Chapter 279: The Research Core

Tyrus did not have to wait long before finding out what being a Research Director actually meant.

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[ Advanced Radar Network ]

[ Research Status ]

Active

[ Core Research Slot ]

Occupied

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The moment the research became active—

Ding!

"All Tech Center personnel, please proceed to your stations. The Research Director has assigned a new research task."

It repeated three times.

Then, the Tech Center changed around Tyrus.

It wasn’t anything dramatic. No giant machine suddenly rose from the floor, nor did some hidden laboratory reveal itself behind the walls.

People started moving.

Several of the research personnel who had been standing by their stations received new instructions through the System. Screens that had previously shown general facility information switched over to the Advanced Radar project while new sets of data began filling the workstations.

Tyrus looked around."And the five thousand minutes begin." He looked toward Hans. "I guess work starts now, Commander."

He went past Hans and into the research core of the Tech Center.

Hans and Dianne remained farther behind him, watching from the observation section overlooking the main research area.

Tyrus barely paid attention to either of them. His interface had already opened several sections related to the project.

There was the existing Radar facility: its current configuration, operational records, maintenance data, and previous detection records.

Beside all of those were the tasks that had begun appearing under the active research project.

Some were already assigned by the System, mostly routine work that required no decision from him.

Tyrus frowned.

"Interesting."

One of the assistants approached him.

"Director Shearman, baseline operational data from the Physical Radar Facility is available for review."

"Then review it."

The assistant paused.

Tyrus stared back.

"What?"

"Do you have any specific parameters you would like prioritized, sir?"

"Oh."

Tyrus looked at the information again.

Right. He wasn’t merely another researcher anymore.

"Give me the current performance first. Separate anything that appears abnormal from ordinary environmental interference. I also want repeated observations compared against one another instead of relying on a single period."

"Understood."

"And don’t summarize anything unusual away. Put it aside for me."

The assistant nodded before returning to the workstation.

Tyrus watched him leave. That kind of feeling was very familiar.

Another group had already begun working through archived Radar data while the Simulation Cluster prepared its own set of runs.

Tyrus opened one of the project sections.

At first, he expected something resembling a completed technical manual.

There wasn’t one, but instead, there were fragments.

Old calibration tables. Signal-processing routines. Component specifications. Archived performance records. Several configurations that appeared to belong to different versions of the same Radar technology.

Some parts matched the Physical Radar Facility they already had.

Even though Radar engineering was nowhere near his main field, something strange happened as he continued reading.

The unfamiliar terms stopped feeling unfamiliar.

Equations that should have taken him hours just to properly understand began making sense almost as soon as he looked at them.

Signal theory, calibration methods, processing logic—he didn’t suddenly know everything about them, but the System seemed to fill in enough of the missing knowledge for him to follow what he was seeing.

Tyrus stared at the information for a moment.

"So that’s how it is."

He wasn’t becoming a Radar engineer, but the System was letting him understand the language they spoke.

The Advanced Radar Network itself was another matter.

The System knew what it was supposed to become. The old standards, fragments, configurations and calibration data were already there.

What wasn’t there was one perfect path telling them how to put everything back together.

That part still had to be reconstructed.

One of the assistants approached him again.

"Director, the archive comparison has identified multiple compatible configurations."

"How many?"

"Seven currently satisfy the preliminary requirements."

"Currently?"

"Further testing may eliminate some of them."

Tyrus smiled.

"Now we’re talking."

He moved closer to the workstation.

Seven different approaches were displayed in front of him.

A few minutes ago, most of it would have been outside his field entirely. Now, he could at least follow the logic behind each one.

Tyrus ignored the deeper technical details for the moment and looked at the similarities instead.

"What do all seven agree on?"

The assistant brought up another comparison.

Several sections highlighted themselves.

Receiver calibration.

Signal timing.

Processing tolerances.

Data-link synchronization.

A few other things Tyrus couldn’t immediately recognize.

"And where do they disagree?"

The display changed again.

This time, much more of it lit up.

Tyrus stared for several seconds.

"That’s quite a disagreement."

He turned quiet for a moment.

"Split them. Don’t test all seven as if they’re seven completely different designs. Group the parts that are actually different."

The assistant looked through the information.

Tyrus pointed at the first few sections.

"These three are almost the same until here. These two share another approach. The remaining ones seem different enough to stand on their own."

The assistant nodded but Tyrus suddenly paused.

"Unless I’m misunderstanding what I’m looking at."

The assistant checked the comparison again.

"Your grouping is valid, Director."

"I’m a genius, am I not?" Tyrus smirked. "Continue splitting them that way. We’re making good progress here."

The assistant confirmed the instruction. The seven configurations rearranged themselves on the screen.

The first three became one group. The next two became another. The remaining two stayed separate.

Now, four different simulation sets were prepared.

Tyrus watched as several assistants received the updated assignments through their own terminals. The Simulation Cluster followed soon after, dividing its workload between the four groups.

"How are you planning to test them?"

"Initial simulations will use the existing Radar facility as the baseline, Director. Each configuration will then be compared under different operating conditions."

Tyrus nodded slowly.

"Don’t give them perfect conditions. It’s best we test them under worse conditions."

"Understood."

The assistant entered the instructions. Tyrus looked back toward the simulations.

Four separate windows had opened now, each filling with numbers, diagrams and constantly changing graphs.

Normally, he would’ve needed someone from the field standing beside him just to explain half of what was happening.

But whenever he focused on something, the missing context appeared almost naturally.

What a certain value represented.

Why changing one variable affected another.

Why one configuration was being tested against a particular calibration standard.

The knowledge flowing through his mind wasn’t enough to make him an expert on such matters, but it was more than enough for him to follow the process.

"This... is cheating." Tyrus paused for a moment. "I wonder... if the Commander has approached her yet."

One of the assistants glanced toward him.

"Director?"

"Nothing."

He continued watching. The simulations moved far faster than anything he had worked with before.

Tests were completed one after another.

Instead of waiting hours for calculations before setting up the next test, the Simulation Cluster simply moved on to the next condition.

The assistants organized the results as they came.

Tyrus read through the first set.

Configuration Group One remained stable.

Group Two showed slightly different behavior but remained within the old calibration standards.

The third was still processing.

The fourth—

Tyrus stopped.

"Hold on."

He enlarged one of the results.

"Run this test again."

The assistant checked the same data.

"Director, the simulation completed without error."

"I know."

Tyrus pointed at the result.

"I want to know if that happened because of the configuration or because we happened to give it the right combination of conditions."

The assistant paused for a moment before nodding.

"I’ll vary the inputs."

"That would be better."

The simulation began again.

Tyrus folded his arms.

This entire research process was getting interesting.

It was a feeling he had longed for, but had barely felt throughout his career.

And somehow, this was only the beginning.

There was more that he—Tyrus Shearman—would unravel in the distant future.

The tale of Golden Eagle’s M.A.D. Scientist had only just gotten started.