Getting a Technology System in Modern Day

“So we’re dealing with an unknown enemy who wants to drive a wedge between us and the Conclave, and the Conclave now believes we’re behind the attacks and they won’t listen to our explanation that we were manipulated into striking one of their fleets?” Aron said after a moment of silence, having digested the information and its implications. “That’s some highly effective psychological warfare. From what we’re seeing, it’s working exactly as intended. With a few refinements, this is probably how I would’ve executed such an operation myself, though I would’ve made it even more airtight and layered.”

“The Conclave won’t accept that explanation,” Youssef replied, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “To even get them to listen, we’d have to disclose how we came across this information. That means revealing our ability to extract and interpret brain data, which they’ll immediately link to our VR systems. And if they start thinking we’ve been using VR to read their minds too, whether true or not, it’ll only escalate things further.”

He sighed, the weight of the situation pressing down on him. “We’re in a bind. The conspiracy is real, but exposing it outright could cause more damage than trying to deescalate quietly while we find another way to bring the truth to light.”

“There’s something I’m curious about,” Aron said, opening his eyes after keeping them closed for some time as he sifted through his perfect memory. He had been silently reviewing every detail of the incident, from the earliest bits of intelligence all the way to the current presentation.

{What is it?} Nyx asked, noticing that Aron was still deep in thought. He could tell Aron was formulating a question, but also running through the data once more to check if the answer had already been there, overlooked.

“How did the transponder discrepancy even happen?” Aron finally asked, his brow slightly furrowed. “Kumakar presented his evidence showing his fleet was using a known, legitimate transponder code. But the same fleet showed up to us using a different transponder, one that matched the pirates. That’s what led us to flag them as hostile and eventually engage, after they failed every other verification method.”

He paused, his tone tightening slightly as the implications set in. “If you were the one orchestrating this setup, how would you have pulled that part off? Because that’s the critical detail. That mismatch is what triggered our response and ultimately pushed Kumakar into potential opposition. And worse, now that we’ve punished his behavior, it only reinforces the narrative that we’re the aggressors trying to cover something up. We’ve basically handed him justification for retaliation and made ourselves look even more guilty.”

Everyone in the meeting began thinking of possible ways such a transponder trick could have been pulled off, but none could match the processing speed of a literal AI. Nyx was the first to come up with a solution, or rather, a set of plausible ones.

{The simplest way to do it,} she said, {would be to use two different transponder codes: one active and visible to external sensors, and another embedded only within the ship’s black box. When the black box data is reviewed, it shows the hidden transponder code, while the visible one isn’t recorded at all, giving complete deniability. That’s the most believable explanation.}

She paused briefly before continuing. {There are other methods too, but they’d require the perpetrator to possess the ability to fool all of our sensors simultaneously or to mask the ship’s own visible transponder while broadcasting a fake one, making it appear as though it’s coming from the approaching fleet. But that would demand an absurd level of technological sophistication. Someone capable of that, doing such a thing, would be like using tools that are the equivalent of a diamond cutter to slice a sheet of paper.}

As soon as she finished, a wave of realization swept through the room. Faces lit up as certain pieces of the puzzle finally began to click into place. But even so, there were still parts of the situation that didn’t fully make sense.

“Why?” Jeremy asked, frowning as he tried to make sense of the situation. “Why would Kumakar or whoever might be behind this, if there is someone, suddenly attack us out of nowhere? And then either act as if we were the ones who destroyed his fleet, or be deceived into believing that? As far as I know, we don’t have any major conflict with them. Our only business transaction is mutually beneficial to both sides.”

His question hung in the air, heavy with the implication that Kumakar might be a suspect. But that wasn’t truly the direction they were leaning toward, not entirely. Kumakar being responsible was just one theory among others. Another, more plausible theory was that he, like the Empire, was being manipulated by someone else, someone pulling strings from the shadows.

But even that didn’t explain everything.

What didn’t fit was the scale and timing of the attacks. Whoever was behind this had launched simultaneous strikes against twenty different civilizations’ wormholes. Yet only one fleet was attacked before Kumakar noticed and reacted immediately. His swift announcement prompted all the other civilizations to halt their fleet deployments toward the affected wormholes, which indirectly limited the damage the Empire might have caused if things had continued unchecked.

That reaction and his warning were the key reasons they hadn’t fully considered Kumakar as the mastermind. If anything, it seemed more likely that someone else was orchestrating the entire event, using both Kumakar and the Empire as pieces in a much larger game.

“We don’t have a clear answer to that,” Aron said, his voice calm but firm. “But I think we need to prepare for the worst-case scenario, this situation escalating further, while doing everything we can to minimize the fallout. At the same time, we should keep working to identify who’s actually behind all of this and find a way to explain to the Conclave that we were tricked, just like they were. We also need to be ready to compensate for the damage we inflicted on them.”

He sighed inwardly, realizing that with the limited information currently available, the number of possible answers to every question was practically infinite. Chasing them all would only lead to confusion, wasted time, and migraines with no resolution.

“Our military reform is already in its final phase,” John said, finally breaking his silence since the meeting began. “We could accelerate the process and have it completed within a few months or even weeks if we bring the reserve printers online, but we will be using our reserve materials.”

“We hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” Aron replied with a nod. “Bring all reserve printers online and raise our situational readiness by one level.”

He knew this shift in readiness wouldn’t change much on the surface. It wouldn’t put troops on the move or activate battle stations just yet. But it would put all military assets on standby and ramp up the imperial sensor network to full capacity. That meant significantly increased detection range and sensitivity, able to flag anything even remotely out of the ordinary, from anomaly artifacts to minute environmental changes. It would increase the workload for visual and physical verification teams, especially for more prominent anomalies, but it also meant that nothing, absolutely nothing, would go unnoticed or uninvestigated.

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