09-07-2026, 03:30 AM
Sebastian listened carefully as Lieutenant Keti worked through the communications problem. The idea of using short, coded transmissions and constantly changing their origin points made sense. It was an old technique, but that was precisely what made it useful. The Cardassians would be looking for modern Starfleet communications patterns. Giving them something that resembled an outdated, improvised system might keep them searching in the wrong direction.
Sebastian studied the developing network on his console for several seconds before speaking.
“Lieutenant Keti, I think we can take what you're doing one step further.”
He brought up a representation of the probes and began linking them together on the display.
“Instead of having the probes follow a predictable communications schedule, we make the entire system adaptive. No probe should know the entire network. Each one only needs enough information to pass a message to the next available probe. The destination can change every time, and the route doesn't have to be the same twice.”
His fingers moved across the console as he began building the concept.
“We can also make the transmission timing dependent on the environment. If a Cardassian sensor sweep is approaching, the probe goes completely silent. If there's natural interference, sensor noise, or some other background activity, that's when it can transmit. We can even have some probes send meaningless fragments occasionally. That way, legitimate communications aren't the only thing moving through the network.”
Sebastian glanced toward Lieutenant Keti.
“And I think your idea about mistakes could actually make this more convincing. Perfect communications would be suspicious. If we're trying to make this appear to be an old Bajoran system that has been maintained and modified over decades, then it shouldn't be perfectly standardized.”
A faint smile crossed his face.
“Different abbreviations. Slightly different routing habits. An occasional formatting error. Maybe even a message that takes an unnecessarily long route. Nothing serious enough to interfere with the actual communication, but enough to make whoever intercepts it think they're looking at an old system that's been repaired and modified by different people over the years.”
He looked back at the display.
“Basically, we make it look like nobody ever bothered to completely standardize it.”
Sebastian paused as another possibility occurred to him.
“There is one other precaution I'd recommend, Captain. We shouldn't have every probe know where Starfleet is. The probes should use temporary identifiers rather than actual coordinates. Only the communications buoy should have the information necessary to reach Starfleet directly.”
He highlighted the auxiliary buoy on the display.
“That way, if the Cardassians capture one of these probes, they don't get the location of the ship, the buoy, or the rest of the network. They get one small piece of a conversation that doesn't tell them where the conversation ultimately ends.”
Sebastian considered the number of probes available.
“As for how many we need, Lieutenant Keti should use as many as we can reasonably spare, but we shouldn't deploy them as one large network. Smaller groups, spread across different vectors, would be harder to identify as connected. Some can carry legitimate traffic, some can relay it, some can simply listen, and a few can generate enough meaningless traffic to make the whole thing look chaotic.”
He leaned back slightly, watching the simulated network shift across the display.
“The important thing is that it shouldn't look like a communications network at all. It should look like a collection of unrelated transmissions that occasionally interact with one another.”
Sebastian looked toward Lieutenant Keti again.
“If the Cardassians see a pattern, they'll start pulling at it until they find us. But if every transmission gives them just enough information to suggest there's a pattern without ever revealing what that pattern actually is, they'll have to keep investigating.”
He gave a small nod.
“And that means they aren't looking for us. They're looking at the puzzle we're giving them.”
== Tag Keti/ all==
Sebastian studied the developing network on his console for several seconds before speaking.
“Lieutenant Keti, I think we can take what you're doing one step further.”
He brought up a representation of the probes and began linking them together on the display.
“Instead of having the probes follow a predictable communications schedule, we make the entire system adaptive. No probe should know the entire network. Each one only needs enough information to pass a message to the next available probe. The destination can change every time, and the route doesn't have to be the same twice.”
His fingers moved across the console as he began building the concept.
“We can also make the transmission timing dependent on the environment. If a Cardassian sensor sweep is approaching, the probe goes completely silent. If there's natural interference, sensor noise, or some other background activity, that's when it can transmit. We can even have some probes send meaningless fragments occasionally. That way, legitimate communications aren't the only thing moving through the network.”
Sebastian glanced toward Lieutenant Keti.
“And I think your idea about mistakes could actually make this more convincing. Perfect communications would be suspicious. If we're trying to make this appear to be an old Bajoran system that has been maintained and modified over decades, then it shouldn't be perfectly standardized.”
A faint smile crossed his face.
“Different abbreviations. Slightly different routing habits. An occasional formatting error. Maybe even a message that takes an unnecessarily long route. Nothing serious enough to interfere with the actual communication, but enough to make whoever intercepts it think they're looking at an old system that's been repaired and modified by different people over the years.”
He looked back at the display.
“Basically, we make it look like nobody ever bothered to completely standardize it.”
Sebastian paused as another possibility occurred to him.
“There is one other precaution I'd recommend, Captain. We shouldn't have every probe know where Starfleet is. The probes should use temporary identifiers rather than actual coordinates. Only the communications buoy should have the information necessary to reach Starfleet directly.”
He highlighted the auxiliary buoy on the display.
“That way, if the Cardassians capture one of these probes, they don't get the location of the ship, the buoy, or the rest of the network. They get one small piece of a conversation that doesn't tell them where the conversation ultimately ends.”
Sebastian considered the number of probes available.
“As for how many we need, Lieutenant Keti should use as many as we can reasonably spare, but we shouldn't deploy them as one large network. Smaller groups, spread across different vectors, would be harder to identify as connected. Some can carry legitimate traffic, some can relay it, some can simply listen, and a few can generate enough meaningless traffic to make the whole thing look chaotic.”
He leaned back slightly, watching the simulated network shift across the display.
“The important thing is that it shouldn't look like a communications network at all. It should look like a collection of unrelated transmissions that occasionally interact with one another.”
Sebastian looked toward Lieutenant Keti again.
“If the Cardassians see a pattern, they'll start pulling at it until they find us. But if every transmission gives them just enough information to suggest there's a pattern without ever revealing what that pattern actually is, they'll have to keep investigating.”
He gave a small nod.
“And that means they aren't looking for us. They're looking at the puzzle we're giving them.”
== Tag Keti/ all==