[Politics] Terminus Colony Disconcerted Over Alliance Presence

Terminus Colony Disconcerted Over Alliance Presence

Richard Seong, Attican Outlook

At a glance, there’s nothing remarkable about the colony of Inspiration, a quiet planet on the lip of the Traverse. Cold nights and colder winters are hallmarks of its’ long year, and the harvest seasons are just as unforgiving. But for its’ colonists, a little over one thousand miners surrounding the community of Tenacity, it’s home. And for the Alliance, it’s the site of an uncovered Prothean ruin that could span for kilometers under its surface.

“We’ve only had the opportunity for some basic survey, but if what our instruments are suggesting is true, we could be in these caves for years,” said Dr. Rainn Oliver, head of the team of Alliance scientists sent to explore the ruins. “The potential of this find is extraordinary.”

There’s only one problem: the colonists don’t want them there.

Inspiration has its’ roots in bands of wildcat miners who’d settled it in hopes of exploiting the rich, easily accessible iridium deposits. Most of them were unwilling to share with the Alliance, whom they saw as untrustworthy and disinterested in their livelihoods; this attitude would be shared by a majority of the colony as the community around the mines grew. Still, this didn’t keep them from gladly accepting Alliance aid when the Reapers arrived.

Elation quickly turned to resentment when they realized that the Alliance military presence wasn’t getting ready to pack up. The fighting would uncover subterranean Prothean ruins, left untouched since the species was wiped out by the Reapers fifty thousand years ago.

“They’re wrong to fear the Alliance,” said local garrison commander Colonel Ahmed Khan in a short interview with Outlook. “I don’t think [the colonists] understand the complexity of this situation, or how big a favour we’re doing for them. The moment we pull out, every pirate, raider, and Terminus state this side of the Traverse are going to be scrambling to get their hands on these ruins. They’ll be eviscerated.”

Despite this, it’s clear that many of the colonists see that as little more than empty words. “It’s not protection, it’s occupation,” declared a local dock worker, who asked to remain anonymous. “We built this colony because we didn’t want to live under the Alliance. And now they’re marching in here with their guns and their earthmovers and they tell us it’s for our own good. It’s degrading.”

Those closer to Inspiration’s chief livelihood expressed similar concerns and more - many are worried for their livelihoods. “They keep telling us about potential this, and potential that, but I’m not sure why they expect us to care,” complained Bryson Alvarez, one of Tenacity’s head miners. “They dress it up with big talk over our future and ‘progress’, yet they’re sitting on our mines and our iridium and they won’t let us near half of it. The fact of the matter is this: we never asked the Alliance to stay here, and we ain’t an Alliance colony. They got no right be here.”

The initial Alliance survey should finish within the next three months, where a much larger excavation mission is expected to follow.

If the Alliance was not requisitioning our iridium we could sell it. Money-----> Food------> Not starving. LOGIC.

My bad.

... You're still missing the part where we sell the iridium we own and use it to buy what we need.

From what I see the Alliance has no legal standing to stay on that colony, unless they signed something to get protection from the Reapers.

After that it would be suicidal from the colonists to just tell them to live and get back to their life. They have those protheans ruins to deal with, and a lot of interested people who WILL fight them for it.

I think their interest is to strike a deal with someone, and make them pay for the excavation rights. Exogeni for instance is known to fund colonies in exchange of access to prothean ruins. Or they can accept Alliance intervention, but make them pay big creds for it.


I'm not doubting the courage of your people, but I can't imagine that the Reapers went full on against you. If the criminal elements of my trade decide they want your people, they'll bomb your city and leave with the survivors.

In Inspiration's case it would be even worse, if someone need those ruins they wouldn't even need the people, they could just level the living center and get to work.

Those people need serious protection, there is no denying that.

A thought, could the alliance even send quick response into the Terminus if there is an attack? Because I don't think so.

Fairly stated and points taken.

But, as you said, any power that begins excavating the ruins, colony sanctioned or no, will still be sitting on their livelihoods. They'll be locked off from the apparently not inconsiderable veins of iridium around the complex for months, possibly years. Like you stress, to the colony there is no functional difference between the Alliance and a Terminus state, and I somehow doubt that they'll be any happier about having a warlord or a suit like myself there than they are with the Alliance. Even if it is on their terms, even if there is monetary compensation or material gains granted to the colony, I find it unlikely that these people would enjoy living off of a handout or under the authority of anyone but themselves.

The long and the short of this is, there's no unequivocally good option for the colony. My point though: the Alliance, as unappealing as they're making themselves in this situation, are a better alternative. And the choices aren't so much "Alliance vs. Terminus interests" as "Alliance vs. Terminus interests fighting over it". Yes they could cut a deal with someone else but what of the proverbial runners up? All the states and warlords and what have you who got turned down? By basically placing themselves on the market, the colony is declaring that they're open for any takers. Which is somewhat ridiculous considering that they don't have a standing planetary defense force. They don't have anything to bargain with besides the ruins. Best case scenario they strike a hideously lopsided deal with some power and have to deal with other groups launching raids or incursions. Worst case, they become collateral damage.

Now, you could, and you did, argue that the Alliance is more or less the same. And you have a point, the standard Alliance garrison isn't a huge deterrent to slavers, raiders, pirates and the like. But, by claiming the colony as part of Alliance territory, SATAE is making it a part of C-Space. Terminus powers don't want to tangle with C-Space powers in open conflict and vice versa. That, more than anything really, is what the Alliance brings to the table.

In all honesty though, these colonists lost control of their immediate futures the moment they found those ruins, be it to the Alliance or whoever else comes knocking.

Well, this colony's good and fucked.

Except a SA garrison cannot defend against slavers properly. That's the point of our tactics. The garrison is a delaying tactic for the Quick Reactionary Force (QRF) fleet that counter attacks an intrusion.

The problem here is that the QRF, not even considering the fact that Terminus states might not even allow them to travel through their areas in the fear that it's an attack by the alliance, will take a very long time to reach the colony in time to stop an attack. It's quite frankly a useless maneuver in the Terminus unless you do some serious negotiating with the areas the navy has to move through to allow right of way.

Not unless we could legitimately claim that Inspiration was a C-Space colony. We wouldn't be in the mood to provoke a bushfire war unless we had absolute confidence in our arguments to the Council and other observing Terminus powers. Besides which, Inspiration's made their position on that matter perfectly clear. They're not going to become a part of the Alliance any time soon, so the question's a little moot. There's a difference between sending in a QRF to a colony on the fringe of the Terminus and charging in to someone else's business.

It's regrettable that Inspiration wants to stay independent, but the brass has enough smarts to not try and suborn people. If they want to offer us, say, rights to the Prothean ruins later in time for becoming a protected colony of the Alliance, fine. But that's their call to make.

I won't get into how much the colony is fucked, because it probably is. But they should be free to choose their brand of lube. This is the bit that I want to address. But first, a quote:

Straight from the horse's mouth - they're a Terminus colony specifically because they don't want to have anything to do with the Alliance. Maybe declaring themselves an Alliance territory would make it easier for them to defend the colony (although I can't say I've ever been impressed with their track record), but it also means surrendering their independence and going back on the specific reason they built it in the first place. And need I remind you, the Alliance has a very simple policy regarding colonial resources - they're free to take large sums of a colony's exports (or their only export) in the interest of furthering the reconstruction of Earth, a planet, need I remind you, most of them haven't seen or cared for in decades, and will likely never see again.

You haven't just forced them into a position where they gain nothing from whatever comes out of the ruins, you put them into a position where vast quantities of the only valuable resource they came to mine is being carted off without compensation for a planet that isn't their own.

There's the quick knife and the slow one.

Actually it's also a huge deterrent. I know enough about raiders to tell you that the vast majority of them won't attack a colony with a military contingent when so many of them just have militias in the Terminus.
In that case criminal groups could be more insistent because of the potential of the prothean ruins, but let's imagine they overcome the contingent and the ground-space defenses the Alliance would probably put? As soon as they'd start digging the ruins an Alliance fleet would fall on them and blast them to oblivion. And that's just if they agree to a protectorate, not to become actually Alliance space. It's actually a very good deal to forfeit some land (they have Iridium elsewhere) in exchange for protection from a council race. And again, I'm pretty sure they could bargain some digging fee to the Alliance, or maybe preferential prices for their iridium, if they're a bit shrewd.

And it would be the same if they allied to a mega corp mind you. I'm sure exogeny would be more than happy to pay Blue Sun or Eclipse protection for the colony, or other more reputable mercs.

Everyone acts as if the colony just discovered a ticking bomb, but if they play actors against each other they can get out off it with more protection that you can usually hope in the terminus and a pile of creds.

Just require some smarts.

You're assuming that the Alliance is willing to pack up and leave in the first place. Bet they're not.

I would've thought that a slaver would understand the relationship between possession and the law.

The current justification of the Alliance is that if they leave, those people will be blown away under a month. But if they find protection somewhere else, it will really become occupation of foreign land. Alliance suck at PR, but I don't think they want to go for that.

It's a military government and it's getting bad PR from plenty of other colonies anyways. What's one more in the face of a major Prothean find? You've got an awful lot of faith in the human government's good intentions.

I don't think they ever actually invaded a colony is all.

It's not about good faith, it's about image. For now they're unpopular while keeping their own promises and laws. If they throw them out the window, it can get ugly.

They didn't invade. They just helped and are continuing to help, right? Sure, there are a few dissenters, but the majority of the colonists are happy to have them there, having realized the error of their ways right about the time the Reapers turned up!

Even if this was a big enough colony to attract negative attention, it's a big enough find to make it worthwhile. Even if everybody else wasn't too busy putting their lives together, it's a small enough colony that nobody except a few jobless reporters looking for a sensational story is going to care. Even if the colony does a fantastic job with their PR and the Alliance is run by hairy primates who spend most of their day picking their asses and eating their great discoveries, enough of those hairy primates will drown out a few thousand colonists. Even if those colonists end up hiring say, us, to protect them instead of the Alliance, the Alliance isn't going to pick up and leave, because even a Prothean dung heap is valuable enough for them to try and keep out of the wrong hands (which coincidentally is anybody's except their own).

I repeat: This colony is fucked.

Possible solution:

Once the initial excavation is finished, colonists should nuke the ruins.

No, I'm fucking serious. At this point, that's the only way they'll truly be left alone. The SA will leave with no further interest in the area, the miners can go back to mining.

You do realize that this is exactly what the Alliance is doing across its controlled space, right? The Alliance, while being the face of humanity in space, is not (or more accurately, wasn't) Earth's unified government. It is a foreign power holding power over the nations of Earth.

I don't really see why they would be concerned about doing so with one colony when they have been replacing governments (even stable ones in the colonies) wholesale with their temporary military government.

Except it's in the Terminus, so the Alliance cannot perform Quick Response. If someone decides to take what's there the Alliance Garrison, and the colonists, will be blown away anyways.