A Continuation of Politics by Other Means
19 Mar 2021Elkyri
Abe Lincoln, Sol3307.03.18
I spent most of a week running evacuations out of Parkinson Dock before the rescue coordinator asked some of us to move to Sol and pitch in there. I guess locking out ships via their permit system came back to bite them in this case.
People who don't travel in space can get the idea you're just sitting there in the cockpit with your feet on the console with nothing to do as the stars zip by. Not at all the case. You're constantly moving from one jump sequence to the next. It's only a long haul during in-system travel when you have a chance to relax a little and even then you're constantly watching the radar and the contacts panel for signs of trouble. So even though it wasn't a long trip from Eotienses to Sol I took a few hours break after arrival just to get some rest and tend to Yalena's preventative maintenance checks. I also took a few minutes to get caught up on the news.
It looks like Carlos was right on point with his premonition the Empire would use the Cornelius-Lasky Convention as a tool to get the other superpowers united with them against the NMLA. Not that it was hard, having themselves been made targets of terrorism. News via GalNet of the new Tri-Power intelligence agency wasn't completely unexpected but one journalist pushed out an article expressing some concerns about just how wide-ranging their authority might be. Very interesting and concerning reading especially in light of the recent speculation from the Wallglass Investigations Agency that hints at NMLA having infiltrated Imperial intelligence agencies... and who knows where else ... but I still would not be surprised to learn those agencies, rogue or otherwise, are working with NMLA to some purpose.
A famed military thinker thousands of years ago wrote "war is a continuation of politics by other means" and I suppose by extension one could shove terrorism under that rubric. Of course the distinction from war is that terrorism deliberately targets civilians and other innocents in an effort to bring domestic pressure to bear on policy makers to achieve their goals. That again has me wondering just what NMLA's true goals are and how they think targeting the Alliance and Feds is going to get them there.
I am very concerned about at least some voices in the Empire calling for Marlinists of any stripe to be considered part of or at least supporters of the NMLA. That's clearly an attempt to suppress political thought and dissent within the Empire and begging license for another round of the same things that started the refugee crisis in the first place. That could very well end up creating even more support for the NMLA. Beyond that, it's never right to blame whole groups of people for the actions of a few, especially when their only association is barely overlapping political goals.
I guess I have been sympathetic to their cause from the very beginning when I first learned of the Marlinists from Alma and got involved in shipping aid supplies to what turned out to be temporary shelters for them in Federation space. I'm talking sympathetic across the board here, from their plight as refugees to their desire for a representative form of government -- who could be against that?
Funny -- for years I pushed back against efforts by my parents to get me involved in matters political. Now look at me, sitting here wondering how to support the Marlinists in their effort to set up an independent trans-system government and maybe in the process put an end to the NMLA. That might start with finding the Marlinists another system to call their capital. Their current main system doesn't have a single terraformable body -- four-hundred million people living on orbitals!
But enough idle speculation. Breaktime is over so it's back to making shuttle runs. It looks like they're nearing the end of the evacuation operation here at Li Qing Jao so probably here only a few more days. Once that's done I think I'll pitch in on running the medical supplies needed to care for the thousands wounded in the bombings. Maybe after that there will be time to see what I can do for the Marlinists. That might start with trying to get back in touch with Carlos.