?

I hope I attribute the inspiration for this idea to the right person, but I think it is Thinksmarkedly who is responsible for this idea. Which is similar to what nearly happened in the Endicott system when Beth could have been killed.

At any rate, since the MAN stealth is so good, they might be able to attach some sort of device onto the hull of a ship that notes all of the places the ship goes. It might be useful in finding Bolthole.

It would have to be as inconspicuous as possible and small enough that it might be overlooked. A power supply that will last long enough and shutdown before its reserves are totally depleted and it detaches itself when it is back in the MBS to be picked up by a spider ship. It might pan out.

Likewise, it could be useful in finding Darius. If the device is designed to work intermittently to save power, it might be useful.

penny wrote:I hope I attribute the inspiration for this idea to the right person, but I think it is Thinksmarkedly who is responsible for this idea. Which is similar to what nearly happened in the Endicott system when Beth could have been killed.

At any rate, since the MAN stealth is so good, they might be able to attach some sort of device onto the hull of a ship that notes all of the places the ship goes. It might be useful in finding Bolthole.

It would have to be as inconspicuous as possible and small enough that it might be overlooked. A power supply that will last long enough and shutdown before its reserves are totally depleted and it detaches itself when it is back in the MBS to be picked up by a spider ship. It might pan out.

Likewise, it could be useful in finding Darius. If the device is designed to work intermittently to save power, it might be useful.

The only similarity is that something is on the ship, but in the case of the attempted assassination it was a signal device that missiles could track. Whereas here you want something that can record location.

As we have discussed before, tracking location demands recording the surrounding star map, the same way that the survey ship could determine where it was after the transit of the new wormhole path. It will also demand that the Malign tag many ships and then later recover every device in the hope of catching one that makes a trip to Bolthole.

PS: I am curious how this could be used to help the Grand Alliance find Darius, since the GA does not currently know about Darius and so has no reason to suspect that ships might be traveling there. But even if they suspect that Darius exists, they have no way to identify the ships that might be involved.

tlb wrote:The only similarity is that something is on the ship, but in the case of the attempted assassination it was a signal device that missiles could track. Whereas here you want something that can record location.

And the for the attempted assassination it wasn't even a device stuck onto the ship -- the signal device was fitted into memory stones that were presented to Elizabeth and Cromarty. And the memory stones were small enough to easily be carried on one's belt.

You'd need something much larger to mount the optics and sensors necessary to capture the star field information necessary to later reconstruct the locations a ship visited.

penny wrote:I hope I attribute the inspiration for this idea to the right person, but I think it is Thinksmarkedly who is responsible for this idea. Which is similar to what nearly happened in the Endicott system when Beth could have been killed.

At any rate, since the MAN stealth is so good, they might be able to attach some sort of device onto the hull of a ship that notes all of the places the ship goes. It might be useful in finding Bolthole.

My idea was about attaching a bomb, in the hyper-raider discussion. That one doesn't have to remain inconspicuous for too long, or at all actually.

A star tracker attached to the hull needs to be inconspicuous to any sensors aboard the ship for a long time and to anyone it rendezvouses with. Since the MAlign has never been to Bolthole, it doesn't know what the procedures are there. It won't know if the ship they're attaching the tracker to will dock at a station and what shape said station has. The tracker could be visible to the naked eye to anyone boarding or leaving the ship for all they know.

And once one tracker is found, the gig is up, and all ships will be inspected for that. The GA can then insert misinformation in the tracker if they manage to crack it, to lure the MAlign into a trap of their own. Or knowing that it will detach, set up a trap to the ship that is going to come get it.

So this is low return and high risk.

It would have to be as inconspicuous as possible and small enough that it might be overlooked. A power supply that will last long enough and shutdown before its reserves are totally depleted and it detaches itself when it is back in the MBS to be picked up by a spider ship. It might pan out.

There's no way it can be picked up without being pinged. The MAlign cannot control the trajectory and velocity vector of the returning ship. The tracker needs to detach at its first good opportunity to avoid being noticed if the ship came to a larger formation. So the MAlign would need to ping the system to find the tracker... which is the opposite of stealthy.

If you do manage to ping it, then the tracker can just reply with a burst of data and then self-destruct. Then receiving ship doesn't need to come near it and thus into a trap. It just needs to escape the jaws of the other ships that did receive the ping and went to investigate the unknown signal.

I didn't mean to imply that it had a whole lot in common with what happened in the Endicott system. It simply reminded me of that. Anyway, there is a lot that I didn't think of. At any rate, in case of discovery it should be tamper proof. I like the burst transmission idea. At the end of the day I agree it would be a long shot, but perhaps better than having no shot at all.

I suppose it would be useful to record each system's beacon as well. Freighters could be tagged easily because they are being loaded and unloaded at warehouses. The question then becomes whether freighters are ever going to either system of interest. Bolthole or Darius.

But I'm thinking of hiding the device in the perfect spot. Behind or beside some common infrastructure found on the outside of every ship making it blend in ingeniously. "If it was a snake it would have bitten you." Sorry mom, I didn't see it.

penny wrote:I didn't mean to imply that it had a whole lot in common with what happened in the Endicott system. It simply reminded me of that. Anyway, there is a lot that I didn't think of. At any rate, in case of discovery it should be tamper proof. I like the burst transmission idea. At the end of the day I agree it would be a long shot, but perhaps better than having no shot at all.

With physical access to the device and enough time, nothing is tamper-proof. The calculus would be just how rewarding this might be for the other side: is it worth getting their best experts on the job, stopping whatever else they're doing?

I suppose it would be useful to record each system's beacon as well. Freighters could be tagged easily because they are being loaded and unloaded at warehouses. The question then becomes whether freighters are ever going to either system of interest. Bolthole or Darius.

They were definitely going to Bolthole, but whether they are still going now is unknown. We know that the Refuge system was rich in resources, so there's no need to ship raw materials at all. Finished products might make more sense, but which ones now that the yards are completely up and running? They can make everything they need, so what can still be made more cheaply elsewhere and worth the cost of transport?

Darius I don't think is receiving shipping at all. It would be too much traffic via the Felix Junction, for one. They did ship stuff for their covert ops, like the Silver Bullets, but finding a ship going there is going to be mighty difficult.

But I'm thinking of hiding the device in the perfect spot. Behind or beside some common infrastructure found on the outside of every ship making it blend in ingeniously. "If it was a snake it would have bitten you." Sorry mom, I didn't see it.

Indeed. Unless you know what things are supposed to look like, you may see it and not know it's not supposed to be there.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:With physical access to the device and enough time, nothing is tamper-proof. The calculus would be just how rewarding this might be for the other side: is it worth getting their best experts on the job, stopping whatever else they're doing?

That's especially true if you get your hands on multiple. Then your experts don't need to be perfect the first time; and even if the tamper-proofing detects their probing and slags the internals they'll learn about what tripped them and be better able to avoid that next time.

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:With physical access to the device and enough time, nothing is tamper-proof. The calculus would be just how rewarding this might be for the other side: is it worth getting their best experts on the job, stopping whatever else they're doing?

That's especially true if you get your hands on multiple. Then your experts don't need to be perfect the first time; and even if the tamper-proofing detects their probing and slags the internals they'll learn about what tripped them and be better able to avoid that next time.

This came up after BoMa if I remember correctly - How many missiles and Pods do you need to test fire them properly, analyze the software, and tear down the electronics assuming there are safeguards you need to work around? How about LACS? warships? To many unknowns to know for certain, but everybody agreed there would be more than enough captured Havenite hardware to all but guarantee success with many examples left over.

Hmm Parasitic Tracking Drones. Star Wars stories somewhere - I think the Empire Strikes Back.

Does it need to rely on internal Stellar Navigation ? A Parasite that logs the Ships interactions with Space Stations, other vessels and similar might not know where it is but would provide a good history of where it's been. Identifing the Known and Unknown stations and passing ships follows from that "SigInt". I bet most Honourverse planets have a GPS and weather Sat systems that broadcast and would be identifible. Ships exchange transponder information all the time so that also go's in the log. Think about current Ship AIS and aircraft TCAM signalling - logging those exchanges for later analysis should provide a lot of data.

Dumping it's logs to "home" stations scattered through a sector would provide a great way to track who's going where and when. If the "Bot" can track direction and acceleration/speed across the hyperverse then unknown stations can be approximated for a DD follow up.

Does not even need to be a physical thing - an Embeded software worm in the Nav or Comms systems would do fine. Perhaps buried in a Navigation update broadcast. Might not beat a military Information Security Team's controlls but would work fine on most merchant ships.

Darius might be self sufficient but I bet there are still MA inteligence networks out there and somebody has to be collecting the take.

Post event analysis and correlation of the ships seen when and where would probably start to identify ships with false registrations or which make faster than "possible" journeys. Which might be a Streak Drive vessel or a merchant that is travelling in the higher "military" zones and thus suspicious even if not Malign.
Also would catch when a ship travels to an illicit stopover between to legitimate places. Might be a smuggler or a mule for a criminal organisation. Might also be supporting a hidden base for someone.
Knowing departure and arrival data and the times spent on each leg would narrow the search area quiet well.
Of course use of secret tunnels might make the tracks hard to map but there are not many of those and the trackers will help find at least the end used to interact with the known side. Double Hopping through the Twins would keep Darius off the known map but the log of such a ship would flag up and lead to a lot of focus on the entrance end. If the ships guarding the twins intermediate stop are Identified then that would create a whole lot of interesting questions.

Also a Null analysis on who gets the worm and who does not may well highlight suspicious vessels. Why do company X's vessels appear to be immune? Or why does this vessel that claims to be part of .... not have it? Better do a customs inspection at the next opp.

Might not find Darius but I bet it would find a lot of Pirate bases, sanction busting and other illicit activity.

Hmm I wonder if the CIA or GRU do this already? In WW2 Sig int - who speaks to who was often more valuable than actual cracking of codes because it was more real time and helped provide both the cribs used to break in and the priority on which messages to break first.

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Captain Golding wrote:Hmm Parasitic Tracking Drones. Star Wars stories somewhere - I think the Empire Strikes Back.

Does it need to rely on internal Stellar Navigation ? A Parasite that logs the Ships interactions with Space Stations, other vessels and similar might not know where it is but would provide a good history of where it's been. Identifing the Known and Unknown stations and passing ships follows from that "SigInt". I bet most Honourverse planets have a GPS and weather Sat systems that broadcast and would be identifible. Ships exchange transponder information all the time so that also go's in the log. Think about current Ship AIS and aircraft TCAM signalling - logging those exchanges for later analysis should provide a lot of data.

Dumping it's logs to "home" stations scattered through a sector would provide a great way to track who's going where and when. If the "Bot" can track direction and acceleration/speed across the hyperverse then unknown stations can be approximated for a DD follow up.

Does not even need to be a physical thing - an Embeded software worm in the Nav or Comms systems would do fine. Perhaps buried in a Navigation update broadcast. Might not beat a military Information Security Team's controlls but would work fine on most merchant ships.

Darius might be self sufficient but I bet there are still MA inteligence networks out there and somebody has to be collecting the take.

Post event analysis and correlation of the ships seen when and where would probably start to identify ships with false registrations or which make faster than "possible" journeys. Which might be a Streak Drive vessel or a merchant that is travelling in the higher "military" zones and thus suspicious even if not Malign.
Also would catch when a ship travels to an illicit stopover between to legitimate places. Might be a smuggler or a mule for a criminal organisation. Might also be supporting a hidden base for someone.
Knowing departure and arrival data and the times spent on each leg would narrow the search area quiet well.
Of course use of secret tunnels might make the tracks hard to map but there are not many of those and the trackers will help find at least the end used to interact with the known side. Double Hopping through the Twins would keep Darius off the known map but the log of such a ship would flag up and lead to a lot of focus on the entrance end. If the ships guarding the twins intermediate stop are Identified then that would create a whole lot of interesting questions.

Also a Null analysis on who gets the worm and who does not may well highlight suspicious vessels. Why do company X's vessels appear to be immune? Or why does this vessel that claims to be part of .... not have it? Better do a customs inspection at the next opp.

Might not find Darius but I bet it would find a lot of Pirate bases, sanction busting and other illicit activity.

Hmm I wonder if the CIA or GRU do this already? In WW2 Sig int - who speaks to who was often more valuable than actual cracking of codes because it was more real time and helped provide both the cribs used to break in and the priority on which messages to break first.

..

I simply love your moniker. Parasitic Tracking Drones. Nice. Send that one upstairs.

And I do agree that a galaxy of trivial information can yield a lot of fruit if analyzed by the right minds. If nobody disagrees, I'd like that data sent to Helen Zilwicki. And it dovetails nicely with a notion that has been plaguing my brain.

The MAlign has done a lot of research on nanites. Biological nanites. Nanites that operate on the body. I would expect that their nanite technology can also be applied to technology itself. Nanites that could repair ships at the molecular level. And if that is possible, then parasitic drones can be very well hidden. Even impossible to find. Parasitic drones can be made from the unformed molecular material that would only materialize with certain input. Beforehand it exists as a puddle of nanites until it forms. That would be a game changer. And, as far as I am concerned, a logical progression of both nanite research and “Alpha assertion.”

But if you prefer that nanite technology crawl before it walks, then a more intermediate development would be to develop nanite technology to take cloaking an object to the next level. Like an octopus changing colors to perfectly match its environment. But MAlign technology could add thinking to the process. A nanite that can think and communicate with countless numbers of itself instantaneously, and perform on a much higher level. Imagine a drone that can make itself perfectly blend in as part of any 3D environment.

IOW, as one possibility, the parasitic drone can hide itself behind the “quantum modulator” that is found on the skin of every ship, but in this instance it just so happens to be projected ahead of itself. The drone is simply hid by the projection of the quantum modulator. Depth of field can be challenged.