Government Administration Building
Norvalle, Sil Dorsett
January 20th, 2021
Once Claidie's statement denying the "rumors" that her father had unnaturally sired Osmanek had been delivered to Lodestar News, she believed that was the end of it. She felt awkward having effectively taken the side of her least favorite conspiracy theory "news" organization, but she was happier with a short case of discomfort rather than living with the stress of accepting a truth she didn't like, at least this time. The comfort was short-lived as the ambassador to the Aydin Empire would soon request an audience. She reluctantly agreed to meet, fully aware of what was going to be on the agenda.
Claidie looked up from the paperwork she was reviewing and took her reading glasses off, motioning for the ambassador to sit as he walked into her office. "Mister Philibert Moineau, a pleasure to see you," she said rather awkwardly, indicating her obvious sarcasm. "Please, have a seat."
Philibert took out his notepad, scribbled all over with everything he wanted to address. "Your Highness, I requested this meeting to inform you of some very disturbing news from within the Aydin Empire, and to collaborate on a course of action."
"No doubt related to these rumors I've been hearing," Claidie remarked. "They're just that; rumors. I don't understand why we're spending time on something that's a blatant fabrication meant to discredit my family."
"Some seem to believe it's true, though," Philibert informed her. "In my time in service, I've become acquainted with one of the nobles on the Imperial Council, Cemil Bey. We had a conversation about a recent council meeting. It would appear that a significant portion of the council heard of the rumors, presumably through the Reaction2 story, and believe that Osmanek is indeed not Mehmed III's son."
"But we know Reaction2 isn't a reliable source of data, so why do they believe it?"
"I'm not sure. All I know is that the last council meeting did get brutally violent after one nobleman called Osmanek the son of a whore," Philibert noted. "Wasn't able to confirm whether Osmanek beat the man to death or just badly injured him. Osman does appear to have reasserted his dominance."
Claidie's blood was beginning to boil. She wanted nothing more than to sweep the matter under the rug and forget about it, but now things abroad were complicating things. She was losing control of these "rumors", and she knew it. She felt powerless and at the mercy of a few cyberterrorists with nothing better to do with their time. But, rather than admit it, she felt keeping up the facade of strength was her best bet.
"I'm not about to legitimize some basement-dweller script kiddie any further than I already have. Personally, I think the matter is closed," Claidie insisted.
"I wouldn't say that. Osmanek is set on a face to face meeting with you and Alice..."
"Not happening."
"For what reason?"
"Same reason I don't want to dwell on this matter any longer. It would only further legitimize the rumors."
"A state visit would go a long way towards developing a working relationship with the Sultan, rumors aside. It's difficult to consider relations to be normal when two heads of..." Philibert suggested, before being cut off.
"Mister Moineau..." Claidie barked, angrily interrupting the ambassador. "Your job is to make things
look normal between us and the Aydinis, not to
make things normal. If it wasn't for their oil, I wouldn't care about them. We're too dissimilar, and honestly I'm personally outraged by the behavior of the Sultan and the incompetence of his government. You telling me that Osmanek pummeled a councilman only solidifies my position."
There was an awkward silence in the room for half a minute as both of them contemplated their disagreement. Claidie didn't appreciate being backed into a corner over oil, especially as she was actively promoting technologies to reduce the principality's dependence on it. Philibert began to think his tenure as ambassador was about to end, believing that the monarch was more likely to cut ties entirely than to resort to a state visit over "rumors".
"I'll send a letter, but that's all. All I can do is hope that they accept the truth," Claidie said.
"I'll give you a hard truth of my own, Your Highness. The more these rumors spread, the more you may have to do to prove what the truth really is."
Sultan Osmanek Hakan'ın oğlu
May it please Your Imperial Majesty,
The laws of my nation ensure that news and other media companies are free to publish content without fear of retribution from the government over its truthfulness. This does, on a frequent basis, result in shock headlines and articles being published for the express purpose of generating revenue from subscriptions, reads and views. While the government has the ability to deliver its own counter-narrative on such articles, it is ultimately up to individual citizens to make the determination themselves on what they consider true. It is the very nature of not only politics, but the realm of information delivery and even education.
However, not every article published by one of these tabloid publications is automatically false. We must recognize the difference between what generates increased viewership, even if the same is unsavory in nature, and what delivers important information to those viewers. Some news organizations are known to make wild accusations with inherent bias to promote their own view of the world, and watchdog groups tend to categorize media companies in Sil Dorsett as either favoring the monarchy and the political right or favoring democratization and the political left. It is understandable that perhaps extreme forms of bias brings their reputation into disrepute, but it is important to keep an open mind. I encourage you to not immediately dismiss or twist what the media says over a reputation of bias. We must take what it says at face value and not make assumptions.
Our nations are under constant attack from detractors and insurrectionists seeking to destabilize the government for their own personal gain. If we continue to focus our resources and efforts on needless investigations into archaic skullduggery instead of how we can support our people today, our enemies will win the fight. We must stand strong against them, and we must stand up for our media when it exposes the actions of those who seek to do us harm, no matter where they land on the political spectrum. We must stand for the truth.
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Meanwhile, in the Prime Minister's office...
Madeline was having a meeting with her good friend, the ambassador to Prydania, Malorie Allen. It was time for a periodic review of the agriculture trade deal, and Malorie was finishing her briefing about the progress of reconstruction when she asked if she could have more time to cover an unrelated topic. Madeline's schedule was open for a little longer, so it wasn't an issue. She thought it might have been about the new Prydanian constitution that was going to have a referendum on, but it wasn't Malorie's intent.
Malorie didn't just know about the fertility clinic hack from the news reports or from the rumors circulating around the government offices. She knew first hand by seeing the data dump herself, which didn't surprise Madeline at all. Madeline's husband had made her aware of Malorie's additional skills around cyberwarfare and security well before the AMR hack, and knew she also was familiar with the depths of the Dark Web. If anyone would know how bad things really were, it would be Malorie. She even wondered why Malorie was working in foreign affairs instead of defense. They began to discuss it, with Madeline treading ever-so-carefully to not confirm what she really knew.
"The data that was leaked from AMR of Norvalle, which contains the files that created the rumor, has been circulating throughout the dark web." Malorie said. "Knowledge of it is becoming more widespread among highly technical people, picking it up in various forums and spreading it to the next. Then, you have people, like me, who looked for the data set to read it for ourselves after the news came out about it. Now, whispers are spreading it in the open. It germinated within the onion's bulb before it popped up out of the ground and spread its stems."
"An onion?" Madeline asked, perplexed by the analogy.
"Refers to the layers of encryption that hides the dark web from the open web. Anyways, I think part of the problem here is the spread of this data set combined with Reaction2's
unreliability. A malicious data set gets out, a conspiracy theory site tries to discredit the data, and people aware of Reaction2's poor reputation conclude that the data set must be true and that they're trying to cover it up with falsehoods," Malorie suggested.
"And any statement Claidie puts out denying the rumors just looks like more of the same cover-up," Madeline realized. "So, if we want to help Claidie stomp out this rumor, we have to take control of the narrative, somehow." She paused for a moment, but then she thought of an idea; a second attack. "Here's a thought... how hard would it be to fabricate an attack identical to the one that happened to AMR, something to show how easily the data could be manipulated, and make the case that the data that was put out on this 'dark web' doesn't prove anything?
"It'd probably be easier to have one of the sisters and Osmanek take DNA tests," Malorie inferred. "I mean, they do it all the time on the Gerard Spanghert show," she said, jokingly.
"I'm not putting a princess on trash television for this," Madeline replied, laughing. "As far as a generic DNA test is concerned, even if Osmanek was willing to do it, I know those two won't. It'd be an 'unnecessary medical procedure'. And, you couldn't get a court to compel them, either."
"Plus, for a 'half-sibling or unrelated' test to be accurate you need samples from the mothers as well. Claidie'll make sure Liliane isn't tested," Malorie reminded the Prime Minister.
"So, if we can't prove it's false, our only option is to discredit the idea, and do that better than Reaction2 did. How could it be done?"
"Well, if you wanted to deliberately put fake data on the dark web, you'd probably have to do an actual attack to learn the structure of what you wanted to simulate. But, once you know that, you could write anything you wanted before publishing it," Malorie explained.
"But let's say we made one up, something that looked convincing, even if it's not a real one..."
"... then a skilled scripter could populate the data. If they did it right, and put in effort to make up real-looking data, nobody would know its not what's actually in production. It'd just be very convincing test data. Question is...
what do we want to put out there?"
"Oh, I have a few ideas. I'm going to take the heat off of her, make the people focus on something else." Madeline assured. "Get in touch with Minister Bettencourt. Maybe she knows some computer programmers in her cybersecurity group that can help. I'll be in touch."
"I'll see what I can think of too. There's just one issue I have," Malorie pondered. "What if it's true?"
"Even if it was true, I think we'd be better off pretending that it wasn't. Let's get our work done."
Lolcat Crew
Private Group Chat
[LCC]Sunblade @L80EBP
21 January 2021 1:41 AM
Ready to put your white hats on? It's time to clean up the mess you all made.