of millions demanding our total faith in this campaign! Your defeatist hedging insults every sacrifice made to preserve our sovereign way of life!"

Drescher watched the man's chest heaving and knew there would be no swaying dogmatic temperament today. He wanted to slowly ease him into it, but it seemed even that was out of the question. He could only press on with professional detachment. "Enough populist proselytizing, Erhard," he stated. "This is a board of pragmatists and fiduciaries, not revolutionary radicals."

The sudden hush of Ruckert's seething allowed Drescher to forge ahead with the bitter analysis. His eyes bored into them, sparking with cynical realization. "Our restructuring contingencies, however unsatisfactory, merely recognize the diseased reality - our complete institutional overexposure and subjugation to Marix's regime assurances. Indulging recapitalization blindness would merely be the greater insanity."

He resisted stating it too bluntly. Of course, he wanted to get the point across to the more grounded among them, but he also didn't want to get ousted as a traitor. He had known Ruckert for a while, but who knew just how far his fanaticism extended? He definitely didn't want Marix's secret police after him.

Thankfully, Vanmeer was there to back him up. "He's right," Vanmeer proclaimed with a nod. "We've been frogs lukewarmly boiling in the pot of that man's schemes for far too long already." Daring any remnant objections with his stare, he swept the table's circumference. "While we've prioritized profiteering and obsequious fealties, the operational foundations kept crumbling away beneath us. Our overreliance on Marix's regime as the sole buyer left us stuck on a debtor's chassis - wagering our institutional existence on his dwindling assurances."

Kressler seemed to wilt under the weight of such uncloaked cynicism, but made no effort to rebut it. "Only to now face fiscal ruin as his guarantees become existential liabilities," he murmured at last, almost to himself. "A subprime reckoning indeed."

Drescher allowed these self-admissions to breathe for a moment. The board was finally beginning to understand. When he finally resumed the conversation's thread, his tone carried the frank resignation of any emergency field surgeon prepared to amputate freely.

"Precisely," he said, the grimmest of affirming nods. "Which forces us to swallow the septic pill of self-preservation at once...and promptly assess all options for reconstructing Carlisle's operational lines through alternative benefactors and affiliations, however unpalatable or unthinkable those avenues may currently feel."

"Then I suggest we convene the Strategic Capital team at once," he declared, swiveling his jaw as the grave pronouncements kept coming. "To start auditioning every feasible scenario reassessment and transitional contingency – from preserving our liquidity to more drastic measures, like reconsidering our stance on the war."