Since the Umiak and the Loroi are not only completely separate species, but also mortal enemies, I believe the chance of them having systems capable of interfacing with eachother is going to be very remote. Although both sides would no doubt scour battlefields to pick up working examples of the others' technology, the first thing they'd ensure is that there's no way a Umiak virus would be able to penetrate the security systems of Loroi vessels.discord wrote:introducing a virus into a ship during combat is actually possible and no, you do not need to have it 'tailor made' as long as you got a similar enough operating system and basic hardware(CPU family.).
I could imagine that this kind of infection would be best useful in 'spoofing' enemy sensors, but trying to do more than that would be akin to expecting the single, solitary missile you fired at the enemy ship would be able to completely obliterate it. Sure, there's a teeny, tiny chance that'd happen, but you're more likely to be destroyed by return fire.discord wrote:infection through buffer overflow in sensors could be possible, if proper safety precautions has not been taken.
This would be an interesting tactic, but falls under the same category as minefields. Sure, they can be pretty dangerous, but unless you're willing to spend an incredibly large amount of time, and resources, to build a proper, three-dimensional grid, it could only be effectively use in defensive situations (surrounding a planet in one, perhaps?). However, the very nature of the nanobot cloud means that your own ships are as susceptible to damage from the nanobots as the enemy vessels are.discord wrote:nanobot cloud intercepting externally available cable and injecting....some handwavium here, but actually possible.
If you could manage to stealth a ship well enough to slip it into an enemy formation without being spotted (or, more likely, appearing as something it most assuredly is not), this could work. However, I'd imagine that, aboard such a vessel, I'd be less worried about intercepting and injecting things into the enemy transmissions and more prone to use their weapons to obliterate enemy warships.discord wrote:man in the middle attack, intercepting laser(or radio) coms and injecting, damn difficult at most times, but possible.
[quoteall of these are very circumstantial though, not something you can rely upon.
That's all well and good, especially since a virus will often find itself in many, many, many different places than its target. However, by 'tailor-made,' I was referring to the fact that, in order to really do the kind of damage you're aiming for, the targetting parameters, the security systems, the communication protocols, everything about the system you're trying to invade must be known down to the last bit of code. Aboard a civilian vessel, with civilian security systems and precautions, sure, you can cause all kinds of havoc. And, the only way to know the vessels intimately enough is to be aboard the ship itself for long enough to become familiar in its systems. And, most likely, the Umiak who's onboard a Loroi vessel is a prisoner of war, and no competent security detail would allow an enemy combatant close enough, much less enough time, to access the kind of details the Umiak would need to be able to create a virus to severely damage the vessel.discord wrote:and on tailor made, all it really needs to do is copy itself to random memory address, search for open communication channels, copy/paste. that WILL crash most systems, even if antivirals copes with it the battle will eat CPU cycles and crash running programs making the vessel sub-optimal.
Exactly my point. If it was a case of one Hierarchy ship verses one Union ship, (or, worst case, a Hierarchy warship verses a Union civilian ship) for a prolonged period of time, they might be able to use viral weapons to disable the enemy vessel for capture. But, the time of one-on-one encounters with enemy vessels is usual at the very early stages of a war. The Hierarchy and the Union have been at war too long now to rely on viruses and covert operations to win battles. By this point, it's invading fleets, and coordinating the fleet, from defense to offense, is complicated enough without worrying about accidentally infecting an allied ship with a virus intended for the enemy.discord wrote:all of these are very circumstantial though, not something you can rely upon