OP-ED by UPK, CPTN. Nice HD I won't sugar-coat this for you kid: You came to me asking for the truth and I'm gonna give it to you in all of its inconvenient glory.
I've been a veteran of the Peacekeeping Corps for almost forty years, so I've got a more unbiased perspective of the situation than most people. There are many in the Corps who've been around since its foundation nearly a century ago, and they'll either clam up if you ask or tell you the same as I will.
Frankly, the state of the Union is a mess.
On the one side, we've got the Serco Dominion, the big belligerent toasters who've been reverse-engineering our technology since 4346 and only buy our stuff because it supplements their war effort. Make no mistake: if they ever win this war, or figure that we're no longer useful neighbors, they will drive us from our homes just as sure as they did on Terra Secondus. For now we're safe so long as we keep pumping out capships and new toys, but sooner or later they're just going to see the Territories as another region to strip-mine for resources. They've already started edging into Helios, and they're only going to get uncomfortably closer.
On the flip side of things, we've got the Itani Order, who, frankly, don't give a damn about us. Don't believe me? They've been scaling back their purchases from us 'trievers for decades now, moving their production in-house; they certainly have the resources for it. And they certainly don't care about seriously hunting down the Akaneese; they may put on a lot of show and talk of 'peace' and 'tolerance', but they're hardly going to persecute the only people between them and total annihilation. Meanwhile those terrorist bastards are free to run this whole war through their innumerable agents from the safety and comfort of their secret hideaways.
As if that were not enough, corporate infighting and open piracy are on the rise. When the corporate wars ended, UPK was founded to put an end to these sort of things, but our jurisdiction has always been so limited that we only succeeded in driving the criminals underground, or out into grey space--into territories that were ours before the corporate wars nearly tore the Union apart. Getting a warrant in Latos or Ukari is so difficult that a loaded moth could circle the universe twice before we get it approved, and its not so much better in the inner territories, either.
Some independent groups like the Vipers, bless them, have had more luck than we have. However, they're a fairly small, if elite, group and while they can handle the myriad pirate guilds easy enough, they don't have the resources to take on an entire rogue corporation like Corvus. UPK is supposed to be out there fighting while the independent firms like VPR handle clean-up operations, but its been the other way around for as long as I can remember.
A large part of the problem is our our budget, which has been slashed three times in the last five years, and is close to a thirtieth of what it used to be twenty years ago. My ship hasn't been repaired in a month, we're on half-rations, and we can't even afford to maintain neutron sidearms anymore. We're stuck using phase carbines and lasguns. Lasguns. And not the nice kind, either; I mean the cheap knock-offs that tend to explode when they backfire. Meanwhile, Special Operations has been siphoning our eternally-dwindling funds for years now, spending our finances on God-only-knows what. Not that the Senate cares; I don't think we've had a proper audit from the oversight committee in decades.
TPG, of course, is more than willing to turn a blind eye to all of this. They've always been so overconfident and naive that they wouldn't know a criminal if one hit them in the face. For now, they remain large-and-in-charge and nobody sane is willing to lift so much as a finger against them, but if that ever were to change, the whole Union would go up in flames like a ruptured fuel cell.
Its funny; we're supposed to be the ones preventing another civil war, but even as we see the writing on the wall, our capacity to fight it is being cut off at the knees. Recruitment is down too. The factional disputes have gotten so bad that many young 'trievers don't even know the Corps exists. Hell, just last week I met a young man who insisted that the Union as a state, let alone its military arm, was a myth--on Dau Senate, of all places.
We do the best we can, with what resources we have left, but we're not stupid. Our finest effort is nothing less than laughable at best, and I certainly have no illusions that we are merely delaying the inevitable--if that.
One way or another, another war is just a matter of time. | Some time ago the pirate/terrorist Peytros was reported as missing, allegedly having committed ritual suicide near the Edras system. As news of his death spread, the 'verse breathed a collective sigh of relief. For a while life went on and it seemed as though things were good. The Cargo Liberation Movement was in decline, SYN was gone as were HAWK and THC. With the exception of a few solo pirates the verse was a safer place. Then, CHRN burst onto the scene with a vengeance and the verse held its collective breath but, CHRN seemed content to control Sedina and Odia. Last week, traders in UIT space reported seeing the destroyed hulls of various trade ships inside the borders of UIT space. Within a few days the sightings were up over twenty percent. Speculation ran rampant... had the war finally come home? Was it the result of UIT sub factions infighting? Or was it something darker? Earlier today the UCC... (universal comm channel)... was hacked, apparently some one had attached a device created by the now deceased HAWK member Dameos to a relay satellite and broadcast the ominous message... "Peytros has come home to punish his naughty children." repeatedly for several hours. A UIT communications specialist team was dispatched to remove the device, which detonated with a force of approximately four teratons. The resulting blast and shock wave knocked out communications in surrounding systems for seventeen hours before it was able to be restored. Speculation abounds in the return of one of the universes most hated residents. Some believe him to be a clone, some believe the once meek and mild mannered Peytros Jr. snapped under the weight of the evil attached to his name. While others believe that the Akanese, who view Peytros as their own version of Satan brought him back from the dead using ancient mystical rites. What ever the case, Peytros is once again a threat to the universe, life, morality and upstanding family values . |