Man, a new Symphony story.

It's been what, five years? A lot's happened. Manhunt. Star-Crossed. DSM Panic. Virginia Shepard; I believe the last time an SoS story was published Mass Effect II hadn't even hit shelves. Split Infinitive got trashed and re-worked. Bunch of other things.

It might be beneficial to weave some of the mini-stories into the official chronology at this point; someone trying to jump into this one directly S5M2 might be a little bit lost without reading some DSMP.

Regardless, it's an exciting time.

>That made it seem
>a bit like she had always imagined the towns on Rannoch would be now,
>eerie and empty. Did the geth live in the cities they'd driven their
>creators out of? Did they have any understanding of the architecture,
>know what the monuments stood for - did they have any feelings at all
>about the people they'd displaced all those centuries ago? She'd always
>wondered.

This is tangential to the main thrust of the story, but I personally cannot wait until Tali (and us) find out about this. I love me some geth. I'd like to take this moment to express the hope that in UF, there are 1) non-Unicron-worshipping geth, and 2) that there are quarians still alive and well on Rannoch. (The latter is responsible for an entire sub-genre of ME fanfics that I tend to really enjoy.)

>Tali's grandmother's name was also Tali, which occasionally made
>for confusion in its own right. Tali'Shukra vel Halo - Tali the Elder,
>as she was known around the fleet - was quite a famous woman in the
>Quarian Union.

Hmm, interesting. I take it Tali the Elder didn't take her husband's name when she married Vedik'Zorah? Or at least went back to her maiden name after he died?

Her descendants clearly have patronymics; Rael is Rael'Zorah, not Rael'Shukra. And it's not a male/female thing, because Tali the Younger is ALSO Tali'Zorah, not Tali'Motherslastname.

>Corwin Ravenhair was in a hurry. He had a fleet rendezvous to
>get to, and he was already behind schedule because he'd stopped on the
>way to the hangar in order to kinda-sorta get married. As such, there
>were -many levels- on which he really didn't have time for Old Home Week
>featuring Succubi I Have Known right now.

I feel like I should be able to make some sort of filthy double entendre involving Corwin's use of the plural form of succubus and the word "known" there.

... I got nothing.

>"Oh! I can do that." Thor strode forward, seized Nanami by the
>scruff of the neck, and picked her up with no more effort than he
>would've shown picking up a sofa cushion.

Given their relative sizes (seriously, Nanami needs to eat something) I sort of imagine that Thor could get his entire hand around her neck if he wanted to. :)

>"And heading straight into a battle, no less," Tali said wryly.
>"Father would be furious. Oh, wait, he is anyway."
>
>Utena grinned and made a dismissive gesture. "He didn't -have-
>to sign the waiver.

That's a dirty, dirty, lie, Utena. :)

>"He can see things before they happen," Aarok Sifu-Dyas had said
>once to Anakin Skywalker's mother. "It's a Jedi trait."
>
>Technically that wasn't quite correct - it was a trait shared by
>some who were strong in the Force, not specifically anything to do with
the philosophy of the Jedi Knights - but it was true as far as it went.

From what little we've been told of him, the UF flavor of Sifu-Dyas sounds like he was extremely old school; that is, he'd take the position that everyone who is strong in the force should, properly, be a member of the Jedi Order, which has a monopoly on the proper way of developing and extending ones connection to said force.

>Kaname didn't really understand the curious psychic connection
>she had to her Invid heritage. The crossroads of the human, Meltran,
>and Invid genetic lines, with the added wild card of Detian heredity
>thrown in for good measure, was a place that had been visited precisely
>twice in the history of biology so far, and it was as a result not very
>well-charted. What she knew was that she sometimes brushed the vast
>collective semiconscious of her father's people, and sometimes plunged
>headfirst into it, and there seemed to be little controlling when it
>happened or how thoroughly.

... oh, right. She's part Invid.

Well, I had all kinds of weird theories about what being Whispered might mean in the context of UF, and I missed the simple, obvious explanation right under my nose.

>There was, she noted, no sign of her supposed bodyguard, Sosuke
>Sagara. She must have managed to lose even him in the course of
>wandering into this hellhole, which was ironic given that she hadn't
>even been trying to do that.

Waiiiitttt for it...

>A moment later the bulkhead segment just ahead of her and to her
>right burst inward with a sound like a hundred popped paper bags, nearly
>clobbering the salarian and filling the dead-end hallway with smoke. As
>Kaname coughed and stared in disbelief, a hand emerged from the char-
>edged hole the implosion had left in the bulkhead, seized her by the
>arm, and pulled her through.

At first, I was thinking "great timing, Sagara." Then I thought about it some.

Sosuke doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd rely upon something as nebulous as good timing to be there when his protectee needs him.

So I went back and checked the protocol. I noticed one thing immediately that I hadn't before; the protocol does not, in fact, state that anything not explicitly allowed under its rules is forbidden.

So now I'm operating on the assumption that Sosuke has Kaname chipped, or he's carrying some manner of very sophisticated biometric scanner that can home in on her. Because that's not technically forbidden, and assuming there isn't additional covert backup in place Sosuke would probably consider such a thing a vital necessity.

>"Underworld network, what are you talking about? You mean those
>guys aren't just... muggers?"
>
>"Hardly," said Sosuke flatly. "They're 'talent scouts'. This
>level is one of the chief sources of supply for the galaxy's illicit
>organ and tissue transplant industry... and you are obviously a very
>healthy specimen."

Conspiracy mongering time!

Sosuke has managed to convey the impression that Saleon and his boys were after Kaname's precious bodily fluids without actually saying so directly. Maybe I'm reading into that to much, could be just his choice of words.

But I have my doubts.

Kaname, while walking through downbelow, would have presented an air of an outsider and potential victim, yeah. But she also would have presented an air of "well-heeled, upper-class, is down here because she got lost" rather than "hey boys, fresh fish!"

That might be enough to for some skell to try and shiv her for her credit chip. But... well, a ring like Saleon's is going to want to prey on the detritus of society, people nobody is going to miss them. With someone who is radiating "I am just here because I got lost; I'm actually kind of fancy" you run the risk that they're important. That if they don't show up somewhere in six hours Garibaldi is going to sweep through brown sector with everyone he has and turn the place upside down. Big risk to run just for some healthy organs. Maybe stick to the usual derelicts instead.

So I don't think they were after Kaname as a convenient source of organs at all. I think that word is out in the underworld that someone will pay top dollar for Kaname specifically, she got recognized, and Saleon decided today would be an awesome day to get paid. THAT makes her worth the risk; you stash her in a stasis pod somewhere until the furor dies down and then get her quietly off-station to the buyer.

I could be reaching.

>Today she saw with her own eyes that he was not just a soldier
>but, under the right conditions, a warrior - a fierce and merciless
>killer of men.

I very, very much like the way you differentiate the way Sosuke, who is not (and probably never will be) a Duelist, fights compared to the way Duelists do. Even in life-or-death battles against multiple opponents, Duelists tend to be... well, fancy. It might not even be a deliberate choice TO be fancy, it's just sort of how their combat disciplines work. To a large extent, even in life or death struggles, it's about the art of the fight.

That's not how Sosuke rolls:

>He cut down the salarian too swiftly for her to even
>follow exactly how he'd done it, took his blaster, and dropped three of
>his confederates before they'd even had a chance to react to their
boss's demise. Startled, the rest of that group fell back, all but the
>man with the Sternsnacht pistol.

Sosuke is a soldier. (I'd quibble with the 'true warrior' stuff, but.) He's about economy of force and about accomplishing the mission. And like the very best soldiers, he probably doesn't actually like employing violence very much, which is why it's so swift and decisive when he does.

It's excellent writing and I enjoy the dichotomy.

>Sternsnacht heavy anti-matériel pistol, the faintest of whispers
>said in the back of Kaname's head. Manufactured on Dutch Valeria.
>Single-shot break-open pistol. Fires 21mm hyper-velocity fin-stabilized
>discarding-sabot kinetic kill vehicle. Primary use: disabling of
>vehicles. Extremely unsafe to use in pressurized habitat environments.
>Also, recoil will break an ordinary human's arm in three places.

You know, right up to this point I was planning to make some kind of comment on how that hand-cannon couldn't really be that dangerous to the outer hull. I mean, Babylon 6 isn't just a diplomatic outpost, it's a military one, and that hull was probably designed to withstand blasts from starship-grade weaponry.

... yeah, objection withdrawn.

>"It's safe to assume Earthforce has a flag officer aboard
>Clytaemnestra for this operation, but we don't have any intel on who
>that might be. Clytaemnestra's CO is Captain Hanna Davidson, Earthforce
>Academy Class of '95, an experienced officer who commanded a cruiser
>during the pacification of Proxima Centauri a few years back. Assuming
>they haven't made any major personnel changes, Tenth SAC is under one of
>the Earthforce Marines' hard-chargers, Major General Westford Drake. He
>might be overall flag for the operation; he's senior enough."

37 is somewhat young to be a Captain, at least would be in the modern USN, and humans in the 25th century have longer lifespans and thus probably longer and more delayed careers as well. Captain Davidson must know... her?... trade very well. Either that, or she was promoted due to being politically reliable, which now that I think of it is rather more likely than less.

It's not going to stop her getting her ass kicked, of course.

I've long wondered; why wasn't the IPO/WDF involved in the Proxima Centauri conflict? I'm guessing it was politically untenable for them to be; the IPO didn't have much of a fleet back then, and without Federation support it might have been tricky to involve Zeta Cygni (which has an elected civilian government these days) and the WDF directly.

>Utena sat back in her conn and sighed as the viewer returned to
>a forward view of hyperspace.
>
>"It's not going to be one of the easy ones, is it, Miki?" she
>asked rhetorically.

Well, she made it LOOK easy, at least. Operation TRIDENT went off with casualties that are downright miraculous and an insanely lopsided butchers bill. I remain unsure if Earthforce is really that incompetent or if Utena and Co. are just that good; I tend to lean towards the former, as so far every ranking officer in Earthforce we've seen who isn't named John Sheridan has been both an idiot and a tactical incompetent.

>If you're a legitimate PSO, we've
>got procedures for that, you know. You didn't have to sneak your kit
>through the checkpoint - hell, you could have carried all the gear you
>wanted if you'd just bothered to let us know what you were here for."

That actually sounds kind of silly. If a Blue Suns squad shows up B6 is going to let them just walk into the station in full kit so long as their IDs check out? They'd be legitimate Private Security Officers, after all; they have a corporate charter and contracts and everything.

>Sosuke nodded, following him to the outer office. "Affirmative.
>Miss Chidori is unlikely to be in any further danger - I believe her
>encounter with the criminal element of Brown 21 was a simple accident -

Do you now.

Assuming he's not lying, Sosuke might want to check in with whoever his intel officer back at home is. Just to be sure.

>The Ikazuchi in question, like its older sister ships, was a
>blocky, slab-sided vessel, long and narrow with massive sublight
>thrusters sticking out the back end. These thrusters were going full
>burner, propelling the ship towards the station relentlessly.

Aesthetic nitpick: possibly consider subbing in "full burn" for "full burner."

>Ivanova wondered if the ship was going to attempt
>something as foolhardy as ramming the station, but her concern was
>unfounded. As she watched, the carrier rapidly slowed, coming to a halt
>two-thirds of the way to the station.

Pedantic nitpick: is the Ikazuchi classed as a BC or a CV? The text makes that unclear. I went trawling through past stories and even, god help me, looked at the 2417 technical readout.

>The guy couldn't handle even a simple meet-and-greet
>down at DSM; who knew how he would behave at a full-out wedding
>reception?

You gotta wonder what he made of Akio.

>Mizuki had never really bought into his line about
>being a soldier, and had been somewhat concerned that Kaname and Lindsey
>had swallowed it hook and line, but given the fractured reports she'd
>gotten from Dean Montaign

You might not want to use "line" twice in rapid succession as a metaphor like that.

(Note: I'm not trying to be a dick with these minor stylistic critiques. They are meant as productive suggestions.)

>If Earthdome's Foreign Ministry wasn't made
>aware of the invasion, that implies a rogue operation, albeit one
>sanctioned at the highest level: President Greeley exploiting his status
>as commander-in-chief of Earthforce to take action without the advice or
>consent of the Senate. He must hope to complete the reconquest before
>anyone can react and then present it to the Federation as a military
>fait accompli. That level of brinkmanship is inconsistent with his
>record - that's why the Cetiani and their defense coalition were caught
>so badly off-guard."

Gosh. It's almost as if Greeley, or his political masters, is deliberately trying to destabilize the entire Federation, rather than just trying to grab and hold as much power for Earth as he can.

But that's clearly insane. I must be imagining things.

>He waved a medical tricorder over Kaname's forehead,
>and then consulted its screen. "It should have taken her several more
>hours - a full night's sleep on top of the afternoon's she'd already had
>- for her neuroelectrochemistry to stabilize, but here it appears as if
>her mind has totally... reset, for lack of a better word." He looked at
>his readings again and smiled, his eyes twinkling. "-Fascinating.-"

In this, as in all of Julian Bashir's other scenes, I could actually HEAR Alexander Siddig saying the lines. This is not always the case with the vast army of expys living and dying in UF. Nicely done.

>Case in point: Preparations to move out from the beachhead at
>Tau City International Spaceport and commence the final, decisive
>assault on Government Plaza in the heart of the city.

I believe, but am not sure, in previous stories you've used the term "spacehead" rather than "beachhead" to describe such landings.

>By the time she
>took the decision to make that move, she had people spread out all over
>the city, all with different objectives and all at different stages of
>getting those objectives done, all converging on a single point. They
>all had to arrive at that point at roughly the same time, from the right
>directions, in the right numbers, or the big finale of the morning's
>hard work would fizzle rather than flash, and she'd be left,
>strategically speaking, holding a very big bag.

Utena is, of course, much better at this sort of thing than I am, but one hopes that as she gets more experience under her belt she learns not to set up big, complicated, set-piece battles like that. A sudden sally by Earthforce that decapitates any one of the multiple prongs of this elaborate, interdependent battle plan could just totally ruin her day; you really don't want everything to interlock so tightly.

>"Correction - now
>most of the Earthforce contingent is bugging out as well. Clytaemnestra
>just opened a metapoint and the whole task group exited through it,
>except the Marine assault ship and her remaining escort."

That's not going to do much for inter-service comity in Earthforce.

Yeah, sure, the Danzig exploding is kind of a big deal. But whoever was fleet flag in that operation bugged out with a naval contingent that was still capable of offering battle and abandoned the marines dirtside.

It may have been the correct tactical and strategic choice; attempting to punch back through the IPO/WDF cordon long enough to recover dropships was probably suicidal at best. But 1) if the positions had been reversed and HE'D had to recover Utena and Co., Jim Kirk would probably have tried to do just that, and 2) Earthforce Marines are unlikely to view the Navy saying "sorry, we got our asses kicked, you're on your own" with a great degree of sympathy.

>"Not at all," said Mikage. "I'm doing you a favor. Now do be
>quiet and let me work. These operations are quite delicate. In fact,
>it would've been better if you hadn't regained consciousness just yet.
>One does find all the screaming a bit distracting."

You know, I like Mikage and all, but he's a lot different than he was in Utena.

Then again, we're talking someone who died, then was brought back as some sort of weird shade haunting a building that might or might not have actually been real (and tricked into thinking Anthy was his dead sorta-girlfriends dead brother who he may or may not have been romantically linked with) and who died AGAIN after Akio had no further use for him, only to show up a third time because, oops, no, he wasn't quite done after all.

I guess some personality shifts are to be expected. I don't trust the guy further than I can throw him, but I kinda feel bad for him in a way that I utterly do not feel bad for, say, Touga.

>Utena and a black-armored woman with a red stripe down her
>right gauntlet back-to-back in the middle of the plaza, Utena fending
>off a shockstick-armed trooper with her sword while the woman in black
>armor blazed away at something offscreen with a curiously antique
>marksman rifle

Y'know, I get that Utena is the lead-from-the-front type, I do, but generally speaking if a General ends up involved in direct combat without a very, very good reason (like Theodore Roosevelt Jr. volunteering to be the only General to go ashore in the first wave at Normandy, because someone of that rank HAD to be there to assess the battle as it unfolded) it means something has gone wrong.

>"Think about what you just said," Maya said. "I mean, I realize
>you're from an old-line military family, Kaname, but... " She gestured
>to the screen. "Kids from our school in the middle of THAT crap?
>That's crazy. THEY'RE crazy." She shook her head. "I'm as impressed
>as the next girl at how they're handling it, but what are they even
>DOING there? I mean, minors in a war zone?"
>
>"Yeah, when their parents had to sign that thing that said
>'yeah, we know, this club does dangerous stuff, it's OK,' I bet they
>weren't really thinking of this," Mizuki agreed.
>
>"That's not - " Kaname said, but then ground to a halt as she
>realized there was really nothing she could reasonably say to that.

Maya and Shiori are very smart girls.

The only thing I have to add to their critiques is that, if I were an enemy of Utena, Kaitlyn, or the Duelists and their hangers-on in general... I would very much like to arrange for one of the younger Duelists to die during one of these excursions, preferably one whose parents really had not understood the whole "child soldier" aspect of the experience. The resulting legal and political shitstorm would be ENORMOUS.

(Of course, killing a Duelist is pretty hard. If I had the resources and patience, I'd create my own then arrange for them to die at a convenient time.)

... I am not a supervillain. Stop looking at me.

>Maya blinked at him. "Sorry, what?"
>
>"In a conventional force scenario," Sosuke explained, "properly
>trained and equipped youth or even child combatants can be an amazingly
>effective asset for the side willing to deploy them."

And there's Sosuke's dark side. Made the more creepier because, well, he's a hundred percent right.

> <Corwin. What's up?>
> <Im Westen nichts Neues,> Corwin replied, <except I can't find
> Nanami anywhere.>
>
> <Nanami from Big Time TV? Pretty sure she and Truss are still
> at the broadcast... thing... they set up 'cross the way there.>
>
> <Wrong Nanami. I'm talking about Nanami-from-Cephiro Nanami.>

Heh. The day that "Nanami" stopped meaning "Nanami Jinnai" and instead "Nanami Kiryyu" to me was the day I knew I -really- liked Utena.

Also, man, this is probably the only time that both Nanami's are going to be in the same locale and there wasn't some sort of hilarious meeting as they both answered "What?" simultaneously a bunch of times and compared life stories. (Nanami Kiryuu won.)

>"Oh, but I -like- that story, Kana-chan!" a cheerful voice
>announced from the doorway.

Oh man. Please be who I think it is.

> Kaname's head snapped around. "... Kyoko?

Yesssssssss.

>"Spirit of Light, you're just in time." Kaname gestured to
>the two women, who nodded in turn. "Sosuke, these are my 'aunts',
>Kyoko Tokiwa and Teletha Testarossa, but you can call her Tessa,
>everybody does. They've been in Mars Division with mom and Aunt Maia
>since forEVER."

Ugh.

I know that "Teletha" is her proper, canonical, creator-confirmed actual name from Full Metal Panic. But lord, that is an UGLY romanization. Would "Theresa" have been so hard for them? Really?

>"That is the Hand of Wrath," Mikage replied. "One of a set of
>stone hands wrought, I believe, by the same artificers who made the
>Blazing Throne and the Seed of Destruction at the dawn of time. It is a
>thing of some infamy; its name appears, in translation of course, in the
>legends of cultures throughout the universe."

Hell really does have all the BEST toys, doesn't it?

Also, that thing is unspeakably ancient. I mean, geez. If what Mikage is saying is true, it's older than Thor's hammer or Odin's spear. It's older than Boba Fett's genuine Mandalorian battle-armor. It was old before Cybertron's sun went out, before Primus came to this universe. It's older than GALLIFREY. It was probably old before the Milky Way condensed from a cloud of gas and dust.

Given the name, Anakin may, in fact, have on his right hand the very first implement forged in Hell at the dawn of time time that was intended to be an instrument by which one being could kill another.

... that's awesome.

>"So, how long will you be gone?"
>Was it her, or was there a brief moment of hesitation before he
>continued? "Most likely the full two weeks. Commercial travel to the
>Corporate Sector is not optimal at the best of times, and given the
>circumstances I am unable to arrange for sponsored transport."

Hmm. So TechCom is in fact out of the Corporate Sector.

This does two things for me. First, it makes me immediately suspicious. That place is a festering sore on the galaxy and was, apparently, never properly conquered and reconstructed after the War of Corporate Occupation. This may be unfair of me, but I instantly distrust any company based out of it.

Second, it means that Sosuke was probably telling the truth when he laid that "classified" line on Kaname back in the day. Corporations, if I understand properly, ARE the government in the Corporate Sector, so yeah, they can totally classify information.

>"I... I had heard that you were... alive again," said Anthy
>hesitantly. "Corwin said he'd seen you at Christmas."

I don't know that alive is the proper term for what Nanami is now.

>"Anyway... you're probably wondering what I'm doing
>here."
>
>"A bit, yes," Anthy admitted.
>"Well, it depends on who you ask," Nanami said. "If you asked
>my boss, he'd say I'm supposed to sow doubt and discontent among you.

Akio says a lot of things.

>"There's a... compulsion... in me. Part
>of what makes me... what I am now. It -drives- me to do just that.
>It's gnawing at my guts right now, as I speak to you. But I'm not going
>to give into it." Her smoke-grey eyes snapped open, fixing on Anthy's
>with a sudden blazing fierceness. "I refuse."

Nanami continues to justify my total and complete love for her.

There's a kind of awful, terrible beauty in what Akio, what SURTUR, has done to her. UF is an imperfect universe (and I kind of like it that way) but generally speaking both the just and the wicked get their proper rewards.

Only the system didn't quite work that way for Nanami, did it? Her reward for doing the right things for once in a life that had, until that point, been a vain and shallow thing was getting hooks in set in her soul and dragged down into the pit.

That's terrible and awe-inspiring all at the same time.

>You must be on your guard. Don't underestimate the
>thing that was your brother, because he's so, SO much more now than he
>was when you killed him. He hates you and all you love with a passion
>that moved the Great Fire himself.

I'm sure a million other people have pointed similar things out, but... one the things "great" can mean is "immense." Or "large." Or other words connoting... bigness.

>nearly lost her balance, recovering with a sort
>of hopping step backward. Tears came to her eyes as she regarded the
>spot where the blonde had just been. That's -twice,- she thought, twice
>Nanami has put herself in harm's way to warn me. Twice she's suffered
>for it. Possibly even twice she's died for it.

I'll have more to say on this at the tail end, but for now, that whole sequence? By far the strongest of the entire story.

>I gather TRIDENT
>could really have used some Destroid coverage for the initial assault,
>rather than relying on getting the TCDF back up and running in short
>order - if that part of the plan had hit a snag the whole thing could've
>come undone." Gryphon shrugged. "Sometimes these things can't be
>helped, I guess. I mean, with that aerospace cover there's no way we'd
>have gotten a Destroid dropship through in the first wave."

Not to backseat drive, but isn't this what Valks are for? In battroid mode those things are essentially light Destroids, and they'd have no trouble booming past the aerospace cover.

>"You. Back here. -Now,-" Kaname said.
>There was an infinitesimal pause. "Miss Chidori?" Sosuke said,
>sounding faintly startled. "What's happened? I'm no longer on Jeraddo;
>I'm back on Babylon 6. Now awaiting transport to - "
>
>"I don't care where you think you're supposed to be going, damn
>you," Kaname snapped, surprising -herself- with the on-the-verge-of-
>tears tone in her voice. "I need you. Wait where you are. I'll come
>to you." Then, not waiting for him to protest further (if in fact he
>was going to), she cut the connection.
>
>Now what in the hell did I do that for?

Probably because unless I miss my guess, Kaname has some mild but definitely present PTSD. Counseling would probably be indicated.

>"It's not about YOU and it's not about ME, it's about EVERY
>CEPHIREAN and DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!" she snapped.

You rock, Wakaba.

>"Like all Vulcans, I am significantly telepathic," T'Par went
>on. "Should the Compromise of 2407 be abandoned, and the mandate of the
>Psi Corps be expanded into the rest of Federation space, my situation
>could become... awkward.

Does Clark have anywhere near the votes for that? And for that matter, does the Federation have the authority to implement it?

I'll be honest; the Federation seems pretty useless at anything other than organizing for the common defense. Most of it's citizens don't even seem to identify as "Federation citizens;" they identify as citizens of the Republic of Zeta Cygni or the Earth Alliance or the Republic of Bajor or suchly. T'Par here identifies as a citizen of Vulcan. Hell, before the EA reorganized itself it wasn't unusual for people to still identify themselves primarily as citizens of nation-states; that is, of sub-units of a sub-unit of the Federation. When you're doing politics at an interstellar level, this seems roughly equivalent to if I told people I was "a citizen of Monroe County" when asked.

Basically, the Federation seems like it's basically the European Union, but with it's own military. That is, not a strong polity, and certainly not capable of bullying powerful member states within it around. It doesn't even have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within its borders, which is usually the sine qua non of being a sovereign entity.

While controlling all psions may be popular enough within the EA to keep the Psi Corps a going concern, I have a hard time seeing the rest of the Federation thinking it's a great idea. And even if they do, it doesn't seem like the Federation has a lot of power to interfere with its member-states internal affairs. It certainly doesn't have a universal guarantee of sentient rights or to representative government, for example.

It kinda seems like if Clark tries to make the Federation an appendage of the Earth Alliance, the rest of the Federation will simply go "no, fuck you" and bail on the whole thing, and they have their own non-Starfleet navies to back that up. And if Clark then tries to use Starfleet to enforce his will, Starfleet will simply fly to pieces as all the officers side with their home polities.

Of course, this assumes Clark is angling to gain and keep power and extend his control and preferred ideology across the galaxy. If he just wants to burn shit down... well.

>Akio seated himself behind his desk and sighed. "It had its
>moments," he replied. "Nanami exceeded her instructions."
>
>"As expected?" inquired the Castellan.
>
>"Precisely as expected," said Akio with a satisfied smile.

Okay. Well then.

Corwin, Utena, and Anthy aren't what you'd call vengeful people. They're not thrilled Akio still exists, and if they met him on the street in a context where they could lawfully murder his ass, they'd likely do so, but if he were to simply hang out in Muspelheim being all smug they'd let him do that forever, as they aren't the type to storm Hell just for the pleasure of killing him again.

Except.

Utena is a bonafide Prince. Corwin is some species of Knight and kind of Princely himself these days. Anthy is neither, but she's a witch and kind of a Princess (and not the kind of Princess who sits around in towers lamenting while wearing a whimple, the kind of Princess who fucking murders people with magic in their sleep if they cross her) and Akio has, right in front of their noses, dangled Nanami Kiryuu.

Because you know what Nanami Kiryuu is? She's a -maiden who needs rescuing from an evil king and his black knights-.

(For some values of maiden.)

Man, that is just... that's hitting ALL their buttons. At once. With a giant hammer.

I think maybe Akio wants them to come for Nanami in some way. Which probably means doing so is bad, bad news.

Well played, Akio. Well. Played.

-Merc
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