What is the Undrn3t?

Some of you may have noticed that I've changed my avatar and signature yet AGAIN. No big whoop, but what is this Undrn3t that is in my location? Well, it's a role-playing concept that I'm creating just for Going Rogue, anyone is free to use it or ignore as they wish. I don't NORMALLY roleplay (lolRP) but this new concept of a fascist controlling state and a set of freedom fighters has INSPIRED me.

In Praetorian Earth, I MUST assume that "Emperor" Cole is in control of every normal form of communication. So the resistance has to have SOME way of organizing. Thus the Undrn3t. The way it works is quite simple. Similar to the way encryptions and cyphers work in our world, the Resistance uses the Undrn3t to send important messages back and forth directly under the eyes of the Praetorian Guard. How do they do it?

Well, with the infrastructure being uniform throughout Praetorian Earth, there is a strong and interconnected power grid. My future Resistance character, codenamed ph1L0t1x, accidentally ended up in Prime Earth via using one of the many portals that Portal Corp opens up all over the place. Spending about a year in Prime Earth let him realize the potential that a more free and "chaotic" world can give to his fellow Praetorians.

So he went to Synapse and then Positron telling them his story and the story of their world, and begged for their help in learning about anything they could teach him. He specialized in Electromagnetic Control, the ability to manipulate fields of energy at will.

He took this knowledge and hitched a ride through yet another Portal Corp portal back to his home world. Then he started experimenting. He created devices called redboxes (an homage to Blue boxes) that can be attached to the very POWER GRID. By making insignificant adjustments to the amplitude and frequency of the electrical grid, he figured out a way to send information to someone anywhere else in the power grid. It is a form of code similar to Morse code but much more complex allowing information to be sent very quickly. Thus the power grid itself became an "undernet" where any resistance fighters could send and receive information from anyone else tuned to the same undulations of frequency and amplitude.

Now BEFORE any tech geeks get on my case, I know LITTLE about actual electrical theory. I just like the concept and the way the words sound. So don't try to analyze it. It's only a game. Please see this link to have all your 'techie" questions answered.

So that's it, my future character will NOT be THE leader of the resistance, he will simply be a facilitator, one person fighting in the only way he knows how, with his knowledge.

Something else I thought of is that there would typically be two "types" of messages. Those that are public and those that are logistical. The public messages sent over the Undrn3t would we UNencrypted and would be MEANT to be intercepted by ANYONE, friend or foe so they would look like normal English. They would be like the OP of this thread, who's purpose is to inform and enbolden the populace as a whole, or they would be meant to spread DISinformation about the Resistance's movements.

The actual resistance logistics messages would be encrypted and even AFTER being translated, they would look more like leetspeak. Why? Because leetspeak allows for more BREVITY, and when you're sending sensitive data, the SHORTER you can make the message, the LESS chance it can be intercepted as actual data instead of normal power grid fluctuations. Also, the use of numbers wherever possible instead of letters would mean that it would take less data, because a 3 written in binary uses less data than an E, as an example. It would look more like this decrypted:

T0 C013s t0wr @ 20:45. Br1ng th3 d3v1c3. D0nt b f011wd. Nxt msg @ 19:30. -p1L0t1x

As you see the use of numbers instead of letters don't have to be CONSISTENT.... a 1 can be an L or an I. What matters is what the number means in the CONTEXT of the message, and that the message can be UNDERSTOOD at a basic level. The less data you have to transmit, the better. Note also the dropped "unneccessary" E and O at the end of "followed" and the lack of apostrophes. It would be a combination of leetspeak and teenager's cell phone texting. Brevity means LIFE!

This small amount of data would be such a SHORT message that it would look to anyone else like a normal fluctuation of the power grid. But to the resistance that knows exactly WHEN to look, they can keep a redbox hooked up directly before and after that time, pick up all the data and decode it, seeing the message within the normal fluctuations.

Works for me!

So, as I said, anyone that wishes is free to use this concept wherever they want to. I just think it's a neat idea and fits in well with the concept of a MODERN resistance movement that may occur in a civilized world.

This is absolutely magnificent. I love it. Even though you and I are destined to be at odds, you are a worthy foe.

Red Names and Peaceful Givers! We request the following!

• A sub-section for Going Rogue discussion
• The Loyalist and Resistance threads stickied there
• Some of the concept art released, so that we may futz with it.
• One (1) reference to the undern3t in the game.
  

An "Eyes Only" broadcasting via undrnet - very clever.

Undrn3t, you added an extra E. Remember, when sending coded messages, brevity is important! Thus you drop anything not needed to get the point across

It's possible, and currently commercially available in the real world for LANs. But I get the feeling it would be very easy to attach scrambling devices to the power grid and cut it off. But don't let that stop you.

Hey, I said not to let it stop you...

I like your idea of this undernet (pardon me for not spelling it correctly, but I'm allergic to alphanumeric - I break out in hives and boils), as it's simple, concise and believable. The system itself doesn't need to be very complicated (computers do just fine with binary), it's just a question of encoding that information in such a way as to be meaningful, and that's where the real trick is.

I'm not sure exactly what to make of the thread as a whole, but as far as ideas go, this one is pretty clever, specifically in how you wrapped it up around a character, rather than just giving it to the world in general. I can't really comment on this "Loyalists vs. Resistance" train of thought simply because we know next to nothing about it other than the obvious - Loyalists are loyal to Tyrant, Resistance fight against Tyrant, which isn't that special in itself - so I can't really speculate too much about their communication network, but your idea is probably as good as any. The good thing about it is, as well, that it's open to being tapped into by someone with the right knowledge.

The way you have it set up, you're altering the entire power grid, or at least a very specific grid section (if we're dealing with electricity, that's just how it goes) so you are practically broadcasting information to anyone who has the ability to listen, relying solely on the belief that others just don't have the means to tap in and the right algorithms to decode. Depending on how much weight you want to give to your character, that might not be a strictly safe bet.

A final minor tangent is you'll probably want some way to deal with power substations, as one of their roles is to moderate voltage and current, so fluctuations in current shouldn't spread past the next substation on the network. Granted, this is entering into technobabble territory, but it's something to consider if you feel like it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

This kind of reminds me of Armin Shimerman's Pascal tapping on the network of pipes in TV's Beauty and the Beast.

The Undrn3t cannot be subverted, I have seen to this myself. Have no fear, they will never be able to crack the code. There are more of us than there are of them, we can ALWAYS keep one step ahead of them. We have power in numbers. As usual, wait for the signal to strike. -ph1L0t1x

Why am I strongly reminded of hunter-net.org?

More like this.

See also: Mirror's Edge.

Hmmm, that means at least one of my characters who will be part of the Resistance is going to be using you.

Does this mean the tag " the undrn3t is everywhere" is going to be spammed everywhere?

Typical computer systems, always used for spam or porn first

I'm assuming resistence and electircty is an intentional pun

RESISTENCE IS USELESS /vogon

Is there a 4chan on the undrn3t? And is it full of Loyalists politely expressing their love for conformity, minorities and the rule of law?

Love this idea, gives a bit of depth to a world we currently know so little about.

Nice concept, Westley...or, alternatively...

Awaiting the signal, Codename ph1L0t1x.

I have a funny feeling the Undrn3t is the Praetorian version of radio or tv....resistance bah!