The hive cluster is under attack!

[Jessica Med-Beq]

The product manager for the TIE Reaver contacted Charzon for his newest idea, a starfighter that could be produced on the cheap given Ringo Vinda's abundance of alusteel. He knew that, while her approach to talent procurement was commendable, Charzon was not above industrial espionage and theft. After all, she did just that by whisking away Jessica from Kuat Drive Yards (but she was a disgruntled employee at KDY to begin with). His new idea would require a ball cockpit much like those on the TIE/fo or its predecessors, the TIE/it or TIE/ln; the TIE/hb and TIE/rv had a rather elongated version of that. But he knew that he needed a different chassis: he couldn't just plug away TIE/hb or TIE/rv wings on a TIE/ln cockpit or else that would give away from whom they stole stuff, even if said stuff is usually the stuff that never made it to mass or even minor production.

"All right, Marcia, the starfighter division is asking us to come up with some obscurely-used starfighter chassis that never made much of an impact on the market, some long-lost chassis that never achieved any kind of fame while it still was on the market" Charzon asked Marcia

"With all due respect, boss, we may replicate the failures: changing the cockpit design on a chassis that failed may not affect what caused the old chassis to fail" Marcia

"Knowing you, I can be sure that the failure of the targeting computers will not be replicated, if targeting systems were the cause" Charzon responded.

Marcia attempts to hack into the computer systems of Huppla Pasa Tisc Shipwright Collective, or Huppla Pasa Tisc, to no avail, in front of Charzon, no less. She was completely baffled by the Geonosians' security systems, which are different although not necessarily any better than common security systems.

"I might have gotten you the schematics of the TIE/hb for us to put an hyperdrive, landing gears and shield generators in it, but the Geonosians use systems I don't understand in the slightest; my abilities to slice are limited" Marcia protested, rather loudly at that.

"If you want anything stolen from Kuat Drive Yards I'm your lady" Jessica retorted.

"Forget about Kuat Drive Yards: Geonosians are not using the same stuff they are. Anything you can slice through, I can" Marcia protested again.

Shipyards tend to lower the level of security on a blueprint when a model has failed on the market after it has released. Even though Huppla Pasa Tisc only released two models of spacecraft intended to be piloted by non-Geonosians, the Ginivex and the Punworcca 116, which saw limited production at best, Marcia expected that company to itself expect little risk from non-Geonosians. She was proven wrong. To this end, she needed to hire some help to resolve the issue...

"Forgive me, I never hired outside consultants for slicing through computer systems. Do you have any idea how much slicers cost?"

[member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

It turned out, that cost for contract slicers varied immensely depending on whom you decided to hire. Furthermore, in most cases it was not even the prices that was the most immediate problem. Because usually, it was hard to even find a slicer. You either needed to know someone that knew someone, or be prepared to take the risk associating with the slicers over the HoloNet. You also had to be prepared for people that would impersonate a slicer, take your credits and walk away without ever considering doing the actual job. Alternatively, they would simply slice you due to your lack of security measures.

Luckily, the Hydian Way existed, allowing people that was not willing to dig through the darkest corners of the net to find what they were looking for an easy to use alternative. It was convenient for Jennifer to use her own website to find spare time jobs. It easier for her to pick the good jobs and offers on the site. Through a recent advertisement, she had come in contact with Charzon Loulan. Jennifer’s own signal expertly encrypted and forced through a CryptNet connectivity.

<Phoenix> : Cost? Dpends on the job dude.

<Phoenix> : I can give you your ex's current comlink number for 100 creds. I can bring down your favorite entertainment station for 400 – 10.000 depending on the size of the network. But if you want me to slice into the database of something like

<Phoenix> : A starship manufacturer. We’re looking at 40.000 - 80.000 creds. Minimum. Unless of course there's some good juice to leak.

​

[member="Charzon Loulan"]​

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Charzon took the time to personally reply to the CryptNet message, knowing the failures of her own staffers (the TIE Reaver product manager, as well as Marcia and Jessica) to crack the Geonosians' security systems would hold them back. Perhaps she would fire the TIE Reaver product manager if his plan fails this time around: as she recalled, the TIE/hb Heavy Bomber failed because it was highly unstable when hit, with a strong tendency to spin in such an event; adding an hyperdrive and shield generators on the top port pod did not solve that problem. But the TIE Reaver product manager thinks that the Advanced Geonosian Starfighter's woes were caused by the peculiar cockpit and control devices that are not adapted for use by a variety of species.

<Charzon> : Not just any starship manufacturer: Huppla Pasa Tisc, a Geonosian starship manufacturer. We wish to steal the chassis schematics of a little-known starfighter design codenamed the Advanced Geonosian Starfighter and we wish to refine it up to today's technology, as well as to be used by a variety of organic pilots, or to be droid starfighters altogether. Unfortunately, my staffers failed to steal from them. I cannot point to the source of the failure of my own slicing staff, with the most probable possibilities being a language barrier, either programming or linguistic. Needless to say, my best hope would be simply a programming language barrier. I am not a slicing expert but I do harbor hopes that the problem can be overcome. Since I never had to use outside slicers, I was a little naïve when it comes to looking for slicers using a price range for a particular kind of work. For anywhere between 100k and 175k credits, I believe there would be a slicer or two that will actually attempt to pull that off.

[member="Jen"]