The Star Union in Crisis

[AZKAMAT]

Twenty-five years have passed since Brickingrad, and still there is no peace in sight.

Military success on Midway, the site of Brickingrad, did not translate into a Federalist Star Union (FSU) victory in their war against the Berliniscow Naturalist Party (BNP). The Union invasion fleet was halted at the BNP's fortified moon world of Grod, and repeated failures have devastated the ranks of the Federalists' military elites. Their tithing recruitment, a raffle system where couples are ordered to produce and donate one male infant to Options Military, has almost totally run out of candidates to create the next generations of soldiers with.

A trio of evils compound the troubles.

The comboint bio-weapon was quickly converted into a strategic terror weapon, with small hives blasted across FSU space in the hopes that one would spiral out of control. This is done constantly and in varying sizes from the BNP's homeworld. State and Protectorate militia troops now stay on constant vigil for the things and the civilian population is goaded towards ever greater heights of hoplophillia. Ubiquitous notices become part of daily life for the normal people which read,

THEY ARE ALWAYS WATCHING

THEY ARE ALWAYS LISTENING

THEY ARE ALWAYS HUNGRY

FORTIFY YOUR HOME. ARM YOURSELVES. KEEP YOUR LOVED ONES UNDER WATCHFUL EYES. REPORT ALL STRANGE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS TO THE NEAREST AUTHORITY.

Meanwhile, a technological society close to the home world of the FSU has been taken over by an enslaving, trans-human cult that sees the machine as messiah. To them, all those not technologically adept are unfit to live as anything but slaves to build more and more machines. They defy the FSU with reverse engineered armies of drones copied from the BNP and led by trans-human elites.

Finally, most insidiously, a race whose people exist almost entirely on a fringe world, away from the wars and the comboint menace, have allowed a demagogue to decide on their behalf that they, as a monolithic, group-thinking collective, should take advantage of the chaos to put their race on the path to singular greatness. At the direct expense of every other race and in opposition to FSU founding ideas. To start with, they intend to 'cleanse' the planet which they inhabit of peaches and yellows.

In response to this triumvirate scourge, a new force has arisen in FSU politics. In the past, two parties vied for dominance, Roma Intra Vacuum (RIV) and the Developmental League (DeL). RIV and DeL represented agricultural and urban interests, respectively. Neither ever had an inclination to 'rock the boat.' Now, though, with the sideways direction of the situation, a new kind of party has arisen.

Aggressive, extreme, and lusting after decisive victory for FSU ideals, the Eleutherian Synthesis Party was born out of frustration with the status quo and the fear that core principles would be sacrificed. Their fearsome private militia force, the Blood Gorge Society, won the party enough renown protecting ordinary citizens to catapult it to the fore of politics. Their primary issue is to remove constitutional limitations on Tithe recruitment, allowing the federal government to order individual couples to produce indefinite numbers of squirming little male infants to be beaten into the fiercest killing machines in known space.

"The time for compromises and half-measures is over," begins their most famous advertisement, "only radical action can save the Union now. That action is the unrelenting and uncompromising hunting, killing and devouring of every other paradigm we come across. All that is not Us, must assimilate or die.

[Omega Prime]

Ooh, shit. This is gonna be interesting.

[AZKAMAT]

At this point I'm just twiddling my thumbs waiting for some final parts I need to arrive from Briclink. I'm having trouble with two dealers dragging their feet. I need my ABS, goddammit!