Infiltrating the temple

I'm sure someone else has already gone over this subject ad nauseam, but I have one question.

Why hasn't the inner circle made a concerted effort to bug the temple?

A bug set up for ELINT and running passive and only recording the incoming data should be able to hitch a ride on someone wandering around the temple. Anything it detects would be saved, and transmitted to OWL whenever it gets far enough from the temple proper. That data may give OWL the ability to figure out what sensors the temple has, and maybe even know how watchful the security AI is.

There's obviously some form of AI handling the climate control and remotes tending to the equipment maintenance. The level of technology required to keep everything running for a century or more would be considerable, and I imagine that the electronic signature would be sizable.

If there's no active sensors, something as small as a standard bug could get itself attached to a couple of the Go4. That incendiary capability might came in handy. Taking out Rayno might have interesting consequences.

DuncanB730 wrote:I'm sure someone else has already gone over this subject ad nauseam, but I have one question.

Why hasn't the inner circle made a concerted effort to bug the temple?

A bug set up for ELINT and running passive and only recording the incoming data should be able to hitch a ride on someone wandering around the temple. Anything it detects would be saved, and transmitted to OWL whenever it gets far enough from the temple proper. That data may give OWL the ability to figure out what sensors the temple has, and maybe even know how watchful the security AI is.

There's obviously some form of AI handling the climate control and remotes tending to the equipment maintenance. The level of technology required to keep everything running for a century or more would be considerable, and I imagine that the electronic signature would be sizable.

If there's no active sensors, something as small as a standard bug could get itself attached to a couple of the Go4. That incendiary capability might came in handy. Taking out Rayno might have interesting consequences.

It has not been done because no one knows what kind of internal sensors the temple has and what may happen if the "alarm" goes off.

Joat42 wrote:It has not been done because no one knows what kind of internal sensors the temple has and what may happen if the "alarm" goes off.

Merlin won't let himself or any of his remotes get within 5 miles of the Temple, even when acting entirely under max emissions control. This would suggest that even passive Fed Tech sensors are (theoretically) able to detect operating electronics inside that distance limit even if they're not actively broadcasting.

In such a scenario, it's likely even totally passive bugs would be detected if they're powered up and recording.

Frankly, I'll take Merlin's word for it over some random reader's. Merlin (and the author) is presumably more familiar with the tech than we are.

The problem is, that INSIDE the Temple, the active scanning may be implemented to detect even passive remotes.

Hmmm.....
passive? Look, I don't know Merlin's tech, but passive, that's tricky. Maybe a biological recording unit. Even so, the temple would have filters and detectors for that. Nope, can't see how Runs With Celery could put that in

Verrrry tricky

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The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue;
courage is only the second virtue.
Napoleon Bonaparte (but he said it in French)

ezo wrote:Hmmm.....
passive? Look, I don't know Merlin's tech, but passive, that's tricky. Maybe a biological recording unit. Even so, the temple would have filters and detectors for that. Nope, can't see how Runs With Celery could put that in

Verrrry tricky

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The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue;
courage is only the second virtue.
Napoleon Bonaparte (but he said it in French)

Well, the purely mechanical system - basically sort of phonograph - could possibly stay undetected by even Temple scan systems. But I'm not sure, how capable would be such purely mechanical surveilance device.

Dilandu wrote:

ezo wrote:Hmmm.....
passive? Look, I don't know Merlin's tech, but passive, that's tricky. Maybe a biological recording unit. Even so, the temple would have filters and detectors for that. Nope, can't see how Runs With Celery could put that in

Verrrry tricky

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The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue;
courage is only the second virtue.
Napoleon Bonaparte (but he said it in French)

Well, the purely mechanical system - basically sort of phonograph - could possibly stay undetected by even Temple scan systems. But I'm not sure, how capable would be such purely mechanical surveilance device.

Hmmm - the first replacement for the wax cylinder was a plastic loop. The plastic was malleable enough for the stylus to inscribe it, and the loop was flexible enough you could put it in an envelope and post it.

Given a spy who can hide such a thing, surely Owl could build a spring powered, purely mechanical equivalent and then use dead drops to get the loop recordings out of Zion?

Bluesqueak wrote:Hmmm - the first replacement for the wax cylinder was a plastic loop. The plastic was malleable enough for the stylus to inscribe it, and the loop was flexible enough you could put it in an envelope and post it.

Given a spy who can hide such a thing, surely Owl could build a spring powered, purely mechanical equivalent and then use dead drops to get the loop recordings out of Zion?

And it'd be bigger than the laptop I'm using to write this reply. Any "spy" who could sneak such a thing into sensitive meetings and out again probably wouldn't need it; they'd just memorize the conversation and report the highlights without risking giving himself away by carrying a big heavy contraption that would be even more out of place than an altar to Shan-Wei.

evilauthor wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:Hmmm - the first replacement for the wax cylinder was a plastic loop. The plastic was malleable enough for the stylus to inscribe it, and the loop was flexible enough you could put it in an envelope and post it.

Given a spy who can hide such a thing, surely Owl could build a spring powered, purely mechanical equivalent and then use dead drops to get the loop recordings out of Zion?

And it'd be bigger than the laptop I'm using to write this reply. Any "spy" who could sneak such a thing into sensitive meetings and out again probably wouldn't need it; they'd just memorize the conversation and report the highlights without risking giving himself away by carrying a big heavy contraption that would be even more out of place than an altar to Shan-Wei.

True, but the real value of such a recording device is its value as evidence. Any spy can give you accurate information - but valuable as that is, can you imagine the impact of, say a recording of Traynair and Clyntain 'discussing' the Ferayd Massacre?

The other question, of course, is whether an Owl designed device would be laptop sized. Yes, they were originally huge - but recording tech developed away from mechanical methods before miniaturisation really got going. Self charging flashlights used to be massive things, now I can buy one smaller than my hand.

Bluesqueak wrote:Hmmm - the first replacement for the wax cylinder was a plastic loop. The plastic was malleable enough for the stylus to inscribe it, and the loop was flexible enough you could put it in an envelope and post it.

Given a spy who can hide such a thing, surely Owl could build a spring powered, purely mechanical equivalent and then use dead drops to get the loop recordings out of Zion?

While such a device could no doubt be built it would be large and extremely vibration sensitive--it would have to be set down to work.

On the other hand, Merlin is free to use Fed tech to read the recordings. Thus you could make a magnetic tape system--tape moves sideways past a permanent magnet connected to the cone that collects the sound, the signal is encoded in the location of the center of the track. Still large and sensitive but you should be able to pack the data into a much smaller space.

I doubt there would be anything to be learned from such a system, though.