This post will detail one of the most important
facilities that appear in the Tales of
the Quantum Corps stories…the
Quartier-General in Paris. The QG is
home and headquarters for UNIFORCE, the security and mandate enforcement arm of
the United Nations.
1. QG
is located in Paris’ 5th arrondisement
(district), near the Luxembourg Gardens and just off the Boulevard
St-Michel.
2. The
building and complex itself is a 75-story tower of a unique flower petal
‘opening’ design.
3. As
UNIFORCE Headquarters, there are many staff functions located at the QG. They fall into the following categories
a. UN
treaty and mandate enforcement
b. Operations
(including a 24-hr Watch Center)
c. Intelligence/Surveillance
(all domains: land, air, sea, space, cyberspace and nanospace)
d. Logistics
e. Personnel
f. Planning
and Strategy (UNSAC General Staff)
5. UNIFORCE incorporates more than just Quantum Corps. Other UNIFORCE enforcement organizations
include Cyber Corps, and the various Security Corps (UNILAND, UNISEA, and
Frontier Corps…once called UNISPACE).
Each of these commands has UN enforcement and security responsibilities
for its associated domain.
6. UNIFORCE
Staff and Departments
a. Office
of UNSAC (the UN Commissioner of Security Affairs; reports to Security Council
directly). UNSAC has overall oversight,
command and management responsibility for UNIFORCE security operations and
mandate enforcement.
b. Office
of the Director-General (the DG is head of the General Staff and UNSAC’s
principle advisor)(also main liaison between Corps-level commands and UNSAC)
7. Corps-level
Commands and Missions (UNQC, Cyber Corps, Frontier Corps, etc)
8. The
QG has some unique facilities that UNIFORCE uses to execute its
responsibilities. Among them are:
a. Containment vaults
– secure isolation facilities for containing, operating, experimenting with and
analyzing nanoscale robotic devices and systems. ANAD-style nanobots and adversary systems can
be safely housed in the QG’s containment center. There are similarities with CDC’s Level 4
Biosafety protocols at this facility. If
the worst happens, the containment vaults contain multiple layers of defense
systems: electron-beam injectors, High-Energy Radio Frequency beams (HERF) and
magnetic impulse projectors to make sure nothing really nasty escapes
containment. But what could possibly go
wrong….?
b. Memory tracing/interrogation center
– one of the not-very-nice developments that ANAD technology has made possible
is the ability to insert a small bot into your brain (you’re under anesthetic
hopefully) and direct ANAD to sniff out chemical pathways of glutamate
concentration in your brain. Glutamate
is a key neurotransmitter involved in memory formation. When this parlor trick works right, ANAD can
re-construct crude renditions of the visual, auditory or haptic stimuli that
created the pathway…in another words, the device can reconstruct a memory
trace. While questionable legally and
ethically, there are times in the Tales
of the Quantum Corps that this technique becomes useful and necessary. Again, what could possibly go wrong….? The QG has all the facilities and technicians
needed to do this.
c. The brig (a MOB center)
– individuals who must be incarcerated (awaiting trials, memory tracing or
other forms of questioning and those awaiting transport to other facilities)
are held in the QG brig. It’s not like a county jail. Each cell is secured with a mobility
obstruction barrier (MOB) in addition to the standard jail-type barriers. The MOB system is a mesh of active nanobotic
elements that can be commanded to form any type of enclosure, to restrict
mobility and prevent escape. Brig cells
are enclosed and have doors and bars, just like any prison cell, but they are
also loaded with active MOB, which can be used to secure any recalcitrant
prisoner into any position, even down to fetal position or coffin-sized shapes,
when so commanded. The prison cell is
almost like a living thing; make any unauthorized movements or actions and the
MOB system acts to prevent anything further.
You can find yourself secured inside a suffocating cocoon.
d. The
QG also houses an underground geoplane
transit station and tunnel from QG Paris to the Atlantic coast (near site
of WWII St Nazaire U-boat pens). This
station permits personnel, notably UNSAC and senior command staff, to board a
geoplane for underground routing and covert transport to Haven-One, the seabed alternate command post located on the seabed
of the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred kilometers south of the Azores. Of course, geoplanes can transport personnel
and cargo to any place on Earth, given enough time, but usually they’re used
for short-range trips. It’s a bit slow,
pile-driving through solid rock with a nanobotic borer head at the front
end. Geoplanes can operate at several
thousand meters depth into the Earth’s crust and show up in several stories of Tales of the Quantum Corps. The Quartier General has a geoplane station
and garage for use by command staff and designated personnel, in the event UNIFORCE
headquarters is compromised in any way.
9. This
concludes our short look at the Quartier-General, headquarters of UNIFORCE in
Paris.
The next post, coming
in early January 2016, will detail one of the more intriguing pieces of gear
used by nanotroopers of the Quantum Corps…their boosted, armored exoskeleton
suits known as hypersuits.
I hope all of you have
a wonderful holiday season this December and I’ll see you in the new year.
