User blog comment:I am that guy/Portmore Peace Summit/@comment-13740085-20160217003552

Several days have passed since the USNiE delegation sent the data Millenium gave them off to Rouen for analysis, and now the seven senior admirals of the USNiE, Stark, Rollins, and Hoults sat in their private room in the palace, were in their secure conference transmission, looking over the report on the data's authenticity from Naval Intelligence.

"Unbelievable", Rear Admiral Michael Green remarked from his comm screen.

The sentiment was universely shared as discussion of the report progressed.

"Twenty-three discrepancies", Vice Admiral Powell sighed.

"Twenty-three", Rear Admiral Hoults, who headed NavInt, confirmed. "A collection of evidence showing that the data was tampered, corrupted, or just plain wrong, often in small thing like time stamps. In one instance, they gave a location for the President via video, but he was actually in conference with Admiral Guy. We confirmed this by checking the late Admirals personal journals, notes, and agendas."

"That's why you needed me to order them unsealed", Admiral of the Navy Robert Stark asked.

"Yes sir", Hoults replied, "by your own orders, Admiral Guys personal artifacts were sealed with a Class 1-A security firewall, which only opens with the security codes of yourself, and Admirals Powell and Rollins."

"Is it possible someone circumvented that", Rear Admiral Chester Guy asked, "and gotten in and changed my father's records to give the appearance of a discrepancy?"

"Its not impossible," Hoults answered after a moment of thought. "But it'd be difficult for someone to breach the firewall without the security setting letting no less than all of us know someone accessed your Dads records without authorization. Heck we even were notified they were accessed with authorization."

"Ballpark figure, what the odds," Stark asked.

"Assuming it was an inside job by one of my techies, one in five million in their best case scenario. But that doesn't take into account that The Admirals handwritten journals also revealed descrepancies in Milleniums data."

"What other descrepancies did your people discover," Vice Admiral Henry Parnell asked.

"Over a dozen cases where their data showed evidence of tampering. Some where minor, we could probably write those off as edits to make it appear presentable, but the majority of the cases we identified showed signs of major alteration. We can't determine how they appeared before the edits, but we're confident it didn't bear much similarity to their current forms."

"They lied to us", Vice Admiral Parnell spat. "They tried to pull a fast one, get us to drop our guard, agree to this crap, then take our ships and probably drop our bodies in unmarked graves."

"That's enough Oliver," Stark said flatly. "We can't afford to fall to emotional decisions, not like this. Unfortunately, this may be a time were objective and emotional reactions line up. Any recommendations?"

There was a pause as the seven of them contemplated their course of action.

"Sir", Vice Admiral Parnell spoke up, "the current government of the U.S. has shown that it cannot be trusted, I recommend that we break off these talks, and make plans for the immediate implementation of Operation:Duke of Normandy."

"I second that", Rear Admiral Green added.

"As do I", said Vice Admiral Powell.

"Sir", Vice Admiral Rollins began softly, and Stark turned to him, "I support that recommendation."

Stark turned his other side, and looked to Rear Admiral Hoults. "Liz?"

Hoults looked uncomfortable, "like you said, my people were the best in the Western Hemisphere, if they tell me there's two dozen instances where what Millenium have was either wrong, or appeared to have been changed, I'm inclined to believe them. Therefore, I have to cause to support any other course of action, so I cast in favor."

That left two voices unaccounted for; Stark himself and another in a conference screen.

Now he turned to him, "Chester?"

Rear Admiral Guy looked back calmly. "Admiral, you and I were there when my Dad was dying, it was after the Coalition released him, I'm sure you remember what he said to us when you asked what our policy towards the illegitimate government."

Stark nodded, "'Don't trust them.'"

"With that in mind, I support Admiral Parnells recommendation", Guy said calmly.

As Admiral of the Navy, Stark could veto the recommendation, and couldn't be overruled. But why would he do that when his intelligence agency took the supposed evidence to propell the unification, and shot it full of holes? That, and the fact that Parnells recommendation had the support of his Admirals, what else was there to do?

"It's unanimous then", Stark began, "Elizabeth, put NavInts report on a chip, we'll let them see how we saw through them. William, get a message up to Shamshel and the escorts, have them get their reactors hot and ready to move. The rest of you, I want your fleets to have run a set of Duke of Normandy simulations by the time we get back to Rouen. And someone, let the illegitimates know we're ready to speak with them."