Unguided, 7: The Art of Making Enemies
11 Mar 2021Meowers
( 09.03.3307 - 11.03.3307 )
( BD+19 2511 - GCRV 62586 - Baila )
There's a mistake that I should correct. In my previous log entry I mentioned a conflict in BD+19 2511 between Komotae Resistance party and some 'neither corpofarts, nor govt boot-lickers'. So much for not having a healthy sleep: actually, they (BD+19 2511 Pro-Alliance League) certainly are out-and-out govt boot-lickers, going under Alliance patronage. And some of them were: I returned quickly and granted myself that trigger-happy adventure that I mentioned too, making their faces and posteriors charred as much as the planet over which the main battle zone was located. Again, it's good for my combat rank - Pilots Federation updated my public profile, marking me 'Deadly'. Made me blush a bit. In the face of a brutal truth that sounds like 'you're either Elite or you're a maggot' I'm still a maggot, but one last (and long) step away from not being one.
Or I still can't get the idea of Alliance being a kind of superpower? Perhaps I'll refer to this topic someday.
Originally I wanted to name this entry like 'how to become my target', but hey, who am I to brag that much? And maybe I don't want to have a target? Maybe I want to live somewhere surrounded by cats of every shape and colour and refit Marshmallow into an armed chow hauler. But there's so much corposcum out there, and I have cannons, and you know what it means. Yup, my efforts are a drop in the ocean, I'll die on that hill eventually, but it feels good not to just have a purpose, but to have means to pursue it.
Okay, back to the business. Komotae Resistance is now having a shootout with their local rivals from the Law Party of Komotae, but this one is surely, definitely, hell clear none of my concern. LPK goes for dictatorship, and they're independent, while KR has a Fed allegiance, which stops me from supporting this faction in every possible occasion. Who said that dictatorship is irreversibly bad, anyway? Yeah, yeah, I know that power-hungry gluttony-driven humans can pervert any theory and social structure scheme while stuffing their pockets, and extreme options like dictatorship are at risk of falling down to it first. But it's people to blame, personally, not some theoretical plan of building up your society.
Maybe someday I'll start a faction to become a dictatress myself, with all that stuff like shiny uniform (In violet/lavender theme with black and white accents! Damn yeah that would be awesome! Who cares about camo, if we fight in space?), tonnes of self-made medals, golden-coated rifle, fiery speeches from the podium etc. Add black old-school aviator sunglasses to be ultimately cool. And hell that will be the best dictatorship ever, in the whole damn galaxy!
So I found another amusing story to participate in and spend some ammo. The Baila system right now is... kinda interesting place to visit.
(Two wars in Baila system)
Whole damn system has been turned into a complete warzone, and there are a bunch of folks that I find 'good enough' to support. So, there I go!
...And eventually I found myself in GCRV 62586. First, I let out a rant about the whole system not having a full-sized starport. Then I went to an outpost that was closest to the jump beacon, the Ing Station, only to rant about the absence of a repair facility.
(Ing Station in GCRV 62586)
How am I supposed to fight... Wait a minute. There's no combat going on here, that system is in peace. Stupid me. Mistook a faction name for a system name: my destination was Baila, not this place. Ah, okay, it's on the same route anyway, everything goes as planned, I'm not doing any facepalms, just checking in, you know, nothing to worry about, I'm not goofed up.
However, this place gave me another yummy view of binary planets. Like it. Ones encountered in Lenore were looking more vivid while this pair was classic carroty-to-brown, but look how close they are to each other! Still thinking about having literally zero G on the surface somewhere, but those dumb onboard gravity computers rely on mass/distance calculations relative to the closest body, not on the actual environment, so my one was showing slightly below 0.3G all over the smaller planet. And lifting random rocks to watch them slowly go down (Or not? Or will they go up? Where will be 'up' in case of zero G on the surface, or even opposite direction of the gravity vector?) is not the type of a science experiment that I'm looking for.
Landed to take some photos. That reminded me of the ultimate fact that piloted spaceships were originally designed centuries ago to go out there into the black and see stuff. Make photos of stuff. Run experiments and learn how some random things will act in space. Visit places, plant flags, maybe even leave 'I was here' marks on the rocks that were untouched for billions of years.
(On the edge of horizon)
This one was taken on the way up. Still can't decide which one is better. Let them both be here.
(Taking off... And they're really close to each other)
So I made it to Baila and docked at Celsius Gateway to choose a side and finally do some battle.
First one was easy. Commies of GCRV 62586 Union will have my support from here... And stop, get out of my ship with this bucket of red paint! I don't need your Party Card! Goddammit, now they're putting up propaganda flyers on my wings and tailfins. I hope the first shield cell battery use will burn this rubbish away. I'm not a communist, not in any way. Maybe the idea itself is worthy somehow, but the execution, according to the history, is usually below the 'awful miserable disappointing bloody waste of time' by a margin. All this 'redistribution of private property' usually ends up with a smelly armed mob knocking on your door, trying to 'convince' you to hand over your rusty Hauler 'for the needs of Party' just because you worked and purchased it, and they were doing nothing except drinking and babbling about 'gorging capitalists', so their smelly pants are the pinnacle of their wealth at this moment, and they aren't afraid of losing them. And then they will take away your food too, because none of them knew how to do piloting and your (khm, not yours anymore, but public) Hauler is a scrap metal now, not a working tool.
But almost everything is way better than corposcum. Maybe except some outright bastards. Being an Imp slave, you know that you are a slave. Being enslaved by some kind of mafia, you know that they're villains. But when you have a 'wage job' that can only buy you living conditions of 'next to being a slave' quality, and you're being constantly told that 'you are free', it sucks a damn lot. Free to serve as much as a slave, or to paint your nose brown in exchange for a bigger handout, or to be ditched without any living necessities if you protest or leave.
So let it be commies. Let them overrun the classy office buildings with their red banners held high and meet the support amongst people who are unhappy with the corp. Let them draw Lenin's face over the income charts and photos of the CEO's new fancy villa. Let them take away a vast part of corpo assets and make a kolkhoz out of it, hoping they're smart enough not to make it a gulag. I'm a temporary participant here, giving them much needed combat support, I know how to destroy, and I will help 'em destroy what they want to be destroyed. But the secrets of rebuilding are still too complex for me, and it's their society for them to live in, not for me, anyway.
Yet I still ponder over the second pair. Perhaps, I'll even stay aside, because it looks like a clash of two different ways of life, with neither of them being certainly bad from my point of view. 'Independent Democrats' working under Federal flag and 'Liberty Party' promoting dictatorship? Hey, folks, can you be even more weird? Seems like a choice between the crap and the shit to me.
Maybe painting some corpo faces red would make my day here.
Update: And there's news about NMLA attacks spreading out as I write this. Okay, killing civilians may be the worst thing to do, but that useless 'superpowers' surely had it coming. So much for thriving on taking their cut from countless corpofarts, in exchange for ensuring all the needed freedoms and protection for corpo 'business' of squeezing people dry.
Update 2: Now I'm wondering if anyone will even read this with all the NMLA and evacuations reports dropping here like it's snowfall.
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Next part: #8: Things You Can't Ignore
Next part: #8: Things You Can't Ignore