EotE:Session 2 Subplots
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H8-U2
Detailed examination of the now-disassembled astromech reveals the following details:
- Most pieces of the droid's chassis are stamped with the Industrial Automaton logo, and bear serial numbers beginning "P6-***." Information gleaned from trade journals such as Mechtech Illustrated would indicate that this a prototype chassis for a sucessor to the unpopular R5 model, likely to be designated the R6 series.
- The droid "brain" mounting brackets are an unusual design, and are labelled "Holowan Labs." They may need to be modified or replaced depending on the make/model of any potential replacement brain.
- The droid's "brain," which was handed over to the bounty-hunter Version and subsequently destroyed, was also labelled with the Holowan Labs logo. Tobias saw a crate full of identical-model droid brains aboard the Stars and Garters. They are presumeably now in Imperial possession.
- The droid's two blaster-pistol mounts are not stamped with any serial numbers of manufacturer's logos. Subtle differences between the two mounts, such as microscopic tool-marks, indicate to trained eye that they're likely one-off specialty pieces. Feedback response relays tie them directly into a sub-processor, separate from but connected to the droid's "brain." This sub-processor is also unlabeled, and in fact it appears that a serial number may have been removed with a fusioncutter. The entire assemblage can be removed with moderate effort, though any other chassis will require significant modification before transplant. The assemblage currently occupies most of the space in what would be the internal storage compartment of a standard R2 unit.
- The chassis is equipped with the following accessories (one each): Manipulator arm, electric arc welder, circular saw, computer scomp link arm, holographic recorder/projector unit, and an aresol sprayer (resevoir currently empty). The circular saw, scomp link arm, and manipulator arm have seen recent use.
Cray Drog's Personal Effects
The personal effects recovered from Cray Drog's footlocker aboard the Stars and Garters are as follows:
Datapad containing a personal diary
The diary spans approximately 6 years time. The earliest entry is dated approximately two weeks after the Jedi Uprising and the last entry is dated three months ago, mere days before Cray was taken into Imperial custody.
Diary entries were dicated using the pad's transcription function, and the original voice recordings are available for playback. Cray speaks slowly in Galactic Basic, and his pronounciation is sharp and precise. A well-traveled listener will be able to identify a significant Durese accent.
A number of diary entries are accompanied by holo-images. These are almost entirely of landmarks from the worlds he was visiting at the time each diary entry was recorded.
The frequency of Cray's diary entries does not seem to fit any set pattern. He averaged 10-16 entries per year, though he recorded more frequently in the first year than any other (26 entries).
There is suprisingly little information in the diary to corroborate the group's suspicion that Cray was a Jedi. The only detail that seems to point to this conclusion is that the first entry corresponds roughly with the Jedi Uprising, and speaks of Cray hastily leaving Coruscant for his family's home on Fondor.
Datapad containing a single, large file
This datapad is an older model than Cray's diary 'pad. In addition, the datapad's design asthetic suggests it was intended for outdoor use: The external surfaces are coated with a rubberized, shock-absorbant material, and the device specifications printed on the back in Aurabesh indicate it is rated for high/low pressure and temperature environments.
The datapad's filesystem contains a single block of compressed data. Attempts to un-compress the data produce an error message indicating that the file is too large to fit in the 'pad's memory in its uncompressed state.
Fist-sized piece of purple crystal
The crystal measures approximately 20cm long and 8cm wide and weighs approximately 3 kilograms.
The crystal's coloration is not uniform, ranging from a lighter spinel shade to a deep amethyst. Color gradiates with no set pattern, demonstrating both the distinctive "whorls" of an agate and the "spikes" of color seen in tourmalated quartz.
The external surface of the crystal is irregularly faceted. Score marks on some of the external facets suggest it may have been chiseled or cut from a larger whole.
When held to the light, what first appear to be internal facets reveal themselves to be "veins" of some kind of silvery material. The veins spiderweb the inside of the crystal, criss-crossing and branching in a complex geometric pattern.
Lightsaber
The lightsaber produces a purple blade approximately 60cm in length.
The lightsaber is equipped with both safety and deadman switches.
The lightsaber appears to be a normal example of its kind in all other respects.
The Virus
A preliminary scan of the ship's computer core shows that it has been liberally "seeded" with small blocks of data, all originating from the bypass terminal H8-U2 managed to wire into the Eclipe's storage closet. The series of cross-wired datapads that H8-U2 installed on the ship's data conduit allowed it to seed the data without utilizing any of the ship's processing resources, thus bypassing the ship's anti-viral and data security screens. Examination of the pads themselves reveals that the internal processor in each has been burned out, likely due to software overclocking.
A cursory examination of the data blocks themselves reveals the following:
- 98% of the data blocks appear to be "inert:" They are not utilizing any of the computer core's processing resources, and they do not contain any references to the location of other data blocks (such as a multi-part file would). Viewing the data-blocks' trinary source reveals what appears to be "junk" code.
- The remaining 2% of the data blocks appear to have been written over and into the ship's BIOS.
It is this last chunk of code that worries Jaz - The BIOS is what tells the ship's computer what it is connected to (sensors, engines, weapons), and how to route the data intended to/from these disparate parts. Jaz can find no operational anomolies using the ship's self-diagnostic routines, but the fact that the ship's BIOS is compromised puts the results of these self-scans into doubt.
In Jaz's professional opinion, there is only one option for removing the effects of H8-U2's tampering: A complete re-install of the ship's BIOS. This will take approximately one hour, and should only be safely performed while the ship is in drydock. Ships' BIOSs are notoriously finnicky, and any mis-step can result in turning the ship's computer into a dead piece of abstract sculpture.
That having been said, Jaz can't detect anything actively wrong with the computer. She can, if she spends the requisite time, wire up the ship's computer terminals to monitor the raw data passing back and forth between the ship's computer and the individual systems - by comparing these to what the computer says it sees, she'll be able to tell if the ship is "lying" to you. However, her best guess is that if (or when) whatever H8-U2 did to the ship activates, you'll see an un-concealable lag in response time from the ship's systems as processor resources are taken up by the computer trying to do... whatever it intends to do with all those inert data blocks. Additionally, because the BIOS tells the ship's computer whatever it is connected to, Jaz supposes H8-U2's virus is waiting for you to plug something into the ship...
