Intergalactic Summit

The humorous "Where is Heth?" puzzle books, in which the former Caldari dictator is depicted amidst a large scene of people, and the reader has to identify them, based on a series of popular children's puzzle books, have been being used by a curious set of people!

Normally purchased by people with a certain political sense of humour, the "Where is Heth?" books have in fact also been purchased by some CreoDron researchers, to train drone A.I.s !

"We use them to train the AI in pattern and facial recognition", said one researcher.
"They're really good at getting these prototype drones to identify people that our client wants to identify", said another.

The mysterious client, turned out to be the Federal Intelligence Office!

"Yes, we use drones to look for persons of interest, both at home and abroad, we've done so for decades, why is this a surprise ? No, we're not specifically looking for Tibus Heth, why do you ask?", said one drone-surveillance officer.

Not everyone is happy at the growth in drone surveillance.
"I used to live on this small farming planet, when I moved to Caille, it struck me that there were a lot of drones flying around. More drones than people it felt like", said one transparent-corset owner.

"You again. Every time you come here, it ends up making the FIO look like some kind of vast surveillance conspiracy machine, larger than the Imperial Ministry of Internal Order. Well, I for one, am sick of it. Our people have families, damn you, how do you think they feel when their child says they read something saying the FIO are up to no good? Get off this facility and never darken our doorway again", said a concerned Federal Intelligence Office spokesperson.

Tibus Heth remains at large, with eyewitnesses reporting to Gutter Press that he was seen in 67 different locations yesterday,

Stop making rumours already!
This is OPSEC.

Facial recognition patterning? Oh CreoDron, my heart aches to think what has come of you. The greatest decision network research lab in the Cluster, and you're priming simple facial structure maps and crowd dispersion patterns. How you hold on to your lead, I'll never know.

Get well soon, CreoDron.

Drone surveillance is an excellent way to cover large, populated areas with a small staff while still maintaining the privacy of citizens. I can understand how having them fly around in rural areas might take away from the atmosphere.

Perhaps CreoDron might develop drones that fly high enough they're invisible to the naked eye. They'd need better surveillance equipment but given the lack of crowds, it's not like the drone is trying to pick one face out of thousands every minutes.

Does gutter press distribute copies of "Where is Heth?" I'll take eight!

See, I would've gone for the suggestion that Diana Kim is secretly an FIO project designed to discredit the Protectorate and cause squabbling and infighting amongst its ranks. I mean, why else would she complain about opsec for this of all things?

And have you got something against beaches, Sandreus?

Sand is evil. On this point, there is consensus.

correction: on this point, I wish there was consensus.

Verin just doesn't like that his chin has to deal with more competition for the title of "roughest grain" than just Pieter's beard.

I know from personal experience that beards can always end up where they weren't invited. It's damn scratchy. Yet to meet one that did long-term undercover in my shoes though, so I'll give you that.