Camou-fog Notes

This post concerns another piece of essential mission gear for nanotroopers…something called camou-fog.

Wikipedia defines camouflage this way:

“Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see (crypsis), or by disguising them as something else (mimesis).”

1.     What is it? Camou-fog is a linked, programmable, re-configurable mesh or lattice of coordinated, synchronized nano-robotic elements that can reconfigure into any shape, form or color or texture for which it has stored templates.  Here’s the idea…

 

 

Note that the substance is fully programmable and reconfigurable.  This means it can resemble any surface or substrate for which it has configuration templates.  Camou-fog is a bunch of bots…ANAD clones.  Because of that, the stuff can be made to look like anything.  The possibilities are literally limitless.  Only the configuration template design and the memory capacity of the bot master limit what can be done.  That and the laws of physics.
 

2.     How is it made and stored? Camou-fog is resembles what was once called utility fog.  It’s an evolution of the original idea.  Camou-fog is composed of individual nanobots, with a single master bot for command and control.  And it’s stored in a canister or containment capsule, and launched from same.  Every nanotrooper carries a camou-fog dispenser loaded with tactical config templates for the most common applications.  Special templates can be provided for unique missions.

 

3.     Deployment and Tactics. Camou-fog is not an invisibility cloak, a la Harry Potter or a Klingon cloaking device.  The stuff is used mainly for camouflage (stealth approach and assault), deception ( to make an ANAD assault look like dust storms, flies, rain drops, etc), diversionary feints and probes (forcing the enemy to react in the wrong direction or against an non-existent threat a la Patton’s paper tank army in Operation Overlord).  Camou-fog can also  be used to support simulated threats and attacks.  It’s always used with other swarming tactics (see UNQC Field Manual).

 

Typical Quantum Corps operations in which camou-fog might be used are:

 

a.     Surveillance

b.     Reconnaissance

c.     Infiltration/Pre-emptive Actions

d.     Precision Strike

e.     Assault

f.      General War

g.     Post-Conflict

 

4.     What camou-fog should not be used for.  How it can be defeated. Camou-fog can be defeated by messing up the config templates, by keeping them from replicating or linking, by jamming comms, by making rapid changes in the environment faster than the swarm can adapt to, by unexpectedly altering the environment, by forcing the camou-fogged object to move against the background, detecting other emissions (emission control and discipline are vital).  Camou-fog bots are vulnerable to HERF barrage, as is any ANAD style botswarm.  If you can’t see or detect something camou-fogged, just blow the camou to kingdom come with thunderbolts of rf energy.

 

5.     Hazards and precautions.  As with any piece of mission gear for nanotroopers, there are some caveats in using camou-fog.  It’s not a panacea for pulsing, synchronized, converging, or swarming attacks.  Use of camou-fog should be integrated into any attack plan, like any other gear or weapon, for best effects. Camou-fog must be coordinated with other tactics.  It should never be used as a substitute for good tactical judgment (see UNQC Field Manual).  Below are some typical tactical deployments in which camou-fog might be used:

 

a.     Deception and concealment

b.     Feints

c.     Diversions

d.     Swarming attack

e.     Dispersal

f.      Entrapments and ambushes

g.     Managing configuration changes

 

6.     Large-scale uses and applications.  Camou-fog can also be used for static structures, such as fake fortifications, even whole villages, weapons emplacements, natural forms such as trees or hills, or to otherwise conceal something or deceive an enemy.  Camou-fog is particularly useful in helping a nanotrooper unit blend into an environment and of course, that blending can be real-time and changeable, as the environment changes. 

 

So you see that camou-fog can be quite handy to nanotroopers in conducting routine or even special operations.  It’s best traits include its programmability and reconfigurability.  It suffers from the same limitations of any nanobotic device but the true worth of the stuff is in all the imaginative uses nanotroopers can put it to, often things not even in the manual.

 

Next month’s post to Quantum Corps Times will be posted on September 1.  This post will take a slightly different direction, looking at a place called Engebbe, Kenya, where the original ANAD was born.  We’ll cover a little of ANAD’s early history as well.

 

See you on September 1.

Phil B.