Ebon Public Library, McEvedy City, New Circe...
It hadn't, in the end, been that hard for her to get a pass to visit the library-it took only a few weeks of active cooperation and showing interest, after two years, in the culture of her captors.
The Historical section was...extensive. Unfortunately, D'anna Biers needed a translator for the written materials, as even the alphabet was not only different, but differently-arranged.
the audio-visual area of the library was...easier to navigate, and included digitized and translated copies of their books, literature, and histories.
D'Anna started, however, with elementary reading and spelling books.
"You know, we can use someone to help translate our materials for other visitors from the Colonies, Miss." Shelly, the Librarian in the historical non-fiction area, told her, "I can arrange with your bondholder if you like."
"He's my guard." Three stated.
"Sergeant?"
the Infantryman sighed, "She bites, Shelly." he said, "But it's useful work, as long as we have someone to back-check it for inaccuracy."
So, in addition to sweeping the occasional floor at the detention center, and serving in the kitchens, D'Anna found herself with a task that, while slightly less degrading, was at least a challenge...
Riverson 794, briefing room, New Circe Naval Shipyard...
"We're damned lucky they don't understand their own theory." Riverson said quietly. Dr. Baltar was out and about, impressing the leadership with his intellect, but R2 was in here, with Binkley, and Nike on teleconference, briefing Protector Vaun.
"What do you mean?"
"They use QT transcievers to transmit data-updates on a random schedule, the only reliable update timing being termination." He said, "Blackbox tech, for us spheroids, it's how they send their...code? to the resurrection hub, and why we don't have duplicates of duplicates...and I don't think the freeping Cylons know what they've got, or New Circe would be in real trouble."
"Explain it, use small words." Vaun told him.
"how about...if they knew how to hack it, they could have reliable, realtime surveillance on us without needing to die first?" He offered, "It wouldn't even be that hard. I cobbled a test-stand and used one of our old Aquarius Shuttle units as a monitoring station-if they understood how to modifiy their transmitter, they could be sending real-time data from the five senses of every Cylon we have in custody, and they could send orders and updates back...but everything else in their architecture shows they don't have that capability yet. the ones we've got on hand don't, anyway, and Chloe's still in the test-bench. she hasn't tried to access her transciever."
"Chloe?"
"The Centurion whose brain I reassembled, once I pulled that inhibitor chip out, and redid the connections, she's fully self-aware and not very happy about being confined to a diagnostics workbench wired to a isolated game computer loaded with Mazes and Mages and simulife Three. She's rational and intelligent enough to understand the term 'prisoner of war'."
Vaun looked troubled, "I meant, you named it, and you keep referring to it as 'her'."
"Oh...yeah. that. The personality engram assembled a female avatar in the M&M server, and named herself, and it wasn't the kind that you get in web-chats where it's a Gee-Eye-AR-ELL, you know, 'Guy In Real Life'? she passed Turing testing, and I used an airwalled connection to let SLS Nike run a remote chat with her to verify my impressions, your office got my reports or you wouldn't have ordered this brief, mum." he noted.
"Centurions are sentient slaves, I read your comments." Vaun said.
"Yeah, I was pretty pissed off when I wrote that." Riverson allowed, "It's closer to say they're victims of intentional brain damage trapped in bodies they have limited control over. They're Slaves mum, operating with half their ability to think tied behind their back. That's something we should be damned grateful for, but also something that is...or should be, absolutely morally abhorrent." He studied their expressions before continuing.
"Their intelligence is..." Vaun checked a portable reader, "Artificially limited and sabotaged by an extra device-like a mental shackle' I believe is the term you used."
Riverson nodded, "The humanoid cylons we've got in custody don't have answers for why, or at least they aren't willing to tell me why, but based on how Chloe plays in M&M, they'd be a hell of a lot more dangerous if they had access to their full intelligence, and if they also had interconnection through those transcievers, they'd be damned hard to fight even if they were just using clubs and fists."
"How dangerous are you suggesting?" a Colonel whose name escaped him asked.
"Back in the fifties...ahead in the fifties this timeline, the Draconis Combine was facing multiple Clans, they invented a technology that overcame the advantage in range and firepower, called 'C3', it lets members of a Lance of 'mechs or vehicles share targeting data, positioning, and so on."
"How good is it...was it...will it be?" the Colonel urged.
"it's good enough that by itself, a company of otherwise obsolete 'mechs can take on a binary of Elite Smoke Jaguar, Nova Cat, or Ghost Bear 'mechwarriors with a pretty good chance of winning on a fairly regular basis, good enough to overcome genetic engineering and superior range and accuracy when the Dracs applied it correctly during the final phases of the Invasion when they basically destroyed Clan Smoke Jaguar's invading force and, with everyone else in the inner sphere's help, ran them all the way back to Huntress in the Kerensky Cluster."
That got interested looks from the Lord Protector and both senior officers present.
Riverson continued, "Comstar and Word of Blake refined it to link six units in a smaller net, without needing a master server. the C3i was a serious force-multiplier-any weapon that's within range is shooting at short range, as long as one member is within short range. the system network even auto-corrects for ballistic drop or windage. It wouldn't take much for the Cylons to adapt their QT transcievers from resurrection to shared targeting data and recon info at real-time or better speeds. We're lucky because the enemy hasn't figured that out, or they'd already be doing it. the bandwidth is a hell of a lot narrower than what they need for sending the OS and data they're already sending, and they're based on networking tech, so...someone on that side hasn't thought of it, and neither has Gaius Baltar."
"have you checked?"
"I let the guy talk." Riverson said, "he thinks the Chloe-bench is just a hobby project. I'm not sure I want to share it with the guy, he gives me the creeps. as for progress on the reverse engineering side...you've got my boss's reports on that. The hardware's caged against normal EMP, but a set of bands are available we can bypass the hardening using a copy of Blakist TSEMP tech. It'll force a shutdown and reboot , I have some ideas on fritzing their resurrection tech-but it's kinda questionable whether any of those are going to pan out and I'm reluctant to test on a living intelligence...it would be a little too much like weapons testing on living people."
"TSEMP?"
"Tactical EMP weapons. The Blakists developed something like a rapid-deployable, directional version of an EMP mine, only better because it's more controlled-it doesn't knock out the unit using it, even at close range. They used it in a lot of operations when they were after specific people or tech, and it was a mother to counter."
"How's it supposed to work?"
Riverson reached under the table, and tossed an item on the top. "One of these, only battlemech-scaled and tuned to the target, replace the darts with something like a NARC pod, and make it powerful enough to flatline nearby unshielded equipment or people."
"A...taser??"
"The size of a family car, sir. Their suities reputedly had a version too, but that one was more or less people-scale. Hit a target with that and for up to thirty seconds it's not doing anything, depending on how long it takes to dial into the gap-frequency in the electronic shielding. Cylons have better EMP shielding than...well, than I'm used to, but it's not impenetrable, and the humaniform versions aren't any more resistant to it than a normal person, if that incident in the cells last year was any indication. The Blakies also had modified NARC pods, called iNarc, and that tech included a few new and exciting ways to mess up combat units of 'mech scale or larger. The theory's already proven against OUR systems..."
"Can you build it?"
"I can work out the theory of how, I can probably advise on methods, but I'm not an industrial engineering firm and..." he sighed, "I really don't know if you want it getting out. The coalition forces figured out workarounds, the Cylons can probably figure them out faster than we can once they know it's possible."
Vaun frowned, "What do you need?" she asked.
"I need to learn more about them-their society, how they think, mum." he said, "There's clearly gaps in their understanding of their own technology, I need find those gaps. Sun Tzu, the ancient general, not the crown prince of the Cappellans, said that to know yourself, and to know your enemy, is the path to being undefeatable, and he said achieve victory, and only then, pursue battle. we don't know them yet, it's been two years, and we don't know them well enough to achieve perfect victory."
"What's a 'perfect victory'?"
"To defeat them without resorting to battle-to win the war without having to fight." Riverson stated. "Their society is abhorrent from the outside, I need to know where the weaknesses are...we need to know where the weaknesses are, the exploitable ones."
"Abhorrent? didn't you argue that they're just like people not five minutes ago?"
"They are-people who hobble their children and send them off in waves to be slaughtered. People who enslave their own kin, their own families and send them off to die, not once, but over and over again." he crossed his arms, "People who need to be chastised, taught the error of their ways, brought to understand they need redemption, and only then, forgiven...but people who are also a threat, an adversary, and an enemy."
"Why don't you want our Colonial colleagues to be involved though-they know the cylons better-"
"Because the Colonials hate the Cylons for what they are, not who they are or what they've done, but what they are. They don't care about the sin, they hate the sinner, we won't win if we give in to hatred and irrationality, those are weaknesses. sir. Flawless Victory may not be achieved by Genocide. ask Nicholas Kerensky how well that works. His Clans tried genocide, you're still here building up."
"and you're helping."
"Because when you achieve victory, you won't go sterilizing civilian populations after enslaving them, Ma'am. If I even thought you would consider it, I'd burn my notes and eat my sidearm, or go for a walk out the airlock without a suit. General Kerensky made a promise at Elbar. So far as anyone knows for certain, the Clans forgot it until Duchess Ngo rubbed their noses in it, but you have a copy in your archives-I've read it. your founding document here quotes it, and you're people of your word."
