The Delkar Job Part I
01 Feb 2017Jellicoe
Democracy. Government by representatives of the people, chosen by the people, for the people. Maybe once. Democracy in 3302 means something very different. The Federation loudly trumpets its 'democracy' to anyone gullible enough to listen, using it as a stick with which to beat the Empire and the airwaves are thick with nauseating holo-vids in which crusading politicians fearlessly stand up for the working people ultimately winning through when the votes are cast by their inspiring oratory and progressive policies, while journalists who must surely know better spout pious drivel on the virtues of the ballot box. Anyone who takes this rubbish seriously should be in the cell next to Halsey. Politics in the modern age is about money, you need money get yourself on the holo-networks so the voters even know you exist, you need money to expose the inevitable indiscretions of your opponents and keep your own hidden, you need money to make sure enough ballots are 'lost' or if necessary 'found,' and of course the only people with enough money to accomplish this are the mega-corporations and the bigger the corporation the more effective the campaign, true their are a few elected representatives who make some effort to further the interests of their voters, but they are always a secondary concern to advancing the interests of their corporate sponsors. This then is what democracy means in todays galaxy; a collection of bought and paid for lobbyists doing the bidding of their corporate masters with the people fed any scraps that remain. Hardly the dream of ancient Athens given form. What has any of this got to do with me? Because my new mission for the 'democratic' Federation was to subvert the 'democracy' of the neighbouring, independent, system of Delkar.Fools believe that the democratic process is a choice between the personalities and policies of rival candidates but as I have already explained it is really about money, the money to get your message across, the money to smear your opponent and stop him getting his message out and, if necessary, the money to rig the numbers, thus the side with the most money invariably wins. The key to electoral success is not a charismatic candidate with inspiring policies, rather it is breaking the economic power of the systems dominant corporation and supplanting it with your own. It is only when a corporation has established its commercial dominance of a system that it risks an election, and whatever anyone may tell themselves the result is usually decided long before any votes are cast.
"Delkar." Claude began his briefing. "Owned lock stock and barrel by Delkar Ltd and effectively governed by them. They started out as a consortium of local miners about a hundred and twenty years ago, since then they've diversified and grown considerably, they're aggressively expansionist and effectively govern five local systems, they're rich, powerful and well capable of defending their interests."
"What can we expect from them?" Vik asked.
"They're a mega-corporation on the border zone so they're not going to be any kind of fluffy bunnies but even by those standards these are bad men. Opposition is tolerated so long as it's irrelevant, as soon as it gets serious it's crushed so any politicians who push too hard, trade unionists who kick up too much of a fuss, investigative journalists who dig too deep, ever religious leaders who don't toe the line end up either dead, disappeared or in prison for molesting kids, usually on very feeble evidence. As soon as we become a threat we can expect to be targeted in space and on station, being fitted up by the law is also very likely. As I say they run five other systems and they'll use the resources of all of them to defend their HQ, they also have a 'trade deal' with the Alliance so we can expect Mahon's goons to take a hand at some point. All in all this is a very tough assignment with at best only a fifty/fifty chance of success."
"So we base ourselves in a neighbouring system? How's that going to work?." Mira asked
"Not necessarily." Claude continued. "The Federal Reclamation Co has acquired Caillie Landing, a planetary base, it won't put us completely beyond their reach but we won't have to watch our backs quite so much."
"Alright." I said thoughtfully. "We go to De Kamp first to se how the land lies, then we base ourselves at Caillie. Initially at least we stay on the right side of the law."