Galnet Update 25 JAN 3307 - Trial Begins

[SCiARA]

The Federal High Court on Mars has opened the trial of Fleet Admiral Lucas Vincent, who is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and treason.

Vincent stands accused of organising the sabotage of Starship One in 3301, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

The Federal Times’s crime correspondent Ethan Takahashi reported:

“The trial began with the prosecution counsel outlining the case. Material evidence obtained from Chief Technician Rory Webster, whose testimony led to Vincent’s arrest, was presented before the jury.”

“Vincent was questioned about a secure transmission from his office to the presidential vessel on the 24th of May 3301, ordering an unscheduled diversion to the Azaleach system for routine maintenance. This is where Webster’s engineering team followed Vincent’s orders to install the sabotaged hyperdrive component that caused the misjump.”

“Evading the questions, Vincent claimed that the entire trial was a ‘Liberal Party cover-up’ and that Starship One was destroyed ‘to put Winters in charge’.”

“With the loss of President Halsey and Vice President Naylor, Felicia Winters did indeed assume the role of acting president and became leader of the Liberal Party. However, the defence counsel played down these accusations, instead declaring that Webster’s recordings of Vincent’s orders could have been falsified.”

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[Danieros]

What a chilling turn of events!

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

I thought Starship One was destroyed whilst trying to jump to Azaleach, not leaving it. I remember searching the system for debris with other players right after the news hit, back at the end of 1.2, in case there was something to find.

 

[Rubbernuke]

 

[zimms]

I wonder if this story thread will ever provide us with a motive of why Hudson would have wanted Halsey killed, other than "Republican Party bad".

Assassinating the President is pretty high risk for absolutely no gain in this situation.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I wonder if this story thread will ever provide us with a motive of why Hudson would have wanted Halsey killed, other than "Republican Party bad".

Assassinating the President is pretty high risk for absolutely no gain in this situation.

Depends on where the thread ends once you tug it- my guess is that Hudson (as alluded to in the books) is controlled by someone / group (The Club) who wanted to either cover something up or remove people they thought were troublesome no matter the cost.

 

[SCiARA]

and we still cant fully discount that it wasn't Winters all along

 

[CMDR D Noize]

“Evading the questions, Vincent claimed that the entire trial was a ‘Liberal Party cover-up’ and that Starship One was destroyed ‘to put Winters in charge’.”

There's some Info-Wars level tin foil arts & crafts going on there

 

[Bottom Hat]

I still expect that we'll find out in the end, that it was the Butler in the drawing room. With the frame-shift drive fixing spanner.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I wonder if this story thread will ever provide us with a motive of why Hudson would have wanted Halsey killed, other than "Republican Party bad".

The motive doesn't really fit for either Hudson or Winters, I think, not directly, even if on paper both benefited from it.

Halsey went out on that tour as a last-ditch attempt to prop up her popularity before Hudson called a no-confidence vote, which he pretty clearly had the ability to win by that point.

So let's say this attack on SS1 didn't happen, and Halsey returns to face Hudson in Congress ... she almost certainly loses the no-confidence vote anyway, Hudson becomes President anyway, and Halsey is likely to be pressured by the Liberal "smoke-filled rooms" to stand down as Shadow President (with Naylor equally compromised). Winters then has a clear route to that job as the most senior member of the party who didn't get the Lugh and Onionhead debacles attached to her, and can eventually set a new course.


Reading back over some of the other 3301 news articles...
- Naylor's predecessor as VP (Nigel Smeaton) died in mysterious circumstances about four months before the SS1 sabotage
- as later (after SS1) did one of his bodyguards, and her partner an investigative journalist
- as did a bunch of people investigating the SS1 disaster or involved in the Antares investigation
- there's some strong hints that Smeaton was killed because of what he knew about the Highliner Antares and his investigations into that

So, okay, we know that the SS1 and Antares sabotage were done in the same way. So having sabotaged SS1, the killers have a strong motive to also eliminate anyone who might be able to publicise that and lead an investigation to Webster.

But ... in that case, what about Smeaton? If he was killed because he was getting close to the truth on the Antares, who would be so threatened by the discovery of a 50-year old case of sabotage? (And who or what was the target on the Antares?)

Or is the Antares irrelevant except insofar as Smeaton might have noticed similarities for later sabotage of SS1, and therefore was eliminated early for safety? But if you have the resources to bypass the Federal VP's security team and make his death look somewhat accidental, why do you need to go for something so showy and obvious to kill anyone else? And equally, there's no guarantee that Halsey would end up going on a tour where you could arrange that sabotage at all.



Tinfoil theory 1: the sabotage to both ships was done on the orders of the mysterious entities that also hypnotised Gan Romero, as a means of kidnapping the occupants. It doesn't destroy the ship - it causes a misjump to somewhere else, and the wreckage is returned later as a cover-up.

Vincent is telling the truth that he didn't order it, as he remembers it: he gave the orders under hypnotism.

Why did they return Halsey? Did they return Halsey?...


Tinfoil theory 2: It was the Rochesters. Sabotage of the Antares and SS1 - and Hudson's switch to using Farraguts as official transport rather than Saud Kruger models - drives business to Core Dynamics and Jupiter Rochester. Meanwhile, the elimination of Smeaton, Halsey and Naylor from the top of the Liberal party gives Isolde Rochester an opportunity to climb the ladder - just Winters left to go, and Isolde is probably still young enough to just run out Winters 8-year term limit if necessary (but not the 32 years plus however many Republican interregnums of Smeaton + Halsey + Naylor + Winters).

 

[SCiARA]

Tinfoil theory 2: It was the Rochesters. Sabotage of the Antares and SS1 - and Hudson's switch to using Farraguts as official transport rather than Saud Kruger models - drives business to Core Dynamics and Jupiter Rochester. Meanwhile, the elimination of Smeaton, Halsey and Naylor from the top of the Liberal party gives Isolde Rochester an opportunity to climb the ladder - just Winters left to go, and Isolde is probably still young enough to just run out Winters 8-year term limit if necessary (but not the 32 years plus however many Republican interregnums of Smeaton + Halsey + Naylor + Winters).

monopoly money on this one, Rochesters have come up on other galnet stories lately what with the lakon takeover
I get the feeling the smaller stories are a way of pushing certain characters into the public for the benefit of the bigger ones