Tech Tactical Neural Network

Many have expressed wonderment at the sudden explosion of Antarean forces from their borders. Even with defections and a hidden fleet, many of the ULP's premier military advisers would not have acknowledged this multitude of ships as a possibility until it actually came to pass. One questions how the Antarean Imperial Space Navy has been able to attack with such force and coordination. The answer comes in the invention of the Tactical Neural Network, a mesh of human and artificial intelligences to create a coordinated fleet different from any seen before.

As the (then) Antarean Federation chaffed under ULP rule they began to develop a new navy for their plans to rebel from the League. Among the problems facing them was creating a full fledged space navy large enough to compete with the United Space Navy with minimal men. The decimation of the Antarean Fleet in the previous war combined with ULP recruitment and the loss of subject worlds meant that there were few trained officers to man a new fleet. Antarean special research worked diligently in secret to find a solution. Eventually one did reveal itself: the Tactical Neural Network. (TNN) The solution that was TNN was two-fold. The first part was what has become know as "The Drone Solution." Select officers, who were determined to be already had low level versions of the necessary skills, were trained to be highly adapt at processing sensory input and multitasking. These officers were plugged into Neural Relays in command ships as well as drone controller ships and given command of groups of drones. Through this the AF greatly increased it's ship to human ratio.

However, extensive testing showed that solely human coordination was not sufficient to absorb information and react on it on a massive scale. War games played out with a disoriented fleet unable to keep formation and efficiently follow pre-formulated strategies. The solution for this problem was the Fleet Artificial Intelligence. Fleet AI was created to filter and distribute information through, to and from various human and electronic nodes.

The Fleet AI works on a hierarchical system, in nodes. The primary fleet AI, located on the Antares Prime, is tasked with overall coordination, processing and strategy. This task is supported by various nodes on planet, solely created for supporting the primary AI node. After this each ship has it's own node of the Fleet AI, sized in scale with the importance of the ship. Ship AIs (named with the ship name + an I, ex: the AINV Lucan's AI is called Lucan-I) have their own initiative and personalities and are tasked with on-site processing as well as coordination with the Fleet AI. All ship-based AIs (as well as a few station based AIs) are tasked with aiding their drone-controllers (usually in conjunction with "Human Nodes"). Technically the ship AI has authority over all but the highest ranking officer, but they will not offer more then the slightest suggestions unless they are required too, in such situations as a large battle.