A Nasty Surprise

The "Tepes Treatment" was a certain Chief subverting a Peep set of software and that may or may not be possible with RMN gear. On the other hand all sorts of places now have the Two Person Rule which MAY prevent somebody from doing that using impeller driven shuttles etc if they require two people (far enough apart) to control things on the ship/vessle in question.

A lot of us have lived through the period from when you could take almost anyting on an aircraft to the mess that is TSA and it's analogs around the world. The initial spasm post Beowulf is going to be a mess but eventualy what can and cannot be landed on an orbital habitat will change. Of course that is also going to have to deal with the not so minor problem of fusion plants providing the power to those same habitats and how you are going to locate them along with pre-screening packages/shipments being delivered.

At a bare minimum, manufactures or repair services for things that can go Boom are going to have to be shifted off habitats. So when they build replacements, they are going to have to allow for that AND for moving such things off the industrial stations. Ah well.

The forensic trail for what was where and how it was delivered is going to take a lot of time. Not the least problem is: Were the shipping and package movemenet tracking backed up to locations on the ground. Should that get worked though and the ship that delivered all those packages (not great tradecraft but time was of the essence to the Alignment what with them also priming the SLN to hit Beowulf so soon) you get the Silver Bullet and the three bombs all comming in on the same freighter. Of course, it is POSSIBLE that Beowulf Traffic Control records and the shipping records will show at least one package of suitable size comming from the same ship to each different station and being addressed to the approximate (if not actual) location where the blasts originated- and that will trigger a search for the freighter and back track where it came from.....do you really want to be on that freighter when Beowulf Enviornmental Survey catches up with it?
So they back track the ship to Werner and then to ......where exactly? The ship....well, its cargo originated at Darius (which so far doesn't exist on any chart) and used an unknown wormhole (which doesn't exist on any chart) and the freighter stopped somewhere between Werner and Beowulf, to pick up the bombs and Silver Bullet. They would have had to send word to Werner seperalty to get the stalled packages released and then put on the freighter but did that come directly from Darius to Werner or have to get routed through Mannerheim Clearly the dangerous stuff (including the Silver Bullet) didn't pass through Werner....but whatever was actual loaded at Werner probably has to have either been jettisoned at the meet point between Werener and Beowulf OR it would have had to have been relabeled as cargo destined for a future point of delivery....ah, guys, can Beowulf get Werenr copies of cargo manifests of ships which called there for cargo on-board not for deliver to Werner......that is fairly normal material so then you try and find that freighter post the drop at Beowulf.
Given this is the Alignment.....and not taking into concideration that they may want/need that freighter for something else later....it is entirely possible that it is going to suffer something catastrophic somewhere after it goes into hyper leaving the Beowulf system and whatever was the real or listed next port of call .......too many loose ends. We haven't been told- not presently germaine to the story line but we have seen the Alignment doing way too much "tidying up loose ends" to think that wasn't the short term fate of the freighter.

Brigade XO wrote:The "Tepes Treatment" was a certain Chief subverting a Peep set of software and that may or may not be possible with RMN gear. On the other hand all sorts of places now have the Two Person Rule which MAY prevent somebody from doing that using impeller driven shuttles etc if they require two people (far enough apart) to control things on the ship/vessle in question.

A lot of us have lived through the period from when you could take almost anyting on an aircraft to the mess that is TSA and it's analogs around the world. The initial spasm post Beowulf is going to be a mess but eventualy what can and cannot be landed on an orbital habitat will change. Of course that is also going to have to deal with the not so minor problem of fusion plants providing the power to those same habitats and how you are going to locate them along with pre-screening packages/shipments being delivered.

At a bare minimum, manufactures or repair services for things that can go Boom are going to have to be shifted off habitats. So when they build replacements, they are going to have to allow for that AND for moving such things off the industrial stations. Ah well.

The forensic trail for what was where and how it was delivered is going to take a lot of time. Not the least problem is: Were the shipping and package movemenet tracking backed up to locations on the ground. Should that get worked though and the ship that delivered all those packages (not great tradecraft but time was of the essence to the Alignment what with them also priming the SLN to hit Beowulf so soon) you get the Silver Bullet and the three bombs all comming in on the same freighter. Of course, it is POSSIBLE that Beowulf Traffic Control records and the shipping records will show at least one package of suitable size comming from the same ship to each different station and being addressed to the approximate (if not actual) location where the blasts originated- and that will trigger a search for the freighter and back track where it came from.....do you really want to be on that freighter when Beowulf Enviornmental Survey catches up with it?
So they back track the ship to Werner and then to ......where exactly? The ship....well, its cargo originated at Darius (which so far doesn't exist on any chart) and used an unknown wormhole (which doesn't exist on any chart) and the freighter stopped somewhere between Werner and Beowulf, to pick up the bombs and Silver Bullet. They would have had to send word to Werner seperalty to get the stalled packages released and then put on the freighter but did that come directly from Darius to Werner or have to get routed through Mannerheim Clearly the dangerous stuff (including the Silver Bullet) didn't pass through Werner....but whatever was actual loaded at Werner probably has to have either been jettisoned at the meet point between Werener and Beowulf OR it would have had to have been relabeled as cargo destined for a future point of delivery....ah, guys, can Beowulf get Werenr copies of cargo manifests of ships which called there for cargo on-board not for deliver to Werner......that is fairly normal material so then you try and find that freighter post the drop at Beowulf.
Given this is the Alignment.....and not taking into concideration that they may want/need that freighter for something else later....it is entirely possible that it is going to suffer something catastrophic somewhere after it goes into hyper leaving the Beowulf system and whatever was the real or listed next port of call .......too many loose ends. We haven't been told- not presently germaine to the story line but we have seen the Alignment doing way too much "tidying up loose ends" to think that wasn't the short term fate of the freighter.

How will you know which shipment the bombs were in? There had to be thousands of containers being processed in the docks at any time. But tie it to exactly which container, when the entire station is gone? A huge explosion happened ther-ish... Do the records even still exist? The data backup for Alpha might have been on Beta for all we know.

Theemile wrote:How will you know which shipment the bombs were in? There had to be thousands of containers being processed in the docks at any time. But tie it to exactly which container, when the entire station is gone? A huge explosion happened ther-ish... Do the records even still exist? The data backup for Alpha might have been on Beta for all we know.

You can probably track down to a dozen containers or so that can be the likely culprits, on each of the three stations. From there, you could probably narrow further down by finding the ships that delivered those cargoes and interviewing the crews. The one ship you can't find is probably the guilty one (note: they need not suspect a single ship).

But no, they're not going to find the freighter. It's way too easy to drop it in a random star or just dismantle it.

I'm not sure the records would be of much value. It'll depend on whether the manifests at the origin were modified or not: if they were, there's a trace to follow. The destination after Beowulf must have also been fake, since no one came to pick them up. Unless of course the containers were just generic (from the outside) and replaced legitimate cargo that would have been shipped onwards from Beowulf stations in due time...

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I'm not sure the records would be of much value. It'll depend on whether the manifests at the origin were modified or not: if they were, there's a trace to follow. The destination after Beowulf must have also been fake, since no one came to pick them up. Unless of course the containers were just generic (from the outside) and replaced legitimate cargo that would have been shipped onwards from Beowulf stations in due time...

The container - at least the Gamma one we were given details of - was addressed to a recipient on the station, but the addressee didn't know about it and was never informed a container was waiting for them. We don't actually know when it arrived or where from, but odds are the purported sender has no record of a container being shipped out from them. The paperwork was forgeries all the way up and down the line, so even if Beowulf can identify which container it was the people implicated are going to be the people least likely to actually be behind it.

The fact that the MAlignment's agent was a cargo master on the station probably doesn't help matters, since he could give them internal access to change all the relevant records anyway.

bert953 wrote:The GA realized at once that the habitats were going boom from internally planted bombs. Im wondering if forensic specalists can identify a timeframe when the bombs were delivered, based on the locations of the bombs in the storage areas. It may then be possible to extrapolate which freighter(s) may have delivered the bombs. The navy could then start looking for the suspected culprits. If memory serves, the same freighter also deployed silver bullet and lm wondering if the Manties or Beowulf's navies can find any silver bullet debris that might provide clues about how they were able to neutralize Mycroft (sensors that watched for handshaking to determine the locations of Mycroft components for the grasers to target). I believe that some of the Ghostrider recon drones were in position to see the silver bullet grazers fire & also likely saw them self destruct afterwards. Of course all this is a long shot, but with 40M civilian casualties the GA's going to turn over every possible rock to find where the Alignment is hiding.

Is the highlighted text correct? I do not remember; but even if true, there is no way for GA investigators to know that. A really paranoid villain would have the bombs delivered by three different ships that were each totally ignorant of the evil plan.

Assuming that cargo boxes are not vaporized, it might be possible to find pieces. But how much evidence was vaporized by wedges protecting the planet or drifted off into space?

tlb wrote:

bert953 wrote:The GA realized at once that the habitats were going boom from internally planted bombs. Im wondering if forensic specalists can identify a timeframe when the bombs were delivered, based on the locations of the bombs in the storage areas. It may then be possible to extrapolate which freighter(s) may have delivered the bombs. The navy could then start looking for the suspected culprits. If memory serves, the same freighter also deployed silver bullet and lm wondering if the Manties or Beowulf's navies can find any silver bullet debris that might provide clues about how they were able to neutralize Mycroft (sensors that watched for handshaking to determine the locations of Mycroft components for the grasers to target). I believe that some of the Ghostrider recon drones were in position to see the silver bullet grazers fire & also likely saw them self destruct afterwards. Of course all this is a long shot, but with 40M civilian casualties the GA's going to turn over every possible rock to find where the Alignment is hiding.

Is the highlighted text correct? I do not remember; but even if true, there is no way for GA investigators to know that. A really paranoid villain would have the bombs delivered by three different ships that were each totally ignorant of the evil plan.

Assuming that cargo boxes are not vaporized, it might be possible to find pieces. But how much evidence was vaporized by wedges protecting the planet or drifted off into space?

Almost certainly not correct. And given the magnitude of explosion needed to destroy targets that large, it's almost certain the boxes were vaporized and the vaporized atoms further converted into different elements by the neutron flux of the nuclear reaction going off within a couple meters.

Galactic Sapper wrote:The container - at least the Gamma one we were given details of - was addressed to a recipient on the station, but the addressee didn't know about it and was never informed a container was waiting for them. We don't actually know when it arrived or where from, but odds are the purported sender has no record of a container being shipped out from them. The paperwork was forgeries all the way up and down the line, so even if Beowulf can identify which container it was the people implicated are going to be the people least likely to actually be behind it.

The fact that the MAlignment's agent was a cargo master on the station probably doesn't help matters, since he could give them internal access to change all the relevant records anyway.

Those were my points. Someone tampered with the records and it must have happened before Beowulf, since the ship that delivered the items had legitimately-looking records stating origin, contents, destination, handling instructions, whatever is necessary. Yes, someone altered them on the stations too, since the destination never received a notification to come pick them up and no warning flags were raised in the warehousing systems that no one had come. But the trail needed to start earlier.

But how far back it can be traced is a different story. If it was a legitimate freighter, then it picked up somewhere that had legitimate shipping orders and thus you can trace further back. But at some point, a MAlign ship did the delivery and this ship won't be found anywhere. I'd expect that this mystery ship is the one that actually delivered to Beowulf: the MAlign has a small fleet of freighters working in conjunction with Kalokainos or other shipping companies that are legitimate, but have been inserting goodies for their agents for centuries and can be used as cut-outs if needed.

The original question when I started this thread was : what would you think if you found a container on your station with a bomb in it? 1) Do you suppose someone doesn't like us? Wonder who that could be that hates inoffensive little us that never harmed a flea. 2)Just how long has that been sitting there? 3) Are there more here? Elsewhere?
This sort of thing would really open a can of worms in terms of possibilities. Such as: what comes after the Bomb is detonated? Invasion? Pirates? Space Hamsters? There would be a lot more questions than answers.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I'm not sure the records would be of much value. It'll depend on whether the manifests at the origin were modified or not: if they were, there's a trace to follow. The destination after Beowulf must have also been fake, since no one came to pick them up. Unless of course the containers were just generic (from the outside) and replaced legitimate cargo that would have been shipped onwards from Beowulf stations in due time...

The container - at least the Gamma one we were given details of - was addressed to a recipient on the station, but the addressee didn't know about it and was never informed a container was waiting for them. We don't actually know when it arrived or where from, but odds are the purported sender has no record of a container being shipped out from them. The paperwork was forgeries all the way up and down the line, so even if Beowulf can identify which container it was the people implicated are going to be the people least likely to actually be behind it.

The fact that the MAlignment's agent was a cargo master on the station probably doesn't help matters, since he could give them internal access to change all the relevant records anyway.

Yep. And the shipments on Alpha and Beta would have had to be the same - destined for a recipient on station.

Cargo being transferred at Beowulf doesn't go onto their residential stations. It stays out at the open-space orbital holding areas mentioned in the book; where it and any dangerous substances it might contain are well away from the civilian population. So any modification of the assigned destination would have to happen before it was sent over to the residential stations. It's possible some plant at the orbital holding area modified the shipping information after the cargo was offloaded - but that's probably a higher risk of being discovered prematurely than having it addressed to the on-station recipients before the cargo entered the Beowulf system. That way no possible back-up, cross check, or change log of Beowulf records could show the modification. And that's far more likely to happen than a follow-up inquiry back to the listed system of origin -- at least until after the bombs go off.


Though someone probably did have to mess with things aboard each station to divert or suppress any follow-up queries about why the recipient hadn't gotten their package yet to freed up that loading dock area. But even if noticed prematurely that's probably easier to explain away than a modified bill of lading; and less likely to trigger a close inspection of the cargo contents.

Along with the practical use of the bombs- which is to both hurt Beowulf and blame the SLN as destroying things that are massive habitats (rather than military targets which is what the SLN was shooting at), it is an excercise in terror.

It is a calculated mover. Precise. Gamma, Beta, Alpha. We got though your security (your regular and military) we hit your population- directly, aimed, not something that went off course and hit them. We designed this to be precisely spaced in timing and escalating.

We demand you bleed. We wanted you to suffer knowing that something else was coming and you couldn't stop it. We can strke you and there is nothing you can do about it. You are now going to have to try and stop us from doing it gain.....you know we are going to do this again. You are POWERLESS to stop us from killing your citizens.

You will submit--the Aligment hasn't said what anybody is supposed to submit too but you will submit.
Now you will have to spend time, people and treasure on futile efforts to protect people that that we can kill -in the millions- at times and places of our choosing.
Your power and technology is an illusion, we are going to make you kneel before us.

Sound familure? Lets blow an airplane with a shoe bomb. Lets release a biological weapon in a subway system. You will submit to the purity of our cause...........and become us or die.