Tempari Daily News, 07-10-YC121
Planetary Civil Defence Grid Strengthening Nearly Complete
Gelfiven VI, Harjvalt, Sataku District - For the past year, mysterious construction sites and material convoys have been appearing around large and small cities alike, and today their purpose has been officially unveiled: Upon the urging of the youngest daughter of the business magnate Mikkon Noduri, the Noduri Enterprises conglomerate has directed considerable portions of its wealth into refurbishing, building and stocking public civil defence shelters, and constructions of orbital and aerial defence infrastructure around the planet.
"I completely understand that some of you are worried that private industry is building weapons platforms around our neighbourhoods, forests, rural lands. It is more than understandable. But perhaps I can assuage your fears a bit. The defence units are slaved to the planetary defence grid, and crewed by the local military forces. We have no desire to stage an uprising of any sort, we just want to give back to our community.
Originally, this project was started from wanting to respond to the growing precursor threat, but recent events surrounding Matar itself show that strengthening planetary defences is only part of a solution. We are also directing our people to develop more robust anti-infiltration software algorithms and practices for our defence systems.” - Noduri Enterprises Public Relations Manager, Etuard Renkel.
Cynical voices have already pointed out that while this gift to the people of Mara is appreciated and maybe even to be applauded, this also seems to be a move from the conglomerate to expand its businesses to the extremely lucrative arms manufacturing and defence markets - especially in the wake of and coinciding with the founding of the New Eden Defence Fund. More evil tongues point out that the defence systems are all newly designed, and untested in an actual crisis. However, the company is using its own products to defend their headquarters, clearly confident in their effectiveness.