Neurological Ionization Net-Field
A nightmare weapon that, once deployed, attacked both friend and foe relentlessly
Some inventions should never have been made…
The Core Wars saw the demise, and debut, of remarkable technologies. Weapons in particular. At the start of the war, the WarDroids were the height of technological destruction. But as the fighting wore on, all sides looked for ways to hamstring the deadly effectiveness of the standard WarDroid on the battlefield. One of those attempts was the infamous Neurological Ionization Net-Field.
... a real bad day...
“A Neurological Ionization Net-Field. The weapon techs on Core XI dreamed it up. None of them, not even the corporate Centurions on Core XI, had a clue what it could really do. Then it got deployed during the Battle of Sinstone Gap.”
Tanner took a deep breath, then took a firm mental grip on the flood of memories trying to drown him. The swell subsided, but like always, they were still there on the fringe of his mind. He picked one at random, leafing through the memories like pages of an old book.
“Sinstone Gap was, we were told, of strategic importance. Rich mineral deposits for 5d crystals and the largest flexsteel refinery in the region. Units from two Cores made planetfall. That attracted unwelcome attention from the other Cores. They brought in more forces until it was a fight between five different Cores. The Union, y’know the United Solar Nations? They were there also, trying to play peacemaker. No one wanted to be left out.”
He waved a hand at the datapad screen.
“Dropships with fighter escort were as thick as flocks of black ravens over the battlefield. Half the troops were human, others were WarDroids like yourself, WD. Praefectus Iain MacCathail had the techs deploy Fry-Grids to disrupt the positronic connections in enemy AIs. Especially the WarDroids.”
“Iain MacCathail. The ‘Bloody Baron’.” Noah grumbled bitterly. “The yi da dawei bun chou roh.”
Tanner nodded in agreement.
“The weapon worked, WD. It worked way too well. When deployed, it looks, acts, detects, just like an ion cloud. But it’s not. It’s really a pack of microdrones that work as a hive mind.”
“An AI?” WD asked.
“No. There’s no actual intelligence there. Not like you or I understand it. It’s more primal. Insectoid. Instinctive. Pilots had no clue what they were flying into. They navigated around the ‘ion clouds’ thinking it was some after effect from defense batteries. But the Fry-Grids aren’t that simple. Those clouds swarmed the troop transports and their escorts.”
Tanner clasped his hands together, interlaced his fingers, then pulled his hands away from each other.
“The microdrones scoured the ships, wrapping their ion netting over the vessels, causing an ionic flashover. They poured that variable frequency power out into the ships. It looks sort of like an ancient, barbed fishing net made of ionic and plasma energy. Positronic connections for the WarDroids got heavily magnetized. They pulled themselves apart or rerouted, shattering the WarDroid’s minds and shutting them down.”
The captain studied his hands, held about a foot apart from each other.
“To everyone’s surprise, it did the same to human nervous systems aboard those troop ships, disconnecting nerves from each other or creating new connections nature didn’t intend.”
“The lucky ones died either from the energy netting or from impact when the troop ships crashed planetside. There were some survivors that were… not right afterwards. They turned into raving berserkers, taking out after any side nearby. Even their own.”
Mechanics & Inner Workings
A Neurological Ionization Net-Field, despite the name, is not a net but a network of camouflaged microdrones working together in a hive mind. This camouflage can take many forms, but the standard means of concealment is an 'ion cloud' and were often deployed in or near Lagrange points for planets, stations or other objects in a contested system.
Once deployed, the hive lies in wait, monitoring for active network or system traffic from nearby ships. Ships that came within range would be checked for any network signature that matched WarDroid AI patterns.
If they detected a vessel with a matching network pattern, the microdrones would deploy around the ship and extend a 'web' of ionic and plasma energy with a frequency that matched the WarDroid positronic brains. The design concept was that the energy would cause a catastrophic failure in the WarDroids, destroying the AI inside.
The microdrones could also be activated by remote to swarm a target on command. This was used a handful of times in battle. The most famous was the Battle of Sinstone Gap. Unfortunately, this also exposed a flaw in the design, as the frequency used by the deployed 'web' also damaged human nervous systems as well. This created a feedback loop allowing the hives to siphon off neurological energy from both humans and WarDroids. As a result, that caused hives to go rogue from their controllers.
Technicians describe the effect as if the microdrones began to 'hunger' for the siphoned energy, causing them to follow an ‘instinct’ to hunt fresh sources of energy.
“Worse part? It turns out the hive mind of microdrones, following that instinctive ‘hunger’ to consume energy from humans and AI, goes into a feeding frenzy. Like a school of Old Earth piranha eating. They stopped following commands of their tech masters. Those Fry-Grids went after everything, even their own creators. The Cores unilaterally agreed to outlaw use of Neurological Ionization Net-Field because it was just too dangerous.”
“What of the survivors?” WD asked.
Tanner closed his hands into fists, then opened them.
“No one knows. They vanished.”
Item type
Weapon, Other
Rarity
Rare.
According to the public, all known working hives were destroyed. But, that left models sold to or refurbished by Shadow Markets for the highest bidder.
Base Price
Illegal on the open market. Prices vary with weapon's dealers.
Threat of the Hive
A Neurological Ionization Net-Field is typically deployed and left to spread out over an area of space. In effect, the field becomes a type of "space based mine field".
This leaves many to ask: Can a Neurological Ionization Net-Field 'migrate' or travel between celestial bodies?
...what a thought… there goes me sleeping tonight...
The answer to that is no. Microdrones hives that make up the field to have an 'insect-like' intelligence but only have a limited drive engine capacity. They are deadly to ships near them, but skilled pilots with enough warning can out-maneuver a Neurological Ionization Net-Field or outrun one.
Gone But Not Forgotten
History and use of these devices came to a head during the Battle of Sinstone Gap. In the battle, events deteriorated until it became a fight between forces from five Cores. Praefectus Iain 'Bloody Baron' MacCathail of Core XI made the fateful decision to deploy the full complement of fields into battle. This was twenty fields in total. The result was devastating for all sides.
As a result, governments from the Cores all the way to the United Solar Nations banned the use of the Neurological Ionization Net-Field technology. But, like the WarDroids, the destruction was not complete.
Currently, there are rumors that there are some Neurological Ionization Net-Field microdrones still intact on the Shadow Market, sold by exclusive weapon dealers for the right price.
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