To some, the name Aegis Dynamics still is synonymous for the elegance of pure power and force, to others there's a much... darker image that goes along with the corporation's history as the Messer's court weapon smith. With amounts of resources acquired during that age that we will never be able to grasp (and probably neither the folks in Jata) they were able to even survive the backlash after the fall of the Messers and to go strong and steady nonetheless. Or are they? The latest and currently most widespread news about Aegis Dynamics is that more and more complaints show up about randomly opening cockpit canopies of the most popular ships of the manufacturer - the Avenger and the Sabre. I spoke to a number of tech insiders that were able to analyze this issue and all evidence points towards a newly introduced bug in the central control firmware. As both ships are older than this issue it seems to be introduced with one of the latest firmware updates during maintenance. Which suggests that even the modern Sabre is using an ancient legacy code base shared with the Avenger. Interesting. But not really bad if it works reliably, right? Well, shipping firmware with such a potentially life threatening bug for combat focused vehicles in an undisclosed software update hints to very chaotic development and QA processes. Shouldn't an experienced manufacturer as Aegis Dynamics be beyond that? Next up, we have the Hammerhead. It's still a hallmark of law enforcement and military prowess but if you ever spoke to anyone that served aboard one, you'll get a less than proud viewpoint. It's a floating coffin, some say, torture chamber others say - but they all agree that setting a foot on this ship is madness and borderline suicidal. For one, the water pipes in the crew quarters are leaking. No, I'm not complaining about one bad maintained pipe I once saw. The leaks are factory issued and caused by a series of design flaws that cannot be fixed without losing air pressure in the entire ship. I kid you not. So this means we have a puddle of water constantly accumulating in the middle of the ship. Not critical under usual circumstances. But as soon as the grav gen stops, that puddle becomes a wandering short circuit slot machine, virtually undetectable with onboard scanners and randomly blowing up ship systems. Wonderful. Then there's the engines. Ever since its inception, the Hammerhead was less than... spritey. To be able to keep up with the fast fighters the ship is supposed to hunt down even enough to keep them within firing distance, the latest Flight IV model simply overcharged the almost a century old main engines instead of investing into some modern propulsion tech. This results in violently sparking and discharging engines within crew operation areas. According to some rumors, about 20% of all injuries aboard a Hammerhead are related to this hazard alone. This includes combat injuries. To top that all off, these literal killer engines are located right next to the cargo area. Not even a protective wall between them. Now, the Hammerhead being a combat vessel, it happens that it has to carry hazardous or even explosive cargo. It is standard practice to wall this cargo in with cargo boxes filled with shielding material, which reduces the effective amount of cargo capacity for even slightly hazardous goods to laughable numbers. Next up, the Retaliator has been a known bane for crews since its inception for various reasons, same as the Vanguard that is rumored to be Aegis' main source of customer complaints and is said to be in an endless rework cycle, so I won't go into detail on these ships. All this shows that the company seems to be in more trouble than is officially known. The manufacturer wasn't able to win major government bids for a long time and hence opted for production for civilian use, laid off a lot of expertise and managed to stay afloat for a long time now. The official business numbers are not stunning but solid and everyone seems to think Aegis made it through. But did they really? Budget cuts on this scale bring long term impacts without exception. The difficult thing is not the cost cut but to mitigate or avoid the resulting consequences. Aegis tried to manage these risks by focusing on parts production which seems to keep the business afloat. But how much longer can they afford to drag the troubled ship branch with them? Insiders tell stories of vast staff turnover and detached management. Even during the dark ages of the Messer Era, Aegis Dynamics kept a low profile in the public and few executives were even known by name. This mentality seems to have carried on and asides from PR, marketing and sales staff, it is almost impossible to get hold of anyone. A highly integrated supply chain of the corporation helps keeping it that way. The few whistleblowers confirm an atmosphere of secretiveness borderlining paranoia in almost ever department. Staff is cautious of communicating crucial information even within the company, outside contact in whatever form is strictly forbidden and the mandatory NDAs are supposed to be the strictest in the entire UEE. This might be the main cause of the ongoing issues with Aegis Dynamics products - if communication does not float freely and internal transparency is as low as these sources suggest, everyone working on the project is effectively maneuvering in the dark. Issues like these can only be solved by drastic changes from top management - but these are nowhere to be seen and highly unlikely. The manufacturing of military vessels comes with a ton of restricting contracts and it's highly unlikely that they will be allowed to sell the branch. So the only option would be to close it all down. How long will Aegis Dynamics' top management allow this to go on? Will they have the guts to go either way? I have a feeling we won't have to wait long for an answer.