The Chiron Chronicle 7: 2183

[DarkCloud]

Report:
To the Leader
From: Kommadant Julius Juliard-Johnson

A group of Spartan religious personages recently contacted Giant Roc after following a member of our Society to a secret meeting in Headquarters Branch 5.

These Religious Personages identified their religion as the "Cult of War" and persisted in asking questions about the Perfect Society.

Thunderbird and several of our guards proceeded to remove them from the area- but they persisted in talking to us and attempting to convert us.

When Thunderbird had convinced them that we have no need for a religion, as money is quite enough for us, they proceeded to bribe us for a hidden place to meet and conduct their operations.

The Commodore and Thunderbird proceeded to bring the matter to me and I spoke at length with their leader and together we worked out an agreement, whereby our people would be exposed to their religion, but were under no obligation to follow it. In recompense, several of our tradesmen would be allowed to spread information about the glory of money and research as opposed to the stockpiling of weapons (the priests claimed that they would kill our representatives if we preached that war was not worthy, thus we met a common position.)

-Kommadant Julius Juliard-Johnson

[Sprayber]

*****Level 5 Encryption*****

To: Sister Miriam Godwinson
From: Marshal Kessel

Sister Miriam I am honored to finally be in contact with you again. You probably do not remember but I was one of Captain Garland’s personal security. But enough of reminiscing, I hear that you have announced some sort of crusade against the Cult of Planet. I must say that Sparta is no friend of the Cult and in fact we are technically still at war. I am contacting you to offer all our information on the Cult concerning their recent military strategies. You undoubtedly have had more experience with them then we have. But we were recently fighting against them and posses updated information. I will transmit this information when you have received this and acknowledged that you wish to have it. In the future, we could also discuss transfer of other technology that might help you in your righteous fight against the evil Cult. I would also like to offer some insight that might help your cause. The cult is for the most part isolated. The major powers on Chiron are not that interested in their future. The Gians, however have powerful allies. I am not saying that they are more righteous or that they can prevail over your cause. But I am saying that to complete your crusade in due time, you might want to refrain from involving the Gians in your war. For everything there is a time and a place. Now is the time to end the Cult. The rest may come later. You have a friend in Sparta.

*****Level 5 Encryption*****

To: Governor Hadriokis
From: Marshal Kessel

Congratulations on putting the finishing touches on Temple of War. From what I hear Priest Brienmann will be arriving to inspect your base and perform whatever rituals that are necessary. I expect that your people at Temple of War will not cause any problems with the other factions that are near by. We are all proud of you here at Sparta Command. But do try to remember that even though you are far away, you are still Spartans. Next year the Spartan Games will be take place once again after a long absence. You should keep this in mind and remember to send your competitors in time to compete with the rest of the Federation bases. After all this is a game for all Spartans. Be careful of dangerous influences Governor.

Sparta Command

Marshal Kessel walked through the birthing center with a casual stride. As he looked at the range of infants that occupied the center, he wondered what kind of Sparta they would grow up in. He continued on down the hall and into a back room. There Leonidas and Angelina were receiving private care. “She is doing much better Marshal” Kessel turned to see one of the Med techs standing at the door. He recognized her as Sergeant Mallory. She had been given the responsibility of taking care of these two special Spartan babies. Kessel smiled at the sergeant and turned back to look at the children. “Of course she is, she is a Santiago” “Sir, I must ask you a question.” “Go ahead sergeant.” “It will soon be time for them to leave the ward. Where are they supposed to go?” “Yes I know. I am aware that normal Spartan children are cared for by their parents until they reach seven years old at which time they are sent to the finishing centers. But these are far from normal Spartan children.” Kessel grows silent for a few minutes and Sergeant Mallory stands in the doorway waiting for the Marshal to speak again. “The children will remain here for just a while longer. I shall have the room that lies next to my quarters modified to accommodate them and an adult meant to supervise.” Kessel turns around to look at the Sergeant standing in the doorway. “You have no family here at Sparta Command, do you sergeant?” Mallory looks around uncomfortably. “Ah, not sir. I don’t” “Then I would like to offer you an assignment sergeant. You don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to. It’s not an order.” “What is it sir?” I want you to look after the twins until the situation changes. This is most likely a long term assignment. You will of course have a few other duties, such as being assigned to the Command Center medical staff. But your primary task will be to look after the two children. What do you say?” “I will gladly take the assignment Marshal.” “Good as soon as the room is ready you will be notified.”

[TheDiplomat]

Temple of War

Priest Brienmann was watching, satisfied, as the first wave of missionaries left the base docks towards their destinations. No crowds were gathered, only few priests.
The conversion groups, each of them left in small trade freighters, armed and bearing different faction trader signs: Morgan, Pirate, Data Angel and even a few of the University.
The Cult of War missionaries would then enter their destination bases with the help of the fake IDs and extra credits, and begin their long task.
The cargo was mostly commodities, except for the ships going to Morgan, whose cargo were almost exclusively weapons: Weapons of the highest quality, originally Spartan design and built in Temple of War but without any markings of their origin.


From: Priest Carigan, Head of the Morgan department
To: Kommandant Julius Juliard-Johnson

Kommandant, dear collegue, as we have seeming already agreed on rules, there is no point to discuss about them anymore. However, we are transporting a large shipment of weapons into Morganite territory, and as your forces are more influential in this area, I was wondering if you could help opening a few border customs for our trade ships to arrive without any troubles.
As a conpensation for your troubles, we´re willing to give you a considerable share of the weapons cargo, if you are interested.
If you have any need of our help in something, just ask.

Yours truly,

Priest Carigan,
Morgan Department.


Isle of Deianeira

A lonely dark figure watched from a nearby hill the Data Angel scout patrol leaving the pod site.
She was one of the solidary scouts of Temple of War, charting deep into this island, often being the first person that saw some particular remnant or walked in some area.
The scout quickly assesed the situation. They had earlier seen evidence of human activity on the island, and now it seemed, they had found those humans.
The scout quickly climbed down the hill and went off towards home base.


From: Governor Hadriokis
To: Marshal Kessel

Thank you for your invitation to the olympic games, Marshal. You can count on our representatives being there.
I can guarantee you we won´t start any troubles with the locals, but how can we know they won´t start anything? Just last week our scouts saw what was a armed Data Angel rover patrol snooping around (OOC: ).
How about, Sir, if you gave us a permission to approach them, and maybe even initiate some sort of trade. To build trust between two factions, a worthy goal, isn´t it?

[DarkCloud]

To: Priest Carigan, Head of the Morgan department
From: Kommandant Julius Juliard-Johnson

The Perfect Society shall do what it can to facilitate the Cult of War's preachings in Morganite territory. (OOC: He doesn't tell them about their University holdings) The Cult of War can provide valuable allies for our faction. Together we shall craft a new world.

However, we ask this of you, we have need of several agents in the Cult of War to give ideas to the Spartan Peoples... Thus, we ask you to shuttle several of our operatives to Spartan territories so we can spread the need for a united world based upon Research, Investment and money.

Thank you for your time.

-Kjj-j

Attachment: Perfect Society Goals Pamphlet

[Natan]

From: Sister Miriam of the Believers
To: General Marcus Kessel

Congradulations, General, on your ascencsion to leader of the Spartan faction. May the Lord inspire you to with wisdom to lead your people in his service. I thank you on behalf of my people for your generous offer. Please send us all of your intelligence files on the satanic Planet Cult.

May the goodwill and brotherhood between our factions flourish.

OOC: Cyber, Diplomat, whatever... still need a explination as to how so many additional people from sparta got to Temple of War!!! And not sure Sprayber would like you stealing his population. Base should stay 10k and grow from there. atleast slowly sneak CoW people to the base this point on, not that it has been done which isn't possible, and not by the thousands in one shot. No more out of the blue stuff like that! Can't be by air due to distance and without getting detected and can't be by Sea and as Pirates are keeping watch on all the Spartans coastal bases, including Blast Rifle Crag. Fine, your CoW missionaries can come and try to sneak in with pathetic fake IDs, but they won't succeed in getting into a Pirate base...........

To: Captain Svensgaard
From: Chief of Security Crusher

We are having a bit of a problem at Eurytion Base. There seem to be "missionaries" trying to sneak into the base in a Merchant Foil painted in Nautilus colors and emblem that isn't Pirate built. To make things worst, their terribly made fake IDs didn't check with our Datalinks or with the Chiron Alliance registry. They are currently now being interrogated (OOC: in a civilized Pirate way) and going through their ship.

What should we do with them? I have already informed all of our base's Security Officers of the Spartans trying to sneak into our faction.

Crusher
Chief of Security


OOC: and no, they cannot in any phenomenal way escape, wreck the base, and leave intact in their ship or some other ride.


Athens, Upland Waste


Its been a interesting day. The outpost has now been discovered by the Free Drones after making some flybies over Athens. Colonel Rohrer couldn't possibly fire at them, or even threatening them in anyway as both factions have Treaty of Friendship. They did try contacting the Free Drone jets, but they simply ignored them and left to wherever they came from.

Colonel Rohrer wasn't aware that the Free Drones even had the tech to build Needlejets until the intelligence officer attach to the Marine Unit currently Garrisoning the outpost told her about it. So they were ready to the possibility of being discovered by the Drones. Oh well.

[Sprayber]

Sparta Command

Crowds began to gather in the central plaza of Sparta Command and bases throughout the Federation. They gathered around giant screens that had been set up so that all could see the ceremony about to take place. In Ruby Ridge Memorial (Data Acq) troops stood in formation in a clearing prepared for the upcoming visit of Marshal Kessel. Speakers were prepared so that all the troops could listen if they could not see. Speakers were also mounted on the wall so that everyone in the area could listen as well. Throughout the Spartan Federation every citizen became still and gazed up at the screen or faced towards the direction of the speakers.

A soft drum beat began to play as those who were fortunate enough to gaze at a screen saw the symbol of Sparta slowly come into focus. The image changed to one of a lone Spartan flag flying high atop a Spartan building. The drum beat quickened as pictures of rows upon rows of Spartan soldiers marched passed the HQ of a captured base. And finally the raising of the Spartan Flag high above the ruins. Those scenes disappeared. The music changed to a softer rhythm. The blackness slowly changed to a star field and a lone ship making its way to a red tinged planet. Below the planet words appeared in white. FOR WHAT PURPOSE HAVE WE COME TO THIS PLACE. The words turned from white to red and then faded away. The drum beat stopped and a woman appeared on the screen wearing the gray uniform of the News Service. “Spartans, I am proud to welcome you to the induction ceremony of the 2183 class of Military officers. Tonight Marshal Kessel will deliver the induction speech for the new cadre of officers. The introducing officer will be the governor of Sparta Command, Constantine Veers.” The woman faded from the screen and an image of the Great Hall Of Heroes came into view. The room was filled to capacity with the new cadre seated in rows of chairs with a central path leading to a podium. At the podium was Governor Veers. “Welcome Spartans to the induction of the 2183 officers. I am honored to be allowed to introduce the man that will lead Sparta into the future. The man that will recover the sacred honor of Sparta and force Chiron to come to terms with the Spartan Federation. He is a friend, he is a soldier, he is a Spartan. All rise for Field Marshal Marcus Kessel. As one the inductee officers and all the other officers rose and stood at attention as the a band played the Spartan anthem. Kessel strode down the pathway between the inductees. He walked with a strong forceful stride with his back straight and his head held high. He walked up the short set of stairs to the podium and stood in front of Veers. Veers gave a crisp salute and Kessel returned it. Veers then offered his hand and Kessel smiled ever so slightly as he reached out and shook Veers’ hand. Veers turned away and stood behind Kessel. Kessel approached the podium. “As you were” Again as one, the whole room sit back down in their seats. The picture zoomed in on Kessel so that the viewer could see him clearly. “Friends, citizens, Spartans, I have come here today to help induct a group of men and women into the sacred cadre of officers. They have already done the work. They have already shed the blood, and now I am here to recognize them as leaders of war. They will face an uncertain task in the future. We are in the middle of concluding a great peace that will ensure the survival of the Spartan way of life. Many men and women have sacrificed their lives, their families and their future to reach this point. In the past decade we have allowed ourselves to loose sight of what we came to Chiron to do. Eighty three years ago I found myself with a decision to make. Our sanctuary was falling apart beneath our feat. The last hope of humanity was at the mercy of the coldness of space. The leaders of the mission had foolishly believed that in order to save humanity we must all think alike. That we had to come to sacrifice our diversity in order to serve the greater good of the race. One individual, knew better. She had seen the attempts of strong nations to impose their brand of peace first hand. She was there when the great powers of the day crumbled to the ground because they pandered to wishes of foreign agents. She saw all of this happening again here on Chiron as well. So she took action. And I came along because I saw in her a strong voice for local liberties. In the early years of the Federation we were content to be alone. We knew that eventually we might meet up with others and we welcomed that. But we were not going to bow down to their attempts to rule us from afar. We were Spartans now. We had strength and honor on our side. That was how we began. But somewhere, somehow, we were lead astray. Our basic philosophy shifted from survival of our faction to the domination of others. Our distrust of anything foreign lead us to prepare for aggressive war instead of honorable defense. When we first meet up with the PK their was a great debate. Should we attack and eliminate them from the continent or should we simply leave them alone and ignore the incessant calls for a so called democracy. The urge for war was so great that we laid our conservative nature aside and pushed the Pks into the sea. We would go on to repeat the same mistake again with Chairman Yang’s Hive. That earned us decades of war, destruction, and pain. The end result was nil. Nothing changed. Today we find ourselves at the end of a short but significant war. We find ourselves in the very position that we sought to avoid eighty three years ago. I do not pretend to know everything. But I know that we cannot fight the world and expect to have a world worth leaving to our children. War is not the objective of the Spartan Federation. It was never meant to be that way. Our objective is and always has been survival. If that means defending to the last soldier, than so be it. But if that also means finding a way to live with other people than I will gladly seek that path. We as soldiers should not seek death and war because they are glorious. But because they are sometimes necessary for survival. I have seen death and destruction since I was seventeen years old. I was there when the Earth was engulfed in the last act of a hateful people. I will not stand by and let that happen to this planet, and neither should you. To the other factions I say this. Do not take these words as a signal that Sparta will become weak and reluctant to fight. Because if you do, your armies will die as they attempt to take Spartan soil. Sparta will do whatever it takes to keep the fire of individual liberty burning. We will help those that seek us out. We shall offer an alternative to the meddling of those that seek to monopolize power for themselves. Those that set themselves up as judges of other societies. And those that think that they alone have the duty to protect routes of commerce or horde technology away for their own use. I say to you that the future is not yours alone. We will be here, watching you.

To you my fellow officers. I ask that you guard against influences from outside Sparta. I also ask that you guard against those inside Sparta that will try to convince you that war is the only way. War is apart of us, yes. But it is not the only part and it isn’t the most important part. Honor is in defending Sparta, not simply killing for it. Let me read for you a passage from a conversation between Xerxes the Great and Demaratus, who was a Spartan exile in his service. Xerxes was questioning a claim that a single Spartan solider could defeat ten of his men. Demaratus was concerned that he would anger the king so Xerxes promised not to be angered. ‘"The same goes for the Spartans. One-against-one, they are as good as anyone in the world. But when they fight in a body, they are the best of all. For though they are free men, they are not entirely free. They accept Law as their master. And they respect this master more than your subjects respect you. Whatever he commands, they do. And his command never changes: It forbids them to flee in battle, whatever the number of their foes. He requires them to stand firm -- to conquer or die. O king, if I seem to speak foolishly, I am content from this time forward to remain silent. I only spoke now because you commanded me to. I do hope that everything turns out according to your wishes. This was the answer of Demaratus, and Xerxes was not angry with him at all, but only laughed, and sent him away with words of kindness‘. Years later Xerxes lead his massive army against the Greek homeland. And who was it that volunteered to give the Greeks time to prepare for the threat? It was the king of Sparta and 300 of his bravest warriors, along with a hand few of brave Thespians. My fellow Spartans, we don’t have to be the focus of world hatred. We can be the inheritors of Leonidas and those brave men who faced impossible odds at a mountain pass called Thermopylae. Let us not forget why we came to this place.” My final words to your are simple. Strength and Honor.”

“Spartans, Attention.”

The entire room stands as one. Kessel, turns around and picks up a sword that is positioned behind them. The camera zoomes back to encompass the whole room as one by one the name of each inductee is called out. In turn each one gets up and makes their way to the podium to be welcomed as a Spartan officer. Each one salutes Kessel and runs their hand across the blade of the sword. Their blood is mixed with the thousands that have come before them. They begin a long life of sacrifice and pain in the name of Sparta.

(OOC: If the cult plans on spliting from Sparta then I don't think there needs to be that many people there. Its ok if there is only the cult I guess, but I don't think that many people will go just to split off later. Exactly how many cult members are there? This is what happens when two people control one faction. Chaos.)

[Clear Skies]

Private Message - Enhanced Encryption
From: Chief Cybernetic Diplomatic Aide Elaine Alpha-Four
To: Head Academician Celeste Delilah Anderson-Xanderson

Dear Head Academician,
Thankyou for your kind offer of a place on the University High Council. I would love to accept such a position, but you must realise that my first loyalty will always be to the Cybernetic Consciousness. I am now a member of the Consciousness and wish to always remain so.

I would not wish to unnecessarily compromise your security, so you must be aware that as a Consciousness operative my duty would be to report anything of interest to the Consciousness by instant uplink to Prime Function Aki Zeta-5.

Please inform me if, as a result of this information, your decision alters.

Elaine Alpha-Four

[DarkCloud]

To: Chief Cybernetic Diplomatic Aide Elaine Alpha-Four
From: Head Academician Celeste Delilah Anderson-Xanderson

The University is ready to enter a new era of global politics. Having a member of another faction on any council will be a great benefit to our faction.

However; hearing where your loyalties lie, I will have to revise my offer, perhaps you would be happy with a position in an advisory council. Thus you would act much like a diplomat, but with more power and information.

The University looks forward to a better relationship with the Cybernetic Consciousness in the future.

To: Head Academician Celeste Delilah Anderson-Xanderson
From: Advisory Councilman Prokhor Zakharov

I find it 'interesting' to say the least that you have appointed an ex-University member, turned Cyborg-spy to the Advisory Council I participate in.

I would like to inform you that she will not be welcome on the council, nor will any non-University citizen.

To: Advisory Councilman Prokhor Zakharov
From: Head Academician Celeste Delilah Anderson-Xanderson


Ah, but Zakharov, you must remember the little project, whose secret I hold...

To: Head Academician Celeste Delilah Anderson-Xanderson
From: Advisory Councilman Prokhor Zakharov

That secret will not be useful to the world if the project is halted indefinitely, as you have done. But when I am elected Head Academician in 4 years construction will resume!

Excuse me for my digression.
Much to my distaste I will tolerate Elaine's presence on the council.

-Zakharov.