Thank St.Herb of the cleansing balefire they got glassed.
Yeah, I went all text wally. Tl;dr:
If I head canon the Dragoons from a uber-super-ultra-elite outfit to a uber-super-ultra-elite outfit who pulled of an intel coup like once, does it change anything whatsoever? At all? Besides having to decide who actually circulated misinformation with Wolfnet's name on it? (Clearly it was the Wolverines)
I appreciate we're all just trying to justify what some hungover hack at Fasa1 came up with way back when, however:
The idea that ROM never changed the locks makes an absolute mockery of them and every other intel gatherer in the universe. Which isn't just major players. Corps, nobles, lesser cabals, anybody & their dog who would be able (and through whose hands it could slip to the major player's) to profit off such a thing regardless of if they have the capacity to run an interstellar intel agency.
Also is ROM reputation so fearsome it protected the HPG network before they even existed? Because rather critically this would also have been taking place before C*, and before they got a handle on things indeed there was a point when everyone was scooping up everything SL they could get their grubby mitts which also runs before everyone's tech base got kicked in the teeth. Again mockery...for centuries...with SL cache turn up like the work of a meth head squirrel...
As far as tech, for which encryption doesn't and codes certainly don't have the same unobatium supply chain a battlemech does to wave our hands at. As well i'm not recalling House capitals getting cooked so much so how much tech degradation are we talking about for intel gatherers/when? Is there a source for needing just a radio? Because if it's not a closed system that makes a mockery of not just ROM/the house agencies (for starters how are all the HPGs not located on at least the equivalent of Mars, with the key traffic being sent securely in system?) but the house lords2. If the Dragoons brought & have magic Clan/SL code breakers that just causes more problems which brings me to the thing i'm actually posting for. Which is if I head canon the Dragoons from a uber-super-ultra-elite outfit to a uber-super-ultra-elite outfit who pulled of an intel coup like once, does it change anything whatsoever? At all? Besides having to decide who actually circulated misinformation with Wolfnet's name on it? (Clearly it was the Wolverines)
Additionally, that the techno barbarians with only a vestigial understanding of intel work ended up pulled this off and became the premier agency is not only pure canon which da sense it makesa none, but that's twofold. Because it's 'became' instead of at least 'founded'. They are absolutely one of those lesser players I mentioned. Every Dragoon cook must have a head full of ROM email as he spends every spare minute of the day trying to keep up. Leaving aside that C* isn't the phone company IN SPAAACE it's your long distance carrier IN SPAACE so they still absolutely need to do field work. I mean they would have to anyway i'm pointing out sigint isn't all they'd need. Even if the blackboxes didn't exists. Whereas without that sweet sweet deus-ex-machina it's a non starter. Having no background, and being from an alien culture, or a dodgy recruit for a dodgy business isn't a strength. It's a distinct disadvantage. Maybe I didn't quite grasp the boondocks scheme, but it seems to me that for one thing that makes everyone else a fool for not doing that as well, or they are all doing it, with more resources than the 'goons. Though mostly for the sheer volume, and 'just in case' because second thing is it isn't going to work. The boondocks are finding out what's going on about the same time as the rest of the galaxy. Key seats of power, garrisons, and so on would of course receive priority for secure communications channels & security, and would as well be where the dragoons needed to be. It also doesn't fit the kind of access they've been shown with POV. The boonies just aren't getting the prime stuff, and the more interesting circles are simply not open to people who don't have a check able background. I'm not saying you're dealing in impossibilities, it might make the dragoons a humble player in the intelligence game, but if you're saying somewhere out there; there's a key Mossad agent they stuck on an oil rig in Alaska thirty years ago so that shortly before he retires he could...well maybe me thinking it's unlikely is exactly what They want. Of course we know the Mossad exist so they're clearly not as good as the dragoons and their interstellar network.
In short, it's pure fiat. There's no way to get the Dragoons into a ballpark where there's a fig of leaf of plausibility. Indeed I may as well decide Jamie's an Adventure Bros style clone cause he gets shot in the face every time someone puts together his plan of protecting the IS from the clans by hoarding tech, and quietly waiting for them to show up while playing mercs forever.
1. I have hard proof. Pick any early 90's SR scenario. Any. They are all prima facie evidence against sobriety.
2. Interdiction wasn't the most plausible thing before this idea.