Dealing with the Power-Plant Virus

The crew has been awake and working for a long while. Bronz and Said Ma had short rests, but most everyone else has worked hard straight through the pre-departure chores and then up to jump. Its been a stressful past day; squaring away cargo and settling passengers, then spaceflight to the jump point and all that entails.

Kayla is ready with mild-stimulants (strong kaffe and black tea) and Said Ma can prescribe more 'hard-core' stimulants if needed. No task deficits at this time!

👍

Bronz recognizes the hologram "image" as a part of the Power Plant controlling mechanism. After observing for a few minutes, while 'Terry' tiredly talks to him worriedly about Adriana never having shown any interest in technical subjects..."she's more of an artist, really"...he has a profound INSIGHT: the control interface is getting 'commands' to shut various processes off; in effect a SCRAM (although that's not really what happens in a fusion reactor, I think) or emergency shut-down. Adriana responds to each of these orders with some sort of manipulation that defeats the order and restores normal functioning. In essence, it sure looks like she's protecting the Power Plant from these strange and dangerous computer instructions.

Decherrek and Leilani move to the Engineering Space to get direct access to the back-up control console. From there they start work; Leilani wanting to spoof the source of the disruptive code into 'thinking' the power plant has been shut down. Decherrek is more focused on finding where the code originates, decoding it, and pulling it apart... but the two approaches have plenty of overlap so the collaboration works well. Decherrek is assuming The Captain comes down to Engineering such that the team goes from two to three...

Tamm is already set up down in Engineering and has been working on checking each component of the Power Plant to determine whether or not its "in spec". Everything checks out; he's basicly doing what the Yearly Maintenance people did while at Fornice earlier. Only with a more specific focus on finding sub-standard or counterfeit parts. The previous crew did not keep great records, nor did they put "oh this is a knock off part we bought on the black market" in the Engineering Log. A decent counterfeit component will 'test out' as if its genuine under most circumstances making Llogan's task all that much more difficult.

Bronz stays at the entry hatch of Adriana's stateroom. 'Terry' LeFrontaine is there too, worrying over his spouse as she continues in her trance-like state, weaving her hands through the hologram. Bronz tries to figure out what she's actually doing...

Said Ma hands off the stims to Kayla and continues her own computer trace to find where the heck the malicious code is coming from....

Tharrok remains on the bridge, on 'watch'.

Security Specialist Shaky Telom (middle passage) and Courier Thessa Ting (high passage) have both retired to their staterooms.

Eight Hours Later..........

Relevant bits of data start slowly accumulating.

Whatever the origin, it becomes clear that the 'virus' should not have activated when it did. The power surge from the 'cracked cryonic trispacial controller' triggered it. So you should have gotten to Fornice normally..., but leaving Fornice would have been a different matter altogether. Whoever set the virus up wanted you to have trouble later, not sooner.

The 'virus' is very high-tech. Well above The Miss Fortune's average Imperial tech of 12-13. So even though the ship's systems are protected against cyber-interference, they are significantly vulnerable to such a sophisticated attack. The Power Plant controller-systems are especially well protected, including an "air gap", meaning they aren't hooked into the general computing systems. So somehow the air gap was bridged, either physically or by means unknown...

Which makes Adriana's ability to manipulate the Power Plant's controlling mechanism especially interesting. She should not be able to access any Engineering data from a passenger stateroom. Much less critical systems like the ones she is apparently manipulating to positive effect. Her 100,000cr comm device might have something to do with that...but so does her apparent Psychic powers.

Adriana's efforts are all "band aids", treating problems as they occur and not getting at the source in any way. A command is initiated, something like "negate the plasma temperature monitor output readings and substitute a 'loop' of normal temperatures"; and then Adriana reverses that instruction. There are whole series of such instructions, coming at measured intervals, not all-at-once. Perhaps making it more difficult to detect...?

[ooc]All of this is intent by LC and will come out once we it is determined that Andriana can work with the crew or she is still trying to save the Power Plant.[/OCC]

INTENT- to have the team in jump work on keeping the ship together, try to come up with a back trace of parts plan that were replaced by former crew. Below is just my thoughts that I have a pst ready to have LC communicate in Character, but I wanted to give David an idea as the GM what this player was thinking. I don't want to Metagame this, these are just thoughts.

Here are my working Theories

1. Adriana ≠ Saboteur.
Her actions are reactive and patchwork. She’s literally preventing the ship from dying, not causing it. Her "reach" into Engineering is a clue about her psychic + device abilities, not her guilt.

2. Decherrek = Potential Likely Vector or is not helping.
The most obvious vector for a TL14+ virus in an air‑gapped plant is physical access. Decherrek’s secretiveness, lack of solutions, and proximity to your systems (cargo handling, maintenance?) is exactly the profile of someone who could have planted or smuggled in a bridging device.

3. Not Zhodani nor Sword World nor Imperial nor a major Corporations.
I have tried to think this over from different views — a major power/Corporation doesn’t waste a bespoke cyber‑weapon on a random far trader. If they did, how would they monitor the outcome? They’d need a covert observer in-system (which is not apparent and does not make logical sense). There are Corporations that have acted in bad faith in the past, but why waste resources on a small simple merchant. That does not follow logic if they cannot control the variables.

4. Cargo ≠ Direct Trigger.
The GM already told us: the cracked cryonic trispacial controller was the tripwire. That implies the payload’s timing matters more than the cargo. Whoever did this wanted the ship compromised later — maybe at a remote jump, maybe mid‑void, maybe at rendezvous.

5. Purpose ≠ Misjump.
The virus isn’t behaving like a destructive "kill" payload. It’s controlling and substituting data (false plasma readings, false temps) and issuing timed commands. That’s more like:

-A takeover routine (ship‑napping).

-A data exfiltration / covert transport (your ship as a mule).

Or a selective sabotage to cripple the ship at a convenient moment (ransom, ambush). That leads to the question of why a small freighter?

This isn’t "make them explode." This is "make them compliant."

📝 Crew’s Next Steps (tactically) - Just my thoughts for a sounding board and will come out through LC

Baseline the OS at Fornice.
Exactly as you’re thinking: hard‑reset the main core to factory defaults before your next jump. Pull all patches. Kill anything that isn’t stock firmware. This at least severs command‑and‑control if it’s running in main memory.

Audit the Physical Layer.
Search for bridging hardware in the power plant, conduits, and maintenance crawlways. Something physically bypassed the air gap.

Soft Quarantine Decherrek.
LC would start a legal‑bureaucratic "crew compliance" check — politely but firmly restrict his access, run his luggage through a scan, and question his history with the ship.

Preserve Adriana.
She’s our only effective countermeasure right now. Don’t scare her off. Maybe even formally deputize her as "shipboard security asset" to give her legitimacy.

⚠️ Big Picture

We’re probably looking at a capture attempt rather than a kill attempt. Someone expects the Miss Fortune to be in a remote place, disabled but intact. That smells like theft, cargo seizure, or kidnapping, not large government or Corporation psywar.

OCC- I am writing this so David has an idea of where LC is thinking and the planned theories of LC and plan to act on, in the advent David wants to fast move the game to Fornice.

Adriana's Stateroom Adriana is in full "trance state" and does not acknowledge or react to either Bronz or LC when they enter. The entire room is filled with the 'diagram' of one small portion of the Power Plant control system. Adriana continues to reach and 'massage' and pull and pinch at the various interfaces and instruction nodes. Instructions/orders flow into the controls at a rate of one every few seconds; very slow by cybernetic standards. But it gives Adriana just enough time to react. Over and over. Her expression never changes; it is placid, dreamlike, almost sleepwalking in its appearance...

Bronz recognizes that the 'diagram' is part of the Power Plant controls, but needs to access manuals and perhaps further information to really get a grip on what's going on. But it does seem like most of the incoming 'instructions' are meant to obfuscate and mask; give false readings or deactivate alarm systems. The main intent of the malware-attack still escapes his understanding.

Leilani, Bronz, and Tamm can all verify that the ship is currently stable. In jump there's not much power draw; the jump bubble and life support are critical systems, but both appear unaffected. Grav Plates are among the largest power-use, but that seems OK, too. Whatever Adriana is doing has ensured that so far all seems 'normal'.

IF THE POWER PLANT fails or otherwise goes off-line, there will be no immediate threat to the ship. Backup battery power kicks in and is supposed to be good for at least 7 days. The artificial gravity will go offline, and Life-Support will go to minimum. It will get a bit uncomfortable, but easily survivable.

Llogan Tamm continues the drudge work of the component inventory. He can check the records from the recent "yearly maintenance" but they mainly confirm that components, when tested, performed to spec. That includes the failed Cryonic Trispacial Controller; when tested it conformed to expectation. What you found was that the actual part, when physically inspected, showed that it was a knock-off part. Not 'name brand', and that it had been replaced 5 years previously. The log doesn't say why it was replaced, but the ship would have been 10 years old at that point and so some components would be swapped out on 'general principal'. But given that the previous crew was financially stressed...well the original CTC could have gone off spec and required a replacement.

Right now Engineer Tamm's efforts do not address the current problem. The Power Plant would require a full shut down in order to physically inspect each component. That can only reliably happen at a Class A or B starport.