ICC Incompetence – Yet Again
Submitted to the RK Times today:
December 2, 29476
ROME (Law Society of Rubi-Ka) - In less than one week, the Interstellar Confederation of Corporations (ICC) has proven both its impotence and incompetence, first by abandoning its mandate in Tir and then by inciting Rubi-Ka’s fourth civil war.
Chronic Cowardice in Tir?
On November 22, 29476, the Sentinels, perhaps the most militant and aggressive Clan on Rubi-Ka with an entrenched hatred of Omni-Tek of Rubi-Ka Corporation (OTRK), swept Tir clean of all ICC personnel without a single shot being fired. Rather than bravely stand its ground against the invading army, the ICC scurried back through the Whompa to Andromeda, collective tail between its legs, completely absolving itself of its mandate to protect Tir at the first occasion of being tested.
The Council of Ares and numerous other clans have since voiced tremendous unease at the new dynamic prevailing within the Sentinels’ Tir guard, who seem to take great pleasure in attacking neutral citizens on sight, among other things.
Despite this morally humiliating loss, as well as the ensuing outrage by the clan community, the ICC has yet to so much as comment, let alone reassure the inhabitants of the other territories currently under its guard that it is indeed willing and capable of protecting against any future invasion. This uncertainty has had the ancillary effect of rallying the Neutral community to a level of militancy, unity and activity never before seen on Rubi-Ka.
Civil War Disguised as Equity
ICC Secretary General Isidra Derousse shattered this ICC silence on November 29, with an announcement that sent shockwaves of fear rippling throughout the intergalactic economy. The rumour that the ICC was contemplating deregulation of the market for the mining and extraction of notum reserves was first reported by the Law Society on November 7, but few of us regarded this theoretical course of action as anything more than strategic posturing on the part of the ICC to advance post-Tir Accord negotiations with Omni-Prime.
Omni-Prime apparently called the ICC’s bluff, and is paying dearly as a result. This punitive deregulation and the accompanying and related amendments to the Rubi-Ka Lease were undertaken by the ICC to redress the vast disparity between OTRK and Clan citizens, the latter of whom were quickly devolving into a state of poverty and squalor not seen since the days of the emergence of the Manual Labourer's Guild. In spite of these seemingly noble intentions, what has actually occurred is a furious and chaotically tense grab for available mining properties by the Clans, OTRK departments and even neutral organizations, frequently culminating in full-scale warfare.
Although OTRK has retained its effective monopoly on the refinement and transport of notum, both within planetary boundaries and beyond, a cursory market analysis has revealed a material decrease in the market exchange price of notum as a result of this rapid surge in the quantities being shipped to market. Although surplus supply conditions have not yet developed, due in no small part to the necessity of notum as an elemental input for millions of other products and technologies, the demand for reclaim terminals has never been higher.
Prior to this frankly irresponsible move by the ICC, Rubi-Ka was actually coming quite close to achieving a balanced peace. The Council of Ares was taking great strides in its effort to present itself, whether truthfully or strategically, as a council of protection and peace, while the Omni-Tek Security Council was working as diligently as always to foster dialogue between the corporation and the alienated inhabitants of Tir and Athen.
However, the ICC, apparently bent on fulfilling some manner of vendetta against OTRK, interjected its characteristically irresponsible hand, and thereby eliminated months of these two groups’ work and concurrently immersing Rubi-Ka in open war.
