Snoop ships... vs. the MA.

dreamrider wrote: (Does it occur to anyone else that it would be very unhealthy to be the crew of the Jessyk/slaver/tramp ship that was the actual planned next-to-last leg for a Houdini cell? Because, you know, hyperspace accidents happen all the time, and dead men carry no tales - or rendezvous coordinates or ship descriptions, etc. The Houdini extraction organization killed tens or hundreds of thousands of Mesan citizens including family members of deep onion members, just to set up some of the planet departure cover stories. Heck, they offed a selection of their own operatives that were considered 'no further use'. What's a hundred or so tramp spaceship crews, maybe a few slaves in cargo, to put an untraceable cutout on the exit route?)

*Raises hand*

Yeah, I caught that in Cauldron of Ghosts. If a Gaul can blow up a ship that is captured (despite him killing his charges beforehand), taking out a ship after trasnfer should be child's play.

Between the MAlignment and the destruction of Manpower plus the...enthusiastic...workings of the RTN and the BSC, I suspect that most slavers will be looking to sell their ships and settle somewhere...as far from Torch as possible, I suspect...

SharkHunter wrote:

SWM wrote:Well, if the Alignment has "gone to ground" in Darius (as many of us believe), your fishing trip is only going to catch pirates, bad Sollie spies, and nefarious corporate types, not the Alignment.

The Alignment already has enough ships and contacts that it trusts. It doesn't need to use any ne'er-do-well tramp freighters that happen to come by batting their eyelashes.

Agreed on catching "the Alignment", plus they've got their streak ships, but then again, I don't think every Houdini ship went direct to Darius "do not pass go do not collect $200", if you catch my drift. They've still go to get to Darius -- if that's the destination, without leading the RMN to them, aka in a more hidden manner. They also have to do business in their "disrupt the galaxy plans" using proxies like Manpower, etc. to do useful nasty-ish things. Plus we're not talking about tramp freighters if they are Silesian mid-line "pseudo pirates" or "old armed mearchants" like the Ad Astras, whose cover is that the heat is too hot in their former hunting grounds.

But as I said, the Alignment and their agents already have contacts and ships that they trust. They do not need to use any ships they don't already know.

One ship wouldn't likely hit the gold mine right off, and it's clues that we're looking for, and any number of things can ultimately lead to MA locations or intel, which -- if nothing else, would begin to narrow the search for until the GA starts to close on the .6% of known worlds (12 out of 1800+) which are MA / RF worlds.

We already know that Manticore has plenty of agents in place around the galaxy, including in Solarian territory. They are already looking for those clues.

Conversely, neither the MA nor the Solarian League has much spy penetration into the GA at present, so getting a heavier dose of their own intel assets "into the Haven Sector" would be a tempting proposition, no? with GA and BSC agents well placed to follow those assets to track the fleas back to the proverbial dogs.

Why would they need to use these suspicious ships to get into Manticoran space? They can either get their own small freighter (if this is a major intelligence operation), or a freighter they already have connections with and can convince, to get them there. Or they can use the already-existing commercial transport systems through neutral systems into Manticoran space. There is no need for them to seek out or accept the help of dubious low-lifes who claim to be able to do it. This is what Zilwicki and Cachat did to get into Mesa. That's how Alignment or Solarian agents would do it too.

SWM wrote:Why would they need to use these suspicious ships to get into Manticoran space? They can either get their own small freighter (if this is a major intelligence operation), or a freighter they already have connections with and can convince, to get them there. Or they can use the already-existing commercial transport systems through neutral systems into Manticoran space. There is no need for them to seek out or accept the help of dubious low-lifes who claim to be able to do it. This is what Zilwicki and Cachat did to get into Mesa. That's how Alignment or Solarian agents would do it too.

Respectfully disagreeing in terms of the difficulty of getting into "Manticoran space", or the SEM having agents scattered all over the galaxy already. SLN flagged freighters are suddenly at a premium to keep the SL alive because of Laccoon II, and any SL freighter arriving in a useful location in Manticoran space is going to be thoroughly inspected, leaving the neutral flagged freighters... which are presumably from the Verge and not likely to be really useful for getting information back to "SLN fleet headquarters" in a timely manner. That's why the idea of fake-flagged Silesian auxiliaries or the Haven Q-ships is more fun for our creative black-hats aboard the ships -- they can "sell access" to both the wormhole and higher speed due to mil-grade inertial compensators.

Torlek wrote:Personally I think Houdini will start leaking like a sieve:
1. The number 1 protection of Houdini, was that nobody was looking for disappeared people. As of CoG Zilwick and Victor have suspicions. If and when they start digging, they will find something. Especially since the whole intelligence communities of Haven, Manticore and Beowulf are desperate for new leads and will help.
2. Internal dissent will be a huge problem. Most of the disappeared people are not to happy with their situation. When the reality of the MAs plan or what happened to Mesa (like for example murdering their spouses to cover their disappearance) hits them, that problem will get even worse. A few successful defections would be enough to cripple Houdini.
3. They used slavers to transport their people at least in part. Those slavers are all of a sudden unemployed, all of a sudden the SL seems to be a lot more eager, when it comes to space slavers, because the MA is cleaning house, Torch is getting really active, when it comes to slaver hunting and they are hardly loyal to the MA. Some could decide to trade the information about those mysterious passengers, which they took away from Mesa just before the arrival of the RMN, for a nice stay in a Manticorian low security prison.
4. The final implementation was rushed. Somewhere something is bound to go wrong.

tldr: Houdini is too big, too complex and too rushed. We saw the first hints of a leak. There will be more.

It's working so far. There are some problems with your points though.
1. It's going to be hard to figure out who is truly vanished and who is dead. With as much destruction that happened, identifying the bodies of the dead is going to be a horrendous chore and prone to missing more than a few. Some of the people those two will think might have vanished will be dead because they were deemed unusable by the MAlign.

2. I am sure a lot of them will be distraught at first. But where would they be able to defect/inform outsiders of what has happened? They are going to be watched every moment of every day until they are in the Darius system. It's going to be very difficult to try and do anything but obey orders and if they are kept aboard ship the entire time, the chances of them informing/escaping drop dramatically.

3. The MAlign likely already has plans for that and would find ways to silence the ship crews. There will be no slavers spilling information because they will likely be dead.

4. The timing was rushed, but the protocols for dealing with crews and incoming refugees would already be in place.

Zakharra wrote:

Torlek wrote:Personally I think Houdini will start leaking like a sieve:
snip
2. Internal dissent will be a huge problem. Most of the disappeared people are not to happy with their situation. When the reality of the MAs plan or what happened to Mesa (like for example murdering their spouses to cover their disappearance) hits them, that problem will get even worse. A few successful defections would be enough to cripple Houdini.

2. I am sure a lot of them will be distraught at first. But where would they be able to defect/inform outsiders of what has happened? They are going to be watched every moment of every day until they are in the Darius system. It's going to be very difficult to try and do anything but obey orders and if they are kept aboard ship the entire time, the chances of them informing/escaping drop dramatically.

In addition, before they get to Darius, they will be guarded by the GAULs, who, as we have seen, are not hesitant to kill their charges if things even look like they are going off the rails. After they arrive on Darius, the ability to leave the planet is going to be SEVERELY restricted - basically to the most senior members of the onion (Detweiler and his sons), and not much else, except for the crews of the spider drive ships, and they will never be allowed off the ships except on Darius itself.

There will be NO Silesia "free ships". If there are local freighters or armed freighter-auxiluaries like Pirates Bane that don't stay in Silesia, they will have to do something to re-flag their ships when they get somewhere elce. The Silesian Confederacy has been partitioned and the various systems are now part of the IAE or SEM. In really short order after that the ships papers become worthless if they don't get themselves recognized or registered with somewhere else.

Setting up a lot of MMM ships to report back anything has always been a good idea. That should have included information and observations at SL or near-SL wormholes that any of the participating ships use or used to use prior to Lacoon I and II. That would have made life a bit easier for the force that went though and took the other side of the
"SL" space wormhole when they more-or-less had to jump blind without the help of Astro Control.
It will take time for anything to filter back to Manticore from the MMM ships. Setting up a safe system and method for passing information back- particularly if the ships in question won't actually be going through Manticore Territory at any point- so they will have to feed it to cut-outs. Tricky when a whole lot of the known universe is at war with Manticore etc.

If you can figure out a way to get military grade passive sensors onto select MMM which could pass a custom's inspection or "safety" insepction from a mechanical systems look to make sure a given ship is "safe" and that they are not some sort of spy ship, you can get a lot more and better information. One question is will you be let near enough to anything sensitive by anyone to be usefull. Of course just general tactical and traffice plus emissions data can eventualy prove useful if you either get enough data (from many passes by one or more ships through a give system or wormhole and can get analysys done in a timely manner to make it usable.

[snips]

Brigade XO wrote:There will be NO Silesia "free ships". If there are local freighters or armed freighter-auxiluaries like Pirates Bane that don't stay in Silesia, they will have to do something to re-flag their ships when they get somewhere elce. The Silesian Confederacy has been partitioned and the various systems are now part of the IAE or SEM. In really short order after that the ships papers become worthless if they don't get themselves recognized or registered with somewhere else.

If you can figure out a way to get military grade passive sensors onto select MMM which could pass a custom's inspection or "safety" inspection from a mechanical systems look to make sure a given ship is "safe" and that they are not some sort of spy ship, you can get a lot more and better information....

Actually Pirate's Bane is the exact example I'm thinking of "times a hundred", and that "business is business" and most of the SL doesn't really care about Silesian politics, they care
about moving freight profitably, and that means wormholes.

Yeah, if you are the SLN and FF, you MIGHT be interested in inspecting every ship, but then again the corrupt OFS satrips and Transtellars might get caught with their hands in the cookie jars if they do that, so maybe not..."

If you're a freight owner, you're just grateful to find good ships to deliver the Christmas packages. Say Cap'n Bachfisch whose shipping records go WAY back can get your 2MM tons of freight through wormholes XYZ in 3 months including returning with 2MM tons of something your system wants, vs. a year or more without the wormholes.

Do you really care how he's flagged if he's "not a(n) obvious Manty shill? And those swarthy crewmen, their accents are all wrong, blah blah blah, and his manifest show he's trading with my neighbors...

Meanwhile the dozen or so crew members that matter are up to something else besides moving freight entirely. Thoughts?

SharkHunter wrote:Meanwhile the dozen or so crew members that matter are up to something else besides moving freight entirely. Thoughts?

Every agent or intel officer you put in the field is someone else who can make a mistake or just have a very bad day. Guess what happens next?

Zakharra wrote:

Torlek wrote:Personally I think Houdini will start leaking like a sieve:
1. The number 1 protection of Houdini, was that nobody was looking for disappeared people. As of CoG Zilwick and Victor have suspicions. If and when they start digging, they will find something. Especially since the whole intelligence communities of Haven, Manticore and Beowulf are desperate for new leads and will help.
2. Internal dissent will be a huge problem. Most of the disappeared people are not to happy with their situation. When the reality of the MAs plan or what happened to Mesa (like for example murdering their spouses to cover their disappearance) hits them, that problem will get even worse. A few successful defections would be enough to cripple Houdini.
3. They used slavers to transport their people at least in part. Those slavers are all of a sudden unemployed, all of a sudden the SL seems to be a lot more eager, when it comes to space slavers, because the MA is cleaning house, Torch is getting really active, when it comes to slaver hunting and they are hardly loyal to the MA. Some could decide to trade the information about those mysterious passengers, which they took away from Mesa just before the arrival of the RMN, for a nice stay in a Manticorian low security prison.
4. The final implementation was rushed. Somewhere something is bound to go wrong.

tldr: Houdini is too big, too complex and too rushed. We saw the first hints of a leak. There will be more.

It's working so far. There are some problems with your points though.
1. It's going to be hard to figure out who is truly vanished and who is dead. With as much destruction that happened, identifying the bodies of the dead is going to be a horrendous chore and prone to missing more than a few. Some of the people those two will think might have vanished will be dead because they were deemed unusable by the MAlign.

2. I am sure a lot of them will be distraught at first. But where would they be able to defect/inform outsiders of what has happened? They are going to be watched every moment of every day until they are in the Darius system. It's going to be very difficult to try and do anything but obey orders and if they are kept aboard ship the entire time, the chances of them informing/escaping drop dramatically.

3. The MAlign likely already has plans for that and would find ways to silence the ship crews. There will be no slavers spilling information because they will likely be dead.

4. The timing was rushed, but the protocols for dealing with crews and incoming refugees would already be in place.

Sure they will be able to deal with dissenters and other people who know to much. Most of the time at least. Even 99% of the time. But let say 1 person succeeds in defecting. Points the GA to one Renaissance factor base, which gets visited by some SDs. After the wreckage cools the go through the data banks and find the location of some other RFs bases. Rinse in repeat.
The problem with keeping a secret (and somebody with sufficient resources and determination is trying to crack the secret) is that you have to be perfect.
The even bigger problem is time. They will have to keep the secret for years. Until they have strong enough naval forces that keeping the secret does not matter anymore.

SharkHunter wrote:Do you really care how he's flagged if he's "not a(n) obvious Manty shill? And those swarthy crewmen, their accents are all wrong, blah blah blah, and his manifest show he's trading with my neighbors...

The guy who wants to contract with the ship might not care (but he very well might care). But I guarantee that the manager of the station that the ship docks at DOES care how he is flagged and that his papers are in order. No legitimate trading station is going to allow a ship claiming to be Silesia flagged to dock, since there is no government of Silesia to flag them.