VOICE-OVER:
The disk is vast—so
huge that it defies sanity. Some estimates give it the surface area
of more than a billion Earths. Exploration by conventional means is
futile: hence the deployment of the NP-101 Perse phone drone, here
seen making a proving flight over landmass F-42. The NP-101 is a
reconnaissance derivative of the nuclear-powered D-SLAM Pluto
missile that forms the backbone of our post-Move deterrent force.
It is slower than a strategic D-SLAM, but much more reliable: while
D-SLAM is designed for a quick, fiery dash into Soviet territory,
the NP-101 is designed to fly long-duration missions that map
entire continents. On a typical deployment the NP-101 flies outward
at thrice the speed of sound for nearly a month: traveling fifty
thousand miles a day, it penetrates a million miles into the
unknown before it turns and flies homeward. Its huge mapping
cameras record two images every thousand seconds, and its
sophisticated digital computer records a variety of data from its
sensor suite, allowing us to build up a picture of parts of the
disk that our ships would take years or decades to reach. With
resolution down to the level of a single nautical mile, the NP-101
program has been a resounding success, allowing us to map whole new
worlds that it would take us years to visit in person.
At the end of its
mission, the NP-101 drops its final film capsule and flies out into
the middle of an uninhabited ocean, to ditch its spent nuclear
reactor safely far from home.