Ush's hint could also extend to there being no record of the smugglers at all, as well as the reference to 'real' payment. So rather than looking for references of departures or smuggling we look for those valuable object that just dropped off the logs and then look at the 'when'.
Gold sounds likely, maybe there could be references to treasure, loot or salvage. If only we knew what sort of valuable resources were on Alambritis at the time.
I think that was at the end of last episode, when we caught Kara Katai on that vault world.
It does make me wonder if we should try make connections from this data to what we found in the vault (metallic strips with the Thalos symbol for change I think it was) or Cassilis or the world we encountered Katai on at the start of Harmony. Adelmo's search for the scrolls took her to these worlds after all.
Actually it was probably a bad idea of me to say there was a hint there as I almost certainly just distracted you.
Gold is very bulky to move- terrible stuff to break blockades in in bulk with the small ships you would use for that. It's why smugglers like gems- very small and light for their value; you can carry enough in a small ship to make a fortune.
You doubt that Kazan really had much access to precious materials though. In all honesty, it's probably untraceable how he paid the smugglers. Maybe they owed him before it even started. It'll be lost to history (and even if you did trace how he paid them, it wouldn't actually help that much in telling you where the smugglers went afterwards)
There is certainly nothing that jumps out at you from the text gibberish referring to anyone leaving the planet.
There's only thing you know must exist somewhere- Kazan didn't contact the smugglers via telepathy. At some point, somehow, he must have instructed them what to do and that would have been via his base systems.
Nice try on the Thalos link btw- but Adelmo is looking for a way to deal with that issue, not for more information on it. She wants the scrolls for their purported Syphar n Kalar info.
Basically the right hint, but wrong interpenetration, eh? Damn.
So without any references to anyone going off world it may mean it was very hands off, he simply told them he had cargo to be shipped <insert place here>, told them where it was, made sure they got it and then left the rest to the smugglers.
So we need to think of what sort of process someone would go through when hiring smugglers for a job like that.
Maybe we should look for references of the appropriate lingo. Like when ordering his troops it would be giving them 'missions', while he would be giving the smugglers a 'job'. I'm struggling to think of other phrases along that line of thought though.
If I'm on the right track would I be able to use Savoir-Faire to try come up with that sort of terminology?
So we just need to think of terms likely to come up when making deals with smugglers?
I'm thinking along the lines of a few terms like Payment/s, Favour (as in I'm calling in a...), Cargo/Goods, Alambritis (in terms of where to go to receive the cargo assuming they weren't already on planet), Job/Work/Services (more casual terms than 'mission' or 'assignment'😉.
That's all I've got for now, I wouldn't expect a dead on hit, but if we can somehow narrow things down it'll make trawling through the data easier.
Edit: I don't suppose Kazan would have a personal emblem/symbol he could use to end his messages? Sort of like a signature or something recognisable to signify it was sent from him and no one else.
Suppose that would be too easy. 😛
If the smugglers came to and from the planet are we able to try and locate messages that were sent or received from off planet?
On a related note I read back through the thread to our discussion with Saar, who mentioned the smugglers also brought food in, as well as smuggling things out. Can we also look for references of supplies being delivered? From there we may discover more about the smugglers that will help us locate outgoing things.
I suspect, however, that it's less about trying to figure out the smugglers activities and more trying to find the specific order they were given, but I figured I'd voice the latter option as a possibility.
Perhaps an irregularity in the smuggler activity? So, if they brought in a shipment of food and supplies, and then had another one the next day, that would be something to look at.
I'm guessing, however, that none of this smuggler activity was ever recorded...
The shipments of supplies/food as well as the monetary pay which they used to purchase it with should have been recorded.
No, as noted before, it was unlikely he used the kind of money you'd record on a transfer. It's not as if he space-wired it to them.
There's no real chronological sense to the data dump you have.
You may wish to think about what kind of people the smugglers may have been. Also just consider what type of informatiuon you are literally looking for here.
Ok, well, lets start with the most obvious and work backwards.
What are we looking for?
We want to know where the smugglers went so that we can go to these places to look for the items they would have dropped off.
So if Kazan wanted smugglers to go places, he must have in some way told them where to do.
So maybe we can look for destination data? Maps, or plots or something like that.
These things are both correct. Solo might have been an awesome smuggler in his way but he's not someone you would contact as an organisation- if Kazan had a friend who was a smuggler, perhaps, but the best info you have on this is that he used a group. There is still something fundamentally related to how he communicates with them that is relevant here (and very Star Wars-y).
And yes! Roan is right- in some way, you need a location named. You can narrow down your search by looking for proper nouns, co-ordinates etc.
I need to re focus. We need to figure out how he communicated with them, that would show up in the base logs text dump.
Maybe he sent messages out to them disguised as something unrelated? Like sending them 'I hear the Sentator for Alderaan enjoys his food.' mean 'Bring food from the Alderaan system'.