The Shadow Government Rears Its Ugly Head....
17 Feb 2019Count Iblis
Duke Kaeso Mordanticus was killed. It was a massacre of nauseating proportions that shook the very fabric of the universe for any freedom cherishing individual.The Empire was far from perfect. I firmly believed in a meritocracy. Those who worked hard, be they labourers, brainworkers, bounty hunters, traders deserved to earn what they did, with earnings dictated by market forces. It was respect, it was dignity.
The Alliance had become far too Collectivist for my liking . Its whole sale redistribution of any form of earnings , merit and obsession with minimalism for 'the greater good'- I found that abhorrent and the contrary to the core of my being.
If you couldn't kick a habit, were a perpetual whiner, a parasite, couldn't hold down a job, society should not be made to pay for your failures and prop you up. You deserved a chance but not a perpetual one. The Federation had an extensive welfare state and social programmes directed to that end and as a result everyone, even the galaxys best achievers and greatest minds were heavily shackled if not kicked down as a result. There was an instant gratification culture in the Federation, and easily available credit fueling a very lucrative system of debt that kept you a financial slave. A slave to the insidious system of corporatism.
In the Empire, this would be a dishonour and most people unable to make ends meet or having gotten themselves into debt- would volunteer themselves into Imperial slavery to redeem this situation. Not an ideal situation but one I could live with. And the system of cliens and honour at least laid out some semblence of morality and order amongst polite society and the dominance hierarchy. For these reasons, on the whole I had never really questioned my allegiance to the Empire , until now.
Back to Mordanticus: I didn't know him well but I knew him.
I had worked for the Empire for a while, and had recently been promoted to Duke myself. I had met Duke Kaeso Mordanticus and we had visited the same banquets and frequented the same functions around the same circles. He tended to be more gifted in the areas of diplomacy and had an incredible network. I was more of a executer and an isolationist. And there- he had sought that part out in me when he appealed to me to join his cause. It was tempting but I firmly believed in integration and collaboration- even though the state of the galaxy often drove me to long for isolation and escape (hence Distant Worlds 2!)
Always pleasant, never arrogant or condescending. Never lost for words, sometimes glib, with a silver tongue that was able to get him out of many a tight spot, it was clear he was going to go far. Despite not being the most direct or genuine acquaintance of mine, I was glad to count him as one.
The last time I talked to him, he talked about the insidious nature of the poltical business he was in and the layers of leadership and shadow governments, motives and dark motives. I had never seen him like that.
By now you'd have already no doubt heard about the massacre at the Senate floor by Senator Patreus and Arrissa Lavigny Duval at the Imperial Senate. There was no trial, no sentence, no due process, just death. Death of the Imperator Mordanticus and his senators and the devotees themselves had been arrested also. Like feral savage prey
When I found out, while on the Distance worlds 2 Expedition, and I spat my Imperial Tea out and made a mess of the floor of my Cockpit aboard the Imperial Cutter "Indefatigable". Nothing added up.
Over a year ago Kahina Loren (Salome) had talked about a shadow government binding corporations and galactic governments together working clandestine towards a subversive underhand goal. Something about this whole massacre of the Nova Imperium initiative made me think of this. In fact I was sure of it. But I smelt duplicity.
Never a advocate of the Nova Imperium Isolationist movement, the despicable actions of the Empire...The Shadow Government have driven me towards it. When I make it back to the bubble I will seek out Imperator Hadrian Duval and the Paresa Star System. The last hold out of the Nova Imperium.