The way you put the next chapter's title at the end without the chapter confuses me sometimes.
Interesting chapter, fun interactions, at last we have the two companions coming up with the plan and it does make sense in the end, but I'm still not buying that stuff about Oswald listening to the NF communications.
I think you still don't quite understand the complexities of the issue. Based on this chapter, you seem to look at this as some sort of substitution cipher or the translation of an unknown language where you just need to start figuring out what standard combinations mean. Let me assure you, even back in WWII, Enigma managed to be more complicated than that (well than the former at least), by changing how the letters were substituted periodically.
What we have over here, though, is very different. The process would probably go something likes this: digitisation of the original signal and then encoding (for instance representing the volume levels we got from digitization as numbers in binary form, creating a 1-and-0 bitstream), potentially encryption (and we're talking about military communications here, so of course there'd be encryption) and modern encryption is a very strong, you can't really break it unless you have a quantum computer and I don't think Oswald has a quantum computer + I'm pretty sure it's not broken up in segments analogous to the words of the original message. I think around this point a protocol might be used that would encapsulated the encrypted message's segments in packets that would contain information on what kind of message this is. After that we perform modulation and send the message. Because these are radio communications we are talking about and a ship would typically need to contact anyone in range, it would make sense if no connection was required and instead the message was "broadcast" for anyone listening on the right frequency to receive and interpret with the right technology. Connection-using communications might also be used, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say that there's also the connectionless kind and in fact non-addressed communication to boot. We could work with the former, too, but the latter just simplifies things.
If we didn't have encryption, the process could theoretically be different and simpler, but even if we consider it optional, chances are the NF's communicators would use the same technology even when it opted out of encryption (though I don't know if/why it would), so let's work with that.
For Oswald to decode, he would first need to get the frequency right. As I mentioned in my previous breakdown he could conceivably get it by trial and error, with maybe some stretching (that would also mean the rogues can do the same). Having the frequency, he can use it to isolate the NF signal from other signals and perform the demodulation. If we assume that the modulation the NF uses is known to Oswald/he has the right part, it would be possible for him to do it. At right around this point, Oswald would need to get the protocol information, potentially use parts of it to understand the message (or not) and then remove the extra information to receive the true data. He could probably start figuring that stuff out due to the canonicity of how that data would be arranged in a great many samples. He would then get the encrypted bitstream. If it was indeed encrypted, I don't think Oswald could do anything about it. If we assume that for some reason some messages aren't (doesn't sound likely, but oh well), then Oswald would need to know how the digitised signal it was encoded to decode it. That could be somewhat problematic, but not impossible to do, assuming once again there's similar technology on Milt. for him to poke around with. After getting the digitised signal back to analogue would be pretty simple and he could hear the message if played.
The problem is that most of the steps of the process are all-or-nothing. You either understand everything or you understand nothing. The only part that might not be like that is the protocol, where Oswald might have only gotten to reverse-engineer the structure of some types of packets, but that is also probably one of the easiest/least important parts of the process, because as long as the true message of what he receives is always of the same type he would never need to understand the protocol well enough to differentiate between subprotocols. All he would need to know probably is which bits at the start and end of the data to remove. For the rest of the stuff, if the messages are encrypted, he's screwed, if they're not, I can't see how he only understands part of the message.
I've more or less said similar things before, but this is the new an improved insight on how I think this would work. And I understand this might be difficult to get and even more difficult to incorporate your story, but I am an electrical and computer engineer student, so when I see this stuff it triggers me and I wanna fix it.
In other news, I don't know if we've ever talked much about how Imagination works outside of Crux, but if we have, I've probably failed to make my opinion very understood, because it's not the first time I see something of this kind, though this might be the clearer example. I think one of the things we need to understand is that the Universe is really big. Really really big. And if we account for the Earth lore that's hidden in a story or two, then it's even bigger, most amazingly huge. Crux is at the centre of it. And Militiregnum is just right next to it. After Gallant IV and V it's the closest inhabited planet, tying with Elistra. Compared to everything else, they're basically on the same dot. And now consider the fact that the Imagination of the Nexus reaches this entire Universe. And it has done for thousands-billions years depending on how long ago the universe was created. Sure enough, Crux is going to be the densest of all, but with Imagination being transmitted consistently for so long towards all directions, it's not like Militiregnum, the next best thing, would be much too worse. In fact it might just be Crux that has more Imagination than it can use.
And that's without considering the fact of the Nexus-halani, which might have only existed around ~1000 years, up to 2000 years ago, but they still must have left behind a significant load of Imagination that dispersed over time. And while none of them was on Milt., all of Gallant I, II and III had one and they're all very close to Milt, too, so this area in general must have a lot of lingering Imagination.
If I were to say, all planets up to the Loedar circle have the ability to do some basic stuff. And while yes they probably can't do all the amazing stuff that can be done on Crux, it's still not from 1 to 0. There's most likely enough Imagination around to gradually recharge your levels of inner Imagination and I'm pretty sure that a comm's requirements in Imagination would be more than satisfied in this environment, let alone make someone dizzy. Even in a worse situation honestly, {someone at their limit} - {basically nothing} is still {someone at their limit}, not under it.
That's at least, how I view it, but I think it makes sense. It could be debated exactly how high the levels of Imagination would be in Milt. and how much one can do with it, but it's at least not at 0.
There's also the unique situation Milt. is in because of the rift, but I'm not entirely sure if that'd affect this or not.
So, Oswald will be coming with, then? That's interesting.
I might find more to say, but right now I need to go.