"Premier, it’s a pleasure, or it would be if I came with better lay of the land. We haven’t made contact since I resigned myself from the Direktor’s chair – Frei is a much better man for the grand picture, bullseye-dodging, runabout paperwork.

I’ll be flat with you, Comrade Premier. The Syndics and the Sirius Coalition aren’t natural partners. They’re results of one another. The first state-Unions were founded in Rheinland by state edict, to expressly prevent the events of today. To prevent polarisation becoming so severe in Rheinland that a second Alliance-Coalition war would be played out in our lifetimes. Over time, the unions were eroded. Obviously, they did not succeed – or neither of us would be living the lives we do now."


Weiss leans in towards the screen. His expression is dour, yet serious. He’s all acute angles and obtuse stress lines under that tattered workman's jacket of his. You wonder what the destruction of the Landwirtrechbewegung, even a year after, has done to Solomon; the architect of the Unioner – LWB front, the protege of Karl Furgen who had realised in his lifetime what the Arbeitergewerkschaft of seven years ago had not. True unity between the LWB and the Unioners. It had helped that the LWB was now only a third of the size, but that was not what history would remember. Solomon was a man who had won his crusade, and was now enjoying his retirement, hoping that he’d be in the ground before Rheinland undid his achievements.


"The Unioners are akin to the Stuttgart Creek Yarrier. I doubt you know of the bird – they prey upon the introduced rats and Gimeni larvae that despoil the Jillies in spring. Like the Yarrier, they used to be a symbol of the old ways – before Synth foods despoiled my home planet and galvanised the LWB in one last charge to stop them. Stuttgart is undergoing forced climate change; xenobiologists projected that all Stuttgart harriers would have died, completely, as their eggs cannot be fertilized in warm temperatures. Yet they live. Generations are still being born, and nobody knows why.


The Yarrier is territorial. They confine themselves to a narrow range, whereupon generations after generations are born to the same colonies. They defend their kin, and are vicious when any animal, even humans, disturb their nest. They’re not much bigger than the cup of my hands, Premier, but they’ll take the eyes out of a Synth burner workteam in several seconds. Synth foods regards them as pests, of course, and has tried to introduce tamer competitors – all have been wiped out. The Yarrier survives them all.

Leave Stuttgart to the Yarrier, Premier. The socialist resurgence in Rheinland won’t come from the Omegas, because it isn’t the Omegas who have chains to break and mouths to feed – it’s Rheinland. You can’t convince Rheinlanders to back you with an army of Muscovites, Han, Koreans, Arabs. They’re not going to listen to you.


Synth foods thought it could apply the same agricultural corporatism to every world in known space and as a consequence it’s completely destroyed the Sirian collective farming class. Do you want to be the synth foods of the left? That’s the question you must ask yourself when you shut interfere with the seasons. When you disarmed the scuttling charges that were the LWB’s last collective decision to cripple Darmstadt depot. "




"That station might seem unimportant and unsophisticated to the Coalition. It isn’t. It was the seat of the LWB’s resistance for decades. Control of the station symbolised unity between the land-holding families. We scuttled it to prevent in-fighting in the LWB’s last days. You repressurising the station is a statement, Coalition, like It or not, that the Coalition is in Rheinland to stay, damn the torpedoes and damn what any of your allies think except the almighty bosom of Anna Haich. It’s the rosetta stone to tell the sector who runs the southern Rheinland underworld – and Heinrich believes that’s her, right now, and she makes no bones about that she’s angling for the north."


"Here’s what your best damage control option is with the remaining LWB diaspora. You’re going to restore docking access with Darmstadt. It’ll still be your station, but there will be a mixed Unioner and Bundschuh LWB crew aboard, including strike fighters for Stuttgart Operations. I’ll make a press release promoting unity between the LWB and the Coalition. I’ll persuade the Unioners not to view what you’ve done here as an invasion by internationalist followers of the late Premier Warner, and prevent a war. Now I get that you might think you can roll in with a couple of carriers blaring Soyuz nerushimy respublik svobodnykh Splotila naveki velikaya koalitsiya, but Synth foods thought that, too. Remember the Yarrier, Premier. The Yarrier knew you when you were still a fighter jock, surveying Bering for contacts. That’s not a threat, it’s an observation. The Volksrevolution would burn like thermite in a barn dance."


"Mehmed. You’re a moderate in your fibre that you hoist the red flag with. You’re a pragmatist. I believe in those traits, that’s why I’m giving you as much Fairweather wind as I can. You’ve gotta’ de-escalate whilst saner heads are in the room."

"There's only so much I can do, and I've done it. The Coalition needs to make the final step."

“It’s not nationalism or populism as you’d understand it, Selim. It’s respect for origins. Ultimately Volvograd is interested in the concerns of volvograd. The Coalition was never a believer in bilateralism. I can tell that by the fact you commission the same size shoes for every conscript in your service.”

“The difference between the LWB that moved in with your own movement is that the LWB in the Union remains itself. It wasn’t annexed into the civilian or military arms of the Coalition but still exists autonomously.”

“Your people outlawed religion, Selim. You don’t celebrate Christmas. You regulate everything from their nutritional intake to what clothes they can wear. What’s the use of socialism if you’re going to make everyone the same? What we’ve all been fighting for here for the freedom for people to choose their own lives – that’s the message of socialism, that’s the point. To trust people to even make the bad decisions and give them the tools to survive themselves.”

“You can tar us with a nationalist brush, but it won’t stick. We’re syndicalists, not totalitarians. We don't even have a uniformed military, just volunteer brigades from the Unioner cells, crewing ships flown with donated resources. We’ll remain that way till the end.”

“I reckon I can keep a conflict from breaking out, I’ve still got some social capital around here. But eventually we’re all going to have to learn to live with one another or come to arms. It might surprise you but your people had a lot of influence in the LWB over here, Selim. You took a pickaxe to that today.”

“Till the next crises.”

Weisse's eyes are disarranged. Discomposed. Distant.

“...You killed Hansel Garen? "


Undertoning. "Sheisse. There were conspiracy theories from the extremists, but nobody sane would..."

The farmer fixes Keller as if he was watching his own barn burning.

""Do not go public with that statement. That's the nuke to the heart that could set this all off."

"Christ, there's no telling where it'd end, Keller."