The Darkspear Mystery, Part 2

Previously, on MinerBumping... What began as a by-the-numbers permit check and wardec turned into one of the most puzzling cases of Agent Kalorned's career. A group of miners with names like Ceramir Darkspear and Teramir Darkspear lacked permits, so Kalorned wardecced their alliance, Primal Ascendancy. The alliance's leader, Lord Connir, immediately sued for peace. As they negotiated the alliance's surrender, Lord Connir informed Kalorned that the miners claimed to have permits--issued by a mysterious figure named Latir Darkspear.

Kalorned expected the so-called Agent to be an obvious fraud. What he found instead was a member of CODEdot with 57 billion isk of carebear kills to his name. Kalorned wrote in his journal:

"When I began investigating Agent Darkspear, I was honestly quite shocked... He appeared to be a stellar member of The New Order. I gave pause, however, to something not quite right: The killboard indicated his last activity was towards the end of September. It struck me as highly irregular that an Agent who apparently became inactive in September would suddenly re-activate themselves and immediately issue 5 permits within one hour to members of an alliance that had just had war declared on them. More investigation was needed."

Much has been written in many places about the New Order's elite PvP prowess and impressive killboard stats. Our enemies have even, on occasion, spoken admiringly of our "skill at propaganda"--also known as "telling the truth and letting people be impressed by it". What most don't know is that the New Order's Agents are elite in countless other ways. They are the most versatile men and women in EVE. There is no problem they can't solve.

"Given the layers of oddities in this situation, and since this was now an investigation into an Agent of the CODE. alliance, I took off my standard Agent hat and donned my CODE. Internal Affairs one. For those who are unaware, Internal Affairs is a relatively new sub-division of the CODE. Diplomatic Team which I also head up. IA is tasked with the smooth operation of operations and relations within the CODE. alliance itself. Any issues between Agents or the alliance and its employees is routed through Internal Affairs."

His proper hat equipped, Kalorned rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

Curiouser and curiouser. As all this had been going on, Latir Darkspear had been offline. At the very moment Kalorned needed to speak with him, Latir materialized and initiated a convo with Kalorned.

Kalorned's first impression was that Latir Darkspear was one cool customer. If Latir was pulling a con, he didn't show any signs of being nervous about it.

Latir forwarded a copy of what purported to be EVEmails proving that the miners ordered six permits from the alleged Agent. The timestamp showed the transaction taking place just minutes before the wardec was filed. No wonder Latir Darkspear was so confident. He had what seemed to be a smoking gun.

But Kalorned wasn't entirely convinced. Not yet. When forwarding an EVEmail, it's not difficult to manually alter the timestamp. Suppose Latir Darkspear had backdated the correspondence to be consistent with his story? Kalorned wanted chat logs. These, too, could be fabricated--but not so easily or so quickly.

This was an important case. If there was any subterfuge at work here, there's no telling how deep it went. Kalorned wanted every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed.

Latir balked at providing his API key, which would've offered the most conclusive proof available that mining permits had been bought before the wardec. Kalorned wasn't too worried about the API key. The screenshots would tell the tale. If Latir could produce any, that is.

However, Latir Darkspear began to experience some technical issues that greatly slowed down the process of taking the screenshots. Kalorned watched him suspiciously. So far, though, Latir was maintaining his composure.

Kalorned suggested an even easier means of taking and sharing the screenshots. The ball was back in Latir's court.

Kalorned caught a hint that Latir was sweating for the first time. The seasoned Internal Affairs chief wouldn't let up.

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As a reminder of the stakes involved, Lord Connir pressed Kalorned for an update on the investigation. His entire alliance was at risk. Kalorned didn't yet know how this was all going to turn out. He did know one thing, though: He was going to get to the truth, one way or another.

To be continued...