Imperial Intelligence:
Sector Plexus
Sector Plexus is the heart of the information system for Imperial Intelligence. While none of the bureaus are completely centralized, Sector Plexus is the most dispersed. Equipped with the most advanced communication computers and equipment in the galaxy, Sector Plexus conduits handle better than 99.95 percent of all Imperial Intelligence communications. During the height of Palpatine's reign, the Plexus would encode, categorize, transmit, store, receive, and decode more messages in a single standard day than most planetary communications nets will transmit in over 800 standard years.
Sector Plexus assigns each agent or branch office its code number and sequence, and Plexus computers compute and send agents the PSEGs they are most likely to need. There are typically half a dozen PSEGs for a field agent, 5,000 for a typical branch office agent, and better than a million for a high ranking official of a bureau. Sector Plexus records and updates all PSEGs according to a complicated security algorithm. If a transmitting agent's PSEG is sufficiently out of date, even if the message is encoded properly, the computers will transfer the message to a Plexus officer who decides whether or not to authorize the sending of the message. These officers will often route copies of messages which are the slightest bit suspicious to IntCon, Renik, and the Ubiqtorate.
When a message is sent through the Plexus, it is copied and transmitted to at least two different conduits at each link along the way. Each Sector Plexus station is a surprisingly small affair, and while they are well hidden, their security is far from guaranteed. If enemy forces destroy a few Plexus conduits, parallel transmission will allow the message to get through despite the loss. Lower priority messages are sent on less secure channels, and only two copies of each message are transmitted from each conduit. But there are five or more links along the message path before transmission to the final destination, and the message is transmitted to additional conduits even after the message has been received at the final destination. Thi smeans the message is routed to thousands of places, only one of which is the actual destination. Even if a message is intercepted, enemy agents hav ea slim chance of discovering the location of the initial sender or the recipient; the chain is too long.
Sending messages over many links takes time, so higher priority messages are sent over more secure channels and fewer links, but three copies of each message is sent from a a single conduit to better protect against the destruction of Plexus conduits.
When copies of a message are transmitted, there can be many reasons for errors -- power fluctuations during transmission, signal degradation over long range, interference from other beamcasts or star activity. The message may have been interrupted by a message of higher priority. The computer may receive readings which indicate enemy sensors are sweeping the area for evidence of transmissions, and quickly stop transmissions.
When the message reaches its final conduit, the Plexus computer assembles and compares all received versions of the message, synthesizing them into the message most likely to be an exact copy of the original. The computer then generates the authenticity code for the message -- the more secure the channel and the fewer the deviations between copies of the message, the higher the authenticity code.
Plexus Droid Vessels (PDV) Sector Plexus has access to portions of the HoloNet, but most of their information is carried from system to system on droid vessels. These are small, extremely fast starships run strictly by CNLinked droids and computers. The ship has a nav computer, a storage/transceiving 12-CG droid (based on Cybot Galactica's ED4 model), a "ship's captain" R2-M3 droid (based on the R2 astromech droid), and an analysis/encoding computer equipped with a TranLang III Communication module. These ships contain no accommodations or space for living beings, nor do they have life support systems.
Essentially the PDV is a fuel source and engine, with supporting electronics and droids attached. It is built strictly to send and receive Plexus conduit transmissions within a system and then jump to the next system on its route. A combination of PDV speed, programmed skills, and efficient route algorithms guarantee that a PDV never has a jump duration greater than one standard day, except in extreme emergencies.
The PDV has the ability to avoid detection by long range sensors. PDVs are often given minimal camouflage to make them look like mining probes or scavenger droids to casual observation.
Imperial CompLink
When the New Order was declared, there arose an ambitious group of scientists eager to free research from the parochial power struggles which typified the latter days of the Old Republic. They proposed a vast computer network connected to the HoloNets, giving scientists on any of millions of worlds instant access to information vital to their research. These scientists designed and wrote much of the software necessary to support such a system, presenting the entire package to Palpatine and his advisors.
The idea was rejected, ostensibly for the tremendous additional funds needed to upgrade the HoloNet to handle the increased flow of information. The costs were real, and Palpatine needed the tens of trillions of credits elsewhere, but he also feared a system which would allow such an instantaneous and complete exchange of information between citizens of the New Order.
Imperial Intelligence managed to retrieve almost all of the documentation and software and recruited a number of the scientists who proposed the Imperial CompLink. Using the PDVs and Plexus conduits to link the computers, rather than HoloNet technology, reduced the costs more than ten thousandfold. The prospect of having access to every computer bank in the galaxy, with the nearly inconceivable wealth of information such a system would provide, was too tempting to ignore.
With the help of systems cells throughout the galaxy, as well as a massive effort by virtually every talented individual within Tech, the necessary software was installed in computer networks in hundreds of sectors. Still, less than six percent of the planetary networks had been tapped; many of the rest had security which was too difficult to penetrate to make it worth the risk.
The Ubiqtorate considered cancelling the project as too expensive for the benefits it accrued. It was then that a Plexus technician, Geothray Camber, sent Dr. Lindu Sencker a series of scandocs with preliminary specifications for a new eavesdropping device which would circumvent the security systems in virtually every computer system in existence. Sencker's team conquered the formidable theoretical and technical problems poised by Camber's plan. A prototype of the device was built in time for an effective demonstration for the Ubiqtorate -- by stealing several files from the computers of the Imperial Security Bureau.
With this device, the Hyperspace Orbiting Scanner (HOS), Imperial Intelligence has been able to tap into the computer networks on more than 470,000 worlds, and the number is increasing every day.
Left in hyperspace orbit around a planet, the HOS sensors do not pick up the signals from the computer directly. They moitor the hyperspace shadows left by streaking particles inside a computer. Careful and systematic matching of the shadows of known computer languages to the shadows produced by the target system have produced data which is better than 78 percent reliable. Imperial science is not likely to produce an improvement over this phenomenal performance any time in the near future.
An HOS is placed and serviced by modified PDVs. PDVs enter hyperspace and then cycle through various triangulations on possible positions of the HOS (whose hyperspace shadow is lost against the shadow of the planet and other, larger space vehicles) until the orbiter is located. This process can take hours. It would be virtually impossible if the searching craft did not already have an idea of where the HOS was. The PDV then links with the HOS in orbit.
To transfer large amounts of data, or to effect any repairs on the HOS, the PDV must temporarily pull out of hyperspace. It is vulnerable during this period, and so stays in realspace only for the minimum possible time. Once repairs are made or the information is transferred, the PDV and HOS return to hyperspace -- the HOS to its orbit and the PDV to its rendezvous with the local Plexus conduit.
System Cell
Imperial Intelligence has placed millions of system cells throughout the galaxy. They exist on every inhabited world, and even on a few uninhabited ones which prove to be convenient jump sites or listening posts. While a system cell can theoretically be of any size from a single being to hundreds, they usually range from four to twenty beings. Imperial Intelligence often recruits agents from the worlds on which they are going to serve, training them off-world only if absolutely necessary. Once a cell has proven itself, it may be given additional training and possible placement on other systems.
A system cell is the basic unit of Imperial Intelligence. When the Ubiqtorate plans strategy, it thinks in terms of operations which could be conducted independently by system cells, with all coordination coming from the bureaus. System cells are aware of the command structure immediately above them, but are allowed to know very little else about Imperial Intelligence. They are most emphatically not allowed to know of the existence or operations of other system cells.
Imperial Intelligence gives system cells rudimentary logistic support. The only standard piece of equipment is the RWStar A/P Transceiver, with expanded memory and processing capabilities, which communicates with Plexus droid vehicles or Plexus conduits. Other equipment is to be obtained by the system cell itself, or is provided on a mission basis only. This lack of equipment occasionally hampers a cell, but the ingenuity of cell agents usually makes up for the lack of sphisticated gear.
A cell can increase its status within Imperial Intelligence by equipping itself from hostile sources. This includes not only the Rebellion, but often the underworld and sometimes even COMPNOR.
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