Fwurg

[Mercury]

The Minister of Justice has asked the Jedi to send a security team to their office to discuss a matter pertaining to Senate Security. The Jedi council wishes to send two or three Jedi Padawans to hear her and investigate if necessary.

((OOC: This mission will emphasise player initiative in the investigation. It will be a short mission with an obvious, but non-political impact and should be completed within 4 weeks, for this reason I ask everyone post at least twice a week. That's a total of 8 posts, I'm sure everyone can manage this.

Mission reward will be 1 skill point, provided the mission is completed to the satisfaction of the Minister - this means if you fail, there will be no reward (!)))

[Ariana Danacia]

Ariana reports to the Jedi Council that she is ready to go. She waits for others to join her.

[Shebi Ajava]

Shebi Ajava reports in a well.

[Fecta Trigiel]

Trigiel reports in for the mission. He looked around for a moment: "No T'sal? I suspected her to be here as well. A well, she will probably show her face shortly."

[Senator Mathi-ey C'b'rton of the Divine Fiefdom of Highmons]

Riding up in the elevator towards the top of the building, just a few floors under the main Senate hall, the three Jedi felt a tension in the air. With a ping, the elevator arrived on the Ministry of Justice floor, which was where the minister held office.

Passing by the secretary and two security guards with a simple wave of their access cards, the three padawans stepped into a grand office, fit for the co-ruler of a superpower. To the left, hidden behind some plants and a small aquarium were desks for whatever experts the minister needed to work. To the right was a sitting area and a grey metal meeting table, each with room for at least a dozen participants. The central path however led to the main feature in the room, a huge desk made of glass with a large swivelling chair behind it, its back turned to the entrance of the door.

Behind the desk and sitting area the entire wall was made out of glass, tilted slightly outwards, as part of the rising structure of the main building and overlooking the city and hoover car traffic lanes below to a backdrop of the galactic centre.

As they walked up to the desk, the chair turned around, revealing Senator Mathi-ey C'b'rton, the minister of Justice. Her hands held together as if in prayer, a veil covering her head and light blue and gold embroidered gown and big green eyes looking up at the padawans.

"Thank you Jedi for coming on such short notice." she stated. "I am Mathi-ey C'b'rton, Senator of Highmons and Minister of Justice." she explained. "The Jedi Council did not specify the Jedi they would send."

She did not say it in so much words, but that was an invitation to tell her who they were.

[Shebi Ajava]

"I am padawan Shebi Ajava, of House Shebi of Veolia.", was the short reply of the veolian padawan.

[Ariana Danacia]

"I am padawan Ariana Danacia from the Praetorian Empire."

[Fecta Trigiel]

Not knowing what more to say, Trigiel kept it simple as well: "And I am Padawan Trigiel from the Teprogrenaian Consensus."

[Senator Mathi-ey C'b'rton of the Divine Fiefdom of Highmons]

"Excellent." she stood, straightening her skirts a moment before turning to walk to the window and looking out over the city below and the galaxy behind it. "Since the Jedi have taken over, there have been no major incidents inside the senate building. It is much appreciated." she stated, motioning for the Jedi to join her at the window.

Once the Jedi had moved in, she motioned downwards, to the large square in front of the building. It was an open area, with strategically placed trees and chest-high planters that were conveniently exactly the right height for taking cover behind. Every thirty meters or so, wide sets of stairs interrupting the square. Rising no more than three meters each, it made the square seem as if an enormous ziggurat had been deflated and flattened by the weighty matters discussed in the Senate Building at its peak.

Interrupting the stairways were seating area's with flower-filled planters and benches on top and small shops providing coffee, lunch and private places to converse with eager politician, lobbyist and petitioners. On the other side of the square, the buildings of the city centre rose up into the skyline, providing a natural defensive barrier.

"Ajava, Ariana, Trigiel... Can you please explain this?" the minister inquired.

For a moment it was unclear what she was referring to. But suddenly the Jedi saw it: A white line running over the entire square, circling it around, then making two wide loops pointing away from the senate before rejoining the primary circle. Inside, two short lines crossed, with two circle-dots above it. It was unmistakably the mark of the White Rabbit that had previously defaced several embassy doors and walls. Even if it had not been immediately obvious, once you had seen it, it was like the rabbit making a rice-cake on the moon - impossible to un-see.

[Fecta Trigiel]

Trigiel looked the giant rabbit painted on the ground. He zoomed in on some details of the rabbit, then he looked if anybody else on the square has seen the painting so far.

"Not yet, minister, but we are going to find out."

((Check: 10 = 5 Force Level + 5 Vision -- sensitive optics (infra red, ultra violet, night sight zoom function) for looking at the painting and find out any anomalies.))

((OOC: You mentioned that the wall was made of glass, but in the Unity City description page is noted that all windows have only a force shield what is keeping the light inside.))

[Mercury]

((OOC: The energy field is integrated into the glass, which is there as additional protection so a power outage doesn't cause a dangerous situation at this height.))

[Shebi Ajava]

Shebi Ajava ignored the minister's use of her given name, as the minister was highly placed and seemed not to be in the mood to be informed of veolian culture.

She looked outside, and quickly spotted the white rabbit drawing. She was surprised by the size of the rabbit, and the fact that it was so large. Whomever drew this was adept at not being noticed. Whether this was due to being very stealthy, or just by wearing a construction workers jacket was another question.

"I see. That does indeed beg for an explanation."

She bowed to the minister.

"We shall keep you appraised of our findings, minister. Trigiel, Ariana, I will start with checking the security footage from the Senate Building, maybe you could see if Unity Police camera's picked up anything?"

[Ariana Danacia]

"We will get right on it.

I will check with Unity police to see if the public camera's might have spotted anything. Trigiel will you study the paint? We might learn something from the paint that is used."

[Shebi Ajava]

"Good luck." She said to Arian and Trigiel, and left to go and check the security footage.

((Check: 10 = 6 Force Level + 4 Vision -- Checking the security footage))

((OOC: Edit: Forgot check))

[Fecta Trigiel]

"I am looking at it right now, but I will take some samples as well. We can also ask the jedi and personal on duty. I will do that after the samples are taken."

After Trigiel had a look on the paint, he went to the plaza. If necessary he grabbed some equipment to take and store paint samples, though his metal fingers and chest storage compartment should probably be enough. The cyborg was clever enough to take a sample out of view of most people. That the painting was there was worse enough, no reason to put emphasis on it by pointing it out in front of everybody.

((Check: 10 = 5 Force Level + 5 Vision -- sensitive optics (infra red, ultra violet, night sight zoom function) for looking at the painting and find out any anomalies.))
((OOC: For great convenience I have reposted my check from the previous post. So this is not a new action.))

[Mercury]

"Excellent, thank you very much." The minister nodded gratefully as the Jedi moved to leave. "Also, could you please make sure to increase security in the area around the Senate Building? That way we can prevent such things from happening again..."

After this the Jedi left the room and got to their investigation.

Ariana moved off to speak to Unity Police. As it turned out, there was actually quite a bit of footage - not from the Unity Police, but several of the various small stores that were present on the square had security camera's which Unity Police could get access to. Watching the footage, Ariana could not immediately spot anything out of the ordinary however...

Ajava meanwhile moved to check the available security footage from Senate Security, which kept a close eye on what was going on near the building. Searching through the footage, Ajava too had trouble finding anything out of the ordinary...

Trigiel moved to check the paint for any relevant details. The paint itself was chemically very uninteresting - it was just regular white paint, of a brand that was sold throughout the galaxy. Not much information there...

Finding nothing useful in their investigation, the three Jedi soon collaborated to find the next step, but as it turned out, the three investigations complemented one another: Trigiel was able to determine when the paint had been put down - from the level to which it had dried he determined the paint had been there approximately eight hours.

With this new information, both Ariana and Ajava reviewed their tapes, and together they managed to identify three stealthy individuals: disguised as a street artist, a maintenance worker and a cleaner respectively and using the general darkness on the square to go about their business undetected, none of them drawing clear lines, but each leaving line segments in a coordinated fashion - the street artist as part of a supposed art work or performance in different parts, the maintenance worker as part of maintenance work and the cleaner leaving a trail under his cart. Quite a well planned operation.

Moreover, the Jedi picked up on a datapad they all used - no doubt a location device of some sort to help them pick where to draw the line. If they could connect the datapad to the owner and find traces of the program, that would certainly help get a conviction.

[Ariana Danacia]

((OOC: Your last sentence is unclear to me. Did we find a physical datapad or did we see them use a datapad or did we pick up the signal of a datapad?))

[Mercury]

((OOC: You saw them use a datapad on the videotape. You do not currently have that datapad, but if you do find it, it can be used as extra evidence. "Picked up on" was unfortunately chosen due to its resemblance to "picked up"))

[Ariana Danacia]

"We might be able to find them through their datapad. It might have been logged onto one of the public networks. If we can find its unique identifier in the logs we might be able to trace it, or at least find it when it logs on a public network again.

Maybe we can identify witnesses on the footage to ID the individuals?

I will go after the datapad."

Ariana went back to the police station to subpoena the logs of the public networks. She tried to find the unique identifier of the device that the individuals where using. If possible and required she would try to decipher the data-stream to find out what they were doing.

After identifying the device Ariana wrote a small program that would notify her when the device was logging on to a public network and give her the location.

((Check: 12 = 5 Force Level + 5 Reason + 2 Slicing -- Decoding the traffic and identifying the device))
((Check: 11 = 5 Force Level + 5 Reason + 1 Programming -- Writing a program to scan the public networks for the device.))
((OOC: Not sure which check applies since I don't know what I will find.))

[Fecta Trigiel]

Trigiel looked at the footage to see what species the people were. "Maybe we can ask the embassies and the space port check-in about whereabouts of suspicious individuals or missing people... That sounded as a much better plan in my head than as actual plan."

Trigiel though for a moment before coming up with better ideas: "The maintenance worker and the cleaner needed to get their cloths from somewhere. We can try to check possible identifiers on the clothing to locate where they got their uniforms."

((Check: 10 = 5 Force Level + 5 Vision -- To check what the species of the vandals are and to see if there are any identifiers, especially on the clothing.

Not sure if Vision is applicable on the check, as it is security footage without 'zoom in, enhance'.))

[Shebi Ajava]

Ajava went to the security commander responsible for the security patrols around the senate buildings. She shortly explained to him the current ongoing investigation of the white rabbit painting on the plaza, and she asked whether the security of the areas around the senate buildings has to be increased for the time being.

[Mercury]

Ariana carefully tracked through the public network logs, eventually identifying two douzen devices which might have belonged to the painters. Using her slicing skills, she narrowed this down to four, three from the street artist, maintenance worker and cleaner and a fourth, possibly from a flunky or backup device which followed a very similar access pattern. This meant there was a fourth suspect, who was not visible in the security footage!

Using her information, Ariana wrote a program to track future access by these devices, but unfortunately at this time there seemed to be no clue of them - this meant they were not logged on in any network in or around the Senate building. Ariana could not possibly get access to all networks or even all public networks, so she was unable to locate her target this way, but she was able to set up an automatic alarm that would alert her should the devices be near the Senate Building again. Moreover, if she had a specific network to target, she could install the software there as well, if she had access to that network.

Trigiel meanwhile worked on tracing after the uniforms, finding an important clue as well! Though his investigation turned up that the clothes and uniforms were 'standard issue' meaning galaxy wide there were tens of millions of them, he managed to track a purchase of one uniform - a surprisingly small amount as they were usually purchased in bulk - to a store on Union which as luck would have it tracked its purchases.

The uniform was bought one day before the vandals made their move and it traced to an expense account - an account set up beforehand to allow diplomats, visiting dignitaries or corporate chiefs to make purchases while travelling without carrying money around. A key component: they were locked to a single person using them and that person was no doubt registered somewhere!

The security commander nodded "We will increase security on the square with some clear patrols and perhaps two armoured vehicles. That way nobody will get any idea's. I think that should cover the square. We have the rest properly covered, I think, otherwise they would have gone in and put it inside. If you have no objections regarding your investigation, I shall increase security immediately."

[Shebi Ajava]

"I have no objection. But have a few people in civilian around as well. It never hurst to have some non-obvious security that just observe the affairs."

With that, she left the commander to do their work.

She contacted Ariana and Trigiel: "Security on the square has been increased. What's your status? I'd like to wrap this up before the press gets a hold of the story, and runs a story on how this is another security failure."

[Fecta Trigiel]

Trigiel forwarded his findings to the others so they were up to date as well.

"I may have a lead, a shop where they likely retrieved their uniforms. I go there now to check it out. Ariana, what is your status and who is going to check the owner of the account?"

If nobody objected, Trigiel went to the shop where the uniforms were likely bought.

"Good day, no I am not a droid, yes I am a person, yes I am a cyborg, a teprogrenus to be specific, thank you for understanding.

I have questions about some people who likely bought here city maintenance uniforms a few days ago." Trigiel showed the picture of the two persons from the security tape. "Can you tell me who they are, if they retrieved uniforms here and if so, do you still have the transaction information?"

If the shopkeeper was not very willingly to help, which was very likely, Trigiel applied a little psychological pressure: Form Zero. He opened his arm compartment with his lightsaber and put it on the table or the counter, depending what was available. "Please be cooperative. If you are oppressed or blackmailed, then we can help you as well."

Of course if the shopkeeper was cooperative from the beginning, form zero was not necessary.

Trigiel carefully studied the shopkeeper when he was talking, to see if he was honest and not hiding anything.((Check: 8 = 5 Force Level + 3 Intuition -- To see if the shopkeeper is honest.))

((OOC: You forget to mention if Trigiel was able to recognize the races of the persons. :)))

[Ariana Danacia]

"I have identified the devices that the suspects used. I found out that they were 4, which gives me the idea that there could have been a fourth person that was not on the security footage. Since the devices are no longer active near the Senate building I am unable to track them at the moment.

I wrote a program that can be deployed on a local network that can identify the devices. It will alert me when they show up. Just in case I kept the program running on the networks around the senate building. I have given you both access to the program to deploy it if you find something suspicious. I will look into the expense account."

Ariana tried tracing the account number to the correct bank. If this did not work she would just go to one of the larger banks and ask them which bank is behind the expense account.

After finding the bank Ariana tries persuading the manager to give her the information of the account holder and the people that have access to it. If they are not willing to cooperate Ariana is willing to use police resources, senate security resources and some persuasion to acquire the information.

((Check: 8 = 5 Force Level + 3 Intuition -- Convincing the bank manager that the matter is urgent.))