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?
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?