Aegis Planner: The Nightfall Protocol

Story: In Isaac Asimov's 'Nightfall', a civilization collapses every 2000 years because it fails to prepare for a predictable, recurring period of darkness. In 'Star Wars', the Rebel Alliance must use limited resources with surgical precision to overcome the overwhelming might of the Empire. Modern small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face their own recurring 'Nightfalls'—be it annual hurricane seasons, Chinese New Year factory shutdowns, or major regulatory deadlines—and they often fight them with the limited resources of a Rebel cell. Aegis Planner is the strategic tool for these businesses, allowing them to turn predictable chaos into a competitive advantage.

Concept: Aegis Planner is a highly-focused, low-cost Production Resilience Planning (PRP) tool. It's not a full-blown ERP. Instead, it integrates with or sits alongside existing systems to specifically model and plan for known, future disruptions. It operates on the principle that the most damaging crises are often the ones we know are coming but fail to adequately prepare for.

How it works:
1. The 'Nightfall' Definition: The user defines a recurring disruptive event. They input its known parameters: name (e.g., 'Monsoon Season'), expected timeframe (e.g., June 1 - Sept 30), and potential impacts (e.g., 'Port Closures: High Probability', 'Power Outages: Medium Probability', 'Supplier X Shutdown: Confirmed').
2. The 'Rebel Fleet' Inventory: The user maps their critical production assets. This is not every nut and bolt, but the 'X-Wings' and 'Corellian Corvettes' of their operation: key machinery, critical single-source components, specialized personnel, and primary logistics routes. This data can be entered manually or via a simple CSV import.
3. Vulnerability Analysis (The 'Exhaust Port'): The core of Aegis. The software cross-references the 'Nightfall' event against the 'Rebel Fleet' assets. It uses simple logic to flag critical vulnerabilities long before the event occurs. For example: 'WARNING: 85% of your critical component supply chain is located in the projected Monsoon zone. Your production will halt 14 days after onset.' or 'ALERT: The scheduled maintenance for Machine A overlaps with your pre-holiday production surge. Projected shortfall of 1,200 units.'
4. Strategic Simulation (The 'Attack Run'): Aegis provides a simple interface to war-game solutions. Users can model different strategies and see the outcome:
- Pre-Build: 'What if we increase production by 20% for 3 months prior?' The tool calculates the required overtime, inventory holding costs, and charts the inventory levels through the disruption.
- Diversify: 'What if we qualify a second supplier outside the impact zone?' The user can add a potential new supplier (using integrated industrial directory scraping, inspired by the 'Industrial Production' scraper) and see how it mitigates the risk.
- Strategic Shutdown: 'What if we plan a maintenance shutdown to coincide with the disruption?' The tool helps schedule this to minimize overall downtime.
5. The 'Countdown' Dashboard: A simple, visual dashboard tracks the countdown to the next 'Nightfall' event and shows the progress on the chosen mitigation strategy, turning abstract future risk into a concrete, manageable project.