[spacefan]

Aboard the cruiser, Alpha Tau
Personal Log of Lord Alzene

I received a message from the Lord Huju recently, in regards to the quandry my project has found itself in. It seems the Norak have sent a cease fire proposal which involved this ship as a large part of the bargaining.

Strangely enough, the translators had difficulty understanding a Norak expression, which literally means, Flag Ship. Through local transmissions in Knoglam with the Norak presence there, Lord Knoglam learned that the phrase Flag Ship meant the leaders' ship, or a ship that represents the entire empire somehow.

This is of course pure insanity, not only because we never had one ship that somehow represented all of Fazrah. Even if we did, I can say for certain it would not be a Construction Ship run by me. If such a thing existed at all, it would be some large weapon-loaded warship.

The reason my plan was foiled, was simply that the Norak regarded my ship as the most important of all, and therefore moved to surround it. As part of the Norak cease-fire proposal that Lord Knoglam agreed too, my ship and its escort will be granted free passage to Huju.

Lord Knoglam hounded me rather incessantly about my project and its silliness, but the humorous part is that the only reason it failed was because the Norak thought my ship was a "Flag Ship" and I was an "Admiral".

I have since heard that the Sallegans, Norak and Praetorians all have "Flag Ships" and "Admirals" which lead their entire militaries into battle, and are highly revered.

The silliness of these titles is one of the few things the System lords can agree on these days. From talking with Lord Huju, it seems every System is disputing with neighbors about military protection, free trade and anything else they can find to disagree.

The politics make me a bit naseous, but then they are a lot more normal than the pre-war unity. As a summary of what I know, Lord Huju and the entire Huju populous are rebuilding slowly, in the aftermath of massive losses from the Praetorian war fleet. In Huju, the war is now called the Massacre, and all taste for war has been sapped from Lord Huju and followers. This is good news for me, as I shall definitely be welcomed in Huju as an advocate of peace.

On the bad side, the balance of power among Fazrah has shifted away from the Huju system to the Knoglam system. Huju has always been a bit cut off from the rest of Fazrah, and this is cause for Lord Knoglam stating that if the empire is rebuilt as one, it should be centered in Knoglam.

Arguing his case well, Lord Knoglam has managed to collect a fleet of over a dozen cruisers in Knoglam. These warships bolster his power and agressiveness almost daily, and Lord Knoglam has already begun gathering support from other System lords for his political agenda, which calls for a new empire of Fazrah with him as leader, and a military agenda. It is likely he would support an attack on the CueCappa, whose agents seem to have replenished the espionage threat that had faltered when the Norak agents pulled out. Lord Huju has promised to oppose such a plan, and I have promised my opposition as well.

In all likelihood, within the next year or so, there will be two factions of Fazrah, instead of the nearly dozen there are now. The question now is which side the System lords will join. The war fleet is composed of forces from only a few systems, so those will be most crucial. If Lord Knoglam gains support from all the War Ships, he can simply suppress our faction.