When writing the report, I was inordinately pleased with the volumes that are implied by the simple phrase,

MCPO Spartan was obliged to subdue him.

>And that fits
>the Danzig in nicely...thank you for filling in that bit of the
>puzzle.

It could - and will, by some authorities - be argued that the Earthforce invasion of Tau Ceti was orchestrated when it was to provide cover for the Danzig disaster. Also, I hope that stands as an indication that the first version of A Day of Infamy is far from completely superseded.

--G.
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>>And that fits
>>the Danzig in nicely...thank you for filling in that bit of the
>>puzzle.
>
>It could - and will, by some authorities - be argued that the
>Earthforce invasion of Tau Ceti was orchestrated when it was to
>provide cover for the Danzig disaster. Also, I hope that
>stands as an indication that the first version of A Day of
>Infamy is far from completely superseded.
>
If anything, it just goes to show that while things ma have evolved to change some of the details, you were very much in the right part of the ballpark when it was written. I just look at this as a case of "well first you got the movie version based on the limited information released at the time, and now you're getting the real story that couldn't be told until now."

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

It leads to some wonderful mental images. Most of them ending with a firm whack to the back of the head for the Adjutant.

>It could - and will, by some authorities - be argued that the
>Earthforce invasion of Tau Ceti was orchestrated when it was to
>provide cover for the Danzig disaster. Also, I hope that
>stands as an indication that the first version of A Day of
>Infamy is far from completely superseded.

Oh, yes...you're not one to throw away needlessly. It's just nice to see where some things are being set back into place in the new picture.

It's shorthand for "Baronet", the lowest rank of the peerage. Baronets are styled "Sir $FIRSTNAME", but they aren't dubbed like knights, so "Bart." is appended to their names instead of the initials of a chivalric order.

>(CMDR V. Leeds)
>Welcome back Vanessa! Trying to remember... was she part of the
>Son's backup bridge crew, or part of the alternate Uni crew G brought
>back?

Vanessa's from the Split Infinitive universe; she was USS Invincible's comm officer (and went on to hold that same position aboard WDF Concordia during Crossroads).

>IPS Prometheus CVS-101 (CPT K. Sterling)
>IPS? I take it the WDF seconded her to the IPO when they decided they
>needed a carrier?

Not quite; this may refresh your memory.

>IPS Assailant NCC-06067 (CMDR R. Hoshino)
>I see Ruri got a much deserved promotion.

Indeed. She stayed as G's yeoman for much longer than, by rights, she should have, so once she left that job her advancement curve was pretty steep.

>EAS Retiarius, Retiarius-class Perimeter Control Vessel
>Perimiter control?

Perimeter Control Vessel is what Earthforce calls interdictors (in UF, "Interdictor" is actually a trademark of GENOM's subsidiary Kuat Drive Yards).

--G.
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>>IPS Prometheus CVS-101 (CPT K. Sterling)
>>IPS? I take it the WDF seconded her to the IPO when they decided they
>>needed a carrier?
>
>Not quite;
>this
>may refresh your memory.
>
Oh man... considering how much I yaked in that one I'm embarrassed I forgot about it.

>>IPS Assailant NCC-06067 (CMDR R. Hoshino)
>>I see Ruri got a much deserved promotion.
>
>Indeed. She stayed as G's yeoman for much longer than, by rights, she
>should have, so once she left that job her advancement curve was
>pretty steep.
>
Yup, not just in rank (I thought UF G promoted her to LCDR when she left) but IIRC she originally left to take the helmsman position and now she's moved to the center chair.

Correct; Ruri served as helmsman of IPS Steamrunner for at least that ship's first deployment (under Maria Tachibana, no less). Maria returned to Ishiyama after Steamrunner's first cruise - that would've been in late 2406 or early 2407 - and sometime between then and Operation TRIDENT, Ruri was promoted again and given command of Assailant. This is in keeping with the IPSF's ongoing plan for fleet expansion: of the first wave of officers to gain experience in testing and making operational the early ships in the two DDNG classes, many were expected to go on to command the production vessels built during that time.

Which goes to illustrate that, specifically designated oddballs like Valiant aside, not every starship in the galaxy has a rate of officer turnover as slow as, say, WDF Enterprise. Indeed, Enterprise is a bit of a running joke (albeit a respectful one, not derisive) within (and without, to a certain extent) the WDF for the top-heaviness of her command staff. She's known in the fleet, as well as in the Royal Salusian Navy and the friendlier parts of Starfleet, as the Ship of Seven Captains. By 2410, every one of the ship's department heads holds the rank of captain (O-5) or higher.

Fortunately, the WDF is a strange enough outfit that all those captains aren't sabotaging their careers forever by declining reassignment to stay with the team they're most comfortable being part of, like they would be in, say, Starfleet (indeed, in Starfleet they'd all have had to turn down that last promotion; they'd all still be commanders, and would've kissed any prospect of captaincy, let alone flag rank, goodbye forever by now).

(There's widely held to be something odd about starships named Enterprise in this regard. In galactic history there have been three notable ones, and they've all had weirdly static quarterdecks. The original WDF Enterprise never once turned over an officer; the current one hasn't since well before becoming a WDF vessel; and lots of people agree that someone should've either promoted Will Riker out of the current USS Enterprise by force or, failing that, sold him to the Freespacers by now.)

--G.
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It's only a flesh wound!

>Also, I assume the Demologos is a Steamrunner-class?

Yep. (The giveaway, apart from the etymology of the name, is that the second digit in the hull number is 7. The Defiant-class ships are the 06000 series.)

>And here I was thinking they were all named after trains...

Not all, no. Some are also named after other steam-related things; there are Steamrunners named Thomas Newcomen and James Watt as well, for instance, and one called Le Napoléon (after the first steam-powered line-of-battle ship).

--G.
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One would have to assume, then, that the Demologos is named after an experiment of Hero of Alexandria, who devised what was basically the first steam engine to disprove the Aristotelian notion of the Prime Mover. Ironically, Aristotle's theories of the Prime Mover were used by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages to prove the existence of the divine...

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's
barren too, // "She's not worth
feed or hay, // "But I'll give
her this," - he blew smoke at
me - // "She was something in
her day." -- Garnet Rogers,
Small Victory

Not directly, at least; she's named for the Demologos, the first steam-powered warship. The original Demologos was a floating battery built (by no less a figure in early steam navigation than Robert Fulton of North River Steamboat fame) to defend New York harbor during the War of 1812, but was completed too late to see action. She was a paddle steamer and not a particularly handy sort of craft - that would have to wait until the invention of the screw propeller, which led to the development of ships like Le Napoléon - but she was first.

I've always seen Heron of Alexandria's invention referred to as an aeolipile, and there's probably a Steamrunner named after that as well.

--G.
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As an aside, may I ask if one of the U-Boats under IPSF command is named the Cornelius Drebbel or William Bourne or somesuch? Given UF Gryphon's fascination with history, it would not be totally surprising...

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's
barren too, // "She's not worth
feed or hay, // "But I'll give
her this," - he blew smoke at
me - // "She was something in
her day." -- Garnet Rogers,
Small Victory

The IPO doesn't have U-ships; Unfathomable was "borrowed" for the recce prior to Operation TRIDENT from the Royal Salusian Navy (which is why she took no part in the actual fight).

--G.
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Again, my apologies. I really must go through that particular story again...

Though in my view, there simply ought to be a ship named after the man who took James I on a jolly under the Thames, designed the world's first feedback-controlled mechanism and used it to incubate chickens, and invented the fork. It seems somehow appropriate.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's
barren too, // "She's not worth
feed or hay, // "But I'll give
her this," - he blew smoke at
me - // "She was something in
her day." -- Garnet Rogers,
Small Victory

I missed this completely. Good way to solve the "change your last name" question. Unless she always had a middle name and I just missed it?

On a related note, it's nice to see that Corwin made it to the playing field. Not a huge surprise, though.

- Chad

Nope, she didn't have one until the very end of Clarion Call. They're quite uncommon in the part of Cephiro she comes from.

--G.
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That's what I thought. Thanks for clarifying!

- Chad

Correct. This makes sense in light of the developments Utena specifically mentions are beyond the scope of her report there at the end; it'll all be explained presently.

--G.
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Gryphon, question: I know F/V stands for 'Fishing Vessel', but what does H/V stand for? 'Hunting Vessel'?

�They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.�
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington

Correct.

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

Quite so. The house of Soandso is one of the great Salusian military families, like the Aldzinjals and the Satoris, though unlike the others, almost all the famous Soandsos over the centuries have been Royal Navy officers, and especially unlike the almost calculatedly un-aristocratic Aldzinjals, the family has several noble titles to its name. Captain Sir Doran Soandso ISG, Bart., is the twelfth Baronet Soandso, and one of the few to leave the RSN for an appointment in the Imperial Guards. Admiral of the Black the Most Honourable the Marquis of Soandso RSN (Ret.), the officer who (as plain old Captain Alford Soandso) had the distinction of being Princess Asrial's commanding officer before she joined the Wedge Defense Force, is his great-uncle.

--G.
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�They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.�
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington

Neither; it's the official styling for one who holds or has held the Royal Salusian Navy's supreme command - equivalent to the Wedge Defense Force's Grand Admiral. This position is also sometimes known by the more prosaic title "Admiral of the Fleet", and very occasionally, in older documents and newer ones whose authors wished to hearken back to the Elder Days, by an Old Cheltarese phrase meaning Admiral of the Ocean of Stars.

(As an aside, the small-but-proud branch of the RSN which still serves at sea is known, rather grandly, as the Pelagian Flotilla, and the officer commanding it, though in truth only a commodore - for it is quite a small outfit, relatively speaking, in modern times - may choose to be called by the courtesy styling "Admiral of the Blue".)

--G.
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>Awesome.

Also no doubt rather humiliating for the captain and crew of the Elbridge Gerry, being defeated by a media ship. 8P

-------------
Lead me not to temptation, for I can find it myself.

Either that, or there was a polite exchange of messages afterward, which summed up as:

"You call that a media ship?! Do you have a license for the weapons on that?"
"Yes, we do. (see attachment listing Swordbreaker's armaments, and licenses for each, including special Corporate Sector documentation)"
"Oh, $#!+!"

Remember, Swordbreaker has a fold drive, as mentioned in A Night to Remember. Consider what kind of power requirements that implies, and what a ship can do with that when it isn't bending space-time into a pretzel for the sake of a news story.

Yeah, somebody's gonna go *boom*.

Peter Eng
--
I'm only a Charter Member because of the DCForum upgrade, and because there's no rank below "Clueless F!wit."

As befits a ship flying Network 23's flag, Swordbreaker is from twenty minutes into the future. :)

--G.
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Hmm. Um.

Okay, I'm not all _that_ familiar with the source material, but I have the impression that a fold drive requires a reflex furnace.

And a bit of googling (not being familiar with Swordbreaker's source material at all) shows it as having two parallel extensions in front.

If the implication I'm seeing isn't all in my head, yeah....

Ain't _nobody_ gonna mess with the freedom of the press when Swordbreaker's around....

I'm not sure whether or not that's true in UF. If I remember correctly, it's possible to power a fold drive without overtechnology, it's just horribly expensive, rather bulky, and may require highly unstable hazardous material to fuel the power source.

>
>And a bit of googling (not being familiar with Swordbreaker's source
>material at all) shows it as having two parallel extensions in front.
>
>If the implication I'm seeing isn't all in my head, yeah....
>

I think it's not so bad as all that. But it's still got the power to make a complete hole in a starship that is expecting something with less oomph.

On the other hand, if it does have a Reflex cannon, I can imagine Truss saying, "Valen, if I ever see you, I'm going to have you explain why I need one of these."

Peter Eng
--
I'm only a Charter Member because of the DCForum upgrade, and because there's no rank below "Clueless F!wit."

For "interesting times", of course.

I suspect he'll find out in The New Frontier, if not sooner... well, if we're right about him having one.

�They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.�
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's
barren too, // "She's not worth
feed or hay, // "But I'll give
her this," - he blew smoke at
me - // "She was something in
her day." -- Garnet Rogers,
Small Victory

I can't believe I missed that! I used to love those comics.

Unless it's specifically done by hand, threads get pushed into the archive by the number of newer ones in the board above them. It doesn't have any direct relation to their age, just the traffic level. (The reason the Featured Documents board has so many archived threads is because they were originally on the UF General board, and had been "naturally" pushed to the archive before they were moved over here.)

Anyway, delay or not, I'm pleased somebody spotted this one (just as I was when someone twigged to Captain Haddock of the Unicorn). :)

>>At 1933 hrs local time, the Federation starship USS Charles B.
>>Momsen NCC-23295 entered the system and hailed both Task Force
>>TRIDENT and Government House. Captain Olivia Naquin informed us of
>>the destruction of USS Danzig and the death of Federation
>>President Santiago.
>
>Captain Naquin of the Momsen, eh? Very fitting - although I hope her
>career has been a little less "exciting" than her namesake.

Well, so far so good on the main induction valves, anyway. :)

>For those who'd like to know more, I suggest researching
>Lt. Cdr. Charles Momsen,
>Lt. Oliver Naquin, and
>the events surrounding the submarine
>USS Squalus (SS-192) during
>the summer/fall of 1939.

The book you see listed as a reference on the pages for Naquin and the Squalus, Peter Maas's The Terrible Hours, is also recommended reading.

--G.
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Oh my goodness, YES! An excellent book - and like many books, stratospherically better than the movie version (a TV movie, yet, and not worth the time)

Jeanne

	Jeanne Hedge http://www.jhedge.com
"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem." -- Gabrielle of Potadeia

Well, shit.

--G.
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zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I checked the Wayback Machine but unfortunately it doesn't have the Forum archived.

This is what it looked like in the edit window when I opened it up to patch in the text Murdock salvaged:

And that's just the bottom of it. I had to scroll up for... quite a while to reach the top when I was highlighting it for removal.

--G.
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(Did you know that every top-level post of the Forum shoves its entire contents into a <META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="..."> tag? Which, in this case, meant two copies of the block of nulls.)

Earthforce Marine Corps
EMCS Suribachi, Iceberg-class surface assault ship
EMCS Canaveral, Myrmidon-class monitor
EMCS Agulhas, Myrmidon-class monitor

Starfleet
USS Bellerophon, Nebula-class cruiser
USS Northumberland, Nebula-class cruiser

Captain Merkretsch identified Suribachi as the headquarters ship for the Earthforce X Surface Assault Corps, MGEN Westford Drake EMC commanding.

At mission elapsed time 00:24, Force TRIDENT passed the orbit of Tau Ceti V and formed up for in-system assault. At 00:31, Valiant was hailed by EAS Clytmnestra, which identified herself as the Earthforce fleet's flag. At this time it was learned that General Drake was the Earthforce flag officer in overall command of the invasion. He ordered Force TRIDENT to leave the system immediately or be subject to attack as pirates interfering with a lawful peacekeeping mission. I informed him that I was not born yesterday and hostilities commenced at MET 00:40.

I should note here that the two Starfleet vessels did not participate in the ensuing fleet action. CPT Hunsacker of Northumberland notified us that his vessel and Bellerophon were present only to guarantee the neutrality of Tau Ceti III. When battle commenced between Force TRIDENT and the Earthforce group, the Starfleet ships stood off to a distance of 2.5 AU and observed.

In approximately 33 minutes of close action, Force TRIDENT's heavier starships occupied the attention of the Earthforce vessels while Gravy Train, Daggerdisc, and small craft from Challenger, Enterprise, Indefatigable, and Prometheus penetrated the orbital defenses of Tau Ceti IV and inserted a counter-assault force on the planet's surface. At the same time, Illustrious carried out an orbital infantry drop operation while under heavy fire from the destroyers of DESRON-14, for spacemanship during which operation I must particularly commend Captain Soandso.

All ships and crew performed admirably during the action against Earthforce in high orbit, but in addition to Illustrious above, I must take special note of:

- Commander Leeds and the crew of WDF Scimitar, who disabled the flight deck of EAS Komarov with a combination of daring maneuver and excellent gunnery;

- Captain vathKesek and the crew of HoSghaj, who, despite serious damage to their vessel, prevented the two Earthforce monitors from intercepting the surface assault force and knocked Agulhas out of the fight entirely; and

- Captain Pellew and the ship's company of Indefatigable, and LT John McCandless (VII GENOM White Legion) and his special action squad (along with Jedi Master Atin-Vae Springsteen), who crippled, boarded, and captured EAS Retiarius, the capture being concluded at about MET 01:23.

With Retiarius out of action, both in-system FTL navigation and the use of transporters became possible. Within a half-hour, Force TRIDENT was joined by several vessels which had not reached the Initial Point in time to be part of the initial assault:

Group TRIDENT WHITE
CFMF Charlemagne CFF-114 (CPT T'Pall, VADM A. Nakajima aboard)
CFMF Whippet CFF-179 (CMDR D. Slattery)
IGS Vengeance (CMDR G. Dessler)
Private starship H/V Slave One (J. Fett, master)
Private starship H/V Rusty Angel (A. Ironheart, master)

A small group of media starships arrived shortly thereafter, including NMS Swordbreaker (Network 23, J. Trussell, master) and the private broadcast vessel Big Time, but they did not take part in the main action, instead positioning themselves to provide galactic news coverage of the incidents unfolding on the planet's surface. At one point EAS Elbridge Gerry did engage Swordbreaker, attempting to drive the media ships off, but Swordbreaker's counterattack had crippled Gerry before any Force TRIDENT vessels could maneuver to intervene.

At MET 01:37, with the tactical advantage in orbit strongly on Force TRIDENT's side, I transferred operational command of the orbital elements to VADM Kirk, left Valiant in the capable hands of Colonel Grissom, and beamed to the surface in company with Tactical Division 131 SMF (Repo Men) to take charge of operations there.

The principal goals of Operation TRIDENT's surface actions were to wrest control of Tau City from Earthforce and restore President Charles Kallon to office. To this end, the TRIDENT surface forces were deployed with several incremental objectives:

1. To seize control of Tau City's main power generation facilities, the hydro-electric station at Tovora Dam north of the city and Lambert Salton Reactor Station downtown;

2. To determine the current status of the Tau City Constabulary and Republic of Tau Ceti Defense Force, gain control of their headquarters and barracks facilities, and (if necessary) restore both organizations to an operational condition;

3. To safeguard or re-establish legitimate government control of the Bell System hypercomm center near Government House;

4. To sweep the Earthforce Marine presence from Government House itself and its vicinity; and

5. To ascertain the whereabouts and condition of President Kallon and, if necessary, rescue him from Earthforce captivity.

By the time I arrived on the surface, much had already been done:

- The crew of the Gravy Train and several Valkyrie operatives had taken control of Tovora Dam, though a mishap during the fight had deprived much of the city's northern half of power;

- A group of TacDiv operators from Prometheus, led by SA1 agent Nikola Tesla, were on the verge of overtaking Salton Reactor entirely despite heavy resistance from Earthforce armored jump troopers and at least one Expert-level Black Omega esper agent (see attached dossier);

- Elements of the 66th Einherjar Legion and members of Valiant's volunteer crew had seized Tau City Constabulary Headquarters and were in the process of liberating the Constabulary's officers from the city prison, where Earthforce had incarcerated them; and

- Illustrious's ODSTs, led by MAJ Jaleen Orman and MCPO Sir John Spartan, had secured TCDF Headquarters and were in the process of mobilizing the Defense Force for objective 4 above.

Again, all personnel performed excellently. I must take special note of Prof. Tesla, whose heroism in the capture and preservation of Salton Reactor was conspicuous, and of one of our volunteers in Valiant, the Hon. Peregrine Took (58th Baroness Tuckborough), who was personally responsible for neutralizing the Black Omega esper agent in command of the city prison's occupation force.

When I reached the surface, my first order of business was to take control of the hypercomm facility. With 131 SMF's help, this was accomplished in relatively short order and without casualties. At that point I set about establishing a central command and coordination position. Up to that point the surface elements were proceeding independently, and all the threads of the operation had to be drawn together before we could proceed to objectives 4 and 5. Tuncer and I left most of 131 SMF to hold the hypercomm station until they could be relieved by local officers and relocated to TCDF Headquarters, which we judged to be the most thoroughly defensible of the available positions within the city.

At MET 03:21, I received word from Admiral Kirk that the two Starfleet vessels, which had held station and never offered to participate in the orbital action, had left the system abruptly and without making any kind of transmission. Shortly thereafter, the Earthforce Navy vessels that had not been captured or disabled earlier, and which had seemed to be regrouping near the orbit of Tau Ceti V, suddenly abandoned their efforts and quit the system, leaving Suribachi and Canaveral behind. Admiral Kirk and I redeployed Task Force TRIDENT for quick reaction to a possible reinforced Earthforce counterattack, but none appeared to be forthcoming. Our starships remained at high alert. Knowing they would report immediately if the situation changed, I returned my full attention to the ground operation.

At MET 03:45 (0445 hours local time, shortly before dawn), we completed preparations to launch phase 4 of the ground operation. In addition to the forces we brought with us and reinforcements beamed down from orbit, our force for the counterinvasion of Government Plaza included significant elements from both the Tau City Constabulary and Tau Ceti Defense Force. Their command and control structures were somewhat disorganized, owing to the battering both forces took in the initial invasion, but most local personnel were ready and eager to participate in the retaking of their capital.

I should note here that, with so many disparate elements involved in the ground assault, even with Lensmen scattered through the various groups, there would have been almost no hope of properly organizing or commanding the force as a whole without Cortana. Her communications capabilities are well beyond those of any humanoid, but her extensive tactical experience and her excellent situational awareness were of equal, if not greater, importance to the overall success of this operation.

Where the space battle was roughly even (allowing for the wide range of spacecraft types involved) at the outset, our ground force was badly outnumbered. Furthermore, the Earthforce Marines occupying Government Plaza were clearly aware that they had been abandoned by the Navy, and that their base ship was in no position to come to their aid. Under strict orders to hold until relief could arrive, they fought tenaciously. However, General Drake had remained aboard Suribachi, and with Retiarius in our hands he was completely unable to communicate with the planet.

The primary assault on Government Plaza took the form of a pincer, with one flank assaulted by Illustrious's ODSTs under Major Orman while Praefecta Flavia Satori's 66th Einherjar hit the other. At the same time, 131 SMF and a mixed group of volunteers and Special Assignment agents (including myself), broken up into several independent groups, entered the plaza and Government House itself through various secondary routes. By MET 05:23, the Salusian and Einherjar forces, supported by aerospacecraft from Prometheus and Charlemagne, had effective control of the outer plaza and the Earthforce command elements had withdrawn to the planetary emergency bunker in the subbasement of Government House.

The bunker was designed to provide a refuge for the colony's governor and other officials when Government House was first built, and its systems had been periodically updated, but it was intended to keep out rioting colonists, not determined professionals. MCPO Spartan breached it within minutes of Major Orman's ODSTs and the 66th securing the building.

At MET 05:33, I requested the surrender of Colonel Michael Plummer, General Drake's adjutant; when his only response was to attempt a (completely futile, given the tactical situation at that point) personal attack, MCPO Spartan was obliged to subdue him.

At MET 05:34, I accepted the surrender of Lieutenant Colonel Andrea Kopala, General Drake's deputy adjutant, and hostilities ceased.

--G.
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It also occurs to me that we never see the Swordbreaker blow a hole in the Elbridge Gerry onscreen, and that's definitely something that would have made the news.

While it would make for a dramatic onscreen moment, I could see why Truss might cut a deal with Blank Reg and Nanami to leave that part out of the news.Nothing like letting the galaxy know your journalism ship is really capable of manhandling (Canal-handling?) an Earthforce warship.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

"Um...what will it take to leave that out of your broadcast?"

"I'll classify it the same way you do. If you don't want this reaching eighty-seven million sentients over the next forty-eight hours, you may want to pretend that the Valiant hit you. Pretend real hard."

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.