[meta] "United Belt Alliance"?

[robkelk]

My search-fu is failing me - I know we discussed the "United Belt Alliance" here in the past, but I can't find any references to it now. Nor can I find any references to a "Belt Alliance". All the hits for "Alliance" on its own lead to the Warsies.

Judging from the FenWiki pages that link to this non-existent-on-the-wiki topic (125 Liberatrix, Knight Sabers, Greenwood Technical Institute, and For Tailed Ones), I'm guessing this might be something our mercs, furries, or both came up with.

Where should I be looking for "United Belt Alliance" data to put on the FenWiki?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

To cut a long story short, the United Belt Alliance began as a mine's co-operative to give the smaller independent mines a way to stand up and compete with Greenwood, sometime around 2014-15. Originally it used a Directly elected board of directors for governance, with each mine having their own worker's council to look after its own needs. Most of the members were from outside the Convention proper, being mundane mining corporations or groups of prospectors hoping to strike it rich in the pre-Boskone boom. They had their own defensive fleet and security service, which was paid for out of dues and it all ran tickety-boo for a while.

I started drawing in the professional management types from Earth, one of them being Jakob Eisen. He reformed the board and alliance governance on more corporate lines and opened up membership to non-mining settlements. A lot of the outlying mines protested and he started touring the co-operative, and after discussion with the dissenting mine operators supposedly he agreed to abandon the reforms. Unfortunately for him, his shuttlecraft was shot down by pirates on a business trip....

Enter James Mason, elected by the board of directors as his replacement. Mason's the man from Wall Street (The movie), a 'Smartest Guy in the Room'. And he knows that the more mines he brings in to the alliance to more money he brings in, the more he can skim off the top. So he starts ambulance chasing - where if a settlement gets raided, UBA men show up and offer membership and protection by their private fleet at a discount rate and a very hard sell. Even at this stage, it's a genuine offer. But there's no real money in it anymore because things are peaceful. GJ and the Patrol are pushing piracy down and hurting the business model...

Until he gets the idea to start giving them ambulances to chase.
Mason and several members of the board of management begin to hire mercenaries to intentionally attack mines to give them a bloody nose - and in the cleanup the UBA can either be the first to respond to the crisis, or be the ones with their foot in the door offering protection while the cleanup's still happening. If they accept, the settlement paid their dues and that was it. If they didn't another attack would come, followed by another, escalating each time until either they acquiesced, or collapsed and became a watchword to be used in future 'sales' pitches.

It went unnoticed partly because the only people who really knew were in the board of director's office. Almost everyone else in the Alliance had the wool pulled over their eyes - while direct action from GJ forces would've triggered another nasty conflict, because if the Convention authorities broke the details of the UBA corruption it could conceivably be dismissed as propaganda or worse,an attempt to assimilate the mundane mines into the Convention. This is where the Knight Sabers step in - being specifically outside and officially untied to Great Justice.

Mason had the sense to avoid the dangerous settlements in the Main Belt - especially the ones he knew could defend themselves and enforce their neutrality. Mason's first big mistake was to try his stunt on 77 Frigga - which on paper is listed as having about ten shipping missiles, 6 permanent residents and the Survival Shot armoury.

The first attack was cursory - a missile volley made them go away. The missiles were never replaced because weapons like that are expensive....

The second attack was more involved. One of their ships got knocked out by the last remaining missile, allowing half the mercenary troops to make rockfall in the accommodation block. They'd made the mistake of attacking during a visit by a VIP (Later set to be Serenity II), and were mistaken by everyone as an assassination attempt - especially when their initial entry and attack pattern didn't match what was expected for a raider looking for valuables, like the hundreds of Survival Shot guns. They were promptly -erm- neutralised is the polite term, as fast as possible.

From the disabled transport and survivors, Mason's involvement was discovered - but not in an evidential manner. He's no moron - all that's given is a vague description of the man who hired and paid them.

The Knight Sabers spent the next 6-9 months beating the UBA to distress calls, while making raids on some of their outlying ships and facilities to gather evidence. Enter Maico Tange who starts her own Scoop Chase after the Knight Sabers. She begins asking about the UBA as part of that story. Meanwhile, Mason orders a third escalation level on Frigga - he wants someone who lives there kidnapped and murdered. Anika (Daini) is flying Maico home, when her A-wing is shot down. Both of them are taken aboard the mercenary ship, where Anika is promptly shot in cold blood by a Captain who has never heard the phrase 'Why don't you just shoot him?'. And she survives because, well, AI.

The figure out that Maico isn't really after the UBA secrets anyway, but the Knight Sabers, so offer to let her go in exchange for information. He wants the Knight Sabers' identity...
He gets the Knight Sabers - or Saber Green anyway - when they rescue Anika, Maico - and promptly deliver Maico to Stellvia in a very public manner, while giving her the evidence they'd put together on the UBA for her to make a story out of (with an implied offer of 'many more' if she keeps their identity a secret).


Great Justice and the Space Patrol respond wth an audit team made up of Lafiel Abriel from Greenwood, Jess Ayanami from the Roughriders, S.Yang from Hermes Universal, Takami Sakuragi from StellviaCorp, Hermes from Hephaestus Mining, Cal Renken from the Soviet Air Force.

What happens after that was never decided. Source is the 'Saber Chase' story which was posted about 2 year ago now....
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[HRogge]

The attack on Liberatrix was also part of the "offensive ambulance chasing"...

[Dartz]

Some random snippets from CiTD borrowed heavily from this... modded a little bit,

---------------------

Former United Belt Alliance FleetOps Commander, Captain Nathan Hollister, Speaking from Azkhaban prison.

Nobody knew about Snow White. At least, at the time we thought nobody knew about it. Most of the settlements aligned with us certainly didn’t know, so when the first Knight Saber attacks began it seemed like a godsend to us.

Big Jim himself started getting bullish about it, especially when it became clear that the Space Patrol were putting the investigation on the long finger. That was a propaganda godsend for us, it really was. We could portray the whole Convention as being indifferent to our plight. And if the Convention wouldn’t defend us, then who better than the Alliance?

We tried to portray ourselves as the victims. It fit right in with Snow White’s message. We were attacked, and neither the Patrol or Great Justice seemed to want to do anything to help.

It might’ve worked too if Big Jim hadn’t started getting his big head. We built up so much steam that eventually something had to release. About the same time, we started hearing news of a journalist chasing up a few of the settlements where the Sabers had successfully interfered with Snow White, asking questions about the Alliance. We thought she was on to us.

I don’t remember where the idea originally came from; it might’ve been Mason himself, but I do know that the Smartest Guys in the Room were all for it from the get-go. Mason was taking the lead on it personally.

That’s where Poison Apple came from. I hired them, and I gave them the order personally.

~***~

Tonight, on ZNN.
The United Belt Alliance, an organisation of independent mining concerns which have banded together for mutual assistance, is known for its work protecting the independant operators from pirate attacks and securing fair pricing in the face of tough competition. Evidence has been presented to his news organisation, suggesting a darker side to it’s operations. This evidence, which has been verified from multiple sources paints the United Belt Alliance as little more than a front for what is quite possibly the largest protection racket in the history of Fenspace.

It began with the election of one James Mason to the position of Chairman, and ended with the attempted murder of a journalist and the pilot of her transport.

It was known as operation Snow White. It would begin with a light pirate raid on an independent mine, operating outside the Alliance’ jurisdiction. Shortly after the raid, representatives of the Belt Alliance would arrive, offering membership in the Alliance in exchange for an annual subscription fee.

They offered safety and security.

Those who accepted the offer never knew any better. Those who didn’t, would find themselves under increasing pressure.

After each attack, the Alliance would return. After each rejection the attacks would grown in intensity with the ultimate result being that the settlement would either abandon their homes, or join the Alliance out of desperation. Only once they joined did the attacks stop, giving credence to Alliance claims.

The Board of Directors hid their plans well, ensuring that they were isolated from both the mercenaries they hired and the innocent people of the United Belt Alliance itself. A network of payment facilitators, anonymous couriers and blind drops ensured that the mercenary organisations never knew who had paid them.

Suspicions were first raised after a raid on the reopened settlement at 77 Frigga. Settlement owner, Ford Sierra has this to say.

‘The first raid was about two years ago. We had some basic missile defences to discourage opportunistic pirate - nothing fancy. A volley was enough to encourage them to leave. A week later, Mason shows up offering membership. Naturally we said no....

A couplamonths back, another raid. This one in force. At the same time Queen Serenity II was visiting Survival Shot so we assumed it was an assassination attempt when a missile disabling one of their transports didn’t make them leave. They landed, and we had to fight them on the ground. We didn’t take any casualties. They were attacking a training centre which trains people to fight off raids just like they were launching.... we assumed they were aware of who and what they were attacking. We assumed it was more than just a raid because of that. I mean, we were a small business, but they had to know we were here.

Then we recovered a memory core from their disabled ship, and passed it on to Great Justice.’

That memory core contained information which showed that the mercenaries had been specifically hired to attack Frigga, and had been told it was nothing more than a lightly defended minor outpost. They had been given specific instructions on what sort of damage to cause, how many people to kill, and what items to take.

An important note was included, reminding them not to destroy items of economic or infrastructural significance. Takami Sakuragi of Stellvia

‘A pattern analysis of the mercenary attacks as they unfolded suggested that they were following deliberate objectives. There was none of the usual random smash-and-grab characteristics of a normal raid. The raids were specifically tailored to cause a maximum psychological impact, while minimising economic harm.

It’s obvious really. Once we’d confirmed this with the memory core, suspicion naturally fell upon the Alliance.”

At the same time, Maico Tange, following up on the same story, made her way out to 77 Frigga. On her return journey, her craft was attacked by a pirate vessel and she was taken prisoner. There can be no doubt that this was nothing less than an attempt to permanently silence the voice of someone who was about to speak out against the Alliance.

It is likely that they would have succeeded if not for the intervention of the Knight Sabers, who had been shadowing the transport. Miss Tange and her pilot were rescued and brought to Stellvia station for emergency treatment.

The memory banks of the pirate vessel were delivered to our desk unaltered by an anonymous courier soon afterwards, along with a copy of Miss Tange’s own research. From this, we are able to conclude that the attack on Miss Tange was ordered by James Mason, with the specific aim of silencing her before she could break this story.

This evidence has been shared with the Space Patrol and Great Justice who have both assured us here at ZNN that the situation shall receive an appropriate response.

------
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

I've used Dartz's first post as the text for the initial FenWiki page. Have at it, folks...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[ECSNorway]

Nod.

Mason is also the villain behind the politics that sent Jake Neihardt and his clan into space (q.v. appropriate thread).
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.