[Kite's Nest] Khar’shan Ascendancy Requests Aid Disposing of WMD’s

Khar’shan Ascendancy Requests Aid Disposing of WMD’s

Amelie Raksharma, Alliance News Network

In an unexpected move today, the theocracy in power on Khar’shan sent an official request for aid to the Citadel Council. The request centered on disposing of weapons of mass destruction hoarded by the former Hegemony, which was notorious for its isolationism and hostility.

Due to the speed with which the Kite’s Nest was overrun by the Reapers, those trained and authorized to deploy the Hegemony’s most dangerous weapons were largely killed or indoctrinated before they could be used. In the aftermath of the war several of the governments within the former Hegemony have discovered caches of such weapons, but the request by the Khar’shan Ascendancy is the first known attempt to dispose of them.

While the Citadel Council has yet to issue an official reply, sources within the Turian Hierarchy indicate that a team of experts is already being assembled and prepared for the first major goodwill mission to the former Hegemony. The team is expected to consist primarily of turians as a precautionary measure.

Remember New Hope from before the war? The very virulent outbreak of deadly virus that killed both human and asari and was thought to be a WMD? I just hope none of that survived the Reapers, because I don't want to imagine pirates or terrorists with that kind of weaponry...Imagine if Na or Ub'Hesit got their hands onto it, or anti-SA rebels.

Well, that came out of the blue. We had no way of knowing what had happened to the Hegemony's WMDs with how fast they were shwacked during the war, and how isolated they had been beforehand. Something tells me the office is going to be crazy this week because of this. Oh well. I prefer it when we're busy and have a crisis or something to focus on; makes me feel like I'm actually doing something, rather than just shuffling data files.

Why can't they use solar disposal?

Because if the weapons are unstable, they may leak or go off in transport. That's why they're asking for the professional assistance.

I for one am rather glad the Ascendancy has finally decided what to do with the Honourless things.


Yes, because burying WMDs makes it all go away? Hardly. I may have lived in Khaljah my entire life, but even the lowest level initiate to the the Taherach and Gadati knows well enough what such things are capable of - and the higher tiers of the caste know better than any of of us that the Corruption has not been blinded, and that there are still those eternally Damned who exist outside the Order, and would see us return to the ways of the Hegemony.

Better that they Speak now, instead of hide behind lies should your prophesy come to pass.

Thar'ish's tits! A political force in charge of a WMD to be used as a last resort! It's not like you find that anywhere else in the Galaxy is it?! Unless you count every state in existence or has existed since their species split the atom.

yes, but those powers wouldn't be batarian

or one bad day away from full blown species war

i think most people will go for either option

The vast majority of Terminus governments and warlords have them to various degrees. The bigger merc groups have them. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if all of the disparate splinters of Hegemony who deny having them are lying about it. Anyone with Naval assets worth talking about, has them. Dreadnoughts aren't very common in the terminus, but the bigger organizations have a cruiser or several, and they are more than capable of orbital bombardment.

And lest we forget, anyone with more money than sense can get them. Asteroids are free, slap a few engines on the side and you have a homemade Tier 1 WMD.

Its only the more exotic ones that everyone likes to freak out about, because they take a lot of time, money, scientific and industrial expertise, etc. Grey Goo, Radioactive Nuclear Winter, The Infection that gets everyone except one species, and Space Fungus that wants to eat everyone, are so much more exciting than something that just puts a big dent in the planet, never mind that you can wipe out an entire city (or more) at once that way.

Exactly. There really isn't as big a difference between "WMDs" and ordinary weapons as people like to think.

I think it's a good thing that these WMDs are apparently going to be disposed of. While that doesn't change the state of other Batarian weapons, nothing really would. This is good news.

The less planetkillers are floating around out there the better, from my point of view. Good on the batarians.

If only more people in positions of power held that view. But, indeed, credit to the Ascendancy for at least approaching the Council for help with disposal. It's a remarkably mature act given the mutual hostility from before the Reaper War.

Best get an early start if you want them gone, there's a lot of asteroids floating around out there, and they ain't gonna destroy themselves.

Actually not every nutjob can just hop on asteroid and crash it on a planet. Every asteroids on inhabited planet's systems are carefully monitored, and by the time you're done installing the engine you'll be in trouble. Terra Nova almost happened because the asteroid was already on its course to TN for mining, and then was hijacked. And even then the Alliance had the time to kick out the pirates.

As for the krogans during the Rebellions, they would hijack a hundred asteroids at once and had the firepower to defend their engines. And even then, I don't believe they were successful in a lot of drops.

I think the turians would care to disagree with that statement.

Earth, the homeworld of a race with a seat on the damn council, went dark on communications, and everyone thought nothing was out of the ordinary for days. That leaves a chance that if something happens (such as he destruction of comm bouys), you can kiss off out of system help.

For the asteroids themselves, drone sats do most of the monitoring, a good hacker can probably silence a few without anybody being the wiser for a time. This of course assumes that they are actually tracking every asteroid, which isn't as good a bet as you would think...

What keeps asteroid drops from being a huge threat, is that most of the time the people that don't like you, don't like you but they still want what's on the planet. Turning what they want into a cloud of rubble, or taking a garden world and making it a dead world are not in their best interests.

Especially since everybody else gets twitchy about that kind of thing. Doesn't matter if you're in C-Space or the Terminus, you will have a conglomeration of people ready to string you up by your intestines in short order.

That leaves the truly crazy nutballs to worry about, who thankfully usually don't have the resources to pull off these tricks.

The other problem is that most governments aren't the Alliance. One of the main reasons most Fleets are attached to a planet is because we learnt from the Rebellions.

Seriously, it's a miracle the SA had a hard as fuck ground team defuse TN on time. Fucking Dirk Black Infiltrationist shit - everyone else would've just parked a cruiser in front of the fucker and fired 'til it either fragmented or was redirected.

After all, why'd you think the rock lizards used to drop so many?

Well-developed governments are able to monitor all of the asteroids in their inner systems, certainly. Some of them with enough resources can monitor most of the rocks in the system's Kuiper belt. But there are trillions of space rocks in the oort clouds, spread out over more than a square light year of space. Nobody keeps track of all of them. While there are tracking systems closer to the inhabitable planets, a skilled hacker or sabotage team can keep anyone from seeing a guided asteroid until it gets dangerously close.