The first, biggest, most important thing to figure out is... The How. And, I'll admit, I still don't have my finger completely on it. I still haven't cracked exactly what she does that sets the wheels in motion. Yeah, I know, it's just the minor detail on which the entire story hinges.
I want it to be clean. I want it to be simple. We don't want to lay a ton of pipe to set up this premise.
I've played with it a number of different ways, and I thought I'd finally settled on this: She's attempting to hack a satellite transmission (maybe some cool band doing a rain forest benefit concert, whatever). And she targets the wrong satellite and messes with what turns out to be the Venezualen defense satellite. They blame the U.S. government, and the dominoes start falling.
Problem is (actually just one of the problems) is that it needs to be technologically plausible. For her to actually affect the satellite, she'd need to be doing a lot more than just intercepting a transmission -- she'd need to be transmitting. So, is it plausible for her to be transmitting to a given satellite? And if all she's trying to do is intercept information, why would she be transmitting?
Quick aside -- it is possible for her to be attempting to transmit on her own.
So, one approach could be that she needs to reposition the satellite so that she's in its footprint? Then she would be doing some transmitting (attempting to send command prompts), and she might accidentally overload an on-board amplifier, damaging the satellite. But, again, that's one more link in the chain of exposition.
Or am I over-thinking it?
The other obvious way to look at it (if all she's doing is receiving) is what if she accidentally downloads something she shouldn't. That's the Enemy of the State model (person ends up in possession of dangerous information). But I'd really been leaning toward the cleanness of the War Games model (kid accidentally sets global wheels in motion).
Russ, what does your enormous cranium think? Labels: Enemy of the State, hacking, satellite, War Games, web strip
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