[Official Event] The Alsace Passage - 2 Mar, 20:00 - 22:00 UTC

[Tuvvak]

I was on CPW-Xuzhou, got 1
The event was cool

[Civil Servant]

Minuet.T.Riker|LF

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SigComic made by @Big Bison Bessie

[Promotheus]

I flew the esteemed Maquis criminal BaguetteBurgler, no blues for me but I figured I should do some damage to the liners

[jammi]

OUTCOME

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The diplomatic convoy to Gallia could be considered nothing less than an outright disaster. Despite a significant armed guard consisting of elements from both the Rheinland Military and Gallic Navy, the convoy came under heavy and sustained assault almost immediately. Within Rheinland itself, Bundschuh fighters inflicted early casualties on the Emperor's escort, although they were unable to penetrate the perimeter to the RNC Burghausen or the diplomatic attachment. Despite calls to abort the mission entirely due to the security lapse, Military commanders were determined to press on.

In the Alsace Passage itself calamity truly struck. Hordes of Wild fighters and fearsome Scorpion drones rushed the convoy, suicidally intent on bringing down the diplomatic liners and flagship. The defenders were appalled by the Wild's inhuman tactics, as fighters threw themselves into the engines of enemy capital ships, or used their own hulls to absorb torpedoes intended for Scorpion Drones. Despite dozens being destroyed, the Scorpions carried out their deadly work, chewing through the armour and detonating the reactors of the liners Datteln and Niederaussem.

As emergency search and rescue units across Cologne and Zurich were scrambled to rescue survivors, the convoy was forced to push on into Champagne - it was far too late and far too dangerous to contemplate turning back to Rheinland. Finally in Gallic core space, the delegation received a brief reprieve. Marne's orbit had been cleared in preparation for arrival, although the radio waves were still filled with the clamour of protesting industrial workers on the planet below. Upon arriving in Ile-de-France, the procession came under heavy attack once more, this time by Maquis terrorists.

The final liner carrying the Trade Minister, Baron Tobias von Hueber, was dramatically destroyed in New Paris orbit. Struck by several Maquis suicide bombers, the liner broke in half and began to fall into the planet's atmosphere. Local Gallic emergency services rushed to recover escape pods, with the Minister himself rescued in a critically injured state. The remaining Maquis attackers were scythed down by the Paris defence grid, and the remnants forced to flee. Seemingly oblivious to this chaos, the heavily sheltered Emperor bumbled his way through an arrival speech, seemingly insulting his hosts at several points.

Military officers and the shellshocked handful of negotiators who survived the journey are now working around the clock to try and mend relations and put the mutual benefits of the Treaty of Oerlikon at the forefront of discussions once more. Gallic officials are sure to use the Emperor's gaffe as an excuse to extract more favourable conditions, to the Rheinlanders' chagrin. The Treaty's ratification in the coming weeks is almost a certainty - there are too many credits on the line for it to be otherwise - however Rheinland will now be negotiating this critical phase stripped of its most experienced specialists.

Regardless of the political manoeuvring, however the issue is framed, this procession has been a humiliating debacle for both Houses. Gallia, already suspicious of its own intelligence apparatus, has purged several senior GNI officers and commissioned an inquest into the leaks that facilitated the attacks. Rheinland for its part has already made preparations to bolster the Altenberg's squadrons and deploy the MND with an objective of tracking down and exterminating the lairs the Wild had emerged from.

(Apologies for the delay - I've been focusing on getting 5.1 sorted)

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