Episodic Data-Entries -- Trade League of Oros
//Accessing Data Nodes//Access Granted/Enter Pass//****//Data Node Central Orosian Archival Records//Root//File Accessed Hegemony Personal Records//II Hegemon// Rustleford Danforth Shackleford/
// Personal Logs // Final Entry:audio>text format
Shadows, shadows of shadows even. That is all I was given. The ability to cast shadow-puppets onto a hab wall ...and perhaps tax the onlookers. If I were lucky. Ha. Hegemon indeed. A hollow title it was. Not anymore. By god no. When they speak of my legacy in ages to come they'll say it was I, Rustleford Danforth Shackleford the 3rd that formed the bonds of true Orosian government. The Seven States competing endlessly without check or balance, one upping each other till we're all out in the cold without a thermal. What sort of future is that? I had to be stern and I was. Stern, but fair. If I had to crack a few skulls to make my points they were points well made. I have the fleet, I have the power. They all have to play nice now. Bow and scrape, say yes hegemon, no hegemon, the tax returns will be tight-beamed to you by Friday hegemon. Ha. Space is ours for the taking, if we can only bloody well do it together. As one. As Orosians, not as Olympians, or Gunung Men. We must be united now in one purpose. My purpose. I won't deny I enjoyed every damned minute of it. Humbling the lot of them. But it was done with purpose beyond mine own amusement. Other life is out there. Some might still laugh but i'm no fool. The Pathfinders have been going near two decades now and some of the reports. By the bloody Ice Mountain, it chills my blood. We have to be ready for anything. Friend or Foe.
Oh be damned, I know what they say behind my back. He's power-mad. Ego driven. Rusty wants a fleet and a palace-city to lord it over us all. Maybe I did damnit, but they're necessary. A hegemon can't bloody well govern a whole systems worth of trade whilst he's shuttling between seven damned cities worried every minute some jackbooted Sino-Slav is about to blow him out the sky with a gunboat parked in orbit. Prosperity is more than a symbol, its a bureaucratic necessity. It is though. A symbol, you know? Built with hands and metals from every city - well near enough - but the sole home of non of them. It's all of ours, like the void. I'm going to miss this office.... the views of the Étendue Blanche are like nothing else. The way the suns' light refracts off the snow, reminds me of.... Oh who the hell cares. This is Hegemon Rustleford Danforth Shackleford's last official log. Best of luck to you Sima you old bastard. You'll need it, heh... Geraud alert the ground-crew. It's time we were leaving. **audio lowers** Like Solon I must save my state, only to slip away on the tide never to enjoy the fruits of its freedom for myself. Heh, It is what it is. \\ audio-log ends // returning to root directory//
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//Accessing Data Nodes//Access Granted/Enter Pass//****//Data Node Central Orosian Archival Records//Root//File Accessed Hegemony Personal Records//III Hegemon // Peng Sima /
// Personal Logs // 19/11 2223 :audio>text format
We recieved the tight-beam today. The researchers are on the surface of Ripley's World...sorry Estland now. They drove a hard contract I'll grant them that. Proprietry rights to the entire planet. Name and all. Well congratulations. Despite mine and the prior Hegemon's official and numerous warnings. Settling an alien biome alive and rife with an organism we do not understand is reckless. They can call it a Research Lab, but it is a colony. Those are our people down there right now, setting up their homes. Risking all for the promise of a new begining. Something Better. Well... No matter, no matter. The Swizlandet Representitive knows the Hegemonic position. Whilst my soul may suffer, any blame and any legal costs will rest firmly with the mother-state.
Trappist, now on that subject I may report happier tidings. The initial colony site has been selected, the lottery done and dusted and the colonists are ready to ship out. Jamur will be its name. I will still think of it as mushrooms, despite Gunung's protestations otherwise. They asssure me the name is entirely more poetic in the native-tongue. It is fitting though. My number crunchers inform me the planet could be providing food for the entire expansion project as early as next decade. We are on course. Finding the system was a huge win for our administration. Immagine the luck. All those years ago on Old Earth our ancestors thought this was to be their destination. Now finally it is. A grand day to be sure.
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\\ audio-log ends // spooling next entry: // Security Council Transcripts // 1/05 2233 :video-audio format
The blazing majesty of Gamma Velorum's sun swept across the wood paneled council chamber of the Hegemonic Palace, situated at the exact geometric center of Prosperity City. Within the chamber a veritable crowd of officials and official hangers-on crowded the imposing oak-analogue desk of the Hegemon. Wearily, the Hegemon himself, Peng Sima, sat ill, like a man under siege. Hands resting up graying hair as his thumbs kneaded into his temples, as if the pain could remove both the problem and the headache in one stroke.
'We must strike the Yaanari now, before their fleets can match ours in strength!', cried one thunderous voice, 'Are you mad? Patience is the key, patience and overtures of diplomacy. They were amenable to us once, they understand the value of commerce and compassion.' This time from the Swizlandet ambassador, his delivery spoiled by the nervous manner in which he stroked at his immaculately waxed moustache. Clear speech descended once more into a cacophony of indignation and fear.
With an inward sigh, Sima rubbed at his wide jaw, a gift of his mixed Slavic heritage, much as his pallor - despite the generations of frigid sunlight - betrayed his Chinese descent. Nodding toward the view-screen that dominated the eastern wall of the chamber, an aid triggered the screen, throwing up a detailed stellar-map of known space. Quieting down the assembled dignitaries and H.N.C officers stared expectantly at the sudden, bright intrusion. 'This gentlemen...' the Hegemon intoned, nodding again as he leaned forward with folded hands. The grand spread of stars collapsed in upon itself on the viewscreen until it settled down upon the eastern expanse of the Vela cluster. Demarcated clearly in red and blue were the known borders of both the Orosian Trade League and the recently contacted Yaanari Free Traders. Arranged thus, the diminutive lizards' territory seemed to sweep from the galatic east of the Orosian frontier to surround them to the galatic south. The aid, with the practiced air of someone that knows how to disappear into the scenery, keyed another button on his hand-pad. Triggering a new set of graphics superimposed upon the star-map.
With the stylistic overlay of the hyperlane network the map told a different tale. All possible passage to and from the known territories of the Yaanari funneled through one single star-system at the most distant southern edge of human claimed space. 'This gentlemen is Yuan Xing, our gateway and our watchtower. You may have noticed... and I know you have, judging from the official-complaints piling upon my desk... that my office has been appropriating a frankly rather crippling quota on production and sales of military-grade alloys this past two years. This star-system is the reason why.'
Once more the scene changed, the star-system itself blown up to a staggering scale, the red dwarf's artificial light competing almost with the bright glow of Gamma Velorum. Hanging in a fixed orbit at a mind-numbing distance from the sun itself sat a station of massive proportions. A cylindrical slab of a drum, all welded steel and titanium housing the core of the station whilst control towers and hab-units thrust out like cathedral spires from all possible angles. Peng Sima stood, his practiced businessman air compensating for his advancing age. Imposing still even surrounded by military-men and the scions of great families. 'Chengbao station gentleman. If the Yaanari wish to throw friendship to the wind and succumb to the chittering poison of their...priestly classes... then we shall close our borders to them. This station will see that such an act is no hollow promise. An embargo. An embargo backed by the might of the Hegemonic Navy and Chengbao's weapon platforms. Yes it will be costly. To project our military power so far from Oros when we are in the midst of the great project. But we are the men of Oros. And I say we can do this. The fleet is already enroute to Chengbao and the station itself I am informed is mere weeks from full operational status. The Yaanari are creatures of commerce before they are creatures of spirituality. Mark my words, they will feel the pain of this and in doing so know the folly of their own actions. Oros will prevail gentlemen. We cannot fail.'
\\ video-audio-log ends // returning to root directory//
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//Access Granted/Enter Pass//****//Data Node Central Orosian Archival Records//Root//File Accessed Hegemony Personal Records//Hegemon V Guiseppe Galvani
// Reclaimed Personal Logs // 2287 :audio>text format
Where to begin... **audio distorts with an audible sigh and the sinking of the speaker into a chair** so much has changed these past few decades. The Oros I remember as a child is nomore. Our understanding of the galaxy itself is much changed. Non, irevocabbly altered. War, a concept we all long thought dead and buried, the Crisis not withstanding, now rages across the heavens. The stars we thought lay free, ours for the taking we know now are not, were not, ever ours. Our eyes are open. Notre destin est révélé. Alien life flourishes all around us and much of it, to my great dismay, is hostile. Now even our own people begin to succumb to such poisenous ideologies. It has been eighteen years since Lucrezia Bello founded the Human Future Front. Eighteen years to bring us to this.... **audio distorts with another deep sigh** Our latest tightbeam update puts the Fierte Oros in the Yultup system, deep within Yaanari space. Months from any aide. All in a desperate gambit to reach Zithras and relieve our only true friends in this dark cosmos. It may still be too late. The pride and joy of the H.N.C may be destroyed, the Zithorians enslaved.... And it will be my doing. Cazzo! Governor Bello agitates for a state of total-war. Deploy the whole Hegemonic Fleet. Her and her ilk would see us cast aside our heritage and conquor the stars with fire and sword.
I will not have it... Yet the stakes are so high. Too much to think on, too much to ponder. Then there is the other matter. An even more profound issue, merde, to think such an issue could be eclipsed. A Gunnungsman trader has reportedly made wide-beam contact with humans. Humans not originating from Oros. To think? To finally have discovered Old Earth. The dream of so many Orosians huddled around their chem-fires in the dead of winter's night. It will have to be confirmed, of course...of course. We cannot hastily announce this to the wider populace. Certaintly not if his second claim is to be belived and I dearly hope it is not to be. The free-trader claims that these humans he contacted assert that Old Earth has fallen under the dominion of aliens. A vast predatory stellar-kingdom ruled over by ruthless arthropodic creatures. Bugs, vermin... Lording it over old earth. Is this to be my legacy to Oros? To humanity? To preceede over the ruin of humanity twice over. I just do not.... Wait, console delete last entry \\ file corrupt // data reclaimation terminated // returning to root directory