It all reminds me of that urban legend about The Broker.
The guy is probably in their secret undersea volcano lair moaning, “Now you’re asking the right questions!”
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I always aim to please
Both the Naglfars, Moros and now phoenix attacks all smell to much of smoke and mirrors, and with everything going on who are we to blame the culprit from taking advantage of the last year’s going on. Cause lets be frank, things in parts the cluster is like a powerkeg ready to blow.
Its just a shame they pulled the same trick twice now, and left behind an obvious pattern. Sure one attack from some disgruntled Brotars could have happened. But this, this is to obivues that it’s someone trying to light the fuse for a war.
And one thing I can tell you it isn’t the serpentis’s doing.
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Can’t really sell drugs to dead man, and a full out war is certainly gonna bring down Serpentis’ list of potential customers.
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If these attacks are connected (and I assume you are correct) than the other attacks may also be connected. Assuming that is true that means whoever was interested in the attempted assassination of the CEP Chairman Puok Kossinen and the attempted liberation of Khanid Warlord Alar Chakaid and Slaver Orlon Zashev.
I am very concerned that all of these strikes are quite flashy, and are very useful as a distraction from these other, much more key events.
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The one attack that I feel is an outlier in these escalations in the one over Floseswin. Here I would actaully believe it was Sarum forces along with Navy, and not what ever shadowy organization. The ongoing conflict over the planet, along with Sarums documented belligerence make this attack perfectly within the scope of the Floseswin War. If anything, this sort of response is likely what the perpetrators of the dreadnought attacks are going after.
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The Serpentis were so obviously not responsible I ignored them completely. Which may be a pretty good argument for it actually being them lol.
No, I see it now. There is a grand alignment of pirates.
One piece of the ultimate superweapon is out there to be found, and the attacks are designed to distract the cluster’s governments from looking for it.
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It’s just as likely that whoever planned these attacks as a way to grab attention—either to heighten concerns or to distract from some other work—chose Chakaid’s location specifically to make people think it’s related. As I said in the PIE thread: when you’re already working a long game in order to pull off a deep cover false-flag operation through the paramilitary forces of (now four) different empires, you might as well do it right and build in every single bit of misinformation you can to confuse the issue.
Chakaid? Black Daggers? Anti-Gallente biological agents like the Dragonaurs tried to unleash three or four years ago? These things are only tied together by being something that gets peoples’ attention and maybe—individually—tie in another conspiracy… but tying all of them together? Not likely.
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Except for the CEP tower and the prison attack that occurred just PRIOR to the Dread attacks, limiting the chances that it is simple opportunism. This seems much more like either a distraction or a group that knows EXACTLY how to enflame tensions between the Empires.
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Not that its particularly difficult.
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I’d be far more willing to bet the CEP tower attack is unrelated. There are, after all, more troubles in the State than just a handful of dreads being in the wrong place.
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Which in turn can act as just the perfect cover neeeded
You are not wrong, but the attention to detail in these attacks is noteworthy, these are not random but storied places designed to enflame tensions even if it becomes known the bad actor behind all this.
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Well yes. I mean its pretty common knowledge that Republic and Empire are, at this point, just itching to go into open war.
What I mean to say is that triggering actual war between the big four is far easier than most are willing to acknowledge, and there would be countless organizations that would benifit from it. The thing that confuses me is that, especially after the pheonix attacks yesterday, who is behind this isnt even trying to hide the fact that they are an outside group attempting to destabilze the cluster. If anything, its likely to lead to more cooperation.
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I think it’s more fair to say that certain people within the military, paramilitary, and militia forces of the Empire and Republic are itching to go into open war. I’m reasonably sure Joe Average Farmer isn’t itching to have to worry about sudden death from the skies or planetary invasion.
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Agreed, thus far. The question is whether there was really a response-- or whether the idea was just to make it unclear.
Taken alone, any single one of these attacks seems … well, laughable-- amateurish, silly: weak forces splattered against hardened targets. Floseswin is the obvious exception, but an isolated attack there would almost disappear against the general noise, especially if it didn’t, well, do very much.
But … here’s a question: what if instead of incompetent, they’re actually being quite cunning? What if the conspirators actually don’t care if they’re being obvious? What if they don’t care if they’re wasting lives and resources-- or rather, if they don’t regard the losses as a waste? What if the idea isn’t to ignite a single crisis that builds into a conflagration, but to raise a haze of smoke in which nobody can be sure who’s doing what?
There’s bound to be a temptation to do just what you propose: to act under cover of the uncertainty these attacks create, to launch real strikes under cover of the fake ones. Correspondingly, there’s inevitably the doubt: was this attack really a false flag? Or is it a real one hiding behind the proliferation of false colors? What about that one? Or that other one?
The suspicion that one’s opponent is taking advantage builds over time, and as attacks appear that “don’t fit the pattern.” Look close, and you’re bound to find differences-- though whether that really means the actors are different or whether that just means the original conspirators are mixing it up to throw you off might be impossible to tell.
That impossibility, that uncertainty and mistrust (along with the genuine temptation to steal a march under cover of these attacks), is exactly what may kill us. And the longer it goes on, the harder it’s going to be to tell.
If someone is in fact settling in for a long campaign this may start to look a lot less stupid (if no less horrible) as time goes on.
(Sorry if I’m coming in late in some way. Got called away when I was nearly done writing and only just came back.)
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What I don’t get is why whoever the culprits are left behind encrypted ship logs after each attack. It’s like they want to either get caught or mislead the investigation.
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I expect that’s less them dropping them and more that component getting flagged for us as an object of interest. Logs are common ship equipment, and I’m sure it’s not at all unusual for them to be encrypted, especially on a warship.
Guess someone noticed that there was something weird about this while the first few dreads were still alive and firing and flagged the components for us.
“This doesn’t seem right. Get us their records, please.”
(Wouldn’t be at all the first instance of “we see it 'cause CONCORD wants it seen.”)
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It just seems weird to conduct a conspiracy that avoided detection and then for the conspirators to not scrub their logs clean. Unless the whole point of the attacks was for information to be passed on by the people who destroyed the dreads. It would be pretty devious. Getting information to investigations that might presume it to be fake, but which if true cannot be wholly ignored – especially if it applies to a potential adversaries.
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Well, we’ll see. Keeping records is pretty standard, but from what little I’ve seen these are … a bit peculiar. They might even have been using a shared encryption protocol as a form of handshake-- a way to recognize allies. They seem to have infiltrated or otherwise influenced a remarkably wide range of different groups after all.
(Also, I don’t think there’s an investigative protocol in this world that starts with, “First, ignore everything obvious and usual.” Obvious and usual is just where you start. And, when you want to find out where a ship has been and what it’s been doing. . . .)
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