Garreth Wins Tenth Term!

UUNN Newswire

(Soria) – Demeter Garreth has proven victorious in her tenth bid for the Speakership of Soria. Final election returns show a narrow margin of victory over a vigorous challenge from Mayor Tebbor Rivik of New Yigo Archipelago. Mayor Rivik reportedly called to congratulate Speaker Garreth early this morning, putting to rest all rumors of a potential legal challenge to the ballot tallies.

Many will remember Garreth’s campaign kick off speech made during AT 114’s Reconstruction Days holiday, when she fulfilled a campaign promise from the 112 cycle to become a jump pilot herself. Pundits doubted her chances for re-election since she can no longer campaign planetside in person, and in fact she had taken a downturn in recent polls owing in part to her hardline stance against the jump squad SOL NAVY who’s actions precipitated the current state of War with Octavius.

Garreth credits the victory to her longstanding profitable record, her ability to remain connected to her constituency, and to Roober Swain, her campaign manager and long time chief of staff, who successfully ran her campaign’s “ground game” once again (though more literally this time) getting her message out to the voters.

Solrain Reconstruction Days Schedule

UUNN Newswire

(Cornea) – The STCC has released the official schedule for this year’s celebration of The Reconstruction Days, a three day festival that celebrates the Solrain Reconstruction Initiative begun over 1000 years ago. Each day commemorates one of the SRI’s “Three Laws of Pioneering” which later formed the basis for the TRI Charter (1-105 AT). This year’s event is being chaired by Speaker Cassia Verhal of Amanra, but pilots in space should look for organizational duties to be performed by Assistant Pilot Liaison Tmolus Shaen.

Friday 07.03 – The Rediscovery of the Galaxy
A pair of Faction Missions will begin, both sponsored by the STCC, one in conjunction with our war allies in Hyperial. The purpose of these FMs is to gather additional information on the old station wreckage in The Narrow Canal and in Outer Ring. In the Mission Computer, select Hyperial to take the FM outbound. Then from Hyperial, select Sol Core to complete the loop.

Friday 07.03 – The Rediscovery Race
Also on Friday, there will be a short track race held at Wake at 1900 UTC (find your local time).

• Ships: PremiaXL vs Albatross vs Gust
• No artifacts. Yes FF.
• Albatross = 1 unit of Machined Parts
• PremXL = Mitoria engines, 1 unit of Cesium
• Gust = Mitoria engines

Track is in Wake sector:

• Start under the “wing” of the Interceptor Naval Yard.
• Target the RB-3 Custom Producer and fly to the right side around it.
• Fly to the right side around the Electronics Custom Producer.
• Dock in the Invader NY tube.
• Then race back to Wake for a dock (finish line).

Saturday 07.04 – The Search for Arcane Knowledge
Starting Saturday morning at 0001 UTC (find your local time), the STCC will publicly release (via UUNN) the contents of 3 DSS’s that have been recently turned in by pilots. These are pristine discs, still encrypted, untouched by station research technicians. Pilots are encouraged to decipher the contents, and e-mail their findings back to UUNN. Pilots correctly decoding will be awarded the Seeker of Knowledge medal. The first pilot to do so for each disc will be awarded 1 million credits (max of 1 prize per pilot). STCC technicians will retain possession of the physical DSS and will validate the findings after they are submitted.

Sunday 07.05 – The Repopulation of the Surviving Planets
On Sunday there will be Tour of Planets of the Commonwealth of Solrain. This tour will begin at Wake at 1900 UTC (find your local time), and end in Sol Core. Solrain Awards will be presented en route.

Pilots from ALL factions are welcome to participate in The Reconstruction Days events. Pilots from Hostile factions must use Civilian tags.

Hyperial Facility Attacked

UUNN Newswire

(Hyperial Station) Hyperial authorities have reported that the Magnesium Nano Assembler in Hyperial sector was attacked last night by an unknown party or parties.  Initial reports suggested that the explosion was internal, but further analysis indicated that this was an attack from outside using nuclear missiles.

The attack came just before the completion of the Octavian Faction Mission that called for Magnesium, but there was enough commodity available that the mission was completed without incident with Quantar pilot tom-t making the final mission delivery.

Many Hyperial sources have pointed to Quantar as being responsible for the attack, since it had recently voiced its displeasure with the Octavian mission.

Nano Assemblers use magnetic fields and nano-technology to reclaim specific commodities from ions and particles adrift in space. The attack damaged, but did not destroy the Hyperial facility.  Nonetheless it is not operational at this point.

Garreth Down in Polls

by Fence

(Soria) – This year seemed like it was going to be one of the easier reelection bids for Soria Speaker Demeter Garreth. With a month to go, she sat on a comfortable 16-18 point lead in most polls. That is until the controversy surrounding the Speaker’s comments regarding squad SOL NAVY and their part in the assassination of Clements IV of Ares Prime. This firestorm has corresponded with her recent dip in the polls. Most pollsters have her trailing slightly, but still within the margin of error.

Speaker Garreth’s challenger is Tebbor Rivik, the sitting Mayor of New Yigo Archipelago. Mayor Rivik has made political hay with one-liners such as “The self-styled ‘Speaker for the Pilots’ should be supporting SOL NAVY rather than taking them to task for attacking the enemies of Solrain.” Likewise, recent comments by STCC Premier Christofore Parce have been less than supportive.

However, adversity on the election trail is nothing new to the perennial incumbent. Since her first election in AT 85, the Speaker has rather notoriously rallied in the eleventh hour. Classic examples of this include the AT 102 special election — when the 4 Speakerships of Solrain were consolidated to 3 — in which Garreth edged out another incumbent, Tmolus Merva, after trailing by a few points when polling places opened their doors. And as recently as the election cycle of 112 AT, the Speaker was down a dozen points with a week to go. Her campaign promise to become a jump pilot is widely believed to have saved her 3 years ago. But with Solrain Election Day quickly approaching (always the Sunday just preceding The Reconstruction Days holiday), it will be interesting to see what–if anything–can save her campaign this time.

For more information, see the updated Solrain Factional Profile.

Quantar Furious Over Oct FM

by Kedra Brenari

(Petrios, Quanus) Quantar leaders are outraged over the Octavius decision to create a Faction Mission that calls for Magnesium, just a day after Quantar finished its own Faction Mission to mine ice – in order to refine Magnesium.

“Pilots mined relentlessly during our faction mission to create just a small inventory of Magnesiusm – and now … now Octavius decides it needs to run its own mission to make explosives? There are already over 1700 units of explosives available around space – 45% of which are in Oct stations!” said Quantar Vazir (Speaker) A’Quina Meniokee.

“This is not about need – it’s about hoarding!” she added.

Octavius Honors Strike Force

UUNN Newswire

(Oct Core) – The pilots leading the strike force against the Solrain Barracuda Bomber Naval Yard were honored today with the Night’s Blade.

Night’s Blade
Prestigious Honrors
This medal is awarded to Heroes of Octavius who excelled in battle for the Empire.

Emperor Venticus Marius of Ares Prime issued a brief statement about the awards.

The Barracuda was the weapon of the Solrain assassin who cut short my father Clement’s reign. Our loyal agents went to work immediately to get those shields down. When I issued the call for retribution, _RAZAAR_, Filzi, and Haldir led the charge. Excellent work pilots. Triompe in Sanguis!

Quantar Heightens Military Readiness

UUNN Newswire

In response to the Octavius-Solrain war, the Fa’hil Memta has decided to degrade its diplomatic status with both of those factions.

“We must have our Military at a heightened state of readiness,” said First Tahir Penjia Neamru. “While we do not desire all-out war with Octavius or Solrain, we are obliged to give our Military maximum flexibility to defend the People of Hamalzah — as well as our stations, buildings and critical resources,” she added.

There was no indication that the current status with Hyperial would change, though — unofficially — relations between Quantar and Hyperial are never truly “friendly.”

Solrain Rebuilding Effort Pushes Forward

by Kedra Brenari

Only two days into their Faction Mission, Solrain pilots have responded with heart, pushing progress on rebuilding the Barracuda facility past 34%.

“We are thrilled with the progress,” said STCC Premier Christofore Parce.  “The supply of Construction Materials has been holding up well, and the crews at Cornea Station have redoubled their ConMat production efforts in order to keep it that way.”

The mission progress has also benefited from the fact that there have been no additional nuke attacks or other Octavius interference since the reconstruction effort began.

Hyperial Backs Solrain

UUNN Newswire

(Hypsos)  In a somewhat surprising move, Hyperial has changed its diplomatic stance with Octavius to WAR in response to the recent attack on a Solrain facility that was ordered by Emperor Venticus

“As a civilized spacefaring society, Hyperial simply cannot condone the wanton destruction of important infrastructure in this way,” said Hyperial President Drago Maximilian. “The new Octavius Emperor is feeling his power and needs to be checked. So we find that we must support our Solrain neighbors against this wanton aggression. Where TRI has failed, Hyperial steps forward.”

Solrain Rushes to Rebuild After Naval Yard Attack

By Thane Carios

(Solrain Core) The STCC acted quickly in organizing a Faction Mission to rebuild the Barracuda bomber manufacturing facility after it was destroyed yesterday by a trio of Octavius pilots in retalliation for the assassination of Emperor Clements IV.

“We were caught with our pants down,” said STCC Premier Christofore Parce. “I think we got a little over-sure of ourselves after SOL NAVY was able to so easily dominate Octavius. We need them to show a little more of that now.”

One STCC insider said, “Looks like Miss D (Speaker Demeter Garreth) has a little egg on her face after the Premier came out and basically called on SOL NAVY for help. It will be interesting to see how that plays in the upcoming election.”

As yet, there has been no progress on this mission.