An Urgent Missive to Carlos Benitez. Elder High Council, Corsair space.
I will not be so foolish as to assume that the recent regrettable events in our home system have taken you by surprise, nor that you are unaware of the agitation that has resulted from those events. http://discoverygc.com/forums/index.php?...pic=118287
Further, I do not believe that you will waste your time with a traitor to the Corsairs, and indeed I have been branded as such.
I have no doubt that treason, and the charge of it, will bring nothing but contempt from you and your family.
I would expect no less. For an honorable man the brand of traitor is probably the greatest death that might be ascribed.
I have no doubts as to your own honor, which I hold in the highest esteem.
Let me say then, and hope that you understand, I do not hold myself to be a traitor, but that I have felt this death more keenly than any mortal blow.
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There are many pilots that are not treasonous. If I say I speak for them - Will you not hear me then?
I appeal directly to your sense of honor. Your sense of duty to those other pilots that safeguard our territories.
I claim to give voice for those that die daily in our struggles, but that are not represented by the council: Certainly not by the TBH nor the Sails, with their violent indifference to any corsair that does not align to their extremism.
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I will come straight to the point:
The unofficial faction of the Elite Corsair Guard determines that the time has come to take the step of applying for a position on the council of Elders, and formalizing our faction-hood.
This drastic measure comes at perhaps a stressful time for our proud nation, as internal strife causes Corsair to harm Corsair, but nonetheless, recent precipitous events have brought us to the very brink of civil war, and I believe the only logical step to harmonize the situation is to give a voice to that growing number of Corsair that today have none.
I appeal directly to you, as the most senior of the Council, to sponsor and ensure our rise to Council status, there to forge a union that will restore the Corsairs to their rightful place in Sirius.
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Forgive my audacity. Stay for a moment your wrathful response - and let me explain.
I assure you that our goals are simply to protect and cherish those ideals to which I believe the Benitez family, with its traditions and honorable history, so nobly exemplify.
I state simply that I personally hold in the very highest regard the attributes and ideals that the Benitez family holds to be true, and for which it has spilled countless generations of its own blood: The safeguarding of the Way of Corsairs. Our history. Our traditions. Our honor.
You and yours are the living demonstration of the very highest example of Corsair excellence.
With our rise to Council status, as as a formally recognized faction of the Corsair. I assure you that in the ECG you shall find your staunchest ally. Your most fervent admirer. Your most vicious defender.
ECG wishes simply to enshrine those ideals that we hold dear, and seed them into the behavior and conviction of our young Corsair pilots: They are the unvoiced that safeguard our skies and should learn something more than simple bloodshed. They should learn the values that compel that blood to be shed.
That this teaching heightens their senses. That it sharpens their resolve. That it hones their edges.
Corsairs trained in the way of Corsair.
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This then, is honor. But what of politics?
It is well known, and I would most humbly venture to guess, highly distasteful to you, that certain extreme and established factions of the Corsair have been vying for power and privilege in Corsair space, and imposing their belligerent will upon all and any. Our own pilots, our allies, and even those neutrals seeking tentatively to align themselves to our cause have felt their wrathful disdain.
It sometimes seems that every single atom in the Sirius systems that does not align itself to this, the simplest vendetta of hatred, is viewed with distrust and derision by those factions.
We are thus stripped of all purpose and nobility, and become devoid of honor or wisdom.
Worse: Our convictions become madnesses, and our enemies can only laugh at the tail-biting self-defeating aggression of the Corsairs, where once they feared that same conviction.
Though the swipe of the Corsair blade remains the same vicious blow, the reasoning behind that blow has been lost, and thus the urge to keep the edge sharp has also been lost to us.
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That our reputation as harbingers of wrath against any that trespass against us has been steadfastly undermined by a growing tendency for xenophobia that surpasses even the most radical of lunatic factions is a crime against the name of Corsair.
It is a crime against the blood that has been spilled to honor that name.
We were warriors once. Now we are little more than barbarians.
Simply: We have become the most extreme of isolationist piratical nations, we fight a war on five fronts, because we have forgotten the other subtler arts of war, and use only the brute force of our inherent warlike nature to bludgeon away all that we do not understand, rather than those razor-like skills honed under this harsh red sun by countless generations.
I state further, that those warrior skills of cunning, and evaluation: Of measuring our foe and developing strategies that countermand their advantages, To prioritize resources, ships and equipment against primary objectives. Of establishing avenues of dialog and strategic alliance - That all of these methods of war have been forgone for the simplistic barbarism that we now perilously devolve towards.
More: Lead and resolve. Counter those extreme elements that undermine us from within.
Return us to our ways and we shall stand with you in the face of all and any that oppose your righteous path.
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I feverishly await your response, in the anguished hope of a positive reply, but as always, no matter your decision, I remain your most humble servant.
Your message has been received but I think you have been wrongly informed. Don Carlos Benitez is no longer in the Corsair council. The Don has retired to a more ceremonial role. The daily leadership and his seat in the corsair council has been given to our new Commandante Jose Benitez.
Your message has been forwarded to his office. He or one of his aides will formulate an official response in the near future.
Ronaldo Benitez
Benitez elder on behalf of the office of the Don
There used to be pictures here
once known as Richard Farbridge, OBE and Ronaldo Benitez