Finding Tribute
18 Sep 2021Iridium Nova
My operations in Grebegus have been fairly standard for the past few days; the usual mix of monitoring newsfeeds, hacking encrypted comms, and running missions for the various factions - all of which helps to build a clearer picture of the real status of the system (not the brief and oftentimes inaccurate summaries provided by GalNet). This is a system on the brink. Tensions are high and credits have begun to flow in new directions. Change is in the air and someone (probably a whole lot of someones) is up to something. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but there is a concerted effort in this system by most of the factions to forcibly remove the Spice Smugglers from power. And this operation is about to kick off in a big way. The only thing slowing it down is a difference in opinion among several of the factions. Despite their apparent collusion, not all of them have the same idea for what things are going to look like AFTER their success (but they all assume they'll be successful).
INV Emperor's Tribute
The Empire is not blind to this. The INV Emperor's Tribute is in system, and from what I managed to gather, they're running ops as well, mostly surveillance. They're not being especially careful to clean up after themselves though; I've run across a lot of their equipment and even some unencrypted surveillance logs they've left behind. It all adds up to a powder keg situation that might go off if someone doesn't come along and defuse the situation. Of course, I have no interest in defusing it, I'm just here to figure out the connection to the Prismatic Shields.
The Spice Smugglers aren't blind to this either. Everyone is gearing up for war. There's already skirmishes going on as the lesser factions fight over whose idea of victory everyone is going to fight for in the end. If they were smart, they'd save that fighting for after they knock the big boys down. But whatever. On the plus side, with all the fortifying going on, it's a good place to find some interesting settlement defense plans.