I speculate there may one day be a place for a high-flying, well defended drone pilot carrier, whose purpose is to get the pilots close enough to the drones to

I speculate there may one day be a place for a high-flying, well defended drone pilot carrier, whose purpose is to get the pilots close enough to the drones to have guaranteed instantaneous remote control - not even a satellite delay. There might be, say, 6 pilots in that ship in VR rigs controlling the drones. They might be controlling dozens of drones a reasonable distance away, which are acting sometimes autonomously and sometimes under remote control, as needed.