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| Naval Development Group | ||
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| Founded | September 7 2063 | |
| Parent Organization | Sol Defence Corps | |
| Headquarters | NDG Branch Complex, Gibraltar, Earth | |
| Type | Naval research and development branch | |
| Roles | Spearhead new frontiers of scientific research Reinforce and expand the study of known academia |
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| Size | 164,249 constituent members 14 commissioned science frigates |
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| Leadership | Director Stephen Howard Jr. Vice Director Mumbana Wagumbo Vice Director Tyetska Svatsarba Special Assistant Anna Pollinski |
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| Mottos | "Movens Praemisit ut Unum" (Moving Ahead as One) |
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The Naval Development Group is a Naval Department Command of the Sol Defence Corps founded in 2063 with responsibility for the development and application of military technology along with general extra-solar scientific research. The NDG was formed on September 7th 2063 when a special admiralty order was issued to establish a navy-based research and development entity for a multitude of reasons - while primarily conducting technological research for application within the Sol Defence Corps and other solar military entities, the NDG was also founded as a way for the SDC - and by proxy, the United Nations to control, regulate and contribute to the scientific community and research within Sol during the Space Age. The Naval Development Group has 164,249 constituent members as of 2117 consisting primarily of academic backgrounds.
The Final Frontier Project, also considered a naval department command, is closely intertwined with the NDG bearing the responsibility of directing scientific research and expeditions and providing a substantial portion of the FFP's academic personnel, which is known as the "Survey and Analytics Directorate" and is one of many operational directorates within the Naval Development Group. The Naval Development Group contributes a substantial number of researchers present on the SDCN Emissary.
The NDG was initially headquartered at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus during it's infancy until 2113 when a multi-building headquarters and laboratory had concluded construction in Gibraltar, a sequence of buildings housing the various directorates with the exception of Survey and Analytics. The building was constructing following the NDG's important developments in Alcubierre Drive and Superluminal Communications technology conducted at the former NDG Headquarters at Harwell, which is now a museum exhibits detailing the development of the two major developments. The Harwell Base Station, site of the first short-range Lumicom transmission was preserved along with the rest of the site and is now open to the public as apart of the "History of Lumicom" exhibit.
Mission
The NDG concerns itself with the following goals:
- Spearhead the new frontiers of scientific development;
- Exercise authority and regulation of the scientific community while contributing to their endeavours;
- Regulate development of certain technologies to ensure safety and the status quo;
- Unite the scientific community during the Space Age.
Operational Directorates
The NDG maintains several Operational Directorates with responsibility for wide-ranging sectors of research, such as extra-solar activities and moonshot projects. A directorate may have a group of researchers within it who focus primarily on a single study to a point where it may become it's own 'subdirectorate' or more popularly a 'research group'.
| Directorate / Group Name | Abbrev | Responsibility of Directorate / Group | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative Directorate | AD | Administrating the Naval Development Group at large | Dr. Cohen Hunter |
| Special Projects Directorate | SPD | Development of high risk "moonshot" projects | Dr. Charlotte Coleman |
| Survey and Analytics Directorate | SAD | Extrasolar research and ground research on Avalon | Dr. Abigail Johnson |
| Public Scientific Research Directorate | PSRD | Involvement and contribution to civilian and public research | Dr. Raymond Kennedy |
| Applications Technology Directorate | ATD | Development of non-combative technology for naval and civilian use | Dr. Samarth Randhawa |
| Weapons Development Directorate | WDD | Development of weapons and defence systems employed by SDC ships and bases | Dr. Pío Cala |
Administrative Directorate
Present since the foundation of the Naval Development Group, the Administrative Directorate was always present in function and not necessarily a directorate until the formation of directorates proper, similar to Public Scientific Research. Administrative Research is also the directorate with the largest amount of recognized subdirectorates, for the many administrative aspects necessary for running the NDG. The Administrative Directorate itself (excluding it's subdirectorates) include primarily the upper administration, being each director and the Head Director of the NDG, Stephen Howard Jr., associate relations, and the general management staff. It's directorates include:
Personnel Management Subdirectorate
Personnel Management concerns itself with handling human resources and hires. Public Scientific Research recruits scientists, but Personnel Management is the entity which properly processes them - rankings and titles, organization into relevant directorates, and documenting academic honours and biometrics into the NDG's personnel manifest. They also possess a smaller Human Resources department.
Funding and Income Subdirectorate
Funding and Income manages solely the two topics in it's name: the division of funding from the United Nations and Sol Defence Corps at ranges from directorates at large down to specific projects within subdirectorates. Additionally, they also manage the income which the Naval Development Group makes off of their research, the likes of selling scientific information, or external funding from AXIOM Corporation or other associates.
Resource Management Subdirectorate
Resource Management handles the actual physical resources utilized by the NDG, that being equipment, parts manufactured by associates, or any other physical resource utilized by the other directorates of the NDG. It can be considered the 'cargo' subdirectorate of the NDG as it primarily concerns itself taking resource orders, making requests, and shipping said resources to and from the NDG and it's associates.
Special Projects Directorate
Successor to the original Advanced Projects Directorate, the SPD functions similarly to the former Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States. The Special Projects Directorate undertakes many high-risk research goals (referred to as moonshots), high risk in the sense that they are either highly volatile weapon concepts (such as antimatter warheads) or possibly status-quo altering discoveries (such as exotic matter research) that are typically classified during development, only for use in naval and military applications, and only declassified after research completion, if at all. The Special Project Directorate operates very similarly to both Applications Technology and Weapons Development, and operates closely with them, undertaking any projects that would typically be delegated to either directorate in the event that it must be put under greater security. The SPD is responsible for a substantial amount of Exotic Matter research, heavily reliant on the Naval Development Group antimatter monopoly and the public restrictions put in place during the Alcubierre developments.
Their projects in exotic matter research involve the research of tachyon-type exotic matter (used in Alcubierre Drives), against-force exotic matter (exotic matter bubbles which act against and equal forces applied to it) and the study of possible exotic matter derivative time travel, though, their studies into any form of time travel have been fruitless and research is now primarily oriented towards what they believe to be a law of the universe preventing time travel. The SPD's weaponry research projects consist primarily of antimatter weaponry projects that have been adopted by the SPD from the Weapons Development Directive en mass to prevent the possibly of publicly leaking antimatter weaponry information - an event that would post a massive threat if exploited by pirate and criminal organizations within Sol. Some of their antimatter weaponry projects include railgun-based antimatter warheads and antimatter-tipped high calibre rounds. None of these projects have been fully physically realized (i.e. only one or two antimatter warheads or rounds have been produced by the SPD) and most efforts are directed towards perfecting models and research before considering production.
Survey and Analytics Directorate
Survey and Analytics is the youngest operational directorate within the Naval Development Group, having been created in 2113 for what was originally going to be specialized research on Avalon - ground researchers to house the Exploration department - with the directorate forecasted to be dissolved by the end of the Emissary's mission. However, after deliberation the NDG decided to revamp the Survey and Analytics Directorate as a more general extrasolar research branch for all forms of on-the-ground exoplanetary research. While the majority of SAD's concurrent personnel are housed within the Exploration department onboard the Emissary, the NDG seeks to hire and train more personnel into SAD in order to conduct research on colony exoplanets such as Homestead or the planets of the Mariner system in the future.
Survey and Analytics personnel are remarkable for a combination of academic prowess and high-end training - SAD personnel are hired based on specialized academic honours, for instance, the SAD personnel who comprise much of Exploration usually have minors to doctorates in geology or theoretical xenobiology as is relevant to the topics of study on Avalon, and are also combat and survival trained. Survey and Analytics ground personnel are trained under a similar combat and survival regiment to the Naval Special Operations Command, as instructors are outsourced by the NDG from NAVSOC. While they are not necessarily as thoroughly trained or as experienced as NAVSOC personnel, with the training and survival regiment that a recruit into Survey and Analytics usually taking place a little over a month in duration, they still possess a degree of efficiency and specialization due to their training being outsourced from NAVSOC in the first place. Their NAVSOC-outsourced training and their specialized academic fields made Survey and Analytics an incredibly efficient and specialized directorate.
Thaumaturgic and Anomalous Research Group
The Thaumaturgic and Anomalous Research Group makes up a small portion of Survey and Analytics, specialized around studying the anomalous properties of Avalon and possibly, other exoplanets. When the Emissary's research department and SAD discovered Avalon's anomalous density properties, and theorized the Rogue Planet Theory, a small group of Survey and Analytics researchers sought to specialize in the study of Avalon's anomalous properties on a planetary scale, and became an astronomy research based offshoot of Survey and Analytics. Almost the entirety of Thaumaturgic and Anomalous works out of the Emissary, however, they have recently begun recruiting new researchers as they gain notability as a research subdirectory and intend to conduct research on other anomalous exoplanets should they be discovered in the future. Alongside researching planetary anomalies, a number of Thaumaturgic and Anomalous personnel also study smaller-scale anomalies present on Avalon.
Public Scientific Research Directorate
Public Scientific Research is the directorate with the closest association with the scientific community outside of the Naval Development Group and one of the larger directorates within the NDG. Public Scientific Research concerns itself with a multitude of responsibilities; PSR seeks out and aids promising scientific projects in the solar scientific community through funding and buy-out offers, monitors and surveys smaller civilian research organizations, manages the majority of the NDG's bureaucratic process, and continuously recruits civilian scientists and groups into the Naval Development Group. Public Scientific Research does not have it's own projects or goals other than general scientific community management, though the projects it invests in could be considered PSR's focuses or projects.
Public Scientific Research is responsible for the adoption of the Superluminal Communication project and the NDG monopoly on antimatter and CPA usage. Nearly all historic and current demonstrations of Naval Development Group authority are attributed to an owed to actions undertaken by Public Scientific Research - notably, Public Scientific Research did not exist officially as a directorate prior to the NDG's move to the complex in Gibraltar, but rather appeared afterwards during a mass-revision of the Naval Development Group's directorate system. Despite it's youth compared to ATD and WDD, nearly all personnel who didn't work under an official directorate ended up being situated within PSR, making it immediately larger than ATD and WDD in terms of both personnel and influence.
Applications Technology Directorate
The Applications Technology Directorate is the third largest directorate within the Naval Development Group and, alongside Public Scientific Research is attributed to the breakthroughs in FTL and Lumicom technology. Whereas Weapons Development focuses primarily on offensive equipment for use by the Sol Defence Corps, Applications Technology focuses on non-combative technology - communications equipment, armour plating, electrical equipment, information technology and interfaces, non-combative utility hardsuits, and other amenities to be used on the ships of the SDC fleet. Many of their communications and information technology application technologies end up at times being permitted public release through Public Scientific Research after a period of bureaucratic processing to ensure that the release of such technologies would be safe and in line with the interests of both the Sol Defence Corps and the United Nations.
Applications Technology was originally part of a singular directive combined with Weapons Development simply referred to as 'research and development', being the only directive alongside Special Projects. While they operated as a singular directive, R&D gave rise to the earliest form of a research group, being the directorate's division into two teams: one which focused on weapons development and the other which handled the development of the Alcubierre Drive and Superluminal Communication - which worked closely with the unaffiliated bureaucratic staff which would go to become the Public Scientific Research Directorate. Over the course of the NDG's early history, the recruits which proto-PSR brought to the NDG caused the two research groups of Research and Development to grow more massive and additionally, more divided in interests. Becoming increasingly more difficult to manage the conflicting interests of the two research groups, Naval Development Group administration elected to form two new directorates: Applications Technology, and Weapons Development.
Weapons Development Directorate
Weapons Development is the second largest directorate within the Naval Development Group and considered by many to be 'special project's little brother' in how many of their important developments get adopted by Special Projects in order to ensure their secrecy. Otherwise, Weapons Development is responsible for manufacturing new lines of heavy weapons for use on ships, such as more efficient railcannons, torpedoes and missiles, alongside cyberwarfare technology ranging from electromagnetic pulse weapons to special-engineered computer viruses geared to debilitate enemy vessels if successfully communicated to them. Alongside heavy weapons, Weapons Development also engineers next-generation personnel weapons the likes of rifles and sidearms, with their primary focus on firearm use in zero-gravity (with their most recent publicized development being the R405) and combat hardsuits employed by NAVSOC, the Marine Corps, and also the Survey and Analytics directorate. Weapons Development rarely collaborates with Public Scientific Research and their discoveries are almost exclusively employed by the Sol Defence Corps.
Overall, Weapons Development is a very isolated directorate of the Naval Development Group - Survey and Analytics, Applications Technology and Public Scientific Research all in some way collaborate with the scientific community outside of the NDG, but the matter of content which Weapons Development produces makes it dangerous for any public collaboration to undergo. However, Weapons Development works very closely with two SDC-affiliated corporations - AXIOM Corporation and Royal Arms Manufacturing. Whereas AXIOM primarily provides funding for projects within their interests and to some degree provides assistance in development, Royal Arms is a completely special exception to Weapons Development's lack of publicity - /many/ Royal Arms facilities double as Weapons Development production centres and testing grounds for weapons. Royal Arms provides both Weapons Development and the SDC with expansive manufacturing capabilities and the resources needed to do so, and benefits financially from the developments made by Weapons Development by either taking a portion of their profits or even being able to manufacture some of their small arms themselves.
History
The Naval Development Group was founded four years after the Sol Defence Corps by the United Nations through a special admiralty order - as was the most established formal method of founding naval department commands at the time - to create an additional measure of demonstrating authority in space, specifically for demonstrating and establishing authority over science and development within Sol. The Sol Defence Corps had already established military authority and superiority over Sol, but with the Space Age largely defined by the advancement of science, the United Nations similarly wanted to regulate yet another major factor of space politics and sought to use the Naval Development Group as a way to direct nearly all important research. The Naval Development Group's main strength was it's ability to fuel all forms - not just naval - research and development within Sol - it's role as a scientific authority and regulator of R&D within Sol also allowed it to make contributions to a number of smaller different civilian research operations and organizations, and increase it's own numbers by employing these same civilian research firms and recruiting them to the Naval Development Group.
Given the privilege of high funding, high-quality research equipment and multiple laboratories on both Earth and Mars, later Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, and as far as the Proxima Starbase situated at Alpha Centauri all making working under the NDG was an appealing prospect to scientific entrepreneurs ranging from small research teams to some of the largest scientific organizations which predated the NDG. By accepting all people and organizations of academic backgrounds to associate and enlist into the NDG in order to pursue their research endeavours with heightened funding and better equipment, the NDG was able to quickly grow and gain influence over all facets of the scientific community - it was a massive success and the United Nations had attained total scientific authority through the NDG.
Contributions to Faster-than-Light Travel
Main Page: FTL
Two major innovations under the mantle of the NDG allowed the naval department command to ascend from an incredibly efficient tool of control to one of the most important naval department commands in the entirety of the Sol Defence Corps - the Alcubierre Faster-than-Light drive, and Superluminal Communication. The FTL Drive fell under the mantle of the NDG through use of both political and scientific authority - the development of the Circumsolar Particle Accelerator was largely contributed to by the NDG and fell under UN administration after construction, and the discovery of astatine on Neptune is owed to NDG researchers operating out of Saturn, with the whole region being largely under SDC jurisdiction. With all of this in mind, the NDG was able to completely lock down any possibility of independent or unauthorized research firms gaining the resources necessary to complete or even see the development of the FTL drive through two methods - one, their major contributions to the CPA and the UN's authority over it gave the NDG sway in efforts to greatly restrict non-NDG use of the CPA during the Neptune Blockade, which the NDG was able to have the Sol Defence Corps lower over Neptune in order to make them the only organization capable of accessing the imperative resource.
Though it was unlikely any rival research firms were able to out-perform the NDG to such an extent that they would complete it first, it was both not a risk the NDG wanted to take and, also allowed the United Nations to keep a lock down on FTL drives once they were completed so they could utilize the status quo established by the restriction and blockade to ensure a strict regulation and distribution of FTL technology to civilian corporations once the restriction and blockade was lifted - in other words, the UN would stay in control of any form of Faster-than-Light travel within Sol. These two directives together made the NDG the only organization capable of developing the FTL drive, which had concluded development in 2100.
Contributions to Superluminal Communication
Main Page: Lumicom
As for Superluminal Communication, it's development being ultimately owed to the NDG was attained through a different form of sway - Lumicom did not have it's own directive within the NDG not necessarily because the NDG was uninterested in doing it, but rather because it was already being done for them. A Swiss-based research syndicate had been researching and developing Superluminal Communication for many years on their own, their research even predating the NDG. However, the NDG knew that the team would eventually reach a roadblock when it came to long-range communication using tachyons, something not so feasible for a small, NDG unaffiliated research syndicate. The Naval Development Group knew that the syndicate would eventually need them and so, when the syndicate hit the roadblock, the NDG was quick to offer their hand in the project: a resource and funding contribution so large - and necessarily so, as utilizing tachyons was no cheap feat - that the NDG's contributions in this agreement alone would essentially be handing over the most important part of the project to them.
While this would reasonably put them off the proposition, the NDG had an ace in the hole; monetary reimbursement that would allow them to pursue multiple projects as ambitious as lumicom in the future, scientific reputation and merit (as they would be credited alongside the NDG) and finally, a research period forecasted to take thirty years lowered to only ten. All of these together didn't necessarily force the syndicate to give in, but convinced them to. The NDG and the syndicate worked together from this point forth, but with more than two thirds of the equipment, funding and personnel on the project was coming out the NDG's pockets, the syndicate took more of a back seat during long-range lumicom's development. At completion, the NDG was primarily credited for long-range's development, and the syndicate was primarily credited for short-range's development and also the groundwork theory for long-range and lumicom as a whole. As far as the public was concerned, lumicom was NDG work. But the merit of doing one half of lumicom, laying the groundwork for the NDG alongside working with them gave the syndicate the scientific sway they were promised.
Contributions to the Final Frontier Project
FTL and Lumicom were what laid the groundwork for the Final Frontier Project the development of the FFP's first ship, the SDCX Escapade, a testbed for both FTL and Lumicom. It's first FTL jump was conducted on March 1th, 2100 under the authority of the NDG, where it was afterwards handed over to the Final Frontier Project. From that point forward, the NDG contributed primarily resources, while the bureaucratic side was handled by the SDC and the UN. Little activity within the NDG was related to the FFP until the SDCN Emissary's mission to Avalon. The Emissary needed scientific personnel to research the anomalous planet, and while the SDC was quick to employ a vast number of civilian academics, the NDG also made a large contribution not only in personnel to man research onboard the Emissary but also with the creation of the Survey and Analytics Directorate, a survey directorate that, while general purpose, was ultimately founded for Avalon research. The SAD is owed to many of the current discoveries about Avalon such as the Rogue Planet Theory and it's anomalous density properties, which lead to the further creation of the Thaumaturgic and Anomalous Research Group dedicated to the study of anomalous exoplanetary properties that may be found in the future after Avalon.
Post-Innovations
The NDG's dedication to the Final Frontier Project and it's display of capability by multiple sways of the entire scientific community gave it much more precedent alongside the other department commands, and as a result, had a series of buildings constructed to house the nerve centre of the NDG in Gibraltar, connected to the SDC Headquarters and the headquarters of other prominent department commands. The NDG Branch Complex served as the bureaucratic heart of the Naval Development Group while also serving as a laboratory. It's scientific capabilities were far outdone by other laboratories on Earth and Mars, and the entire Proxima Starbase, making it colloquially known as the bureaucratic core of the NDG with little regard given to it's labs. The early days of the NDG were filled with the most activity - after it's major developments, it calmed down and concerned itself primarily with technology research for SDC application and involvement in important scientific frontiers. The early days of the Naval Development Group and it's constantly-growing number of members continue to make it the single largest scientific research entity in Sol by a landslide.