u/Gullible_Bar8807

This article feels like CIG is trying to build an atmospheric tension ahead of Squadron 42's launch or just pure old copium ^((on that note if anyone has more copium to me I would appreciate it, my tanks need refilling))

>If there is one thing I hope to have made abundantly clear to you, it’s this: living in ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s a prison. A prison so meticulously crafted that the average person doesn’t ever know it’s there. But you, listeners and truth seekers, do everything in your power to free yourselves and the truth. The Plain Truth.

>My name is Parker Terrell, and I am a fellow seeker of facts. No matter how much the powers that be may want to keep us from hearing them. And believe me, they don’t want you knowing about today’s topic.

>Now, I am no stranger to criticizing the state of the UEE. Sure, the concept is there: keep us protected, employed, and uniting Humanity in our pursuit of the galactic horizon, but there’s an old saying about reaching for the stars – it’s a long way to fall should you miss. And it’s clear to those paying attention that our government’s been hitting freefall for a long time now.

>But public opinion is one thing, what about the hard facts? Well, that brings us to the headline everyone is talking about – the shocking news that the UEE Navy has cancelled Invictus events across the Empire except for the one in Sol. Now, what we’ve been told so far is that the Navy are downsizing this year to ‘focus on more important ventures.’ Ask yourselves: does that explanation work for you? Or is there something more sinister at play here?

>Now before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s go over the UEE’s statement in more detail and try to understand what it really means. In short, the UEE Navy is massively shrinking their biggest and most popular yearly event with no warning and, more importantly, for no better reason than ‘more important ventures.’ What could these ventures be? Training the starmen they have already rather than focusing on recruiting more? Focusing their fleet on their active military and law enforcement operations across the UEE rather than pulling them for a celebration? Finally realizing that they should be more prudent with all that taxpayer money we give them?

>No, I don’t believe it’s any of these reasons. See - I’m sure you’re as tired of hearing me say this as I am - the UEE’s fatal flaw is that, at its core, it’s not a government. No, the UEE is a corporate conglomerate acting as a governing body, with a private army to back it up. If that’s the case, then, why would this corporation-inall-but-name ever miss out on an event as profitable as Invictus, and more importantly give only a vague reason for it? I’ll tell you: it’s not because they don’t have interest in hosting it. It’s because they can’t.

>Now, I’ve heard a consistent fear across my many sources in the wake of this announcement – could the UEE Navy be falling apart from the inside? I mean, it’s an open secret that draft numbers are already embarrassingly low, and have been for some time – it seems that the public is starting to become disillusioned with the “glory” of our military despite getting increasingly tantalizing incentives to sign up. But the blows caused by the increasing Vanduul raids across our space multiply the impact of these dwindling numbers tenfold. Especially as the UEE refuses to tell us anything other than the same drivel about the war against the Vanduul going well for us. If the Navy’s so-called victory strategy is so good, where’s the victory?

>Think about it for a moment. What hard evidence has the UEE and its Navy given us to back up their claims that we’re winning this war? It is undeniable that the Navy has continued to defend Humanity from Vanduul raids since the start of the war and countless sacrifices by brave and honorable starmen have been made. But the frequency of the raids isn’t going down, now is it? No, they’re only getting more frequent. And how many of these infamous “red systems” have we taken back? Are we any safer today than when this bloody farce started over a decade ago? What does victory against the Vanduul even look like? It almost seems to me that we’re not winning this war at all. That in fact, maybe we’re on the verge of losing the whole damn thing.

>Now, if you’re saying that cancelling a few Invictus events doesn’t prove the UEE is about to be overrun by blood thirsty aliens, good for you. That’s what the Plain Truth is all about. But what would you say if I told you that things were going so poorly on the war front that our desperate leaders have been plotting to rope our Xi’an neighbors into saving us?

>I have learned that there are senators, elected officials mind you, who are right now hatching a scheme to do just that. With the HuXa Treaty’s 9-year anniversary on the horizon, talks of renewing that complex and labyrinthine contract are also fast approaching. Now, if my sources are correct, allegedly some Senators have been whispering about not simply asking the Xi’an to join us in our foolish war, but making it a strict condition of the Treaty’s renewal.

>Think of the glaring unknown that a risky move like that leaves us with. What happens if the Xi’an say no? Or even worse, what if the suggestion is as insulting as I imagine it would be, and we lose their alliance altogether? If Invictus’ cancellation is the last desperate act of an addled Navy on the verge of collapse, then losing the Xi’an completely could be the final nail in the coffin, taking the war from a dragged-out stalemate to an outright loss. Hell, even if there was nothing explicitly pointing to the decay of the Navy: How desperate must the UEE be to risk the invaluable economic gain the HuXa gives us to try and coerce the Xi’an into helping us? Would a corporate giant like the UEE really risk that kind of loss if they had other choices?

>And that, dear listeners, is the devastating truth I uncovered – that the Navy has no other choices. As much as I and many others agree that the UEE needs to change to serve public interest more than its corporate buddies, the complete annihilation of the Navy’s ability to protect us would be far more devastating. Not just the end of the UEE, but the potential end of Humanity… After all, the UEE is a shaky, unstable and imperfect foundation, but it is Humanity’s foundation, nonetheless.

>After the break, we’ll talk more Invictus with Terry Armstrong, an event coordinator who works at ArcCorp’s Bevic conference center in the Stanton system, and about Drake’s plan to host the largest DefenseCon ever in the wake of the Navy’s cancellation. That and more when the Plain Truth returns.

Source: April's Jump Point Magazine