A Lesson in Civics (RoTSA)

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=By Cannonshop=
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===Deafening rise of the of Apathy===
Raven Alliance
Early 3129
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"The Clans give…
…a lot of quotes over to Nicholas Kerensky, oddly enough, most of them are drawn from historical sources." former MP for Sevon V, Daryl Roberts said easily. He was sitting in a chair on the front porch of the farm he'd owned since he was in his late teens. "Notably, the ones they don't plagiarize for their Founder is the surprising one."
"Which is?" his visitor, a Media-subcaste here to do a retrospective on the Plunder War, urged.
"You have exactly as much power as the people will give you-no tyrant can rule without the consent of those they govern." Daryl explained. "It's easier to kill a man, than to make him obey if he's set against it, and no amount of heredity matters if nobody will follow-a Noble, in the Inner Sphere's usage, without followers is a noise-making beggar." He sipped his glass of tea for a moment, then added, "Of course, there's always going to be someone who will follow-it doesn't matter what cause you come up with or how absurd or repellent the man in charge is."
"Man? Or woman?"
"It doesn't matter which." Roberts stated, "I was in the Parliament when Mitchell was President, I was there the morning that Hugo suspended Parliament after we refused his budget demands. I understand the Clan Council's been less cooperative than we were, and getting a vote rammed through under Parliament was bad enough I'm not entirely unhappy to be home."
"But you raised no armies, contested nothing…"
"I listened." Daryl said bluntly, "I listened to the people I represented. Know what I heard?"
"No?"
"Apathy." Daryl stated, "A few noisy types but the general attitude was apathy. The average citizens don't care who's in charge, as long as their lives don't get hammered over-much, and the war hammered a LOT of lives, as did the costs racked up by it. We were desperately unpopular, miss…Fox? Is that right?"
"We do not use surnames, as you are aware of them." she responded.
"A lifetime dealing with the Snow Ravens and you'd think it would stop being weird." he chuckled, "It doesn't, but you'd think it would."
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===Tide of ignorance rises===
Clan Council Chambers 
Dante, Raven Alliance
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"The SaRi Confederacy, also known as…
…the Thazi Confederacy or Wynn's Roost's primary strategic ally, keeps within their own borders." the Khan listened as Star Colonel Cyrus McKenna made his speech. "This is, for the moment, acceptable, but…there is the political threat within our own border. The atrocity machine entity Kolossus is wound into the territory of the Alliance, and it is not answerable to anyone-not the vestigal civilian government, not the Clan Council, not the Khans. It holds territory and has assets, and serves no-one!"
"What of it?" Star Colonel Ariel Sukhanov asked, "Stars exist, and serve no-one, the machine is not a person."
"Precisely my point-the machine intelligence known as Kolossus is not a person!! It is a rogue device, but this rogue device controls a star system!!" shouted the Star Colonel.
"We have previously recognized artificials as persons." Ariel noted, "in fact, artificials were critical in bringing in the new territories and punishing the second false Star League. We even made treaties with them! Treaties that, to my knowledge, they have honored even at the loss of advantage! ALICE at Port Orphan, the copy of the late Mina Siegel, they have served honorably!"
"How much 'honor' can a bundle of ones and zeroes have?" Cyrus sneered.
"Honor is what you do." Ariel spat back, "For example, the Clan agreed to leave Kolossus be in its isolation, and here you are, leading a move to repudiate that…for what cause? Has the Machine threatened revolts, or conquests? Neg, it has supplied information upon request, when it has it to provide, a duty it gives to anyone who asks!!"
"Including our enemies." Cyrus sulked, "Kolossus, the machine, will answer anyone's question!"
"Only when it pertains to astrophysics, chemistry, metallurgy, or essential basic science-it has even helped us rebuild our scientist caste as something…not prone to revolt." Ariel argued. "The machine has been a friend to the Raven Alliance, and you want to..what? Ruin that, for Vanity? For FEAR?" she scoffed, "The answer is NEG! We are better than that!"
"The Machine is too powerful to be left to someone else." Khan Dierdre McKenna finally interrupted the debate. "The danger if it is misused by infiltrators is too great, that supercomputer complex is too powerful, too extensive, and too dangerous to be left unsupervised. The Clan Council will vote on the motion to have that system secured by the Touman."
The politics was too powerful-the conservatives in the Clan, worried about the danger of machine-intelligences going rogue, or worse, turning against their power, was too influential, and with a fifty-five percent majority, the motion to send an expedition to secure the system containing the body of Kolossus, was passed, leaving only bidding to be done.
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===Hard Lessons of Atrocities===
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"The 'trick' to…
…retaining the kind of respect Daryl Roberts enjoys with both the civilians, and the Touman stationed here on Sevon V is not a trick at all." Star Captain LeRoy explained in a rumble, "He understands a fundamental thing about honor. His promises are stronger than his threats, and you can rely on him to follow through on either one."
Celine Sea-Fox from the Sea Fox News Service stood with her interview subject under an awning as they watched visitors and pilgrims from offworld visiting the grave of 'the Great Captain Roberts'.
A pair of Solahma in dress uniform traded off guard duty at the grave-stone, leading Cadets in the ritualized drill-and-ceremony.
"Did he ask for this?", she asks
LeRoy laughed, "Neg." he shook his head, "People volunteer for this detail. Roberts would probably be happier if he did not have to hire workers to clean up litter and debris from the visitors-most of them are from worlds Roberts freed from the Sons of Plunder and their false Star League."
"Were you in the fighting, Star Captain?"
"I led a cluster in the taking of Bannerhoft." LeRoy explained, "We fought the ground action there, I liberated the slave barracks at Oldentown, but before I saw those, I had to learn about the horrors they found on other worlds prior-the real atrocities, the ones you look at history texts and say 'nobody would do that!'..only they did that, and worse. Getting the garrison command here in the Serene Valley region of Sevon V was a duty I volunteered for rather than wait to be tested-down."
"And you respect the civilian, Daryl Roberts, quiaff?"
"Aff." he nodded, "The man is sensible, intelligent, charismatic, humble, and honorable-he ought to have been born a proper warrior, but he was not, for what he is, he is admirable."
"And what is he?"
"An Outworlder, Celine, from that brush-cut hair to the heels of his boots, but not one of the mewling masses. Do not mistake his show of respect for fear or submission-the man has not got it in him to grovel."
"That is an atypical view, Star Captain, among Trueborns, quiaff?"
"Most Trueborns did not see the twisted mirror of ourselves that the Sons of Plunder were, at least, not for what it was." LeRoy explained, "Not in person, the most recent generations to rise in the Touman were spared the smell and the sound and the horror of it." He stated grimly, "So they are free to feel the lower-castes need to down and obey without question…because those of us whom have seen it, and smelled it? Are here to teach them otherwise."
"Have you?" she asked.
"Every day." LeRoy said firmly, nodding to the group of Cadets doing the flag-drill as the sun set. "Every day." The scarred Elemental lapsed into silence.
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===Preparations for coming Conquest===
Port Orphan, Periphery
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…Kolossus knows what to do."
"YOU showed me their orders, Kolossus!!" Katrin argued with the wall, because the entity that comprised nearly a million tons of the massive station didn't bother with 'in the flesh' appearances, or even a digital face you could scowl at. "They're sending a force to conquer you."
"Kolossus knows what to do. Kolossus asks Katrin a question Katrin has not answered." the speaker grill responded in inhuman tones.
"I'm sure she'll look fine!" Katrin gave in. "I have a question for you-how many of them are you making?"
"Kolossus will make as many as are needed, obviously, as many as Not-Elizabeth-but-Amanda will tolerate having made. The first one should be ready in December."
"If the Clans get wind of what you're doing here, you're going to have more than a Cluster looking to assert sovereignty on you." Katrin speculated, looking down the ranks of modified Iron Wombs, "You're growing the bodies too fast, they won't last long."
"A few years each." Kolossus agreed, "Kolossus will assume a slower growth process when the initial batches are ready to be deployed."
"What do you call them?"
"Amanda-who-is-not-Elizabeth calls the first run 'Envoy', Kolossus thinks this is humorous, yet accurate, Kolossus imagines that she will be using what you have taught her about diplomacy, along with what she was taught by her mentors."
Katrin swiped the transparent ferroglass cover of one of the growth tanks, inside, a girl who looked possibly thirteen floated, connected to life support and data feeds.
"She does not look like Roberts." Katrin noted.
"Kolossus was willing to make a true copy-with-improvements of Amanda, but Amanda-in-the-datacore argued that returning from the dead could be problematic." the machine said apologetically. "We will be ready to begin the testing soon."
"What's your first 'test'?"
"Kolossus will have the first Envoy sent to the Snow Raven Council to argue that they should honor their promises as deeply as they back up their threats, of course."
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===Ravens come home to roost===
Port Orphan System, Periphery
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"The target is…
…three hundred thirty million tons of artificial facility, run by an artificial intelligence, and while there were no indicators of military capacity, this does not mean such capacity does not exist."
Star Colonel Lionel Sukhanov had won the right to carry out the Clan Council's determination over many rivals.
In a sense, winning the mission was bittersweet. The prize would certainly strengthen the Clan's position so it had to be taken, but Lionel had more than a small amount of awareness of how bloody important the information collected and organized by Kolossus had been in the final steps to securing the Alliance flank and winning the Pirate War, aka 'war of plunder'.
Thus, here he was, in May of 3129, in a 'dirty' system-a planetary nebula orbiting a young star, the worlds it may one day host still forming.
"All hands secure from jump, reconnaissance units are to launch, dropships may separate."
The station wasn't hard to find. It was easy to see. Huge and slightly sullen looking, wrapped in cable-ways and studded with arrays, clearly artificial and one of the largest artificial constructs still existing.
Kolossus was colossal.
"Star Colonel, we have a signal from the station!" 
Lionel was surprised despite himself, "Format?"
"Audio."
"Put it on speakers."
<<"This is Kolossus to the Snow Raven Fleet. Kolossus would prefer to be good neighbors with Clan Snow Raven, if you hold formation and charge your drives, then leave, Kolossus will not pursue. End Message.">> The voice was clearly generated, artificial, and whoever designed it had no interest in making it so close to human as to be uncanny
"I think it knows we are here, quiaff?" Lionel quipped.
"Aff…and what our mission is..How?"
"That artificial intelligence was a key asset in the destruction of the Sons of Plunder and the liberation of the worlds they illegally seized under false flag." Lionel explained, "It has very good intelligence sources. What it does not appear to have, is a fleet. All dropships assume supporting formation, scouts extend and search for EM emissions or targeting systems."
"We are going forward, Quiaff?"
Lionel nodded, "Aff. we are going in to beard the dragon in its den."
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To be continued
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A Lesson in Civics
A Lesson in Civics
A Lesson in Civics