Sector Plexus

Faction

• Era: Rise of the Empire Era
• Source: Home

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. The Plexus encodes, categorizes, transmits, stores, receives, and decodes 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 own 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 and changing 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 If a transmitting agent's PSEG is sufficiently out of date, even if the message is encoded properly, the computers will transfer the message to a Plexus officer who decides whether or not to authorize the sending of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 the 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 the transmission to the final destination, and the message is transmitted to additional conduits even after the message has been received at the final destination. This means the message is routed to thousands of places, only one of which is the actual destination. Even if a message is intercepted, enemy agents have a slim chance of discovering the location of the initial sender or the receipient; 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 are sent from 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 degradaton 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 transmitting.

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

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 I2-CG Droid (based on Cybot Galactica's ED4 model), a "ship's captain" R2-M3 Droid (based on the Industrial Automaton R2 Series Astromech Droid), and an analysis/encoding computer equipped with the TranLang III Communication module. These ships contain no accomodations 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. PDV's are often given minimal camouflage to make them look like mining probes or scavenger droids to casual observers.

Imperial CompLink

In the waning days of the Republic, there arose an ambitious group of scientists eager to free research from the parochial power struggles which typified the later days of the Old Republic. They proposed a vast computer network connected to the HoloNets, giving scientists on any of thousands 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 then Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and his supporters.

The idea was, ultimately, 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 and the Republic needed the tens of trillions of credits to fight the Clone Wars. Additionally, the Supreme Chancellor feared a system which would allow such an instantaneous and complete exchange of information between disparate citizens of the coming New Order.

During its formation, Imperial Intelligence managed to retrive almost all of the documentation and software proposals, and recruited a number of the same scientists who had proposed the Republic CompLink project. Using the PDVs and Plexus conduits to link the computer, rather than the HoloNet technology, reduced the costs more than ten thousandfold. The prospect of having access to every computer bank in the galaxy, with the nearly inconvceivable wealth of information such a system would provide, was too tempting to ignore.

With the help of system cells throughout the galaxy, as well as a massive effort by virtually every talented individual within Technology Branch, the necessary software was installed in computer networks in hundreds of sectors. Still, less than six percent of the planetary networks had been tapped by the time of the Declaration of the New Order; many of the rest had security which was too difficult to penetrate to make it worth the risk.

The Ubiqtorate considered canceling the projgect as too expensive for the benefits accrued. It was then that a Plexus technician, Geothray Camber, sent Dr. Lindu Sencker a series of scandocs with preliminary specifications of a new eavesdropping device which would circumvent the security systems of virtually every computer in existence. Sencker's team conquered the formidable theoretical and technical problems poised by Camber's plan.

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 hyperspatial orbit around a planet's gravity shadow, the HOS sensors do not pick up the signals from the computer directly. They monitor the hyperspace shadows left by the streaking particles inside a photonic data stream. 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 on this performance 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 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 information is transferred, the PDV and HOS return to hyperspace - the HOS to its orbit and the PDV to its rendezvous with the nearest Plexus conduit.