[BREAKING] Possible Terrorist Attack on Sur’Kesh Megalopolis

POSSIBLE TERRORIST ATTACK ON SUR'KESH MEGALOPOLIS

By Selleso Idrik

Entish, ANNOS BASIN - Orbital arrays and planetary sensor nets have confirmed the mass deployment of military grade weaponry in the Tevishi Vael Spaceport at 1145 local time. Eyewitness accounts and station contacts indicate that the superstructure of the central terminal has been critically damaged and is in the processing of collapsing.

Evacuations of the rest of Tevishi Vael is ongoing, all liners have been grounded and special response units are being deployed on the scene. All flights have been redirected to nearby Rukyo and Spire Eighteen ports. Death toll is unknown. The number of wounded is also as of yet unknown but projected to be extensive given the event occurred at the height of the port’s rush hour traffic.

Union military detachments have been scrambled to the city and are expected to be arriving within the next several hours to assist in the establishment of a quarantine line around the port and reinforce civil defense units.

More on the situation as it develops.



***UPDATE***

Secondary detonations around Tevishi Vael at 1200 local time, believed to be some form of resonance based demolitions technology. Ewasi Grove, Little Disan, Heavenly Clutch, Osoli Osol, and Primary Southwest arcologies have sustained critical damage. Secondary collapses have inflicted severe damage to the structural integrity of neighboring buildings.

Quarantine line has been breached. First Union military units are disembarking. Stage Three Alert has been upgraded to a localized Stage Two, full scale evacuation of Southern Entish is now in effect.

Death toll is unknown. Number of wounded is unknown.



***UPDATE***

Individual believed to be responsible for the bombing of Tevishi Vael engaged elements at the quarantine line with an unknown device at 1210 local time. Device generated extreme heat, light, and lethally high levels of radiation during detonation. Civil defense units caught in blast zone around confirmed Killed In Action. Additional units are requiring medical evacuation and treatment for acute radiation poisoning and burns.

Bomber is believed to be traveling deeper into the city along the Faasi Expressway. Forward elements of Union military forces are moving to engage with air support.



***UPDATE***

Bomber created an Uvaso Class/Tier II nanotech event with secondary effects at 1220 local time when isolated and surrounded at K 32 of the Faasi Expressway. Heavy ordinance failed to breach defensive shell.

Military liaison has confirmed the destruction of two gunships and a Union infantry platoon but has refused to release unit designations. Debris created by the collapse of the Faasi Expressway has made kill confirmation impossible.



***UPDATE***

PRIORITY ONE ALERT

Second terrorist attack near the Jurim Sea. Agent believed to be operating in tandem with but separate from Tevishi Vael bomber.
Noltric Dynamics.headquarters has been destroyed by a Tier II self replicating Weapon of Mass Destruction. Localized Stage Two Alert has been upgraded to a Regional Stage Two/Localized Stage One. Full scale evacuation of Entish Megalopolis is in effect. Surrounding cities have been put on alert.

Weapon displays both rapid growth potential and secondary environmental effects, the most potent of with is an individually perpetuating incendiary reaction.



Noltric Dynamics headquarters has collapsed into the lower levels. Sinkhole is expanding across city block. Total death toll remains unknown.

Dalatrass Linron to address Union within the hour.



***UPDATE***

DALATRASS LINRON ADDRESSES UNION

I knew something like this would happen. I did. I keep hearing about all these changes, about Councils and this drive to democracy, and it's just not the way things work in the Union. It's not something we can do. Everyone overtly screaming for what they want, everyone thinking they just have to make enough noise and they win. We're becoming like humans, or batarians, or separatist turians. And we can't do that, because we don't have any practice at it! They barely make it work, and they've been doing it for centuries. They had alliances and cabals and hegemonies. We're a Union. We spent centuries tying our families together, pushing all that conflict into the shadows. We defeated dissent and warfare through sensible means, not force of arms! And now they're undoing it all. All this overt politicizing, it's just wrong.

This is just going to keep getting worse. There's too much tangled distrust, too much history of control and too much fear about what everyone else knows. There's so much conflict, so much that can be sacrificed, and we get through it because we keep it all in the subtext. Which is where it should be. It's better to fight a shadow war that doesn't hurt many people than have it all explode out. That's just sensible.

I don't know what's going wrong over there.

Is it the SDU again? How are they planning to gain credibility if they're waging a war on the Union, unless they're planning to pull another Lystheni.

The Asari Republics condemn any act of terrorism. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. We will follow the developments closely and will be ready, should any assistance be requested.

On a personal note, the well being of Sur'Kesh is of concern to me as I have family there myself.

Right. So somebody screwed something up or there's a legitimate attack. Or the Frawgs realized they had something they wanted to keep hidden.

Or it could be a legit terror attack. Or it could be something else. Can't quite say with the frooks.

They're not giving us updates. But it's like they've all gone mad. You're only seeing it when something gets blown up, but there's something fundamentally wrong with what's happening in the Union. I keep saying it. There's something really wrong.

Believe me, you don't want all the things that are bubbling about under the surface back there to erupt out. We keep it under the surface for a reason. We didn't have a big Unification War like the turians did, we built the Union through breeding contracts and careful alliances. We think in terms of circles, and the smaller circles are inside the bigger ones and they turn against and with each other when we make links in the right places. It's worked for as long as there's been contact with aliens, and now they're trying to change it and all they're doing is dredging the buried conflicts up and it's all going to fall apart.

I keep checking for updates and they're not saying anything...

Oh holy fucking shit.

Just when it looked like the galaxy might be winding down a bit.

Undernet's going nuts over this one.

How is this even possible? Spaceport security these days is tighter than a mermaid's chastity belt.

Last time I went off-world, I left a container of perfume in my hand-luggage prior to security processing. Next thing I know, C-Sec is ravaging my bag like it was a comely Chinese maiden during the Siege of Nanking and I'm bracing myself for a lower-body cavity search. Only a flash of my Alliance passport got me out of that one. (Never returned the perfume, though, the bastards).

The idea that they could drop the ball at Tevishi Vael suggests the worrying possibility of an inside job. Frog politics being notoriously obscure, I can't begin to guess who or why. But whoever they were targeting must surely have got the message.

Better bet would be one of the frog queens making it look like the SDU did it.

I don't claim to get salarian politics at all, but isn't this a bit much for some pissed-off salarian clan leader to pull? What would they gain from a disaster like this?

Way too busy checking up with rest of clan to answer but suffice to say

a lot of shit

This is what I mean! Whichever group did it and why, it's a symptom of something bigger. So it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, it does, but it's not like we can just say "oh, they're the problem and we can just isolate them and that's okay". Whoever pulled it off, it was someone big, someone with a lot of resources, and that means something's gone wrong in the Union itself, not in a few people's heads. It's the whole political game that's gone bad. I mean, I wish we could believe it was some lone madman or a small group, or even an outsider. But this is too big and we all know it.

Where are the updates?!

Hate to say it, Phraag, but sometimes this happens after serious events like the Reaper War and the upheaval that follows. Political systems don't last forever. Look at the Hegemony - stood for 2,000 years, then the godsquid rolled in and knocked it over. Stuff like this happens when the timing and conditions all just sort of click.

Not that I'm defending this. If it's a terrorist attack at all. Could just be an accident. Hate to put it that way, since it's a disaster no matter how you look at it, but there's no guarantee this was a deliberate action.

Hmmmmph. Don't 'spect a lotta sympathy from me on dis; or from many other krogan, fer dat matter.

Th' wheel o' time grinds fine, indeed, don't it.

I knew how things worked back home, I'd gotten a handle on it. I didn't like it, I hated it, but I knew where I stood, you know? I knew what I was getting the shrell away from and why. And now they're playing this trick on me where I'm out here moaning about something that isn't what I remember it to be. It's crazy, it's like I'm the one left holding on to all that stuff I thought I was getting away from. I've got about 10 years left, at most, and when I go I still won't have gotten away from the Union, but I think that the Union might have gotten away from the Union.

We don't know who we are anymore!

Shrelling flimpt! When did this happen!? Any list on the casualty numbers yet? Are they releasing names?

Any idea what the shrell is going on?!

THEY'RE NOT RELEASING ANY UPDATES

Well, Conspir-I-See.net is going apeshit over this. There's rumored video of a device being planted in a closet, but since the "device" was a vacuum cleaner, ain't nobody paying attention to it. Well, Jones is going on about "false flag" stuff, but he always does that.

Anyways, my heart goes out to you salarians.

I had to send two of our front desk people home because they were working each other up into a frenzy trying to get in touch with family back home. We're running in a 1/6 reduced cappacity because of the number of salarians on staff who are desperately calling home.

And everywhere I look there hasn't been another update since this first announcement.

If at all possible, if anyone on the citadel overhears anyone considering contacting local hospitals and clinics to try and get in touch with ones on Sur'Kesh, could you do us a big favor and politely discourage them from doing so?

EDIT: That is to say, we're reduced by one sixth, not reduced down to one sixth. Sorry.

Heh heh heh.

This is some pretty fucking awesome news

Oooooooh, shit. The undernet's caught wind of some data, folks. It's not much, and it hasn't hit the major news media yet - mainly because the news media is designed to pacify rather than inform, but that's neither here nor there - but according to a post made by "Undacovah," there's evidence proving that the explosion was caused by some kind of krogan demolition device. Yeah, I know, it sounds a bit far-fetched - but take a look at the spectrum analysis of the chemicals Undacovah managed to snag from the site.

* Spectrum Analysis 1
* Spectrum Analysis 2
* Spectrum Analysis 3
* Spectrum Analysis 4

* Chemical Comparison chart: known krogan explosives

See sample 3? See how it matches up to the sample of Efonex on the krogan chart? Efonex is a krogan mining explosive, looks like some kind of... orange mush, right? High iron content, since one of the primary ingredients is iron oxide. No one else uses that much iron in their explosives since it's so inefficient, so the krogan don't end up selling it. Easy to produce, never sold outside of krogan borders.... I'm pretty sure I don't have to draw a picture for you here.