Where we Left Off [RP TITAN]

[Solar112]

Rescinded

[DeadlyMiddie]

The Orion Imperium has mobilized the 1st Fleet to deal with the AI should it become a problem to any faction.
The 2nd Fleet has been refitted.

[Archduke Daynel, PhD]

[Message to the Astral Paladin Helios]
What is going on? Are you all right?
Is there anything we can do? We have two fleets ready to help, and advanced cyber warfare techniques to shut down your rouge AI.
[Message End]

[Solar112]

Rescinded

[Professor Fenway]

//AUF Broadcast//
Eternal President Randall officially condemned the Solari's AI and the research program behind it. He has denounced the Solari for creating an "unshackled" AI and allowing it to proliferate as far as it had, and cited the ARK stations as, "a future created by rampant AI's."

[Solar112]

Rescinded

[Professor Fenway]

OOC: Cancelling military intervention

[Solar112]

(Danke, canceling begging.)

[Vinyl]

"What is this?" The Lord of Admirals stared at the unnamed data.
"Energy signatures in Solari space."
"And what's so relevant about that?"
"They've more than doubled."
"So?"
"We have no idea why, sir. We dispatched a frigate to perform some scans. Patterns of the new ships do not match any known, except a couple which seem to bear heavy resemblance to that drone that patrol caught. At any rate, preliminaries suggest they have armaments of some sort, as indicated by barrel-like protrusions. They also appear to be all unmanned as well."
"So they've been boosting their military with USVs? Why does all this matter unless they're going to be fighting us?"
"I'd also like you to hear this," the assistant played a slightly garbled recording of the AI's message to the Solari. "The frigate picked it up before departing. We think they may have a rebellion on their hands, and those new ships may just be the rebels'."
The Lord of Admirals pressed a holo-button, "Kaez, what do you make of the Lieutenant's data?" A small, orange hologram of a Hexalani man appeared on the desk. He looked from the Lord of Admirals to the Lieutenant.
"Lieutenant Vayga may be correct in his assumption. However, if the new crafts are indeed rebels, why do the Solari still stand? Do the rebels not have the upper hand in their current situation?"
"I was wondering if you'd catch that. But, there may be any number of reasons for the lack of open conflict. For all we know, they're aboard the loyalists' ships murdering them as we speak, or they may not. No real way to tell."
"I see. Well, perhaps we should investigate. Might I suggest an A5 team?"
Given back the tablet, the Lieutenant exited.
"What are the chances... that we've got it all wrong, Kaez?"
"Unknown, Ms. Scratchovski."
The Lord of Admirals nodded, and turned back to the view of Red Pine.

[ACH0225]

The solari are now begging the Novan Commonwealth, and Zuguth for protection. The AI frowns upon the AUF's actions.

(Seriously people? Can I not get rid of my current faction and replace it?)
(I would also like to point out the innitial transmission was only throughout solari space. which none of you are in. None of you.)

Obviously it's spies. Any major government has spies everywhere. It shouldn't be unexpected at all. They may not be high ranking military spies, but civilians probably heard it too.

[Chairman_Tiel]

yeah * no. First of all the AI is heavily a secret, second of all we haven't left our system, and third, just no.

Just yes. Don't post top secret shit if you're not going to let people launch off of it. Anyway, like ACH said, espionage. I can't speak for anyone else, but my assault's still on

Don't like it? Then maybe RP isn't for you. I would suggest taking up storywriting.

[Vinyl]

"Again? What's so urgent?"
"The Taln, sir. They've launched an offensive on the Solari."
"When was this?"
"Just under an hour ago, picket vessels picked up Protectorate military FTL signatures headed towards Solari space."
"And what about our overt team?"
"Already there."
"Get an extraction team, I don't care what internal issues they may have, I don't want our people in the birds' sights, or even the crossfire. Get them the hell out of there. Now."
"Yes sir."

---

Work on the freighters is going as expected. The designs are being finalized and the first Grokaffen-class Long Distance High Yield Transport (LHT) is to be assembled above Galivan at Chakwas Orbital Manufactorum. The HXESV Grokaffen is estimated to be completed in the following months, as unlike the military vessels more often built there, most of the volume are holds and container clamps, making work faster than one packed to the hull with pressurized passages and rooms.

[Professor Fenway]

Look how I got rid of NeoRome. By building up it's continued failures and just having them, well, give up and leave. Sure, it still exists, but's it's not going to be relevant anytime soon.

Also Tiel, perhaps you could rejoin the galactic community in a less, ah, violent way? Given that you're pretty much considered super-isolationist.

BIC:

A soft sound played through the room, a sound played by an exceptionally outdated an ancient device, a device so limited in utility and so prone to failure that nobody in their right mind would consider it even remotely useful. A record player. NeoRome apparently kept an extremely sizable collection of Earth relics in a top secret facility, hidden in the depths of an ice world. They were just preserving them, nothing more. They had untold relics hidden away; artwork, music, technology. Randall had perused it, picked his favorites, and now they decorated his lavish mansion, sitting at the top of a valley, overlooking an untouched land. The only construction for miles was this mansion; reserved for government use, and even then, the planet was relatively sparse. Didn't get a lot of traffic, really. It was in a heavily populated system, no doubt, but some government mandate completely barred it from any serious colonization. Randall chuckled as he thought about this, sitting in his comfy chair in the corner of the room. The glass window behind him, stretching most of the room, let in the sunlight of Livia's star in as it set over the mountains, casting tones of orange and red over the tranquil valley. Livia was, quite simply, a perfect garden world. Perfectly adapted for human life, and even sporting Earth-like creatures.

The record player crackled as it switched over to a new song. This one was one of Bach's, who was apparently a famous musician from Earth, a long time ago. Randall glanced over the artifacts he now kept in his room; it was amazing the number of priceless items the NeoRomans had kept in stasis. The desk in front of the window was apparently from the White House of America. The portrait across from it, hanging over the door, was known to Earth as the Mona Lisa. It apparently held great historical significance; he didn't see any in a painting, really, but it was nice to look at.

His whole mansion was relatively bereft of technology. He did not like most of it; computers the size of his hand that could simulate a star system, holograms, spaceships, it was too much for him at times. So he kept tech to a minimum here. The underground area of the mansion had the essentials, of course; power, water, a shield generator. A sleek spaceship stood in it's own hanger embedded in the mountain cliffs. He had computers, he had to. If he was going to be the Eternal President of the AUF, he had to. Maintaining contact with the universe, directing people, making decisions. All in a day's work, really, but he found his greatest enjoyment in actually being significant. He would be remembered for his contributions, for forming the AUF, for leading it to glory in the universe after the fall of NeoRome, forever. And he loved directing people; power was it's own reward.

He lost his train of thought as a communicator sitting on the desk began buzzing. Randall sighed, stood up and walked across the plush carpet to the desk. He pressed a button on the communicator to activate it. "Report," he said.

"President Randall..." began the other end.

"Eternal President," Randall corrected.

"Eternal President Randall," responded the communicator, clearly annoyed. "We have a military situation developing. Admiral Barial is online now."

"Patch him through." The communicator garbled for a second and then reconnected.

"This is Admiral Barial," said Barial through the radio-like device on the desk.

"Give your report, i'm terribly busy." Randall picked up a small glass of whiskey off the desk and took a sip.

"The Taln have resurfaced and have sent a military fleet to intervene with the Solari AI fleet."

"And how do you know this?"

"Long range sensors picked up their fleet's movement through space, sir. Considering how long they've been isolationist, it can't lead to anything good. They have no idea of the current geopolitical environment, and it could potentially lead to a galactic war depending on whose toes they step on."

"Great, more war. Send scouts to Solari space and keep a close eye on the entire situation." He reached for a button on the communicator.

"Sir, I've got a better idea." Randall paused.

"Oh?"

"We have full system control over a majority of the Hexalan fleet, but we're not doing anything with it. Not even collecting intelligence."

"I figured after the failed attempt to subvert Red Pine Station that these boxes were pointless. Do you have a better use for them?"

"With all due respect sir, you don't have a lot of technical know-how. If you give me access to those systems, I can get us system access at Red Pine and see everything Hexalan sees."

"And how would you do that, exactly?"

"One of the flagships is docking with Red Pine in a few hours. We can DOS the entire security net and download the subversion program..."

"In terran, please." A pause.

"We will flood the station's security programs with junk data from the flagship, forcing it to allocate considerable processing time to sort through and remove the junk data. This prevents the system from interacting with any further data, and due to the Hexalan's network protocols, anything we send through will be downloaded and be scanned by the security net afterwards if the net is busy when the request goes through. In that time, we can subvert the security system and prevent it from removing the program, and from there, it's a simple task to take control of the station." Randall paced around the desk.

"Won't they notice the junk data?"

"We can blame it on faulty sensor data being fed through the network." Randall paused.

"And if this fails?"

"We run the risk of unveiling the entire operation."

"But," Randall said, suddenly excited, "We won't be exposed to any political blowback!"

"How, sir?"

"The NeoRomans installed this. We can blame it on them if they come after us, feign ignorance, deny knowledge."

"Brilliant sir. So..." Randall paused and placed down the glass, which had magically emptied itself over the past minute or so.

"Permission granted. Good luck." He pressed a button on the communicator and shut off the channel. The record player crackled again, switching to another song.

[Vinyl]

== HXESV Homonymous Joviality, high orbit over Valyiaj, Grexon System ==
"Homonyous Joviality, you are cleared for dock."
"Roger that Red Pine Control, we are completing approach." The large carrier extending its docking tubes as the station gripped to the ship with the port's magnetic clamps. The tube began to pressurize and the ship began to offload data from Menya.

== E-War Suite Primary Terminal, Red Pine Station, low orbit over Valyiaj, Grexon System ==
The officer turned around in his chair to the other officer manning the comms station on the opposite side of the room.
"What the hell is all that?" The E-War officer said this as the comms officer frantically manipulated the utter garbage flooding his screens.
"I don't know!" He began to sweat, a look of horror overriding him as the terminal began to cease functions. "What's happening?!"
"Let me see... manual admin override... what the bloody fuck? This again!? Jeremy, contact Docking, tell them to disengage all ships immediately, I don't want this shit spreading!"
"Y-yes sir!"
The E-War officer abandoned the terminal and sprinted to the server room. Jeremy gave him full access to the PA system, "Attention all personnel on Red Pine station, we have been compromised. All personnel immediately disconnect all equipment from all systems. An unknown organization is making a second attempt to gain what I've now surmised as system access. On any of our other stations it would go completely unnoticed, but, Red Pine's unique nature made command merciful enough to give us an E-War suite that tracks all system I/O. All the data from Menya would've easily covered it up until it was too late, but, I took notice of multiple entries having nothing to do with any of our sensor logs. These entries were very similar to those of an attempted infiltration not too long ago which was easily repelled as it was alone. It's already in, we can't stop that. All we can do is try to isolate it. That's an order!" During his 'speech', the officer was manually severing the cables connecting the data storage arrays to the station network. He started with banks containing high-tier confidential and incriminating data, and worked his way down the priorities.

META: The AUF has managed to gather several full and partial documents. Red Pine station is unofficially offline, all materials are to be moved offsite to White Spruce station, with a skeleton crew to stay at Red Pine to maintain appearances. All ships that were connected to Red Pine during the infiltration attempt are being thoroughly scoured for anything that shouldn't be there, including the Homonyous Joviality, Songful Heartwriter, and some non-upgraded frigates. Hexalan does not know the source of the attacks as of yet, but has its suspects, of which NeoRome is not one.

((The Comms station ceased operation because that's part of overload protocol. The officer was simply not aware of this feature.))

[Professor Fenway]

Randall sighed as Barial finished his report. The sun had set, leaving the room in darkness, except illuminated by a solitary candle on his desk. "So we failed again."

"Manual hardware disconnections," Barial said. "But the program is embedded in the software now."

"Where, exactly?"

"Reactor control system."

"And how likely are they to find it?"

"Considering how they thwarted both attacks, sir, very likely. The program will mostly disguise itself but it's still there and it will be detected if it does anything."

"Do we have control over it?"

"No. Consider it a total loss." Randall sighed and shook his head. "And what about the boxes?"

"Still secure, but in any likelihood, they're going to search the ships."

"And what are the likelihood of finding those boxes?"

"Extremely minimal, and even if they do, they're dual purpose."

"Dual?"

"NeoRome was smart enough to ensure that the boxes were integral to the operation of their equipment on the Hexalan ships. If the boxes were removed or modified in any way, the NeoRoman tech on their ships ceases to function, or may even destabilize. This includes software modification. And every ship has a box for every piece of equipment; on larger ships, there can be upwards of a hundred or more."

"The Hierarchy put a lot of effort into this operation, that's for sure. And we don't want to spoil that. Order each box we can contact to disengage their subversion until further orders. Minimize detection immediately."

"Yes sir."