[Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)
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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Well, the Umiak's thinking makes sense. Given the similarities of humans to the Loroi, and given the Umiak have some sort of Farseeing protection device, it makes sense that they would think the humans are a Loroi trick. Much like some Loroi think humans are a Umiak/Shell trick, so too would be make sense the Umiak think humans are a Loroi/Enemy trick.
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dragoongfa
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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Chapter 11, part 1
“Sir, still no reply from the Loroi vessel, they have gone completely dark.” Ensign Evgeni Bessonov, this shift’s operation officer reported, shattering the silence that permeated the bridge.
“Damn, hail them again and tell them that we are not going to hand them over to the Umiak.”
“Yes, sir.”
With the Loroi going completely silent and an Umiak warship somehow detecting them inside the asteroid field it was safe to assume that the options open to them were bad, especially if they wanted to stop the situation from escalating into violence.
The first thing that he realized was that they couldn’t allow the Umiak to discover the Loroi vessel, that would put the away team in mortal danger, negate their diplomatic gains and paint a huge target on their backs since they already collaborated with the Loroi, even if that was in a such a limited manner.
Selling the Loroi to the Umiak wasn’t an option either even if the sacrifice of the away team could be seen as acceptable. There was no guarantee that Matveyev would be spared in that scenario since the Umiak would automatically treat them with extreme suspicion just for the way they looked. Then there were the horror stories of the Orgus and the Loroi history that he had skimmed through, stories that if true meant a very nasty fate for anyone who worked against the Umiak, even if they turned coat later. No one liked a traitor even in space and he couldn’t tell if that was a good or a bad thing.
He glanced at Ensign Bessonov who looked back at him while shrugging, sighing he accessed the comm. systems from his console and begun a transmission towards the Loroi ship
“This is Captain Asteios of the Terran Scout ship Matveyev to the Loroi vessel. Mizol Torrimor Shadowcloud, you have recognized me and my crew as diplomatic representatives of the Terran Colonial Authority. I expect the treatment of my subordinates to reflect that while they are under your care. Commander Albert Summers, you and your team are now considered to be under a detached assignment to the Loroi Union, act accordingly at all times.” He closed the channel and cursed under his breath for having to leave four of his people in the hands of Loroi who themselves were stranded on a crippled ship.
“Navigations, ahead one third, get us to the coordinates I am about to send you.” He didn’t like it but he had to leave the away team, which included his second in command, behind as he would attempt to pursue a peaceful contact with the Umiak ship, hoping that feigning total ignorance of the Loroi and their crippled ship would be enough to keep everyone out of harm’s way. He knew that the first thing they had to do was get away from the Loroi ship and the various battle debris that floated about nearby.
He brought up the impromptu map of the asteroid field that the navigation’s system drew up when they traversed the field to get where they were. He vaguely remember an other, smaller opening between a few massive asteroids that had drawn his interest because of the interesting electromagnetic phenomena that permeated the numerous small asteroids that floated there. In any other situation he would have loved to get some samples and detailed readings of everything that happened throughout the asteroid field but for now using that curiosity as an excuse of them being there at the first place.
“Don’t scratch the ship Lieutenant.” Captain Asteios said as he sent the coordinates to the ship’s navigations officer, Lieutenant Lucas Martel.
“Sir, another transmission from the Umiak, same format as before but, there is something strange with it.” Ensign Bessonov reported with a tint of confusion in his voice.
“What do you mean?”
“The anti-malware system gives it the all clear but there is a lot of garbage when you look at it.”
“Is it still quarantined?”
“Yes sir.”
“Send it to me and where is Lieutenant Grant?”
“He has been raised and should be here in a minute.”
“Good.”
The Orgus had said that the Umiak like to send malware in their transmissions to any ship they communicated with, something that truth be told humans did as well, especially if the ships were of rival nations or corporations. In some particular cases even Scout corps ships were targeted by certain interest groups who wanted premium information about newly explored star systems. What the Orgus described however was far worse than that, the Orgus captain gave them plenty of second hand testaments of Orgus civilian and military ships that were knocked out of commission by Umiak malware alone. Everyone knew that those reports could be exaggerated stories or even Umiak designed psy-warfare aimed to disintegrate Orgus morale at the height of the invasion but they couldn’t take any risk in the situation they were in.
It was fortunate to say the least that every TCA ship had at least a couple of code experts, a necessity since no two operating systems of otherwise identical ships were the same. Unfortunately one of his was now trapped onboard the Loroi ship and the other had gone off to sleep when his shift had ended. Wanting to believe that he had at least a basic knowledge on such matters and begun to inspect the received Umiak transmission which was still in electronic quarantine.
The format was odd to say the least, odd but straightforward enough for the computer to play it without much of a delay. What was odd however was that there were a lot of electronic garbage riding on top of the audio and video data but the automatic anti-malware system didn’t pick anything up from. Having a bad feeling about this he checked the first Umiak transmission which looked clear at first but with some inspection also had similar garbage as well, there were fewer but they were still there. He cursed beneath his breath again, this time for not having his remaining code expert check everything before playing the first transmission.
He felt some relief when Lieutenant Grant, hastily dressed by the looks of it, rushed into the bridge and went straight to him.
“Sir?” The Lieutenant asked when he stood next to the captain’s seat.
“What do you think of this?” The captain asked as he pointed at the screen.
“It’s…odd…” The Lieutenant said as he tried to take in what he was seeing.
“The automatic system didn’t flag anything as suspicious.”
“The system doesn’t even know what this is sir. This looks like garbage but I fail to see why someone would transmit garbage at the first place.” The Lieutenant replied.
“Could it be some sort of corruption from the electromagnetic interference?”
“Our transmissions did suffer some corruption but nothing like this… did the Umiak transmission show any sign of deterioration like ours did?”
“No.” The Lieutenant went silent at that for a few moments.
“Sir, I would like to do a few things to enhance our system security just in case, if there was malware on the first transmission then the system may already be compromised.”
“By all means but we need to see what the Umiak sent regardless.”
“Yes sir.”
As the Lieutenant rushed to his post to relieve the ensign sitting there he couldn’t help but think of what to say about the human similarity with the Loroi. In the limiting time he had he couldn’t come up with anything else than feigning an utter and complete ignorance about it. The Umiak would certainly be at least skeptical of them just for the way they looked, to betray any form of contact or knowledge of the Loroi other than their telepathy would certainly worsen their position. The next thing he thought about was how to better explain why Matveyev was at the asteroid field at the first place at the moment of contact, with some more brainstorming his initial idea of examining the field itself was their best bet and truth be told the examination of unknown phenomena was a tertiary objective of their mission as well.
The one issue that should be hidden at all costs was the human telepathic immunity. It was obvious that they couldn’t have known about it without coming in contact with the Loroi themselves and as such it fell alongside with them feigning ignorance about the Loroi and their similarity. Thankfully no one but the Loroi was able to realize that this immunity existed at the first place. If things went smoothly this could be a peaceful first contact with the added baggage of the physical similarity of Humans and Loroi.
“Sir, you can open the transmission.” Lieutenant Grant informed him.
“Everything is clear with it?”
“I don’t know sir, it looks clear but I took some extra precautions with everything.”
Captain Asteios sighed at that, even with his limited knowledge he knew that there was no way to know if anything malicious was hidden in the Umiak transmission. Shaking his head in resignation he opened the data and a video begun playing on his screen.
“We humbly greet [Captain Asteios of the Terran Scout Ship Matveyev] in the name of [the Hierarchy]. Your non knowledge of our territorial borders is understandable. This servant of [the Hierarchy] ask if [Terran Colonial Authority/Humanity] is aware of the conflict between [the Hierarchy] and [the Loroi Union].”
He couldn’t say what was worse, the Umiak’s insectoid appearance or the clearly synthesized voice that overlapped the various clicks that obviously were Umiak’s untranslated speech; both seemed to make his skin crawl with equal measure but he pushed that feeling aside as he studied the Umiak, trying to see if there was some difference in his mannerism than what he saw at the first transmission. The first transmission was demanding and domineering while the second one was humble and understanding yet the Umiak didn’t show any apparent difference in its mannerisms.
Perhaps it was its appearance and completely alien nature or maybe the Umiak captain kept the same composure despite the difference in tone between the two messages. Looking at it the Umiak looked almost identical to the ones in the various records that the Orgus had with them, most of whom were ultimatums and demands for surrender that were widely broadcasted and circulated. The key difference that he could see was the tattoo that was etched on the left side of its exoskeletal forehead, if he could call it that.
Putting any thought of deciphering Umiak mannerisms aside he focused on what the message itself was. The first thing that came to mind was that the Umiak made no mention about the similarity between Humans and Loroi. Perhaps it tried to see if Humanity had made contact with the Loroi beforehand while also asking if they knew about the war at the first place. The way it immediately changed its tone into a humble greeting and understanding of the circumstances was probably intended to put them at ease in order to reveal more information about them. Hoping that this was what the Umiak wanted he decided to give them some info in order to get things move along.
“We have been informed about this war by a third party but what we heard was contradictory but nevertheless alarming. Our mission is to gather information and establish diplomatic contact with the combatants in order to understand what is happening. We temporarily strayed from our task in order to briefly examine this asteroid field and I am pleased to say that we finished our examination before you contacted us. In accordance to our orders I humbly request for you to escort us to a designated diplomatic authority of the Hierarchy in order to establish diplomatic contact. If this is impossible due to your orders then I humbly request for you to provide us with the information necessary in order to come into contact with that authority ourselves.” He smiled after reviewing everything and sending the message.
He thought it best not the mention the Orgus at this point, since they were refugees that fled Umiak occupation. The issue would probably surface later but at the moment it would just cause unnecessary friction and it was best not to disclose that fact just yet; having the Umiak guessing about what the humans knew and who had told them what, was also important and maybe it would help getting some more info out of the Umiak as well. The rest were their standing orders regarding the establishment of diplomatic contact with the proper authorities.
“Sir, the Umiak have sent us a reply!” Ensign Bessonov reported.
“That was quick; Lieutenant Grant?”
“Sir, it’s the same, lots of garbage on top of the audio and video.”
“Let’s see what they have to say.”
“Humbly we accept your request to escort you to the appropriate [Hierarchy] authorities. We find it necessary/appropriate to inform you that the nearest [Hierarchy] diplomatic delegate is 21 jumps away and as such we find it necessary/appropriate to ask you if you are capable to travel such a distance with your ship. If you are incapable we humbly offer to take some of you as passengers/guests so they may establish contact with [Hierarchy] diplomatic authorities.”
“They still haven’t said anything about our similarity with the Loroi…” Captain Asteios said outloud without thinking.
“There is no way that they don’t know how the Loroi look like after 25 years of war.” Lieutenant Martel commented.
“Which means that the Umiak chose not to say anything.”
“Sir, there is something weird going on with our communications systems.” Ensign Bessonov reported.
“Weird?”
“I suddenly got a number of weird glitches happening and…” The Ensign didn’t finish his sentence as Lieutenant Grant literally run to his station. “Make way.” The Lieutenant ordered and the Ensign
immediately stood aside.
“Lieutenant?” The Captain asked.
“Sir, I think we have been had.” The Lieutenant said with an alarmed voice. “I remembered reading a journal about the next gen attack malware that the various agencies are developing. One of the concepts that are been researched is to have the attack malware sent in pieces and then have it reassemble itself on the targeted computer systems. “
“The garbage?”
“That’s what reminded me of the journal sir and made me put up some software tripwires that the simulator jockeys use as insurance when they are against each other. Some of the tripwires got triggered but the anti malware system doesn’t detect them going off and… It’s saying that everything is normal but the tripwires keep getting triggered and… Shit, we have been had good!”
“What is it Lieutenant?”
“It’s the anti-malware suit of the communication system, it has been breached.”
“Are you certain lieutenant?”
“Sir, something is rewriting its functions as I am looking at it, we had made sure that all of our systems are isolated from each other with firewalls but I don’t know what this thing is yet, it may have spread elsewhere and…” The Lieutenant seemed perplexed as he examined something on the console.
“What is it?”
“Something is trying to get past the firewalls but everything is working as it should be and… yeah whatever this malware is, it is isolated on communications. I have isolated the system from the rest of the ship, it shouldn’t spread any further.” The Lieutenant reported. “If anyone sees any glitches then I want to know about them.”
“Will do, can you purge the comm. systems?”
“Yes sir, it shouldn’t take long to do a purge and have a clean installation… Wait, its trying to contact something off ship… sir its Umiak and it sent our location to them… no the location we were when we received the last Umiak transmission.”
“God damn it!” The malware, not asking about the obvious similarity of Humans and Loroi, immediately dropping the authoritarian tone and instantly accepting to escort them; it seemed too good to be true. “We have to assume that the Umiak intent on securing the ship by any means necessary in order to extract information from the computers and us.” He said with a forced steady voice. “We knew that this was a possibility…” The Captain shook his head and sighed. “But it hasn’t come down to that just yet. Lieutenant Grant can we use the internal comms?”
“No sir, it’s the same system.”
“Damn, how about the announcement system?”
“Wait a sec… yes it’s a different self contained system.” With that he quickly tapped in the necessary command.
“Attention all hands, our communication systems have been hacked by what looks to be an Umiak malware and has been locked down. All section leaders are to report to the bridge immediately.”
Chapter 11, part 2: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 069#p20069
“Sir, still no reply from the Loroi vessel, they have gone completely dark.” Ensign Evgeni Bessonov, this shift’s operation officer reported, shattering the silence that permeated the bridge.
“Damn, hail them again and tell them that we are not going to hand them over to the Umiak.”
“Yes, sir.”
With the Loroi going completely silent and an Umiak warship somehow detecting them inside the asteroid field it was safe to assume that the options open to them were bad, especially if they wanted to stop the situation from escalating into violence.
The first thing that he realized was that they couldn’t allow the Umiak to discover the Loroi vessel, that would put the away team in mortal danger, negate their diplomatic gains and paint a huge target on their backs since they already collaborated with the Loroi, even if that was in a such a limited manner.
Selling the Loroi to the Umiak wasn’t an option either even if the sacrifice of the away team could be seen as acceptable. There was no guarantee that Matveyev would be spared in that scenario since the Umiak would automatically treat them with extreme suspicion just for the way they looked. Then there were the horror stories of the Orgus and the Loroi history that he had skimmed through, stories that if true meant a very nasty fate for anyone who worked against the Umiak, even if they turned coat later. No one liked a traitor even in space and he couldn’t tell if that was a good or a bad thing.
He glanced at Ensign Bessonov who looked back at him while shrugging, sighing he accessed the comm. systems from his console and begun a transmission towards the Loroi ship
“This is Captain Asteios of the Terran Scout ship Matveyev to the Loroi vessel. Mizol Torrimor Shadowcloud, you have recognized me and my crew as diplomatic representatives of the Terran Colonial Authority. I expect the treatment of my subordinates to reflect that while they are under your care. Commander Albert Summers, you and your team are now considered to be under a detached assignment to the Loroi Union, act accordingly at all times.” He closed the channel and cursed under his breath for having to leave four of his people in the hands of Loroi who themselves were stranded on a crippled ship.
“Navigations, ahead one third, get us to the coordinates I am about to send you.” He didn’t like it but he had to leave the away team, which included his second in command, behind as he would attempt to pursue a peaceful contact with the Umiak ship, hoping that feigning total ignorance of the Loroi and their crippled ship would be enough to keep everyone out of harm’s way. He knew that the first thing they had to do was get away from the Loroi ship and the various battle debris that floated about nearby.
He brought up the impromptu map of the asteroid field that the navigation’s system drew up when they traversed the field to get where they were. He vaguely remember an other, smaller opening between a few massive asteroids that had drawn his interest because of the interesting electromagnetic phenomena that permeated the numerous small asteroids that floated there. In any other situation he would have loved to get some samples and detailed readings of everything that happened throughout the asteroid field but for now using that curiosity as an excuse of them being there at the first place.
“Don’t scratch the ship Lieutenant.” Captain Asteios said as he sent the coordinates to the ship’s navigations officer, Lieutenant Lucas Martel.
“Sir, another transmission from the Umiak, same format as before but, there is something strange with it.” Ensign Bessonov reported with a tint of confusion in his voice.
“What do you mean?”
“The anti-malware system gives it the all clear but there is a lot of garbage when you look at it.”
“Is it still quarantined?”
“Yes sir.”
“Send it to me and where is Lieutenant Grant?”
“He has been raised and should be here in a minute.”
“Good.”
The Orgus had said that the Umiak like to send malware in their transmissions to any ship they communicated with, something that truth be told humans did as well, especially if the ships were of rival nations or corporations. In some particular cases even Scout corps ships were targeted by certain interest groups who wanted premium information about newly explored star systems. What the Orgus described however was far worse than that, the Orgus captain gave them plenty of second hand testaments of Orgus civilian and military ships that were knocked out of commission by Umiak malware alone. Everyone knew that those reports could be exaggerated stories or even Umiak designed psy-warfare aimed to disintegrate Orgus morale at the height of the invasion but they couldn’t take any risk in the situation they were in.
It was fortunate to say the least that every TCA ship had at least a couple of code experts, a necessity since no two operating systems of otherwise identical ships were the same. Unfortunately one of his was now trapped onboard the Loroi ship and the other had gone off to sleep when his shift had ended. Wanting to believe that he had at least a basic knowledge on such matters and begun to inspect the received Umiak transmission which was still in electronic quarantine.
The format was odd to say the least, odd but straightforward enough for the computer to play it without much of a delay. What was odd however was that there were a lot of electronic garbage riding on top of the audio and video data but the automatic anti-malware system didn’t pick anything up from. Having a bad feeling about this he checked the first Umiak transmission which looked clear at first but with some inspection also had similar garbage as well, there were fewer but they were still there. He cursed beneath his breath again, this time for not having his remaining code expert check everything before playing the first transmission.
He felt some relief when Lieutenant Grant, hastily dressed by the looks of it, rushed into the bridge and went straight to him.
“Sir?” The Lieutenant asked when he stood next to the captain’s seat.
“What do you think of this?” The captain asked as he pointed at the screen.
“It’s…odd…” The Lieutenant said as he tried to take in what he was seeing.
“The automatic system didn’t flag anything as suspicious.”
“The system doesn’t even know what this is sir. This looks like garbage but I fail to see why someone would transmit garbage at the first place.” The Lieutenant replied.
“Could it be some sort of corruption from the electromagnetic interference?”
“Our transmissions did suffer some corruption but nothing like this… did the Umiak transmission show any sign of deterioration like ours did?”
“No.” The Lieutenant went silent at that for a few moments.
“Sir, I would like to do a few things to enhance our system security just in case, if there was malware on the first transmission then the system may already be compromised.”
“By all means but we need to see what the Umiak sent regardless.”
“Yes sir.”
As the Lieutenant rushed to his post to relieve the ensign sitting there he couldn’t help but think of what to say about the human similarity with the Loroi. In the limiting time he had he couldn’t come up with anything else than feigning an utter and complete ignorance about it. The Umiak would certainly be at least skeptical of them just for the way they looked, to betray any form of contact or knowledge of the Loroi other than their telepathy would certainly worsen their position. The next thing he thought about was how to better explain why Matveyev was at the asteroid field at the first place at the moment of contact, with some more brainstorming his initial idea of examining the field itself was their best bet and truth be told the examination of unknown phenomena was a tertiary objective of their mission as well.
The one issue that should be hidden at all costs was the human telepathic immunity. It was obvious that they couldn’t have known about it without coming in contact with the Loroi themselves and as such it fell alongside with them feigning ignorance about the Loroi and their similarity. Thankfully no one but the Loroi was able to realize that this immunity existed at the first place. If things went smoothly this could be a peaceful first contact with the added baggage of the physical similarity of Humans and Loroi.
“Sir, you can open the transmission.” Lieutenant Grant informed him.
“Everything is clear with it?”
“I don’t know sir, it looks clear but I took some extra precautions with everything.”
Captain Asteios sighed at that, even with his limited knowledge he knew that there was no way to know if anything malicious was hidden in the Umiak transmission. Shaking his head in resignation he opened the data and a video begun playing on his screen.
“We humbly greet [Captain Asteios of the Terran Scout Ship Matveyev] in the name of [the Hierarchy]. Your non knowledge of our territorial borders is understandable. This servant of [the Hierarchy] ask if [Terran Colonial Authority/Humanity] is aware of the conflict between [the Hierarchy] and [the Loroi Union].”
He couldn’t say what was worse, the Umiak’s insectoid appearance or the clearly synthesized voice that overlapped the various clicks that obviously were Umiak’s untranslated speech; both seemed to make his skin crawl with equal measure but he pushed that feeling aside as he studied the Umiak, trying to see if there was some difference in his mannerism than what he saw at the first transmission. The first transmission was demanding and domineering while the second one was humble and understanding yet the Umiak didn’t show any apparent difference in its mannerisms.
Perhaps it was its appearance and completely alien nature or maybe the Umiak captain kept the same composure despite the difference in tone between the two messages. Looking at it the Umiak looked almost identical to the ones in the various records that the Orgus had with them, most of whom were ultimatums and demands for surrender that were widely broadcasted and circulated. The key difference that he could see was the tattoo that was etched on the left side of its exoskeletal forehead, if he could call it that.
Putting any thought of deciphering Umiak mannerisms aside he focused on what the message itself was. The first thing that came to mind was that the Umiak made no mention about the similarity between Humans and Loroi. Perhaps it tried to see if Humanity had made contact with the Loroi beforehand while also asking if they knew about the war at the first place. The way it immediately changed its tone into a humble greeting and understanding of the circumstances was probably intended to put them at ease in order to reveal more information about them. Hoping that this was what the Umiak wanted he decided to give them some info in order to get things move along.
“We have been informed about this war by a third party but what we heard was contradictory but nevertheless alarming. Our mission is to gather information and establish diplomatic contact with the combatants in order to understand what is happening. We temporarily strayed from our task in order to briefly examine this asteroid field and I am pleased to say that we finished our examination before you contacted us. In accordance to our orders I humbly request for you to escort us to a designated diplomatic authority of the Hierarchy in order to establish diplomatic contact. If this is impossible due to your orders then I humbly request for you to provide us with the information necessary in order to come into contact with that authority ourselves.” He smiled after reviewing everything and sending the message.
He thought it best not the mention the Orgus at this point, since they were refugees that fled Umiak occupation. The issue would probably surface later but at the moment it would just cause unnecessary friction and it was best not to disclose that fact just yet; having the Umiak guessing about what the humans knew and who had told them what, was also important and maybe it would help getting some more info out of the Umiak as well. The rest were their standing orders regarding the establishment of diplomatic contact with the proper authorities.
“Sir, the Umiak have sent us a reply!” Ensign Bessonov reported.
“That was quick; Lieutenant Grant?”
“Sir, it’s the same, lots of garbage on top of the audio and video.”
“Let’s see what they have to say.”
“Humbly we accept your request to escort you to the appropriate [Hierarchy] authorities. We find it necessary/appropriate to inform you that the nearest [Hierarchy] diplomatic delegate is 21 jumps away and as such we find it necessary/appropriate to ask you if you are capable to travel such a distance with your ship. If you are incapable we humbly offer to take some of you as passengers/guests so they may establish contact with [Hierarchy] diplomatic authorities.”
“They still haven’t said anything about our similarity with the Loroi…” Captain Asteios said outloud without thinking.
“There is no way that they don’t know how the Loroi look like after 25 years of war.” Lieutenant Martel commented.
“Which means that the Umiak chose not to say anything.”
“Sir, there is something weird going on with our communications systems.” Ensign Bessonov reported.
“Weird?”
“I suddenly got a number of weird glitches happening and…” The Ensign didn’t finish his sentence as Lieutenant Grant literally run to his station. “Make way.” The Lieutenant ordered and the Ensign
immediately stood aside.
“Lieutenant?” The Captain asked.
“Sir, I think we have been had.” The Lieutenant said with an alarmed voice. “I remembered reading a journal about the next gen attack malware that the various agencies are developing. One of the concepts that are been researched is to have the attack malware sent in pieces and then have it reassemble itself on the targeted computer systems. “
“The garbage?”
“That’s what reminded me of the journal sir and made me put up some software tripwires that the simulator jockeys use as insurance when they are against each other. Some of the tripwires got triggered but the anti malware system doesn’t detect them going off and… It’s saying that everything is normal but the tripwires keep getting triggered and… Shit, we have been had good!”
“What is it Lieutenant?”
“It’s the anti-malware suit of the communication system, it has been breached.”
“Are you certain lieutenant?”
“Sir, something is rewriting its functions as I am looking at it, we had made sure that all of our systems are isolated from each other with firewalls but I don’t know what this thing is yet, it may have spread elsewhere and…” The Lieutenant seemed perplexed as he examined something on the console.
“What is it?”
“Something is trying to get past the firewalls but everything is working as it should be and… yeah whatever this malware is, it is isolated on communications. I have isolated the system from the rest of the ship, it shouldn’t spread any further.” The Lieutenant reported. “If anyone sees any glitches then I want to know about them.”
“Will do, can you purge the comm. systems?”
“Yes sir, it shouldn’t take long to do a purge and have a clean installation… Wait, its trying to contact something off ship… sir its Umiak and it sent our location to them… no the location we were when we received the last Umiak transmission.”
“God damn it!” The malware, not asking about the obvious similarity of Humans and Loroi, immediately dropping the authoritarian tone and instantly accepting to escort them; it seemed too good to be true. “We have to assume that the Umiak intent on securing the ship by any means necessary in order to extract information from the computers and us.” He said with a forced steady voice. “We knew that this was a possibility…” The Captain shook his head and sighed. “But it hasn’t come down to that just yet. Lieutenant Grant can we use the internal comms?”
“No sir, it’s the same system.”
“Damn, how about the announcement system?”
“Wait a sec… yes it’s a different self contained system.” With that he quickly tapped in the necessary command.
“Attention all hands, our communication systems have been hacked by what looks to be an Umiak malware and has been locked down. All section leaders are to report to the bridge immediately.”
Chapter 11, part 2: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 069#p20069
Last edited by Guest on Sun Sep 06, 2015 5:48 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
After a really weird hiatus, which was split between RL stuff and rewrites, here is the first part of chapter 11.
Before anyone asks, the next POV is Umiak again for a reason.
Before anyone asks, the next POV is Umiak again for a reason.
Last edited by Guest on Fri Aug 14, 2015 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Vacation over? Nice to see an update. 
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Not exactly a vacation although it looks and feels like one 
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Jack Rabbit
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:23 am
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
I wonder if the umiak will try to storm the ship or if they remove the malware.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Have the colonial fleet learned nothing from the Cylons?! 
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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Ouch.
But honestly, from my point of view, this is so extremely umlikely to happen.... Something like this can be dismissed as possible. Your story just lost much of its allure to me.
Software cannot alter itself to run better om other system architectures if it's not running yet.
There are so extremely many software architectures alone on Earth, that it is extremely hard to find out what is running where to be able to efficiently hack in. Best chances are with the widespread systems and simply run an attack for that, and have the attack fail when Linux is running on the targeted system.
And if you don't know your opponent at all, how can you know how his software and physical architecture works?
On Earth we have plenty Intel systems, with plenty different software architectures. Malware written for one does not run on other software architectures. And it's still the same physical system backing. But when the physical system changes to a completely different basis, all connections are lost.
Even for hardware malware (BIOS, controlling chips, ...) you need to know what the hardware system is.
And the simplest solution when "interpreting video and audio data" with garbage is: ignore garbage and load only video/audio data to play. The ignored data can only be used if you achieve buffer overflow errors, and for that, once again, you need to have exact knowledge of the software architecture (is the video software susceptible to overflow errors? (if yes, how?), will the system architecture misinterpret such data as commands? (if yes, how can this be triggered?), which commands make the hardware system do what you desire to achieve?).
Software snippets don't start running by themselves, they need to be started by some command.
It's the same reason where StarTrek always fails: everyone there is capable of operating systems of first contact aliens, without knowledge of their written language, knowledge of systems, ...
Just remember how Scotty programmed the formula for Aluminium-glass into PC's of the Eighties...(link)
I have pretty good knowledge of PC's of that time, and it would likely take me hours to find out how to construct a cylinder in the CAD software of back then,....
And I know plenty of engineers who would not be able to work with MS-DOS... Or chemical formula programs,...
Dang.
I'm still curious to see where your story goes....Plot point complained about, so I won't have the need to say more about it. Looking foreard to the next part...
But honestly, from my point of view, this is so extremely umlikely to happen.... Something like this can be dismissed as possible. Your story just lost much of its allure to me.
Software cannot alter itself to run better om other system architectures if it's not running yet.
There are so extremely many software architectures alone on Earth, that it is extremely hard to find out what is running where to be able to efficiently hack in. Best chances are with the widespread systems and simply run an attack for that, and have the attack fail when Linux is running on the targeted system.
And if you don't know your opponent at all, how can you know how his software and physical architecture works?
On Earth we have plenty Intel systems, with plenty different software architectures. Malware written for one does not run on other software architectures. And it's still the same physical system backing. But when the physical system changes to a completely different basis, all connections are lost.
Even for hardware malware (BIOS, controlling chips, ...) you need to know what the hardware system is.
And the simplest solution when "interpreting video and audio data" with garbage is: ignore garbage and load only video/audio data to play. The ignored data can only be used if you achieve buffer overflow errors, and for that, once again, you need to have exact knowledge of the software architecture (is the video software susceptible to overflow errors? (if yes, how?), will the system architecture misinterpret such data as commands? (if yes, how can this be triggered?), which commands make the hardware system do what you desire to achieve?).
Software snippets don't start running by themselves, they need to be started by some command.
It's the same reason where StarTrek always fails: everyone there is capable of operating systems of first contact aliens, without knowledge of their written language, knowledge of systems, ...
Just remember how Scotty programmed the formula for Aluminium-glass into PC's of the Eighties...(link)
I have pretty good knowledge of PC's of that time, and it would likely take me hours to find out how to construct a cylinder in the CAD software of back then,....
And I know plenty of engineers who would not be able to work with MS-DOS... Or chemical formula programs,...
Dang.
I'm still curious to see where your story goes....Plot point complained about, so I won't have the need to say more about it. Looking foreard to the next part...
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
The problem with that view is that it is predicated on computers working the same in the 2150's as they do today and that Umiak programming has the same limitations we do.
Let us suppose for a moment that there are hard physical limits to computation. If your hardware architecture is constrained by the laws of physics, then there are only so many ways that you can build a computer advanced enough to run your ship. This would mean that certain aspects of computational design are convergent based on these physical limitations, therefore constraining what code you could use thus limiting the variables, and would mean that viral infections could spread if programmed well enough. Let us further suppose that computer programming also advances as time goes by. Programming today is fairly rigid, but even we have both metamorphic and polymorphic code.
Couple these two things together, plus the likelihood that the Umiak threw thousands of recombinant viruses at the Terran computers to see what would stick, and the likelihood that something could slip through becomes more probable. Add to this that the Umiak are more advanced technologically, and it's not too far fetched.
Let us suppose for a moment that there are hard physical limits to computation. If your hardware architecture is constrained by the laws of physics, then there are only so many ways that you can build a computer advanced enough to run your ship. This would mean that certain aspects of computational design are convergent based on these physical limitations, therefore constraining what code you could use thus limiting the variables, and would mean that viral infections could spread if programmed well enough. Let us further suppose that computer programming also advances as time goes by. Programming today is fairly rigid, but even we have both metamorphic and polymorphic code.
Couple these two things together, plus the likelihood that the Umiak threw thousands of recombinant viruses at the Terran computers to see what would stick, and the likelihood that something could slip through becomes more probable. Add to this that the Umiak are more advanced technologically, and it's not too far fetched.
SpoilerShow
This is my Mod voice. If you see this in a thread, it means that the time for gentle reminders has passed.
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dragoongfa
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- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
I was thinking of this myself to be honest (50% of the re-writes are directly attributed to this), the problem from a storytelling perceptive was plausibility when taking into account current technological constraints/predictions vs the near certain possibility of radical changes in software and hardware development in the future.
To put it bluntly every last prediction that was made in the past regarding future computers and their software has been proven woefully inadequate, computer sciences jump ahead far faster than any other technological field. Just from the raw power perceptive the computers of today are leaps and bounds more capable than the computers a decade ago and will be far behind from the computers in ten years time.
20 to 30 years ago multi-threading was considered impossible from a programmer's perceptive yet here we are with multi core computers and programs that use such capabilities on their fullest extent. The same thing happened when 32bit programming came into the fray, no one believed that we would reach its RAM limit so quickly yet we did and had to jump to 64bit programming to use more RAM. Both of these changes that happened in the past decade alone were considered to be far fetched dreams 20 years ago, yet they did happen.
Computer sciences are ever evolving and in the end I had to take into account the seemingly impossible changes that occurred in the past, are occurring now and will keep occurring in the future. The story is placed in 2160, with the leaps and bounds that computers and their software are progressing it is certain that Matveyev's computer network alone to be stronger that the entire computing strength of modern day Earth, the software that runs on such a future network may seem as impossible/improbable to us as the Windows OS would be to the programmers of ENIAC back in 1943.
In the end I had to concede that magic does exists and we are using it right now to comment about a fan-fiction story that is centered around a small web-comic. If you think that this isn't 'magical' then imagine having to explain modern day computers and all of their applications to a 1915 scientist, not the average joe but a very intelligent scientist. I am not much of computer expert but I am certain that a 2160 machine will look like magic to me in the same way the 2015 machine will look to a 1915 average joe. The Umiak machines on the other hand?
Those are at least a tech level ahead of their 2160 human equivalents, had contact with many space faring civilizations of varying tech levels, including the captured machines of a tech level 12 species that have developed true artificial intelligence (and had historically meddled with many more species themselves).
Closing, I have to say that self learning programming is something that is already happening and is widely used in an every day fashion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning
EDIT: Razor One covered something that I forgot to mention: The physical limitations of computing, as he put it there is only so much that can be physically done to make the ground work of a computer work. In the end all modern computers work with the binary system and everything else is built on that system. Currently it is considered impossible to have a computer that is not based on binary, as I said above no one knows what the future of programming may be (especially the ones who are supposed to predict it) but if this limitation is to remain true then all computers of all species will have to work in binary at their basest levels.
To put it bluntly every last prediction that was made in the past regarding future computers and their software has been proven woefully inadequate, computer sciences jump ahead far faster than any other technological field. Just from the raw power perceptive the computers of today are leaps and bounds more capable than the computers a decade ago and will be far behind from the computers in ten years time.
20 to 30 years ago multi-threading was considered impossible from a programmer's perceptive yet here we are with multi core computers and programs that use such capabilities on their fullest extent. The same thing happened when 32bit programming came into the fray, no one believed that we would reach its RAM limit so quickly yet we did and had to jump to 64bit programming to use more RAM. Both of these changes that happened in the past decade alone were considered to be far fetched dreams 20 years ago, yet they did happen.
Computer sciences are ever evolving and in the end I had to take into account the seemingly impossible changes that occurred in the past, are occurring now and will keep occurring in the future. The story is placed in 2160, with the leaps and bounds that computers and their software are progressing it is certain that Matveyev's computer network alone to be stronger that the entire computing strength of modern day Earth, the software that runs on such a future network may seem as impossible/improbable to us as the Windows OS would be to the programmers of ENIAC back in 1943.
In the end I had to concede that magic does exists and we are using it right now to comment about a fan-fiction story that is centered around a small web-comic. If you think that this isn't 'magical' then imagine having to explain modern day computers and all of their applications to a 1915 scientist, not the average joe but a very intelligent scientist. I am not much of computer expert but I am certain that a 2160 machine will look like magic to me in the same way the 2015 machine will look to a 1915 average joe. The Umiak machines on the other hand?
Those are at least a tech level ahead of their 2160 human equivalents, had contact with many space faring civilizations of varying tech levels, including the captured machines of a tech level 12 species that have developed true artificial intelligence (and had historically meddled with many more species themselves).
Closing, I have to say that self learning programming is something that is already happening and is widely used in an every day fashion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning
EDIT: Razor One covered something that I forgot to mention: The physical limitations of computing, as he put it there is only so much that can be physically done to make the ground work of a computer work. In the end all modern computers work with the binary system and everything else is built on that system. Currently it is considered impossible to have a computer that is not based on binary, as I said above no one knows what the future of programming may be (especially the ones who are supposed to predict it) but if this limitation is to remain true then all computers of all species will have to work in binary at their basest levels.
Last edited by Guest on Fri Aug 14, 2015 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
I agree with Dragoongfa, just because it's difficult or impossible for us doesn't mean it would to a species tech levels above us. With computers and software evolving the fastest out of all technologies, and them being like 200 or 300 years above us technology-wise at that point in the story, saying that infecting the terran ship with a complex virus is impossible seems a bit naive, no offence intended.
Very interesting piece Dragoongfa, the umiak are showing their true colours now, looking forward to the rest.
Very interesting piece Dragoongfa, the umiak are showing their true colours now, looking forward to the rest.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Don't forget about abstraction layers. right now we are running 3-4 layers of abstraction before the code hits the hardware. I can easily see a future where we have 128bit memory address spaces, utilizing some sort of memory management system that automatically converts memory addressing to achieve the fastest possible speed.
Also it is currently possible with today's hardware. to take a modern x86 Cpu, and using software VM's, to run Mac OS System 7 6800 code and play system 7 games. How is by running a PPC emulator on top of the X86, and then running a 6800 emulator on top of the PPC emulator, with approbate system steps along the way.
Another century and we can double or triple layer that, with all sorts of random complexities thrown in.
Also it is currently possible with today's hardware. to take a modern x86 Cpu, and using software VM's, to run Mac OS System 7 6800 code and play system 7 games. How is by running a PPC emulator on top of the X86, and then running a 6800 emulator on top of the PPC emulator, with approbate system steps along the way.
Another century and we can double or triple layer that, with all sorts of random complexities thrown in.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
So the infection is only in the communications system? Maybe communication systems are supposed to follow some kind of standard in the region? Unless you intend for the infection to spread to other systems there is an easy way out there. The Orgus informed about the standard communication system that they would need to have to be able to even let their computers have an handshake with those alien computers. The plus side is that their computers can talk with the foreign ones to trade data with them, like speech and real time visuals. The downside is the risk of attracting malware. That is what firewalls are for. Their firewalls just are to weak. They should ask the loroi for a patch.
If you go this path then they should have their old and incompatible communication system around as well and just need to hook it up. Other systems are, hopefully immune due to incompatibility. Besides Matveyev should count as a military ship and as such have extra precautions. The easily hacked Orgus ships where probably civilian.
If you go this path then they should have their old and incompatible communication system around as well and just need to hook it up. Other systems are, hopefully immune due to incompatibility. Besides Matveyev should count as a military ship and as such have extra precautions. The easily hacked Orgus ships where probably civilian.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
The issue is not the hardware.
The issue is the software.
non-live Communication usually does not include the computers doing a handshake beyond (here I am, this is my maximum communication speed). The data shared is video and audio only, and that must be according to a standardized protocol.
Self-programming software still needs preliminary abilities to run commands. If the software is not run, as no command gave it a start, nothing will happen. To run legacy programs we need tomi stall interpreters converting the commands into modern commands. And anOne working on those emulators will tell you how hard it is to make them run correctly for all programs. I do use dosbox a lot, and while it's very good, it still won't run some of my old programs...
And why would you install a command-interpreter to run unknown code on security snsitive machines (like any military machine)? If you need a certain application in such an environment, it will be proammed specifically for the systems there, and will not use a command interpreter (emulator).
Tri-state diodes, and computers using those, exist, albeit it currently only for research purposes....
Anyway, many SciFi stories use programs like this, and from a story telling point I will accept them, although it is hard work to make software written on and for apple systems also run on windows systems, I cannot fathm anything that would make apple programs run on unknown target systems. The way our hardware implements commands already separates windows, linux, and apple systems, although the hardware below is compatible/the same (for cost efficiency reasons, apple desktop computers use Intel hardware, the same as you can buy for using windows, just one small extra chip will allow apple OS to install on such systems, as apple OS will check presence of this chip during installation). Running unknown commands.... You need buffer overflow errors for that, and that is hard to do if you know the target system in detail. Software without hardware running it will do nothing.
Anyway, this is a storypoint for the Humans to disclose where they've been, and for the Umiak to act on it, as they can see quite a few "Humans" over there, and will interpret the Matveyev as being an unmanned drone (their device does not detect lifesigns on the Matveyev) they can shoot down to prevent getting inbetween their Loroi targets and a drone manipulated by them and possibly militaristic in nature...
The issue is the software.
non-live Communication usually does not include the computers doing a handshake beyond (here I am, this is my maximum communication speed). The data shared is video and audio only, and that must be according to a standardized protocol.
Self-programming software still needs preliminary abilities to run commands. If the software is not run, as no command gave it a start, nothing will happen. To run legacy programs we need tomi stall interpreters converting the commands into modern commands. And anOne working on those emulators will tell you how hard it is to make them run correctly for all programs. I do use dosbox a lot, and while it's very good, it still won't run some of my old programs...
And why would you install a command-interpreter to run unknown code on security snsitive machines (like any military machine)? If you need a certain application in such an environment, it will be proammed specifically for the systems there, and will not use a command interpreter (emulator).
Tri-state diodes, and computers using those, exist, albeit it currently only for research purposes....
Anyway, many SciFi stories use programs like this, and from a story telling point I will accept them, although it is hard work to make software written on and for apple systems also run on windows systems, I cannot fathm anything that would make apple programs run on unknown target systems. The way our hardware implements commands already separates windows, linux, and apple systems, although the hardware below is compatible/the same (for cost efficiency reasons, apple desktop computers use Intel hardware, the same as you can buy for using windows, just one small extra chip will allow apple OS to install on such systems, as apple OS will check presence of this chip during installation). Running unknown commands.... You need buffer overflow errors for that, and that is hard to do if you know the target system in detail. Software without hardware running it will do nothing.
Anyway, this is a storypoint for the Humans to disclose where they've been, and for the Umiak to act on it, as they can see quite a few "Humans" over there, and will interpret the Matveyev as being an unmanned drone (their device does not detect lifesigns on the Matveyev) they can shoot down to prevent getting inbetween their Loroi targets and a drone manipulated by them and possibly militaristic in nature...
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
You are forgetting something crucial
EDIT: Here is a hint
EDIT: Here is a hint
SpoilerShow
This is the third first contact for the humans.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Oh, I was just speculating to bring the topic closer to what it should be.
Obviously the Umiak will treat them as deceiving devices created by the Loroi...
We'll see what comes... Surprise us!
Obviously the Umiak will treat them as deceiving devices created by the Loroi...
We'll see what comes... Surprise us!
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Looking forward to the next chapter!
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Chapter 11, part 2
The ridiculous humaniti attempt at tricking him would be laughable if it wasn’t so aggravating. Their farseer couldn’t see them and certainly it couldn’t send a call for help, so why would they pretend to be at ease and ask for an escort in order to make diplomatic contact? It had been plainly obvious from the beginning that they wanted to confuse him and buy time in order to find a way to bypass the device.
It shamed him that this realization came to him as an afterthought after having already decided on a course of action because he really didn’t have any other choice than to capture the humaniti ship due to their farseer. They already knew about the device’s functions and as such they couldn’t be allowed to escape or somehow bypass the device and alert their kind, possibly even the Enemy about the device.
It had been part of his briefing when he was suddenly assigned this patrol route; that the device had to be kept a secret as long as possible even if that meant sacrificing the entire ship to do that. Remembering how he had found it odd that the ship was ordered to proceed for a small refit in order to have a new device installed on it, it was rare but not unheard off to have new equipment installed on active duty ships but he never believed that a new long range patrol ship would receive any kind of new equipment at its lifespan. It was when he, and other captains like him, were briefed about this new device that everything fell into place. The new device gave their ships the Enemy’s farsense ability with the added benefit of being able to hide themselves from the enemy’s own farseers while also being able to mute them. They all knew that the device was alive, egoistical and temperamental but several safety nets had been put into place to ensure its loyalty to the Hierarchy even if that was nothing like what they as Umiak felt to it. The device had its shortcomings of course; it had to be connected with its operator in order to hide the ship, keeping the Enemy farseer’s from contacting it and mute them. In order to do that the operators had to go through extensive genetic and cybernetic modifications that made them unrecognizable but this was something that had to be done, even if that made them look alien to the eyes of fools who gave them names filled with a vibrating "r" to highlight their otherness. Despite everything they were still Umiak, their loyalty ensured due to this simple fact. This connection took its toll on the operators but as true Umiak they didn’t complain, even if they were driven to extreme pain due to the combination of the jump sickness and the connection feedback.
The other major drawback of the device was how limited its farsense was when compared with the Enemy, not only did it have a smaller range but also it couldn’t pinpoint the location of anything that got close enough to the ship which was the reason that he had to rely on the attack software that took roost in the humaniti ship to send them its coordinates.
Sending this kind of attack software was risky considering that he didn’t know if humaniti had even come in contact with another species before them, how much a species that didn’t had safeties in place for this kind of attack. The idea behind it was simple and only the Hierarchy managed to exploit the weakness that every system had when its programmers adopted alien programs into it and such adoptions were routine among space faring species, especially for navigation and communications systems which needed intimate knowledge of alien routines and procedures in order to be of proper use. He didn’t know how it worked exactly but the specialists assured him that as long as someone had adopted a known program into their system then that system, no matter how alien it may be, could be breached by this kind of attack software, provided that precautions for such kind of an intrusion weren’t put in place. To their admittance humaniti had come in contact with someone and that was all that was needed for the software to do what it was designed to do.
The risk he had taken wasn’t just that however, before he had sent the software he failed to measure humaniti’s tech level, a fact that could mean the success or failure in his mission to capture the humaniti ship. It shamed him that he only realized this omission after the software had been sent but he felt relief when the software first reported back, describing an operating system that run on equipment of a lower tech level and unique in its way of doing things; not only that, the tech specialists he commanded humbly asked to be allowed to study that system in detail which was unusual to say the least. He couldn’t know what they saw into it but he intended to capture the ship with as little damage as possible and he had already ordered the Hard-troops accordingly.
Despite the foothold that the attack software had, thanks to the contact humaniti had, the software failed at fully infiltrating the humaniti systems and was already detected, causing the aliens to go completely silent in their communications and attempt to combat the intrusion in their systems. It wouldn’t be so easy for them to do that however, the software had embedded itself deeply and was still sparingly sending reports of its progress and the position of the humaniti ship. It wasn’t enough to catch up to them as they tried to evade them but that was only delaying the inevitable.
The humaniti had no way out, they couldn’t be properly detected by the device while they were still nearby but if by any chance they opened the distance by leaving the asteroid field, then the device would be able to detect them and the ship’s superior acceleration would be enough to catch up to them and capture them, provided that the Humaniti ship didn’t self destruct.
Thankfully there soon was a breakthrough by the attack software and after several attempts it reported that it finally infiltrated the alien navigation systems, embedded itself upon them and was standing by for orders. With a triumphant feeling and humble appreciation to the ones who programmed it, he ordered it to bring the Humaniti ship to a halt, finally bringing this silly game to an end.
He quickly ordered for the ship to be brought about and quickly close in to the location that the software had just send. It didn’t take long to get close to them now that they didn’t have to contend with the numerous asteroid that had to be avoided, the electromagnetic interference and the infrequent reports by the attack software.
He wasn’t surprised to find it inside one of the smaller openings of the asteroid field, an opening that was littered with numerous small asteroids that just floated around, forming a small cloud of shorts that was caught between the feint gravity fields of the bigger ones around them while letting out a wide range of electromagnetic emissions. The humaniti captain obviously used such openings in order to hide his ship from them during the chase and by doing so he had managed to nullify their numerous scans, thus forcing them to rely solely on the software reports for the location of the humaniti ship.
The ship itself was red with white markings and looked a lot like a fish with a fat, oversized tail where its primitive fusion engines were. It looked nothing like the Enemy’s ships or the various divergent Hierarchy designs he had seen in the past. It was small, small enough to warrant the 93 crew members that the device reported and it didn’t have anything threatening for weapons. Just a small laser turret and two missile launchers which almost certainly carried fusion type missiles, too slow to be a threat even from such a close distance. The last thing that became obvious was that the Humaniti didn’t have defensive screens as their ship completely lacked the necessary emitters.
With the ship’s unique profile, its small size and low acceleration his hypothesis on how they evaded them for so long solidified. They should be able to fly between the small asteroid clouds that were scattered throughout the whole tightly packed field, something that not only made detection through basic sensors impossible without a direct line of sight but also offered paths that his ship couldn’t follow due to its size.
Doing a quick calculation he decided to slowly approach the ship, pushing the small asteroids aside with his ship’s size and armor instead of using the plasma focus weapons in order to clear their way. The fuel that would be spent for so many repeated firings would be too much and they would have to be refueled on their way to the appropriate facilities after capturing and taking everything that they could from the alien ship. He didn’t want to go through all that, mainly because of the high possibility of a information leak during the refueling. With the decision made he ordered his ship slowly forward, pushing aside the first small asteroids that were on its way.
It was when the ship was among the small asteroids that he saw an unexpected reaction from several of the asteroids which just begun to move on their own and slowly approached the ship. Trying to understand what was happening he first thought that the electromagnetic properties of the ship’s screens somehow attracted the small asteroids like a magnet would. There weren’t many of them, barely a few dozens, while their speed and size made them harmless against the ship’s armor. Glancing at the humaniti ship he saw that it did have some grazes and bumps on its hull as well which meant that screens alone weren’t the only thing that attracted the asteroids. Perhaps the asteroids in question were magnetic themselves and thus would be attracted to the ship and several of its systems regardless.
A small alert flashed on his screen as a sizable asteroid begun moving towards the ship. It wasn’t big enough to be a threat but the ship’s systems estimated that the probability of it straining the armor at the place it would hit wasn’t negligible. Without thinking he targeted it and gave the order for the asteroid to be destroyed. A singly plasma focus shot flashed out and disintegrated the asteroid in an instant. He quickly checked for others such asteroids in the immediate vicinity but they all were idle or too slow to catch up with the ship as it passed by them.
As they finally drew close enough to the Humaniti ship he marked the lone laser turret as a target and gave the order for it to be destroyed should it come online, the ship’s armor was more than enough to nullify its power but the shuttles would be in danger should it fire at them. After preparing himself, and before giving the order to launch the shuttles, he opened up a communication channel to the alien ship, hoping that it would be enough to deter them from resisting although he knew from experience that this rarely was the case.
“Regretfully and under the laws of the Hierarchy you and your ship are hereby seized according to the non neutrality edict. There is no hope for you; your farsensing capabilities have been nullified and you can’t alert anyone. Surrender yourselves and your ship peacefully and the Hierarchy will treat you kindly, resist and you will be treated accordingly.”
Chapter 11, part 3: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 135#p20135
The ridiculous humaniti attempt at tricking him would be laughable if it wasn’t so aggravating. Their farseer couldn’t see them and certainly it couldn’t send a call for help, so why would they pretend to be at ease and ask for an escort in order to make diplomatic contact? It had been plainly obvious from the beginning that they wanted to confuse him and buy time in order to find a way to bypass the device.
It shamed him that this realization came to him as an afterthought after having already decided on a course of action because he really didn’t have any other choice than to capture the humaniti ship due to their farseer. They already knew about the device’s functions and as such they couldn’t be allowed to escape or somehow bypass the device and alert their kind, possibly even the Enemy about the device.
It had been part of his briefing when he was suddenly assigned this patrol route; that the device had to be kept a secret as long as possible even if that meant sacrificing the entire ship to do that. Remembering how he had found it odd that the ship was ordered to proceed for a small refit in order to have a new device installed on it, it was rare but not unheard off to have new equipment installed on active duty ships but he never believed that a new long range patrol ship would receive any kind of new equipment at its lifespan. It was when he, and other captains like him, were briefed about this new device that everything fell into place. The new device gave their ships the Enemy’s farsense ability with the added benefit of being able to hide themselves from the enemy’s own farseers while also being able to mute them. They all knew that the device was alive, egoistical and temperamental but several safety nets had been put into place to ensure its loyalty to the Hierarchy even if that was nothing like what they as Umiak felt to it. The device had its shortcomings of course; it had to be connected with its operator in order to hide the ship, keeping the Enemy farseer’s from contacting it and mute them. In order to do that the operators had to go through extensive genetic and cybernetic modifications that made them unrecognizable but this was something that had to be done, even if that made them look alien to the eyes of fools who gave them names filled with a vibrating "r" to highlight their otherness. Despite everything they were still Umiak, their loyalty ensured due to this simple fact. This connection took its toll on the operators but as true Umiak they didn’t complain, even if they were driven to extreme pain due to the combination of the jump sickness and the connection feedback.
The other major drawback of the device was how limited its farsense was when compared with the Enemy, not only did it have a smaller range but also it couldn’t pinpoint the location of anything that got close enough to the ship which was the reason that he had to rely on the attack software that took roost in the humaniti ship to send them its coordinates.
Sending this kind of attack software was risky considering that he didn’t know if humaniti had even come in contact with another species before them, how much a species that didn’t had safeties in place for this kind of attack. The idea behind it was simple and only the Hierarchy managed to exploit the weakness that every system had when its programmers adopted alien programs into it and such adoptions were routine among space faring species, especially for navigation and communications systems which needed intimate knowledge of alien routines and procedures in order to be of proper use. He didn’t know how it worked exactly but the specialists assured him that as long as someone had adopted a known program into their system then that system, no matter how alien it may be, could be breached by this kind of attack software, provided that precautions for such kind of an intrusion weren’t put in place. To their admittance humaniti had come in contact with someone and that was all that was needed for the software to do what it was designed to do.
The risk he had taken wasn’t just that however, before he had sent the software he failed to measure humaniti’s tech level, a fact that could mean the success or failure in his mission to capture the humaniti ship. It shamed him that he only realized this omission after the software had been sent but he felt relief when the software first reported back, describing an operating system that run on equipment of a lower tech level and unique in its way of doing things; not only that, the tech specialists he commanded humbly asked to be allowed to study that system in detail which was unusual to say the least. He couldn’t know what they saw into it but he intended to capture the ship with as little damage as possible and he had already ordered the Hard-troops accordingly.
Despite the foothold that the attack software had, thanks to the contact humaniti had, the software failed at fully infiltrating the humaniti systems and was already detected, causing the aliens to go completely silent in their communications and attempt to combat the intrusion in their systems. It wouldn’t be so easy for them to do that however, the software had embedded itself deeply and was still sparingly sending reports of its progress and the position of the humaniti ship. It wasn’t enough to catch up to them as they tried to evade them but that was only delaying the inevitable.
The humaniti had no way out, they couldn’t be properly detected by the device while they were still nearby but if by any chance they opened the distance by leaving the asteroid field, then the device would be able to detect them and the ship’s superior acceleration would be enough to catch up to them and capture them, provided that the Humaniti ship didn’t self destruct.
Thankfully there soon was a breakthrough by the attack software and after several attempts it reported that it finally infiltrated the alien navigation systems, embedded itself upon them and was standing by for orders. With a triumphant feeling and humble appreciation to the ones who programmed it, he ordered it to bring the Humaniti ship to a halt, finally bringing this silly game to an end.
He quickly ordered for the ship to be brought about and quickly close in to the location that the software had just send. It didn’t take long to get close to them now that they didn’t have to contend with the numerous asteroid that had to be avoided, the electromagnetic interference and the infrequent reports by the attack software.
He wasn’t surprised to find it inside one of the smaller openings of the asteroid field, an opening that was littered with numerous small asteroids that just floated around, forming a small cloud of shorts that was caught between the feint gravity fields of the bigger ones around them while letting out a wide range of electromagnetic emissions. The humaniti captain obviously used such openings in order to hide his ship from them during the chase and by doing so he had managed to nullify their numerous scans, thus forcing them to rely solely on the software reports for the location of the humaniti ship.
The ship itself was red with white markings and looked a lot like a fish with a fat, oversized tail where its primitive fusion engines were. It looked nothing like the Enemy’s ships or the various divergent Hierarchy designs he had seen in the past. It was small, small enough to warrant the 93 crew members that the device reported and it didn’t have anything threatening for weapons. Just a small laser turret and two missile launchers which almost certainly carried fusion type missiles, too slow to be a threat even from such a close distance. The last thing that became obvious was that the Humaniti didn’t have defensive screens as their ship completely lacked the necessary emitters.
With the ship’s unique profile, its small size and low acceleration his hypothesis on how they evaded them for so long solidified. They should be able to fly between the small asteroid clouds that were scattered throughout the whole tightly packed field, something that not only made detection through basic sensors impossible without a direct line of sight but also offered paths that his ship couldn’t follow due to its size.
Doing a quick calculation he decided to slowly approach the ship, pushing the small asteroids aside with his ship’s size and armor instead of using the plasma focus weapons in order to clear their way. The fuel that would be spent for so many repeated firings would be too much and they would have to be refueled on their way to the appropriate facilities after capturing and taking everything that they could from the alien ship. He didn’t want to go through all that, mainly because of the high possibility of a information leak during the refueling. With the decision made he ordered his ship slowly forward, pushing aside the first small asteroids that were on its way.
It was when the ship was among the small asteroids that he saw an unexpected reaction from several of the asteroids which just begun to move on their own and slowly approached the ship. Trying to understand what was happening he first thought that the electromagnetic properties of the ship’s screens somehow attracted the small asteroids like a magnet would. There weren’t many of them, barely a few dozens, while their speed and size made them harmless against the ship’s armor. Glancing at the humaniti ship he saw that it did have some grazes and bumps on its hull as well which meant that screens alone weren’t the only thing that attracted the asteroids. Perhaps the asteroids in question were magnetic themselves and thus would be attracted to the ship and several of its systems regardless.
A small alert flashed on his screen as a sizable asteroid begun moving towards the ship. It wasn’t big enough to be a threat but the ship’s systems estimated that the probability of it straining the armor at the place it would hit wasn’t negligible. Without thinking he targeted it and gave the order for the asteroid to be destroyed. A singly plasma focus shot flashed out and disintegrated the asteroid in an instant. He quickly checked for others such asteroids in the immediate vicinity but they all were idle or too slow to catch up with the ship as it passed by them.
As they finally drew close enough to the Humaniti ship he marked the lone laser turret as a target and gave the order for it to be destroyed should it come online, the ship’s armor was more than enough to nullify its power but the shuttles would be in danger should it fire at them. After preparing himself, and before giving the order to launch the shuttles, he opened up a communication channel to the alien ship, hoping that it would be enough to deter them from resisting although he knew from experience that this rarely was the case.
“Regretfully and under the laws of the Hierarchy you and your ship are hereby seized according to the non neutrality edict. There is no hope for you; your farsensing capabilities have been nullified and you can’t alert anyone. Surrender yourselves and your ship peacefully and the Hierarchy will treat you kindly, resist and you will be treated accordingly.”
Chapter 11, part 3: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 135#p20135
Last edited by Guest on Sat Nov 28, 2015 10:00 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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dragoongfa
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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Saw what you did thereGrayhome wrote:Looking forward to the next chapter!
Anyway, I wanted to go back to my scheduled Tuesday release and as such I delayed this part despite the fact that I had finished it in Thursday.
@Krulle, This wasn't exactly what I planned to do but here is the rundown of what I first had in mind and was apparent from chapter 1 and the explanation of the navigation systems.
Humanity in this story adapted two things from the Orgus ship; the navigation systems for their jump capabilities and the communication systems for their superior to their human counterparts abilities to adapt themselves to ever changing formats of communication with alien empires.
The initial idea was that the Umiak, due to their prolonged contact with the Orgus had managed to install numerous back doors in their communications and other systems while they had created several highly effective malware for use against the Orgus. The Orgus freighter carried these backdoors and vulnerabilities with it and the human adaptations would somehow keep some of them.
This offered two problems:
1) The humans wouldn't have enough time to rewrite the Orgus code into human code (porting for current programs takes years, imagine for that kind of programs).
2) That this rewrite would keep the vulnerabilities and the backdoors there to be exploited.
The solution I came with was for the humans to use two things:
1) Software emulation.
2) Adaptation/Translation of the emulated results.
How this translates in the story and the setting is as follows.
Communications and Navigation software are in a way valuable commodities, species with a long tradition of trading and space exploration have very advanced software of this kind when compared to other species who are new to the field. These programs of the advanced species are thus highly sought after since they make jumps far less dangerous and communications far easier. The problem that arises is how to get these programs to run into completely alien to them systems (both from a hardware and a software perceptive). They could try porting them but that takes time and has its diplomatic/copyright issues. They could try adopting the alien systems with just a translation on top but that would require also adopting the hardware and no one wants to go there.
In the end the easiest and quickest solution is software emulation. If both parties are cooperating on creating an emulating environment then they would have a system that uses the original code while not having to rewrite the native system, furthermore any software updates that the advanced species has can be quickly bought and installed over the previous code without much of a hick. The advanced species loves this because it can continuously sell its advanced software and the new species loves this because it gets advanced navigation and communication software instantly. The Orgus with their numerous trading partners fall on both categories on many fields but their native navigation and communication systems are very advanced when compared with other, more xenophobic species.
In the end the Humans who have a knack for software and are already using emulation for a variety of reasons, had no problem adopting programs that were designed to be easily emulated in order to be sold to lesser trading partners.
This is the very widespread niche that this Umiak malware was built around and something that unfortunately stuck on the humans.
This (and more) will be of course explained in detail at a later chapter but I guessed that you would want to know what I had in mind and worked with.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Aug 26, 2015 5:57 am, edited 2 times in total.