>: UMC DIPLOMATIC AFFAIRS DIRECTORATE

[Reeves]

☠ Incoming transmission.
☠ Signal source: Free Republic relay, Liberty
☠ Opening video feed...

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Sender: Adjutant O. Bancroft
Recipient: Ambassador Setsuna Kobayashi, Utsunomiya Commonwealth
Subject: Re: First Contact and State Visit

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Ambassador Kobayashi. Thank you for your response, and for its honesty. I'll try to match it.

On the xenophobia question. I understand why it gets applied to us, and I'm not going to sit here and tell you the history doesn't warrant some scrutiny. What I will push back on is the underlying assumption, because there is a difference between opposing foreign presence and opposing predatory foreign influence. That distinction matters to us. What the Xeno Alliance has consistently resisted is the pattern of outside interests arriving in Liberty under the banner of commerce or cooperation, and leaving having taken something that was never theirs. The ALG is a useful illustration. Their arrangement with the LPI in Texas, running prison vessels, using inmates as labor, that is the kind of entanglement we were founded to stand against. That isn't prejudice. That's a rational response to a very specific and repeated kind of exploitation.

And for what it's worth, the Zoners are a good example of why that distinction holds. They aren't from Liberty. They don't share our politics or our history in any direct sense. And yet they've consistently commanded genuine respect from within the Xeno Alliance, in some cases outright admiration. Because they've never come to us with an angle. Origin has never been the issue. Intent and conduct have always been the measure.

As for the Prometheans, I'll be straightforward. I find the situation regrettable. They aren't our natural enemies and I don't think anyone on our side particularly enjoys the dynamic. But they are still operating under the influence of a construct that Auxesia built to keep them in line. It isn't a council of their founders. It's a simulation of dead men, designed to make sure that movement never fully escapes the Technocratic agenda out of Inverness. Until they cut that connection, we have no way of treating them as a genuinely independent actor. That's the honest position.

What I hope for, and I mean this, is that the people within that movement who want something real eventually win that argument internally. They have a complicated history in Vespucci to answer for, and the best way to do that is to actually secure Erie's freedom on their own terms, without someone else's hand on the wheel.

The broader picture you described, of Zoner society being squeezed by House interests, of your people being used as a pressure valve whenever the houses need a scapegoat, we recognize that. The specifics differ from our own situation but the experience of being "the little guy" - that larger powers would prefer didn't exist, that we understand.

So. I'm not asking you to take any of this at face value. What I'd like, if you're open to it, is to keep this channel going. If there are things about how we operate, our policies, anything, that you want addressed directly, I'm willing to do that. One conversation at a time seems more honest than skipping ahead to formalities.

"There is hope under the White Star."
- Adjutant Oscar "Knight of Cups" Bancroft

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