From:	Alex van der Kleut <sommers@*****.UMICH.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Eurowars (Long)
Date:	Fri, 1 May 1998 13:10:13 -0400

<Quote from Timeline Explorer>
2033: On January 23, in Europe, Swedish airspace monitors detect several
flights of what
appear to be British Aerospace FA-38 Nightwraith fighter-bombers flying
across northern
Europe. In short order, the aircraft obliterate key communications and
command centers
belonging to both sides. At the same time unidentified commandos murder
several
hard-liners on both sides while the Matrix grids of both factions are
destroyed by a virulent expert attack program. With their offensive plans
crippled beyond recovery, the two sides announce a cease-fire the following
day. Although Swedish records indicate the planes origin to be in the area
of Great Britain, no nation ever takes credit for the Nightwraith
strike.(Source unknown)

<End Quote>

Notice some things about that paragraph? Going backwards, the first point
is the Matrix attack. This is the easiest to discount, because it could
have literally been anybody. All it would take would be a small group of
programmers to create the virus and send it out. The Matrix is only 2 tears
old then, so there's not much security out there. Almost anybody with good
resources could pull it off.

Two, those pesky commandos. In sounds like what they did was a general bump
off the brass operation. If they were unidentified, that means that they
weren't killed or captured, and therefore very good. Again, someone with
good resources, either a country, small evil group of individuals, or very
powerful individual could recruit/hire/blackmail/etc into doing this.

The third part is those pesky planes. The exact quote is "Swedish airspace
monitors detect several flights of what appear to be...". This means that
they were identified on radar. I just finished a radar class, and I know
that radar, especially air-control radar doesn't give you a picture of a
plane. To absolutely read what it is, you look at the transponder code,
which tells what the plane is and whose it is, and is shut off during
combat. The other way to identify them is to compare their specific radar
cross section and return to a known list of returns and find something that
fits. This is all done by computer.

"Although Swedish records indicate the planes origin to be in the area of
Great Britain..." That means that the first time the planes were detected
by the Swedes was in the area of the UK, and they watched them go in and do
their thing. Now two big problems with that are why didn't anybody else see
them, and where did they go when they were done?

One possible explanation is that the nightwraiths took off from a hidden
carrier/sub/floating base/etc nearby. Another is that they took off from a
point further away, flew low under radar (Nightwraith=stealth?) and showed
themselves near UK airspace to muddy the waters.

Of course, another scenario is: what if the planes never existed? People
said that the planes stayed in the UK that night. Only the Swedes detected
them. No one shot them down, any of them, in the middle of the war. Then
they disappeared again. Seems almost impossible. Sherlock Holmes, eliminate
the impossible, and the improbable is the answer.

The Matrix was vulnerable at this point. A virus was already put out
against both sides. Why not send your decker against Swede air control and
run a simulation? Muddy the water some more tomake it look like someone did
all the damage. And those key communications and command centers are taken
out by saboteurs. You try to figure out what happened, and along comes a
message about some planes spotted.

So who did it? Saeder Krupp is formed in 2037, but Lowfyr had money and BMW
before that was announced. Dunkelzahn had been around since 2012, and has
been shown to be the big manipulator. Tir na Nog? They form 2 years later,
but they do have good personnell and a capacity to think long term. The
UCAS? They wouldn't want to get sucked into another war over in Europe, and
pulled all of the troops out. Tir Tairngere? Maybe they wanted to end the
war so that the Irish didnt have cover to form Tir na Nog. Kill the war
quick and Britain isn't distracted, that sort of thing.

Maybe even a few key people from above working together?

So am I too paranoid or not enough?

Sommers