To: Oberst Anika Haupt of the VWA From: Oberstarbeiter Morgan Koll Subject: Invitation to talks regarding the future of our relations.
Ms. Haupt.
A few days ago, we sadly had a rather unpleasant encounter between the two of our organizations. As we were coming forth to you in what would perhaps be our first attempt to establish relations between the two, we were rather met with great intolerance in communication, arrogance and an aggressive behavior and responses which brought nothing but more tension which ultimately led to the conflict we endured after you fired at one of our people, Gunda Riehl.
It is unfortunate, as I can assure you that the Unioners had no malicious intentions, apart from establishing contact and perhaps achieve a degree of cooperation between our two sides. Living evidence to that is your escort pilot, Ms.Feinen, which was left unhurt apart from any damage her ship would've received during the conflict. After things were stabilized I ordered a "hold fire" and simply let Ms. Feinen know that we did not intend to cause harm to the VWA. Furthermore I offered her our assistance against the Nomad threat you claimed in the nearby systems and sectors. Ms. Feinen claimed to be unable to join up as her ship had endured enough damage and would be easily put out of commission in a Nomad encounter.
Following such, we moved on to New Berlin, on the look-out for the Nomad threats only to see a fleet from the Military forces mobilized as if an incursion was about to happen. Following our patrol in New Berlin without encountering any nomadic entities, we returned to the system of Frankfurt where we were met by your paramilitary's wing. While we took our time to state that our intentions were nothing, your aktivists, Veronika Vann and her wingmen found it wise to engage in another skirmish, which resulted in a Pyrrhic victory on your side.
If you have any doubts on our claims, we still have recordings and visual evidence for that day. In either case, going through what I have written above, in a certain analytical perspective you may notice that:
- On the first encounter we engaged one another, a lose-lose situation.
- We could not cooperate for a joint effort to find and attack the Nomad threats, leaving it up to just the hands of the Military and the BDM. Another lose-lose situation.
- We once again failed to establish any relations but heavily arguing and retaliation on your side for the misunderstanding that had occurred prior to that, ending up in another skirmish. Again another lose-lose situation.
Ms. Haupt, not only is such unfortunate, but it is something that is being a set back in the fight for the greater good of Rheinland and it's people. Hence why we are reaching out to you in order to establish communication, the lack of which has already brought harm to both of us, as well as to start discussion towards cessation of hostilities between our organizations and perhaps find some degree of mutual cooperation with one another which may replace lose-lose situations like this with win-win ones. Something which would only bring progress to our fight for a better future for Rheinland and it's people.
It is a common concern the fact that due to the Unioners having been represented by many different groups in the past, each with their own mistakes, rumors such as the Unioners collaborating with the Corsair empire, or the Unioners yielding to the the greed of piracy and so on began to circulate. All these past groups have now been cleansed, and the unioners are now united under one banner and one organization. As such we intend to uphold the true ideals and values for the greater good of Rheinland and its people as well as contribute our share in the war for a better future. We may be forsaken yet we are patriots, who will neither die nor live on our knees.
Of course I understand that right now you are probably filled with questions that you wish to have answered and clarified or wish to make your own statements for what you may propose or note, and for that we are willy to provide you answers and clarifications. Which shall make clear on what are our organizations to consider one another; Strangers, friends or foes?
We await your answer Oberst Haupt.
Regards,
Morgan Koll
Oberstarbeiter, Unioner Command
Transmission Ended
"If your heart is filled with faith, then you can't fear."
First of all, that's Doktor Haupt to you. I do not recall offering you any pleasantries, neither do I know you particularly well. Second, and more importantly... I am aware that your movement is trying to unite the Union under a new stance, and I do appreciate that, so excuse me for being a bit blunt here, but... Have you been living under a rock for the past year? Or did you really just try to make this look like we were the ones opening hostilities on you, even endangering Rheinland?
Let me give you my part of the picture, then, since you apparently are oblivious to the past, or at least seem to ignore it for the moment. The Unioners and the Bundschuh have been at odds for quite some time now, and it was not us, but rather your side that began these hostilities. In fact, it was a discussion between the then-dominant faction within the Unioner movement and one of my predecessors, that sparked a rather insolent response towards our tries at extending our hand in diplomacy - and after that your movement followed it up with immediate hostilities. Not only that, but your predecessors openly announced a great turkeyshoot, as Unioners and Corsairs alike allied against us. You might have noticed a slight reservations in the communications with the Hessians as well, the ones you have undoubtedly sent. Yeah, go figure how they liked Corsairs and Unioners allying.
Then, after all this, the first actual interaction between our movements, knowing the past that is behind all this, is your Miss Riehl appearing in the Taunusfeld, an area that has, for over a century now, been considered Bundschuh territory - spying and eavesdropping on our conversations. She then even resisted our order to leave the field, which, in my eyes, was a pretty generous offer, considering both the past and her attitude. Do you see how a pattern developing here? Because I do.
And not only that. No, it doesn't end there. Instead of 'cooperating' against the Nomads, as you put it, you hold us at gunpoint, in our space, our refuge in Rheinland, preventing us from doing our jobs and defending the homeland that you claim to love so much, because, and I quote, you wanted to 'talk about our relations'.
So, summing up, let me get this straight.
You ally with the corsairs.
You shoot us, hunt us down.
Then you vanish for a few months.
And when you resurface, your first move is to spy on our home.
Hold me at gunpoint.
Prevent us from fighting the Alien incursion.
And now you are blaming me for the relations going south.
You're interested in burying the hatchet? Fine. Stay out of Frankfurt, Munich and the Sigmas. Openly break with the Corsairs, for everyone to see. And after that, we will have a talk, about the future, relations, and peace.
So long,
Dr. Annika J. Haupt, Oberst and commanding officer of the Vereinigte Widerstandsarmee
To: The Bundschuh. Docktor A.Haupt. From: Armin Jansen. Subject: Your court.
Oberstarbeiter Morgan Koll is not at your disposal. This goes higher. I am the prime diplomatic contact for the entire Union administration. This as close as you come to the top.
Alright, doktor.
If I was to use one faction of the Bundschuh to judge the actions of another, you’d call me blunt. You’d say my comprehension of your organisation was insufficient. Do not believe we are any more centralised than you are - we may hold the strings but we cannot always predict which way the wind will blow the puppets. There is no great census as to how many of us there are. There is no metric we can quote. Individual groups under our flag may use a flag to fulfil whatever agenda they may personally hold. All I can negotiate with, all I can communicate, is organisational aims.
I, and the representatives I front, know naught about any relationship between the Corsairs and the Union - and even if I did - how would it diplomatically advantage me in… any way… to pretend such a thing existed in public? You have no proof of any relationship between the Corsairs and the present administration of the Union. None of our present cabinet positions are occupied by the tenants of that era. If you can find evidence of any Corsair Union interplay existing without our knowledge, please, present it to us so we can root out the culprits. However, until then you’d do well to drop that line of enquiry whilst you lack anything definitive.
We remained unaware of the Bund’s claim to the asteroid field - we don’t regard space as private property, only assets - but that doesn’t give us the authority select your property metric for you. What aspect of the field do you claim? The rocks? The aluminium particles? The vacuum between? Show us an ownership claim in no uncertain terms and we can hash out the details.
However we cannot, for reasons of practicality, abandon our trade connections to the Sigmas. I am a diplomat. I will take any peaceful workaround that exists, even if it comes to us paying instance-to-instance rent for our use of the asteroid belt - but until you can convince the Bundestag to tolerate Unioner freighters transiting the trade lanes or somehow move the location of the jump connections, you will continue to see Unioners transiting northern Frankfurt. You are discussing a field a light minute across. There is minimal risk of disruption - indeed, most of our logistics assets slip through the field without confronting a Bundschuh once. This is an acceptable risk to our assets. We already lose transports north of Frankfurt to the Maltese, to the Auxesians, to the Bounty Hunters Guild. You are just another error margin.
You have to understand, Bundschuh. We would prefer peace beacuse it is practical for organisations on the outside of the law not to cannibalise each other and do the job of a corrupt law enforcement for them. We do not like each other. If both of our political parties remained in the public sphere, we would be at opposite sides of the court and would often attempt to mitigate the decisions of the other. Wing Commander Riehl is a Unioner by birth, as are most. You are, to her, a peril. You advocate democracy, which we view as a failed system that leads only to civil war, anarchy, and excessive government regulation of business. You believe the Kansler is overtly autocratic, we believe he is insufficiently autocratic, and, worse, that his autocracy is misdirected. We have aristocrats no longer beholden to the delicate balance between the forces of the central market and the labour unions, but at ambition against each other, rather than the class system ascension process. He has emergency powers, but they are checksummed not by corporations invested in Rheinland economic expansion and domestic employment, but alien enterprises such as Interspace, Ageira, Synth Foods. We are a Liberty and GMG proxy and the people are dissatisfied with this fact - it is why piracy and terrorism are so rampant. It is why Rheinland has the lowest standard of living of any house in Sirius, whilst, five centuries ago under the empire, it had the highest.
Riehl views the Bundschuh as evidence of the corrupted nature of our house. We know your history - you appeared to protest against the Empire we loved, not to save it. From this thinking, there exist Unioners who believe that you are a symptom of Rheinland’s decay, not a cure for it. This is attitude which most Unioners share. But you are only one symptom - there are others which create far more anger than you.
So when you tell us to abandon Munich and the Sigmas, you are telling us to abandon the gains we have made. That is is impossible, unrealistic, improbable. We will not sacrifice centres of operation, indeed, a third of our entire organisation, because of one asteroid field - sweeping the boundaries of us, and the system we represent, back as far as Hamburg.
That is not going to happen within our lifetimes.
Gunda held you at gunpoint because you had attempted to detain her. That is not a marr against her conduct - Unioners are expected to resist arrest and coercion. She would have been punished if she had not. Unfortunately, an eye for an eye does not discourage anything - it encourages reprisal. So does demands over an organisation’s ability to enforce them.
We trust you recognise the benefit of the doubt whilst our losses are even. Of abandoning an eye for an eye. This is the perfect opportunity for both sides to ignore each other and go our separate ways. It is the intent of the present administration to avoid highfalutin rhetoric. There are no turkeys to be shot, and whilst you would doubtless love to undermine us there are subtler ways of doing so than damning the torpedoes.
This isn’t a request for you to compromise. It’s for you to show strength by placing old enmities aside. Construct it as a diplomatic victory - a sign that the divides that split Rheinland politics is not intractable. That is your intention, is it not? The Bundschuh have been searching for peace with the Federals for centuries - an in-road back into the proper arm of the government - to fight through legislation and not through bombed trade lanes and dead Kruger wage labourers who would have otherwise voted for you.
Show your movement that your cause is valid - show us. You believe Rheinland can become a functional democracy wherein all sides of the political spectra are represented - and many of us do not. Show partisans like Gunda Riehl, who believe that bodies, not negotiations, will decide the future of the people, that she is wrong. Convince the rhetoricians who yell that their causes exist in isolation - many of them in the Union - that their arguments are false. Give them pause. Give ground to take ground.
You have a golden opportunity to be the leader the Bundschuh deserves.
I have to admit that I like hearing from you. I don't like talking to people who have no say in anything, and it's good to know that despite our differences you at least consider us worth the attention of proper diplomats.
Your speech carries a lot of hidden accusations, even if I like that you're at least veiling them this time. Let me be clear on a few things, however.
The mistakes of the past are just as much the mistakes concerning you as mistakes of other sects would reflect on the VWA. You took on the responsibility of governing or at least dominating the politics of the Union, so you will have to face the ramifications of the actions that are associated with the other Unioners. You claim to be in control, so you'll be held responsible. Easy as that. And if you want to throw your predecessors to the dogs, I pity you, and your ways of not sticking together. You only have yourself.
What comes with that, however, is a reassurance. You might be thinking we're stupid, but we know exactly what kind of wares pass through the sigmas using your freighters and transports. And we know where those artifacts come from, and we also know you're certainly not buying them at the horrendous prices that the Hogosha ask for them. And before you ask: Yes, we do have proof of that. Not that I would provide it to you.
I also dispute your claim that you were unaware of our claim on this field. You were merely disregarding it. The Bundschuh has laid claim to the Taunusfeld for well over a century now, and it's not like the relations between our factions were as cold as they are now always. Your predecessors knew, and every Unioner in the past did. You merely had to look up your history books, and the convenient way you forgot to do that speaks volumes about the way you see us, and intend to treat us.
Riehl is right about one thing, Unioner. She is right about the fact that we're no friends of your ideology, and that there is no place where the two could coexist peacefully. I'm deeply offended by your claim that the Bundschuh seeks peace with the federal government. We don't. The past has told us that peace with autocrats is just like peace with a snake. It will bite you once you look somewhere else rather than her eyes. And you might have noticed something, Unioner. You're autocrats too.
There is a time and place for diplomatic victory, and the attitude of you and your friends have shown me that this time has passed with the likes of you. It's time that the 'symptom' overpowers the sick cancer that you reactionaries represent.
You asked us to lay down our weapons.
Molon Labe.
Dr. Annika J. Haupt, Oberst and commanding officer of the Vereinigte Widerstandsarmee
To: The Bundschuh. Docktor A.Haupt. From: Armin Jansen. Subject: Your court.
As you wish, Doktor Haupt. If the time has passed for diplomatic victory, It appears my brief role as intermediary between the Union and the VWA is at its end. You will have no further need of me.
My words will be transferred up to the powers-that-be, and they will draw up the terms of war as they stand. They will likely be lenient, but only relatively. You wage total war or you wage no war at all.
I speak now, unofficially. It is interesting how you claim the past yields dominion over the present, yet this act you take now is distinct from those of the Bundschuh of yore. Exiled for the second time from the government that betrayed you - the democratic experiment your Partei was once a cog within, you have chosen revolution - military, not diplomatic victory, as your endgame. You decry autocracy, but even within your world it is guns, not words, that determine the future. That is the possibility you have decided, Haupt.
Does it not follow that if swords, not pens, write the future, then it is control, not dissent, which will shape the populi's soul? In your great cavalry charge for democracy, do you not stop to think that you promote your cause with the same weapons autocrats do? The same cannons? When you execute a spy for treason, are you not exercising the same power over who lives, and who dies? Autocrats depend upon the contentment of the electorate - control the information flow to keep them in line, as do you. I've seen Bundschuh newsreels.
You see, Haupt, in rejecting our claim to soft power, you have only cemented it. By taking the road we would have taken in your place, you start to walk our path, our world, our political reality. And when you finally find the face you wish to plunge the knife into, do not be surprised if it resembles your own.
To the good health of the Bundschuh. May its leaders continue to follow in the best traditions of the Rheinland.
Your claim and try to insult me and my integrity has been in vain. While you were busy spouting rhetoric in my direction, I have taken action.
You will undoubtedly have received note of what happened to your recent foray in the Frankfurt system - and the fact that there were no survivors has undoubtedly left you in the dark as to what exactly happened.
Let me help you with this.
Your imperialistic tendencies and extremist behaviour have led to a few people being angry. And those people have now decided that it is time for your organization to be cut down to size. Getting hounded down in Liberty? Our doing. Getting pounded in Bering and Hamburg? Our doing. Losing over six hundred people in Frankfurt? Our doing.
The Bundschuh's arm is long, and it's influence is even longer. You're playing in a field in which you don't even have enough players to man a full team.
You have gone down a path that will lead you, the Union and everyone you follow to ruin. Your reluctance to come back into the arms of the popular revolution has lead to more than just a few raised eyebrows, believe me.
It is your chance to repent now, Unioner. Your chance to bring your people back into the flock, cleanse yourself of your imperialistic elements. Because if you don't, events like this last battle, and the lives lost, will reach numbers that you can't even imagine.
This is your last chance, your last shot at a lasting peace. Your last chance to ask for it without losing all of your dignity.
You've received a taste of what it is like if the Bundschuh lets loose the dogs of war. Surrender, and we will give you the possibility to save face. The Bundschuh, its allies and associates demand the following.
Demands Wrote:• A complete end to all operations of Union capital vessels and snubcraft in the systems of Frankfurt, Munich and Dresden, as well as the Sigma cluster
• A complete end of hostilities towards the Bundschuh, its allies and associates, as well as an official apology
• The Union acknowledges Bundschuh sovereignty over the systems Frankfurt and Munich, the Hessians' sovereignty over Dresden and Omega-54, as well as the LWB's sovereignty over the Stuttgart system.
• The Union lets Bundschuh Operatives evaluate their manpower and affiliated members to be cleansed of any and all imperialistic and counter-revolutionary elements
• The Union openly defies the Corsair Empire, and joins the Bundschuh and it's allies and affiliates as a client entity in the war against it
• The Union pays a monthly sum of 1 billion credits in war reparations to the Bundschuh, it's allies and affiliates which they will then divide up further. Depending on the financial situations, these can be payed in ressources, goods or weapons and are to be payed for two years
• The Union immediately ceases every and all artifact smuggling operations it is involved in
Respectfully,
Dr. Annika J. Haupt, Oberst and commanding officer of the Vereinigte Widerstandsarmee
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