Not sure I agree with 2. Omicron's computer as ransacked by commandoes in a hurry and the info and virus transmitted to Dulinor's fleet via a secure freindly channel and hence via interfleet comms to the rest. This will bypass a lot of data security.
There are tonns of ways for virus to get into military ships and bases. From transponders of cross border ships to inferface starports or by direct connections when a ship docks. From that infected port to any ship that docks or pings transponders (deyo or vargr) with the ports traffic control. From the port computer to the commercial datanet and various companies and the library data service and then its in the planetary data net.
Military bases get infected the same way - their traffic monitoring will be taking transponder pings. It get infected by a cross border deyo and will then spread it to every transponder it pings. It infects any military ship that docks. Small military ships get infected when boarding parties plug in hand comps to check cargo manifests etc. They pass it to bases and other navy vessels by fleet comms. Plus the military bases will have data-tieins with the civilian datanets.
This thing is a TL16/17 artificial intelligence working at computer speeds and is capable to burning new circuits. It will run rings around typical data protection software, Once into a system it will isolate any normal anti-virus software and all the while it will keep on telling you everything is fine. We have instances of it doing just that - see survival margin or The Guilded Lilly. The Poor vargr are mostly TL13 to TL10. They are stuffed.
We know the virus sits in a computer learning how it operates before it manifests itself. By the time you get a warning, your system has been infected for several days and you have already passed it to outgoing ships who will not show symptoms for several days. I can see several PEs thinking they have beefed up their computer defences only to fall to virus that just walks around their version of Norton or was present before they beefed up the defences.
Very few worlds will get the alarm without also getting a dose of virus. By the time a world is showing obvious virus effects and ships flee carrying the warning, those fleeing ships are already infected. Unaffected types will be typical PCs, minor raiders and smugglers and low tech types. The only protection is to get lucky and sever all electronic communications as per the Marches - or not to have any electronics in the first place (TL5/6 ish or lower)
As for people being able to modifiy the transponder. Its designed to stop that, I think they said the deyo has anti-tamper than reduces the transponder to slag and the evolution rate of the virus is constant so if you turn it off, your transponder is out of sync and you can't resync. It is designed to show tampering so the IN / SPA / other ships knopw you have a dubious transponder. Yes people can turn them off but not back on in any useable fashion
Cheers
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: Master Uxi
To:
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Re: Opposition Alliance
Remember, though, Survival Margin said that military ships didn't "turn off" their transponders, they just had a "mute." They were always "listening" and thus subject to infection.
I agree, though, it won't be as thorough and severe as in the Imperium, but out will still spread. I pondered this thinking of the spread of Virus and the Collapse in the Solomani Confederation.
For polities outside the Imperium:
1) not every ship is going to have a Deyo transponder, just those that need to cross the border. I would expect close to zero military ships, and certainly none of the big ones.
2) Survival Margin also says that even Dulinor's flagship had circumvented data security measures at Omicron to try to get and then interpret the data. Ergo that's going to be far less likely outside those rather specific circumstances.
3) there are definitely other vectors and Virus will still spread, but I'd argue it's fairly high probability once the interface ships come back in and begin to spread, data security measures will tighten.
Not enough, by any means, and there will probably be some placebo and false confidence inspired but the truly paranoid (and highly disciplined security conscious) will be able to avoid to some degree as the nature of the threat is witnessed and observed.
The infrastructure problem will still be unavoidable in ultimate collapse, though pockets are likely to form that first refuse data/computer connections and then work on countermeasures.
IMTU, the Knights of St George got to that step (along with certain elements of the Turin Consolidation military and intel), but to little/late to avoid Collapse.
Those at that state then get to face Vampires doing it the hard way...
___
From my T989
On Oct 24, 2012 7:40 AM, "John Potter" <> wrote:
I think the assumtion that every ship returning is infected is simply off the mark. Like any pandemic yes a lot will be infected but not everyone. Simply by statistical chance 'will' get infected but not all.
The virus is a way to reset civilization back to a frontier state in the traveller universe. Each game master needs to make a decision on what seems plausible for their setting.
1. Ships will return infected.
2. Ships will return uninfected.
The timing and causality of these two things are what causes regions to be shaped post outbreak.
I would also disagree with the sentiment that 'only military' crewed vessels can 'turn off' their transponders. Any sufficiently technical engineer should have the knowledge to stop, start, or manipulate the transponder hardware as needed because after all these same individuals can maintain and repair complex machinery found aboard a starship after all.
This technique is arguably even more important for crews/ships participating in 'raiding'. .
On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 6:43 AM, Rupert Boleyn <> wrote:
On 24/10/2012 19:26, Eamon Watters wrote:
> 6. Vargr ships themselves. Going by the Vargr ships in TNE, the ones
> engaged in raiding will likely be low-jump - either merchants or
> paramilitary. There will be some military vessels too - but I don't
> think there will be too many. If an infected ship turns for home then
> it is going to take many jumps to get there - adding to the time home
> has to prepare (as news leaks out) and adding to the chances that
> something (virus or breakdown) will eliminate the ship as a vector.
News breaks out how? The Deyo transponders are not the only way Virus
transfers. It gets in all the systems, and those ships bringing the news
are also going to be infected. They talk to people to warn them - and
infect them at the same time. And so it goes...
--
If the world was fair then every bad thing that has ever happened to you would have been deserved.
There are tonns of ways for virus to get into military ships and bases. From transponders of cross border ships to inferface starports or by direct connections when a ship docks. From that infected port to any ship that docks or pings transponders (deyo or vargr) with the ports traffic control. From the port computer to the commercial datanet and various companies and the library data service and then its in the planetary data net.
Military bases get infected the same way - their traffic monitoring will be taking transponder pings. It get infected by a cross border deyo and will then spread it to every transponder it pings. It infects any military ship that docks. Small military ships get infected when boarding parties plug in hand comps to check cargo manifests etc. They pass it to bases and other navy vessels by fleet comms. Plus the military bases will have data-tieins with the civilian datanets.
This thing is a TL16/17 artificial intelligence working at computer speeds and is capable to burning new circuits. It will run rings around typical data protection software, Once into a system it will isolate any normal anti-virus software and all the while it will keep on telling you everything is fine. We have instances of it doing just that - see survival margin or The Guilded Lilly. The Poor vargr are mostly TL13 to TL10. They are stuffed.
We know the virus sits in a computer learning how it operates before it manifests itself. By the time you get a warning, your system has been infected for several days and you have already passed it to outgoing ships who will not show symptoms for several days. I can see several PEs thinking they have beefed up their computer defences only to fall to virus that just walks around their version of Norton or was present before they beefed up the defences.
Very few worlds will get the alarm without also getting a dose of virus. By the time a world is showing obvious virus effects and ships flee carrying the warning, those fleeing ships are already infected. Unaffected types will be typical PCs, minor raiders and smugglers and low tech types. The only protection is to get lucky and sever all electronic communications as per the Marches - or not to have any electronics in the first place (TL5/6 ish or lower)
As for people being able to modifiy the transponder. Its designed to stop that, I think they said the deyo has anti-tamper than reduces the transponder to slag and the evolution rate of the virus is constant so if you turn it off, your transponder is out of sync and you can't resync. It is designed to show tampering so the IN / SPA / other ships knopw you have a dubious transponder. Yes people can turn them off but not back on in any useable fashion
Cheers
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: Master Uxi
To:
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Re: Opposition Alliance
Remember, though, Survival Margin said that military ships didn't "turn off" their transponders, they just had a "mute." They were always "listening" and thus subject to infection.
I agree, though, it won't be as thorough and severe as in the Imperium, but out will still spread. I pondered this thinking of the spread of Virus and the Collapse in the Solomani Confederation.
For polities outside the Imperium:
1) not every ship is going to have a Deyo transponder, just those that need to cross the border. I would expect close to zero military ships, and certainly none of the big ones.
2) Survival Margin also says that even Dulinor's flagship had circumvented data security measures at Omicron to try to get and then interpret the data. Ergo that's going to be far less likely outside those rather specific circumstances.
3) there are definitely other vectors and Virus will still spread, but I'd argue it's fairly high probability once the interface ships come back in and begin to spread, data security measures will tighten.
Not enough, by any means, and there will probably be some placebo and false confidence inspired but the truly paranoid (and highly disciplined security conscious) will be able to avoid to some degree as the nature of the threat is witnessed and observed.
The infrastructure problem will still be unavoidable in ultimate collapse, though pockets are likely to form that first refuse data/computer connections and then work on countermeasures.
IMTU, the Knights of St George got to that step (along with certain elements of the Turin Consolidation military and intel), but to little/late to avoid Collapse.
Those at that state then get to face Vampires doing it the hard way...
___
From my T989
On Oct 24, 2012 7:40 AM, "John Potter" <> wrote:
I think the assumtion that every ship returning is infected is simply off the mark. Like any pandemic yes a lot will be infected but not everyone. Simply by statistical chance 'will' get infected but not all.
The virus is a way to reset civilization back to a frontier state in the traveller universe. Each game master needs to make a decision on what seems plausible for their setting.
1. Ships will return infected.
2. Ships will return uninfected.
The timing and causality of these two things are what causes regions to be shaped post outbreak.
I would also disagree with the sentiment that 'only military' crewed vessels can 'turn off' their transponders. Any sufficiently technical engineer should have the knowledge to stop, start, or manipulate the transponder hardware as needed because after all these same individuals can maintain and repair complex machinery found aboard a starship after all.
This technique is arguably even more important for crews/ships participating in 'raiding'. .
On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 6:43 AM, Rupert Boleyn <> wrote:
On 24/10/2012 19:26, Eamon Watters wrote:
> 6. Vargr ships themselves. Going by the Vargr ships in TNE, the ones
> engaged in raiding will likely be low-jump - either merchants or
> paramilitary. There will be some military vessels too - but I don't
> think there will be too many. If an infected ship turns for home then
> it is going to take many jumps to get there - adding to the time home
> has to prepare (as news leaks out) and adding to the chances that
> something (virus or breakdown) will eliminate the ship as a vector.
News breaks out how? The Deyo transponders are not the only way Virus
transfers. It gets in all the systems, and those ships bringing the news
are also going to be infected. They talk to people to warn them - and
infect them at the same time. And so it goes...
--
If the world was fair then every bad thing that has ever happened to you would have been deserved.