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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): General/Updates
[TRIVIA] Historical parallel: the Bombing of Coventry
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Anton P. Nym
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 		[TRIVIA] Historical parallel: the Bombing of Coventry
I've just been poring over the Wiki for the military conversation here: http://bees.netninja.com/wiki/index.php?title=Military_Conversation

An interesting historical parallel strikes me. For a very long time it was believed that then-PM Winston Churchill had some advanced warning of the Luftwaffe bombing raid on Coventry due to the advanced signals decryption program called "Ultra"; the raid took place Nov. 14, 1940. According to the theory, Churchill had a long and soul-scarring debate about whether to evacuate Coventry and thus expose Ultra, or sacrifice the city and retain a critical intelligence lead that very well could help turn defeat into victory. He chose the latter, and the city burned.

We see a very similar debate going on in the Military Conversation. I think that further study on this may yield more avenues to pursue. As an aside, in that conversation the AI claims an intense knowledge of decryption techniques ("picking signal out of noise")... Halo's in-game AI character, Cortana, was an advanced signals intercept and decryption specialist as well. Operator, meet Ultra. Ultra, Operator. Play nicely in the Park, now.

Hmm... come to think of it, Alan Turing worked there didn't he? The creator of the Turing Test to determine if a software creation was truely an AI? Hmmm...

Incidentally, later historians have discredited the theory. (I've included two links below if you're really interested in the rebuttals.) However, it has remained in the public conscious because of all the juicy dramatic elements.

-- Steve's now off to find more sources for the Coventry raid and the Ultra program.

Links:

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=107

http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/Churchill/Coventry_1411940/summary_1984.html
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:14 pm
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walshicus
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 		Heh, you git - I was *just* about to post that. My one contribution... ruined... Very Happy

Good to see you getting involved somewhat in this, Steve. I can imagine it is a whole lot less draining to be caught up in the swell of one of these rather than having to plan and plot it for weeks by yourself.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:52 pm
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walshicus
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 		Anyhow, didn't Turing work at Bletchley Park?

PostPosted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:07 pm
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Anton P. Nym
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 		Good to see you, Walshicus. Pity I "scooped" you by only an hour and a half... them's the breaks. You'll probably get the next one.

walshicus wrote:
Anyhow, didn't Turing work at Bletchley Park?


Gaah! Out, out damned unclear phrasing!

Anton P. Nym wrote:
Hmm... come to think of it, Alan Turing worked there didn't he?

The "there" in there was supposed to refer to Ultra/Bletchley, not Coventry. I totally missed that the other interpretation was possible. Sorry!

-- Steve's not a first-draft writer. Nor a second, nor third, nor... well, you get the idea.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:26 pm
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Sep7imus
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 		Well, I know little of the actual history, but I've read Neal Stephenson's which is exactly about this period in history, including the difficult decisions required to act on intelligence while not revealing its source (the broken code).

That novel involves, among other things, the counter-intelligence efforts involved in hiding the fact that the code has been broken. In particular, those efforts involved planting FALSE sources for the information that the allies had.

Could that be the all-important mission of the operator's ship? Could they be planting false information to mislead the enemy, not let them know that the code has been broken?

-Sep7imus

PostPosted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 11:10 pm
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Samari
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 		well since we're linking every thing to video games, Knights of the Old Republic at one point your character gets asked a hypothetical quesiton exactly like the situation with Troy; i found it kind of an amusing tie.


OMG MAYBE BUNGIE IS GOING TO RELEASE THE NEXT KOTOR GAME!!!!!!!!11!1!!22@@!1ELEVEN

PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 12:17 am
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krystyn
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 		I was going to mention that, too, but was loathe to post about it. Hee.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 10:32 am
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LilSerf
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 		As Sep7imus referenced, if you're intrigued by the "reveal an intelligence source" vs "use the intelligence the source gives you" conflict, by all means read Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Excellent book Smile
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 11:23 am
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Noir
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 		Re: [TRIVIA] Historical parallel: the Bombing of Coventry
Anton P. Nym wrote:
An interesting historical parallel strikes me. For a very long time it was believed that then-PM Winston Churchill had some advanced warning of the Luftwaffe bombing raid on Coventry due to the advanced signals decryption program called "Ultra"; the raid took place Nov. 14, 1940. According to the theory, Churchill had a long and soul-scarring debate about whether to evacuate Coventry and thus expose Ultra, or sacrifice the city and retain a critical intelligence lead that very well could help turn defeat into victory. He chose the latter, and the city burned.


I believe a similar debate was made about shipping lanes and Naval Manuevers in the Atlantic, as the German U-Boats were equipped with Enigma machines and for much of the war seemed an unstoppable force. Perhaps that may offer more information when searching along this vector.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 4:33 pm
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Anton P. Nym
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Sep7imus wrote:
Could that be the all-important mission of the operator's ship? Could they be planting false information to mislead the enemy, not let them know that the code has been broken?

-Sep7imus

Hey, Sep7imus! Welcome!

I don't know if that was the secret orders for Melissa/The Operator, but it does match up with the Castaway, who "deployed Buoys, sending out waves of sound to confuse the Enemy." (quote found here: Wiki: Links on 'Fun Stuff' Page)

Noir wrote:
I believe a similar debate was made about shipping lanes and Naval Manuevers in the Atlantic, as the German U-Boats were equipped with Enigma machines and for much of the war seemed an unstoppable force. Perhaps that may offer more information when searching along this vector.


Just caught that reference myself. That may come in handy for future updates.

Now comes the $64 question; how do we use these parallels? They're all very pretty, but can someone make practical use of them yet?

-- Steve's enjoying the chase, but is starting to wonder about what he's chasing.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 6:07 pm
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Noir
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Anton P. Nym wrote:
Now comes the $64 question; how do we use these parallels? They're all very pretty, but can someone make practical use of them yet?

-- Steve's enjoying the chase, but is starting to wonder about what he's chasing.


Simple. The references of the debate on how to use military intelligence stem from Melissa's memories of the events leading up to the ship's destruction. If the reference is indicative of what happens to the story, then we can deduce what Melissa was used for, how the ship came to be destroyed, etc.

This potentially allows us to take the ILB story and take it back to the Halo universe, which would be quite useful to the Halo fans.

PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 6:25 pm
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Anton P. Nym
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 		The miracles of t3h s3rch
Wow.

Quick update on where I am on this... not very far. I was semi-comotose for much of yesterday. Sorry! However, searching on this board to see if anybody else was making progress, I found this:

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=13686

Big chunk of info from a prior ARG on Turing's history. My project for today is to dig through the links on that post and see if there's anything relating to our current story.

-- Steve's amazed at what's already come... and we still have another 3 weeks!
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 9:30 am
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