Short stories from the District

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There was not much Joni could do when he saw her fall, the narrow staircase that was secure into the station bulkhead had without warning collapsed, only a sudden scream just before the metal sound of the staircase giving in had warned him and rest of the station workers that something had gone horrible wrong. The last thing he saw was her wide open eyes and flying arms as she tried to reach for anything to hold on to. Then a distant “thud” sounded as her body hit landing pad C, some 40 meters below. His reality started to muffle the sound around him and his vision tunneled as he saw her fall. Without thinking he started to run down the stairs alongside one of the fuel silos to the landing pad, he dropped every tool he was carrying and as he was running he kept screaming “medic to the floor! Medic to the floor!” thinking that he should be the one that should fall, not her. Suddenly their date from last night was coming back to him and the emotion that came with it, he ignored anyone who stood in his way and his adrenaline filled mind ignored the running chaos he made while descending to the floor.

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Short stories from the District

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She stayed just long enough to watch the body stop moving. The final gasp of breath and the sightless eyes were beautiful to her; he had been a fool, and a dangerous one. But the issue was settled now. What a spaceship war had failed to achieve, she had managed with a few honeyed words and a drugged glass of wine. No more assassinations, no fear of a merger to rip apart all the hard work that her father had done to build their company’s reputation. Perhaps now they would listen to her and cut away from the bothersome capsuleers.

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District members intercept new technology through newly discovered "Ghost Sites".

YC 115.12.22

Some weeks ago we received this CONCORD public news article about secret pirate sites, so called "ghost sites", these were discovered all round New Eden, and in these "sites" pirate faction secretly were developing new technology that could, according to CONCORD, shift the balance of power within New Eden.

Now these "sites" have started to show up in several places within Providence region and also inside the borders of Fourth District."This is alarming, we have put our capsuleers in heightened alert after the discovery of these sites" says the alliance spokesperson Commander Demion Samenel to the District News. According to public reports from the alliance it seems that these anomalies can´t be identified by normal ship sensors or scanners and are very well hidden, the pirate faction has gone to great length to hide them from the public and also in great length to defend them. They are inclined to rather blow the structure up than these covert sites being discovered by outsiders and in into our hands. When these first "ghost sites" was discovered, a momentous attack was orchestrated by the four empires that ended in disaster.

"What we have found in these sites are some kind of covert research tools. As much as I can say at this point it seems to included intel gathering technology and I have on several rapports that they are highly volatile, most likely due to the fact that the structure is set to explode if outsiders tries to infiltrate them. Other salvaged materials show signs of being used for new capsuleer cordial implants, which has another more direct military applications that is more worrying. Others finds include new blueprints of personal deployable structure, all this indicates that those faction have a certain covert operation behind it and clearly a military function." Says Commander Samenel.

"Our Military Advisory Board is well informed of this and they are keeping an eye out for any technology that could damage our efforts in the region. But nothing we have seen so far is in direct attack to us or the State but we do keep a watchful eye out for these findings in the District in the future to come." Commander Samenel to the District News.

We in the District News Service will as always bring you the news, being watchful.

Short stories from the District

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Raw data

Is there no escape from yourself? Where do we simply go when we shut off, when we unplug from the constant inputs of raw data that is reality, or do we unplug? I guess some people do and some people don’t. And how do we interpret the visual inputs that the brain gives us if the image is so disturbing that all you want is to gauge you eyes out and then realize that it was a dream, what the fuck does one think of himself then? Damn, I guess all we can do is sit still and enjoy the ride. My own ride is a rain drenched back alley on Kiguru Street on New Caldari and the corner bar at that street, Spader´s. It was an image that stuck to me early on when I got these implants, when I knew that I would be plugged to a massive steal beast and become a living machine to wreck havoc amongst the void of space. I needed a place to hide, to escape the constant inputs of raw data. The corner door is best described as shady, an almost criminal invitation with bright flickering green text "Spader´s" that illuminates and reflects in the humid air in front of it. Maybe not the normal place where you would find a "good" citizen, but it’s where my mind goes and escapes the other reality, I find myself here quite often, far away from the constant inputs of raw data.

I need a drink.

*

Announcment: Commander Demion Samenel new alliance Head Diplomat.

YC 115.12.17

Below is the public statement from Fourth District Alliance Executor Trony, which sent out this statment from the Allied council just a day ago. This has now been granted permission to be made public to the rest of the cluster.

"As of today [115.12.16] we are announcing a change of leadership within the alliance. Admiral Ladel Teravada, who has served with distinction along side me in the allied council, will be stepping down in his responsibilities as its diplomat and second in command of the alliance. The reason for this is that we are in the process of reconstruction of our allied forces and Admiral Teravada will be focusing in the area as its alliance main Fleet commander, a position he has held for many years before. He will in his position be in charge of Fourth District all military capabilities and make sure that we are up to our continuing defense of Fourth District infrastructures and investments in the region of Providence. Admiral Teravada will also be military liaison to the rest of Providence military high command and coordinate any military effort that might be required. The capsuleer that will be replacing him as Alliance Head Diplomat and second in command is Commander Demion Samenel, who has for many years served in CAIN as its Diplomat. He will take over the administration work as second in command and also be the one in charge of the public relation and diplomatic work as executor for the Department of Foreign Affairs. So without any further notice I would like to welcome our new Head Diplomat and alliance second in command"

This was a few days ago and it seems that our new second in command is settling himself in nicely. We are waiting for a statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs and a personal note from our new Alliance Head Diplomat in the coming days, so stay tuned.

This is District News.

Short stories from the District

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Kemil had been afraid of space travel all his life, and other than the brief trip through the stars that had brought him to the colony in his mother’s arms, had never stepped foot off a planet. Fifty years later the news that his son, his only child, had been accepted into the elite capsuleer training program filled him with both terror and bitter regret. It was one thing to accept your child was a man grown and off to his own life; it was another thing to watch them show bravery in the face of your own worst fears.

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Short stories from the District

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The enemy fleet had de-cloaked and locked her before she could transmit a full report of their location. Their superior fire tore through shields and structure in seconds, and she felt the ship fall away around her, the yawning void left in place of where a solid hull and functioning engines had once been leaving her disoriented and breathless. It was only a split second as the pod ejected, but it was enough; she was caught, unable to warp to safety, and simply waited for the searing pain of the poison that would hasten the journey to the next clone. 

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Short stories from the District

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They had warned him about this part of the job, but when he stood there behind the protective glass wall and watched the thirty-odd recruits lie back and accept the fatal injection, Dovash knew for certain that he would never understand what it was about the heavens that made capsuleers so willing to die to become part of it. One by one the light above the recruits’ stations changed from blue to dull red; in the same span of moments, the green lights above the clone tanks start to blink, and the newly activated clones opened their eyes to immortality.

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The Industrial Advisory Board talks about the future of Planatery Developments within Fourth District.

Z-RFE3 planetary commodities is being shipped away

YC 115.12.4

The industrial corporate powers of the Fourth District better known as the Industrial Advisory Board [IAB] has since a few weeks been pushing for a more open approach to its advertisement and development of Fourth Planetary Industrial sector. Meetings have been taking place in the alliance Headquarters in 3KB-J0 and there is still a lot of discussion taking place.

We need to show that we are ready to increase our traffic in the District, the area would benefit greatly in the increase of revenues and there is a lot of opportunities that could be harvest in this region of space and its planets many of them is still unexploited. Today any corporation can be allowed to put up planetary harvesters and industrial command centers on planets, our tax is set to 7% both for import and export for any corporation or capsuleer that is interested of doing so, and we would recommend to keeping that level at least for the time being. We have compared our tax level to those in Empire controlled space, they are set at 10% on export and 5% on import, and just recently capsuleers are now taking over more and more of the custom offices they want to put their own tax on top of that. We know that many will do their own deals with InterBus to reduce this tax or have other means of doing so but this will only allowed them a reduction 50 % on the taxes which then will add the capsuleers own tax on top of that. They need to profit from it so we foresee that taxes will in the end be much higher than our own. So we are still competitive when it comes to District planetary custom tax, and even more generous to those that are our allies, which then are reduced significantly. But we need to increase the awareness of our space throughout the cluster, let corporations know that they can come to us and we will protect their investments and in return they can profit from our valuable resources. The treat of Sansha have never been lower since the alliance took control and even hostile capsuleer organisations is no treat to us at this moment. So the time for investment is now. Providence is a perfect region due to its open door policy when it comes to newcomers or just profit seeking companies. It´s a perfect area to set you up for good, maybe not the richest region of space but much more so than other high exploited Empire regions. So first for the future is to increase our awareness of similar models of planetary development, to measure the competition, second is to increase our visibility in target areas such as Providence itself, Domain region second, and third to other target region. We also want to improve our relationship with other State loyal entities to make use of our space, it´s not only the State itself that should benefit for our ventures here, others can to, and that will be up to the Office of Foreign Affairs in either case.

This was a brief summery from one of the many meetings the board has concluded at the HQ of the alliance in 3KB. We in Fourth District News Service will keep you updated on the continuing economical development of the District.For more information on Fourth District Planetary effort and how you can help to push State interest into null sec you can find here.