| Content
| - 43200.0
- Earth's most famous political family welcomed a new member today as the wedding of Chao Hsu and Valerie LeBarre kicked off on Luna. A record two million spectators turned out in Cape Canaveral to watch the bride and groom launch to the moon, where an exclusive guest list of 1,500 witnessed the couple recite their own vows in iambic pentameter and exchange tungsten carbide rings. LeBarre's stunning ring is a flawless 16-carat marquise-cut diamond flanked by rare emeralds, and is estimated to be worth just over three million credits. The bride mixed traditions by changing from a European white wedding gown into a red Chinese cheongsam for the reception, where the happy couple danced to "Forever Eyes" by Shasta Miles. The spectacular evening's finale saw the newlyweds ride off to the honeymoon suite on a white horse brought to Luna just for the occasion.
- Thessia's prestigious Erana University is under fire tonight after suspending 17 students for holding a human-history-themed costume party. The students say no ill will was intended, but university officials believe otherwise. The office of the president released a statement, saying "Video of the incident puts the lie to the claim that this was not a racist affair. With all the human historical figures to draw from, these students chose to dress up as Adolf Hitler, Elizabeth Bathory, Caligula, and Pol Pot. They ate a cake shaped like a suicide bomber. Human students were neither invited nor welcomed at this party mocking their species". More than 100 students did not show up to class this morning to protest the suspension, while others are planning an asari-history-themed party in retaliation.
- The disruption of a Cerberus cell on planet Bekenstein has revealed that the human-supremacist group communicates to operatives through steganographic messages concealed in everyday extranet broadcasts. "We became aware of this when we found media producers on operatives' contact lists", says Alliance counter-terror expert Meng Zhao. "It turns out they had key people hiding marching orders in news stories. For example, one cell would strike if their extranet filter tagged a science news article. Financiers sent money to cells based on the numbers in altered box office reports. All an investigator would see if they confiscated the computer is a glut of headlines and tabloid trash anyone could be reading". Asked if Cerberus would discontinue this practice when this secret was made public, Zhao said "It's possible, but there are easy work-arounds. I suspect they'll keep the method but change the signals".
- Late-night comedians are weighing in on Ford v. Huerta, the court case that has enough cyborgs, presidents, and controversy to be a Hollywood blockbuster in its own right. Cal DiCosimo said "We're supposed to care that the President was brain dead after his stroke? What I don't get is that a room full of doctors said he had brain activity before it". Natasha Lyons targeted the Speaker of the House, saying, "Her entire argument is that for the last year, she's wanted to be Vice President. I'm sorry, honey, you don't get out of working that easily". And Manny Zupo gave his analysis: "For the last year, we've had a zombie cyborg president. Why does the speaker want this to end? Every twelve-year-old can now go to class and say 'my president's just as cool as the asari".
- Volus comedienne Sura Non sparked the entertainment feud of the week when her comments about the war on Garvug caught the ire of CitSpace Daily opinionator Max Power. The scampy humorist said that conquering a krogan and vorcha world "is like buying a beehive with a sign reading 'Pre-Shaken' and saying, 'But darling, it's 20% off!'" Power slammed her, saying the krogan on Garvug have been victims since the planet's inception, and mocking their pain is tasteless. Non shot back: "If Power doesn't understand that I was mocking the corporate monkeys who made the decision to invade, I suggest he start stretching and get a flashlight so he can try to find where his head is lodged". Supporters of Non have taken up the fight, mailing Power over 1,500 flashlights to date.
- Hailot Wrund, leader of the former state-run army of Garvug, released a video today mocking the corporate forces trying to capture him. "I'll save you some time", he said, "that DNA you're analyzing was some other hump". The video is half an hour long and exhorts the scattered state forces to engage the corporatists in a guerilla war. "They've moved into our house", he said, "now it's time for them to pay the rent". Sonax Industries supreme commander Lira Speight responded: "Hailot Wrund is a head of state. He should learn that picking up a rifle doesn't make you a soldier, and talking into a video camera, even less so".
- Peace activists demonstrated today at the headquarters of Binary Helix, Guanghui Solutions, and Sonax Industries -- the three companies forming the backbone of the corporate army on Garvug. Demanding that the corporations lift their siege of the planetary capital Dhazil, the protestors burned corporate logos in effigy and called for a galactic boycott of all three companies' products. Meanwhile, krogan have been reacting to the war with amusement. "The corporations will win the war, no doubt", said Urdnot Galem, clan media director on Tuchanka. "But are they dumb enough to expect peace ever again?"
- Further developments tonight in the case of four human officers beating three salarians; our news team acquired police interviews that reveal the two in the trunk were gang members hiding from a rival gang targeting them. The ward attorney will charge the four officers with the use of excessive force. Meanwhile, the family and friends of Haruta Sio, the salarian who was beaten to death, held a vigil in his honor. "He was with a bad crowd", said his brother, Jundub, "but he stayed clean. He was just giving a ride to some guys in trouble. This shouldn't have happened".
- Corporate forces' hunt for clan chieftain Hailot Wrund on the planet Garvug enters a new phase tonight. Experts in fugitive recovery are arriving from notorious places like Omega to hunt down the former head of state. Drones and search aircraft are scouring the hills near Dhazil, and Binary Helix has imported two units of varren handlers in attempts to literally catch the clan chief's scent. The phones of soldiers, reporters, and civilians alike are being confiscated so that if Hailot makes a call his cellular frequency can be easily picked out to triangulate his location. "When he reaches out to touch someone, we're going to touch back", promises Lieutenant Sheri Spindlemyer. "I don't think anyone wants to be within crater radius of him right now".
- A video of several human C-SEC officers beating a group of three salarians is garnering millions of extranet views. Two C-SEC officers stopped a salarian on the Citadel for driving erratically and found two more salarians in the trunk of the aircar. Attempts to restrain the three led to a fight in which the officers electro-shocked and beat the salarians. When two more C-SEC officers arrived as backup, they continued the beating until the driver died of his injuries. It is not clear why the two salarians were in the trunk. Although both had criminal records, their only offense at the time was violating restraining harness laws.
- Corporate forces on Garvug have won a major victory tonight: Sonax infantry units surrounded the Clan Hailot ancestral fortress and pounded it with rocket-propelled grenades, singularity projectors, and mass accelerator fire. In a bloody invasion that yielded twelve casualties, troops stormed the doors and took the fortress, destroying krogan resistance and replacing the clan flag with the Sonax Industries logo. There is no word yet if clan head Hailot Wrund was inside the building during the attack. Elsewhere in the city, troops had to pick their way through booby-trapped power stations, hospitals, and water purification facilities. "It's not over yet", said one young special forces officer, who declined to be named. "They haven't even begun to fight".
- Late-night comedians have finally found some humor in the situation on Garvug. Sura Non quipped, "Corp experts are saying Hailot Wrund will be hiding where nobody's around for kilometers, so they're searching theaters showing "Taze Patterson". Next up, Unara T'Zeli, who says, "Hailot Wrund is well-hidden. How well-hidden, you ask? While they were looking for him, they stumbled across Aish Ashland's missing talent." And Cal DiCosimo took a political bent: "They said they almost killed Hailot Wrund this week. He was so close to dead, Lisa Ford said, 'Can I have his job?'"
- Earth's politicians called for a stop to the rioting in the UNAS even as some of them praised the rebellious spirit of the protesters. Speaker of the House Lisa Ford toured the morning talk show circuit to make it clear that although she rejects the Systems Alliance decision, there seems little choice but to abide by it. "The people marching in the streets in my name are welcome to do so", she says, "but we must categorically reject the violence that the Systems Alliance oppressors use". Now that her day in court has come and gone, Ford admitted that there seem to be no other options.
- Mobs on Earth marched today to protest the Systems Alliance's decision to uphold President Huerta's term. Over 1.5 million marched in Washington, D.C., 2 million in Mexico City, and 750,000 in Ottawa, many of them wielding lit torches and pitchforks as a retro political statement. Capitol police in D.C. took the bait, clashing with protestors who threw torches into their ranks. Fifteen protestors and three police were injured. "It was rough today, but I'm not worried", said Sergeant Hathaway of the Capitol Police. "They seem like the kind of people who bring pitchforks to a gunfight".
- DC1938, a small garden world circling the red supergiant SM2183 Rua, exploded today in a rare phenomenon called core fusion. The planet's uranium core collapsed in on itself, igniting a thermonuclear explosion large enough to rupture the planet into several pieces. The shock wave and loss of atmosphere has reportedly killed more than five billion native inhabitants. There is one known survivor: an infant rocketed from the planet in an FTL escape pod picked up by the human cruiser MSV Kent. The inhabitants of the planet, previously unknown to the galaxy, were a spacefaring race who used crystalline matrices for their computing needs. The infant has been taken to medical facilities in the local cluster, where he is breathing gases in a ratio similar to the atmosphere of his home planet: 65% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 15% krypton.
- Garvug's state-run forces received another blow today when newly arrived corporate armies retook the Garvug System's comm buoys. After a tense two-hour battle, the state's finest retreated to FTL in order to avoid total destruction. Through the comm buoys, the corporatists can direct communication to other planets that may wish to send reinforcements. Asked if they will censor the media, who have been relying on FTL ships using the mass relay to escape the system, Sonax supreme commander Lira Speight said, "Anything that gives away vital battlespace information or appears to be a coded transmission will be stopped. Aside from that, we believe in working hand-in-hand with the media to publicize what we anticipate to be a swift and relatively painless victory".
- Principal photography wrapped today on "Nekyia Corridor", the troubled space epic from Morgan Bierster that has officially reached the benchmark of the most expensive simulstim ever made. Champagne flowed freely on the set for one hour before technicians moved to strike the equipment and actors reported to the audio room for overdubbing work. Bierster predicts a long post-production process. "We've got over 3,000 effects shots to simulstim, but I am confident that they'll come out at the quality a picture like this deserves". Asked if more setbacks could sink the project now, he responded, "Any delay now would have to be due to an act of God, and if He does that to me, I'll kick His holy ass".
- Terminus Systems denizens are enraged tonight as the Citadel Council finished a six-day series of war games simulating an invasion of their space. Officially, the exercises were defensive in nature, but six turian and three asari dreadnoughts rehearsed positioning and bombardment. "This is more than saber-rattling", said Dick Ackerman, prime minister of the colony world Arvuna. "This was an attack rehearsal. It was timed to coincide with the invasion of Garvug. Terminus citizens are now on notice, and they are being called on to declare their allegiance or be counted as cowards". Council press secretary Irana Tinos reassured the Systems that these exercises are the duty of any military, and that this event was planned months before the incident on Garvug.
- The list of dead and missing on the planet of Taetrus continues to grow. At the time of impact, the planet's Primarch was in the Signis, his executive building, now indistinguishable from the rest of the rubble. His viceroy, chief of staff, and countless workers are also dead -- burned, or vaporized by the tremendous impact of the FTL vehicle. There is seemingly no end to the death and destruction; besides the Signis and the Radiatum, three museums, four national monuments, and the Esarus Mint have been destroyed, with many of their occupants killed.
- Counter to corporate military expectations, the Hailot clan chieftain remains at large on Garvug. Though initially suspected to be among the dead in the clan fortress, Hailot Wrund successfully retreated to the countryside. In a radio broadcast, he belittled the corporatist invaders and exhorted his followers to fight them. "We are clan", he roared. "They are merely co-workers. If we make their victory cost them enough, they will leave". Sonax supreme commander Lira Speight later responded in a press conference "I would like to thank Mr Hailot for broadcasting from a radio tower so that we know exactly where he is", she mocked. "If he thinks he will outlast us by causing financial and physical damage, he is unaware of the high value of his planet and the consortium's long-term strategic vision".
- General Timus Aurelos toured the wreckage site of the Vallum Blast today, giving the claw salute and attempting to lift the spirits of the rescue workers within the so-called collapse line. "All turian space is praying for the people of Taetrus tonight, for the lives that were lost, for the families that mourn, and for the workers who toil here", he declared. "I assure you that the cowards who did this will have no safe harbor anywhere in the galaxy. They will be found, they will be killed, and their twisted labors will come to nothing. They have not crushed a people; they have united one far larger than they ever dreamed". The rescue workers responded with chants of "Taetrus! Taetrus!" and presented the general with a Hierarchy flag taken from the rubble.
- Light heavyweight sensation Zarren "The Varren" Casias scored an upset victory over light heavyweight champion Luis "Laser" Reyes in mixed martial arts action last night. "Fight Night at Earth's Pontiac Silverdome" was delayed by hooligans in the stands, as human and turian fans threw drinks and chairs at one another, and over 30 people were ejected. The five-round match only lasted two, with Luis receiving cuts over both eyes early in the first round that may have hampered his vision. Allowed to continue, a desperate clinch by Reyes brought the match to the ground, where both fighters slipped in the blood and Casias brought things to an end with a triangle choke. Casias is the second turian to win the light heavyweight title, and his victory puts non-humans as title-holders for all nine weight classes.
- The surprise hit suspense thriller "The Demon and the Nightmare" opened at #1 this weekend, earning 1.78 billion at the box office. The mostly-true story of a pair of thresher maws that nearly wiped out a salarian colony on the planet Dagnes uses an old-school, "never-show-the-monster" approach that is a huge hit with fans. Slipping to second place is the girl-power vampire buddy comedy "Bloody Mary," which raked in just 955 million credits. In third, the krogan war comedy "Ruck Humpers," whose rude humor isn't translating well to Cit-space audiences. Grossing just under 430 million over the last three weeks, the widely-panned film is barely in the black.
- Our top story tonight: terror on Taetrus. Vallum, the colony's capital, was hit with a blast that obliterated its downtown area and left a crater five kilometers wide. Shockwaves from the blast were powerful enough to destroy buildings 11 kilometers away. Casualties are unknown but are expected to be massive. The Radiatum, Taetrus' parliamentary building, was at the epicenter of the blast and is believed to be its primary target. No registered armed ships were in orbit or in the sky above Vallum, leading authorities to believe the blast was caused by a ship used as a weapon of tremendous force, aimed at the Radiatum and accelerated to near-FTL speed. Fourteen separatist groups are claiming responsibility at this time.
- The controversial Earth court case of Ford v. Huerta came to a close today with a 5-4 decision supporting the end of the President's term. Chief Justice Ling announced, "This is not the first time human beings have technically died only to be brought back with proper medical attention. That the window of resuscitation has lengthened is no reason to support a partisan attack on the legitimacy of the President. The legal definition of death must be expanded beyond brain death to include cellular death as well". Following the decision, protesters erupted into violence on the Washington, D.C., Mall and in Mexico City's Chapultepec Park. The crowds chanting "Down with the zombie!" were quickly suppressed as riot police cleared the capitols with microwaves and stunners. More protests are reportedly planned for the weekend.
- Earth's 2185 baseball season opened today with a faceoff between the Detroit Tigers and the Vladivostok Bears. The Russians brought a brutal A-game and punished the Tigers 11-4. A grand slam in the second inning gave the Bears an early lead and demoralized the Tigers. "We were making fundamental mistakes out there, myself included", said Tiger pitcher Dave Marlboro. "I threw every way I could, and they just kept popping them off. We were not playing how we were in training just three weeks ago". The Bears go on to face the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards next week, while the Tigers take on the Kyoto Katanas in a home game.
- Conflicting stories tonight out of Garvug, where corporate and state forces clashed over a radio tower. State army units claim a victory, saying Hailot Wrund led an ambush that destroyed two armored personnel carriers and shot down a Mantis gunship. Video exists only of the gunship, which is clearly in flames and being urinated on by krogan forces. The corporate consortium battling for Garvug say no planes were shot down, and that their bombs killed over a hundred krogan and vorcha infantry near the CXN radio tower. This remains unconfirmed. At press time, the tower is known to be in corporate hands and Hailot Wrund remains at large.
- Corporate forces on the planet Garvug believe they have killed opposition leader Hailot Wrund in a so-called decapitating strike. Special ops soldiers made a positive ID on his convoy and followed it to a ranch house in the hills north of the city of Ikrit. They then painted the house with a laser designator that helped a Raptor drone shoot a rapid-fire mass accelerator directly into the living room. Now, only a flaming crater indicates where the house once stood. DNA samples from the wreckage have been sent back to Binary Helix laboratories in the city of Jundrag, where they will be analyzed and compared to the information on Hailot's medicard.
- GBC news correspondent Robin Lasky was released today after court proceedings in the krogan republic of Ghurst. After a two-hour trial and forty minutes of deliberation, Ruzad Drau Sorze deemed that Lasky's reporting was no threat to the state. Lasky, who attended the trial intubated with oxygen following a jailhouse assault, was in tears as her parents and producer hugged her and wheeled her out. The ruzad's decision was reportedly influenced by a 180,000-credit "review fee" that GBC News paid to compensate the ruzad for his time, a fee that was apparently unpaid by the prosecution.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)