Bombing of Nimbus

Anyone tuning into the Serenity Concord news broadcasts would find the familiar, detached expression of news anchor John Boyega would be staring back at them. He cleared his throat, and began to speak.

“Several weeks ago, as many of you know, an Andorian male identified as Koss Th’sherheth entered a hospital on Nimbus station while Commander Mike-037 was visiting an injured Solus Tempus Marine, and bombed the building. Aside from causing massive amounts of structural damage to the hospital and nearby buildings with the blast itself, he took the lives of 100 civilians and hospital workers, as well as severely injuring 20- including the target of the bombing: Commander 037. 30 more civilians were left with minor injuries. Everyone else was unharmed.

“Protests have sprung up against the excessive use of force against the media by ST security forces during the crisis,” Boyega’s words were supported with video of Tobi Angelos straight up yoinking all the media equipment out of the reporter’s hands while the hospital burned in the backround. “However, as no damage was done to the equipment or reporters, none of the outlets involved have pressed charges. Our own Serenity Concord Broadcasting Company claiming that ‘Solus Tempus security was merely trying to keep everyone at a safe distance from ground zero’. The public disagrees.”

The footage changed to video of security forces being obstructed on patrol by a group of protesters. There was no audio, due to the amount of obscenities shouted at the two poor patrolmen. They looked afraid for their safety, hands tightly gripping their phasers as more security arrived to try and disperse the crowd.

“The bomber’s apartment was searched, and it was revealed he left a note behind for Solus Tempus and the Concord at large. For security reasons, we’ve not been permitted to release the exact words on the note, but long story short… Koss Th’sherheth claimed that ST has long discriminated against non-humans of all kinds. He didn’t provide any proof, only accusations. He also accused the organization of becoming a fascist state with the increasing size of the military and the seemingly total control of Fleet Admiral Lance Thomas and Fleet Admiral Sal D’Amico. He claimed to be part of an Onyx supported ring of anti-human terrorists aiming to help bring about the demise of Solus Tempus.

This has sparked more outrage, as it seems the recent attempts to guarantee the safety of civilians have only brought more danger, closer to home.”

Introducing Force Recon

“This already causes some issues for most, as the Spartan-II’s have already been proven to be unreliable and sketchy at best.” A flat out lie, but Mr. Boyega’s job was just to read the words on the screen. He couldn’t have cared less about this himself. “The fact that Solus Tempus continues to increase their military presence is also frightening to many, and protests have begun to try and bring about some sort of limitation on the organization’s growing armies.”

After a very generic, local news type intro with some synth riffs and aggressive brass that was just grating to any ears listening, the actual reporting began. A man behind a desk in a suit, holding a PADD began to read from a teleprompter behind the camera.

“Hello everyone, and welcome to the most trusted source of news within the Serenity Concord. I’m John Boyega, and boy do we have some things to go over today.” The screen changed from his face to footage of the Solus Tempus Marine Corps during a training exercise.

“Just a month ago, the Command Staff of Solus Tempus announced they’d be opening a special forces division of their Marines. They’ve named it Marine Force Recon, and already the news has kicked up dust among the general population in Schatten system. It’s stated purpose is to be the first line of offense between Solus Tempus and anyone who would attempt to attack them, and it’s being led by Spartan-II’s Mike-037 and Alicia-052.”

The screen now showed two pictures, one with Mike standing in his armor without the helmet, and a second with Alicia fully enclosed in her armor.

“This already causes some issues for most, as the Spartan-II’s have already been proven to be unreliable and sketchy at best.” A flat out lie, but Mr. Boyega’s job was just to read the words on the screen. He couldn’t have cared less about this himself. “The fact that Solus Tempus continues to increase their military presence is also frightening to many, and protests have begun to try and bring about some sort of limitation on the organization’s growing armies.”

Now they showed clips from the protesters being interviewed. Boyega sipped his coffee and relaxed, he didn’t have to do anything now. Not until the cameras panned back at least. The first protester was a young woman, around her early twenties it looked like.

“We can’t just let them shoot anyone who disagrees with them! The Serenity Concord was formed to promote peace, and Solus Tempus putting some warcrime machines in charge of a bunch of trigger-happy, brainwashed teenagers is not peaceful. What are they gonna do? Conquer the whole galaxy?”

The other clips were some variation of this, and there were mentions of Leo and the Epoch acting as the mobile headquarters of the special forces. The camera panned back to Boyega.

“That’s currently all the information we have on Force Recon, as the Spartans refuse to release any information- even the names of the men and women they’ve recruited have been hidden behind number codes. Whatever they’re doing, it’s probably no good. And now, on a lighter note: space squirrels.”

Providence Truth Inaugural Broadcast

A signal is broadcast out of the darkness of space, those who have been especially paranoid or those who were inquisitive enough about the truth knew where to tune their receivers, the subspace signal comes on loud at the appointed time, intro music has a fair bit of static at first, but clears up pretty quickly before the face of James Anatoli appears.

Hello everyone it’s me James Anatoli of Providence Truth Radio, your ray of truth in an abyss of misinformation. First off we have some very interesting pair of topics to talk about today that really highlight the state of affairs on Nimbus Station. First, however, I would like to remind all of our listeners about transporter shield. This isn’t a joke — this chemical cocktail is specially made to prevent the transporters from scrambling your brains everytime you are beamed somewhere.

Alright back on track. Now after our brave free speech advocates were violently broken up by the irresponsible goon Spartan Mike, a counter protest was assembled. Well I only call it a counter protest to give them the benefit, but many of the witnesses say it was nothing more but a display of anti-human power. You guys may not believe me in this but this next story apart from being true is also a great example of the double standard. In response to the anti-human propaganda a great man, Jeffery Brooks, called them out for their misinformation. They obviously played the victim to garner sympathy and to get the help of our misguided leadership. How misguided? Well Admiral Lance Thomas happened to be around and only happened to catch the last part of the discussion between Jeff and the anti-human thugs when the thugs pretended to be the victims. The misguided idiot berated Jeff and even went so far as to threaten him! Can you believe that? Threatened for exercising his free speech! Folks I don’t know what is happening to our station but it is not good, we are experiencing a degradation of our nation.

You may think that this is another example of Lance being hard on his men but I have another topic to discuss. We recently had some fine men and women come to the station to take command of a ship. The Captain, Laurena, had caught an X-Wing flying dangerously close to the station. Understandably she went to the hanger and looked for the pilot to berate them for endangering the people of the station. So good so far but the xeno, a splice from another world, just ignored her. Can you believe the nerve of that xeno?! She just completely ignored Laurena and walked away without following the orders of a superior officer! Had Jeff done the same thing he would most likely been arrested and sent to the brig on the spot. Remember that, you wanna know what happened to the xeno? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Do you see what kind of double standards we are dealing with? They can march all over us and ignore our authority with no repercussions but we can’t even express our opinion without threats!

Folks I don’t know what to say about the direction the station is headed in. What I can tell you is that we must resist this sort of tyranny. At first it’s just something innocuous but believe me this is a portent of things to come. We have to fight them every step of the way and show them we are serious. Folks keep fighting the good fight, this is James of Providence Truth Radio signing out.

Music begins to play as the image of James fades to black, then the channel closes.

Nimbus XO Cleared by Review Board

The Civilian Review Board cleared Nimbus Station Executive Officer Mike-037 of all potential conflicts of interest with Solas Tempus or the Serenity Concord. The press release today heavily relied upon the investigation conducted by Special Agent Aadila Reza who has been assigned with several tasks of investigating recent issues presumed to be going on with the station. Her report cited that further psychological evaluations were recommended as a precaution, but no more than those recommended for all Temporal Operatives. The Reza further commented that according to the 8th Guarantee the officer could not be prosecuted, which made her investigation a simple matter of digging through available information and presenting with her opinion as a trained investigator on whether or not future resources should be spent on this issue. Fleet Admiral Thomas went on record as saying that the station XO has his total confidence on his ability to do his duties effectively but that he was pleased with the outcome. This revelation comes as a much needed balm to the recent trouble on the station, particularly with John and Takumi Angelos.

At this time Governor Maddox has not been available to comment. It is clear that Nimbus Station and its people are not out of the woods yet and still face many questions. The government prosecutor is said to be considering a maximum penalty in the case of Takumi Angelos should he be found guilty. An attorney has been appointed to defend the young man and has requested a formal psychological evaluation on the basis that his father claims the child has psychological problems that need to be managed rather than punished.