To: ALG, CDL, IMG || From: Bristol C&M

[Petitioner]

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Encryption type: STND-SRS-ENCR-V399E

Transmission delay: 230189ms

Employee ID: TERBLANCHE, ELIZE - #1310L

Subject: Business Proposal

-- BROADCASTING MESSAGE -- Miss Blake, I hope this message finds you well! I'm Elize Terblanche, on behalf of Caledonia Distributions Limited. I must say, this message is quite a surprise. While I've discussed this message and proposal with some of my colleagues in the ALG, I have not yet had opportunity to confer with our partners in the Guild, due to the considerable distance between my posting here at Kanagawa and the closest Guild centres of Java and Riau within Tau-23. That said, you should take my words only as representing the views of Caledonia — though I do not imagine Gateway's corporate board would have much objection to my perspective here. While we appreciate the gesture, I think that perhaps Bristol does not fully understand the nature of our relationship here. The connection between Gateway, the ALG, and the Guild is not one defined by treaties or broad, overarching, restrictive diplomatic arrangements. Instead, individual contracts, a favor here and there, and decades worth of goodwill manifest the natural synergy between our respective specializations. This, combined with the limitations on market access that each of our parties has, which other members of our little partnership can make up for, and the oligopolistic attitude of the larger business entities in Sirius, leads us rather inextricably to an intimate cooperation. In other words, Ms Blake, this highly formalised relationship that you have come to us with practically right out the gate is simply not how we do business with each other, and the extremely corporatised structure of your approach is more or less the strategy applied by the exact big-business oppressors that have visited so many woes upon us all. Furthermore, while Caledonia's limited dealings with Bristol's member corporations have thus far been very mutually fruitful, the level of cooperation and trust established is simply not comparable to over a century of extremely warm cooperation through thick and thin, through war and peace, through famine and feast, that Gateway, the ALG, and the IMG have shared. While we all appreciate ambition here, it is — and I say this in the most complimentary manner possible — not really fruitful for Bristol, a newcomer on the Sirian stage, to approach all of us with intent to dictate the terms of our relationship. For all these reasons and more, Caledonia must reject your proposal on its face. That said, please do not in any way take this as a rejection of further cooperation. We understand, at least to a degree, the situation that Bristol finds itself in, and we do truly believe there is a lot of room for our relationship to grow. In many ways, we see a lot of ourselves in you. If you have specific proposals for ways in which we could cooperate, we would be most eager to examine them together and work out mutually-beneficial arrangements for both our respective corporations, our employees, and for other independent and civilian actors within the markets that we occupy. After all, it is primarily through trade that we come to rely upon our fellow humans, and it is through interreliance that mutual understanding and, eventually, friendship arises. From all of us at Caledonia, thank you for your time, and have a wonderful day!

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