I am Étienne Sechy of the Étendard Noir, what would be called the Black Standard in the common tongue, a group affiliated with the Maquis.
I had a surprising encounter with one of your logistics captains, and we flew together for some time, as I directed them to deliver their cargo to one of our own stations. Your captain was happy to oblige, and I am grateful for their cooperation.
As I have told them, the Standard has effectively abandoned all diplomacy and indirect strategy, and we consider all organized movements to be enemies of our vision: the disintegration of all hierarchy in society.
I understand that this would be difficult to accept or even comprehend for others, but there may yet be some semblance of common ground between our groups.
I am inclined to accept the presence of your logistical ships as I did that one, as long as you are conducting trade solely with installations belonging to the Brigands or ourselves, or Monte Carlo Freeport. Never Confederate stations of any sort.
Furthermore, I have learned that you are primarily focused on combating the threat of the alien 'Nomads', something I know very little about. However, your captain has informed me that they have achieved some level of infiltration within Gallia.
I wish to learn more about this, and how you are countering them, and whatever else you can tell us about yourselves. I am also curious as to what led your logistics vessels to conduct trade with "civilian" Confederate Gallia in the first place. Apparently there is some historical background there that I am not familiar with.
Of course I have heard of the Order before, but typical media sources are hardly useful for such topics. I do not know how much of this information you are willing to share, but I certainly won't hesitate to ask.
I am Grand Admiral Michal Golanski, the commanding officer of The Order you are contacting. I personally do not know what Gallic news could make out us to be but I will set some records straight. The Order is an independent faction dedicated to preservation of human kind, whether the enemy comes from within or outside. Our ongoing priorities include eradication of alien species known as the Nomads, who had started genocidal total war against humanity in 800 A.S. and continue their campaign of terror upon Sirius ever since. The Nomads are biomechanical parasites created by another species long thought to be extinct in Galactic south-eastern Sirius. Rather than remain dead as their creator, Slomon K’Hara - as our scientists had managed to render their name readable to us to the best of our linguistic abilities - are a hive mind capable of violently assimilating any human beings into their (from that point referred to as The Wild) shared consciousness to perpetuate the cycle.
Additionally I can disclose that while The Order is mainly based in distant Omicron stars, our presence and reach looms over all known space. We prefer to get along with everyone so long they allow us to do our job with an adequate level of discretion and their views are not an affront to our own beliefs. The Order are a soldier, an agent and a scientist. As far I am aware, no such group in history had existed within the borders of Gallia and therefore we took the mantle of extending our protection to the lost sister-ship of our Sirian Sleeper Ships.
From our side, last we were in contact with any Maquis operative, they were staunch anti-royalist partisants without any overarching ideology, allied to the Council which we used to maintain friendly relations with. Any information you can provide us on Maquis of today in the same manner as I sought to answer your query in regards to us will be welcome addition to our catalogue. Your ongoing alliances, scope of operations and hostilities would allow us to get a clearer picture of Gallia as a whole. I think we both can agree that Gallia is not the same as it used to be.
Grand Admiral Michal Golanski
1st Battlegroup "Wargods", Black Fleet
From our distant perspective, these "Slomon K'Hara" never have seemed like more than a barely-defined spectre, a vague threat that haunts regions faraway.
We have seen them rarely, never in force, just individuals that find their way into the Taus, floating around like blue lanterns.
I will take your apparent expertise seriously, and naturally the enslavement of humanity you suggest they aim to achieve is antithetical to our foundation to the highest degree. So, this much we can certainly find agreement upon.
As for us, it will be difficult to describe the state of the Maquis at this time. Of course the movement was founded to take violent action against the Kingdom, but the end of the war caused something of an identity crisis. There was a general agreement that the newly-founded Confederacy was a betrayal of what we had fought for, a weak-willed compromise barely touching the status quo, but disagreements about how to actually act upon this have fractured the movement.
However, this presented less of an issue for the Étendard: Those among the Maquis, the fringes of Gallic society in general, and sometimes from the outside who have become wholly disillusioned with all structure and organization are the ones that have formed the Étendard. For some of us, it was the realization that although we had always known that the Kingdom was an oppressive system of governance, the breakthrough of the minefield and the opening to Sirius revealed that the other grand nations are no better than feudal empires and deeply flawed oligarchies themselves.
Those who have found themselves among our ranks thus follow one clear ideology: All hierarchy must be shattered. Any organized structure must be dismantled. The only way to pursue a free and just life is in direct interaction with those immediately involved in our affairs; to have no one above who commands and no one below who is ordered.
The way we seek to effect our vision is to attack every organization: All military and corporate entities, every station, ship or individual tied up in the greater hierarchy is a target to us. Though it is admittedly naive, it is our intent to attack these structures until something breaks.
This is why prior to the end of the Bretonian war, it is there that we spent most of our efforts, as the Bretonian Kingdom seemed most liable to collapse and rebirth into a free anarchic society.
With that phase over, we must now seek new targets to break. While the Confederacy is the most natural, as it is the home of most of our members, there are those who believe we must look further abroad to find the weakest link - such as the civil-war ravaged house of Rheinland.
I hope this makes our diplomatic situation somewhat more clear, if you can call it that. The Maquis have long held ties with the Gallic Brigands, who follow some of our ideals - though not nearly all. Still, we maintain some level of relations with them. And we have great respect for the Zoner movement, who seek a more peaceful way to achieve an independent existence. But aside from them, any organized entity that employs hierarchy is considered hostile to our ideals.
This I'm sure is not an easy stance to work with, but our convictions are what brought us together. The only way one can pursue such a suicidal struggle is through complete absence of compromise, or we would become like the former Council, servants once more.