Emancipation and Exodus

Excerpt from an editorial of the Peripheral Purview, the official news hypersite of the Peripheral Alliance, by Ormond Malashonak, published August 2593

No Liberty from Liberation: Felsenheld's Failure

Congratulations to the President of the Republic of Port Barnaby, who sacrificed any pretense for caring for human liberty this weekend, when he formally welcomed the ILF units, under the infamous Dragotin Vukoja himself, to his world to stifle peaceful opposition. Nora Felsenheld is on the record, which can be found filmed on the hypernet, as saying that she "happily welcomes the Union's forces to this wonderful world to maintain peace and order in our Republic."

Before this, Felsenheld was a member of the dovish branch of the Liberation Party, the dominant party in our Union, the Party of Christensen and Tsukino and of all the presidents since. As such, it's quite a big tent; you have pacifists like Feihu Xi and warmongers like Jeremiah Hargreave in one party, all striving for the benefit of being part of the party of heroes. But now, she has shown herself to be part of the cabal that extorts from the Periphery every ounce of substance that it has.

She welcomed the ILF as it marched down her capital city's streets in a show of force, blared the Red Lights of Liberty for them, and then callously ignored them when they began shooting the protestors. "They started the violence, not the ILF," she said in a press conference, but so what?

Doing so, Felsenheld has given up any reason to consider herself a friend of the Periphery. All the meetings with President Cheung and the various Secretaries of whatever the hell they are, Dioso, Mammadova, all of them, are now rendered null and void. The people who so desperately wanted her to stand up for them are now met with her welcoming the bootheel upon their faces for what will seem like an eternity.

The quasi-progressive calls of my comrades are proof that their branch of the Alliance are so utterly out of touch. That utopian leader of that faction, Cassia Neureiter, met with Felsenheld and pleaded to her to not let the ILF to land (as if they are even bothering to maintain the respect of the constituent republics). She said that she would "consider the will of the people."

And look where that got us. Dead civilians, another Republic gone to Locke Hive, and a loss of further credibility.

Maybe we should just secede.


Excerpt from From Hellas to Callas: a History of Callas Rift by Paraskeve Kokinos, Published 2584, Antikythera City, Telluria, Callas Rift, UFMR

Stamatia Callas is, beyond doubt, a very interesting and very odd figure. The reality is obscured by our nationalist historians who portray her as a conquering hero who braved the odds of this world after resisting tyranny on Earth. The reality is vastly more complicated.

Callas was born in Antikythera, Greece, in the superstate known as the European Union, in 2214. She was a child during the First Galactic War and then subsequently became influenced, after the destruction of the various Earth cities at the end of the war, by a peculiar strain of quasi-technocratic meritocrats that became popular throughout the more dominant states on Earth; she was outstanding in school and was not inclined to let the circumstances of political reality in her time to stifle her. However, she found the contemporary systems of Europe and of Greece to be unworkable; her first work in the 2230s, What Next?, which discussed the complexities of a postwar social order on Earth, said that the current oligarchies were simply too entrenched to be able to be overthrown; "the current technological situation and its ability to be exploited by the elites, in combination with the Panem et Circensis in operation with the citizenry, contributes into a self-perpetuating cycle. The only future is offworld."

And yet she refused to go to Mars. "Mars is now entering the cycle that the various powers on Earth have been in for centuries. Tsukino is laying the groundwork for the destruction of political liberty in her country with the suppression of political dissent in the newly acquired worlds," she wrote in What Next? and vowed to do whatever she could to acquire her own colony worlds, with the idea that she could mold society in her image of a perfect society.

The problem with Earth, she maintained, was that rulers were elected by the uninformed masses of people from a pool of elites that was no better than the masses with the only major exception that they had large amounts of wealth and political power. "To use an example from the United States, now the Greater American Commonwealth," she wrote, "the greatest mistake of their Founding Fathers was not thinking that the average poor to middle class American was not competent to run the country, it was thinking that the average rich American was."

She had the radical proposition of abandoning democracy entirely, but also rejected the rule of one leader, which she held that allowed too many individual foibles to seep into the apparatus of government, but rather the creation of a bureaucracy that was completely meritocratic, with a strong focus on technological advancement. She was popular among scientists, among intellectuals, and among the pseudo-intellectual iconoclasts that dubbed themselves a new intelligentsia.


Excerpt from From Hellas to Callas: a History of Callas Rift by Paraskeve Kokinos, Published 2584, Antikythera City, Telluria, Callas Rift, UFMR

Callas was, however, not in any way averse to using the existing power structures to her own advantage, to the creation of her own state. During the years after the First Galactic War, she was outspoken in the need to move people from earth to a faraway world, to be free of the corrupting influence of the political cultures of Earth and Mars. Distance was essential, she held; being close to the enemy would expose their new society to the influence of false egalitarianism, of anti-meritocracy, of undeserved hierarchies.

In 2239, Callas was one of the early leaders of an expedition to a new star system beyond those charted during the First Great Exodus. She took her entourage of ideological sympathizers, numbering fifteen hundred or so, and was able to gain enough funds to buy colonial ships from Virgo Interstellar, one of the largest Martian colonial firms, to found what she felt would be the "shining light of a new humanity, a species beholden to the wholly natural state of competition, in economics and in politics." She was willing and able to pay more than twice the already staggering cost of a colony; she wanted to go far beyond the explored frontiers of the space surrounding Earth and gain a new foothold, isolated from society.

In 2242, after three years of travel to far beyond human space, she found a system that suited her. After landing, to the misfortune of the ship operators, the food sources had been taken to the planetside; she fully intended to force the Martian crew to stay with them and help them build their new society. "Ethics justifies inefficiency and sloth," she said to the captain of the expedition, Pedro Blaise; "you now have the opportunity to rebuild humanity in a new image, the image of a perfect society, of utopia, perhaps. Your choice is either that or death. Choose wisely."

A third of the crew opted to die and killed themselves with weapons onboard; the rest opted to remain with the new colony and hope for the best. Callas made a decision that would perplex many and enrapture many more, unintentionally to them but in accordance with her own intention. She named the system Callas Rift, after herself (in combination of the word 'rift', which showed the isolated nature of the settlement), and the world they settled on Telluria in the settlement of Antikythera, after her home island in Greece. She ordered the creation of a history of the world, to be updated in real time, that would idolize the founders of this new world, with herself at the head of what would effectively be a pantheon. Her own ego was held by her critics in the movement as the dominant factor in those decisions; however, her writings had a cynical albeit logical reason for it:

"People have the natural tendency to commit to acts of hero worship; in many cases, such acts of worship of the mortal and temporal were the underpinnings of nations and the explanations for moduses operandi. The United States was a shining example, but other nations could do the same. Our system, more than any other, needs it. For those who would object to our structure as unnatural and undemocratic, they will be pointed to by our descendants to a longstanding legacy, a triumphant history dominated by savants and geniuses, who justify the continuation of this social order."


Excerpt from From Hellas to Callas: a History of Callas Rift by Paraskeve Kokinos, Published 2584, Antikythera City, Telluria, Callas Rift, UFMR

Telluria, the capital world of the system, was named after "Tellurian," meaning "of Earth." This represented Callas' desire to impart to future generations that the mission of the new settlement was one of the refinement, not the rejection, of the values of Earth as a whole. "What the great enlightenment figures of half a century ago wanted was not anarchy, not ochlocracy, but rule of the wise over the uninformed masses." In the modern era, she maintained, the lack of knowledge of the masses was made clear as day due to the mass proliferation of voices on the Internet and later Hypernet.

"Look at any news site and scroll down to the comments section," she said to the newly assembled Governing Authority of the Republic of Callas Rift. "See the masses of fools, bigots, liars, fundamentalists, rabble-rousers. Do you want these people running the country? No. You do not. You get the continuation of the kleptocratic system of the European Union and of the other major states on Earth. Such a system enables a thieving elite to promise the people the best, take their votes, proceed to exploit them, and then repeat the cycle indefinitely." Perhaps paradoxically, she believed that restrictions of political liberty would actually increase personal liberty, as there would be a logically minded, specially trained staff of the government knowledgeable in decision making and in resources, to enforce a just social order, where the strong would rule, restrictedly, over the weak.

This almost immediately was translated into the creation of a state that, while not to the extent of the Earth oligarchies, was oligarchical in its own right. The state-created examinations for the civil service, the most rigorous examination in their new settlement, was created by an elite cadre of men and women personally chosen by Callas for their aptitude in education and in government. Only a portion of less then five per cent of the applicants were allowed any sort of government post. The rest were given to the overseers appointed by Callas herself (again) and thusly made to work in quickly and efficiently (or so they intended) to expand the settlement, mine, farm, and other necessary forms of labor.

Almost immediately, there was some backlash. "Callas is a tyrant," said one of the former Martian pilots. "She is nothing less than an Earth oligarch given her own world to mold and to create anew," he said. The identity of this speaker is unknown, as it was found on the local internet. Apparently, the police force was able to discern who was spreading such "inefficient thoughts;" there have been on more traces of him after that post; records of habitation are impossible to find (as police records dating back centuries were destroyed by a defiant police force when the system was annexed by the UFMR).


Excerpt from From Hellas to Callas: a History of Callas Rift by Paraskeve Kokinos, Published 2584, Antikythera City, Telluria, Callas Rift, UFMR

The development of political life in Callas Rift can be described as one of gradual democratization. Living within isolation, the population of the world, especially after Callas' death in 2298, was becoming ever more restless for change that allowed them real political and civil liberties rather than the rule of an oligarchy established by the founders. It was only logical in retrospect; such is the process of nations as humanity has observed: tyranny gives way to liberty, which itself gives way to security.

In 2301, still in isolation, an enterprising young academic from the University of Antikythera, Chrysanthos Sanna, was appointed to the status of Central Bureaucratic Coordinator of a section of Antikythera City. Sanna was paradoxically first in line to becoming one of the ruling oligarchs and yet firmly democratic, having read the ideas of the enlightenment figures as well as the works of the founders of the Free Republic of Mars, groups that were coming into vogue in the Rift as popular alternatives to the paternalistic government established by Callas.

Indeed, protests were being fomented; in 2302, in that district of Antikythera City that Sanna was assigned to, peaceful protests, combined with civil disobedience in terms of not attending their mandated work, took place in a central square. Sanna, who had since been appointed to General Security Administrator of that sector (for reference, the area of New Pharsalos), broke with established precedent and law and announced his support of the protestors. He is on record as saying the following in a rally:

"The people of the Rift have been deceived by the tyrants who established our world. The people of the Rift were betrayed when the agreed to this bizarre establishment of a state. The pilots of the Martian ships that brought us here were betrayed when they were forced to either die or join this new settlement. Thusly, the current government of our Rift is illegitimate and founded on principles that are inherently against the best interests of the people."

More and more joined in this protest, which led to the storming of the Republic Central Administrative Facility in the Governing District of Antikythera City. Such a violent act was not supported by Sanna initially; however, the mass popular uprising against the Rift Security Forces throughout Antikythera City and later its suburbs, then to other cities such as Corinth and Socrates City, forced Sanna into the position of being a revolutionary leader. The Rift Civil War can thusly be said to have begun at the storming of the Central Administrative Facility.

By 2302, after several battles between the conservative aristocracy, led by the Chief Executive Alexis Xanthopolous, and Sanna's revolutionaries, the rebels were clearly going to win after the capture of military leaders of the loyalists at Plato City. There, with their capture and the subsequent surrender of the remaining government, the Democratic Republic of Callas Rift was proclaimed.


Excerpt from From Hellas to Callas: a History of Callas Rift by Paraskeve Kokinos, Published 2584, Antikythera City, Telluria, Callas Rift, UFMR

The former government of Callas Rift was given two options: surrender and integration into the new government or being sent to prison camps with loss of citizenship. Grasping for whatever power they could, the former ruling elites chose the former option, as logic would dictate. They were permitted by Sanna to organize themselves as a political party in the coming multiparty democracy, to compete with other parties and be elected as the electorate decided.

The former government, unused to such politics, branded itself the Meritocratic Party, and continued to hold Stamatia Callas in high regard; a portrait of her was on their websites related to the party. The supporters of the Meritocrats were composed mostly of middle-class workers, such as technological workers, computer programmers, shopkeepers, other small business owners, and white collar workers. However, a large portion of the leadership came from the former class of people who worked in the civil service; they benefitted the most from the old regime and thusly wanted to see it returned. More often than not, they were scornful of Sanna and held him in contempt; they were loath to allow the rabble, the uneducated masses, to have any sort of political power.

Sanna subsequently formed the Egalitarian Party out of his revolutionary coalition, which was composed of mostly lower class workers and unemployed pensioners who had been abused by the previous system. Many in the party were suspicious of Sanna's civil service background and thusly broke away to form the smaller Anti-Oligarchy Party, which was a fraction of the Egalitarian Party's size and banned all former members of the civil service from membership. Nevertheless, such divisive class politics was unpopular with most sections of society and thusly resulted in the Egalitarian's growth despite the loss of the Anti-Oligarchs. Sanna, in a speech to the people in Plato City, promised that there would be "a free people and a free democracy, in which the rights of all will be respected by this new coming party."

The first elections throughout Telluria were held in 2303 after a period of coalition rule by the leaders of the wartime factions. The results were expected by analysts: the Egalitarians gained half the legislature, the Anti-Oligarchs an eight, and the Meritocrats a remainder. Sanna, who ran for a seat in Antikythera City, was chosen by the majority to be the new Chancellor of the Republic of Callas Rift, and confirmed by the mostly ceremonial President Helena Kostas, a wartime ally of Sanna of little real significance.


Interview with Nathaniel Cooper, Gunnery Sergeant, 2nd Platoon 1st Company 3rd Battalion 1st Regiment 2nd Division IX Corps New Jefferson Marine Corps - by Blackjack555

Subject: the first battles of the Fourth Galactic War
Interviewer: Jason deHaans, junior reporter, IIN

(The reporter’s iris-cam shows a towering man with tanned skin, lean muscles, and close-cropped brown hair, a square jaw and a clean-shaven, craggy face. With a cybernetic replacement for his left eye, a long scar across his face, and a massive cigar lit with a lighter made from a hollowed-out 15mm railgun shell, Gunny Cooper is pretty much a stereotypical Marine in every way. The prosthetic that replaces his left arm would look human if it weren’t painted silver and custom-detailed, the words “Paci-FIST” written in block letters under the insignia of the New Jefferson Marine Corps and the raven with flaming claws insignia of the IX Corps.)

You want to know about Alnitak IV? Why in the name of the ever-loving spirits of space would you want to hear about that shithole? What do you mean, crucial battle in the war? Fuck that worthless dirt-ball. Ah well, y’all are paying for my dinner, so I guess I may as well.

We hit the Alni-crap system as part of a “humanitarian relief” convoy. Humanitarian, my ass. We all knew that we were a battle fleet. We were on the carrier CNS Patton, three Marine Assault Ships with us, a full screen of destroyers and frigates, some cruisers, battlecruisers, and a god-damn battleship… What kind of bureaucratic jackass sees that and goes “Yep, that’s a relief convoy all right”? Besides, what’s there to relieve? For the further enlightenment of our esteemed listeners, I’ll explain just why anyone gave half a Nicarian rat-dog turd about this miserable system. Alnitak IV is somewhat unique in that it exists halfway between three neutron stars. Obviously, it’s a hell world. You’d think nothing could live there, but life finds a way, in this case nasty-ass life in the form of massive tunneling slug creatures that look like a tunnel boring machine got drunk and banged a leech. These things, and all kinds of other weird shit, live in the caverns of Alnitak IV. Now, this don’t sound like a place anyone would ever go, but unfortunately, this miserable shithole of a world also gets hit with enough asteroids every year that it has essentially become a giant ball of minerals that usually take a whole mess of complex gear to pick up.

Now, this ball of dust is about the size of Earth, maybe a bit bigger, and following the Union’s somewhat half-assed attempt at terraforming, the equator’s a giant desert, the poles are really fucking cold, and the twilight zones are hellish jungles full of things that want to eat you. The only part of this planet anyone might ever even come close to wanting to live in is on the polar-jungle border, a temperate zone maybe two hundred miles across on each belt in what the locals call the Evening Band. The day-night cycle, depending on where you are, ranges from three periods of absolutely blinding daylight and three periods of slightly less blinding daylight in the desert, to three periods of kind of semi-daylight and three of kind of semi-darkness in the jungle, to fast cycling day-night switches in the Band where it never really gets that bright but only rarely gets that dark, to the permanent state of mostly darkness up at the poles. It’s not helped by the swirling endless dust storm around the planet from the debris from the asteroids. The UFMR kept this shithole permanently poor by controlling the orbitals with battle stations in the network of solar-powered refineries that sat overhead to process the massive outpouring of metals and sending colonists they didn’t like and anyone who owed the big megacorporations money to work there. Naturally, this didn’t go over so well with the workers, and they figured out right quick that a mining laser goes through tank armor just as well as rock.

The ILF had been deployed there a couple years by this point, putting down the rebels the locals couldn’t handle, but when they saw the light and stopped working for Mars, the local governor called for help. What he got was a whole damned fleet from the Orion League. That’s where we came in. See, the Orions ain’t Mars, but they might as well be, and when Mars tells them it needs an army, they send fifty god-damn ships full of Guardsmen and a whole fleet of firepower to back them up. Now, Alnitak’s no vacation spot, but the tunnels do make for easy mining, what with having the tunnels pre-drilled, so it’s some pretty damned good real estate on the international scale, I suppose.

As to why we gave a shit, well, it is right on our border with the Union, so that might have something to do with it, and what with the buildup of our fleet, I might acknowledge, purely off the record, that we might hypothetically have figured the Alnitak system would be a pretty good grab, and that the higher-ups might have been looking for something people’d remember come election time. Remember, we don’t let our government shovel bullshit on the public come campaign time. Name, position, district, that’s it. Anything else is on the datanet, should people care to look, or put up by private folks at their own expense and not on anyone else’s bandwidith or time. No snowing folks under by buying out the whole damn net with propaganda bullshit that’d make most dictators puke like they do in most places. So, if a rep can attach his-self to a nice big windfall for the Confederation, come out in support of a move that goes over nice with the public, well, they get an edge on the folks that want to take their positions.

Now, we knew what was coming, to a matter of speaking. We knew our fleet was probably going to go to fight, and we knew we were probably going dirtside. That doesn’t mean we knew what had happened while we were in hyper, what the folks back on New Jefferson had decided we would do. Not that any of us would have objected, mind you. When we came into Alnitak, we were at ThreatCon Foxtrot. Weapons within thirty seconds’ reach, mag coils at pre-charge and live magazine in the receiver, armor skin suit on and helmet stowed, armor in the nearest locker, out of hyperspace lockdown, and pre-deployment checks completed. In other words, as relaxed as possible while still being able to get environmentally sealed up immediately if the hull got breached and ready for combat before anyone could take advantage of getting the drop on us.

We hit the system and got a mass of incoming transmissions. I happened to be passing by the bridge, so I got to see the shitstorm going down dirtside first hand. Here, watch the clip if you like. I’mma go take a leak.

(He forwards a file to the reporter’s neural implants. A pop-up appears, “View video file? Y/N”. The Y button flashes, an eye movement cue. A video starts. The bridge appears, an ordered space of elevated islands of computer cores surrounded by consoles. Naval personnel in their grey low-profile carbon nanotube armor, some with their hoods up and visors open, others with the hoods bunched up at the neck much like the Marine skinsuit hoods, sit at consoles, colored shoulder flashes denoting rank. While the bridge is deep in the hull of the ship, terahertz wave cameras inside the ship’s armor provide what looks like a view of the outside. A holographic display shows what looks like a command center on the ground. A battered major from the Army of Meridian stands in front of the holo-com station on their end, surrounded by AoM and ILF officers trying to issue orders and keep order. The space looks like some kind of large mining facility in a cave. Debris and dust rains down from the ceiling sporadically and the screen shudders and crackles as the command center takes heavy artillery fire. In the far background, wounded men lie on makeshift cots.

The major staggers as the entire cavern shakes violently, spraying dust everywhere, and starts to talk. “Commodore Masters! This is Major John O’Connell of the Army of Meridian Condor Division! We are under heavy assault from Orion League Guardsmen and Union Enforcer elements! We have taken severe casualties, running low on ammo and medical supplies… Commodore, they’re doing even worse to the civilian population. From what we can tell, they’re dropping kinetics on any area that looks like it might pose resistance in the hopes of pre-empting any reinforcements for us. The situation is deteriorating rapidly, Commodore! Requesting support!”

Before the Commodore can reply another carrier wave, this one from the Orion League fleet commander in orbit over Alnitak IV. A neatly dressed man in a cleanly pressed white and crimson uniform sits in a large command chair, a lower rating handing him a cup of something, which he sips before beginning. “My name is Lord Admiral George Vincent, Duke of Norcliffe and Heath, Viceroy of Cardolan, and Lord Protector of the Empire of Avalon, Commander by Royal Appointment of the 29th Fleet of His Majesty’s Interstellar Navy, seconded to the 34th Joint Armada of the Orion League Military Enforcement Section per the Calais Agreement. This system is currently held in open insurrection against the Union of Free Martian Republics and this fleet is charged with returning it to rightful control and exterminating the traitors who have brought this state of war upon it. Interference with this duty will constitute an act of war against both the Union of Free Martian Republics and the Orion League as a whole.”

The Commodore is still a moment, then begins his reply. “I am Commodore Alexander Masters of the New Jefferson Confederation Starfleet Command. This system is under the rightful control of the New Interstellar Federation, the inhabitants of which have declared their independence from the unlawful government of the Union of Free Martian Government, as is their right per the Orion League’s own Declaration of the Rights of the People and its clause regarding the right to secede rather than face state-mandated genocide. You are out of your jurisdiction, Lord Admiral. Depart this system immediately.”

The reply from the Lord Admiral arrives very quickly. “Commodore, allow me to clarify matters. The New Interstellar Federation is not a recognized body according to the Orion League, nor are the actions of the Union of Free Martian Republics genocide per a unanimous decree by the League’s Legal Committee. Furthermore, this fleet contains three hundred ships, while yours comprises only forty, and five of those noncombatants at that. It would be foolish indeed to engage in battle against your social, military, and numerical betters.”

“Foolish, Lord Admiral? Then you can inform your League that a fleet of fools blasted you from space. All ships, engage!” The Commodore cuts the video feed. The ship rocks as the main guns fire. Through the “windows” the other ships can be seen firing their own guns and launching missiles. The video ends.)

Commodore Masters had a set of balls, didn’t he just? ‘Course, it’s not like the Orions could really put up much of a fight. I ran to my Marines in our section as the alarms went off, the AI tellin’ us all, “All hands, set ThreatCon Alpha. This is not a drill.” Not like we needed it. The deck was shaking from the big railguns firing. People think it’s odd, having recoil when we have artificial gravity, but when you’re firing a piece of metal and explosives at about two thirds of the speed of light from a giant-ass magnetic cannon almost a click long and ten meters wide, and you have four of these bastards going off all at once, plus a couple dozen 340 mils, forty or fifty 155s, and God only knows how many 90 and 30mil rotaries, all on turrets on the hull, shooting thousands of metal slugs a second, that’s gonna make a fucking planet shake. Damn, is it a pretty sight, though. See, we don’t use tracer rounds, only utter fucking morons like the Orions do that, but there are random particles in space, plus the rounds have outer casings that burn off to protect them in the barrel, so you get these silvery trails of metal and ionized plasma on near the barrels, and coronas of lightning around the guns. It’s a lovely sight.

Anyway, I hit the barracks, and my Marines were already there, suiting up and grabbing their gear, joking, laughing, getting ready to drop. Our new guy, Suarez, looked damn terrified like he was gonna shit himself. He was in his armor, shaking, practically jumped out of his skin when Janacek put her hand on his shoulder and kissed him “for luck,” though he was shaking a bit less after that and even managed to ask if he’d get anything more, to which she replied, “ask me after the drop”. So, pretty much normal for Jan. Crazy chick, but damn can she shoot, and near a model to boot. Been in longer than any of us, probably been with every Marine in the squad at some point, says nothing gets her hot like getting shot at. Makes her feel more alive, can’t argue with that one. Oorah to that. I went over to him, he asked me, “Sarge, how do they do it? I mean, we’re about to jump outta this ship, land on some planet, and try to kill about ten thousand Orion League bendahos before they kill us, and they’re acting like they’re getting ready for a game of jungleball!” I told him, “You’re a Marine, son! You went through shit a hundred times harder than this just to earn the right to put that armor on! Look, what planet are you from, Private?”

“Alamagorda, Sarge!”

“And why’d you leave Alamagorda, Private?”

“Because it was a total shithole, Sarge! People killed each other all the time over stupid shit and after Papa got shot in a food riot Mama said we had to go.”

“And why’d you join the Marines, Private?”

“Well, I wanted to see the galaxy, plus they promised I’d be the baddest motherfucker around, and I figured maybe I’d go back to Alamagorda someday and show the cojons who run it why they shouldn’t mess with my family, Sarge!”

“Well then, Private, think about it this way: You survived growing up by being tough, you survived Boot by being a hell of a lot tougher. What makes you think you ain’t tough enough to get through this?”

“Thank you, Sarge!” He stopped shaking right quick. Good kid.

“Oorah, Private! Now get your gear ready, your magazine’s in backward!” I went and grabbed my own armor, full Mark XIX Marine Powered Combat Exoskeletal Armor with some custom mods in it. I’d talked to the armorer, and he’d been more than happy to put in some shit for me. Microjet flamethrower in the right arm, extra ammo pouches, and he’d bolted a grenade launcher from a busted-up AR194 to the left arm so I could shoot 40mils and still keep a shotgun under my barrel. Gotta love the gearheads who run Marine machine shops, even if they are the craziest bastards on the ship. Our own engie didn’t like hand grenades much, so he took a piece of hydraulic pipe from a Paladin mech, bolted it into the center of the mag rails from an anti-tank launcher, and tacked on an unstable fusion reactor from a broken antigrav pod for a light tank, and made himself a short-range plasma cannon that’d take out a reinforced bunker at thirty meters. Then he welded the Demon’s Dick, as he called it, onto his own exo-armor, bolted an infantry shield from a heavy machine gun emplacement to the other, and turned himself into a small artillery piece. The Lieutenant wasn’t too happy about it, but he pointed out that dismantling the gun was probably more likely to blow us all to kingdom come than firing it, which was prob’ly true. Best part is, the whole thing still fit in a drop pod. I got my kit, then strapped in my pod, which got loaded into an assault shuttle. I asked the pilot why we weren’t taking the pods from the carrier, as is our usual method of hitting planets, much safer than flying Air Marine Corps through the local air defense.

“Well, it’s like this, trooper. We’re still using the pods, but the eggheads don’t think you all would land close together if you had to go through the hurricane in the upper atmosphere, so we’re going to fly you all down through it, then shoot the drop pods out of the shuttles.” I gotta say, that scared me. See, the assault shuttles can, technically, launch drop pods by switching out the seats in the bay for pods. They’re actually roughly the same size for exactly that reason. In theory, it’s a great idea. In practice, since the shuttle doesn’t go anywhere near as fast as a drop pod fired from a mag launcher, any kind of serious ground-to-orbit defenses are going to tear the shit out the assault force. Now, the Navy figured this out pretty damned fast, and they came up with a solution that, in typical Navy fashion, takes the simple and extremely explosive route to problem solving: fire a shit-ton of rounds at anything that might possibly shoot at the assault shuttles. This would be fine, except to get concealed emplacements, the rounds have to fall pretty much just before the pods land. See where this is going? A two-stage assault landing means that the Marines unfortunate enough to be in the lead, an honor me and mine were lucky enough to receive, are hitting the ground about two minutes after the ground in question has been pulverized by fusion shells, kinetic energy weapons, HVMs, gigawatt masers, and singularity warheads, all of which are going off as the pods are falling. It’s a lot like being stuck in a small can in a tornado, except that tornado is on fire and full of things actively trying to kill you. Having done four or five or these things, I can say with certainty that no one actually enjoys them, including the complete head cases who claim they do.

“Marines,” I said. “You may recognize that our pods are currently aboard an assault shuttle. Those of you who have done this before will immediately realize what this means. For the edification of those of you who have not had the pleasure, this is going to be a two-stage drop following suppression of enemy air defense. That means we are going to land after the enemy has had a few gigatons of whoop-ass put on them by the Fleet. Remember: your armor and your pod are, in fact, quite capable of keeping the radiation and heat from killing you. As to the turbulence, remember that your armor is capable of administering anti-nausea medication. Take advantage of that if you like, no one will think less of you for not wanting to fill the vase as you fall through a hurricane of fire. Acknowledged?”

A chorus of “Let’s do this!” “OORAH!” and “Oh fuck, this again?” met my ears, as well as the odd terrified whimper from some of the new guys. Me, I grabbed a quick nap in my jump armor, as did some of the veterans. It would be a solid half hour before we actually reached the atmosphere, our shuttle cold-coasting along with dozens of others from the fleet to avoid detection as we headed toward the planet, the mag-launch catapult rails on the fleet carriers firing us like javelins at the dirtball below.

The pilot’s calm, casual voice woke me up. “Marines, we have almost reached your departure point. As you exit the aircraft, please check for any belongings you may have left behind. There will be no reboarding the aircraft. We are expecting some moderate turbulence before landing, so please buckle in. Thank you for choosing Air Marine Corps for your travel needs. We hope you have enjoyed your flight and remember us for future planetary assaults. Green light in five.” I checked the clamps quickly, making sure my gear and I were secured, as we all chuckled at the pilot’s remarks. The shuttle shuddered, shook, and twisted, dodging debris and incoming fire. On the Heads-Up Display in my helmet, I could see the whole formation of assault shuttles, dodging and weaving about each other in seemingly random maneuvers that would, to a computerized aiming system, combine with the cloud of ECM chaff and decoys around us, create too many potential targets to reliably hit actual shuttle. Here and there a particularly lucky gunner or unlucky pilot resulted in a missile or cannon round hitting a shuttle, sometimes downing the target. Generally, though, we made it through the outer atmosphere and launched from the shuttle.

There’s a certain feeling associated with a combat drop. Part of you feels the falling, another actually feels like you’re going up as you slow down after the mag rails launch you. On two-stage assaults there’s also a shitload of turbulence from the atmosphere. Then the rockets on the drop pod fire and everything shakes like crazy. Finally, you hit the turbulence layer from the bombs hitting dirtside and everything goes to shit. The pod actually turns off for a few minutes as you fall, as the decoys, two or three for every pod, turn on, along with ten or twelve unpowered ones, so the defenses can’t target you. It’s actually pretty rare to lose a drop pod in terminal phase, at least in the New Jefferson Marines. The drogue chute pops, the repulsors kick in, and you have about three seconds until it hits the ground. There’s a hell of a shock, even through the ballistic gel wrapped around you to keep your bones from shattering like twigs from the sheer force of the impact.

The explosive bolts blasted the front hatch off the pod and I jumped out. I hollered into the comm pickup into my helmet. “All right, Marines, we’re dirtside! Getchur asses in gear and move! GO GO GO!” Rifle in hand, I sprinted toward the nearest target. Our objective was a major hardened starport where the Orion League were landing their supplies and artillery, defended by Avalon regular infantry backed by heavy troops from the Athenian Republic. I was proud to see all of my Marines alive and sprinting toward the target right alongside me. We didn’t have artillery support and orbital couldn’t hit the target, as we needed it intact to land the heavier stuff, but we did have air support. SF-103 Falcon fighters screamed overhead, riding the tail of the barrage that supported our landing. The enemy were dug in in a network of trenches and bunkers all around the port, backed up by massive bunkers of artillery built into the artificial butte which supported the port itself. The first line of trenches disappeared in a fiery hell of thermobaric munitions, micro-HVM cluster pods, and autocannon fire, as explosions blossomed across the cliff face where artillery bunkers had been moments before. The return fire tore two Falcons out of the air, one pilot bailing out just ahead of the fireball while the other guided his crippled aircraft to a hard landing in Army of Meridian territory several kilometers to the west.

We advanced at a dead run, firing on enemy soldiers as they popped their heads up from the trenches and opened fire. Machine guns opened up from surviving bunkers, only to be silenced by Marine snipers and heavy weapons teams. To my right, a heavy weapons team set up their field artillery gun, a 20mm tripod-mounted anti-armor railgun, and opened fire on the bunkers, each round blowing apart a fortification and destroying whatever weapon inside it. Up the cliff, the massive blossoms of fire from heavy artillery weapons marked the launch of huge shells that landed among our charging force. With satellite telemetry and enhanced reflexes, we actually had time to dodge the incoming rounds. There are few feelings like actually ducking a 300 millimeter high explosive round as it skims the ground at head height to explode behind you to make you feel like the god of war. Still, the advance was not without casualties, and a few dozen Marines were left on the field, some dead, others too badly wounded to continue running. As we vaulted the first line of barricades that made up the wall of the first fortification line, other wounded Marines sheltered in the remains of the bunkers, including the first of ours to go down. PFC Buckley had almost managed to dodge a shell, but a wobble as it left the barrel had caused it to clip him in the arm as it passed, not enough to detonate but sufficient to rip most of his left shoulder from his body. To his credit, he had kept hold of his rifle as he ran, staggered over the lip of the trench, and only then collapsed, Suarez reaching him and half helping, half carrying him to the nearest now-empty bunker and applying a medical nanite bandage. Suarez himself had done well for a rookie, dropping four Avalon regulars and taking on an Athenian heavy phalanx trooper for the bunker. The phalanx in question lay dead, his immense spear-rifle hybrid weapon lying next to him and Suarez’s combat knife embedded in his gut, his ballistic shield stuck halfway through his throat. Suarez had taken a round to the abdomen. Over his objections, I told him to accompany Buckley when medevac came.

We pushed forward on the second trench line. Another round of air strikes tore apart the emplaced defenses. Somewhere during our charge, the Fleet had broken through the Orion League fleet overhead, and the Marine Assault Ship CNS Wolf’s Head was in low orbit with several gun platforms deployed. Now, they used data collected during our first assault run to locate all of the enemy’s artillery in the bluff and knock out their guns from orbit. The big Precision Bombardment drones dropped in and blew the guns to shit. A PBD, for the edification of the viewing public, is a big-ass heat shield can full of single-shot railguns with thruster packs. It falls through the atmosphere, breaks apart, and all the one-shot railguns aim at preset targets, orient themselves, and fire. Essentially, it’s a literal can of whoop-ass. They dropped four of them, then we charged again. This time, the enemy was at least somewhat ready for us. We suppressed them and went over the top, shooting as we ran, then jumped into the trenches. I landed on an Avalon regular, casually knocking the poor bastard aside with my rifle as I popped the bayonet blades out the sides of my rifle, two pieces of memory metal that swing out from sockets next to the barrel into the two blades of a spear flanking the muzzle and sticking about thirty centimeters out. Some folks carry actual blades, but I like the versatility of bayonets so I can stab one guy, shoot the next one, and punch the third in the face without ever having to change weapons. Two more Imperial troopers ran at me, the idiots. Never rush a guy in powered armor when you’re wearing a uniform that wouldn’t be out of place back in the 1800s and light ballistic armor. It doesn’t end well. I shot one and bayoneted the other as I moved, opening fire on the troops down the line. It must have been a few hours we went on like this, take a trench, hunker down, wait for the shells to tear the shit out of the next line, then jump over the top and hit the next trench with guns blazing. Every line a few more went down. Damn, but I can’t forget the men we lost, even though I’ve lost so many more. Jones, Alden. Corporal. KIA. Hit by a laser artillery gun, tore him right in half. Candes, Sarah. Private First Class. KIA. Stabbed by an Athenian phalanx trooper, spear punched clean through a hole left by a piece of shrapnel and into her heart, bled out before medics could arrive. Ramirez, Tony. Lieutenant. KIA. Decapitated by a minigun an Avalon team had concealed until then so the air strikes wouldn’t get it. Lannahan, Timothy. Private First Class. KIA. Critically wounded by a grenade, medevac shuttle destroyed by a heavy artillery weapon, no survivors. Al Rachman, Rashid. Lance Corporal. KIA. Sniper fire from up the bluff.

When we hit the base of the bluff, we were all burned out. Still, Command ordered us on, harder and faster. They dropped us another wave of drop troops to reinforce us, pulled back the units that were too damaged to go on, and we kept moving, up into the bluff. The bad news was that now we were in a warren of tunnels and caves pre-prepared by the defenders for just this event. The good news was that all their best troops were dead out in the trenches, a hundred dead for every new name to etch on the Obsidian Wall back on Midgard. Another five hours of brutal combat, though our squad lost no more killed in action. I can’t tell you how unbelievably good it felt to reach the top of the bluff. The last of the defenders were holed up in the terminal area of the port, claiming they had a nuclear weapon they would detonate if we attempted to storm the place. I gotta say, Commodore Masters had a pair on him. His response was one word: “Try.” Then he ordered kinetic shells dropped on the terminal, precision strikes destroying the bomb and decapitating the leaders now that they were in a structure that the strikes could penetrate. The rest surrendered in short order. I pulled off my helmet, as did my men. Janacek was holding her rifle in one hand, leaning on an Athenian lance-rifle to hold herself up on a bad leg. I had lost three fingers on my artificial hand and had a nasty round to the leg. Suarez had rejoined us with the reinforcements, patched up and apparently threatening to start shooting if they didn’t let him back down. That right there, I thought, is a man on his way to being one hell of a good Marine. Sula and Johnson sat down on the hard ground, no longer able to stand. Samuels, cold as always, sat down and started repacking his magazines, apparently unconcerned about the nanite bandage holding his arm in place.

I had just lit my cigar and broken open a field ration pack, watching the heavy lifter shuttles come to ground and disgorge Marines, supplies, and equipment sufficient to finish securing the port and set up a major FOB, when a Navy corvette roared down and set down on the platform. The hatch opened and SOCOM Marines marched out, scanning the surroundings quickly before moving toward the hangars and lift toward the cargo area, where enemy forces still held out in small pockets. A small team of EID operatives in their distinctive black armor that constantly shifted minutely to somehow reflect no light while directing the eye elsewhere formed up, followed by a man of average height in obviously customized armor. Normal Marine battledress is a sheer thickening fluid-laced skinsuit under digicam powered armor set to a pattern built for the environment from recon scans, the interlocking plates and bands of the armor covering the wearer entirely in flexible, muscle-enhancing plates of polymer. Over that, ground troopers wear an armor-enhanced overcoat with a hood that serves as additional concealment, thermal masking, armor, and protection against hostile environment wear on the armor, but fabric and drop pods don’t mix so well. This guy was wearing black and silver with a broad golden slash down the left arm and the unit crest painted on the chest. His overcoat was black as well, while his helmet was stylized texturing and paint to resemble a raven’s head. There was no mistaking him, even without the famous twin machetes and immense heavy assault rifle worn across his back: Colonel Thomas Siggismund, current commander of the 2nd Division. His honor guard lined up beside him, Marines in customized armor like his but with silver stripe rather than gold. It looked very ceremonial, but anyone who thought these boys were soft would be dead before they realized their mistake. Zero Platoon, as they were called by tradition, were handpicked Marines who had demonstrated not only bravery and skill in battle, but also an almost preternatural eye for traps and unconventional attacks. Every division had one, though no one knew who the Zeroes from other regiments were.

I stood to attention immediately as my men made motions to hastily stand to. Colonel Siggismund pulled off his helmet and motioned us to relax. “Men and women of 1st Company, today I gave you the impossible task of taking a heavily fortified position purely with orbitally dropped units. As you probably know, this is something that military theory claims is not possible. Well, fuck theory. Everyone knows that for Marines, the difficult is easy, while the impossible merely takes slightly longer. My military planners told me you could pull it off, and you have far exceeded even my lofty expectations of your performance.” There were scattered chuckles at that. The Raven of Midgard, as Colonel Siggismund had long been called since he tamed a massive raven during a survival exercise in training, was famous for his tendency to find ways for his Marines to achieve things so utterly insane that it simply never occurred to the enemy to defend against them. “The rest of our division is landing as we speak, using this landing pad you so helpfully procured for them. They will take over securing the plateau and setting up. Soon, we will join with the remaining New Interstellar Federation units on this planet in a final push to drive the Orion League off this planet, and I know damned well that I can no more keep every one of you who can still move from joining that offensive than I can wave my arms and make this planet any less of a shithole, so I am not even going to bother trying, though I will say that any Marine who is unfit for combat is to report immediately to medical personnel. No one will think less of you for taking the time to get fixed up, and there will be plenty more battles to fight. I will provide you more details as we have them, but until then, you are to relax, grab some chow, and rest. There will be time enough for battle. Pay your respects to those who did not make it this far, but remember them as they lived, and let their spirits live on in you. Company, DISMISSED!”

Excerpt from From Hellas to Callas: a History of Callas Rift by Paraskeve Kokinos, Published 2584, Antikythera City, Telluria, Callas Rift, UFMR

The incorporation of Callas Rift into the Union of Free Martian Republics, despite its founder utterly detesting it, can be linked to the newly democratic system of government instated by the revolutionaries such as Sanna; the Egalitarian Party backed the annexation most fervently. However, the Meritocrats were also willing to support it for different reasons and in a far more tempered manner.

What the UFMR offered in the 2360s was a sense of safety, first and foremost, the very same thing it offered to so many other worlds that the Union annexed. The contacting of Callas Rift by the rest of humanity in 2312 by the Sandhurst civilian explorer ship the Juilliard, and from there the opening of diplomatic relations between Callas Rift and Sandhurst, and from there other nations of inhabited space, sent shockwaves throughout the Callasian political world; their splendid isolation had been destroyed and their worldview shattered.

As they contacted other worlds, naturally a variety of ne'er-do-wells made their way to the worlds of the Rift, a name increasingly becoming an anachronism as the formerly titanic distance was being spanned by intrepid pilots. The token defense force staffed by the Rift had been expanded to three times its initial size due to fear of hostile attack, and so in 2362 this fear would become painfully true for the Callasian government. Pirates, led by Tamara Weierbach, a noted pirate captain of the time onboard her ship the Lemniscatus, attacked the world in a massive raid.

Orbital bombardment weaponry was rare among pirates during the time but contraband items for such a purpose was very possible if certain costs could be paid. Weierbach, rich as she was, was able to afford them from backers that are still being hunted for by the Martian Bureau of Civic Order. Her weaponry, seized from raided colonies Martian or otherwise were more powerful than the Callasian weaponry by a good deal more; it was then that the Callasians realized the full extent of the retardation of their scientific development and hence defense development caused by the isolation preached by their founders.

It was then the Callasian forces issued a request for help to whoever would listen; the closest fleet was a Martian one, led by the F.M.S.S. Giovanni Domenico Cassini and its Admiral Tri Agung. Agreeing to help fight pirates, widely seen as enemies of the Martian state, he brought his fleet to Callas Rift and destroyed the fleet over it. Acknowledging that the state of the Rift defenses could not withstand another attack, sentiment to join the UFMR increased substantially, beginning the route to annexation in 2402.


Excerpt from the Martian Free Press, August 2593

BREAKING: PRESIDENT CHEUNG ASSASSINATED
KILLED IN BOMB BLAST AT PRESIDENTIAL PALACE

LOCKE HIVE - President Lazaro Cheung has been assassinated by an unknown assailant who detonated a bomb in the Vanguard's Office in the Presidential Palace.

The entire Union of Free Martian Republics is now mourning the death of the nation's beloved president, who has been temporarily replaced by Vice President Fiorella Naismith until a successor can be chosen. Speaker of the Assembly Orlando Upton has declared a week's mourning throughout Union space and for all flags to be flown at half-mast for that duration. He is expected to have a state funeral in Locke Hive, and then be transported back to his homeworld of Cosmogorsk to be buried with full honors befitting a Martian President.

Responses from the international community have been profoundly sympathetic towards the loss of the President; Emperor Ulrich XXXI of New Innsbruck has declared a national day of mourning in his country, as have President Armand Sinclair of Waltonshaven and Premier Ling Wen of Zunyi. Further messages of support have come from New Valais, New Tunis, and other smaller states, and even the Executive Council of the Alliance of Independent Colonies and the Congress of New Jefferson have issued token statements. The galaxy mourns the loss of a blessed statesman.

Technicians and investigators from the Locke Hive Police have been searching for the cause, means, and planter of the bomb, but the investigation is still ongoing and the perpetrator has not been found. Blangorodna Danchevna, the chief investigator for the incident, has only said that the police will be doing all they can to "bring justice to the terrorist who did this."

Speaker of the Assembly Upton and the rest of the Assembly are currently trying to find a successor to Cheung; whoever is chosen is likely to be from the Liberation Party, but which branch, hawkish or dovish, is uncertain. Some have called for noted pacifist in the Liberation Party Tatiana Cisneros to become President while others have offered Jeremy Nyambal to do the same. Still others, including Upton himself, have thought of giving the position to either Carlton Dioso, Secretary of Civic Order, or Lamia Mammadova, Secretary of Defense, for the position. "We need a president who will bring justice to the Martian people," said Upton to the press. "It would be treason to do anything else."


Excerpt from the Martian Free Press, August 2593

DIOSO ELECTED PRESIDENT BY ASSEMBLY
PROMISES 'SWIFT PUNISHMENT OF TERRORISTS'

LOCKE HIVE - After a secret vote in the Assembly Chamber in the Union capitol in Locke Square, the Assembly of the Union of Free Martian Republics voted Carlton Dioso, Secretary of Civic Order, to replace the recently assassinated Lazaro Cheung, as President of the Union. Sponsored by hawkish members of the Liberation Party, including Speaker of the Assembly Orlando Upton, Dioso was elected in a 1571-429 vote with none abstaining.

The vast majority of the Liberation Party voted to affirm him as the President of the Union, while more peaceable members of the Party, in addition to a slew of minor parties and independents, voted against him. These minor parties include the Peripheral Alliance, the Mars First Party, the Party for Social Equity, and others. However, the dominance of the Liberation Party has allowed it to elect Dioso without serious opposition.

Dioso was formally sworn in by Supreme Justice Christina Vastano in a mass rally in Locke Hive. In his inauguration speech, he declared that he would:

"Crack down with the terrorist elements within our society. The painful truth that many here do not want to admit is that these terroristic influences have corrupted our government with direct backing from foreign powers."

The last comment is tied directly to the recent New Jeffersonian intervention on Alnitak; New Jeffersonian agents are now prime suspects in the BCO investigation of President Cheung's assassination. In his speech, Dioso demanded that the other parties in the Assembly yield to the Liberation Party line and support a "heavy-handed intervention against terrorists and foreigners in our Union."

Especially controversial is his stance that there should be no prisoners taken from rebel groups. "They must be given Tarleton's Quarter," he stated bluntly, "as they have given us. The only language that they speak is force, and so we must address them as such."

Such a heavy-handed response has been criticized by Bathsheba Ezzarati, the leader of the Peripheral Alliance in the Assembly, representing a district on Saint Lucy. She does so in direct defiance of the command by the President to follow the Liberation Party; she says that it is due to a "commitment to peace and to justice in the Periphery and throughout the inhabited Galaxy," she said in a press conference after the speech. "We will fight to the ends of known space for the Union, and we will surrender to no power bloc."

Excerpt from the Martian Free Press, August 2593

EZZARATI, OTHER OPPOSITION LEADERS ARRESTED BY PEACEKEEPERS
CHARGED WITH INCITING TERRORISM

LOCKE HIVE - All throughout Locke Hive and the Republics of Planet Mars, forces of the Peacekeepers, under direct orders from President Carlton Dioso, stormed the headquarters of the Peripheral Alliance, the Mars First Party, and the Party for Social Equity, and arrested key leaders of all of the parties in the Assembly, including their assemblypeople, such as Bathsheba Ezzarati, the leader of the Peripheral Alliance in the Assembly. This has been justified in Dioso's announcement to the press by invoking Article 32 of the Martian Constitution, which allows the abrogation of certain political and social liberties in times of crisis. Dioso said the following:

"To say that these times are something other than a crisis is tantamount to treason. It is a perfect example of the times that Article 32 should be invoked."

Early yesterday morning Peacekeeper armored and infantry formations left their local emplacements and moved to the headquarters of these parties and arrested all of those in the offices. These people include Bathsheba Ezzarati, Oleg Tomsky, Anathasios Argyis, of the Peripheral Alliance, and Peter Wycombe, Vitaly Arnold, Tamara DiLorenzo, and Stephanie Cadwallader of Mars First, and Dores Abreu, Yigit Uzun, Charles Orpington, and Lydia Villefranche of the Party for Social Equity, as well as, among others, independents Sinclair Peters, Alim Zimmerman, Clementina Kelsey, Kean Slane, and Alisa Gatti.

BCO spokespeople have said that all of these parties have direct links to foreign powers, such as New Jefferson and the AIC, as well as links to terrorist groups in the Periphery. "Ezzarati herself said that she sympathized with Torvald," said Catalina Kensit, a high ranking officer of the BCO, referring to the terrorist leader Daniel Torvald, currently leading an insurrection on Olympia. "We have uncovered links between the Peripheral Alliance and Torvald; they were scheming to take down the Union itself, breaking it into a hundred small states so New Jefferson and the AIC could feast on the remains!" continued Kensit.

Dioso invoked the emergency powers invested within the President of the Union as per Article 32 to order the arrest of these individuals, and then banned the parties from functioning within the Union for perpetuity. "This is necessary for the continued health and strength of Martian democracy and the preservation of Civic Order. There is no reason for these parties to exist any longer if they are to support the Union's downfall."

Excerpt from the Martian Free Press, August 2593

ASSEMBLY DECLARES WAR ON NEW JEFFERSON

LOCKE HIVE - The Union of Free Martian Republics is now at war. At 10:00 P.M. last night the Assembly voted, with the support of President Carlton Dioso, Secretary of Defense Lamia Mammadova, and Speaker of the Assembly Orlando Upton, in a vast majority to declare war on the New Jefferson Confederation, which has already sponsored raids on the Martian held world of Alnitak near the boundary between our two nations.

In the debate surrounding the declaration of war, the bill's sponsor, Kinsey Spellman (L-Eloper's World), gave a rousing speech to the assembly in which she decried the "appalling violation of Martian sovereignty" undertaken by the New Jefferson Armed Forces. After the conclusion of the vote, Spellman was cheered with thunderous applause from all members of the Assembly sans a few dissenters who question the right of our Union to territorial integrity.

Secretary of Defense Mammadova has announced that the Interstellar Liberation Force will be roused from the various worlds of the Union to defend Alnitak from the New Jeffersonians, who are currently engaging local ILF units as well as forces under the command of other Martian government agencies. These forces include some of the most powerful ships in the ILF. Among the more controversial aspects of the plan are the possible redeployment of the F.M.S.S. Spartacus, the command ship around Earth that is preventing the powers on that planet from going on another rampage against Mars and the rest of civilized space.

Nevertheless, popular perception of the declaration of war has been overwhelmingly positive; enlistment into the ILF throughout the Union has spiked, according to ILF statistics offices located on various worlds sent to and compiled on Mars proper. Rallies have been held throughout the Union in support of the stricken citizens of Alnitak, and these have often been recruitment drives for the ILF.

President Dioso addressed an assemblage of recruits in Montesquieu Hive today, who are due to be shipped out to the Periphery within a week. "You are the guardians of the spirit that the founders of this nation brought to this planet centuries ago. You fight for a noble goal that goes back millennia: the cause of human freedom. To the New Jeffersonians, give them no quarter, for they are the enemies of human freedom from which the founders' fled." His speech, full of praise for the armed forces, also had within it a stern warning for the rebels currently causing trouble in the Periphery:

"Any rebel who tries to interfere with the waging of this war will be killed without hesitation, and any rebel organization that tries to interfere will be hunted down tot the last lowly follower. Any world that dares break away from Mars and not participate will have any vestige of civilization on it reduced to cinders, as was Mundo de Zapata a century ago."

Excerpt from the Martian Free Press, September 2593

BREAKING - RIOTS ON TABRIZ - REPUBLIC DECLARES INDEPENDENCE

DAVACHI, TABRIZ - Rioters on the world of Tabriz in the Republic of the same name broke into an ILF encampment in the city of Tabriz when the Interstellar Liberation Force set up an operating location en route to Alnitak, the world being invaded by the New Jefferson Confederation and thusly a belligerent against the Union.

Tabriz was founded in 2276 when a group of settlers from the Earth nation of Iran bought a colony expedition from Montesquieu Astronautics and settled far from human civilization. Iran was near multiple Earth Powers and within the military grasp of all four of them, and was fearful of an invasion by the Union State or the Greater American Commonwealth. Settlers to Tabriz were desiring a life free from the carnage and war that the Earth Powers inflicted, and continue to inflict, upon the home planet of the human species. The planet was incorporated into the Union in 2421 when an ILF convoy found the world being besieged by pirates. The ILF saved the world and subsequently the world joined the UFMR in a desire for safety. Men and women of Tabriz were loyal members of the ILF during the Galactic Wars and during various other conflicts during the 25th century.

The city of Davachi is the largest city in the Republic of Tabriz, while the city of Golshahr is the capital. Tabriz, a desert world that is undergoing terraforming, is the only world with residential settlements. Within the Tabriz system there is the mining world of Mossadegh and the gas giant of Simorgh, the latter with an extraction facility run by Sunderland and Pisarenko Gases, owned by Union Financial, and a major employer in the system.

The Peripheral Alliance has a long history on Tabriz; the member of the Assembly for the world, Mustafa Lentin, has been in the Assembly for forty years and was arrested for supporting anti-Union activity by the BCI during the recent crackdown. Lentin voted against the Hargreave act, which allows for the usage of ILF units against domestic insurgencies against the government. The Republic government has been run by the Peripheral Alliance for decades and is widely seen as corrupt and a prime example of machine politics.

Rioters stormed the base after raiding a Peacekeeper armory in Tabriz, killing guards and destroying large amounts of hardware. They broke into one of the barracks of the encampment and slaughtered the soldiers in their sleep; the other barracks were altered and entered combat with the rioters, killing twelve before being overrun. The base commandant, Anatoly Crawford of the ILF, ordered an evacuation from the base, the only one on the planet, and held out until the F.M.S.S. New Harbin descended from orbit and extracted the force.

Shortly thereafter, the entire riot was revealed to be staged when the President of the republic, Faris Gocal, formally declared Tabrizian independence in a session of the Republic Assembly in Golshahr. In his address, broadcasted on hypernet channels, he spoke of the "rightful independence of our people that the Martian government has no right to question or doubt." ILF units originally stationed on Tabriz and staffed with Tabrizian crews were converted into units of the Tabrizian Self-Defense Force.

Tabriz is the second entity to break away from Mars in the recent crisis; the New Interstellar Federation, a ragtag assembly of the worlds of Alnitak, New Haverhill, Bogomolovogorsk, and Ajmer, was the first, its secession prompted by what is believed to be New Jeffersonian secret agents also responsible for the assassination of President Lazaro Cheung.

President of the Union Carlton Dioso has made it very clear that the secession of the New Interstellar Federation and Tabriz will be met with "force beyond reckoning" by the ILF, something which has been affirmed by Admiral Dragotin Vukoja, the commander of the forces sent to reclaim Alnitak from the intervening New Jeffersonians.

Excerpt from the Martian Free Press, October 2593

The Peripheral Crisis: An Overview of the Situation

The situation unfolding in the Periphery is a confusing one for the average busy Martian. Of the hundreds of Republics of the Union, including those from the outer edges of the periphery, the average Martian citizen will likely only know the one that they live in, the ones nearby, the important core worlds, and ones in the news. Hence, there exists a necessity to dispel confusion in a concise description of the situation.

The current crisis goes back to the Third Galactic War, when New Jeffersonian Admiral Carla Rawlins invaded the Periphery and destroyed military bases, spaceports, and other important military and civilian infrastructure. After Rawlins did the damage that she did, Emperor Horace Gand the 49th invaded the region and unleashed havoc upon the innocent civilians there. In subsequent years, the governments of these republics tried to rebuild their planets.

However, such plans were hampered due to the fact that the governments of the republics of the region, already poor by Union standards, could not raise sufficient funds support reclamation efforts. Many worlds experimented with higher local taxes; this had the effect of stifling local businesses. The Union Assembly was too busy with other matters, mainly with the political fallout of the Third Galactic War, and thusly the worlds continued to be backwaters in comparison to the Core Worlds.

The Peripheral Alliance, founded in 2467 to support the interests of the peripheral worlds, has made it its mission to secure funding for the peripheral governments for economic development. The Liberation Party, in charge of the Union government since the First Galactic War, has either dodged attempts for funding or openly declared hostility to the possibility; free-market types in the government have been especially opposed to the idea, while others have been simply ambivalent or concerned with the cost of possible reparations payments.

Protests began breaking out on the Peripheral worlds two years ago when the member of the Assembly for the Republic of Saint Lucy, Bathsheba Ezzarati, went on a speaking tour throughout the periphery as well as Core World locales, where she radicalized large amounts of people in favor of reparation payments. Soon, protests began breaking out on the worlds of the periphery as the issue of reparation payments began becoming more in the public conscience.

In September, the worlds of Alnitak, New Haverhill, Bogomolovogorsk, and Ajmer, four worlds in close proximity to each other and the boundary with the New Jefferson Confederation, named for a defunct agglomeration of worlds that existed in the 2300s before being defeated by pirates and then integrated into the Union, declared their independence as the New Interstellar Federation. The president of the new state, Jeremiah Berhe, said that Locke Hive's 'transgressions' "have gone on for far too long. We must secede or forever suffer under a Martian bootheel." Soon, ILF and Peacekeeper forces began engaging the NIF's military, causing the New Jefferson Confederation to invade on the pretenses of a humanitarian mission. The ILF forces engaged the New Jeffersonians, beginning the current war.

Later in September, the world of Tabriz seceded for much the same reasons after a riot forced an ILF detachment offworld. President Dioso has vowed revenge; he is particularly opposed to secessionists and the New Jeffersonians as his predecessor, Lazaro Cheung, was assassinated by either a peripheral extremist or a New Jeffersonian agent.

Excerpt from Androktasiai: a History of the UFMR's Weapons of Mass Destruction by Maynard Yohannes, published 2582, Pendleton, New Jefferson.

The great tragedy of the UFMR is not the end of democracy that so many have extolled as the great end, the tragedy of human history, that such a beautiful dream be crushed by the imperialist desires of men and women. It is the repealing of Article Sixteen of the Martian Constitution, which read:

"The Martian state shall never have control of nuclear, biological, chemical, or other weapons of mass destruction, for they are anathema to the idea that this Republic was founded upon."

Rigby and Tamboli and all the other founders were intent on the creation of a peaceful state, one that would serve as a beacon of hope for humanity. And for a while, it did. However, humans being what they are, the arrival of what would come to be the First Galactic War would cause the death of what was likely the only thing holding Martian democracy in place.

During the war it was rendered necessary for hacking into the Earth Powers' unified satellite defense system. This decision's exact circumstances are still heavily classified and likely kept in a top-secret facility in the asteroid belt in the Sol system, so an exact historical analysis of events is impossible in our time. However, it is known that it was decided to do so and use the weapons on major Earth cities. In classified sessions, the Martian Assembly voted to undertake this plan; however, comments by Supreme Court Justice Ariah Dunning said that this constituted a violation of Article Sixteen.

President Tsukino then proposed to the Assembly, through one of her loyal acolytes in the Assembly, Piotir Hil, a bill that, if passed, repeal Article Sixteen and allow for the operation to take place. Many, such as Adrian Guillemette, argued passionately against this wartime measure as they argued against other expansions of the power of the state; he gave a famous statement in a thunderous speech to the Assembly:

"Repeal this article and you will have the blood of Martian democracy on you hands. Repeal this article and you will have made the Union the very thing that it was founded to oppose. Repeal this article and you will be remembered as no better than the members of the US Congress that signed the Defense of Liberty Act. Repeal this article and consign yourselves to become masters of the slaves that were once the Martian people."

[...]

The end of the First Galactic War left the question of what would be done with the weapons now that the Earth Powers were soundly defeated. There was no question that they would fall under Locke Hive's control, but what afterwards was unsure. Many in the Martian Self-Defense Force argued for the creation of a Martian nuclear arsenal, that would be first created with newly claimed Earth orbital weaponry now mounted on ships, and later the creation of their own weapons. This was approved by President Richard Sartre, who was a member of the Assembly during the war and another supporter of Noriko Tsukino.

The first nuclear armed ship in the Martian fleet was the F.M.S.S. Sun Yat-Sen, launched from Liberty Shipyards in Jefferson Hive. Other ships soon followed, and were sent out in coming decades to the Periphery to enforce the will of the UFMR to younger nations. Rarely were nuclear weapons actually used; they were weapons of terror first and foremost.

The first exception to this rule was the world of Qaraghandy, which was run by a particularly isolationist dictator not willing to sign an economic agreement with Martian diplomats, eventually expressing his displeasure with the state of affairs by having his small fleet down a ship carrying important Martian officials, including the Secretary of State El-Hadji Norton. The Admiral defending the ship, Johanna Campellone, was in command of a nuclear ship, the F.M.S.S. Alexis de Tocqueville, and judged that the planet likely had weapons of mass destruction leftover from the First Galactic War. The planet's capital went up in flames.