Peace Sells (But Who's Buying?)
07 Feb 2023Streya Jormagdnir
When the Pirate King's proclamation went out, I knew sentiment in the California Nebula was not friendly to the Kumo Council or Kumo Crew in general. After daytripping in the area a few weeks ago and visiting my first Thargoid barnacle, I was aware the Alliance was stronger in influence out there. Still, I returned to the nebula to see if I could independently help the Council win some hearts and minds. To be clear this wasn't a mission authorized or handed down from on high, and I always have been accused of being too soft by some of my peers in piracy. I fear they may be right. Let it never be said peace activists are harmless, especially the Xeno-Peace variety. As an old friend once told me: "One cannot claim to be peaceful unless they are actually capable of dealing harm. Otherwise they are just harmless". How correct that pearl of wisdom would turn out to be!
Upon arriving in the California Sector HR-W d1-28 system, I noted that the Council had taken over control of Ford Research Laboratory and parked The Mictlan among the outer planets. Scouting into the other nearby Alliance-held systems, the political situation was the same: overnight the Kumo Council had declared ownership of the territory without any initial backlash or a single shot fired. Nonetheless, an Election was prompted as is common when a faction owns a controlling port but doesn't have more social influence than a different group. These elections were normal in nature despite claims of it being "rigged"; it would be more accurate to call the elections "forced". But then again a peaceful election with the Kumo Crew would ostensibly be more preferred than our usual methodology of shooting first and asking questions later. And since Archon Delaine had declared this as protection duty, I was not about to risk The Five Strippings by stepping out of line with a firefight.
I encouraged the two Black Widow pilots who had accompanied me to vote in the elections and participate in election-related missions, which many seasoned political influencers know are non-violent in nature. In our case our options were to donate Credits to the election campaign, go mining, or go do some light trespassing and investigative journalism by scanning polling centers. I chose to donate and investigate in the end, which did result in some light trespassing fines. We also chose to focus on only the California Sector HR-W d1-28 system where The Mictlan was basing out of, since we knew we would be outvoted if we spread ourselves too thin. We aimed for a beachfront property rather than the entire island, so to speak.
The first day of elections passed and we had managed to make gains in the polls for that singular system. This may have been the source of accusations of a rigged election, whereas we were participating in it with earnest good faith via the proper channels. I had even asked my little crew not to fire on other CMDRs unless fired upon first, which they honored. Nonetheless the elections would not remain peaceful, as I noticed the pro-Alliance/Xeno-Peace blockade members were racking up dozens of millions of Credits in bounties on their heads. Being a wetwork mercenary from time to time, I calculated they had murdered dozens of Kumo Council vessels. Wanting a display of force that would not contradict the Council's protection order, I busted out my Chieftain and took out half a dozen Thargoid Scouts and a Cyclops. With this, I wanted to demonstrate our commitment to fighting the Thargoids while not harming a single human hair.
Documenting the turn of events, I landed at Ford Research Laboratory to continue in the elections. Joining me at the base was the ostensive ringleader of the blockade, CMDR Dylan D. Despite tensions that were thick enough to slice through with an arc cutter, he reached out first to request parley. Being one of the "softer" members of our faction, I obliged him.
Discussions were both passionate and productive. It seems we both share an appreciation for the Thargoid Barnacles, though for vastly different reasons. Dylan D was concerned about how the Barnacles were all now over-harvested with the arrival of The Mictlan, whereas even a few weeks ago they were in relatively pristine condition. We concurred on this point: the barnacles were being endangered. I had harvested a single unit of meta-alloys for research to take aboard my carrier during my previous daytrip, but had made it a point to only harvest from a fully-grown barb to let the younger ones grow to maturity. Anyone who has grown, eaten, or otherwise consumed their own plants long enough knows to do this. The Xeno-peacers didn't want any harvesting at all and pointed out the region's history of relative peace with the Thargoids, whereas I advocated for a more sustainable method of harvest by hand to ensure longevity of profits and material access. Though our end goals differed, we both definitely felt the pain of the wiped-out barnacles.
When I pointed out that their blockade was murdering Kumo Council vessels and racking up quite a bit of notoriety, I was simply told that the Council's authority was not recognized in the area. This produced a beaming grin on my face: all outlaw groups start this way and are branded as criminals, pirates, or terrorists. When I pointed this out, I think we once again were able to see eye-to-eye a bit better. Dylan D lamented that the Xeno-Peace movement has been ostracized or outright criminalized in parts of the galaxy, and this was something I could empathize with. I shared with him our struggle for a legitimized Kumo Nation, which various Kumo Crew Watch members have worked on for years only to fall on deaf ears. We agreed that the major factions of the galaxy were up to no good, Azimuth and the supers in particular, and they had far more blood on their hands.
After we were both comfortable enough at the diplomacy table, Dylan D and I came to a CMDR's agreement: I would cease AX combat in the area and relay this to the roughriders who came in with me. In turn Dylan D would pass along our desire for a legitimate Kumo Nation and perhaps open discussions for building a small ground settlement here or there. After an additional day of elections it also became clear we were not going to win even by focusing in one system, so I agreed to pull my carrier out of the Alliance parts of the nebula back to Kumo-built California Freeport.
Four days after elections began, all of the surface ports were returned to Turner Research Group ownership. Nonetheless the Kumo Council declared the beginning of their anti-xeno operation a few days later, which was answered more so by random pilots who had already accrued billions in combat bonds and were turning them in to The Mictlan. By this time I had already pulled back to The Bubble to investigate the new repair contracts for settlements recovering from Thargoid occupancy (but not before contributing some bonds to The Mictlan, to mark myself as "present" with the Council).
The Xeno-Peacers definitely gave me a lot to think about: who started the war and who is benefiting from it? Are the Thargoids really aggressive and territorial, or was our own aggression the cause of this? Being more familiar with Ram Tah's account of Guardian history, I'm still inclined to believe all sentient species that sail among the stars are doomed to be the "grabby" sort: always coveting territory and material resources despite the billions of stars in our galaxy alone. Those I spoke with know I share a more pessimistic view, and that ultimately I am more of a fighter than talker by nature. How difficult and fallible words are when one's hostile intentions can be much more clearly communicated by fist, bullet, or missile! For this alone, Thargoid pilots have earned my respect as foes to be considered equal to or excelling most human warriors.
The Fermi Paradox may have been laid to rest when humanity encountered the first xeno artifacts, but there is still a lingering question in my mind of where all the other sentient species must be (and whether they too were wiped out by Thargoids). To boot, even after all these thousands of years humanity has yet to answer the question of whether peace is an interlude to war or vice versa. As someone who has lived by the sword, I will likely die from it and not find the answer to this question myself.
o7
OOC: As a note to the reader: my Inara logs are in-character roleplay and I will explicitly mark out-of-character logs as OOC. Since it was at times hard to tell which speech was in-character or not in System Chat during the nebulous event, I have attempted to faithfully and generously interpret things in-character as much as possible.