[Spoilers (of course)] Some things that seem odd to me

And, of course, there's a history of, shall we say potentially indiscrete, poker games being played there.

Slneezy wrote:Knowing where Daud and Co have been isn't the problem - finding a suspicious pattern amongst many other is.

Basically the algorithms need to flag their movements as suspicious... amongst thousands of similarly ranked officers who have plenty of legitimate or 'legitimate' reasons to network.

That may well be compounded by the SLN only tracking the movements of its officers while the Ministry of Interior tracks CID resulting in a conclusive pattern never emerging because the databases don't communicate.

As for the Alignment things would be even worse since they've got to be pressed for manpower (ha!) so their algorithms would have to filter through the interactions between millions of League employees and civilians to find a pattern. Considering how the League works there's little chance they'd watch for any clandestine meetings and even less of a chance for actual Alignment agents to follow through.

No, you don’t use official trackers, you use the same tool the SL CI guys are using. The one that can pull up who met who and financial relationships. And the communications infrastructure. Your cell phone is a wonderful tracking tool. It’s always on and always checking in.

kzt wrote:No, you don’t use official trackers, you use the same tool the SL CI guys are using. The one that can pull up who met who and financial relationships. And the communications infrastructure. Your cell phone is a wonderful tracking tool. It’s always on and always checking in.

The SL CI people can legitimately have teams sifting through the data. MAlign can't have the manpower to replicate what the SL CI is doing on Earth or they'd be running the place. SL CI is run by a colonel or brigadier - in any case it is a pretty hefty institution in its own right and it only managed to spot patterns when it knew that something had to be there and the Alignment's plants got kicked into high gear/anomalous activity due to things getting hot.

On the other hand MAlign's numbers of counterintelligence agents even on Earth have to be limited and Daud has only started meeting with a broader circle of people rather than only a couple of fellow spooks after Rajani blew his brains off. That's not a lot of time for a sufficient pattern to emerge, some flesh and blood operative to check the pattern and for all that activity to be communicated to the appropriate decision makers.

Remember that MAlign can't possibly investigate every clandestine meeting in the SLN; there's bound to be tons of them between SLN officers and pretty much everyone from trastellar CEOs to escorts.


Edit: for the matter MAlign didn't need to investigate individuals until the conspiracy was blown right open because any investigator would report stuff up the command chain which is bugged by MAlign.

Slneezy wrote:

kzt wrote:No, you don’t use official trackers, you use the same tool the SL CI guys are using. The one that can pull up who met who and financial relationships. And the communications infrastructure. Your cell phone is a wonderful tracking tool. It’s always on and always checking in.

The SL CI people can legitimately have teams sifting through the data. MAlign can't have the manpower to replicate what the SL CI is doing on Earth or they'd be running the place. SL CI is run by a colonel or brigadier - in any case it is a pretty hefty institution in its own right and it only managed to spot patterns when it knew that something had to be there and the Alignment's plants got kicked into high gear/anomalous activity due to things getting hot.

On the other hand MAlign's numbers of counterintelligence agents even on Earth have to be limited and Daud has only started meeting with a broader circle of people rather than only a couple of fellow spooks after Rajani blew his brains off. That's not a lot of time for a sufficient pattern to emerge, some flesh and blood operative to check the pattern and for all that activity to be communicated to the appropriate decision makers.

Remember that MAlign can't possibly investigate every clandestine meeting in the SLN; there's bound to be tons of them between SLN officers and pretty much everyone from trastellar CEOs to escorts.


Edit: for the matter MAlign didn't need to investigate individuals until the conspiracy was blown right open because any investigator would report stuff up the command chain which is bugged by MAlign.

What I was thinking was Some security guard or maybe the barista in the kiosk wondering why these people in uniform come in at (pick an arbitrary time) 8013 and buy a Grande half-caf skinny Caramel Macciotti,a grande caffe Americano and an Earl Gray one sugar every morning, then see them leaving just before she closes at (againpick an arbitrary time)1654?

Or

"Hey Arnold, have you seen Doud? I had a question about those GA missile accels. "

No, but now that you mention it, I haven't seen Irene all day either."

"Hmm, curious. Did they have meetings scheduled?"
[Shrug]

pappilon wrote:What I was thinking was Some security guard or maybe the barista in the kiosk wondering why these people in uniform come in at (pick an arbitrary time) 8013 and buy a Grande half-caf skinny Caramel Macciotti,a grande caffe Americano and an Earl Gray one sugar every morning, then see them leaving just before she closes at (againpick an arbitrary time)1654?

Or

"Hey Arnold, have you seen Doud? I had a question about those GA missile accels. "

No, but now that you mention it, I haven't seen Irene all day either."

"Hmm, curious. Did they have meetings scheduled?"
[Shrug]

They'll be mildly interested for a bit and the shrug and go on with their lives. They're hardly likely to contact the Alignment Conspiratorial Call Center even if such a thing existed (which is in itself unlikely since secret conspiracies are usually bad at getting in touch with people).

Or

"Maybe they're having an affair."

"What, Irene and that old paranoiac? No way!"

"Stranger things have happened."

Slneezy wrote:

kzt wrote:No, you don’t use official trackers, you use the same tool the SL CI guys are using. The one that can pull up who met who and financial relationships. And the communications infrastructure. Your cell phone is a wonderful tracking tool. It’s always on and always checking in.

The SL CI people can legitimately have teams sifting through the data. MAlign can't have the manpower to replicate what the SL CI is doing on Earth or they'd be running the place. SL CI is run by a colonel or brigadier - in any case it is a pretty hefty institution in its own right and it only managed to spot patterns when it knew that something had to be there and the Alignment's plants got kicked into high gear/anomalous activity due to things getting hot.

On the other hand MAlign's numbers of counterintelligence agents even on Earth have to be limited and Daud has only started meeting with a broader circle of people rather than only a couple of fellow spooks after Rajani blew his brains off. That's not a lot of time for a sufficient pattern to emerge, some flesh and blood operative to check the pattern and for all that activity to be communicated to the appropriate decision makers.

Remember that MAlign can't possibly investigate every clandestine meeting in the SLN; there's bound to be tons of them between SLN officers and pretty much everyone from trastellar CEOs to escorts.


Edit: for the matter MAlign didn't need to investigate individuals until the conspiracy was blown right open because any investigator would report stuff up the command chain which is bugged by MAlign.

What I was thinking was Some security guard or maybe the barista in the kiosk wondering why these people in uniform come in at (pick an arbitrary time) 8013 and buy a Grande half-caf skinny Caramel Macciotti,a grande caffe Americano and an Earl Gray one sugar every morning, then see them leaving just before she closes at (againpick an arbitrary time)1654?

Or

"Hey Arnold, have you seen Doud? I had a question about those GA missile accels. "

No, but now that you mention it, I haven't seen Irene all day either."

"Hmm, curious. Did they have meetings scheduled?"
[Shrug][/quote]


Hate to point out that people in Intelligence have LOTS and LOTS of meetings.

And the best way to stay hidden is to stay hidden. For decades (maybe centuries), MAlign has steered decisions for the navy. You do not need all that many people to do it. Just get them in the key places at headquarters.

The people in Logistics will basically be crooks to get business for you. They don't have to know all that much.

For Intelligence, at least some need to know more and as we have seen they were protected...until the protection proved the means to spot them.