Shadowy Cartel operating in Van Maanan's Star and Senseless collateral damage to VM Sublime Monks
14 Oct 2024CMDR Quadrivium
The stars are cold tonight, indifferent, as if they know what I’ve done.It’s been a long, bloody battle. The stealth attacks just kept coming one after the other. First in a forced shadow election that ultimately led to manipulated civil war.
Others have come for control of the permit locked Van Maanen's star system. And for as many wars and conflicts in the system over the decades, there has also been the long existential controversy over rightful ownership. Some have shown up in full light, sharing the intention to restore control to the permit issuing monks, to circulate defamatory petitions or to cast dispersion on the controlling pmf Truckers. But not this time, the cowardice crept from the shadows and led the monks into a senseless and unnecessary campaign of war torn space. A single plea of diplomacy might have led to a variety of peaceful outcomes.
But, you came for us with a stealth underhanded stick, and we' hit you back with a fleet of heavily armed warships.
The leadership and diplomacy of the HOT Truckers far outranks me, and I now speak only as a blood soaked and contrite HOT Cmdr.
The relationship with the Sublime Order and the Hutton Truckers is one of peaceful symbiosis. The truckers dutifully tend to the day to day minutia of operations, system protection and order. Thus allowing the monks to carry out the internal workings of their theocratic order. It has long remained peaceful and only moves to conflict when outside forces, push the levers and manipulate the opposing factions into a unnecessary coup d'état. In this recent campaign, the end result being countless dead commanders and monks. The spineless provocateurs nowhere to be found to accept their share of accountability.
At the end of it all, we took the system. The monks are unnecessarily beaten and defeated. The hidden faction, whoever they were, is crippled. We've done our job. We've been paid. But it doesn’t feel like victory. It feels like betrayal. I am but a normally peaceful trucker that enjoys the spoils of peace but I NEVER shy from battle.
I was trained to fight, to survive, to do what’s necessary. But no one trains you for the kind of war that guts your soul. Choosing to fight in a war, as a mercenary, under the banner of another faction to keep the intruders out is an imperative that no trucker runs from. Meeting an enemy you know is one thing, but meeting one under stealth and cowardice is abominable. Especially when the innocent are dragged into the battle against their beliefs and will.
And now, with every moment of silence in my cockpit, I wonder what kind of Cmdr I’ve become. I should have been their protector, not their executioner.
But now, millions of Truckers families are safe, and the remaining monks will help us to restore peace and order.
And hopefully forgiveness.
Cmdr Quadrivium
Loyal Hutton Trucker