The placement of both HAL Surveillance Hubs as well as caches for emergency field provisions is key to providing optimal chances of mission success, particularly in the event of catastrophic temporal incursion / enacting of Theta Protocol.
HUB Locations
Hub locations should be located at or in long-standing and seldom visited locations. For a wireless hub placed to monitor radio / subspace communications monuments with some kind of local protected status are ideal. Wired hubs that tap directly into communications networks should be placed at locations which are difficult or costly for the local population to reach to ensure the locations are undisturbed. Underground or undersea interface points are ideal for terrestrial deployment onto existing communications lines.
Orbital and interplanetary installations can also be used, though installation can be difficult. Many races leave orbital satellites in place for decades, if not centuries, rather than incur the cost of recovery. This makes long-term satellites or unmanned relay stations of particularly good use for installations depending on longevity and isolation.
Emergency Caches
An emergency cache is only be accessed in the event that Temporal Operatives require the provisions inside. Once a cache is used, it will likely be discontinued beyond that point. This is to avoid the location being revealed to the general public and later visited.
Authentication
Authentication should be done through the Pandoric Interface. Each cache location maintains a passive connection to nearest HUB location receiving updates from the network. Directly accessing and unlocking a cache location can also be done via scanning the Temporal Operative Pocket Watch and providing a biometric scan in a secure location.
Special Locations
In some societies there are institutions will can provide a secure and private storage area, such as Safe Deposit Boxes on Earth during the 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd centuries. Such locations require key access and so some cache locations may refer an Operative to such an institution for the cache contents providing only a key or required identification to access the secure storage. The use of this two-stage system is extremely valuable as the size of a cache outside of the secure storage can be minimized. Secure storage in some time periods can also provide an easy way to access or update a cache depending on technological sophistication of the society which maintains the secure storage areas.
Cache Contents
- Durable Currency0
- General Credentials / Identification
- Medical Supplies
- Standard Equipment
- While standard issue sidearms will be provided where appropriate time-appropriate means of self defense will also be included.
Durable Currencies
Durable currency includes currency with a long width of time for which it can be used normally, the more anonymous the better. Fiat currency such as cash or coin can be used so long as it retains the ability to be used without suspicion for a long period of time, determined by the location and time period in question. In addition precious metals can also be used if they meet the same criteria as well as digital currencies in various forms (such as crypto currencies or digital token currencies).
In addition TEMPCOM will organize and maintain various funds in time periods where deemed appropriate by the head of Temporal Operations. Such funds will be in anonymous form wherever possible with funds placed into securities such as stocks, bonds, and other long term investments. Such investment strategies will be managed by HAL through the Pandoric Interface and agents on the ground to ensure they go unnoticed and remain individually unremarkable. This will also allow identities to be backstopped with financial histories using said funds to lay out convincing financial transactions even when an Operative is not using the identity.
Barter and Trade
In areas where barter and trading is used in preference to currencies, TEMPCOM will make a best effort to store goods which balance out being both valuable enough to be useful but unremarkable enough to not cause suspicions. Primitive societies will be periodically researched once the location is deemed a possible target destination by trained anthropologists appropriate to the time period and culture to maintain a working knowledge of how those societies manage property, wealth, and business transactions. Such investigations will be done in secret without knowledge of the locals by long-term agents for such possible target areas.
Caches of valuable items will be gathered where possible.
Identification
TEMPCOM will create and maintain cover identities for operatives in the field. Once an identity is used it is then assigned to said individual who used it. Emergency identities are also to be kept open until first use, following the same rule, in any region and time where Solas Tempus has to operate. Identities may be used in appropriate areas and eras given the time period and with what government they were created for. Temporal Operatives assigned identities will keep appropriate documentation for their use within the proper locations and time periods.
Location Selection
All Temporal Operatives will investigate and report new potential locations for new HAL Surveillance Hub installations to expand the Pandoric Interface as well as locations for emergency equipment caches. Locations are to be reported to TEMPCOM operations during mission debrief.
Once potential locations are selected as candidates based on Operative recommendations, they are researched through local history to determine dates of the locations existence, how often it is visited, and other factors. Of particular interest in this phase is determining whether a particularly location will last long enough to be useful. For lower priority locations this can mean seeking out a location which lasts centuries, other high priority locations can be installed for use over a term of decades if those decades are more frequently visited or surveillance is needed.
Installation and Maintenance
Installation and proper maintenance of all cache or HUB locations is to be managed and scheduled by HAL in order to avoid issues of causality. All use of caches are required to be reported as soon as possible after usage.
Trans-Dimensional Installations
Solas Tempus command level personnel will compile a list of potential Surveillance HUB sites in other realities travelled to. Such locations will be reviewed by TEMPCOM on an as-needed basis. Locations in other realities should be reviewed for potential political impact since alternate realities are not covered under the Temporal Reconciliations.
In alternate or parallel realities command level personnel also have the authority to establish a HUB location if the mission objectives / situation make it necessary to do so.