There’s an old saying that history will be the judge, but I say, why wait.
I’m Parker Terrell, and this is the Plain Truth.
It has been about three weeks now since the ’verse first heard of the attack on Aremis, and I know a lot of you have been waiting to hear my take on things; been wanting to know if I am having the same uneasy feeling and suspicions as you.
Well, I think three weeks is long enough to not only allow the government to have their ‘official word,’ for them to make speeches and promises, but more importantly, it has been time enough for the truth of what transpired that day to begin to come to light as well. Everyone agrees that what happened in Vega was a tragedy, me included, but I think the real tragedy is more than just the horrible destruction and death of that day. This atrocious attack by the Vanduul finally showed us just how corrupt and morally bankrupt our supposed leaders have become.
Before we get into the thick of it, I want to say a few things first. You don’t go around exposing the truth as long as I have without realizing that misfortunes like what happened in Vega are different from a politician lying or a corporation betraying its customers, and need to be treated as such.
Real people died that day in Vega, and I’ll bet that many of you out there suffered a personal loss or know someone who has. The things I’m going to say, I don’t want them to belittle what you all must be feeling. I don’t want anyone to think that I’m trying to imply that the horrible events that transpired on the 5th are somehow less meaningful because of the truth behind them. Brave men and women, civilians, Citizens, starmen and Marines alike sacrificed more than anyone should be asked to, and all too many good people lost their lives along the way. I want to make it clear that what I am about to discuss is not on them. No, the accusations I’m going to make lie squarely at the feet of those in power; the ones who allowed their deaths to happen in the first place.
Let’s looks at some facts, shall we?
Senator Polo does the Empire a huge favor and, for the first time in decades, if not centuries, makes an extremely admirable attempt to curtail out-of-control military spending. After being stymied by the Senate, the true power of democracy comes to bear and the Citizens of our grand political experiment will be given the final say in the matter. Now, just as the voting for this groundbreaking initiative is wrapping up, what happens? A Vanduul Kingship decides to pay the poor people of Vega a visit. I find it interesting that when the Vanduul could have attacked at any time, they somehow managed to choose to launch an all-out assault in the middle of a vote that would slash the military’s overly inflated budget, don’t you? Especially when you take into account that it’s been well over fifty years since the last time a Kingship entered a Human-controlled system. It seems that we’ve had no trouble keeping the invading clans at bay since then, so we as responsible, skeptical individuals have to ask, why now? Why Vega? Was Admiral Bishop under orders to let a Vanduul fleet through so that the military could show unequivocally that the Empire still needs to funnel them trillions of Credits every year?
Think about this. We know from first-hand reports that the 2nd Fleet was already in place near Vega II when the attack happened. Why would the full mass of the fleet be gathered there if they didn’t expect an imminent fight? It seems that the Navy had advanced intelligence that a raid was going to happen, or, as I believe, had planned for it to happen. Either way, if the Navy did know that Vanduul were on the way, why the hell weren’t the people of Aremis warned of the attack earlier? Wouldn’t the military want to evacuate as many people as possible? Instead, we have survivors saying that the raid sirens only went off at the last possible moment, barely giving them any time to react. Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, the military wanted the body count to be as high as possible? That High Command believed the only way to ensure their budget for the next hundred years was to have enough blood spilled that every Human would be rushing to give them anything they asked. It was either negligence or malfeasance that lead to so many deaths on Aremis, and to be honest, I am not sure which scares me more.
Actually, I take that back. I know what scares me the most and it’s this — it is looking more and more like they are going to get exactly what they want. Thanks to the death of those few million innocent people and Admiral Ernst Bishop’s recent fervent plea to the Senate, I am sure that any day now we will be hearing that our conflict with the Vanduul has been escalated to a full declaration of war. Then it won’t matter if the Polo Initiative passes or not. The military will have unfettered access to a wartime budget completely separate from the normal fiduciary constraints and not part of the spending cuts outlined by the Initiative. I can only imagine the next gigantic boondoggle that the Navy will leap to throw money at in the name of defending the Empire.
Let’s take a break here. I need a minute to calm down, and I want all of you to have the chance to reflect. The truth can sometimes be a hard pill to swallow, but it’s a bitter medicine we all need to take. When we come back, Jerald Ferv, a survivor of the Fall of Caliban, will join us to give his take on what happened in Vega.
This is the Plain Truth and nothing else.