taalismn wrote:Because IceGuard has robots, but the Deep Ones don't.
Weapons and Equipment:
QDSRV-302DSV 'Sea Ghost' Underwater Drone
The tongue-fatiguingly named QSDSRV-302DSV is a development of the QF-300E Ghost fighter, and was developed by the post-Rain of Death UEG Navy as a quick and cheap way to protect and survey the vast stretches of ocean believed to harbor Zentraedi renegades, often operating from submerged, but still water-tight, warship wrecks. The 'Sea Ghost' featured a new streamlined and watertight body propelled by high-speed hydrothrusters, outfitted with various sonar systems, and armed with various modular weapons packs, including guns firing supercavitating ammunition, blue-green lasers, or light torpedoes. It was hoped that, with a little reprogramming to take into account the greater density of water, and ocean currents, the original Ghost AI programming could be readily adapted and transplanted into the new platform, greatly speeding development time.
The Navy's expectations would prove overly-optimistic. Early model QDSRV-302DSVs were plagued with problems in adapting to the much more cluttered marine environment. Although they could easily run programmed sonar scan mission profiles, throwing them into combat situations tended to end in disaster, with drones getting locked into circular courses, porpoising up out of the water, or misidentifying targets(resulting in at least one spectacular torpedo run on the monitoring escorts). The Navy was obliged to settle for a much more limited oceanic survey drone, rather than the more dynamic underwater robofighter they wanted(and accepting the sonar drone was a calculated political move; rather than petition for more funding to make the Sea Ghost WORK, the Navy decided to scuttle the program to save bargaining clout for future projects for their elite Sea Squad). A super-high speed supercavitating variant never made it off the engine testbed phase.
The Navy DID get some use from the early Sea Ghosts, but as sonar and camera sea-survey drones scanning the ocean bottom and testing the waters near suspected Zentraedi wrecks. Most of the hundred or so Sea Ghosts produced ended up being either lost at sea to various causes, or scrapped. A few wound up in out of the way outposts as marine recon systems, and one was even used kamikaze-style to deliver a depth charge to a cornered Zentraedi Theater Scout, but few of these had the original modular weapons fitted.
How the 37th got ahold of a dozen ARMED Sea Ghosts is unknown; while many people suspect the drones were originally intended as expendable deep sea-trench probes, with the expectation that the 37th would deep-six them in the course of their official oceanic survey duties. A little black market dealing, however, may have allowed Morgan to acquire the armaments needed to refit them to original spec. Though the original problems with the AIs remained, and few, especially within the 37th itself, expected the SeaGhosts to be anything other than another, potentially deadly, equipment boondoggle, recent reports of the 37th in action(since they went rogue and started acting as pirates) seem to show the QDSRV-302DSVs operating quite proficiently. Whether this is due to some creative and successful reprogramming by the Deep Ones' resident technicians, remote control links(such as wire-guidance), or just sheer bloody luck that the drones haven't turned on their human commanders, remains unknown.
Drone #6: "Are you alive?"
...DAYUM. I see what you mean...let's get out of here."
