To: The Corsair Brotherhood | From: Gerald B. Beverly

[Madvillain]

Elder Rodriguez, Allow me to explain the situation as it unfolded. It all began when the Black Sails requested to station a battlegroup at Torshavn. Now, I can’t speak for all Gaians, but personally, I’ve always championed the idea of fostering a diverse and multicultural environment on Torshavn. Despite our differences, I see the value in solidarity with the Corsairs. I believe this relationship, uneasy as it may be at times, proves critical to our movement’s goals, and a necessary step toward a brighter future. However, their second demand was utterly ludicrous: they asked for two “Caliburn” Destroyers and four “Galatine” Gunboats. Many would argue that I alone have pockets deep enough for such a request, but let me be clear: these ships are not only expensive, both financially and environmentally, to produce, but the Black Sails lack the trained personnel to even operate them. It would be like handing a child a Neural Net Interface and expecting them to navigate it without frying their brain to smithereens. When we had to refuse to comply with these demands, they resorted to threats. Not idle threats, mind you, for these are the same individuals who have already attacked Gaian vessels before. They then claimed they would send a diplomatic delegation, but of course, what they really meant was that an entire battlegroup was on its way. Their intention was to siege Torshavn, but fortunately, their attempt ended in failure. It does not bring me any joy to engage Corsair vessels in combat, but worse: this sets a dangerous precedent. Soon after we successfully repelled their forces back into the jumphole, reports soon reached us of at least one Gaian ship engaging a Corsair formation in another system. It does not take a genius to understand how one thing can lead to the other, thus these developments are deeply troubling, especially since they were instigated by the reckless actions of a few. As I’ve said before, the Gaian movement and the Brotherhood should not be dragged into pointless conflicts by reckless warbands like this new iteration of Black Sails. I trust we can remain wiser than that and avoid being manipulated into a course neither of us desire to follow. Help us sort out this little problem, and I’ll do everything in my power to assist you with those pending software updates for those cloaking Panthers. Again, I cannot speak for every Gaian in the movement, but perhaps I could even raise the topic of gunboats and cruisers, myes?

---

---