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Disrupting or compromising Temple communications

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Disrupting or compromising Temple communications
Post by Hank Plantagenet   » Thu Jul 03, 2014 6:44 pm

Hank Plantagenet
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Merlin and Cayleb have come up with the idea of hurting the Temple Boys' logistics chain with their Great Canal Raid. Great, now let's take it one step further.

Have they thought about disrupting or stopping the Church's communications system? I know that Merlin had qualms about actually killing the semaphore operators, but certainly there are other ways to disrupt the communications links that are so necessary to effective command and control of military forces.

Take over a station and pass on only gibberish down the line. Since the messages are coded anyway, no one will know until it comes time to decode them.

Insert false orders and messages into the network. Even if the Church figures it out in time to stop any troop movements, they will have to come with a way to make sure messages are authentic, which will slow reaction times.

In this vein, they can also sow the seeds of distrust amongst enemy leadership. What would happen if Clyntahn were to "accidentally" receive a missive from that concentration camp commander, Bishop Edwards, addressed to Rayno that promises to support him in the upcoming election for a new Grand Inquisitor?
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Re: Disrupting or compromising Temple communications
Post by Randomiser   » Fri Jul 04, 2014 4:27 am

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Sounds like fun. But it's not easy to do, the stations being within sight of each other. It would only work for a few hours to a day per station subverted. It would lead to reprisals against the local population, and the more so the more sneakily it was done. The Welsh Psycho can only do so much or Merlin may as well go into assassin mode permanently, which he is definitely not up for.
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Re: Disrupting or compromising Temple communications
Post by lyonheart   » Fri Jul 04, 2014 4:39 am

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Hi Randomiser,

Quite right.

The fact no character has suggested it ought to indicate its difficulty, Hank.

Now Merlin is evidently on his way to Zion [sooner or later] and may do some interfering with communications there.

Given the centuries of semaphore operations, its more than likely that corruption has happened more than once, so each station probably has some security protocols that limit the damage one man can do.

I suspect any future misdirection by false messages would involve Nahrmahn who was far more comfortable using assassins, than Merlin, with OWL to operate the station with his remotes.

Of course if any family members see it operating without humans, and they live nearby, it's proof devils are aiding the heretics, so they'll have to be killed as well.

All of which is why the inner circle doesn't approve.

L


Randomiser wrote:Sounds like fun. But it's not easy to do, the stations being within sight of each other. It would only work for a few hours to a day per station subverted. It would lead to reprisals against the local population, and the more so the more sneakily it was done. The Welsh Psycho can only do so much or Merlin may as well go into assassin mode permanently, which he is definitely not up for.
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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Re: Disrupting or compromising Temple communications
Post by Thrandir   » Mon Jul 07, 2014 7:33 pm

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Not necessarily Lyonheart, during the second world war there were a whole stack of missions/exercises that both sides enacted to disrupt the respective enemies communications. The most obvious is direct intervention of said comms, but many of the ones deployed prior to D-Day were miss-information made available to the Nazis war effort. The allies played on what Hitler thought was going to happen and enhanced his belief of where the invasion was going to take place. They also convinced Rommel and other German commanders in the West that the target area was Calais.

An easier way for EoC to disrupt the communications of the CoGA would be play on what the Church High Command thinks is going to happen and make them move their troops out of position. In a number of cases EoC commanders are already doing this but imagine if this was done on a much larger scale. Mister Bastard Holiness Clyntahn will be quite annoyed at his commanders and might do a Vader and dismiss quite a few ... permanently :)


lyonheart wrote:Hi Randomiser,

Quite right.

The fact no character has suggested it ought to indicate its difficulty, Hank.

Now Merlin is evidently on his way to Zion [sooner or later] and may do some interfering with communications there.

Given the centuries of semaphore operations, its more than likely that corruption has happened more than once, so each station probably has some security protocols that limit the damage one man can do.

I suspect any future misdirection by false messages would involve Nahrmahn who was far more comfortable using assassins, than Merlin, with OWL to operate the station with his remotes.

Of course if any family members see it operating without humans, and they live nearby, it's proof devils are aiding the heretics, so they'll have to be killed as well.

All of which is why the inner circle doesn't approve.

L


Randomiser wrote:Sounds like fun. But it's not easy to do, the stations being within sight of each other. It would only work for a few hours to a day per station subverted. It would lead to reprisals against the local population, and the more so the more sneakily it was done. The Welsh Psycho can only do so much or Merlin may as well go into assassin mode permanently, which he is definitely not up for.
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Re: Disrupting or compromising Temple communications
Post by Hank Plantagenet   » Sat Jul 12, 2014 12:30 pm

Hank Plantagenet
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Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:26 pm

I understand the reasons for not destroying the semaphore stations within the context of the book. Yes, the operators are innocents doing their job-- although it could be argued that they are legitimate targets since they are serving the enemy's war effort. The reprisals are more difficult to argue against, unless Merlin makes it a policy to eliminate reprisal units, as he did at Sarkin.

My point is that the Temple armed forces and the fanatic inquisitor teams killing off suspected heretics and running death camps have clear, quick, and reliable communications with their highter headquarters. For thousands of years, militaries have tried to disrupt or stop their enemy's communications. Is there some way to do this on Safehold within the book's constraints?
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Re: Disrupting or compromising Temple communications
Post by phillies   » Mon Jul 14, 2014 6:02 am

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Hank Plantagenet wrote:I understand the reasons for not destroying the semaphore stations within the context of the book. Yes, the operators are innocents doing their job-- although it could be argued that they are legitimate targets since they are serving the enemy's war effort. The reprisals are more difficult to argue against, unless Merlin makes it a policy to eliminate reprisal units, as he did at Sarkin.

My point is that the Temple armed forces and the fanatic inquisitor teams killing off suspected heretics and running death camps have clear, quick, and reliable communications with their highter headquarters. For thousands of years, militaries have tried to disrupt or stop their enemy's communications. Is there some way to do this on Safehold within the book's constraints?


Arson. Leave behind dead horses with Charis gear.
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Re: Disrupting or compromising Temple communications
Post by lyonheart   » Mon Jul 14, 2014 4:11 pm

lyonheart
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Posts: 4853
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:27 pm

Hi Thrandir,

You seem to have misread what I posted.

Your references to WW2 and D-day are meaningless in light of Safehold's communication limitations, and they were hardly the first historically I'm familiar with, since my father used to lecture on communications including such electronic warfare examples at CGSC when I was a kid.

Remember AMF, where the Go4 sent sealed orders countermanding their official orders to their navy because they had come to believe their ComSec had been compromised by Charis, and completely blindsiding the inner circle?

It isn't easy to substitute false orders in the message stream anywhere in the semaphore chains, or Nahrmahn and OWL would have already done it many times, as I've posted before.

Again, its possible Merlin and Aivah may discover a means to inject some message(s) at Zion if not directly from the temple, but don't hold your breath.

Major Phandys obviously can't do it without compromising himself so do you have any other candidates?

L


Thrandir wrote:Not necessarily Lyonheart, during the second world war there were a whole stack of missions/exercises that both sides enacted to disrupt the respective enemies communications. The most obvious is direct intervention of said comms, but many of the ones deployed prior to D-Day were miss-information made available to the Nazis war effort. The allies played on what Hitler thought was going to happen and enhanced his belief of where the invasion was going to take place. They also convinced Rommel and other German commanders in the West that the target area was Calais.

An easier way for EoC to disrupt the communications of the CoGA would be play on what the Church High Command thinks is going to happen and make them move their troops out of position. In a number of cases EoC commanders are already doing this but imagine if this was done on a much larger scale. Mister Bastard Holiness Clyntahn will be quite annoyed at his commanders and might do a Vader and dismiss quite a few ... permanently :)


*quote="lyonheart"*Hi Randomiser,

Quite right.

The fact no character has suggested it ought to indicate its difficulty, Hank.

Now Merlin is evidently on his way to Zion [sooner or later] and may do some interfering with communications there.

Given the centuries of semaphore operations, its more than likely that corruption has happened more than once, so each station probably has some security protocols that limit the damage one man can do.

I suspect any future misdirection by false messages would involve Nahrmahn who was far more comfortable using assassins, than Merlin, with OWL to operate the station with his remotes.

Of course if any family members see it operating without humans, and they live nearby, it's proof devils are aiding the heretics, so they'll have to be killed as well.

All of which is why the inner circle doesn't approve.

L


Randomiser wrote:Sounds like fun. But it's not easy to do, the stations being within sight of each other. It would only work for a few hours to a day per station subverted. It would lead to reprisals against the local population, and the more so the more sneakily it was done. The Welsh Psycho can only do so much or Merlin may as well go into assassin mode permanently, which he is definitely not up for.
*quote8
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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