A prescheduled event now comes on over the holovid. This is the funeral of Andy Quick, former President of Tion Mil/Sci Industries. It has been advertised only once, but by word of mouth, everyone has been reminded again and again that it is today. The location was to be quiet, as well, but most knew it was to be held in Am Shere, Amon Nublar's TMSI home. There is a square of sorts, near the landing pad there, where the ceremony is taking place.
A somber crowd is present at the event. Sentients from all over are represented. The entire High Command of the Tion Hegemony is present, as well. The sullustan, Amon is at the podium. Once everyone has seated and calmed, he begins speaking...
"It is with great sadness that we are present before you here today. Our hearts will not heal from this loss for many moons. President Quick was a great leader, and believed in leading by example, and was therefore a hard worker, too. Most of all, he was a dear friend to us all. He was quick to welcome new recruits, to bid you a great day whenever he was in touch with you, and he always had a smile for anyone near him." He adjusts his stance, obviously uncomfortable with this position, for this purpose.
"I remember Andy as a new recruit. I know I'm dating myself some, but I was, after all, his mentor when he arrived at the docks of TMSI. Wet behind the ears, as we say. Visions abounded in his head once he learned the ropes, which he did rather quickly, no pun intended. All of us in leadership recognized that there was a chance he would be leading soon, and eventually could be running the company. And run the company he did. As you all know, when he took over, it was with the force of a tempest. He led with the same enthusiasm for work as he had when he was fresh. It is a golden era for TMSI that Andy leaves behind, and we will continue on. We will never be the same. We may never know why Andy was taken from us so early, and so suddenly, but we will know that he will be missed, and he will always be remembered."
Amon steps down from the podium as the Lord Hegemon rises and walks graciously but grieved to the podium. He clears his throat. "Citizens of Tion, we are all shocked by the sudden loss of so great a leader, and so dear a friend. Andy played such a vital role to so many of us for so long, it will take some time to accept his absence, but we will never adjust to it. I know I can speak for all of us in the High Council when I say a great void will remain in our hearts. His memories, however, will be what we all need to fill that void with. We must all move on, but we must all remember." The Lord Hegemon looks at Amon and nods.
With that, Amon steps down from the platform. The pall-bearers float the casket of President Andy Quick, and the procession begins its long walk to Bhagavat Bhutkada, the Palace of Treasures. The walk lasts several hours, during which time musicians play a simple yet evoking dirge, moving along with the casket. In the end, the casket is moved to a room in the tallest tower of the palace, where it overlooks the city in all of its splendor from a room of marble and gold. Velvet banners and hand-woven tapestries dedicate the room to Andy, depicting moments of his reign at TMSI, and fleeting shots with fiends who will miss him. Personifications to watch over him for all time are carved by the finest craftsmen from the local stone. Here is the final resting place of Andy Quick. The cameras are allowed one final moment before the doors are closed and sealed by Amon himself. He turns, looks at the camera and utters one last statement... "May he rest in peace." With that, the cameras go dead. The holovid stays black for a few more moments before cutting back in to the news crew, who are still hanging their heads in silence.
It is a sad, quiet farewell to a great leader
This is Elizabeth Bequin reporting from Tion's capital city, Meeshae.
Employees across the cluster are celebrating tonight at the announcement of a massive increase in salaries for all government employees. Lord Hegemon Corbin announced the change in a recorded message to all Hegemony personnel.
“The Hegemony has been well served by its soldiers, pilots and leaders. Through your efforts the Hegemony has grown into a dynamic economic power. It is my hope that through these changes we will give our citizens the chance to share in the success of their state and reinforce their loyalty to the Hegemony.”
Under the new plan, new recruits can expect to be making on the order of five million galactic credits as a base salary paid on a monthly basis in addition to a new, graduated bonus scheme. This marks a five hundred percent increase on previous levels.
Marcus Dren, six year veteran of Hegemony service gave us his estimates on how the new pay may play out.
“A highly active novice can expect to see an annualised income on the order of one hundred and eight million credits per year. Factor in the average promotion track and that number revises up even further, one hundred and fifteen million at my best estimate. I should note that number does not include non-financial rewards including ships or real estate often provided by the Hegemony to employees.”
The move is set to make employees of the Hegemony and its various nationalised arms, already richly paid, the most generously compensated employees in the galaxy.
The move has been coupled with the implementation of a series of new programs aimed at affording Hegemony employees economic opportunities within the sector.
The Employee Investment Zone project has allowed ordinary citizens of Tion to invest in the economic development of the planet Abraxin. Entire zones of the planet have been developed into industrial and trade hubs. Employees with a history of service to Tion have been afforded the opportunity to invest in these projects in exchange for personal ownership over the majority of the income earning businesses in that zone. Our valuations suggested that these investments have allowed employees to gain access to a range of businesses at a sixth of their ordinary market prices coupled with the security of the knowledge that the Hegemony's defence forces are committed and prepared to defend their investment.
Marcus sought to explain the program.
“Firstly it's another reward to employees who have been resolute in their service to Hegemony and Hegemon. Secondly it ensures that the generous salary packages are re-directed into the local economy facilitating the blisteringly fast economic development that we've been seeing over the last few years. Capital flight has not as yet been an issue within the cluster but every credit serves to take pressure off local capital markets. Finally it ensures employees can feel a connection with the Hegemony. The safety of their investments, the profitability of those investments, becomes inherently tied with the success of the Hegemony. It's a key source of loyalty and morale.“
At last count, twelve such zones had been completed and sold with that many again nearing completion. As a final question, TNN posed the question to Dren as to just how much it would be possible to earn if employees took advantage of all the available opportunities for investment or bonuses. It should be noted that the Noghri's eyes seemed to light up at the question.
“An interesting hypothetical exercise, and one that gave a number of consultants a rather difficult time. That said, we did manage to calculate that factoring in a maximised performance bonus, a rapid monthly promotion track and accounting for the value of uniformly accessible investment schemes a new recruit could accumulate around three hundred and seventy four million credits in wealth over the course of their first year of service, around three hundred and seventeen million of that in credits.”
That figure (far more than this reporter expects to see in her life time) could see employees able to afford to commission personal capital ships and catapult themselves amongst those who can claim to stand amongst the Galaxy's wealthy class. This reporter did attempt to contact Dr Orsiah Tanan, professor of economics at the university of Republica to obtain a comment on the potential effects this slush of credits may have on galactic wealth distribution. Unfortunately, we were informed by the Professor's office that he had recently vacated his position to take up a job as a freighter pilot in the Hegemony's Navy.
While the long term economic effects are unclear, one thing is for certain. For the ambitious, skilled, loyal and dedicated, Tion now promises to be an employer of choice and a land of opportunity.
Greetings Citizens and Honored Guests, I am Geneva Reed, head of the Department of Technology.
Two years ago, my predecessor, Gunn Starfall, started working on a central information storage for the Tion Hegemony. Originally, the primary purpose of this database was to store intelligence gathered by our Defense branch, and also general information that our citizens can access. The work progressed quickly, and the database - now called Hegemonial Intelligence Archives - was ready to accept information.
As time passed, the data inside the Archives started to grow, and we decided to add several new features, including the support for storing the biographies of our citizens, interlinking, grouping of files into collections, etc. With these changes, the Archives slowly began to change purpose, and now, it serves as a general knowledge base, one that Gunn intended to share with the public before his retirement. Therefore, after consulting with Lord Hegemon Typhon Corbin, I finished his work, and now I am proudly presenting you the Intelligence Archives!
Please note, that although this Archive is now open, editing it's contents is not possible for visitors or citizens without clearance (with the sole exception of biographies), due to the fact that we still store classified information (which is hidden from the public) in this database. We will be more than happy to add any content you send us though. (Feel free to message me about it.)
Last updated on Year 13, Day 150, 05:03:55Citizens, visitors, please don't panic!
A new mutagen virus has emerged from another dimension, and it has infected and mutated the genetic structure of numerous sentients in the galaxy today. Nobody knows how it could have affected so many different species in such a short amount of time, or how it spread across the entire galaxy in just a few hours. Athakam science division reports a possible trans-dimensional attack by aliens.
The virus mutates the genetic structure of the victim in just a few short hours, and the results are always the same: the subject turns into an annoying gungan. How, why? It doesn't really matter now. There have been no new cases reported since the initial outbreak, the virus seems to have gone dormant for the moment.
The leader of the Tion Hegemony, formerly known as Lord Hegemon Typhon Corbin also fell victim to this mysterious transformation. It looks like, that in his case, the transformation was not complete, his skin is still blue, like that of a healthy chiss. Unfortunately, his mental state has become unstable.. just a few minutes ago, he announced that his new official rank is "Grand Poobah". Athakam doctors are already working on the problem, and they are confident that Grand Poobah Corbin's metamorphosis is merely a temporary condition.We all wish a quick recovery for him.
All hail the Grand Poobah!
Last updated on Year 13, Day 124, 11:15:10
Department employees have long worked with Head Engineer Gunn Starfall on the Tion Virtual Intelligence development. However, the idea first began when Mr. Starfall was an employee at Frost Inc, now known as Tion Military and Science Industries (TMSI). Stemming from his original project within TMSI, Mr. Starfall hired the help of fellow Athakam employee Crislyn Anessa Waryn. Ms. Waryn, using her experiences in research and development and droid production over saw the creation of the new VI’s behavior and response protocols. Gunn worked in his familiar engineering and programming fields to create the VI’s programming and HoloNet interface.
Once the shell had been created and the idea was tested and deemed successful, Crislyn and Gunn began to gather information and datafiles about the history of Tion and her affiliate factions to fill the databanks of the PR VI. Created under the programming code of THVI-version 2, the VI was given the name ‘Lianna’ after the Hegemony’s famous Lianna system. While Lianna has been published to the Tion Cluster’s HoloNet with vast amounts of information, she is still under constant development by the TDoT. Gunn and Crislyn have both commented that they plan to add more information to Lianna’s databanks that would cover a variety of topics ranging from the history of the Tion Cluster to in-depth information on the Tion nationalized factions.
As our galaxy begins to grow and change it is nice to know that our own Tion Cluster continues to move on with time. Both Mr. Starfall and Ms. Waryn have stated that they believe Lianna will become one of the galaxy’s most renowned Public Relations programs and they both believe she will help the Hegemony and affiliates to gain new membership. Mr. Starfall also strongly suggests that due to the wide-spread success of Lianna and the positive reviews and acceptance of his work, that the Department of Technology will be expediting some of their major projects in order to bring new membership to Tion.
The Department of Technology would like to point you in the direction of Lianna, who can currently be found here: http://www.tionhegemony.com/holosite/?page=joinus , on the Holosite’s Join Us page. However, Mr. Starfall was quick to explain that Lianna will possibly be moving to a Public Relations oriented page, where she can more easily be found.
Last updated on Year 12, Day 330, 16:45:28
We've had a very interesting year. Unions were joined, battles were fought, wars were won and progress was made. In the end, we find ourselves more secure and stronger than we were a year ago. We have big plans for Y12, and I'm confident we'll be in an even better position come Y13.
To help kick off the new year, I'm pleased to present you with the first issue of the Tion Tribune. Thanks go out to Biowa Gatecross for bringing it all together, and of course to all of the talented writers who volunteered and contributed. The Tion Tribune is brought to you by our talented Holomaster Gunn Starfall.
For those who don't know, KGI is the new home for Helena Gladio and her multis. They've been continuing the fight since we caused the dissolution of Cron Resurrection and captured their king, though the war had slowed significantly of late as options became more limited. Recently, they contacted me and wanted to talk about ending the conflict and settling the disputed planets. After long consideration and conferring with the High Command followed by extensive negotiations, we have reached an agreement.
Tion Hegemony will lose control of the planet Angalegost, which is partially shielded by KGI. They also own 80% of the city slabs there. In exchange, we are receiving all of KGI's assets (slabs, shields, flats etc) on the planets Irazu, Ugog, Belebrant and Jaminere.
I want to make it known, though, that while we have a peace treaty with KGI, Helena and those directly responsible remain enemies of Tion and will be hunted down individually. We have not signed a non-aggression pact that prevents us from seeking them out. We will not stop until the ones who betrayed us have been brought to justice.
I'd like to thank the members of the Tion Hegemony for their vigilance, courage and support during this conflict. Helena expected to gain complete control before we were able to mount a defense, yet we rallied and were able to claim victory over the Cron Resurrection. There was little hope for victory at the start as we weren't prepared for such a trusted member to do this and they had cities that nearly covered three of the four planets, but through a few clever moves and some amount of good fortune, we were able to not only hold them off but take the war to them and make them feel fear. Every citizen has contributed to the war effort in some way, and for that Tion is in your debt. We also owe thanks to our friends in the Imperial Union who, upon hearing what Helena did to us, immediately dispatched personnel to assist us in defending our territory. Their aid was invaluable.
To celebrate the end of the war and our Independence Day (D300), we will be having some giveaways and other fun stuff over the next few days - stay tuned!
Sincerely,
Typhon Corbin
Lord HegemonLast updated on Year 11, Day 346, 20:55:14
