Early 962 ARR (38 BBY)
Ona, Cota and Jaarl, who made up my yet ill-defined leadership team, were sat with me around a table in our small meeting room. We all were looking through Panaka's requirements together, trying to figure out what would be possible.
These were my only team members I had so far trusted with the secret of my invention, and even then, only after I had them sign ironclad commercial confidentiality agreements drawn up by our lawyers at Tuls & Duss.
Jaarl had understood what I had done better than even Rana and Zomir, which was a huge relief. He was a rather energetic middle-aged man with a genuine passion for technology, giving me someone I could discuss my more complex ideas with. He had come to Naboo from Hosnian Prime, originally to work as a level three qualified technician in the early years of the plasma boom. He had quickly grown bored with the monotony of plasma refining but had been stuck for alternative career options prior to Theed Tech.
"It would require a more advanced droid-brain. Encryption is demanding on top of its other functions and that's too much to ask of the mice." He said, mice being the emerging Theed Tech slang for the Reba-5C droid-brains used in the SuperPad, that were originally designed for mouse droids. "And it would need a more expensive power cell to meet the higher power draw and fulfil these endurance requirements."
A week of typical use without a recharge was good bit longer than the three days the SuperPAD managed. One if the few criticisms of the SuperPAD was that heavy users needed to remember to charge it overnight, a consequence of using power hungry droid components. This contrasted with droids which would put themselves on charge as needed.
I considered this before replying, "If we sourced an intelligence droid, we should be able to borrow its programming for the encryption. A droid-brain from a surveillance droid might be enough processing power, and are designed to be small and run on low power."
Intelligence or analysis droids are among the most sophisticated and expensive in the galaxy. They were used by militaries to wade through intelligence data and by law enforcement to assist investigations. Given the sensitivity of that work, they were usually required to have extensive encryption protocols.
Surveillance droids were more akin to portable CCTV cameras, but they were designed to collect and transmit large quantities of sensor data. They were required to be small and run for days without recharge. In many cases they would encrypt the data they collect, to prevent slicers from being able to tap into their data streams.
"The security forces might lend us one of their own intelligence droids for the job, that way they could have confidence it meets their standards." Ona suggested. It made a lot of sense, we would probably have to explain a little of why we wanted it to Panaka, but we could be confident he knew how to keep a secret; in the unlikely event that he even understood the request in the first place.
It would also mean we could enhance our own databases with military-grade encryption programming, which would be helpful in staving off the inevitable corporate espionage heading our way.
"Perfect, any thoughts Cota?" I asked.
"Yes, a couple of things. Firstly, that if could aim for a price point of maybe 2,500 a unit, we might be able to convince them to buy one for every member of the security forces, not just the officers. That would be as many as 15,000 units planet wide, if we keep the production cost down below 1,000 credits a unit, that's a healthy profit margin. It would also be priceless advertising for us."
I looked at the middle-aged woman with pure admiration. I didn't understand how her talents had been overlooked before, was it a gender thing or something else? She had an exceptional mind for business, which I was coming to depend on more and more. She was loving her work building up a company from scratch, perhaps even more than Jaarl was. I hoped she would be with us for the long haul, giving me the freedom to explore my grand ideas, knowing the moneymaking side of things was in good hands.
"If we pull that off, we could become a household name across the entire planet and might even lead to contracts with security forces on other Republic worlds." commented Ona, getting caught up in the excitement. Though I was by far the youngest of my company's leadership, I sometimes thought I might be the calm one.
"The other thought I had," Cota continued a little hesitantly, "was about the power problem you were mentioning." My eyebrows raised at this, Cota understandably didn't normally comment on the technical side of things, so this was intriguing.
"Please, go on." I said, encouraging her to continue the thought.
"Well since we're on Naboo, we could use ion cells."
Ion cells, or ionized plasma cells to give their full name, were among the best energy storage devices known to exist. They were usually too expensive for anything but the most critical or extravagant applications, at least, that was true nearly everywhere else in the galaxy.
Naboo is one of the galaxies premier sources of plasma beneath the city of Theed is the largest plasma refinery this side of the core. Naboo was the cheapest place to purchase plasma products, including ion cells. Anywhere else, the Trade Federation which held the export monopoly, sold them for a ridiculous twenty times the price they paid to the manufacturers on Naboo. Ion cells bought for local use on Naboo, while still costing more than typical energy storage, were a credible option in this case.
"Given that we would be selling these at a far higher price point than the SuperPads, I think it would work out financially." she concluded.
"Wow, forget about a weeklong battery life, with an ion cell they would last near to a month even with the greater power draw. They are also lighter than our regular power cell, which is one of the main reasons for the weight of the standard model." Jaarl gushed enthusiastically.
"That's a brilliant idea, Cota." I reply with a huge smile. "Reach out to your old plasma industry contacts and see what it would cost us to make a bulk order of the smallest variety of ion cell. Work on the assumption we would need 15,000 for the entire security force."
---
Just over three weeks later, Cota and I were sat in the central headquarters of the Royal Naboo Security Forces, giving a presentation to Panaka, the Minister for Planetary Security and a couple of other senior officers. Apparently, the Chief of Security had even planned to attend himself but was called away on palace business last minute.
Cota as our best salesperson, was outlining the capabilities and specification of our proposed 'Theed Tech SecuriPAD-01' which I had to say I was genuinely very proud of. First of all, it had all the functions of the standard SuperPad minus the music player. It was slightly smaller than the original but thinner, and crucially just over half the weight at around 1.2kg. While the resilient plasteel casing was heavier than the original plastic, the weight savings from the ion power cell and the droid-brain were far more considerable.
We had reluctantly settled on the Arakyd Industries D3-Scoutbrain. Arakyd Industries were the premier producer of droids for exploration, scouting and security, though their designs also suited more nefarious activities. The D3 was used in their lowest end monitoring and surveillance products still in active production but had twice the performance of the mice (Reba-5C) used in the SuperPad-01. They were also significantly smaller and lighter, given they are meant for droids that could fit in the palm of your hand (and then be placed in an unnoticeable location).
My reluctance had stemmed from the fact that Arakyd Industries had a reputation for ruthlessness, were based on Vulpter in the Deep Core and were part of the Techno Union, one of the vast monopolising commercial groupings that dominated the galactic economy. In short, they were exactly the kind of supplier I tried to avoid, but inevitably the only credible supplier of what we needed in this case.
Even though the D3 was for their low-end products, I had played around with seeing what other intelligence and scouting functions it could manage. Jaarl had managed to squeeze a basic short to medium range scanner into the device, benefiting here again from our ion powercell. I had managed to add a programming from a mapping datapad. The result was that the SecuriPAD could detect people and droids within around 100 metres, and vehicles with maybe couple of klicks. This information could be displayed on a 3D holomap projected from the device.
A more powerful comms transmitter, this time taken from a speeder holocomm model which just barely squeezed into the form factor, helped us meet the communications range requirements. As the devices all had the mapping software and now had a better comm system, I made it possible for SecuriPads to detect each other and display the locations up to ten klicks away on their maps. We also added a customs reader, which could scan the codes on freight and shipping manifests, with the pads able to interface with the customs database remotely, so confirm the authenticity of the data.
The security forces had access to better scanners and other dedicated tools, but to have these capabilities all on one device that could be carried by every single guardsman on patrol, was beyond Panaka and his colleagues' wildest expectations, and it showed.
"You cannot seriously expect us to believe your little gadget could do all these things you claim dear lady?" said Minister Strar, in the smooth aristocratic and condescending tone that I had increasingly come to expect from Naboo's upper echelons.
"Of course, Minister", I interjected, which is why we have brought a demonstration model along with us. "It doesn't include the encryption capabilities yet, for reasons I'll come to, but all the other functions are built in." I proceeded to demonstrate each of the capabilities Cota had outlined, finally placing a call to Panaka's personal holocomm from across the room.
Here followed several minutes of questions and muttering between the officials, most of which amounted to asking us to repeat information we had already provided.
"And how much are you wanting for these... SecuriPads?" the minister cautiously asked. "It would depend on the size of the order." Cota replied "a small order in the hundreds we could maybe do for 3,500 credits each...a much larger order could warrant a significant discount."
Cota had determined the strategy here, our research indicated that the security force were using a model that retailed for 4,500 credits, and that they probably shaved a few hundred off this price with the volume they were buying. So, pitching our starting price for our larger but far more capable model at thousand credits less, seemed competitive, but still gave us a lot of room to be haggled down for the huge order we had in mind.
"And how would constitute a large order?" asked Panaka.
"Well, our understanding is there are currently around 15,000 serving officers and guardsmen in the security forces. If we were providing one for each of them, we could certainly get the price down to 3,000 a unit." Cota replied with truly incredible nonchalance at the vast potential order here.
Naboo's security forces were tiny given the size of the planet, just 15,000 personnel for over three hundred million humans, and they didn't really make use of security droids either. Crime just wasn't really a problem on a planet with the prosperity and serene environment. The only real threat was occasional skirmishes with the native Gungans, but these were rare and not considered a real concern. One speeder would be enough to drive off an army of spear wielding primitives, or so the thinking went.
Still, for our less than one-year-old company, it would be a huge single order, we had sold maybe 20,000 SuperPADs up to now, a drop in the bucket of our waiting list. On Naboo alone we could sell millions of SuperPADs, we just needed the means to produce them.
If we could land this large defence contract, with a sizable proportion paid up front, it would give us the cash we needed to seriously expand production. I had wanted to avoid outside investors or business loans. My lawyers had warned me at great length about how predatory the various banking clans could be, so this was the best opportunity we had to achieve rapid growth.
"3,000 each for 15,000, isn't very realistic. We had just been thinking about supplying them for our 1,000 officers. However, we could see the appeal of this larger order perhaps if it were 2,500 each, then we could stretch to the full force. We have to be diligent in how we spend taxpayers money after all." The minister thought this would be squeezing us for a huge bargain and to be fair given what they were paying now he had good reason to think so. For my part I wanted to enthusiastically shake his hand at this, but Cota was ruthless.
"You do understand we have to make a profit on these Minister." she joked, her charm turned up to eleven. It took a lot for me not to burst out laughing at this. Jaarl and I had managed to make the prototype from about 900 credits of parts, far more than a SuperPAD, but this would come down significantly with bulk parts orders. They were a fair bit fiddlier to make than a SuperPAD, but with the mechanised production line Jaarl and Una had been planning to implement once we got the cash, that would be manageable.
"We could, for an order this size, come down to 2,800." she suggested, as if the idea pained her physically. 2,600 came back from the Minister, before Strar and Cota finally relented at 2,700. I conservatively thought we could make these in bulk for about 700 credits each, meaning this order would be making us a staggering 30 million credits of gross profit. The challenge would be finding legitimate ways to spend it before the brutal corporate taxes kicked in.
I noticed the massive smile on my face mirrored on the normally grim Panaka, it was clear he desperately wanted the SecuriPADs for his men and this was big win for him.
"I'm not sure how the Trade Federation would react to us making such a large order without involving them, Minister." one of his aides asked who I'd barely noticed before now interjected.
"The Trade Federation has no business in interfering with our internal affairs on Naboo. Theed Tech is a Naboo registered company, its even in the name. We're not importing anything." The minister replied. There was a slight venom in his tone, he seemed to be rather happy about not involving the Federation