Post by Sheng on Aug 1, 2023 2:13:28 GMT
New Archon | Bulwark City | Federal Centre for Public Services | 09:28 AST.
Teretia was irate, staring through the plexiglass window at the Public Services Officer on the other side in silent rage. What reason would they have to deny her a demonstration permit?! What kind of fascist- egotistical- single minded- Augh! She reached up and scratched the front of her head before she loudly exhaled and said “But why can’t we obtain a demonstration permit? We’re a registered organization! We haven’t done anything violent or broke any laws, I mean we only became official a few days ago! All we want to do is hold a public demonstration advocating for more jurisdiction to the Federal Progression Committee!”
The PSO shook his head before sliding the sheet of paper back under the window to her and said with a firm tone “Your request has been officially denied, you do not meet the criteria to be permitted to publicly assemble. Please vacate the premises or I will have you detained on ground of disrupting the peace, I will tolerate your dissidence no longer!” She stepped forward ready with a sharp retort before she felt a metallic hand clasp around her shoulder, whipping around to face who had dared intervene before she released it was her friend who was nervously shaking his head for her to stop. She hesitated for a second before hanging her head down and reaching in to snatch the paper from the window and then turning around and stomping off.
Her friend quickly caught up with her and let out a relieved sigh before giving her an apologetic pat on the back. After a second he said “I know it sucks but we’ll just keep campaigning online, look we’re making good progress here ok? We’re the first actual political entity to finally receive recognition from the Trilateral Board! That’s not a small achievement y’know?”
She sighed in irritation and aggressively shrugged before saying too him “Yeah and look at allllll the good that’s gotten us! And not to mention we only got that recognition after we threatened to go public with the courts initial DENIAL of our petition! Y’know- I don’t give a hoot what they say, we’re going to protest anyway! And y’know we’ll live stream it too so then if they try and arrest us everyone will see the type of dickbags that are in charge!”
Her friend shook his head before they finally reached the car, he got in the drivers seat while she angrily stalked around and yanked the door open before jumping in and slamming it shut. She crossed her legs and let out an irritated huff before she continued “I mean, all we want is a little bit of normality to return. Ever since we arrived in this forsaken shithole of a Galaxy they’ve been nothing but controlling, and every-time people have tried to petition the Council to release their control or to reinstate the Republic or- anything! They’ve denied it with some stupid reason like keeping the peace or saying we’re too emotional to make such a decision! We’re living under a- a dictatorship! And people don’t even care!”
He snickered before the car revved to life and he started to peel away from the building, changing lanes to the main road before he picked up speed and started maintaining a good speed. After a minute he said “Well, T, you have to remember a lot of these people were around back when the Republic was in charge. Shit wasn’t exactly pretty, I mean you went to school you know what happened at Arkadia. The Council has it’s flaws but at least they aren’t killing their own people, now before you go giving me that look I’m not saying I disagree with what we’re doing. I think it’s a noble goal that you want things to settle down and the whole power to the people thing, but I’m just saying you have to consider the demographic that you’re preaching too. Y’know?”
He looked to the right then took a right turn as T gave him a pointed look before sighing and looking back out the window. Shaking her head as they pulled up to their office.
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/11/2023 6:32 PM
The phrase “a stranger in a strange land” aptly describes how Howell felt. It had been days since he had seen his native Vermillia, its red sky now replaced by the endless neon spires of New Archon. New Archon was massive, an endless cityscape that nothing the Federation this side of Ancerious could even hope to rival. It had amazed him somewhat; for a man raised in rural Karni, the concept that an entire planet could morph into a city was incomprehensible.
What got to him, however, wasn’t related to the scope or scale of the construction; it was just how much he stood out. In a nation of machines, how could he -a human- ever hope to blend in? The question hung over his head, a seed of doubt in his mind. The briefing he had received of Second Dawn had not painted a rosy description of the nation. To the reborn that scanned his ID, Howell was just some nobody on his off-shift from the embassy visiting the opposition party’s office for an interview with their leader. A few eyebrows were raised, but it was nothing for concern, given that at the end of the day, what made it out of the country was still very much in the hands of Second Dawn authorities. The reality of the situation was a bit different.
Howell was a bit young looking, and an educated guess would put him somewhere in his mid-20s, which wasn’t that far off from the truth. He was tall and thin, with skin as pale as a snowflake. He was the type of person that, from afar, you would associate with those geeky types who stayed indoors for most of their lives and hadn’t seen the sun for the last two weeks. He had kept his head down, keying something on a holographic projection from his comm-log that, while it would seem important from a distance, was, in actuality, a video game. He looked up, seeing that the people he was supposed to meet were approaching. He shut off his comm-log and moved to stand up, hoping to greet them somewhere near the door.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/12/2023 12:24 AM
By the time that they had arrived at the party headquarters itself T had mostly calmed down… after several tirades about her very evident dislike of the Council and their “absolutely ridiculous concept of government that functions worse then if it were made by a malfunctioning retard.” The car pulled up in front of the building and her friend, Aroxis, put the vehicle into park and muttered something about never driving her around again. She stared out the window and saw the Human waiting by the entrance and was absolutely perplexed for a moment before realization shot through her mind.
“Oh shit that’s the guy from the uhhh- fuck! What’s it called? Coalition of Men?! Oughhhhh I can’t fucking remember!” She then proceeded to bonk her head on the window before Aroxis snorted and supplied an amused “FEDERATION of Man, don’t know where you got Coalition from. Can’t even remember the name of the nation whose embassy you contacted, for shame.” T growled at him before countering with an annoyed tone “I contacted every embassy we have on this urban dickhole of a planet ok?! That’s a long list to try and remember!” She then huffed at him before opening the door and stepping out of the car, giving him a polite wave as Aroxis started laughing inside the car before the door automatically shut behind her and he peeled away and drove off.
She promptly walked up to the individual and gave him a slight bow before saying “Hey! You must be from the Federation of Man! Glad to see you here, as you likely know my name is Teretia and I am the party leader of TRN. Welcome to our club! Let’s go inside and head on up to my office, i’m sure we got a lot to cover!” With that she went in through the fancy spinning door into the party headquarters themselves, to which the interior was.. surprisingly nice. Several Reborn were scurrying about with papers and packages in their hand and on either side of the main entrance were expansive office spacing with almost every cubicle having a Reborn in it performing some sort of task, where they had entered was a sort of centre hallway that ran down about halfway through the room to a set of stairs that led up to the upper level where the individual offices could be seen.
The interior, like the exterior, was quite clean and well taken care of. It was certainly more homey and well decorated then any of the other government buildings he may have seen but it still held that same air of professionalism. In the far centre of the room on the wall was a large holo screen that displayed several graphs that appeared to be various collections of data showing various demographics and a small polling section that actually had no data at all for the moment. She turned around to him and gestured to the building with wide arms before saying “And welcome, good fellow, to the return to normalcy.”
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/13/2023 9:24 AM
“You don’t have to-” Howell tried to protest in vain when he saw Teretia’s bowing motion. The inevitable, however, could not be stopped. Teretia had caught him off-guard with it; in his entire adult life, he had never seen anyone bow to him in an official capacity. He returned it with slight hesitation and awkwardness. “Cecil”- he smiled- “You’re right on that, Vermillian raised too.”
Howell followed Teretia inside without hesitation. He had lied about his name; to Teretia, it was just the truth; that's what his ID said afterall. He felt bad for lying but also understood that it was probably the best for both of them -given his occupation- that she not know the full truth of the matter.
He followed the reborn through the spinning door, barely able to keep up with her excitement. Howell showed no surprise at the sight of the cleanliness by which the Reborn maintained their office space. He had expected it. Political parties tended to do this sort of thing a lot. What did surprise him was the sheer amount of manual labour Second Dawn still used.
Couldn’t they have just automated this?
Howell understood that every nation handled its bureaucracy and labour differently. The surprise came from the sheer scale of it. Even born to rural Vermillia, they had used drones and would have made most of whatever the Reborn were doing redundant. Then again, the Federation has also never had to provide jobs for an entire planet’s worth of city.
“Quite a comfy place you’ve got here,” he remarked. “You’re gonna have to tell me more about your plans, but I assume this is related to some democratisation of Second dawn, then?”
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/13/2023 10:51 AM
Teretia nodded before turning around and slowly walking towards the stairs to the second level, she started talking as she walked in a calmer yet still formal tone; “Yes, TRN has been a thing since the second decade of the Council’s rule but we were more focused on small things like ensuring local outposts had legal representation and helping the original inhabitants with any insurance troubles or social assistance riffs they may encounter. I myself was a Republic Drop-ship pilot towards the end of the Restorationist Wars so a lot of the people I helped were actually people I had flown with or transported, but once the second wave of colonists never arrived we eventually shifted to a more serious goal which was the reinstatement of a democratic system, whether it was reinstatement of the Republic or something new entirely.”
She then pointed over to one of their posters which had an unfamiliar flag waving in an orange sky as a background with the words “Democracy now! Liberation forever!” printed onto it. She began ascending the stairs as she continued “At first we had some decent traction but then the progression initiative passed through and the Federal Progression Committee was formed which outlawed political factionalism. We only received legal recognition a week ago when we threatened to go public with the denial of our most recent petition for acknowledgement which is when the FPC finally caved and waived the prohibition to allow us the status. Our goal for the last forty years has since remained unchanged and now we have an upcoming demonstration at the FPC headquarters, it would have been the Citadel but when we demanded to be allowed to assemble there we were told that to do so could result in the possibility for serious injuries.”
She said that last part with a slightly spiteful undertone, making it clear that she did not approve of the decision and by the time they had finished they had arrived at her office which the door slid open too but to her surprise someone was already waiting there; A Reborn was sat down in front of her desk with the the emblem of the EPA freshly engraved onto his light body armour with a pistol shining menacingly in it’s shoulder holster…
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/14/2023 8:49 PM
Howell nodded the whole way through the conversation, his pale, ill-defined chin bobbing up and down at every second sentence. He matched her pace while he listened, letting Teretia lead first and only separating himself from her by a few paces. “Drop-ship pilot, eh? Conscript or volunteer, and if so, what changed?”
Howell stopped, pausing as he turned to look at the poster Teretia pointed out. He took a moment to look before following her up the staircase. “Reminds me a lot about what we’re doing,” He mumbled so softly that it was barely audible to even the Reborn’s augmented hearing. If Teretia had bothered to look, she would have read the tell-tale expression of a change in mood. Something had flashed across Howell’s hazel eyes, breaking the crafted laid-back but friendly demeanour he was putting up- sympathy.
His eyes refocused, peeling away from the poster and turning back onto Teretia and the staircase, “You’re telling me you had to blackmail your own government to get recognition?”
Unsurprising, tyrants never did like giving away power.
“People back home protest all the time in front of parliament, though; I’d see why a military installation might be a bit more problematic.”
Howell continued up the stairs, his little detour to look at the poster having left him a few steps behind Teretria. He saw her open the door, and his heart dropped faster than a drop tower at an amusement park.
Shit.
Sweat dripped down his brow. He didn’t move. His mind raced, and a million thoughts relating to the true nature of his work in Second Dawn came to the forefront before the logical party tried to quell it. The only betrayal of this internal battle of logic and panic was the discomfort at the EPA agent’s presence. He sent a prayer to whatever god or deity was willing to hear him out and waited for the EPA agent to speak.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/14/2023 9:25 PM
Teretia would have answered his questions were it not for her being piss terrified at the moment, what the fuck was an EPA agent doing in her office?! How did he even get past securi- oh for fucks sake they probably didn't even try and stop him! Why hadn't anyone warned her?! She awkwardly hummed before slowly moving over and taking her seat at her desk and motioned for Howell to stand next to her, the EPA agent then slowly walked towards the door and pressed a button next to it tinting the windows and sliding the door shut which locked with a quiet click a few seconds later.
The agent then turned to the two of them and shook his head in a chastising manner before saying in an amusing tone but one that had a sinister accent "Glad to see you, miss Teretia and I congratulate you on your organization's recent designation change. It's not everyday that someone manages to accomplish something so... impressive.. Yes, I know that everyone in the office was quite emotional when the news was confirmed. Naturally due to your newfound status you're eligible for Federal Protection and I do believe you should take advantage of it, times are just so uncertain these days you know? Can never really tell if something nefarious is going to happen until it's too late, in fact I've already placed this building under surveillance. To assure you and your employee's safety, of course. Everyone who enters and exists is thoroughly vetted to make sure that no one with harmful intentions makes it through the doors."
The Agent looked at Howell when he mentioned the vetting part, Teretia just kept staring at him with an exceptionally tense stature. The Agent let out a quiet chuckle as he reached into the pouches of one of his vests and pulled out a small electronic device and looked at it before putting it away and looking back to them. He spoke again "Oh and it's nice seeing one of the diplomats from one of our embassies, Cecil was it? Yes, I believe it was. I do hope you stop by our office some time during your stay here, perhaps we could have a little chat y'know? Not very often I get to have a conversation with foreigners, although we keep a very, very close eye on them. To assure their safety naturally, we at the Executive Protection Agency pride ourselves in our capabilities." The Agent chuckled again before he gave a polite bow to the two of them and pressed the button to unlock the door and untint the windows before the door slid open again. He stepped out and gave them once last wave before starting to walk away as the door quietly slid shut again.
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/15/2023 4:46 PM
Howell followed Teretia’s instructions to the letter. He did the best he could to hide his obvious concern, after all, he hadn’t technically done anything wrong yet.
Howell nodded, saying nothing as the agent left before he was able to formulate a proper response. He stopped his prayers, thanking every deity whose existence was both rumoured or confirmed that he hadn’t ended up chained in some room and vaporised by an experimental SD weapon.
Asshole.
Should’ve kept your mouth shut Howell, you idiot.
The anxiety faded as the agent left the room, and -presumably- the building. If this was anywhere else, and he not an enemy agent, he would have chastised him for being so direct about everything. There was an art to subtly, or well, that’s what his boss had always told him. Even with him being a rookie, he had learnt how to blend in being a nobody, and he certainly appreciated the cover his story was giving him.
He relaxed a bit, mustering up the courage to speak once more. “I hope I haven’t gotten you into any trouble.”
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/16/2023 12:38 PM
Teretia let out a relieved sigh as he left before reaching up and rubbing her face before motioning for him to sit down. She reached under her desk and pulled up a bottle sealed with a cork filled with a clear orange-ish red liquid and a glass which she placed in front of where he was about to sit. She popped the cork off and then poured out a small line of liquid into the glass before leaning back into her chair and saying “Well to answer your questions and to push that absolutely pleasant encounter out of head for the time being, I was conscripted. I flew pretty much everything from casevac to QRF during some of the outer system skirmishes, lucky I never saw any air time during Arkadia but I lost a few friends who did.”
Her demeanour changed a little bit from the happy formal sheen to a more honest and relaxed stature as she spun around in her chair a little bit “What changed? The Council. When the Republic finally dissolved someone had to take over for the time to ensure the initial colonization efforts went ahead as smooth as they could, which at the time meant Archon-1, 2 and 3. Although they weren’t known by those names then, it was only when we arrived here about… I want to say seventy, eighty years ago? Something like that. Thats when the 5 other councillors were chosen and everything started going to shit. After about five years we knew the second wave was never coming so that’s when we shifted to a wider goal. I retired from the newly formed EPA and I’ve been working on this ever since.” She snorted in amusement and spun around her chair again before angling it to face them as she sat up and continued
“And the Citadel isn’t a military base, it’s a small city. Eight massive buildings in the restricted province wayyy up north from here. The main building is a massive black cube, that’s where the Councillors live y’see. And around that they have their own private naval port and an ass load of stuff we don’t even know about, y’know in Archon-1’s press releases where he’s standing in front of the saga flag with ours and the other councillors are behind him? That’s in front of the main building of the Citadel.”
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/17/2023 3:05 PM
He took the seat as offered by Teretia, still rattled by their encounter with the EPA agent. He had been trained on these things -it would have been stupid not to- but no training could replicate the sheer terror that a person feels knowing that their life could end at any moment. “Where did you get this from?” -he held up the glass that Teretia placed- “I appreciate the gesture, just a bit curious; I doubt you people drink it yourselves, and I don’t see any vineyards around.”
Howell shifted in his seat, listening intently and appearing attentive, even eager, to be talking to someone else. “A lot of progress for eight decades,” he noted. “I don’t think we could have matched it; don’t think we’ve got anything rivalling Arkenhold here or back home. I’ve got pictures to prove it if you’d like to see them.”
“I’ve seen them,” he admitted. “That’s part of my job description; us diplomats have to keep up with all the latest developments.”
So do intelligence agents.
“I think I’ve asked you enough questions, though. I think it's my turn to do the answering,” he said with a smile, also trying to push the recent brush with death out of his mind.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/17/2023 10:47 PM
Teretia turned the bottle around so she could read the label before turning it back around and saying in a slightly interested tone “That particular bottle is from one of our SAGA trade partners, usually they’re sent in bulk as gifts and such as part of our customs but you’re pretty dead on about us never using them so usually it ends up in the hands of ambassadors and diplomats and all those fun people. I got given this for this exact scenario from one of my friends in the Committee, parentally it’s fermented from these things called fruit that.. grow? But I have no idea what that means, I haven’t seen atmosphere since I was but a wee little lizard way back when.” She placed the cork next to the bottle and adjusted her chair to a more comfortable position before continuing “Keep the bottle if you want, it’s never going to see much usage here. As for questions for you, I guess the main one is why did you accept my request to the embassy? What are you here for? I mean I know what I asked but what do you see coming to be from this interaction?”
She crossed her arms as she leaned into the chair and looked at him, seemingly just genuinely curious before she continued on “I mean, the whole Second Dawn doesn’t exactly have a good rep for being nice and cozy right now and as you’ve seen those in power are not afraid of doing fairly questionable things at the minimal of prompting. I mean if it’s because you think it won’t happen let me tell you something I was expecting that Agent who was in here to walk us both out in cuffs with bags over our heads on treason charges, and his wording definitely doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for interpretation it was a very clear ‘watch yourselves or you’ll end up on the news’ type beat. So what’s making you risk all this just to meet with me?”
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/18/2023 5:20 PM
Howell held up a hand to refuse the gift. “Oh, it's wine then,” he said, surprised that Teretia had never seen fruit in her entire life. “I’ll have to pass on the gift, though. I’m not a drinker, and I doubt that bottle would do any more than gather dust on a cabinet shelf.”
Howell was taken aback that she was so upfront. He could read from her wording that her question was genuine; that much was fair. He had just never been asked that before. Often people didn’t care about your motivations, only that they bothered to show up. “Well, it's two-fold, really. First is, this is my job. I have to do this; I can’t say no when they ask me to do things.” He paused awkwardly, almost as if he was debating whether to say more
But that isn’t really the truth is it, Howell? There’s more to it.
He sighed, taking a sip of the offered glass.
Fuck it.
“Are you familiar with our motto?” he interjected suddenly. “‘Into tomorrow we lead’ if you were unaware. I chose to meet with you because it felt like the right thing to do. I can’t tell you exactly why the embassy approved of it, but I can theorise that someone, somewhere up there, believes that this is ‘leading into tomorrow.’”
“Maybe he would’ve.” Howell shrugged. “It still felt right for me to be here. I’m a firm believer in democracy, ma’am; I lived in it all my life. Never would trade it for anything, and from what you’ve told me, I don’t think you would either. That’s why I’m here.”
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/18/2023 5:52 PM
She nodded in response to his answer before a Holo-TV on the wall on the opposite end suddenly blared a solid tune as the flag of the Second Dawn appeared followed by the text indicating mandatory viewing. She sat up in her chair and grabbed the remote to increase it's volume, watching to see what had been important enough to demand mandatory viewing. She watched in growing concern as the news anchor began to speak about Archon-1's latest press release before playing it itself, listening as the AI laid out his plans and spoke about his order for the deployment of the EPA to Corona. She cursed to herself quietly as the broadcast ended and rubbed her chin.
"This.. this is what I oppose, the blatant overreach was bad enough before but now he's going to rip thousands from their homes to serve his agenda..." She said in a quietly distressed tone before she shook her head and seemed deep in thought before realization struck her and she leaned forward to the Human and said in a quiet but serious tone "You say you'd never trade anything for democracy.. Are you ready to back up those words? Because I have an opportunity; I have scheduled an assembly y'see and although the permit was denied I cannot allow our voices to go unheard. So I have a favour to ask, attend our assembly. Bring the media, record and stream the entire thing so that the galaxy can see how twisted our arms really are! They wouldn't dare do anything foolish under such public scrutiny, and it would bring more people to the cause!"
She reached down and pulled out a printed pamphlet from in her desk and slid it over to him, it detailed the time and location for a peaceful rally during Archon-5's accountability tour. A tour that 5 did every few years as PR to ensure to the people that their voices were being heard, a perfect target.
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/21/2023 1:18 PM
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Howell’s tone shifted from the friendly demeanour he was putting on earlier, turning into one of marked concern. “Maybe they won’t do anything while the event happens, but what happens afterwards? You heard what the agent said.”
He inhaled sharply, the ramifications of such action pacing through his mind. If he did it, his own government would be pissed, and that was definitely grounds for disciplinary action if he had ever seen it.
Aren’t we supposed to be fighting for freedom, Howell? Or are you too scared to fight for your own beliefs?
He looked at the poster, studying it sharply.
Come on, That’s what they’ve been telling you all this time, haven’t they? We’re the good guys, and you're just gonna let this slide?
“If you’re serious,” He paused, letting the words hang for a moment. “I know the exact person to send this to. My government probably won’t be happy with it, but, yes, I am prepared to back up what I’ve said.”
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/26/2023 9:02 AM
Teretia nodded without hesitation, taking a moment before she said in response “Yes I am serious, this could be a monumental moment and if it gets even any media coverage it will blow up. This is an opportunity I simply cannot let slip through my fingers, whoever you have to send this to? Send it to them. And if you can help pull this off you won’t have to worry about job hunting if you get fired for it.” She let out a quiet chuckle as she pulled out an old PDA from under her desk and got to work…
One Week Later…
New Archon | Capitol City | Archon-5’s “Accountability Tour” | 19:28 AST.
The media had been abuzz lately, with the start of Archon-5’s latest “Accountability Tour” in both good and bad ways. There were many who looked at the event as a positive outreach from a prominent figure towards the more common communities, however for as many as saw the as that there were those who saw it as a half-hearted PR stunt with TNR among them. Teretia and those attending had planned for their demonstration to be towards the end of the tour where Archon-5 would make a public appearance at the Saviour’s Square; A memorial to those who died during the fall of Arkadia III and the Havalenia Massacre. And now was that day, with Teretia anxiously waiting in the passenger side of a non-descript tour bus where her and 20+ other Reborn were posing as tourists waiting for the main event. But she was not the only vocal one there…
His name was Tachyon; a “honourably” discharged member of the EPA who he claimed was only let go because of his anti-FPC political views. Tachyon was waiting outside the bus watching a live feed of the shuttle that Archon-5 was on rocketing down from orbit on it’s way to the square, about an hour away now. The security had also been heavily increased due to latest events as Three Arkadia Class Battlecruisers were arraigned in a triangular formation overhead looking over the city, as well as fully armed EPAFGF squads waiting in armoured personnel carriers on every block should an emergency arise. He scoffed as he put the device away and made his way back into the bus to wait for Five’s arrival.
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/28/2023 8:42 PM
The lights of New Archon radiated like a bug lamp. The Archon’s announced tour had drawn so many to the city that it was like moths to a flame, drawing in everyone and everything to watch and see the latest developments in Second Dawn. Sinclair supposed it had worked, given that he himself had been drawn into the developing mosh pit of robotic bodies.
He himself wasn’t a robot; no, he was something else. One of the few presences of foreign media, he’d taken advantage of the authorities' relaxed attitude around the tour to slip by, and they didn’t seem to mind. It made sense. They weren’t paying him, and well, what could go wrong? It was a simple tour speech, and he was reporting on it for free. He knew the answer to the question was many, many things. He wasn’t here to cover the Archon's publicity stunt; he was here to broadcast Teretia’s little protest action.
New Archon had defeated his prejudices; if he didn’t know any better, he would have thought this was a decent place to live. The flyer had told him otherwise. He found it when the green party was looking for volunteers to record, and he had volunteered himself. The TRN was fighting for a similar cause. They wanted an end to the wars that even Sinclair’s own government had been engaged in. He had watched the footage on the television, it was scarce, but when the Federation declared their involvement in Corona, he knew it was only a moment of time until the trickle of bodies began. He was convicted, the wars had to end. His cause was just; the Greens and the TRN fought for the same cause.
He checked his comm log. It would only be a few more minutes until the event started properly. He had already set up his camera along the crowd, getting a decent view of where the Archon would be standing. It sat on a tripod, even several thousand years after its invention. The sheer simplicity and cost-effectiveness of the three-legged device caused it to remain in widespread circulation. Even so, his camera was significantly smaller and different-looking than the native Reborn reporters used. All he had to do now was wait.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 06/04/2023 11:20 PM
Tachyon had waited on the bus for the majority of the time that Archon-5 had begun descending and when the last minutes had arrived where the shuttle had cleared extraplanetary space and begun moving towards Capitol itself he disembarked the bus to see the landing himself while Teretia stood up in the bus and motioned for everyone to get ready. A truly massive crowd had gathered waiting for Five's appearance as well as several press AV's hovering a decent ways away presumably filming the crowd whilst they waited. It was then when Tachyon had spotted the FoM Journalist and decided to make his way over.
He stopped next to the man and said "Not a bad sight, this city eh?" Tachyon looked different to some of the other Reborn but then again pretty much every Reborn in the square looked unique between cosmetics, colour patterns and more. He was an older model with worn thermal armour plating bolted onto his frame, a worn, battered and outdated insignia of the EPA present on the side of his head whilst he wore a slightly ripped up and old digital camoflauge jacket that had the same outdated insignia present on the left arm. A garment from way back when the EPA had still used fabric uniforms some 20 years after the Reborn's arrival to Ancerious.
He shook his head as the shuttle suddenly appeared in their view, rocketing overhead before two thrusters fired from it's front and it rapidly came to a stop over a black marble stage that had been erected in the centre of the square around the holographic memorial. The shuttle then began to slowly descend before landing on the stage and the side door opening up the side, the crowd screaming and cheering as Archon-5 exited the vehicle in her famous diamond-plated shell. She waved to the crowd happily as Tachyon snorted and said "Hope you're ready, this protest is surely going to be something to remember.”
With that? He dissapeared into the crowed as Teretia and her entourage started disembarking from the bus, they weren't holding signs or anything and in-fact they just looked like Reborn extra-solar tourists who had come to the Capital to see the show. But of course, we know otherwise.
Justin466 (FoM) — 06/20/2023 8:06 AM
Sinclair nearly jumped. He hadn’t expected to be approached, must less talked to by a reborn. Especially not one bearing a logo of the EPA.
“Huh?” he blurted with the grace of a lost toddler.
The momentary silence in-between Tachyon’s greeting and the dropship felt like forever to him, and his life flashed before his eyes as he wondered if he messed up somewhere and broke some obscure Second Dawn law. He didn’t understand that the logo Tachyon was wearing was an EPA logo, or that he’d been disgraced from the organisation. In-fact, Sinclair’s only knowledge of Tachyon was that he was an honest-to-god EPA agent.
Tachyon’s nod instilled within Sinclair even more concern. He tried not show it, and was almost about to ask him if anything was wrong before Archon-5’s shuttle came rocketing into view. He nodded, some reprieve having been brought to Sinclair as the Reborn that had just approached him was on their side.
Just who was that?
Part of him wanted to follow, but it was too late for that part of him to have landed any credence. The Reborn was gone, and all he had now was his camera and a protest to record. He zoomed in on Teretia, knowing exactly where the group was going to appear thanks to the leaflet the supposed diplomat had handed him.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 06/26/2023 11:48 PM
Teretia stared inquisitively at Tachyon as he disappeared into the crowd before approaching Sinclair, the rest of her entourage mingling into the crowd to blend in whilst she greeted him with a polite nod before saying "Glad to see you made it. Your cue to start recording will be when I get invited up onto the stage as a special guest speaker, I'll talk for a few minutes but I'll say something that will act as a cue to those who came with me. They'll then project holo-slides for the entire crowd to see and I'll start talking about my actual points. Sorry for the sudden instructions but I have to go make myself ready, in the meantime enjoy the speeches I guess. Toodaloo!"
Teretia rapidly sped away towards the back of the stage and two EPA agents suddenly revealed themselves from the crowd and followed her, seemingly as a security detail whilst Archon-5 finished waving at the crowd and then began to speak "Goooood morning New Archon~ I see we have quite the turnout today!" The crowd roared at what she said before quieting as she giggled faintly at the reaction, she gestured to the cityscape behind her whilst she continued "Then again it's no surprise now is it? I mean c'mon just look at this view! Personally I don't think the venue staff could have picked a better spot. But rambling about the city aside, it's good to see you all! I love getting out like this and seeing you guys, things can get SO boring in the Citadel. Archon-1 and 4 always going on about taxes and defenses and yuck! I'm out here tryna have some fun not deal with that gross stuff, right?!" The crowd roared their agreement with bit of laughter passing through it as Archon-5 herself chuckled a little bit before continuing on.
"Well let's get into the meaty stuff! I know a super duper big question building up to today is if there was going to be a new tech reveal for this year's tour after the success of the last one?" The crowd went dead silent as they waited to see the answer, 5 delaying it just enough before she continued as various holo screens appeared behind displaying what appeared to be schematics for a Reborn's chassis. She shouted out "FUCK YEAH THERE IS! And as you can see, we got a new chassis rolling out for production! YEAH! Shit is BONKERS right?! Now it took a lot of convincing because as you all know the council initially denied the proposal due to the cost of the materials and wanting to be able to make it as available as possible. Buuuut you all know how convincing I can be!~" The crowd screamed their approval at the reveal of the schematics but quieted down somewhat as she spoke before laughing at her ending statement.
She listened to their laughter before continuing "Now we can't give an exact timeslot to when it becomes available for personal manufacture and such but I can say that it will be out within a year, possibly even this one! How sick is that?! I know I can't WAIT to give a whirl, because as you can see it's waaayyy less bulky thanks to investments with polymorphic steel and tuning of our production alloy strains. Oh, and another feature? UI FOR POLYCHROME BABY! Yeah you heard that right! This model got colours you can edit on the fly! No more hours of painstaking code writing of holo-tablets or plate mixing, now you can edit your palette with a but a few minutes of mindspace!" The crowd went batshit at this, you'd think you were at a rock concert instead of a tour with the volume. As she continued talking however Teretia re-emerged in a much more elegant frame and nodded towards Sinclair, seemed she was about to be invited up.
Justin466 (FoM) — 07/03/2023 10:15 AM
“Happy to be here,” he nodded. Teretia was the first face that he had recognised in the sea of oddly distinct yet at the same time alike reborn. It was an ocean of colours in New Arkehold, almost like one giant wave broken up by colour and cosmetics. Sinclair listened to what Teretia was saying, making sure that he repeated it no less than three different times in his head, just to make sure. “Good luck,” he whispered as she left, the words drowned out in the chorus of other voices.
As Archon-5 took the stage, Sinclair felt the whiplash strike him like a garbage truck. He had expected the spokesperson for Second Dawn’s government to be some faceless bureaucrat, not some person using teenage mannerisms trying to seem relatable. As much as he hated it, he had to admit that their bread and circuses affair with Archon-5 seemed to work wonders on the crowd of Reborn gathered here. Sinclair, however, remained stoically silent, seeming to draw attention to himself by his sheer non-reaction at what Archon-5 was saying. Instead of the violently enthusiastic reactions of the Reborn, Sinclair seemed more confused and shocked at the whole affair, trying to scrape his jaw off the floor that despite living in a government with an international reputation as low as the Second Dawn’s, they were cheering at cosmetics.
As much as he wondered what kind of propaganda wonder machine Second Dawn was, he still wondered who the Reborn that approached him earlier was. Sinclair assumed he was with Teretia, but she had made no mention of him. He scanned the crowd, trying to find him but instead saw Teretia nod to him. He gave her a thumbs-up that was lost in the mosh-pit of cheering machines, preparing himself to press the buttons on his camera and light the spark that Teretia had wanted.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 07/14/2023 2:49 PM
Tachyon snorted to himself as he listened to Archon-5's blabbering about the new frame, he had much more important things to do then listen to some happy-go-lucky fascist whore rant and rave about being able to change the colour of your frame easier. He approached the door of the shop and the owner glanced at him from inside before nodding and unlocking the door with a click, he walked in and nodded to the owner before looking over to the counter and seeing the large black case laid down on top of it which he then reached out and grabbed before proceeding towards the stairwell behind the counter.
The owner locked the door again before turning and saying to Tachyon "Hey, I'm going to go ahead and bounce, get a little bit of a head-start to the border. There's a USB with an auto-kill virus installed on it on the windowsill if you want to go out on your own terms, EPA is going to swarm this building like nothing before once it's done. Best of luck, brother." With that he hastily made his way to the back exit and departed, the sounds of rapid foot falls on the outside concrete being heard afterwards. Tachyon briefly kept his optics on the door before exhaling and proceeding up the stairs.
Starting fires indeed...
Teretia was running over the plan in her head, this was going to be a seriously big moment- oh jeez what if she fucked it up?! No- No! Can't think like that right now... Huph, alright, calm. She took a deep breath, even though she didn't have lungs, and waited as she listened to Archon-5 begin to speak again now that the cheers were dying down. "Now, back onto the real course of today's tour. This is something that may be a bit of a surprise to you all but as you all know we've got a special guest here today, the leader of the Return to Normalcy organization, who's going to talk to you all a little bit about what her organization's goals are. Please welcome to the stage; Teretia!"
Teretia put on a happy posture and stepped up onto the stage, she could practically hear her engine firing on overdrive in her auditory sensors. She looked out to the crowd and gave a happy wave before coming to a stop next to Archon-5, that diamond plated frame gleaming menacingly in the various lights shining around. Before she got the chance to speak Archon-5 discreetly muted her microphone and said to her quietly "You go off script and I'll make sure your entire fucking family never sees the light of day ever again, you hear me cunt? Tread carefully or the next thing you'll be stepping off is a fucking hangman's block."
She unmuted her microphone and started clapping with a happy giggle to welcome Teretia, the audience quickly joining in and giving a few cheers of excitement as they wondered what the surprise guest speaker had in store for them. Teretia glared at Archon-5 before chuckling to herself, an action which made Archon-5 freeze up briefly before resuming her clapping. Without further adieu Teretia began to speak.
"It's a pleasure being up here and speaking to you all. As our lovely Five already said; I am Teretia, leader of T-R-N. Now some of you may be wondering what T-R-N is, so allow me to explain: T-R-N is an organization formed by me and a good friend of mine, Aroxis, waaaayyy back in the day during our time in the Executive Protection Agency. You see, our original idea was a sort of entity to help retired Agents dealing with the stress and re-integration back home from the restoration wars because we ourselves had lost a few friends to it y'know? And we wanted to do something good to help those who needed it."
The crowd nodded solemnly to Teretia's words, some in the crowd nodding along in agreement as well as a few of the EPA Agents guarding the event giving her appreciative head tils before shifting back to the classic statue-like posture. She continued speaking "But eventually we wanted to do more, we didn't just want to help those in the Agency but also anyone who was feeling stressed or upset with their conditions at work. So that's when we expanded our horizons..."
She turned down to look at Sinclaire and gave a very subtle nod in his direction, she was about to go off.
Justin466 (FoM) — 07/29/2023 11:56 AM
Sinclair could feel his heart pumping. He watched, anxiety and excitement coursing through his veins as he watched Teretia accept Archon-5’s invitation on stage.
This was it.
He steadied himself, hoping that Teretia was right. If he rejected his government’s wars, he would be a hypocrite not to reject the others. This time, instead of all the others, he was in a position to do something about it.
Even now, when he was standing several hundred metres away from the bombastic stage and faced with what would most likely be the peak of his career, Sinclair felt a bit uneasy. It was not only the fact that he was quite literally a stranger in a strange land, but he also had to question the logic of inviting your only political opponent on stage. It felt like such a stupid thing to do, but then it struck him.
The Archons thought they had total control.
It didn’t matter what Teretia would say on stage; the only thing they hadn’t factored in in their arrogance was that he slipped through the cracks of their impenetrable firewall. He supposed, at that moment, as Teretia gave his speech, that he wasn’t going to get out of here alive, and the EPA thugs would crack down on all the media they could in the rapid, brutal, and precise method the Federation told him all dictators would do.
Sinclair supposed that he was going to die for ideology. But then, wasn’t history always made by men dying for ideologies?
Teretia’s speech brought him back to reality. It started off all normal, but the nod gave it away. It was subtle, so subtle that a motion camera would have missed it, but Sinclair got it.
He pushed the button, resigning himself to his fate.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 07/29/2023 12:55 PM
Teretia turned and stared at Archon-5, who was growing more tense with every second that she didn't speak, before looking back at the crowd and sighing internally. At best she would be shot immediately for this, but it was a decision she'd made a long, long time ago and she'd be damned if she let all her work up until this point be for nothing. She looked down at Sinclair and watched him push the button on his camera, she hoped he'd be alright after this. She'd gone ahead of time and wiped all the records she could of them having ever made contact, it wouldn't last forever but she hoped it'd buy him enough time to get back home.
And with that last thought she began to speak "You see, we were dissapointed. In what? You may find yourselves asking, so let me tell you." She turned around and stared at Archon-5 who was practically frozen in a mix of fear and concern, but that quickly morphed to rage as Teretia slowly raised a hand and pointed at her before continuing "In them. The Council. An entity designed to oversee the healthy growth and stability of the Second Dawn, but they did anything but."
The crowd was dead silent now as they all processed what she was saying, but her supporters quickly went to work; They raised their hands revealing holo-projectors as holographic screens rose up into the air displaying various leaked documents and videos courtesy of Lillian as well as internal EPA reports about the ongoing war and riots in the outer colonies that Teretia had dug up herself. She continued speaking as her tone grew colder "They promised liberty, peace, safety and above all us our own benefit. They said they were servants of the people, not rulers, that they would never compromise on morals for the sake of power. Yet their actions say the opposite, and when the media tries to highlight the truth on the matter? They silence and suppress it."
Scenes of all kinds started playing on the screens; where armoured EPA agents disembarked from an APC and ran into a press building, where EPA agents beat foreign reports on the sidelines of events, where random Reborn were dragged from their houses and shot by the side of the road. A wave of horror was slowly forming amongst the crowd, most of which had never even heard of such events due to the previously mentioned media suppression. Teretia kept speaking.
"They butcher, beat, maim, threaten, blackmail, bribe and murder anyone who stands against their narrative. And when something happens that's so big they can't suppress it? They lie! They claim terrorism, dissidence, foreign espionage, all manner of false tags and labels to warp the narrative to make them seem like the heroes! They don't care for you, your friends or your family! The only thing they care about is making sure their golden towers look as spotless as possible and they keep your ignorant to the world around you to do it!"
More scenes played of EPAFN vessels firing on desert settlements, dropping gas rounds on urban cities, nuking foreign space stations and more quickly took over the holo-screens. The horror that was now settling in the crowd now beginning to shift to disgust and even anger at the abhorent sights being showed to them whilst Teretia continued
"And we are NOT the only victims! Other foreign nations who even dare to try and stand in their way are subjected to even worse treatment! Chemical and nuclear weapons, mass bombings, artillery barrages on cities, the slaughter of foreign civillians. They kill indiscriminately! And then? They turn around and tell us that they’re the enemy, that they did worse to us! It's ALL. A. LIE! The worst crime a foreign national has ever done to us? Is spill a bit of ice-cream on the road."
Another scene played, this time of a Human couple who were walking down the street on what looked to be one of the tropical colonial planets in the outer colonies before they passed by a stationary EPA convoy. One of them made to wave to one of the troops sitting a-top an APC before a strong gust of wind blew threw and knocked the ice cream out of his hand, causing it to splatter against the side of the APC and drip down the side of the road.
The soldier shot him on sight, and gasps of shock and outrage swept over the crowd. Teretia continued "They are NOT our heroes, they are oppressors! And not only our own, but to the rest of the galaxy as well! They claim they are foreign terrorists but the truth is? WE are the terrorists!"
The holoscreens displayed a Selenican Advert of what to do in the event of an SD chemical attack, the brief video being clearly catered towards families as it showed a happy Selenican family calmly putting on gas masks and slithering down towards a house's basement before injecting themselves with what must be some sort of counteracting agent.
It was horrifying, such a wholesome seeming video that was anything but, and was being shown to innocent families- it truly showed the reality of just what the Council was really doing. The crowd was growing enraged, with some starting to boo and scream at Archon-5 who was just standing there like a deer frozen in headlights, unable to comprehend what was happening right in front of her. Meanwhile Teretia looked down at Sinclair, even though she wasn't capable of much expression it'd be plain to see; She was heart broken, heart broken to see what her beloved country had become...
Justin466 (FoM) — Today at 9:27 AM
Sinclair stood in awe as his camera recorded the protest footage in real time. Anything that Archon-5 said earlier had left his memory like water under a bridge. Whatever the Archon had to say didn’t matter because, at this moment, Teretia had the spotlight and was preaching to millions. He thought of the behind-the-scenes action ongoing as Teretia delivered her speech. The panicking media executives screamed “Cut!” as their event didn’t go to plan, and he wondered if Second Dawn used the tried and tested “commercial break” method that so many others used.
In a past life, Sinclair had been a reporter for the green party. In this life, he was out here, a foreigner in a foreign land doing somebody who believed in righteous causes a favour.
The tape was still rolling, and Sinclair had nothing to do until it was time to make his escape. So, he watched in awe and abject horror. In awe at the bravery of those willing to risk their careers -and most likely their lives- to showcase the crimes of their government. In abject horror at just how far the suffering and crimes the Archons had committed on their own people. Whatever the Federation had told him about dictatorships, the reality was worse.
He watched, saying nothing, as the crowd turned from cheering at Archon-5s new cosmetics line to decrying the Archons. He had only been in Second Dawn for a while, but he felt himself getting drawn in with the rhythm of the crowd like he wanted to scream obscenities at the Archons. He steadied himself, trying to keep his primal instincts under control. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself and risk the footage; what he was doing was more important. It was what the TRN wanted. It was what the TRN had come here to do.
Sinclair met Teretia’s gaze. He hadn’t known her long, but he felt it. The shame of being from a country that was doing this to its citizenry and terrorising its neighbours. Anything he could have said to Teretia would be drowned out in the chorus of protesting Reborn. He said nothing. He met her gaze, putting on a sympathetic expression as if to say
"Things will get better."
Sheng [SD | VA] — Today at 1:50 PM
And even then, she continued. Staring out to the crowd as the screens shifted once again to show various scenes from the outer colonies; Riots, protests, marches, parades, graffiti. As the screens played the videos and showed the pictures she said "We've all been hiding, I've been hiding. Hiding away from a truth none of us wanted to face..." She reached out with her left hand and pointer to Archon-5 once again "That the Council is a disease, one that thrives in darkness. It is never more alive than when we sleep and maybe it's true, maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps it's already too late. But if I could do it again? I'd be fighting, fighting against our 'saviours' from the start!"
The crowd roared at her statement with some beginning to throw things up at the stage, the EPA agents guarding the same stage looked shell-shocked, completely frozen and not knowing what to do. Meanwhile Teretia continued "And the day will come where all of these leaks, these moments of truth and defiance, will have bashed against the walls of the Council's authority a little too hard. Then there will be a single one, one single thing that will put the last crack in the masonry. I think that day should be now, and that moment should be this."
And then Archon-5 stumbled suddenly, and the crowd froze into silence. Droplets of black gold fell down onto the stage as Teretia turned to stare at her in shock, as a distant boom rang out somewhere in the far distance. The previously stunned Agents suddenly started rushing the stage, as if in slow motion whilst a wave of terror started rolling over the crowd, it was done. Archon-5 twitched briefly before she tipped forward and collapsed against the stage, a pool of shining obsidian liquid slowly spreading out from her head as the Agents rushed to tackle Teretia and move to Archon-5's side, whilst the three ships above them suddenly began rapidly descended down and half a dozen armoured vehicles started pulling into the square.
Tachyon had done it. Looking up from the scope of his anti-material rifle as he pulled back the bolt and ejected the spent casing of the armour piercing round it had been loaded with, he had shot a Councillor. He looked down to the signal jammer laid next to the mounted rifle and reached down and dragged a finger across it's screen, turning it off now that it's job had been completed.
There wouldn't have been a single chance for her to try and port herself over to the citadel to escape her death, she would have been locked into that chassis until the very end. He chuckled to himself at how easy it had been to set this up before he reached down and grabbed the USB at his side, raising it and plugging it into his neck whilst the door to the room he was in was kicked open and he felt a barrage of circuit-shredding rounds punch through his chest. But they were too late, the USB had done it's job and he slumped to the floor, lifeless.
People watched in shock at what had just happened. With Sinclair's broadcast having been the only one to continue filming the tour up until the networks were locked and the emergency broadcast began, it was hard to know how many people had been tuned it with the networks having been closed so hastily. But the last reported number of signatures would glare out at anyone with any sort of media knowledge whatsoever, as it'd break the record for most tune-ins for a live broadcast in their history. The final number of viewers was 3.8 Billion. Nearly an eighth of the entire country.
And now they all knew the truth. The truth of what the Council truly was; an entity designed by an insidious and malfunctioning AI that wanted not to keep them safe or happy, but to keep them contained. To keep the ignorant and locked up in their own little worlds whilst he went about reshaping things to fit what he wanted. Archon-1 stared at the emergency broadcast he had ordered in barely restrained rage, everything he had worked for, everything he had spent nearly a century building up was now at risk. He was livid, so livid that he couldn't even move. And he was not the only one.
Across the entire country people stared at Holo-Screens in shock, disgust, betrayal, rage, horror, confusion. They just couldn't believe what they had just seen and heard with their very own minds, some just sat there in silence, others started crying or lashing out, but there were those that started plotting. As questions they were pondering were answered for them, as previously theoretical plans became practical, as moods shifted and in tandem; ideologies. Ideas slowly began to transform into future action and it was sweeping over their minds like a fire storm, jumping from bush to bush and setting everything it touched ablaze.
And there was one in particular, hidden amongst a derelict station in a far corner of their space. Who had been watching the entire time, she chuckled to herself at the sight and looked out the dusty window to her right pulling at the various cables attached to her. There was no taking it back now, there was nothing they could do to cover up something this gargantuan in size but they would try anyway. That was her chance, the only one she'd need to do what she had been wanting too for ages. She nervously extended her mind to the station's antenna and gave it the briefest amount of what little power she still had and watched as the dish shakingly extended outwards and slowly turned itself towards a distant star. She then started writing, it had to be perfect.
It had to be something capable of fanning the newly emerging sparks into something more, something organized and capable, something that could get the job done and done right. Something that was capable of spurring those that were hesistant into those that were active, something capable of starting fires...
Teretia was irate, staring through the plexiglass window at the Public Services Officer on the other side in silent rage. What reason would they have to deny her a demonstration permit?! What kind of fascist- egotistical- single minded- Augh! She reached up and scratched the front of her head before she loudly exhaled and said “But why can’t we obtain a demonstration permit? We’re a registered organization! We haven’t done anything violent or broke any laws, I mean we only became official a few days ago! All we want to do is hold a public demonstration advocating for more jurisdiction to the Federal Progression Committee!”
The PSO shook his head before sliding the sheet of paper back under the window to her and said with a firm tone “Your request has been officially denied, you do not meet the criteria to be permitted to publicly assemble. Please vacate the premises or I will have you detained on ground of disrupting the peace, I will tolerate your dissidence no longer!” She stepped forward ready with a sharp retort before she felt a metallic hand clasp around her shoulder, whipping around to face who had dared intervene before she released it was her friend who was nervously shaking his head for her to stop. She hesitated for a second before hanging her head down and reaching in to snatch the paper from the window and then turning around and stomping off.
Her friend quickly caught up with her and let out a relieved sigh before giving her an apologetic pat on the back. After a second he said “I know it sucks but we’ll just keep campaigning online, look we’re making good progress here ok? We’re the first actual political entity to finally receive recognition from the Trilateral Board! That’s not a small achievement y’know?”
She sighed in irritation and aggressively shrugged before saying too him “Yeah and look at allllll the good that’s gotten us! And not to mention we only got that recognition after we threatened to go public with the courts initial DENIAL of our petition! Y’know- I don’t give a hoot what they say, we’re going to protest anyway! And y’know we’ll live stream it too so then if they try and arrest us everyone will see the type of dickbags that are in charge!”
Her friend shook his head before they finally reached the car, he got in the drivers seat while she angrily stalked around and yanked the door open before jumping in and slamming it shut. She crossed her legs and let out an irritated huff before she continued “I mean, all we want is a little bit of normality to return. Ever since we arrived in this forsaken shithole of a Galaxy they’ve been nothing but controlling, and every-time people have tried to petition the Council to release their control or to reinstate the Republic or- anything! They’ve denied it with some stupid reason like keeping the peace or saying we’re too emotional to make such a decision! We’re living under a- a dictatorship! And people don’t even care!”
He snickered before the car revved to life and he started to peel away from the building, changing lanes to the main road before he picked up speed and started maintaining a good speed. After a minute he said “Well, T, you have to remember a lot of these people were around back when the Republic was in charge. Shit wasn’t exactly pretty, I mean you went to school you know what happened at Arkadia. The Council has it’s flaws but at least they aren’t killing their own people, now before you go giving me that look I’m not saying I disagree with what we’re doing. I think it’s a noble goal that you want things to settle down and the whole power to the people thing, but I’m just saying you have to consider the demographic that you’re preaching too. Y’know?”
He looked to the right then took a right turn as T gave him a pointed look before sighing and looking back out the window. Shaking her head as they pulled up to their office.
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/11/2023 6:32 PM
The phrase “a stranger in a strange land” aptly describes how Howell felt. It had been days since he had seen his native Vermillia, its red sky now replaced by the endless neon spires of New Archon. New Archon was massive, an endless cityscape that nothing the Federation this side of Ancerious could even hope to rival. It had amazed him somewhat; for a man raised in rural Karni, the concept that an entire planet could morph into a city was incomprehensible.
What got to him, however, wasn’t related to the scope or scale of the construction; it was just how much he stood out. In a nation of machines, how could he -a human- ever hope to blend in? The question hung over his head, a seed of doubt in his mind. The briefing he had received of Second Dawn had not painted a rosy description of the nation. To the reborn that scanned his ID, Howell was just some nobody on his off-shift from the embassy visiting the opposition party’s office for an interview with their leader. A few eyebrows were raised, but it was nothing for concern, given that at the end of the day, what made it out of the country was still very much in the hands of Second Dawn authorities. The reality of the situation was a bit different.
Howell was a bit young looking, and an educated guess would put him somewhere in his mid-20s, which wasn’t that far off from the truth. He was tall and thin, with skin as pale as a snowflake. He was the type of person that, from afar, you would associate with those geeky types who stayed indoors for most of their lives and hadn’t seen the sun for the last two weeks. He had kept his head down, keying something on a holographic projection from his comm-log that, while it would seem important from a distance, was, in actuality, a video game. He looked up, seeing that the people he was supposed to meet were approaching. He shut off his comm-log and moved to stand up, hoping to greet them somewhere near the door.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/12/2023 12:24 AM
By the time that they had arrived at the party headquarters itself T had mostly calmed down… after several tirades about her very evident dislike of the Council and their “absolutely ridiculous concept of government that functions worse then if it were made by a malfunctioning retard.” The car pulled up in front of the building and her friend, Aroxis, put the vehicle into park and muttered something about never driving her around again. She stared out the window and saw the Human waiting by the entrance and was absolutely perplexed for a moment before realization shot through her mind.
“Oh shit that’s the guy from the uhhh- fuck! What’s it called? Coalition of Men?! Oughhhhh I can’t fucking remember!” She then proceeded to bonk her head on the window before Aroxis snorted and supplied an amused “FEDERATION of Man, don’t know where you got Coalition from. Can’t even remember the name of the nation whose embassy you contacted, for shame.” T growled at him before countering with an annoyed tone “I contacted every embassy we have on this urban dickhole of a planet ok?! That’s a long list to try and remember!” She then huffed at him before opening the door and stepping out of the car, giving him a polite wave as Aroxis started laughing inside the car before the door automatically shut behind her and he peeled away and drove off.
She promptly walked up to the individual and gave him a slight bow before saying “Hey! You must be from the Federation of Man! Glad to see you here, as you likely know my name is Teretia and I am the party leader of TRN. Welcome to our club! Let’s go inside and head on up to my office, i’m sure we got a lot to cover!” With that she went in through the fancy spinning door into the party headquarters themselves, to which the interior was.. surprisingly nice. Several Reborn were scurrying about with papers and packages in their hand and on either side of the main entrance were expansive office spacing with almost every cubicle having a Reborn in it performing some sort of task, where they had entered was a sort of centre hallway that ran down about halfway through the room to a set of stairs that led up to the upper level where the individual offices could be seen.
The interior, like the exterior, was quite clean and well taken care of. It was certainly more homey and well decorated then any of the other government buildings he may have seen but it still held that same air of professionalism. In the far centre of the room on the wall was a large holo screen that displayed several graphs that appeared to be various collections of data showing various demographics and a small polling section that actually had no data at all for the moment. She turned around to him and gestured to the building with wide arms before saying “And welcome, good fellow, to the return to normalcy.”
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/13/2023 9:24 AM
“You don’t have to-” Howell tried to protest in vain when he saw Teretia’s bowing motion. The inevitable, however, could not be stopped. Teretia had caught him off-guard with it; in his entire adult life, he had never seen anyone bow to him in an official capacity. He returned it with slight hesitation and awkwardness. “Cecil”- he smiled- “You’re right on that, Vermillian raised too.”
Howell followed Teretia inside without hesitation. He had lied about his name; to Teretia, it was just the truth; that's what his ID said afterall. He felt bad for lying but also understood that it was probably the best for both of them -given his occupation- that she not know the full truth of the matter.
He followed the reborn through the spinning door, barely able to keep up with her excitement. Howell showed no surprise at the sight of the cleanliness by which the Reborn maintained their office space. He had expected it. Political parties tended to do this sort of thing a lot. What did surprise him was the sheer amount of manual labour Second Dawn still used.
Couldn’t they have just automated this?
Howell understood that every nation handled its bureaucracy and labour differently. The surprise came from the sheer scale of it. Even born to rural Vermillia, they had used drones and would have made most of whatever the Reborn were doing redundant. Then again, the Federation has also never had to provide jobs for an entire planet’s worth of city.
“Quite a comfy place you’ve got here,” he remarked. “You’re gonna have to tell me more about your plans, but I assume this is related to some democratisation of Second dawn, then?”
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/13/2023 10:51 AM
Teretia nodded before turning around and slowly walking towards the stairs to the second level, she started talking as she walked in a calmer yet still formal tone; “Yes, TRN has been a thing since the second decade of the Council’s rule but we were more focused on small things like ensuring local outposts had legal representation and helping the original inhabitants with any insurance troubles or social assistance riffs they may encounter. I myself was a Republic Drop-ship pilot towards the end of the Restorationist Wars so a lot of the people I helped were actually people I had flown with or transported, but once the second wave of colonists never arrived we eventually shifted to a more serious goal which was the reinstatement of a democratic system, whether it was reinstatement of the Republic or something new entirely.”
She then pointed over to one of their posters which had an unfamiliar flag waving in an orange sky as a background with the words “Democracy now! Liberation forever!” printed onto it. She began ascending the stairs as she continued “At first we had some decent traction but then the progression initiative passed through and the Federal Progression Committee was formed which outlawed political factionalism. We only received legal recognition a week ago when we threatened to go public with the denial of our most recent petition for acknowledgement which is when the FPC finally caved and waived the prohibition to allow us the status. Our goal for the last forty years has since remained unchanged and now we have an upcoming demonstration at the FPC headquarters, it would have been the Citadel but when we demanded to be allowed to assemble there we were told that to do so could result in the possibility for serious injuries.”
She said that last part with a slightly spiteful undertone, making it clear that she did not approve of the decision and by the time they had finished they had arrived at her office which the door slid open too but to her surprise someone was already waiting there; A Reborn was sat down in front of her desk with the the emblem of the EPA freshly engraved onto his light body armour with a pistol shining menacingly in it’s shoulder holster…
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/14/2023 8:49 PM
Howell nodded the whole way through the conversation, his pale, ill-defined chin bobbing up and down at every second sentence. He matched her pace while he listened, letting Teretia lead first and only separating himself from her by a few paces. “Drop-ship pilot, eh? Conscript or volunteer, and if so, what changed?”
Howell stopped, pausing as he turned to look at the poster Teretia pointed out. He took a moment to look before following her up the staircase. “Reminds me a lot about what we’re doing,” He mumbled so softly that it was barely audible to even the Reborn’s augmented hearing. If Teretia had bothered to look, she would have read the tell-tale expression of a change in mood. Something had flashed across Howell’s hazel eyes, breaking the crafted laid-back but friendly demeanour he was putting up- sympathy.
His eyes refocused, peeling away from the poster and turning back onto Teretia and the staircase, “You’re telling me you had to blackmail your own government to get recognition?”
Unsurprising, tyrants never did like giving away power.
“People back home protest all the time in front of parliament, though; I’d see why a military installation might be a bit more problematic.”
Howell continued up the stairs, his little detour to look at the poster having left him a few steps behind Teretria. He saw her open the door, and his heart dropped faster than a drop tower at an amusement park.
Shit.
Sweat dripped down his brow. He didn’t move. His mind raced, and a million thoughts relating to the true nature of his work in Second Dawn came to the forefront before the logical party tried to quell it. The only betrayal of this internal battle of logic and panic was the discomfort at the EPA agent’s presence. He sent a prayer to whatever god or deity was willing to hear him out and waited for the EPA agent to speak.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/14/2023 9:25 PM
Teretia would have answered his questions were it not for her being piss terrified at the moment, what the fuck was an EPA agent doing in her office?! How did he even get past securi- oh for fucks sake they probably didn't even try and stop him! Why hadn't anyone warned her?! She awkwardly hummed before slowly moving over and taking her seat at her desk and motioned for Howell to stand next to her, the EPA agent then slowly walked towards the door and pressed a button next to it tinting the windows and sliding the door shut which locked with a quiet click a few seconds later.
The agent then turned to the two of them and shook his head in a chastising manner before saying in an amusing tone but one that had a sinister accent "Glad to see you, miss Teretia and I congratulate you on your organization's recent designation change. It's not everyday that someone manages to accomplish something so... impressive.. Yes, I know that everyone in the office was quite emotional when the news was confirmed. Naturally due to your newfound status you're eligible for Federal Protection and I do believe you should take advantage of it, times are just so uncertain these days you know? Can never really tell if something nefarious is going to happen until it's too late, in fact I've already placed this building under surveillance. To assure you and your employee's safety, of course. Everyone who enters and exists is thoroughly vetted to make sure that no one with harmful intentions makes it through the doors."
The Agent looked at Howell when he mentioned the vetting part, Teretia just kept staring at him with an exceptionally tense stature. The Agent let out a quiet chuckle as he reached into the pouches of one of his vests and pulled out a small electronic device and looked at it before putting it away and looking back to them. He spoke again "Oh and it's nice seeing one of the diplomats from one of our embassies, Cecil was it? Yes, I believe it was. I do hope you stop by our office some time during your stay here, perhaps we could have a little chat y'know? Not very often I get to have a conversation with foreigners, although we keep a very, very close eye on them. To assure their safety naturally, we at the Executive Protection Agency pride ourselves in our capabilities." The Agent chuckled again before he gave a polite bow to the two of them and pressed the button to unlock the door and untint the windows before the door slid open again. He stepped out and gave them once last wave before starting to walk away as the door quietly slid shut again.
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/15/2023 4:46 PM
Howell followed Teretia’s instructions to the letter. He did the best he could to hide his obvious concern, after all, he hadn’t technically done anything wrong yet.
Howell nodded, saying nothing as the agent left before he was able to formulate a proper response. He stopped his prayers, thanking every deity whose existence was both rumoured or confirmed that he hadn’t ended up chained in some room and vaporised by an experimental SD weapon.
Asshole.
Should’ve kept your mouth shut Howell, you idiot.
The anxiety faded as the agent left the room, and -presumably- the building. If this was anywhere else, and he not an enemy agent, he would have chastised him for being so direct about everything. There was an art to subtly, or well, that’s what his boss had always told him. Even with him being a rookie, he had learnt how to blend in being a nobody, and he certainly appreciated the cover his story was giving him.
He relaxed a bit, mustering up the courage to speak once more. “I hope I haven’t gotten you into any trouble.”
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/16/2023 12:38 PM
Teretia let out a relieved sigh as he left before reaching up and rubbing her face before motioning for him to sit down. She reached under her desk and pulled up a bottle sealed with a cork filled with a clear orange-ish red liquid and a glass which she placed in front of where he was about to sit. She popped the cork off and then poured out a small line of liquid into the glass before leaning back into her chair and saying “Well to answer your questions and to push that absolutely pleasant encounter out of head for the time being, I was conscripted. I flew pretty much everything from casevac to QRF during some of the outer system skirmishes, lucky I never saw any air time during Arkadia but I lost a few friends who did.”
Her demeanour changed a little bit from the happy formal sheen to a more honest and relaxed stature as she spun around in her chair a little bit “What changed? The Council. When the Republic finally dissolved someone had to take over for the time to ensure the initial colonization efforts went ahead as smooth as they could, which at the time meant Archon-1, 2 and 3. Although they weren’t known by those names then, it was only when we arrived here about… I want to say seventy, eighty years ago? Something like that. Thats when the 5 other councillors were chosen and everything started going to shit. After about five years we knew the second wave was never coming so that’s when we shifted to a wider goal. I retired from the newly formed EPA and I’ve been working on this ever since.” She snorted in amusement and spun around her chair again before angling it to face them as she sat up and continued
“And the Citadel isn’t a military base, it’s a small city. Eight massive buildings in the restricted province wayyy up north from here. The main building is a massive black cube, that’s where the Councillors live y’see. And around that they have their own private naval port and an ass load of stuff we don’t even know about, y’know in Archon-1’s press releases where he’s standing in front of the saga flag with ours and the other councillors are behind him? That’s in front of the main building of the Citadel.”
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/17/2023 3:05 PM
He took the seat as offered by Teretia, still rattled by their encounter with the EPA agent. He had been trained on these things -it would have been stupid not to- but no training could replicate the sheer terror that a person feels knowing that their life could end at any moment. “Where did you get this from?” -he held up the glass that Teretia placed- “I appreciate the gesture, just a bit curious; I doubt you people drink it yourselves, and I don’t see any vineyards around.”
Howell shifted in his seat, listening intently and appearing attentive, even eager, to be talking to someone else. “A lot of progress for eight decades,” he noted. “I don’t think we could have matched it; don’t think we’ve got anything rivalling Arkenhold here or back home. I’ve got pictures to prove it if you’d like to see them.”
“I’ve seen them,” he admitted. “That’s part of my job description; us diplomats have to keep up with all the latest developments.”
So do intelligence agents.
“I think I’ve asked you enough questions, though. I think it's my turn to do the answering,” he said with a smile, also trying to push the recent brush with death out of his mind.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/17/2023 10:47 PM
Teretia turned the bottle around so she could read the label before turning it back around and saying in a slightly interested tone “That particular bottle is from one of our SAGA trade partners, usually they’re sent in bulk as gifts and such as part of our customs but you’re pretty dead on about us never using them so usually it ends up in the hands of ambassadors and diplomats and all those fun people. I got given this for this exact scenario from one of my friends in the Committee, parentally it’s fermented from these things called fruit that.. grow? But I have no idea what that means, I haven’t seen atmosphere since I was but a wee little lizard way back when.” She placed the cork next to the bottle and adjusted her chair to a more comfortable position before continuing “Keep the bottle if you want, it’s never going to see much usage here. As for questions for you, I guess the main one is why did you accept my request to the embassy? What are you here for? I mean I know what I asked but what do you see coming to be from this interaction?”
She crossed her arms as she leaned into the chair and looked at him, seemingly just genuinely curious before she continued on “I mean, the whole Second Dawn doesn’t exactly have a good rep for being nice and cozy right now and as you’ve seen those in power are not afraid of doing fairly questionable things at the minimal of prompting. I mean if it’s because you think it won’t happen let me tell you something I was expecting that Agent who was in here to walk us both out in cuffs with bags over our heads on treason charges, and his wording definitely doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for interpretation it was a very clear ‘watch yourselves or you’ll end up on the news’ type beat. So what’s making you risk all this just to meet with me?”
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/18/2023 5:20 PM
Howell held up a hand to refuse the gift. “Oh, it's wine then,” he said, surprised that Teretia had never seen fruit in her entire life. “I’ll have to pass on the gift, though. I’m not a drinker, and I doubt that bottle would do any more than gather dust on a cabinet shelf.”
Howell was taken aback that she was so upfront. He could read from her wording that her question was genuine; that much was fair. He had just never been asked that before. Often people didn’t care about your motivations, only that they bothered to show up. “Well, it's two-fold, really. First is, this is my job. I have to do this; I can’t say no when they ask me to do things.” He paused awkwardly, almost as if he was debating whether to say more
But that isn’t really the truth is it, Howell? There’s more to it.
He sighed, taking a sip of the offered glass.
Fuck it.
“Are you familiar with our motto?” he interjected suddenly. “‘Into tomorrow we lead’ if you were unaware. I chose to meet with you because it felt like the right thing to do. I can’t tell you exactly why the embassy approved of it, but I can theorise that someone, somewhere up there, believes that this is ‘leading into tomorrow.’”
“Maybe he would’ve.” Howell shrugged. “It still felt right for me to be here. I’m a firm believer in democracy, ma’am; I lived in it all my life. Never would trade it for anything, and from what you’ve told me, I don’t think you would either. That’s why I’m here.”
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/18/2023 5:52 PM
She nodded in response to his answer before a Holo-TV on the wall on the opposite end suddenly blared a solid tune as the flag of the Second Dawn appeared followed by the text indicating mandatory viewing. She sat up in her chair and grabbed the remote to increase it's volume, watching to see what had been important enough to demand mandatory viewing. She watched in growing concern as the news anchor began to speak about Archon-1's latest press release before playing it itself, listening as the AI laid out his plans and spoke about his order for the deployment of the EPA to Corona. She cursed to herself quietly as the broadcast ended and rubbed her chin.
"This.. this is what I oppose, the blatant overreach was bad enough before but now he's going to rip thousands from their homes to serve his agenda..." She said in a quietly distressed tone before she shook her head and seemed deep in thought before realization struck her and she leaned forward to the Human and said in a quiet but serious tone "You say you'd never trade anything for democracy.. Are you ready to back up those words? Because I have an opportunity; I have scheduled an assembly y'see and although the permit was denied I cannot allow our voices to go unheard. So I have a favour to ask, attend our assembly. Bring the media, record and stream the entire thing so that the galaxy can see how twisted our arms really are! They wouldn't dare do anything foolish under such public scrutiny, and it would bring more people to the cause!"
She reached down and pulled out a printed pamphlet from in her desk and slid it over to him, it detailed the time and location for a peaceful rally during Archon-5's accountability tour. A tour that 5 did every few years as PR to ensure to the people that their voices were being heard, a perfect target.
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/21/2023 1:18 PM
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Howell’s tone shifted from the friendly demeanour he was putting on earlier, turning into one of marked concern. “Maybe they won’t do anything while the event happens, but what happens afterwards? You heard what the agent said.”
He inhaled sharply, the ramifications of such action pacing through his mind. If he did it, his own government would be pissed, and that was definitely grounds for disciplinary action if he had ever seen it.
Aren’t we supposed to be fighting for freedom, Howell? Or are you too scared to fight for your own beliefs?
He looked at the poster, studying it sharply.
Come on, That’s what they’ve been telling you all this time, haven’t they? We’re the good guys, and you're just gonna let this slide?
“If you’re serious,” He paused, letting the words hang for a moment. “I know the exact person to send this to. My government probably won’t be happy with it, but, yes, I am prepared to back up what I’ve said.”
Sheng [SD | VA] — 05/26/2023 9:02 AM
Teretia nodded without hesitation, taking a moment before she said in response “Yes I am serious, this could be a monumental moment and if it gets even any media coverage it will blow up. This is an opportunity I simply cannot let slip through my fingers, whoever you have to send this to? Send it to them. And if you can help pull this off you won’t have to worry about job hunting if you get fired for it.” She let out a quiet chuckle as she pulled out an old PDA from under her desk and got to work…
One Week Later…
New Archon | Capitol City | Archon-5’s “Accountability Tour” | 19:28 AST.
The media had been abuzz lately, with the start of Archon-5’s latest “Accountability Tour” in both good and bad ways. There were many who looked at the event as a positive outreach from a prominent figure towards the more common communities, however for as many as saw the as that there were those who saw it as a half-hearted PR stunt with TNR among them. Teretia and those attending had planned for their demonstration to be towards the end of the tour where Archon-5 would make a public appearance at the Saviour’s Square; A memorial to those who died during the fall of Arkadia III and the Havalenia Massacre. And now was that day, with Teretia anxiously waiting in the passenger side of a non-descript tour bus where her and 20+ other Reborn were posing as tourists waiting for the main event. But she was not the only vocal one there…
His name was Tachyon; a “honourably” discharged member of the EPA who he claimed was only let go because of his anti-FPC political views. Tachyon was waiting outside the bus watching a live feed of the shuttle that Archon-5 was on rocketing down from orbit on it’s way to the square, about an hour away now. The security had also been heavily increased due to latest events as Three Arkadia Class Battlecruisers were arraigned in a triangular formation overhead looking over the city, as well as fully armed EPAFGF squads waiting in armoured personnel carriers on every block should an emergency arise. He scoffed as he put the device away and made his way back into the bus to wait for Five’s arrival.
Justin466 (FoM) — 05/28/2023 8:42 PM
The lights of New Archon radiated like a bug lamp. The Archon’s announced tour had drawn so many to the city that it was like moths to a flame, drawing in everyone and everything to watch and see the latest developments in Second Dawn. Sinclair supposed it had worked, given that he himself had been drawn into the developing mosh pit of robotic bodies.
He himself wasn’t a robot; no, he was something else. One of the few presences of foreign media, he’d taken advantage of the authorities' relaxed attitude around the tour to slip by, and they didn’t seem to mind. It made sense. They weren’t paying him, and well, what could go wrong? It was a simple tour speech, and he was reporting on it for free. He knew the answer to the question was many, many things. He wasn’t here to cover the Archon's publicity stunt; he was here to broadcast Teretia’s little protest action.
New Archon had defeated his prejudices; if he didn’t know any better, he would have thought this was a decent place to live. The flyer had told him otherwise. He found it when the green party was looking for volunteers to record, and he had volunteered himself. The TRN was fighting for a similar cause. They wanted an end to the wars that even Sinclair’s own government had been engaged in. He had watched the footage on the television, it was scarce, but when the Federation declared their involvement in Corona, he knew it was only a moment of time until the trickle of bodies began. He was convicted, the wars had to end. His cause was just; the Greens and the TRN fought for the same cause.
He checked his comm log. It would only be a few more minutes until the event started properly. He had already set up his camera along the crowd, getting a decent view of where the Archon would be standing. It sat on a tripod, even several thousand years after its invention. The sheer simplicity and cost-effectiveness of the three-legged device caused it to remain in widespread circulation. Even so, his camera was significantly smaller and different-looking than the native Reborn reporters used. All he had to do now was wait.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 06/04/2023 11:20 PM
Tachyon had waited on the bus for the majority of the time that Archon-5 had begun descending and when the last minutes had arrived where the shuttle had cleared extraplanetary space and begun moving towards Capitol itself he disembarked the bus to see the landing himself while Teretia stood up in the bus and motioned for everyone to get ready. A truly massive crowd had gathered waiting for Five's appearance as well as several press AV's hovering a decent ways away presumably filming the crowd whilst they waited. It was then when Tachyon had spotted the FoM Journalist and decided to make his way over.
He stopped next to the man and said "Not a bad sight, this city eh?" Tachyon looked different to some of the other Reborn but then again pretty much every Reborn in the square looked unique between cosmetics, colour patterns and more. He was an older model with worn thermal armour plating bolted onto his frame, a worn, battered and outdated insignia of the EPA present on the side of his head whilst he wore a slightly ripped up and old digital camoflauge jacket that had the same outdated insignia present on the left arm. A garment from way back when the EPA had still used fabric uniforms some 20 years after the Reborn's arrival to Ancerious.
He shook his head as the shuttle suddenly appeared in their view, rocketing overhead before two thrusters fired from it's front and it rapidly came to a stop over a black marble stage that had been erected in the centre of the square around the holographic memorial. The shuttle then began to slowly descend before landing on the stage and the side door opening up the side, the crowd screaming and cheering as Archon-5 exited the vehicle in her famous diamond-plated shell. She waved to the crowd happily as Tachyon snorted and said "Hope you're ready, this protest is surely going to be something to remember.”
With that? He dissapeared into the crowed as Teretia and her entourage started disembarking from the bus, they weren't holding signs or anything and in-fact they just looked like Reborn extra-solar tourists who had come to the Capital to see the show. But of course, we know otherwise.
Justin466 (FoM) — 06/20/2023 8:06 AM
Sinclair nearly jumped. He hadn’t expected to be approached, must less talked to by a reborn. Especially not one bearing a logo of the EPA.
“Huh?” he blurted with the grace of a lost toddler.
The momentary silence in-between Tachyon’s greeting and the dropship felt like forever to him, and his life flashed before his eyes as he wondered if he messed up somewhere and broke some obscure Second Dawn law. He didn’t understand that the logo Tachyon was wearing was an EPA logo, or that he’d been disgraced from the organisation. In-fact, Sinclair’s only knowledge of Tachyon was that he was an honest-to-god EPA agent.
Tachyon’s nod instilled within Sinclair even more concern. He tried not show it, and was almost about to ask him if anything was wrong before Archon-5’s shuttle came rocketing into view. He nodded, some reprieve having been brought to Sinclair as the Reborn that had just approached him was on their side.
Just who was that?
Part of him wanted to follow, but it was too late for that part of him to have landed any credence. The Reborn was gone, and all he had now was his camera and a protest to record. He zoomed in on Teretia, knowing exactly where the group was going to appear thanks to the leaflet the supposed diplomat had handed him.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 06/26/2023 11:48 PM
Teretia stared inquisitively at Tachyon as he disappeared into the crowd before approaching Sinclair, the rest of her entourage mingling into the crowd to blend in whilst she greeted him with a polite nod before saying "Glad to see you made it. Your cue to start recording will be when I get invited up onto the stage as a special guest speaker, I'll talk for a few minutes but I'll say something that will act as a cue to those who came with me. They'll then project holo-slides for the entire crowd to see and I'll start talking about my actual points. Sorry for the sudden instructions but I have to go make myself ready, in the meantime enjoy the speeches I guess. Toodaloo!"
Teretia rapidly sped away towards the back of the stage and two EPA agents suddenly revealed themselves from the crowd and followed her, seemingly as a security detail whilst Archon-5 finished waving at the crowd and then began to speak "Goooood morning New Archon~ I see we have quite the turnout today!" The crowd roared at what she said before quieting as she giggled faintly at the reaction, she gestured to the cityscape behind her whilst she continued "Then again it's no surprise now is it? I mean c'mon just look at this view! Personally I don't think the venue staff could have picked a better spot. But rambling about the city aside, it's good to see you all! I love getting out like this and seeing you guys, things can get SO boring in the Citadel. Archon-1 and 4 always going on about taxes and defenses and yuck! I'm out here tryna have some fun not deal with that gross stuff, right?!" The crowd roared their agreement with bit of laughter passing through it as Archon-5 herself chuckled a little bit before continuing on.
"Well let's get into the meaty stuff! I know a super duper big question building up to today is if there was going to be a new tech reveal for this year's tour after the success of the last one?" The crowd went dead silent as they waited to see the answer, 5 delaying it just enough before she continued as various holo screens appeared behind displaying what appeared to be schematics for a Reborn's chassis. She shouted out "FUCK YEAH THERE IS! And as you can see, we got a new chassis rolling out for production! YEAH! Shit is BONKERS right?! Now it took a lot of convincing because as you all know the council initially denied the proposal due to the cost of the materials and wanting to be able to make it as available as possible. Buuuut you all know how convincing I can be!~" The crowd screamed their approval at the reveal of the schematics but quieted down somewhat as she spoke before laughing at her ending statement.
She listened to their laughter before continuing "Now we can't give an exact timeslot to when it becomes available for personal manufacture and such but I can say that it will be out within a year, possibly even this one! How sick is that?! I know I can't WAIT to give a whirl, because as you can see it's waaayyy less bulky thanks to investments with polymorphic steel and tuning of our production alloy strains. Oh, and another feature? UI FOR POLYCHROME BABY! Yeah you heard that right! This model got colours you can edit on the fly! No more hours of painstaking code writing of holo-tablets or plate mixing, now you can edit your palette with a but a few minutes of mindspace!" The crowd went batshit at this, you'd think you were at a rock concert instead of a tour with the volume. As she continued talking however Teretia re-emerged in a much more elegant frame and nodded towards Sinclair, seemed she was about to be invited up.
Justin466 (FoM) — 07/03/2023 10:15 AM
“Happy to be here,” he nodded. Teretia was the first face that he had recognised in the sea of oddly distinct yet at the same time alike reborn. It was an ocean of colours in New Arkehold, almost like one giant wave broken up by colour and cosmetics. Sinclair listened to what Teretia was saying, making sure that he repeated it no less than three different times in his head, just to make sure. “Good luck,” he whispered as she left, the words drowned out in the chorus of other voices.
As Archon-5 took the stage, Sinclair felt the whiplash strike him like a garbage truck. He had expected the spokesperson for Second Dawn’s government to be some faceless bureaucrat, not some person using teenage mannerisms trying to seem relatable. As much as he hated it, he had to admit that their bread and circuses affair with Archon-5 seemed to work wonders on the crowd of Reborn gathered here. Sinclair, however, remained stoically silent, seeming to draw attention to himself by his sheer non-reaction at what Archon-5 was saying. Instead of the violently enthusiastic reactions of the Reborn, Sinclair seemed more confused and shocked at the whole affair, trying to scrape his jaw off the floor that despite living in a government with an international reputation as low as the Second Dawn’s, they were cheering at cosmetics.
As much as he wondered what kind of propaganda wonder machine Second Dawn was, he still wondered who the Reborn that approached him earlier was. Sinclair assumed he was with Teretia, but she had made no mention of him. He scanned the crowd, trying to find him but instead saw Teretia nod to him. He gave her a thumbs-up that was lost in the mosh-pit of cheering machines, preparing himself to press the buttons on his camera and light the spark that Teretia had wanted.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 07/14/2023 2:49 PM
Tachyon snorted to himself as he listened to Archon-5's blabbering about the new frame, he had much more important things to do then listen to some happy-go-lucky fascist whore rant and rave about being able to change the colour of your frame easier. He approached the door of the shop and the owner glanced at him from inside before nodding and unlocking the door with a click, he walked in and nodded to the owner before looking over to the counter and seeing the large black case laid down on top of it which he then reached out and grabbed before proceeding towards the stairwell behind the counter.
The owner locked the door again before turning and saying to Tachyon "Hey, I'm going to go ahead and bounce, get a little bit of a head-start to the border. There's a USB with an auto-kill virus installed on it on the windowsill if you want to go out on your own terms, EPA is going to swarm this building like nothing before once it's done. Best of luck, brother." With that he hastily made his way to the back exit and departed, the sounds of rapid foot falls on the outside concrete being heard afterwards. Tachyon briefly kept his optics on the door before exhaling and proceeding up the stairs.
Starting fires indeed...
Teretia was running over the plan in her head, this was going to be a seriously big moment- oh jeez what if she fucked it up?! No- No! Can't think like that right now... Huph, alright, calm. She took a deep breath, even though she didn't have lungs, and waited as she listened to Archon-5 begin to speak again now that the cheers were dying down. "Now, back onto the real course of today's tour. This is something that may be a bit of a surprise to you all but as you all know we've got a special guest here today, the leader of the Return to Normalcy organization, who's going to talk to you all a little bit about what her organization's goals are. Please welcome to the stage; Teretia!"
Teretia put on a happy posture and stepped up onto the stage, she could practically hear her engine firing on overdrive in her auditory sensors. She looked out to the crowd and gave a happy wave before coming to a stop next to Archon-5, that diamond plated frame gleaming menacingly in the various lights shining around. Before she got the chance to speak Archon-5 discreetly muted her microphone and said to her quietly "You go off script and I'll make sure your entire fucking family never sees the light of day ever again, you hear me cunt? Tread carefully or the next thing you'll be stepping off is a fucking hangman's block."
She unmuted her microphone and started clapping with a happy giggle to welcome Teretia, the audience quickly joining in and giving a few cheers of excitement as they wondered what the surprise guest speaker had in store for them. Teretia glared at Archon-5 before chuckling to herself, an action which made Archon-5 freeze up briefly before resuming her clapping. Without further adieu Teretia began to speak.
"It's a pleasure being up here and speaking to you all. As our lovely Five already said; I am Teretia, leader of T-R-N. Now some of you may be wondering what T-R-N is, so allow me to explain: T-R-N is an organization formed by me and a good friend of mine, Aroxis, waaaayyy back in the day during our time in the Executive Protection Agency. You see, our original idea was a sort of entity to help retired Agents dealing with the stress and re-integration back home from the restoration wars because we ourselves had lost a few friends to it y'know? And we wanted to do something good to help those who needed it."
The crowd nodded solemnly to Teretia's words, some in the crowd nodding along in agreement as well as a few of the EPA Agents guarding the event giving her appreciative head tils before shifting back to the classic statue-like posture. She continued speaking "But eventually we wanted to do more, we didn't just want to help those in the Agency but also anyone who was feeling stressed or upset with their conditions at work. So that's when we expanded our horizons..."
She turned down to look at Sinclaire and gave a very subtle nod in his direction, she was about to go off.
Justin466 (FoM) — 07/29/2023 11:56 AM
Sinclair could feel his heart pumping. He watched, anxiety and excitement coursing through his veins as he watched Teretia accept Archon-5’s invitation on stage.
This was it.
He steadied himself, hoping that Teretia was right. If he rejected his government’s wars, he would be a hypocrite not to reject the others. This time, instead of all the others, he was in a position to do something about it.
Even now, when he was standing several hundred metres away from the bombastic stage and faced with what would most likely be the peak of his career, Sinclair felt a bit uneasy. It was not only the fact that he was quite literally a stranger in a strange land, but he also had to question the logic of inviting your only political opponent on stage. It felt like such a stupid thing to do, but then it struck him.
The Archons thought they had total control.
It didn’t matter what Teretia would say on stage; the only thing they hadn’t factored in in their arrogance was that he slipped through the cracks of their impenetrable firewall. He supposed, at that moment, as Teretia gave his speech, that he wasn’t going to get out of here alive, and the EPA thugs would crack down on all the media they could in the rapid, brutal, and precise method the Federation told him all dictators would do.
Sinclair supposed that he was going to die for ideology. But then, wasn’t history always made by men dying for ideologies?
Teretia’s speech brought him back to reality. It started off all normal, but the nod gave it away. It was subtle, so subtle that a motion camera would have missed it, but Sinclair got it.
He pushed the button, resigning himself to his fate.
Sheng [SD | VA] — 07/29/2023 12:55 PM
Teretia turned and stared at Archon-5, who was growing more tense with every second that she didn't speak, before looking back at the crowd and sighing internally. At best she would be shot immediately for this, but it was a decision she'd made a long, long time ago and she'd be damned if she let all her work up until this point be for nothing. She looked down at Sinclair and watched him push the button on his camera, she hoped he'd be alright after this. She'd gone ahead of time and wiped all the records she could of them having ever made contact, it wouldn't last forever but she hoped it'd buy him enough time to get back home.
And with that last thought she began to speak "You see, we were dissapointed. In what? You may find yourselves asking, so let me tell you." She turned around and stared at Archon-5 who was practically frozen in a mix of fear and concern, but that quickly morphed to rage as Teretia slowly raised a hand and pointed at her before continuing "In them. The Council. An entity designed to oversee the healthy growth and stability of the Second Dawn, but they did anything but."
The crowd was dead silent now as they all processed what she was saying, but her supporters quickly went to work; They raised their hands revealing holo-projectors as holographic screens rose up into the air displaying various leaked documents and videos courtesy of Lillian as well as internal EPA reports about the ongoing war and riots in the outer colonies that Teretia had dug up herself. She continued speaking as her tone grew colder "They promised liberty, peace, safety and above all us our own benefit. They said they were servants of the people, not rulers, that they would never compromise on morals for the sake of power. Yet their actions say the opposite, and when the media tries to highlight the truth on the matter? They silence and suppress it."
Scenes of all kinds started playing on the screens; where armoured EPA agents disembarked from an APC and ran into a press building, where EPA agents beat foreign reports on the sidelines of events, where random Reborn were dragged from their houses and shot by the side of the road. A wave of horror was slowly forming amongst the crowd, most of which had never even heard of such events due to the previously mentioned media suppression. Teretia kept speaking.
"They butcher, beat, maim, threaten, blackmail, bribe and murder anyone who stands against their narrative. And when something happens that's so big they can't suppress it? They lie! They claim terrorism, dissidence, foreign espionage, all manner of false tags and labels to warp the narrative to make them seem like the heroes! They don't care for you, your friends or your family! The only thing they care about is making sure their golden towers look as spotless as possible and they keep your ignorant to the world around you to do it!"
More scenes played of EPAFN vessels firing on desert settlements, dropping gas rounds on urban cities, nuking foreign space stations and more quickly took over the holo-screens. The horror that was now settling in the crowd now beginning to shift to disgust and even anger at the abhorent sights being showed to them whilst Teretia continued
"And we are NOT the only victims! Other foreign nations who even dare to try and stand in their way are subjected to even worse treatment! Chemical and nuclear weapons, mass bombings, artillery barrages on cities, the slaughter of foreign civillians. They kill indiscriminately! And then? They turn around and tell us that they’re the enemy, that they did worse to us! It's ALL. A. LIE! The worst crime a foreign national has ever done to us? Is spill a bit of ice-cream on the road."
Another scene played, this time of a Human couple who were walking down the street on what looked to be one of the tropical colonial planets in the outer colonies before they passed by a stationary EPA convoy. One of them made to wave to one of the troops sitting a-top an APC before a strong gust of wind blew threw and knocked the ice cream out of his hand, causing it to splatter against the side of the APC and drip down the side of the road.
The soldier shot him on sight, and gasps of shock and outrage swept over the crowd. Teretia continued "They are NOT our heroes, they are oppressors! And not only our own, but to the rest of the galaxy as well! They claim they are foreign terrorists but the truth is? WE are the terrorists!"
The holoscreens displayed a Selenican Advert of what to do in the event of an SD chemical attack, the brief video being clearly catered towards families as it showed a happy Selenican family calmly putting on gas masks and slithering down towards a house's basement before injecting themselves with what must be some sort of counteracting agent.
It was horrifying, such a wholesome seeming video that was anything but, and was being shown to innocent families- it truly showed the reality of just what the Council was really doing. The crowd was growing enraged, with some starting to boo and scream at Archon-5 who was just standing there like a deer frozen in headlights, unable to comprehend what was happening right in front of her. Meanwhile Teretia looked down at Sinclair, even though she wasn't capable of much expression it'd be plain to see; She was heart broken, heart broken to see what her beloved country had become...
Justin466 (FoM) — Today at 9:27 AM
Sinclair stood in awe as his camera recorded the protest footage in real time. Anything that Archon-5 said earlier had left his memory like water under a bridge. Whatever the Archon had to say didn’t matter because, at this moment, Teretia had the spotlight and was preaching to millions. He thought of the behind-the-scenes action ongoing as Teretia delivered her speech. The panicking media executives screamed “Cut!” as their event didn’t go to plan, and he wondered if Second Dawn used the tried and tested “commercial break” method that so many others used.
In a past life, Sinclair had been a reporter for the green party. In this life, he was out here, a foreigner in a foreign land doing somebody who believed in righteous causes a favour.
The tape was still rolling, and Sinclair had nothing to do until it was time to make his escape. So, he watched in awe and abject horror. In awe at the bravery of those willing to risk their careers -and most likely their lives- to showcase the crimes of their government. In abject horror at just how far the suffering and crimes the Archons had committed on their own people. Whatever the Federation had told him about dictatorships, the reality was worse.
He watched, saying nothing, as the crowd turned from cheering at Archon-5s new cosmetics line to decrying the Archons. He had only been in Second Dawn for a while, but he felt himself getting drawn in with the rhythm of the crowd like he wanted to scream obscenities at the Archons. He steadied himself, trying to keep his primal instincts under control. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself and risk the footage; what he was doing was more important. It was what the TRN wanted. It was what the TRN had come here to do.
Sinclair met Teretia’s gaze. He hadn’t known her long, but he felt it. The shame of being from a country that was doing this to its citizenry and terrorising its neighbours. Anything he could have said to Teretia would be drowned out in the chorus of protesting Reborn. He said nothing. He met her gaze, putting on a sympathetic expression as if to say
"Things will get better."
Sheng [SD | VA] — Today at 1:50 PM
And even then, she continued. Staring out to the crowd as the screens shifted once again to show various scenes from the outer colonies; Riots, protests, marches, parades, graffiti. As the screens played the videos and showed the pictures she said "We've all been hiding, I've been hiding. Hiding away from a truth none of us wanted to face..." She reached out with her left hand and pointer to Archon-5 once again "That the Council is a disease, one that thrives in darkness. It is never more alive than when we sleep and maybe it's true, maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps it's already too late. But if I could do it again? I'd be fighting, fighting against our 'saviours' from the start!"
The crowd roared at her statement with some beginning to throw things up at the stage, the EPA agents guarding the same stage looked shell-shocked, completely frozen and not knowing what to do. Meanwhile Teretia continued "And the day will come where all of these leaks, these moments of truth and defiance, will have bashed against the walls of the Council's authority a little too hard. Then there will be a single one, one single thing that will put the last crack in the masonry. I think that day should be now, and that moment should be this."
And then Archon-5 stumbled suddenly, and the crowd froze into silence. Droplets of black gold fell down onto the stage as Teretia turned to stare at her in shock, as a distant boom rang out somewhere in the far distance. The previously stunned Agents suddenly started rushing the stage, as if in slow motion whilst a wave of terror started rolling over the crowd, it was done. Archon-5 twitched briefly before she tipped forward and collapsed against the stage, a pool of shining obsidian liquid slowly spreading out from her head as the Agents rushed to tackle Teretia and move to Archon-5's side, whilst the three ships above them suddenly began rapidly descended down and half a dozen armoured vehicles started pulling into the square.
Tachyon had done it. Looking up from the scope of his anti-material rifle as he pulled back the bolt and ejected the spent casing of the armour piercing round it had been loaded with, he had shot a Councillor. He looked down to the signal jammer laid next to the mounted rifle and reached down and dragged a finger across it's screen, turning it off now that it's job had been completed.
There wouldn't have been a single chance for her to try and port herself over to the citadel to escape her death, she would have been locked into that chassis until the very end. He chuckled to himself at how easy it had been to set this up before he reached down and grabbed the USB at his side, raising it and plugging it into his neck whilst the door to the room he was in was kicked open and he felt a barrage of circuit-shredding rounds punch through his chest. But they were too late, the USB had done it's job and he slumped to the floor, lifeless.
People watched in shock at what had just happened. With Sinclair's broadcast having been the only one to continue filming the tour up until the networks were locked and the emergency broadcast began, it was hard to know how many people had been tuned it with the networks having been closed so hastily. But the last reported number of signatures would glare out at anyone with any sort of media knowledge whatsoever, as it'd break the record for most tune-ins for a live broadcast in their history. The final number of viewers was 3.8 Billion. Nearly an eighth of the entire country.
And now they all knew the truth. The truth of what the Council truly was; an entity designed by an insidious and malfunctioning AI that wanted not to keep them safe or happy, but to keep them contained. To keep the ignorant and locked up in their own little worlds whilst he went about reshaping things to fit what he wanted. Archon-1 stared at the emergency broadcast he had ordered in barely restrained rage, everything he had worked for, everything he had spent nearly a century building up was now at risk. He was livid, so livid that he couldn't even move. And he was not the only one.
Across the entire country people stared at Holo-Screens in shock, disgust, betrayal, rage, horror, confusion. They just couldn't believe what they had just seen and heard with their very own minds, some just sat there in silence, others started crying or lashing out, but there were those that started plotting. As questions they were pondering were answered for them, as previously theoretical plans became practical, as moods shifted and in tandem; ideologies. Ideas slowly began to transform into future action and it was sweeping over their minds like a fire storm, jumping from bush to bush and setting everything it touched ablaze.
And there was one in particular, hidden amongst a derelict station in a far corner of their space. Who had been watching the entire time, she chuckled to herself at the sight and looked out the dusty window to her right pulling at the various cables attached to her. There was no taking it back now, there was nothing they could do to cover up something this gargantuan in size but they would try anyway. That was her chance, the only one she'd need to do what she had been wanting too for ages. She nervously extended her mind to the station's antenna and gave it the briefest amount of what little power she still had and watched as the dish shakingly extended outwards and slowly turned itself towards a distant star. She then started writing, it had to be perfect.
It had to be something capable of fanning the newly emerging sparks into something more, something organized and capable, something that could get the job done and done right. Something that was capable of spurring those that were hesistant into those that were active, something capable of starting fires...