Former OAI Agent Karolos Jaku on the Isaac Shootdown | Roe Joachins #2513

[IBC_News_Heli]

    
    “Hey, what about that one, uh, on Eve, do you remember that?”
    “Ha, classic! Y’know, we studied that for a long time. They killed a guy, in a habitat in Akatsuki, and after they killed him, they were somehow able to shut the airlock from the inside of the chamber. And we tried, like, magnets, and different ways - we couldn’t figure out how they did it! Like, they did the latch and the whole thing. And the guy’s in there dead. And the technicians couldn’t even get it open! How’d they do that? It’s very impressive.”
    

    
    “And what’s the word on the Director Langlais being missing on the Isaac?”
    “Oh, it’s totally crazy, but it makes sense that he would go on a trip like that. There’s a lot of security meetings with partner nations that he would attend. But it would be reckless of me to go into Jool without some sort of escort.”
    “How so?”
    “Oh, JoolFed, all their successors, they have a habit of threatening to shoot up anyone who enters the system, like for almost two centuries now. That's why it’s still kind of a dump out there.”
    “But Pistis and Bop & Pol are okay?”
    “Yeah, they were already there, so they can’t enforce that, so they give up. But anyone new has to gain a foothold from scratch and they’ll threaten to kill them. It’s been a hermit system the whole time because of that, always an atmosphere of paranoia that they’ll open fire on new colonists or whatever. Kind of a buzzkill really, since it’s the only other place in the system with liquid water or oxygen.”
    
    “How do they get away with that?”
    “Well, nobody’s had the power to dispute it, really. They get there first in the 2060s, and immediately militarize it, get a clique of settlers going and close it off to the rest of civilization. Most nations had space navies that only worked on paper. The entire 21st century, you had all these naval club members, but the only actual space war was the UIF and Valoria in the System War, which was vicious. You’d have to unite most of Kerbin and build a doctrine from scratch to pry your way in.
    “But then the Exodus comes back and immediately swears fealty to the UIF, now you have a very pressing reason to get into the system, you need fuel for the space program. Immediate conflict of interest. And, once again, the first outsider ship in years enters the system - boom, gone.”
    
    “It’s crazy.”
    “Yeah, insane, like, the Consensus are entirely on board with the Aeneas Program, but the Solari in the Jool system are basically imprisoned. Like, after JoolFed collapsed, the successive governments have only become increasingly more erratic. Completely cut off from the outside worlds. Nobody gets in or out. But shooting up the State Chamber envoy was a really bold move!”
    “Do you know anything about what’s going to happen?”
    “No, not officially, but I don’t think things are looking too good. Obviously, the Basilics are pissed as well, they lost one of their top Senators - one of the two that were leading the government-in-exile, remember that? That’s the group in charge now that the war’s over. And they got into an armed standoff with the AASC over Dres. Basically, every spacefaring power in the system, they’ve threatened to shoot at them, then they actually shot at us.
    “I don’t know anything concrete, but astronomers at Duna, with telescopes, can easily make out all the ships in orbit from the surface. It’s even easier from Ike, since we use it as a big orbital shipyard for Belt expeditions. We had forward deployed hundreds of ships there, that’s most of what we have, but they’re all gone now. Hundreds, there one day, gone the next. All the Space Marines have been deployed for months, too. Literally the entire UIF Starfleet is on its way to Jool, and I anticipate they’re going to invade Laythe within the next 24 hours.”
    
    “Woah.”
    “Yeah, it’s going to be chaotic.”
    “What happens if Langlais gets captured? Do we know what happened to him?”
    “I don’t know, well, we all had to be experienced with enhanced interrogation techniques. You start off with the softest one, grab them by the shirt, give them a shake. But it’ll get gradually worse from there. With the Director, they won’t do that, oh, they’ll probably go to the worst technique. Strap me down to a board, feet angled above my head… I’ve done this 87 times...”