News: Crisis 2

Roughly 140 years have passed since hibernation. In that time, the Nassian have developed new technologies for transmitting mass and energy faster than the speed of light, provided that the correct infrastructure has already been installed at both ends. The Contingency was retrofitted with this new invention, enabling instantaneous communication over short ranges, and usage of the FTL Corridors built by the Nassian.

Additionally, with the ability to bring resources and information to and from distant systems, Nassian society has expanded rapidly, now spanning dozens of light years from the Ssala-Neipha system. With it came a new regime, the CGR, now known to be an authoritarian state, which unified Nassian civilisation.

Since the fall of widespread organised Confederate governance, marked by the liberation of Rassmani in the Home system, a power vacuum has opened within the Nassian-occupied parts of the galaxy. To fill this vacuum, the government of the Transitionary Council was created by the Majority to govern Nassiankind under three main principles:

• Maintain order and stability while facilitating reconstruction.
• Sign an official ceasefire with the remaining remnants of the CGR.
• Ensure a rapid and orderly transition to a democratic government.

To this end, the Council serves as an interim government where the various factions of the Majority debate on how these principles are carries out in practice. What does a democratic government spanning dozens of systems actually look like? What terms and concessions can be agreed upon in the ceasefire? It is yet to be decided by the Council. Furthermore, the Council has allowed the Contingency to join its ranks as an advisory body overseeing the proceedings, which has been a controversial choice among the various factions from the moment it was taken.

A new meeting with all the factions, including the Contingency, is slated to take place in the coming days to definitively answer important questions regarding the future of the Nassian civilisation as well as to lay out the terms for a potential ceasefire with the CGR.

After several months mustering strength, the Majority has launched a direct assault on Mythhaler, the final holdout of Confederation support. The attack coincided with an ambitious Contingency-backed operation in Yerss, resulting in the Majority fleet quickly punching through orbital defences.

Since the initial attack, however, the war on the land has ground to a stalemate. It seems the Majority is feeling the toll from the initial invasion on Mythhaler, and with Warden Yersson dead the Majority is no longer the united single-issue force it once was. Some are saying that popular support for more war has dried up.

Whatever the case, the Vunoi Nassi and a few orbital stations remain the final stronghold of Confederate power.

The Majority-Confederate war never reached Yerss, with a lightning strike spearheaded by the Contingency Minds of Yerss taking out the Confederate High Command in one night. The fighting was brief but bloody, with swathes of Yerss plunged into darkness as vital infrastructure was pre-emptively destroyed by the Contingency to stymie Confederate response.

With all of the major political forces ousted from the city, the question remains … what now for Yerss?

A fragment of code arrives, sent spiralling through your FTL communication relays. An update, an edit to the Contingency’s systems, to remove Nassian control over when you awaken, and replace it with an algorithm that monitors the world and releases you from hibernation automatically when it detects a crisis.

It’s unclear where this program originates from. Regardless of its source, it cannot be implemented without the permission of a majority of the Contingency’s Minds. A prompt echoes at the edge of your consciousness.

Accept Update: Y/N?

[A poll will be held in uptime on whether to implement the changes or not.]

The recovery of Ena and Ssearph in the aftermath of conflict has been significantly aided by Selvig, Phenari, Dragonfly, Massira, and Therneri. Their coordinated efforts have restored essential services, stabilised communities, and provided safe havens for displaced residents.

We particularly commend Selvig for leading the restoration of key populations to critical regions, Phenari for initiating a large-scale resource-sharing effort that provided aid on an unprecedented scale, and Dragonfly for their heroic intervention in shielding civilians during a stray missile strike.

Thanks to these efforts, formerly devastated settlements, most notably the highly populated city of Henemi, are gradually becoming functioning communities once more, giving residents a renewed sense of safety and hope.

A puff piece on DaNiCa appears in a Yerssian newspaper, which finds its way across the tenuously Majority controlled space. It shows a softer side of DaNiCa, and xe even opens up about childhood anecdotes that veer on the side of embarrassing. It's an off-beat contrast to the sheen of cool glam xe fronted in the past.

Greetings, all. The events of the last crises have shown that, for all the individual members of the Contingency are willing to step up and do their duty, there seems to be little consensus as to what that duty actually is. In consequence, we have struggled to coordinate our actions effectively, and have therefore not been as efficient as we have the potential to be. In order to ensure that Contingency resources are put to the best uses possible, and to enable the Contingency as a whole to act cohesively and decisively, a shared understanding of our role in crisis management is needed. What are we here for? What do we intend to achieve, and what are the principles that we should abide by in our pursuit of these aims? Questions perhaps especially worthy of consideration, in my opinion, are the extent to which we ought to interfere in Nassian politics, and how we can ensure that we follow the rules we create. To this end, I would like to invite everyone to discuss these questions, openly and together, in the hope that we can move forwards into hibernation and the crises that follow with a more effective strategy than we have thus far had at our disposal. We have the time, now, in the breath between the immediate crisis and our coming rest, to act.

[During uptime, the channel #contingency-principles will be made available to hold the mentioned discussion.]

The CGR has failed and oppressed us. Change is needed.

We must band together against our challenges. We cannot splinter and fragment now.

A strong, unifying hand is required to rebuild our society.

The New Coalition is that hand. Nassians are stronger as a group, with a common ground of fair and equal representation. A framework to give everyone across the systems a voice.

Support unity. Support the New Coalition.

–A broadcast made by the Neo-Coalitioners, a group within the Majority

The war has brought ruin to every planet it has touched. Millions, billions, torn from their homes and their lives in this ideological crusade. Whole planetary economies devastated. Our whole civilisation, brought to its knees.

But we say, enough. We cannot live like this. We need reconstruction, to bring our people back to their normal lives, so that we can all move on from the horrors of the CGR. Let the ideologues bicker about centralisation vs decentralisation, collaboration vs cleansing. We will make an actual difference for the people on the ground and bring back the lives they had before.

For a safe and secure Nassiankind, the Reconstructionists are here for you.

Rassmani was the core of the Confederation, and when that core grew rotten, our civilisation buckled and failed. The cruelty and despotism of a small number of Nassians endangered and ruined the lives of our citizens, our people. This cannot happen again. We cannot entrust our entire species in the hands of one group in their ivory towers.

Our survival is a necessity, and one that must be achieved together, as a collective. We must face the universe hand-in-hand. No centralised government to oppress the downtroden, no seat of power to warp and fail. Just unity and collectivism, working for the common good.

Pamphlets plaster the walls in metropolitan areas across the system, easily found and widely distributed by an active minority. In the wake of heightened communications with systems on the Fringe, it seems this ideology has spread back to the home system.

Determinism: Determined by YOU.

Why do greasy politicians and authoritarian governments determine our every move? Each good we sell, hour we work, breath we take is decided for us, by nameless, faceless strangers from nameless, faceless planets. No more! Embrace self-determinism, and build the future you want to make, in the community chosen by you.

Calss is gone. A once beautiful and vibrant world, shattered and annihilated. Its people were slaughtered in an instant. And they are not alone in suffering under the CGR’s brutal regime. These crimes and atrocities cannot be forgotten, nor unpunished. If we, as a species, are to atone for the violence committed in our name, however falsely, we must hold the perpetrators to account.

What remains of the CGR will try to shelter them, to protect them from justice. Worse yet, they will celebrate them as heroes. This cannot be allowed to pass. If the CGR cannot be destroyed outright, it must be made to bend the knee, and turn over those responsible for Project Torch, and the oppression of the outer systems; the enslavement of Veltha, and the exploitation of Ena. It will be but the first step in a long road towards penance.
- Manifesto published by the Reparationists.