Dateline: The Galactic Enquirer. February 26th, 3304. Orcus Crag, Pleiades Sector OI-T c3-7.
Today marks the fourth day of demonstrations in Orcus Crag by independent commanders and their ship-launched fighter (SLF) pilots. The protestors’ strident voices and ringing chants have shattered the otherwise quiet, Thargoid-laced tension within this quiet, backwater outpost deep in the Pleiades. But the pilots’ anger and associated protests aren’t limited to sectors where pilots are actively risking their lives to stem the Thargoid advance. Similar demonstrations are spreading throughout human space, with protesters calling upon the Pilots Federation for increased teleoperator rights.
The protests may have begun in front of the main entrance to the Orcus Crag Starport due to the heightened risk SLF pilots endure in anti-xeno missions, but they’re spreading to other systems like a solvent fire across a tantalum foundry floor. This particular protest has continued non-stop for more than ninety hours as of the time of this article’s publication.
It’s been four months since the Pilots Federation, under pressure from the three super powers and their respective ship manufacturers, grudgingly approved shipbuilders’ plans to fit fighter hangars on select ships. The approval paved the way for improved combat power and survivability those flying those designated ship models by allowing them to carry teleoperators who could control ship launched fighters.
But the Pilots Federation approval specifically forbade fitting any safety or survivability equipment onto or within the new fighter hangars, where teleoperators must sit in order to control, rearm and refuel their SLFs.
As a result, in the last four months countless teleoperators have died needless deaths directly related to Pilots Federation iron-clad control of civilian space and, specifically, two of the federations’ centuries-old rules:
1) The operation of non-military, non-government space ships shall only be by active members of the Pilots Federation.
2) Ships flown by Pilots Federation members shall have one and only one escape module, which shall function only for, and be bio-keyed only to, the active Pilots Federation member to whom the ship is registered.
An escape module is different from an escape pod in that it’s virtually indestructible, stealthy, has cryogenic storage and stabilization equipment, and is frame-shift capable, with autonomous return of interred pilots to a safe harbor. It is arguably one of the most valuable boons granted to members by the Pilots Federation. Escape pods on the other hand have only minimal power for life-support, are non-locomotive and non-stealthy, susceptible to damage, and are only retrieved via search and rescue efforts, which sometimes never manifest and all too frequently fail when they do.
[For the record, ships carrying passengers are required to use only Pilots Federation approved passenger modules. Those modules’ have integrated escape pods which are not accessible to anyone not inside that compartment once a ship has launched. – Ed.]
The Galactic Enquirer has ascertained that these protests were sparked by leaked documents that appeared last week on the GalactiLeaks site, revealing that all of the major shipbuilders have created plans for an improved escape module that could be integrated (at significant expense) by Commanders wishing to offer their SLF pilots increased survivability. The documents revealed that the shipbuilders’ applications to market the improved, multi-person escape modules were summarily denied by the Pilots Federation. No reason was given.
Protesters – and many sympathizers throughout the core worlds – charge that this is one of the ways the immensely powerful, secretive Pilots Federation maintains its chokehold over independent pilots. Some would say over humanity in general.
In the eyes of the Pilots Federation, teleoperators are not full Pilots Federation members and are not subject to their protections.
The Pilots Federation, and only the Pilots Federation, decides who may become a full member. Their selection criteria are not published.
The protesters are a mixed group, comprised of Pilots Federation members (many of whom wear masks so as not to risk their Pilots Federation standing), their ship launched fighter pilots (or SLF Teleoperators), and various other malcontents and demonstration hijackers who tend to use any convenient protest as an excuse to voice their own grievances with people or organizations in power, whether related to the current protest or not.
Asked for comment on her take why the Teleoperators are protesting, Elite SLF Pilot Scarlett Johannson, who has emerged as a leader in this movement and who flies with Cmdr Talion Camisade, made the following statement:
“The Pilots Federation has a chokehold on the independent pilots, and shows a long history of deciding who is and is not allowed membership. But the new fighter hangars challenged that authority and like fanged animals seeing their turf invaded, the secretive executives at the top of the Pilots Federation hierarchy lashed out over the perceived erosion in their control.
“Once upon a time, these two critical rules might have made sense. But for the last four months, they have not, and it’s killing us.
“By maintaining these inexplicable limitations the Pilots Federation is sustaining an ill-conceived policy that is tantamount to murder. See, once I’m hired, I’m with my pilot, 100% of the time, and I get paid for that whether I’m on duty or not. The policy dictates that if I’m merely riding in a ship and not on active status, which means I’m literally locked out of the fighter hanger, then I have access to an escape pod if worst comes to worst. So under conditions where I’m not functioning as a pilot, I’m not constrained by the Pilots Federation edicts and can survive our ship’s destruction. But if my Commander needs me on active status and I begin our flight on duty as a pilot and in the fighter hangar, ready to deploy my SLFs, then I’m suddenly completely unprotected. Those Pilot Federation rules doom me to either a fiery or an icy death floating in the void if my ship is destroyed.
[Note: Fighter hangars can only be unlocked by Pilots Federation staffers at specific stations which offer those services via their Crew Quarters office. – Ed.]
“All this needless loss of life is just so the Pilots Federation can maintain their power over independent pilots. It’s murder, murder, I say!
“And,” a now teary-eyed Johansson concluded, “it’s literally undermining humanity’s warfighting efforts against the Thargoids; because some pilots don’t want to risk their highly trained, eminently skilled SLF pilots in an anti-xeno fight where things can go south in a hurry. So Commanders sometimes hire scabs when going into extreme danger. Too often these are the exploited poor or escaped slaves, who are willing to suffer any risk to earn subsistence and a chance at a better life. No matter where one stands on whether we should be fighting the Thargoids or not, no one can argue that it makes no sense for a skilled SLF pilot to be on board and unused, while a lesser skilled pilot is teleoperating the fighter, just because the Commander doesn’t want to risk their longtime compatriot!”
“Almost as bad, that policy has led to an all-too-common practice, where immoral Commanders hire a scab teleoperator for a mission, pay the hiring fee, but then fire that disposable SLF pilot before collecting the mission rewards, cutting the exploited teleoperator out of their fair share. And these poor teleoperators have no recourse but to get back into the queue, waiting their turn to offer their services to the next pilot, whom they can only hope will be more just, more compassionate.”
In a related story, the Galactic Enquirer has unearthed a rumor that some Commanders, in surreptitious rebellion against these obsolete Pilots Federation rules, have taken to fitting their ships carrying fighter hangars with small passenger cabins. The Commanders then take those cabins to specific engineers with whom they’ve built a trusting relationship. The engineers modify the cabins and the nearby hangar so that in an emergency the teleoperator can slip from their hangar seat into the now-illegally-modified passenger cabin. This gives them access to an escape pod and a chance of surviving a ship’s destruction.
Sadly, even in the event a teleoperator with access to this illegal modification survives the loss of their Commander’s ship, the two pilots – many of whom form strong relationships over months or years of shared combat – can never fly together again. The surviving teleoperator, who according to the Pilots Federation should be dead, is forced to develop a new identity and restart their career with a new or reduced ranking. Any reunification of the Commander and his teleoperator would risk a Pilots Federation discovery of the Commander’s violation. That would result in loss of his pilot’s privileges and ranking. The Galactic Enquirer has even uncovered whispers of bounties being placed on the heads of teleoperators who’ve been revealed to have survived this way. Such is the dark side of the Pilots Federation’s almost unlimited power.
This just in:
Word is spreading through the galaxy that on a date in the near future, Commanders and their SLF teleoperators are planning to mass in the LHS 3447 system – the only Pilots Federation controlled system not protected by an FSD-blocking permit – to express their displeasure. It won’t be lost on anybody that those Commanders, in great numbers, many of whom fly ships with surprising military capability, would comprise a fleet with unmatched firepower. They might bring to bear an amount of weaponry that could conceivably destroy certain areas of a system’s orbitals and planetary bases – say, those housing Pilots Federation buildings, for example – to rubble, with no chance of local, over-matched security forces being able to mount a meaningful resistance.
Hopefully the Pilots Federation will take heed of these protests before an event like that strikes a match to this growing tinderbox of pilot discontent.
Today marks the fourth day of demonstrations in Orcus Crag by independent commanders and their ship-launched fighter (SLF) pilots. The protestors’ strident voices and ringing chants have shattered the otherwise quiet, Thargoid-laced tension within this quiet, backwater outpost deep in the Pleiades. But the pilots’ anger and associated protests aren’t limited to sectors where pilots are actively risking their lives to stem the Thargoid advance. Similar demonstrations are spreading throughout human space, with protesters calling upon the Pilots Federation for increased teleoperator rights.
The protests may have begun in front of the main entrance to the Orcus Crag Starport due to the heightened risk SLF pilots endure in anti-xeno missions, but they’re spreading to other systems like a solvent fire across a tantalum foundry floor. This particular protest has continued non-stop for more than ninety hours as of the time of this article’s publication.
It’s been four months since the Pilots Federation, under pressure from the three super powers and their respective ship manufacturers, grudgingly approved shipbuilders’ plans to fit fighter hangars on select ships. The approval paved the way for improved combat power and survivability those flying those designated ship models by allowing them to carry teleoperators who could control ship launched fighters.
But the Pilots Federation approval specifically forbade fitting any safety or survivability equipment onto or within the new fighter hangars, where teleoperators must sit in order to control, rearm and refuel their SLFs.
As a result, in the last four months countless teleoperators have died needless deaths directly related to Pilots Federation iron-clad control of civilian space and, specifically, two of the federations’ centuries-old rules:
1) The operation of non-military, non-government space ships shall only be by active members of the Pilots Federation.
2) Ships flown by Pilots Federation members shall have one and only one escape module, which shall function only for, and be bio-keyed only to, the active Pilots Federation member to whom the ship is registered.
An escape module is different from an escape pod in that it’s virtually indestructible, stealthy, has cryogenic storage and stabilization equipment, and is frame-shift capable, with autonomous return of interred pilots to a safe harbor. It is arguably one of the most valuable boons granted to members by the Pilots Federation. Escape pods on the other hand have only minimal power for life-support, are non-locomotive and non-stealthy, susceptible to damage, and are only retrieved via search and rescue efforts, which sometimes never manifest and all too frequently fail when they do.
[For the record, ships carrying passengers are required to use only Pilots Federation approved passenger modules. Those modules’ have integrated escape pods which are not accessible to anyone not inside that compartment once a ship has launched. – Ed.]
The Galactic Enquirer has ascertained that these protests were sparked by leaked documents that appeared last week on the GalactiLeaks site, revealing that all of the major shipbuilders have created plans for an improved escape module that could be integrated (at significant expense) by Commanders wishing to offer their SLF pilots increased survivability. The documents revealed that the shipbuilders’ applications to market the improved, multi-person escape modules were summarily denied by the Pilots Federation. No reason was given.
Protesters – and many sympathizers throughout the core worlds – charge that this is one of the ways the immensely powerful, secretive Pilots Federation maintains its chokehold over independent pilots. Some would say over humanity in general.
In the eyes of the Pilots Federation, teleoperators are not full Pilots Federation members and are not subject to their protections.
The Pilots Federation, and only the Pilots Federation, decides who may become a full member. Their selection criteria are not published.
The protesters are a mixed group, comprised of Pilots Federation members (many of whom wear masks so as not to risk their Pilots Federation standing), their ship launched fighter pilots (or SLF Teleoperators), and various other malcontents and demonstration hijackers who tend to use any convenient protest as an excuse to voice their own grievances with people or organizations in power, whether related to the current protest or not.
Asked for comment on her take why the Teleoperators are protesting, Elite SLF Pilot Scarlett Johannson, who has emerged as a leader in this movement and who flies with Cmdr Talion Camisade, made the following statement:
“The Pilots Federation has a chokehold on the independent pilots, and shows a long history of deciding who is and is not allowed membership. But the new fighter hangars challenged that authority and like fanged animals seeing their turf invaded, the secretive executives at the top of the Pilots Federation hierarchy lashed out over the perceived erosion in their control.
“Once upon a time, these two critical rules might have made sense. But for the last four months, they have not, and it’s killing us.
“By maintaining these inexplicable limitations the Pilots Federation is sustaining an ill-conceived policy that is tantamount to murder. See, once I’m hired, I’m with my pilot, 100% of the time, and I get paid for that whether I’m on duty or not. The policy dictates that if I’m merely riding in a ship and not on active status, which means I’m literally locked out of the fighter hanger, then I have access to an escape pod if worst comes to worst. So under conditions where I’m not functioning as a pilot, I’m not constrained by the Pilots Federation edicts and can survive our ship’s destruction. But if my Commander needs me on active status and I begin our flight on duty as a pilot and in the fighter hangar, ready to deploy my SLFs, then I’m suddenly completely unprotected. Those Pilot Federation rules doom me to either a fiery or an icy death floating in the void if my ship is destroyed.
[Note: Fighter hangars can only be unlocked by Pilots Federation staffers at specific stations which offer those services via their Crew Quarters office. – Ed.]
“All this needless loss of life is just so the Pilots Federation can maintain their power over independent pilots. It’s murder, murder, I say!
“And,” a now teary-eyed Johansson concluded, “it’s literally undermining humanity’s warfighting efforts against the Thargoids; because some pilots don’t want to risk their highly trained, eminently skilled SLF pilots in an anti-xeno fight where things can go south in a hurry. So Commanders sometimes hire scabs when going into extreme danger. Too often these are the exploited poor or escaped slaves, who are willing to suffer any risk to earn subsistence and a chance at a better life. No matter where one stands on whether we should be fighting the Thargoids or not, no one can argue that it makes no sense for a skilled SLF pilot to be on board and unused, while a lesser skilled pilot is teleoperating the fighter, just because the Commander doesn’t want to risk their longtime compatriot!”
“Almost as bad, that policy has led to an all-too-common practice, where immoral Commanders hire a scab teleoperator for a mission, pay the hiring fee, but then fire that disposable SLF pilot before collecting the mission rewards, cutting the exploited teleoperator out of their fair share. And these poor teleoperators have no recourse but to get back into the queue, waiting their turn to offer their services to the next pilot, whom they can only hope will be more just, more compassionate.”
In a related story, the Galactic Enquirer has unearthed a rumor that some Commanders, in surreptitious rebellion against these obsolete Pilots Federation rules, have taken to fitting their ships carrying fighter hangars with small passenger cabins. The Commanders then take those cabins to specific engineers with whom they’ve built a trusting relationship. The engineers modify the cabins and the nearby hangar so that in an emergency the teleoperator can slip from their hangar seat into the now-illegally-modified passenger cabin. This gives them access to an escape pod and a chance of surviving a ship’s destruction.
Sadly, even in the event a teleoperator with access to this illegal modification survives the loss of their Commander’s ship, the two pilots – many of whom form strong relationships over months or years of shared combat – can never fly together again. The surviving teleoperator, who according to the Pilots Federation should be dead, is forced to develop a new identity and restart their career with a new or reduced ranking. Any reunification of the Commander and his teleoperator would risk a Pilots Federation discovery of the Commander’s violation. That would result in loss of his pilot’s privileges and ranking. The Galactic Enquirer has even uncovered whispers of bounties being placed on the heads of teleoperators who’ve been revealed to have survived this way. Such is the dark side of the Pilots Federation’s almost unlimited power.
This just in:
Word is spreading through the galaxy that on a date in the near future, Commanders and their SLF teleoperators are planning to mass in the LHS 3447 system – the only Pilots Federation controlled system not protected by an FSD-blocking permit – to express their displeasure. It won’t be lost on anybody that those Commanders, in great numbers, many of whom fly ships with surprising military capability, would comprise a fleet with unmatched firepower. They might bring to bear an amount of weaponry that could conceivably destroy certain areas of a system’s orbitals and planetary bases – say, those housing Pilots Federation buildings, for example – to rubble, with no chance of local, over-matched security forces being able to mount a meaningful resistance.
Hopefully the Pilots Federation will take heed of these protests before an event like that strikes a match to this growing tinderbox of pilot discontent.
