Miriani

Hale Leadership Confirm Progress on Doomsday Weapon!

The leader of the Hale Collective, Premier Yang, today confirmed rumors that the Collective was experimenting with an incredibly powerful beam weapon after being put under pressure by eyewitness reports from starship pilots of the weapon in action. Yang confirmed that the weapon was 'in the experimental stages, but looked to be promising'.

"This device is our science division's efforts at replicating the devastating energy weapons which the CTN brought to bear in the latter stages of the war," said Yang, referring to the main armament of Egalitarian mark two encountered during the Second CTN War. This weapon was capable of obliterating entire starbases and had the destructive power to completely obliterate a 75km area of planetary surface. "The weapon is far from finished, and we have no intentions of using it against any human target. Our vision for the Radiant Project is to use it to burn out Praelor hive worlds, the majority of which are heavily fortified and extend many kilometers underground. As it is, there is absolutely no way for High Guard to destroy these hives; they extend so deeply under the crust that no amount of orbital bombardment can dislodge them; they simply grow back after every bombing run. Only a very small fraction of Praelor hives are able to be completely destroyed with atmospheric or orbital bombardment."

The alliance reaction to the new development has been lukewarm; however Peter Alexandrov, leader of an AIE technologist political party, said, "This is the kind of thing our scientists need to be working on; why has President Lancaster persisted in slashing the budgets of our technological research programs at a time when we need it the most? The Praelor will not be defeated by a clean balance sheet, they will be defeated by human ingenuity." The AIE leadership has refused comment, but President Slavik of the Commonwealth said, "I am pleased that the Hale have been working in earnest for a more intelligent way of defeating the Praelor than simply shooting at Friziti [unarmed Praelor mining vessels.] We must pursue the most strategically viable method of defeating this enormous threat to our existence."

Dated: 03/11/2358