Attn: EEF, Blackheart, and the UFC (wk 6 Alice Body)

Message sent by Prime 0.04 Seconds after the Alice Clegg battle is initiated:

Commander and President, respectively,

Blackheart has brought the matter of Alice's body to our attention, and thusly we thought it prudent to keep you appraised to our thoughts on the matter. The death of Alice is an obvious ruse. Their flagship and bodies hold intensely valuable information, and we WILL have it. Unless you have grown capabilities we have been hitherto unaware of, it is best if this investigation is undertook by the Unity. You are welcome to participate in this investigation however, as it is likely very time sensitive. Further, our people are in the process of being assaulted by the Quall. Obviously, we cannot stand down until this threat is resolved.

If you wish these corpses for your own ends, which we would understand, then it will sadly come to conflict. However, if you wish to work with us, then we ask you to begin collecting data from the ship at once. As soon as we have neutralized the assination attempt, we will aid you in this effort before the fleet detonates.

We ensure you, the fleet will detonate. We are surprised it has not already, knowing our foe.

I will be frank with you. I am a well funded scientist, not a king. I am far from behind every action performed by the Unity. I am not even aware of a great many actions performed by the highest tier consensus. There have been movements within the Trilat which have deeply concerned me, and there have been vulnerabilities within Unity systems that are by rights impossible. These corpses and their vessel are the closest leads I have to a corruptive element in the Unity.

Please consider the following;

1) Can't this flagship have records of what happened before the death of Alice? Bloom ships are by nature stolen tech, and so black box systems should still be intact. We can extract this information, and it is desperately important that we do so. If it has been erased, the Unity can elucidate the nature of the erasure and discover the one who manipulated the code.

2) Why did they end their own lives? Further, why did they end their lives in such a way that we could not gather brain scans? This is to protect a piece of information, so critical that they were given final death. What would be worth it to two utterly insane commanders? I do not know, but it is critical that we find out. It is not beyond many entropic elements to simply kill them and make it look like they killed themselves. This REQUIRES forensic study.

3) Who is pulling the strings? If the commanders of this fleet are dead, how were they able to pull off such a sophisticated ambush? Bloomship fleets before this one have been pushovers. Either the commanders issued incredibly sophisticated commands before their deaths, or they gave command to a higher power. We need to gather clues and determine who this is. This cannot be done as we engage in magnificent combat.

In light of these points; every second we spend fighting each other is a critical second which has been wasted. Reroute your men to gather data and evidence. Assume the entire vessel will be shadow-warded (being a trap) and prepare alternative extraction methods. If you request it, we can provide rip-drive extraction. You can be a witness of our forensic investigation, to ensure the body is not tampered with before being sent to next of kin, but we will prevent whatever disaster these two have planned.

You have fought against me, and know that I am not one for macabre trophies.

Prime

Unity Prime,
I want you to consider the following as to why the EEF should have the body:
1. It is preposterous to believe you understand Manslayer technology better than actual manslayers, which is why the Uloh hive should interview the crew and exploit the manslayer technology aboard the Bloom Ship.
2. It is insulting that you believe no one else in the universe knows how to conduct an investigation. Just because we are “disconnected” doesn’t mean we sit around and do nothing. Our technicians or the Iron Republic can work the standard coded blackboxes just as effectively as you network.
3. I would suspect Angel D is pulling the strings as this attack has all her trademarks. I agree time we spend fighting is time loss which is why you need to back down and let our forces already onboard exploit the site.
4. Give us the ship and the bodies, we have investigative means you don’t. On top of which we have nothing to hide while you with your previous ties to AoD very well could. Your continued advocacy of aggression reeks of a man desperate to destroy evidence. What secrets does that ship hide that you don’t want to see the light of day? If you have nothing to hide stand down, after the initial EEF/IR investigation you will be given access to the data to gleam your own intel. Your continued advocacy of aggression however is making the universe question how trustworthy an ally you really are.
Angeles Vulfrym,
General Lions of Earth, Commanding

General Angeles Vulfrym, EEF commanders, and UFC President,

Consider the crux of my argument; this whole situation is likely a trap. I have invited you and yours to take part in the investigation. We are NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, trying to get you to leave, or prevent you from looking at the body. Though we are fascinated to know what sorts of methods of investigation you might have that we do not.

Frankly, if you can find a way to Angel D through it, I would be very happy to know what she has been up to and how to find this information.

You should know that I dislike waste. I said you should also investigate precisely because of the UFC's expertise and the EEF's esoterics skills. Just because you use outdated technology does not mean your people do not posses skill or innovation. Far from it.

If the UFC can manage to calm the Manslayers on the ship, we would be thrilled to have them convert to the UFC and explain what has happened. We have only prepared a forward laboratory base because if the bodies ARE traps, which they likely are, they should be examined at a location which is removed from population centers or exposed networks. We must stay at combat readiness, and will help defend you if you are attacked. We will also help extract you if other routes to escape are blocked.

This is not something we can afford to squabble on. We have a forward lab, and a way of extracting your men, who may be in great danger. I cannot possibly be more clear regarding my intentions to discover what happened here.

You will not be attacked by us unless you attempt to forcibly remove our people from their investigation, or if you try and claim the body for your own instead of moving it to the designated forward lab. Your people will be defended by ours, should an trap-springing event occur. You are all more than welcome to take part in the investigation, but you are not welcome to take it as your own.

Prime

Prime,

I honestly have to say I think we've sprung the only trap that was here. You question why they killed themselves and made sure to inflict final death. Well really what else was left to them? The entire universe was after these two. They had a choice of dying of by their own hands or letting one of us kill or capture them. Her forces have sustained huge causalities these last few weeks. This was probably their last gasp so they drew us here. Inflicted massive damage and then denied us the final prize of catching them. If I was in their position I'd probably want to do the same thing. Check your historical records this would hardly be the first time it was done. Still since it hardly seems worth fighting over would you be agreeable to giving us the body once you've studied and scanned them to your satisfaction? If of course that is agreeable to everyone else as well.

Field Marshall Strykker

It could well be that there is no trap, and that this was only a final act of Passion. However, on this case, caution costs us nothing, and may save us further disaster.

It is a pleasure to have a voice of reason on this discussion. We have no need for the bodies once they have been studied. If you do have a use for the corpses. You are welcome to them in so far as I am concerned.

Prime.

So does anyone have a problem with letting prime study the bodies at this time in his lab and turning it over once he's done?
Meanwhile the work to secure the ship and get any useful information from the computers can continue. Once we find something or decide there is nothing to find we can compare notes and all go on our way. Agreed?

Strykker