GblaRCS Chpt 43

==Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star - Chapter 43 -==
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"Niops delenda est."Raymond Karpov, Primus of Comstar - 2842CE
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===Ambitions of ComStar===
Association Council Building – Niops Association (Niops VII) – 2840
"You really came up with this on the spur of the moment?" Giles Olson asked the young man sat across from him.
Gareth Jeffries nodded. "Yes Sir, the delegates from the Palatinate seemed far too forgiving for my liking, to be honest I think ComStar might have been whispering in their ears, and although the final decision was their call given that it was their sovereignty which had been violated, both Admiral Mbeki and myself believed that Circinus was getting off far too lightly if we didn't tweak the final settlement against them some more."
The High Associator nodded. Requesting that Jeffries attend his office to brief him as soon as he returned from the negotiations on Circinus had proven well worth some of his increasingly limited time left in office, it was filling in a lot of details that the summary report that arrived by HPG a few weeks earlier had left out for reasons of brevity. "You believed they needed to be brought down a peg or two" Olson surmised.
"Yes Sir, frankly some of them looked a little too smug for my liking when the return of their JumpShips was agreed" Jeffries replied. "Looking at the matter from a purely financial perspective, money and trade being very much the prism through which the Illyrians view the world, the cash value of those JumpShips far exceeds the losses that would have been incurred even if the raid had been completely successful. As such the Palatinate judged keeping them a disproportionate penalty that would only guarantee future enmity with their neighbour, even if Circinus was generally seen as the initial aggressor and therefore the guilty party" he continued. "It's not an entirely meritless argument, overly harsh terms written into peace treaties have historically led to subsequent wars on occasion. For example, the Versailles Treaty of 1919 may have formally brought the First World War to an close but it arguably set the conditions for the Second World War breaking out two decades later."
Olson nodded again, he might have been less lenient himself in the same position but it was a decent point nonetheless and it wasn't for Niops to dictate to another government how they behaved anyway, at least not a friendly government. Staying on good terms with both the Illyrian Palatinate and the Magistracy of Canopus was a critical foreign-policy goal, it was nice to only have to worry about the border with the Mariks. "They weren't concerned that Circinus might use the JumpShips to attempt a repeat performance later?" he queried.
"Between the arms being imported from the Magistracy, and their share of the battlefield prizes, Illyria believes they'll be too hard a nut to crack in future." Jeffries replied. "About the only thing the prisoners said that we ever believed completely was that they made their play when they did because they didn't think they could once the Palatinate's military build-up was complete. It's even worse for them now that it would have been going forward because the Black Warriors are down a bunch of Battlemechs, several of which will shortly be taking up a new life in Palatinate colors making it worse, and they're also pretty sure we've also got the Illyrian's backs."
"Niops being the eight-hundred-pound gorilla out here in this neck of the woods." Olson said, chuckling. "We've come a long way since I won my first election" he said, mind always aware that the end of his final term was drawing close. The general election was only weeks away now and since the constitution restricted how long you could stay in office he was unable to stand himself.
Jeffries smiled. "I wasn't actually old enough to vote in that one" he told the High Associator.
Olson looked at him askance. "Please don't say things like that, it makes me feel ancient" he requested glumly. "While I try and forget you just told me that, what was their reaction when you insisted on the extra terms being added to the armistice agreement" he asked curiously.
"Initially they all just stared at me in disbelief until eventually their President stood up and bellowed: 'You want us to foot the bill for the repairs of the Battlemechs you took from our people as salvage? Are you ****** serious?' and then he looked to the ComStar Precentor as if expecting her to back him up."
"And she didn't." Olson responded, grinning.
"Nope. I guess she picked up on the vibes Admiral Mbeki was signalling, the ones that were screaming 'Screw this. Let's just crush them like a bug and go home' to anyone paying attention" Jeffries replied, grinning. "They'd already accepted that we were going to keep their DropShips, the Palatinate was pretty happy with getting themselves a Union in good condition as well as some mechs, and even if we just stick the two Leopards we're keeping in mothballs for now Mbeki's sure they'll be useful eventually. They thought that making them stump up the cash to fix the machines we broke was rubbing their faces in it though."
"Which it was." Olson said flatly.
"Yes, that was the entire idea. I wanted them to know exactly how much further down the food chain they were than us, and they must have known deep down already because after some bluster, and a clearly fake threat to withdraw from negotiations entirely, they eventually agreed to our terms as you know" Jeffries explained. "In the spirit of trying to sound reasonable and conciliatory, and after letting them seethe for a while, I told them that we wouldn't expect the money to pay for the repairs right away just as long as the financial restitution for the casualties they caused wasn't too long in coming" he continued. "They bitched about how much we wanted them to pay the families of the deceased, and they really bitched about covering the medical bills of our injured, but they shut up when we said if they didn't agree to pay we'd only return one of the JumpShips, sell the other to the Free Worlds League or the Magistracy at well below market price, and send them what was left of the money after deducting the reparations from there."
Jeffries leaned forward in his chair. "Thinking strategically. Since I played bad cop at the negotiations it might be worthwhile for someone else from Niops to offer Circinus a diplomatic olive branch in the near future, something to diffuse the situation somewhat so when they think of Niops they don't automatically just think 'obnoxious, overbearing ****** throwing their weight around' just 'not people we want to mess with' instead perhaps" he suggested. "One of Admiral Mbeki's officers gave me an idea when he was complaining about the climate on Circinus, we might want to consider supplying them with an industrial-sized Jamerson-Ulikov water-purification system or two once we've got production of those ramped up."
"Ah, yes. The very best type of development aid, the kind that looks generous but also means they're dependent on us for replacement filters if they want the thing to keep running" Olson surmised.
"Right" Jeffries confirmed his reasoning. "If we offer to supply them at cost, as we're planning to do for the Magistracy and the Palatinate, we can portray it as being just an extension of an existing policy rather than a means to put a leash on the bastards" he said. "If we really wanted to make it look convincing maybe you could suggest to the incoming High Associator that they be the one that makes the offer. The change in administration being the reason for a more easy-going, less strident diplomatic policy than we had under your harsh regime."
"I was wondering about that when I read the HPG you sent summarising how the negotiations went" Olson told him. "The cryptic part about the election coming up and your concern that the next High Associator might undo all your hard work to constrain future aggression by Circinus."
"Seemed like a way to throw ComStar off the scent" Jeffries replied, smiling. "As regards the rest of the HPG, sorry it was so brief, High Associator." he apologized, "If we didn't have to utilize the ComStar Network I wouldn't have left out so much information that wasn't misdirection, but they clearly read and copy everything that's placed in their care before delivering it, and besides which have you seen what they charge per page of text?" he asked rhetorically, shaking his head in disbelief. "I'll never complain about how much NHCOMNET charge to send a letter to my sister working on Comstock again."
"Monopoly pricing and no regulation because that precious Communication's Protocol of theirs let's them get away with fleecing their customers" Olson replied with distaste. "It's not like SLCOMNET didn't turn a profit back in the Star League days, they weren't altruists, they just didn't abuse their position to completely screw over everyone wanting to send an HPG."
Jeffries smiled. "The big difference was because the primary goal of the Department of Communications was to help tie the Inner Sphere together, not to make themselves rich" he replied.
"You really think ComStar's primary goal is to make themselves rich?" Olson asked, raising his eyebrows as if chiding the young diplomat.
"No. Their primary objective is the pursuit of power and influence. Information is one currency of that, money is another, that's why they seek to obtain and hoard both." Jeffries replied. "The real question is how much military strength they have, that being another important currency of power."
"General Romanov, for one doesn't buy the notion that they demobilized all those SLDF divisions Kerensky placed in Blake's hands after they took over Terra and handed it to ComStar on a plate" Olson noted.
"It would have been a little foolish of them to do so when the Great Houses were annexing Hegemony systems left, right and center, so I'd have to agree with her assessment" Jeffries replied. "If I recall correctly most of those divisions weren't Hegemony born Royal formations so most of their veterans are going to be long retired or dead by now, but they'll still have the hardware and presumably they had the foresight to recruit and train up replacements." he theorized.
Olson laughed. "A few more years of the Successor States battering themselves back towards the pre-industrial age and ComStar might start thinking they can retake the Hegemony." he suggested.
"Yeah, just in time for the Clans to show up intending to do the same" Jeffries responded, laughing. "I guess we'll just sit back and take on the winner."
"It's a plan, I'll write it up on a note and leave it in my desk for my successor along with the Water-Purifier idea I'll make sure to take personal credit for" Olson joked. "Talking of plans, you're not entirely convinced by the Palatinate's one that they think will prevent future unpleasantness between them and Circinus I believe?"
Jeffries sighed. "In my opinion it's just another example of how their cultural bias towards commerce and trade effects their critical thinking" he replied. "Circinus claims that they thought Illyria was going to invade them in order to take control of the valuable mineral wealth on Circinus IV, a claim that is most likely just bullshit but who can know for absolute certain. The Palatinate chose to take it at face value, perhaps just as a diplomatic courtesy perhaps not, which is why they suggested a joint business venture with Circinus to start to exploit that wealth."
The High Associator pursed his lips. "The Illyrians do have the mining expertise" he observed.
"Yes, but they also believe that if they forge mutually beneficial trade relations with Circinus then they won't have any more problems with them" Jeffries responded. "It seems a reasonable position, persuasive even at first glance, but historically nations go to war with their most important trading partners all the time. I'll give you a historical example, again using the First World War as an exemplar although now it's from the beginning of the conflict not the end. In 1913 the two countries Germany traded with most were Britain and Russia, a year later they were fighting against them in the most destructive war in history to that date, something that surprised a number of theorists who thought that couldn't happen because their economies were too intertwined."
"It's not all about economics" Olson observed.
"No, Sir." Jeffries agreed. "Wars mostly ceased being profitable with mass industrialization, it's rare to gain back more resources even in victory than you had to spend on the spend on the military to do so, but just because invading someone would likely lead you worse off in the long term didn't seem to reduce the number of people starting wars."
"I assume you explained all this to the representatives from the Palatinate?" Olson asked.
The young diplomat sighed. "Of course, but they want to believe that everything revolves around trade so they do" he replied. "At least they're not naïve enough to think we should give back both JumpShips before Circinus hands over the reparation money trusting them to pay later when we have less of a hold over them. We'll give one back as a gesture of good faith, I'm thinking whichever is in the worse condition myself, but if they want the other one as well, then obviously we'll want to see the C-Bills they owe us first."
"Have they even got the money?"
Jeffries shrugged. "Honestly, we were kinda hoping they would say they had it on hand, then I could have asked why they were so flush with ready cash and make a flippant comment about how that disproved the old adage that 'crime does not pay' because they seemed to be making a good living from it, but no such luck. They asked if they could pay by installments instead of one lump sum."
"Just so long as they don't expect to get the damn ship back before the final payment that's fine as far as I'm concerned" Olson replied. "It's just a shame that both jump-ships weren't carrying dropships or we could have ransomed a few of them too."
"The assumption is that they were expecting to capture those Danais cargo haulers so they had to have the free docking collars to haul them away," Jeffries replied, "which brings me neatly to something else" he continued. "They were quite cute in sticking to their cover story consistently, as part of that they refused to agree to anything without a concession from the Palatinate that Circinus could send people to inspect those DropShips in order to verify whether Illyria was in fact militarizing them, as their supposed intelligence source told them it was."
Olson laughed. "I assume the Palatinate agreed?"
"Well yeah, because they weren't militarizing them." Jeffries replied. "It was actually pretty funny, Circinus was lying, we knew they were lying, and they knew we knew they were lying, but for the sake of diplomat niceties we all just pretended otherwise" he continued, shaking his head in amusement. "It's very different seeing it all play out like that in real life not in books let me tell you, although the funniest part was Illyria offering to sell them to Circinus at market price if that reassurance wasn't enough."
The High Associator was very much reminded of the negotiations between ComStar and the Free Worlds league which had led to the HPG interdiction being lifted. As part of the agreement Garth Marik, representing his older brother the new Captain-General, had to formally state for the record that their father had been in error when he declared that ComStar had been passing on military intelligence they had on the League to its enemies. The fact that Charles Marik had been right, that everyone in authority in the League knew he was right, that Comstar knew he was right and that the other Successor States knew he was right as well mattered little. The important thing was that a inconvenient truth be put aside for the sake of expediency and ComStar's preferred public image.
"How was the Illyrian offer received?" Olson asked, intrigued.
"In a way that let me know Colonel Cirion also has a sense of humor." Jeffries told him. "He asked what they would charge the Black Warrior's for one, seeing as how he was now down a Union, and then he asked how much extra he would have to pay to get it converted to a Trojan, assuming that hadn't been done already."
Olson chuckled. "I do wonder how events might have panned out if one of the prisoners we took wasn't his daughter" he remarked. "It would have made it a little awkward if his government had decided to simply disavow any knowledge."
"On the surface the Black Warriors do seem loyal to the civilian government, but it must have dawned on them, even if it was never actually said aloud, that he might have some issues with letting his little girl get hanged or thrown out of an airlock" Jeffries suggested. "It's more than possible that Cirion's troops are more loyal to him, or rather his family, than they are the President. Notions of obligation to an individual or a dynasty rather than a state isn't just for the Great Houses after all, one of the best latter-day critiques of Marx is the failure of his model to predict that feudalism was effectively going to make a big comeback. It's not the wealthy industrialists calling all the shots."
"If it was then I wouldn't be running Niops, Guan Yuanchun would be" Olson remarked. The richest man on the planet had seen his wealth only increase over the last decade as he invested capital into various off-world enterprises that were paying off handsomely. The money he was ploughing into Alphard and Comstock in particular, the future industrial heartlands of the Hegemony, would likely see him become an actual billionaire presently.
Other than Olson himself the man the press were most asking the question: 'Which candidate do you endorse?' was Guan Yuanchun, but the man apparently had the sense to stay out of politics, apart that is for funding advocacy groups for those of Capellan refugee descent like himself.
Privately Olson knew who he wanted to win of course, based on knowing all the candidates personally apart that is from the weirdo who wanted to introduce the clan caste system to Niops and was running on that as a platform, but he wasn't saying.
Regarding the aforementioned weirdo inexplicably he was not even of Wolverine descent, he was actually Niops born, which only made it all the stranger. Olson wondered if he was even grounded enough in reality to realise that if he did win Franklin Hallis would promptly blow his head off and rather doubted it.
Apparently said candidate also believed in phrenology, the phlogiston theory and trickle-down economics which probably explained a few things. It was a pity he didn't also profess belief in astrology as well to be honest, because if he had he could have been committed to a mental health facility for his own good and that of society at large.
"As per your prior instructions on the matter I agreed that we would release the prisoners into the custody of the Palatinate ASAP and that they would return them to Circinus." Jeffries told the High Associator. "The agreed schedule for the return of the first jumpship to Circinus only specified it occurring this year, and at our convenience."
"So, we give it back on December 31st you think?" Olson replied, grinning.
Jeffries grinned back. "If we can jump in at exactly at 23:59 on that date that would be ideal" he agreed. "We wouldn't want to break any agreements but there's no need to go above and beyond the minimum required."
"The heady joys of malicious compliance are not to be underestimated" Olson remarked. "****** ComStar do it to us all the time. Did you hear yet that they're still dithering over releasing our access to the funds we deposited with them at Hednesford?" he asked.
"Still? I thought that would have been sorted out by now" Jeffries replied, surprised.
"They keep changing their story, the latest one is that they need to make sure that the data in their Hednesford accounts from before the Interdiction perfectly match the back-up records on Terra just in case SAFE meddled with them somehow" Olson explained. "As if we didn't know ROM spent the entire ComStar War running rings around Free Worlds intelligence."
To be fair it wasn't like SAFE had completely failed in its efforts to deal with ComStar's intelligence operations within their territory. They had captured quite a number of ComStar personnel, including members of ROM, passing on some of what they learned to Niops because they were trying to keep the Association on-side and not risk their source of PPC's being cut-off, but overall SAFE had lived up to its Rep of being a distinctly second-rate intelligence organisation.
If the League had been a little less desperate at the time it was unlikely that they would have been so willing, perhaps even eager, to share intelligence information with some minor periphery nation like Niops, but at the time they had needed all the help they could get. Needless to say, once HPG access had been restored, and the military situation stabilised, SAFE had almost immediately stopped feeding potentially valuable information they had learned about ComStar and its intelligence agency to Niops, it simply went against the grain to do so except in the direst of circumstances, but for a while keeping their PPC supplier on-side had outweighed other considerations.
It was considered likely that ComStar was aware that the Niops Association was better informed about them thanks to SAFE than they would wish them to be. After all SAFE's own reputation was that it leaked like a sieve at the best of times, while the messy, near-chaotic political structure of the Free Worlds League likely made infiltration of the various structures within its government a less onerous task than doing so would be in the Capellan Confederation or the Draconis Combine for example. How the phone company would treat with them in future as a result was uncertain as yet but they were certainly being a pain-in-the-ass at the moment.
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===Proposal for a diplomatic solution===
Olson adopted a serious expression. "It's possible that you might be required to undertake a diplomatic mission to Terra on our behalf in order to try and normalise our relations with ComStar." he told the young man.
"Normalize?"
"Not in the sense that everyone else kisses their ass so they won't switch off their HPG access, or pass on their secrets to someone else, not that 'normal' Gareth." Olson explained. "I mean our normal in the sense that they pass on our messages and we pay for the privilege, nothing more than that."
"What makes you think our relationship with ComStar is becoming rocky enough to warrant a little amiable chat to clear the air? Not just their interceding in the Circinus issue surely?"
Olson shook his head. "No, that's just one of the indications we have that ComStar is starting to think we need to be put in our place" he said. "As you know, during their interdiction on the Free Worlds League we were routing communications via the Magistracy, Thraxa having the closest available HPG that still worked."
Jeffries nodded. "I really like those cuts of Tazqan meat we've been importing from there too" he replied. "Amazing depth of taste."
"I know right?" Olson enthusiastically agreed. "I've asked the Department of Trade to see if we can import a few Tazqan and raise them here, they'll probably do better in our climate than most herd animals, but that's a digression" he said. "Apparently the HPG on Thraxa is expected to fail at any moment and ComStar have no plans to repair or replace the thing."
"But that's ridiculous," Jeffries replied, visibly surprised. "I know they don't prioritise systems where there's not much trade, or data traffic, but I thought that we agreed with the Duchess of Thraxa that we'd route all our trade with the Magistracy through there from now on?"
"We did, and we are, it's the closest system in the Magistracy to us anyway and she's proven a reliable person to do business with." Olson replied. "We're assuming that ComStar are doing it to try and lean on us, their options for doing so are limited and while letting Thraxa fall off the grid doesn't impact us directly it's an annoyance at the very least. The director of NHCOMNET has been pushing me to establish an outpost in the Al-Farghani system, no habitable planets but there's a moon that could be terraformed eventually and a decent enough asteroid belt. More importantly it's within HPG transmission range of both ComStock and Thraxa so we wouldn't be so dependent upon the Hednesford station to get a message out."
"But it wouldn't be any use doing that if Thraxa isn't going to have a working HPG anyway." Jeffries noted.
"Nope." Olson confirmed. "NHCOMNET wanted to send a curt demand to the Primus himself saying that if ComStar didn't keep the Thraxa station online then we'd install an HPG of our own there." he said. "I told them it was a bad idea."
"Is it?" Jeffries asked rhetorically.
"Isn't it? Karpov would likely go ballistic." Olson stated with certainty. "According to Garth Marik the man practically had steam coming out of his ears when the Free Worlds League refused to completely supplicate themselves."
"I'm sure he would, that's why NHCOMNET would send the message to him with you countersigning, and then once the 'malevolent' Giles Olson is out of the picture the new High Associator can apologize for their behaviour and request a reset on diplomatic relations between Niops and ComStar" he suggested, smiling evilly. "Naturally as an act of goodwill it would be nice if they kept the Thraxa station running, but we'd be willing to pay some of the costs if ComStar is short of cash at the moment. The Interdiction itself, and the costs of restoring the network in Marik territory, must have drained their coffers severely, unless that is they've been overcharging everyone drastically all this time."
Olson burst out laughing. "They won't know how to respond to that at all" he said eventually. "They don't want to have to justify letting Thraxa fall off the grid, especially if we're offering to foot some of the bill."
"Better than that, if they claim its some exorbitant sum we can say that we could do it all ourselves for less than that and suggest they're being screwed by whoever is making the HPG's for them" Jeffries replied, grinning himself.
"They've clearly been trying the carrot and stick approach with us but ever since the Interdiction it's been a lot less carrot and a lot more stick" Jeffries argued. "If they get to thinking that the stumbling block was the man that's been running Niops for fifteen years, and that the new guy or girl might be less intransigent than you've been in telling them to get lost when they asked to take over control of NHCOMNET, we might get a couple more years of carrot."
Olson frowned. "At some point they're going to realize we're screwing with them."
"Yeah, and we'll know that they'll know but diplomacy is like that" Jeffries responded.
"It'll be out of my hands soon of course, but as it happens I've personally come to believe that our best approach to relations with ComStar is aloof bordering on antagonistic so that approach would lean into that" Olson responded thoughtfully. "It's something that'll give us a distinct identity as not just being another periphery microstate. We don't have to suck up to the phone company because we still know how everything the Terran Hegemony invented works and can reproduce it, and we don't have to bow and scrape to any of the Great Houses because we've got the firepower to inflict crippling losses on any aggressor" he said. "My military attaché Colonel Ebon came to me last week with a motto the armed forces wants to adopt, something that they feel as being appropriate to our circumstances: Irrita me invenies quid valeam."
"Provoke me and find out what I am capable of?" Jeffries translated from Latin.
Olson nodded. "A true scholar I see." he observed appreciatively. "Although that's not quite how she translated it."
"Yes?" Jeffries queried.
"****** around and find out." Olson told him, trying not to laugh.
Jeffries laughed himself. "Not very literal but it might be a more accurate translation as regards the message it want to convey nonertheless" he had to admit. "Perhaps we need an informal motto for our foreign policy position too? Something like: 'Niops sumus. Scimus omnia et numquam pares' perhaps?" he suggested.
"We're Niops. We know everything and we're never outmatched." the High Associator translated himself. "Sounds a little boastful, but when you can back it up why not indulge in some swagger?" he asked rhetorically.
"Only boastful, sir? I was going for downright obnoxious" Jeffries replied.
"The Latin makes it sound a little too classy for that." Olson opined. "Perhaps just say it in English and then you can also substitute 'outgunned' for 'outmatched'."
Jeffries thought about that and nodded. "You've got a point," he conceded. "English and unmistakably obnoxious it is."
"Keep the Latin version in your back pocket in case you feel the need to be condescending as well." Olson advised. "I suspect that maintaining an air of intellectual superiority while talking down to ComStar in particular would render the most stoic of them completely incensed and totally throw them off their game."
"Well, they really don't like it when you correct them in public, I've seen that for myself" Jeffries told him. "The Precentor attending the Circinus negotiations quoted Metternich and said it was a something Jerome Blake came up with."
"Metternich?" Olson queried.
"He was an early nineteenth century statesman and diplomat, served the Austrian-Hungarian Empire" Jeffries explained, unsurprised that Olson was unfamiliar with the man. "I corrected her in front of everyone and she was not happy about it."
"They claim to be preserving knowledge but they're more like a religious cult every day I swear" Olson remarked. "They actually refer to their former leaders Blake and Toyama as saints did you know that? They'll be claiming they grant miracles next, the Catholic Churches should sue."
"I think they're still too busy arguing with each other to pay attention."
The High Associator blinked as something occurred to him. "Forget ComStar itself for a moment, I think I might have something else for you to do" he said suddenly. "What would happen if we contacted the Church in Rome and offered to hand over Bernard Critchly?"
"I suspect they would be very pleased." Jeffries assumed.
"Not the kind of news ComStar could suppress even if they tried. The Pope would likely spread the word far and wide don't you think?" Olson asked.
"Billions of very happy Catholics right across the Inner Sphere I would imagine."
Olson smirked. "Public relations gold just when ComStar might be looking to bad-mouth us because we won't dance to their tune."
"And we get to spread the story about how the 295th Division of the SLDF fought and won the last battle of the Amaris War by defeating the Amaris Dragoons" Jeffries considered. "They'll wonder why we're only going public with this now though."
"We'll make something up about keeping it quiet while we pumped the prisoners for information about other possible Amaris holdouts and didn't want to possibly tip anybody off" Olson decided. "It's not even a complete lie, we did find out who Raymond's Redcoats were from them."
Jeffries looked thoughtful. "If we delivered Critchly to the Vatican on Terra personally we could make it a full-blown diplomat mission" he said. "The Vatican is still technically an independent state so we could present our credentials to the Pope, formalise diplomatic relations with them and then ask if we can address the First Circuit of ComStar since we're on Terra anyway."
Olson nodded. "Lots to think about here, but well worth discussing with the council" he said. "At the very least it'll be another example of Niops being the small pebble making ripples in the big pond and we're getting to the stage where that works in our favor."
"I wonder if the history books will agree." Jeffries remarked.
"If the Second Age of War doesn't come to a close soon we'll be the only ones left who are literate enough to write the history books of the future, so we should be fine." Olson replied wryly.
"What about ComStar?"
"Their history books will say that Jerome Blake rose from the dead and captured Critchly before returning to the grave" Olson joked.
"So is undead Jerome Blake a vampire or a zombie?"
"Disagreements over that will be the schism that they'll fight a civil war over, heretics being burned at the stake because they refuse to recant their belief that he cast a reflection in the mirror."
"Blasphemy!"
"May the light of Sweet Zombie Blake shine upon you my child." Olson solemnly intoned, wishing that he had a few more years left in office so he could be in charge when things got really interesting.
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Notes from the Author : ComStar had gradually become less secular and more akin to a religious order under Conrad Toyama, but during Raymond Karpov's reign it really began to embrace the idea with robes, chanting and an increasingly use of clerical language. I suspect the Roman Catholic Church on Terra didn't know whether or not to be flattered by the imitation or not. ComStar's habit of crediting Jerome Blake with saying things other's came up with to make him look good is canon.With ROM and SAFE literally fighting it out with each other during the ComStar War the former was no longer quite the mystery organisation it might have been before. For the Free Worlds League, in wanting to keep Niops on-side and paint ComStar as the bad guy, to pass on information they learned about ComStar (and ROM) to the Association seems likely (they were in truly dire straits at the time). Giles Olson won't be High Associator much longer but he's still trying to make a mark.
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