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Principality Secure Communications

The ornate lockbox stood out amongst the rest of the post delivery to the Nenuph station house. Toreo picked it up and shook it; the lock mechanism rattled loudly.   "Please stop that, Marshal. I'll open it after I have my morning tea." Cara stepped through the door past Toreo, holding a small cup in one hand and a wrapped breakfast roll in another. "Though I can't imagine why I'd be receiving a PSC message. We're just fact finding for now."   "One of those weird babbles that the Princeps sends, right?" Toreo put the box back down. "See, now you've got me curious."   "You'll get to see it. I doubt it's so important that I wouldn't be able to share it." The magistrate sat at her desk and made a face as she drank her tea. "Too strong. Ugh."   "That's your own fault. Have the station master brew it for you next time." He pushed the lockbox over. "I'm going to be staring at you until you open the box."   "Careful, Marshal. You're speaking to a Magistrate of the Principality." Cara put the cup down and reached for the box, producing a small key from her vest. The key was distinct; its teeth oriented in three directions with varying length, with the lockbox hole machined to precise fit. With a twist, the box lid sprang open, revealing a folded piece of paper. The magistrate picked it up and read it aloud.   "Danger. The agent you're working with is attempting to poison you. Throw him off the side of a power-sail when you get the chance."   "Ha ha. Very funny, Cara." Toreo plucked the paper from her hands and read it himself. "Western seas, eastern stars, the light begets the night. What in blazes does this mean?"   Cara snatched the paper back. "You missed the cipher text. Give me a moment." She drew a quill and some loose paper from her desk, and began to compute in some mathematics that Toreo couldn't follow. The magistrate worked silently for a few minutes before putting her quill down.   "We'll need to bring in the nobleman staying at the Nenuph Arsenal for questioning, regarding some trips he's been making in moonlight. Let's go." Cara was already moving out the door.   The marshal glanced at the message dubiously. "You're sure about that?"   "Yes, positive. Either come with me or spend the day lazing about the station house. I don't mind either way."   "Irascible as ever, Cara."  

Purpose

  The Principality of Etoile is an organization that centralizes power solely within the hands of its leader, the Princeps of Etoile. All state power rests within their person, including the right of final judgment on all political matters and policies. Therefore, it became of paramount importance early after The War of Unification that a method of secured communications be established in order to maintain the secrecy of state communication, and verify the identity of any given message's sender.   In 636, linguists working directly for the First Princeps devised a two part encoding and cipher; the first a way to obfuscate the meaning of a message, the second a way to encipher it and allow third parties to verify the message's original writer, using a shared secret key. This was named, in a rather unimaginative fashion, 'Principality Secure Communication', or PSC.   Messages outbound from the Palace in the Etoile Capital City are encoded in a specific way depending on the recipient; a message to a District Commander will use a different secret key than that directed at a Magistrate or a Commissioned Trader. Each of these Officers of Etoile must memorize their PSC key code prior to the beginning of their service.  

Structure

  A message from the Princeps is dictionary-encoded in a specific manner and enciphered, with both the encoded message and the cipher being sent to the recipient in a locked case. The dictionary used to encode the message is dependent on the recipient, and rotated every other season. An example is as follows:   "Grain prices are expected to rise in the following season. Ensure the placidity of the local populace."   The encoding for a District Commander converts the message to the following:   "Stalks shine in the high heat, whilst the animals grow restless."   This message is meant to be immediately understood by the District Commander without any sort of back-transcription. Along with the message comes it's enciphered form:   "1F62D4DE6BC13E1946AB485779E8584E"   Through an application of mathematics and the PSC secret key memorized by the DC, they will be able to verify that the code message properly enciphers, and that the message is legitimate.  

Usage

  The vast majority of messages from the Princeps are not of major significance, and the use of encrypted messages is somewhat rare. The lack of a foreign power (as the Principality is the sole state on Saibh) and the successful interdiction of potential internal elements means that the risk of any given message being 'sensitive' is quite low. Thus, encrypted messages are significant merely by their presence.   A famous example of a PSC-encrypted message that was interdicted by the Etoilean Monitor was, to all apparent eyes, gibberish: "Woe to the groundhog, one eye blind, with the knowledge of nothing". This message was intended for the District Commander of The Stagonids, who promptly uprooted a local smuggling ring and sent its leaders to Ebensberg for trial. The message was encrypted because, as it turned out, the head of the smuggling ring was a well-connected nobleman and board member of the Unified Trade Consortium, and would have been able to escape had the message been sent in cleartext.

Miscommunication

  The relative complexity of the encoding system and the reliance on merely human officers of Etoile have resulted in no small amount of comedy. A very well known example was the encoded phrase, "Three of midnight, four of the hour of the jackal." This was a message sent to a Magistrate of Etoile as a recommendation of harsh punishment for a nobleman under trial for embezzlement and fraud. The magistrate in question, however, seemed to not recognize the meaning of the message, and fed the nobleman to four jackals at midnight. The magistrate was sacked for this incident shortly thereafter.

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