Hello Timothy,
In the four book series The Last Legion by Chris Bunch the human Confederation collapses and the military force assigned to a frontier planet have to overcome a number of events before they send a covert operation to find out what has happened. When they approach the capital they have to overcome automated defenses.
The series titles are: The Last Legion, Firemask, Storm Force, and Homefall.
OK, thanks for that.
You realize of course that JUST the suggestions TMLers give me for book reading make for a list as long as my arm (I know, I've measured). Add the other reading I have suggested to me I just start to whimper. :-)
But thank you. Sounds fun to give it a go.
Though now I think about it there was also an adventure I played in at TravCon where I think it was Nigel Fisher who ran a game where we had to overcome automated defenses of a planet to explore planet.
under Memory Loss and Memory Capture. The game was called Loves Labours Lost and at the risk of spoiling it IIRC (I don't write the detail in the write-up) the two opposing AIs of an old war have fallen in love with each other but don't know how to give up the fighting they're programmed to do. I thought it a nice idea and being a Darrian scientist in the middle of this was great fun.