Are You Being Watched? (part 5)

In Solar Echoes, you play as an agent of the Union Guard, a special-ops force that works for the Inter-Stellar Union (ISU.) The ISU was established to unify the races and end the border wars that had plagued civilized space. When running a game of Solar Echoes, it is up to the MC to decide just how benign this government is, but as the players take on various missions, they may begin to discover that the ISU is withholding important information from the public, controlling the internet, and might even be stoking racial and class tensions. As the races expand across the galaxy, the further they are away from the core systems, the harder they are to monitor, so it is no surprise that the ISU has extended its reach with various forms of surveillance. Law and order should be maintained, but when freedoms begin to erode in the name of government protection and oversight, one must question how far is too far? In the Solar Echoes universe, cyber-security has become so advanced that single hackers can no longer hope to accomplish much on their own. Groups of hackers, or even hackers with un-skilled supporters on their team, can potentially bring down a system. However, the internet architecture of the future has been carefully compartmentalized to prevent massive hacks from shutting down multiple, major systems. Though such a separation of systems makes perfect sense, we have to wonder if our present day internet is irrevocably constructed with far too much integration and reach. Have we made it too easy for someone to influence, spy on, and dominate us?