Blackout
Sarna News
- Gray Monday and Clarion Note redirect here.
Contents
Overview
Known alternately as Gray Monday, the Blackout of 3132 saw unknown perpetrators disable some 80 percent of the Hyperpulse Generator network in simultaneous attacks and acts of sabotage not only in the Inner Sphere, but also in the Clan Occupation Zones and the Periphery,[1] effectively crashing the network and crippling interstellar communications. The Clans were affected as well.[2]
As a result of the Blackout, interstellar communication by and large collapsed, and was reduced to relaying messages via JumpShip in "pony express"-style. By early 3134, Paladin Kelson Sorenson and a select group of Republic of the Sphere knights and diplomats had united a disparate collection of cargo lines, free traders and repurposed military vessels into a relay network dubbed "Solar Express".[3]
The communications blackout had widespread and far reaching ramifications, plunging the Inner Sphere into chaos. Civil unrest grew when it became apparent that the Blackout would not be quick or easy to fix.
"Black Box" faster-than-light communication was apparently not affected by whatever caused the Blackout, using a fundamentally different working principle.[citation needed]
Two-pronged attack
There were in fact two simultaneous attack vectors against the HPG grid which are lumped together in the public perception of the Blackout.
Overall, 77 percent of all HPGs in the Inner Sphere succumbed to core burnout or other technological glitches, and another 3 percent were sabotaged or attacked outright.[4] The HPGs that were directly attacked on 7 August were those that were somehow immune to whatever took down the rest. Although sources on the Blackout tend to lump the force-of-arms and sabotage attacks in with the Clarion Note core burnout, it is worth noting that the direct attacks apparently sought to disable the HPGs without destroying them, in a fashion where repairs were possible, whereas the core burnouts utterly destroyed the HPGs "with little collateral damage".
Core overload
Most HPGs were actually taken down not by force of arms or on-site sabotage but in a more insidious way, by what appeared to be some sort of system-virus which caused the HPG core to overload and burn itself out with little collateral damage.[5] Even brand-new replacement cores showed the same symptoms and burned out.[5] This proved impossible to fix, until Tucker Harwell surmised that the cause must lie with the medium of hyperspace itself (see Clarion Note below).
On Thursday, 4 August 3132, several class A HPG stations across the Inner Sphere began reporting strange and disruptive power spikes and signal modulations, though at the time these were regarded as isolated cases and that the problem would eventually correct itself. On Sunday, 7 August, affected HPGs began to fail one by one.[4]
Direct attacks
Also on 7 August, most if not all ComStar alpha circuit HPGs[6] and many on the beta circuit were attacked and disabled. Most of the beta cicuit stations were taken down over the next two weeks.[7] It is not entirely clear from the wording if these "attacks" refer to force of arms and sabotage only, or include the core burnouts that began to materialize on the same day.
The Vega HPG was one of the first to be attacked by force of arms.[8]
Over four dozen stations across the Inner Sphere fell victim to sabotage.[5] Others were assaulted by military forces. The attack patterns included standoff weapons, missiles and other DropShip weapons, aerospace fighter strafing attacks, and in at least one case a zero-g assault team.[7] Some stations were warned and defended themselves against the attack, and some could effect (crude) repairs. Still, 80 percent of the HPG grid was effectively taken down.[7] Computer viruses were used to disrupt communication between arrays and ground stations.[9] A few HPG stations remained technically functional but were incapacitated by different, sometimes bizarre failures such as being able to transmit but unable to receive data packages (Ayacucho station) or looping all outgoing transmissions right back to themselves (Jacson station).[5]
Overall, the impression was that the attacks and acts of sabotage were surgical strikes that took out the HPGs without destroying them outright, and that the damage could be repaired; however, it vastly overtaxed Inner Sphere capacity for building replacement parts for devices that had been built to last centuries, especially with technology and industrial capacity having been degraded by the Succession Wars era.[9]
"Gray Monday"
Although the first signs of the Blackout appeared as early as 4 August, the direct attacks against HPG stations happened on 7 August, the same day the first HPGs experienced core burnouts. Thus, Sunday, 7 August 3132, is usually given as the date for the Blackout.
It has been speculated[10] that the appellation "Gray Monday" for a date that is actually a Sunday comes from the fact that the full impact of the event was not felt until the following day (Monday, 8 August 3132).
Repairs
Despite the considerable differences between Clan and ComStar HPG protocols and years spent by ComStar's programmers trawling through centuries of kludged-together code updates and patches nothing was found, and even newly manufactured cores showed the exact same symptoms before burning out themselves. ComStar, whose primary reason for existence was the operation and maintenance of the HPG network, threw everything at the problem, but save for restoring the HPG on Wyatt in 3135, and Millungera in 3137, temporary in the last case, nothing has worked, threatening the organization with irrelevancy, bankruptcy and total collapse.[5]
Republic intelligence at one point stated that some HPG stations had effected "crude repairs" in the aftermath of the attacks,[7] but from the context this apparently refers to secondary equipment that was damaged by sabotage or force of arms, and not to HPG cores.
Perpetrators
With the saboteurs either escaping or dying before interrogation, and no known casualties among the attacking military forces, their identity remains a mystery. The sole piece of identifying information was a strange insignia worn by some of the attackers: a snake coiled around a sword and set against a blood-red disk.[5]
Republic intelligence dubbed the unknown perpetrators of the Blackout the "lions", and those profiting from it "jackals", with the caveat that the former may well be hiding among the latter.[7][3]
Clarion Note
Tucker Harwell discovered references to a "Clarion Note" emergency protocol, which describes the use of a Super-HPG to disrupt interstellar communication in an unspecified way. Clarion Note was known to (and possibly devised by) the Word of Blake, who considered it a weapon of mass destruction and never actually used it.[11] Context implies that Clarion Note would have affected hyperspace in such a way as to burn out HPG cores.
Evidence gathered by Harwell indicated that Devlin Stone's Republic of the Sphere had acquired the technology, and that the protocol had been initiated.
Surviving HPGs
Only a handful of HPG stations throughout the Inner Sphere survived. The HPG's ability to send messages to places up to 50 (A class HPGs) or 30 (B class stations) light years away considerably boosted the strategic importance of the worlds with functional HPGs (a working HPG is required to send messages, but not to receive them as HPGs effectively "jump" radio waves which can be received with regular radio equipment). Known worlds with working HPGs after the Blackout include:
- Achernar[12] [13] (class unknown)
- Albalii[13] (class unknown)
- Algot[14][13] (class B)
- Ayacucho (class unknown) - send only; incapable of receiving "anything but the simplest carrier packet"[5]
- Bondurant[15][11] (class unknown)
- Devil's Rock[13] (class unknown)
- Gacrux[16] [13] (class unknown)
- Genoa[14] [13] (class unknown)
- Hsien[16] [13] (class B)
- Imbros III[17] (restored 3133[13]) (class unknown)
- Irian[16] [13] (class A)
- Jacson (class unknown) - technically functional but useless as hyperspace loop routes all messages right back to Jacson HPG[5]
- Kessel[16] [13] (class B)
- Menkar[14] [13] (class unknown)
- Millungera (class unknown) - temporarily; HPG fix did not last[18]
- New Aragon[14] [13] (class A as of 3067, class B as of 3130)
- Northwind[16] [13] (class B)
- Palmyra (class unknown) - HPG core destroyed or irreparably damaged during the Battle of Palmyra in 3144[19]
- Ronel[20] [13] (class unknown)
- Shasta[15] (class unknown)
- Terra[17] [13] (class A)
- Thorin[21] [13] (class A)
- Towne [13] (class unknown)
- Tsamma (class B) - unclear; ambiguously noted as an "AFFS hub"[19]
- Wyatt[22] (class unknown)
Notes
- In the BattleCorps PDF edition of the novel A Bonfire of Worlds, the date of Gray Monday is given as 1 August (instead of 7 August) which, being a Monday, may originally have been the correct date. However, according to the Line Developer, the date is corrected to 7 August in a proof of the novel which is in line with virtually all other Dark Age era publications (save one novel by Blaine Pardoe).
References
- ↑ Loss of HPGs in the periphery confirmed by Line Developer Herbert A. Beas II in an official chat on 24 February 2013; see also this article's Talk page
- ↑ Era Report: 3145, p. 12, "History and Review - The Fall of Darkness - What about the Clans?"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Era Report: Dark Age, p. 5
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Era Digest: Dark Age, p. 4 "Gray Monday"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Era Report: 3145, p. 12, "History and Review - The Fall of Darkness"
- ↑ In Ghost War, chapter 14, Janella Lakewood mentions "Hitting all of the alpha circuit in one fell swoop" while an earlier report just said that "stations on the alpha circuit" were hit.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Ghost War, chapter 14
- ↑ A Call to Arms p. 143
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Ghost War, chapter 11
- ↑ By Line Developer Herbert A. Beas II; ; see also this article's Talk page
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 A Bonfire of Worlds, Ch. 10
- ↑ A Call to Arms
- ↑ 13.00 13.01 13.02 13.03 13.04 13.05 13.06 13.07 13.08 13.09 13.10 13.11 13.12 13.13 13.14 13.15 13.16 Era Digest: Dark Age, p. 4 "Functional Republic HPGs as of 01 January 3135"
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 By Temptations and by War
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Fire at Will
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 LinkNet
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Flight of the Falcon
- ↑ Fire at Will; restarted by ComStar during timeframe of novel, but A Bonfire of Worlds mentions that it didn't last
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Era Report: 3145, p. 34
- ↑ A Call to Arms, Fortress Republic
- ↑ Target of Opportunity
- ↑ A Bonfire of Worlds indicates it is still operating in 3143.
Bibliography
- A Bonfire of Worlds (novel)
- Era Digest: Dark Age
- Era Report: 3145
- Ghost War (novel)
- Trial by Chaos (novel)
- Official Line Developer ruling on the correct date, including explanation on why a Sunday would be called "Gray Monday". (Also copied to this article's Talk page for archiving and reference.)