Star Wars: From the Clone Wars to Starfaring Heroes

Chapter 47 - Eavesdropping
Ok?
Renn squinted at the engineer.

“I intend to use them to monitor the Republic’s military channels,” Raine explained calmly, his tone matter-of-fact. “The main force of the First Fleet is not in this sector, so we must remain vigilant and establish a broader early warning network.”

This reason sounds very legitimate and meets the needs of a frontline commander.

Thors nodded slowly, the swaying of his tentacles decreasing in amplitude. "Hmm... if you intend to deploy them at key nodes between the hypersonic transceivers, then turrets are indeed unnecessary. While we won't care about those old communications hulls... the higher-ups, the Quartermaster and the Security Bureau will."

“Sir, I personally believe your… explanation,” he paused deliberately, “but others may not.”

His gaze was sharp, clearly seeing through Renn's true intentions beneath his surface words.

Renn smiled slightly, revealing a row of neat teeth.

This engineer is very smart.

He felt that Raine wouldn't actually use these frigates to spy on the Republic, but rather to monitor communications within Confederate government agencies, business guilds, and even the military.

He felt that Ryan was collecting dirt on politicians, businessmen, and generals to build leverage for the future.

Anyone else would have readily believed Raine's explanation about monitoring the Republic.

But this engineer, who had personally designed or handled these ship performance parameters, could certainly see at a glance the enormous potential of the "Generosity-class" in electronic surveillance.

Of course, it's also possible that he himself has been involved in some less-than-clean communication projects and is well aware of the ins and outs of it.

Thors was half right. However, that was the real target Rein planned to monitor.

He is a Sith Lord disguised as a politician and separatist leader.

Holographic networks are real, tangible things.

It consists of countless real space stations, repeaters, and complex circuit diagrams.

The holographic network consists of millions of hypersonic relay stations scattered throughout the Milky Way and S-shaped hyperspace communication lines that connect them into a complex network of countless matrices.

These routes are not straight lines, but meander along the most stable and least resistant paths in hyperspace currents.

In interstellar space, apart from using these relay stations for high-speed transmission, the only other means of communication is slow, sub-light-speed physical transmission, which is meaningless on an interstellar scale.

Therefore, these relay stations represent the only feasible method for long-distance real-time communication.

However, the cost of operating it is extremely high.

Millions of space stations are scattered throughout the Milky Way, each requiring regular maintenance, energy supplies, shields against space debris and pirate attacks, and stationed technicians or maintenance robots.

Maintenance costs, energy consumption, personnel salaries, spare parts replacements... and so on, all amount to astronomical amounts of credit points flowing out like water.

However, considering economies of scale, the cost per user is still manageable for basic services.

However, once high bandwidth, low latency, and especially holographic-level transmission are required, service costs will skyrocket.

So, by process of elimination, who could afford to send a high-level message from Coruscant to Sereno?
This is almost a vast distance spanning from the core of the Milky Way to its outer ring.

Sending compressed voicemails is cheap.

Delayed voice calls are acceptable.

To send video emails, you need to be middle class or above.

How can we maintain real-time, high-resolution, low-latency, full-body rendering holographic video calls?

That means only a very small number of people can afford it, such as the super-rich, intergalactic corporate giants, or those who enjoy the highest level of government communication privileges.

Now, suppose the Milky Way is in a state of total war, and the holographic network is split in two by an invisible boundary?

Direct communication between the Republic-controlled and Confederate-controlled areas was blocked by both physical means and agreements. Furthermore, the recent emergency passage of the Non-Communications Act by the Republic Senate explicitly prohibits any form of direct communication between Republic and Confederate officials.

Once you know what you're looking for, you can easily find the answer by using the process of elimination.

This is why information transmitted at this level is usually encrypted using multiple layers of encryption.

People who value privacy and confidentiality place even greater importance on this.

Moreover, usually no one has enough time, money, or massive computing resources to crack them in real time.

This is where the "Generosity-class" star frigate comes into play.

Originally designed and mass-produced by Interstellar Banking Group (IGBC), it is essentially a mobile, highly secure ultrasonic transceiver relay station.

They created their own private communication matrix network, independent of the public holographic network, specifically for handling financial transactions that require absolute security.

In fact, the Confederate army still uses that militarized and hardened matrix for core command and communications.

It is impossible to directly connect to the S-shaped backbone of the public holographic network; it would be subject to strict technical restrictions and monitoring.

However, Rennes could take inspiration from the IGBC's approach and secretly dock a specially modified "Generosity-class" frigate next to a key ultrasonic relay station to passively monitor all signal streams passing through that node.

Or, to be even bolder, use technical means to "clean" or "transfer" specific encrypted signal streams through the ship without their knowledge, thereby intercepting and decrypting them during transmission.

What he had to do was use star charts and ultra-high current analysis to find the most likely and direct S-shaped route between Coruscant and Sereno, and locate one or more key relay stations that this route must pass through.

Then invade it.

Or deploy his listening ships nearby.

Ordinary bounty hunters or information brokers with some connections can do similar things with rudimentary equipment.

Why can't a professional spy frigate equipped with state-of-the-art signal capture, decryption, and data analysis suites do the same?
Palpatine and Dooku could freely use the highest level of quantum encryption to encrypt their transmitted messages, but this would only make the extremely high-specification, covert communication line itself, which requires a huge amount of money to maintain, easier to identify in the massive data stream.

Renn didn't even need to precisely crack the content from the beginning.

The very discovery that Count Dooku's encrypted signals frequently communicated with a specific encrypted endpoint in Coruscant at an extremely high level is itself significant evidence.

With his modified frigate and associated listening station, he could gradually accumulate data, attempt to crack it, or at least analyze the communication patterns, frequencies, and durations.

The automated monitoring function is the icing on the cake; he can leave them at preset listening points and check them occasionally.

There is still a long time before the crucial turning point in the clone wars.

Now, Rennes has time, money, and power.

Moreover, he was willing to put in the effort, groping for this fatal clue in the dark.

To be honest, he was thinking of a solution as he walked.

Gathering solid evidence against Count Dooku for future submission to the Confederate Senate or for public release is a good start.

At the same time, developing new, independent command codes and security protocols for his fleet is also a top priority. After all, he doesn't want his fleet to one day suddenly receive a self-destruct order from the "Supreme Command" and end up like Mustafa.

To achieve both surveillance and fleet security, he needs top-notch, reliable engineers…

This is yet another new item added to the to-do list.

“Then let’s convert them into warships,” Raine suggested, his finger swiping rapidly across the tablet to bring up the original blueprints for the “Generosity-class” ships. “The first frigates in wartime were the kind with turrets added to the original hulls, remember? External turret assemblies. I’ll tell the board that to defend our supply lines and combat pirates and Republic infiltration forces, we need to deploy as many ships as possible with basic firepower in non-frontline areas, and these converted old guys are perfect for that.”

(End of this chapter)