Lets not lose our heads people. Initially I’ll admit I was deeply concerned by frontline reports of Triglavian troops clashing with ours. But I would hold off on the "I told you so"s just a bit longer if I were you. Clearly if the conflict last evening demonstrated anything is that among our allies we are not a monolith and do not have one unified ideological outlook on our relationship with the Collective at this time. Is it that unreasonable or that far of a jump for us to assume the same of the Triglavians? What we attributed to misidentification of IFF frequencies yesterday may in fact be deliberate due to an internal disagreement among constituent clades.
Of particular note, last night’s triglavian landing force seemed to be at least in part comprised of Svarog Clade forces. If what we know of Svarog clade rings true, they are the more traditionalist and conflict-oriented of the clades and more receptive to trial by combat over diplomacy compared to Perun and Veles clades. Shortly following the system reaching liminality, I had our communications team issue the following message cross multiple frequencies in Skarkon.
ATTENTION. Native soldiers and augmented infantry are working to make Ishuhuolvi Peninsula of Skarkon II ready for liminal proving. Triglav proving should occur here rather than away from population centers. Warclones and native soldiers await the coming glory of zoria triglav to engage in battle and complete proving. REITERATION. Warclones and native soldiers await the coming glory of zoria triglav to engage in battle and complete proving.
We’ve received a lot of flak for this, but we had good reasons to issue the statement:
- To place Triglavian forces between ourselves and Red Troop, effectively preventing a combined Red Troop and United Tribal Security Forces offensive of Ishuhuolvi.
- Set, on our terms, a designated battlefield so we can prioritize evacuations and limit collateral damage
- Tie up Triglavian, AEGIS, UTSF, SARO, and other potentially hostile armies to buy us time to complete civilian evacuations
- To complete proving as a potential avenue for future diplomatic negotiations
The United Tribal Security Forces pulling back yesterday evening was unexpected, but it appears that hasn’t stopped the Collective from accepting our challenge anyway. Out of the frying pan and into the fire I suppose, but I at least hope that this conflict is for the purpose of competition and testing rather than the process of extermination we came to expect from Khumatar Efrit. As a friend very aptly put it, we called the ball and Svarog clade appears to be playing. Hopefully that’s a good thing.
Bottom line, I am authorizing combat with Collective in designated depopulated burn zones in Ishuhuolvi. We will complete proving. Outside of these proving grounds, however, our non-aggression pact is to remain intact.