New Year Entry

So, YC 116 is coming rapidly, over 20 entries have been created and it's been over five months since the creation of this blog already. Some people took it to themselves to celebrate this, and some winter festival called Christmas by giving gifts and shooting fireworks and snowballs around.

Surprisingly I received a few gifts too, the biggest one from a certain capsuleer, named Jandice Ymladris. Being a clone soldier, I can not really do much in return materially or through ISK. As a way to show my gratitude for this gift, and to return the favor, I will give a shoutout to her Arcology Project.

What is the Arcology Project exactly? Simply said, it is a charity project run by the capsuleer Jandice Ymladris, aiming at giving refugees and homeless from the various different conflict zones a home at the Irjunen system, specifically at planet VI, on board the Caldari Provisions Food Packaging station.

Aboard the station they are given various jobs to keep themselves busy, and they are always provided with healthcare, nourishment and other necessary daily needs. They accept all kinds of refugees from high-ranking officers to exotic dancers, even livestock and pets.

The project has been running for several years already, but apparently as inspiration from my own blog, she created her own and named it Aurora Arcology. She originally focused on her project only, giving it regular updates at a weekly basis. But after a while she began reporting on news happening throughout New Eden, which greatly boosted the popularity of her blog.

So, a shout-out to Jandice and her project, she really deserves it. She has been a great help in the refining of this blog, helping research information, improve layout and come up with suggestions for new entries, and this is the least I can do to show my gratitude and appreciation.

I sincerely wish that you, Jandice, and everyone else, will have a good upcoming year. I would also like to thank my Suresha Sakaane Eionell, my brother in arms Phalad Sahantum, and everyone else in the Intaki Liberation Front for the support they have provided, I hope the next year will be just as successful and prosperous as this one. I will keep writing new entries to indulge readers into the life of a clone soldier, and hope you continue enjoying them.

ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ   

Recruitment

I talk a lot about my life as a clone soldier, how our battles are bloody, our lives are irrelevant, how many of us suffer from madness, how we just don't care. But I have never talked about how you enter this life, how do you become a clone soldier? But before that question, why would you want this life?

We scream, we suffer, we die, we get reborn and do it all over again until eternity. The ISK we earn is pocket money when compared to capsuleers, and most of the time they sit comfortably in their pods, away from all the pain, suffering and misery they create, and are a part of, while we suffer through it all every day just get a couple hundred thousand ISK. Why would you ever want to become a clone soldier? Sometimes, you don't have that choice.

If you have ever heard of the Valklears, they are an elite Minmatar military, and they recruit criminals sentenced to death. They go around the various tribal courts and look for potential recruits to offer them an alternative life in the military instead of death. Many Matari clone soldiers had served in the Valklears, the kind of shit we go through isn't that far off from being a Valklear.

Like the Valklears, I was recruited by the Federation from the Stacmon court. I was being sentenced to death for all the crimes I had commited in the Syndicate, and in Federation space. I was offered an alternative, join the clone soldier program. On paper we volunteer for these programs, but in reality it's more like drafting. From what I have seen, most of the people who are recruited into clone soldier programs are former criminals and murderers, no wonder how many of them seem to lack any common sense.

Of course, not all are forced to join the program, some have actually volunteered willingly. Why? For patriotism, maybe, or maybe for the ISK, who knows. But not everyone with an ISK sign on their eyes and a glint of patriotism can join this program. You need to have seen combat, you need to be good at it, and you must be willing to throw your life away, those are just a few of the various things recruiters are trying to find from potential clone soldiers.

We are an even more select bunch than capsuleers. All they have to do usually is have the right genes to be compatible with the capsule neural interface, and then they are shoved into an academy where they turn normal men into demigods basically. We have to go through years of pain and suffering before we are even considered for the clone soldier program.

When you finally get recruited and you join the program, you can pretty much say goodbye to your previous life forever. The kind of things they make you go through in training, it can be brutal, and it can change a person quite significantly. Going back to being a mortal, a baseliner as capsuleers often call them, is virtually an impossibility. Maybe that's why most clone soldiers are former criminals, they have no lives to go back to, making it easier to let go. Let go of what? Your humanity.

We are constantly being told in training how our bodies are worthless, and the only thing that is valuable in us is the information we carry in our brains. The first time we get our implants installed, we are actively encouraged and pushed to kill ourselves. We are given a weapon with a single bullet, with a note that tells us to kill ourselves. “Self-preservation is the basest of instincts. Only by subverting the will to live can you truly become immortal", they say. Maybe there is some merit to that. By not caring about your life at all, can you become the ultimate immortal soldier.

Then when you finally pull the trigger and let go of your basic instincts, we go to the extremely brutal part. Both males and females get shoved into stock 200 pound clones. We do firearm training with live rounds killing each other. We are trained to ignore the pain, keep going and do everything in your abilities to complete your objective, even going as far as using your injured and dying squadmate as a meatshield to get through a wall of gunfire.

When all of that is done and you complete your training, you get deployed into your own quarters, you get your first selection of dropsuit fits and you are left like that to fend for yourself. At that point, we could barely be considered human anymore, detached from normal life, detached from death and pain itself. Some regain their humanity, and then work their way to become corporation CEOs, renowned soldiers, great tacticians or anything else you can imagine. The others, they lose their last shreds of humanity and become mindless killing machines.

That again begs the question, why would you want this? Everyone has their own reasons, but why did I become a clone soldier? I believe in Ida. Even if I was sentenced to death, I would have been reborn to a new life, a better life maybe. Why did I choose this one instead? I do not know. Whatever my reasons were a year ago, have long been forgotten. All I can say now, is that I do not regret it.

ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ   

Scrambler Rifle Analyzation

After the feedback I received from my previous blog entry, people seemed to be very interested in getting to know more in detail at all the various different items DUST mercenaries use. So for the past few days I have been researching very heavily into the most used laser weapon we have, the Scrambler Rifle. With aid from my friends and a lot of searching through the Galnet, I have made a solid description of it. Do note though, this is merely my theory of the materials it is made of, and what the physics behind its firing mechanism are, not an official:

Released by the Carthum Conglomerate, the CRW-04 Scrambler Rifle is a pulse laser weapon, which shoots laser-induced plasma that disrupts enemy shield systems very effectively(why this is so, and how shield systems work in general I might discuss in another entry later). Headshots made with this weapon are extremely lethal, as a shot to the head scrambles the target's brains, where the weapon derives its name. The weapon shoots charge based rounds, where the longer you hold the trigger the more damaging the round will be as it hits the target.

The rifle's basic frame is built out of Tungsten Carbide, a popular composite used within Amarrian technology with gold colored decorative alloy plates on the exterior. The stock is made out of the same alloy as the exterior decoration, colored a dark gray while the grip is made out of leather. With the Amarr, aesthetics is function, and thus they have spent a great deal in making sure the Scrambler Rifle also looks as good as it is lethal and I must say, it is one of the best looking guns you could ever own. The firing mechanism is based on three key components, capacitor unit, frequency crystal and magnetic rail. Below is a picture that should help understand which part is where:

The capacitor unit is the basis of the entire rifle, which powers the magnetic rail system,  holographic sight and, with the help of the frequency crystal, starts the ionization reaction within the pre-charge ammunition.

The frequency crystal, also known as the focusing crystal, which is synthetically manufactured Zydrine, modified to emit Gamma wavelengths, is the second crucial component in ionizing the pre-charge ammunition along with the laser it generates.

The magnetic rail consists of two parts, the inner rail and the outer rail. In the inner rail, the charging plasma round is contained within a magnetic field that keeps it intact until the weapon operator releases the trigger. At the moment the trigger is released, the inner rail deactivates and the outer rail kicks in, guiding the charged plasma round out of the gun and also giving the round extra velocity, both with the help of magnets.

So what actually happens when you press the trigger and the magazine you inserted to the scrambler rifle begins feeding ammunition to the charging chamber? First we would have to know what the actual round is before it is charged. The round is neon gas, stored within a simple container. When the magazine is inserted and the weapon operator pulls the trigger, the round is cycled into the charging chamber, directly in front of the frequency crystal.

When the user keeps holding the trigger, the capacitor powers up the inner magnetic rail, while acting as an electrode and begin charging the crystal with electricity. A laser beam is then generated by the crystal, evaporating the thin casing storing the neon gas and begins heating it rapidly while the inner rail keeps the gas together. The neon gas then ionizes and turns into plasma, and at this point the round becomes lethal. The process is similar to how a plasma globe works.

The further the trigger is held, more gas is ionized into plasma which in turn increases the heat of the round, causing more damage as it impacts a solid object. When the trigger is released, the inner rail is deactivated and the outer rail powers up, propelling the charged plasma round out of the rifle and pointing it at one direction.

Some heat and energy is also lost in this process, warming up the focusing crystal as a result. If the gun is fired too rapidly, the focusing crystal doesn't have time to cool down, until it reaches a point where the crystal suffers microfractures and vents all the built up heat around the gun. Normally this heat would be lethal to the weapon operator and thus it has a safety installed to prevent fatal overheating, but thanks to the dropsuit armor DUST mercenaries use, this is not a concern and the safety is disabled.

What the actual round is then after it has been charged and sent out of the rifle? A mixture of plasma that makes the ammunition itself, and an electromagnetic field surrounding the round to keep it intact long enough for it to reach the target. When the round hits a solid object, the electromagnetic field collapses, disrupting the shield systems of the target because of the electromagnetic field, while the intense heat released from the plasma round disrupts them further. This electromagnetic field also emits wavelengths in the Gamma frequency, and upon hitting the head of the target, this radiation bombards the brain with lethal doses of radiation, in other words it scrambles brains where the name of the weapon is derived.

And that is my understanding of how the scrambler rifle works and the specifics of how the firing mechanism works. If you have any suggestions for new blog entries or want me to research a new weapon, please tell me so. Also a thanks for Jandice Ymladris, Erun Talan and Devan Corvel for helping me with research!

ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ   

Profile Dampener Theorizing

When I was researching weapons and equipment for my Dangerous Equipment blog, I had ran into the problem that there isn't much information at all about these equipment most of the time. The only source of information I had was the brief description attached to them as part of the NeoCom. In particular, the profile dampener got me curious, as the only description I had about it was what it does, it reduces your profile signature. It leaves a lot of questions open:

How does the profile dampener reduce your profile signature? What is profile signature? Why is your profile measured in decibel? Curious, I started researching various different equipment and dropsuits relating to profile signature, made a thread about it and asked for other people's opinions about their functionality. With the help of another helpful mercenary by the callsign of JDEZ09, we formed up a solid theory on the exact function of profile dampeners and active scanners, and I thought to share it here.

First of all, in order to understand how a profile dampener works, we need to know what profile is, and how scanning works. Reading the description of the Active Scanner comes to help:

Sending out a triggered pulse of high-frequency magnetometric waves and interpreting the results with an uplinked onboard computer, the Active Scanner gives ground units a snapshot of enemy positions. Projection nodes set at specific angles on the hand-held device, generate a vectored impulse capable of extracting objects from high-noise environments. Feedback from the pulse is filtered to reduce ambient clutter and pinpoint targets lacking IFF signals.

On top of that, the general fact that your profile signature is measured in dB, decibel, this would imply that  your profile is tied to the amount of noise your dropsuits makes which somehow affects the magnetometric waves the active scanner sends out. There is also the description of the scout dropsuit which tells us more about how profile dampening works:

The Scout dropsuit is a lightweight suit optimized for enhanced mobility, multi-spectrum stealth, and heightened awareness. Augmented joint servo motors give every movement extra speed and flexibility, while integrated friction and impact dampening materials reduce the overall sound signature.

This high-tech suit is coated in adaptive camouflage, a thin layer of bio-hermetic membranes interwoven with microscopic optical sensors that control millions of individual pigment ferro-crystals. An integrated AI-53 "All Eyes" sensor system wraps around the inside of the helmet, which also includes a chemically scrubbed atmospheric filtration system.

After some discussion with a few mercenaries, we came to the following conclusion:

Our dropsuits emit an electromagnetic field around the suits, probably because of the shield systems installed. Extremely tiny ferro-crystals(within the pico and nano range, 10^-9 meters and onwards) coat this electromagnetic field which are vibrating in a low frequency and volume, thus the dB measurement. When the magnetometric wave from the active scanner passes through this electromagnetic field, it changes the frequency of the wave and changes speed, caused by the vibrating ferro-cystals within the electromagnetic field.

This change is what the active scanner detects, which then calculates the changes in speed and frequency caused by passing through the electromagnetic field, which allows the electromagnetic signature to be displayed in Tacnet(basically a UI which displays all the electronic signatures sent out by both friendlies and detected hostiles). It is also possible that traces of the magnetometric wave stick into the ferro-crystals, which allows for the active scanner to keep the detected signatures within Tacnet even after it has been deactivated.

However, if your profile signature has been reduced by the use of a profile dampener or a low signature dropsuit, aka. reducing the vibration within the ferro-crystals, it is likely that the frequency of the magnetometric wave simply does not change enough in order to have a reliable result of its exact position, which is why there is a margin of error. Too small and there is a small margin of error which increases as more signatures too small to detect reliably get scanned by the magnetometric wave. But if there is none, aka. there are no hostiles at all within the range of the magnetometric wave, there is no margin of error.

Most of you are probably reading my writings because you are interested on what the life of a clone soldier is and all the phenomena we experience within our profession. Do you like this type of content too? I wrote this mainly because there hasn't been much else to discuss lately, and there are various different modules, dropsuits and equipment I would be interested in researching into and sharing the results. Your input would be appreciated greatly.

ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ