TheCoruscantMail.omni

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Welcome to The Coruscant Mail (.omni)
The Official Webiste for your Tier One Daily Paper
Disclaimer: The Coruscant Mail has no connection to any official Imperial News Network and should never be regarded as representing the Emperor or Council in any capacity.

Our Top Story Today:

EPD Begins Recruitment Campaign!
Or does it?

"I had absolutely no idea this was going on. I'm at a complete loss as to what those Tier Five divisions think they're doing, or who could have possibly given them permission to go ahead with this."

This was a comment our reporters heard repeated and rephrased frequently today as they tried to get information from Coruscant government officials on Tier One, both inside and outside the Empire Peace Division's ranks, regarding the recent slew of postings on various Dataverse messageboards asking the worryingly untrustworthy, lower-class citizens of that area to volunteer now to join the ranks of the stormtroopers and 'protect their homes' from the 'scourge' of gang warfare, as well as multiple recruitment posters which have been seen pasted to walls in several areas around the tier, most frequently in the northern quadrant. One example of such a poster can be seen here:

We asked Lieutenant Michelle Andreas, a local Recruitment Officer on Tier One, to elaborate on what was being done about this situation, and she gave us the following reply:

"I'm very sorry about not being able to go into more detail on this subject, but you have to understand that in order to keep sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands, much of what we do here must remain classified. I can assure you, however, that we are doing absolutely everything in our power to straighten out this mess as soon as possible. The Recruitment Offices here have nothing whatsoever to do with these sudden requests, which means that as they have not gone through official channels to secure permission for this expansion, the wages of any troops recruited beyond the allotted number assigned to each Station, Base, Barracks or other official Imperial outpost will not be being paid by the Empire."

Heartening news indeed to our many middle-class readers, who were no doubt worried about the potential of additional taxes being imposed upon them to pay for any sudden swell in EPD numbers which could potentially be generated by this campaign. Of particular concern would be the sort of 'aspiration' taxes which can be sometimes be levied upon large corporations and estates worth over 1 billion credits (of the sort that we're sure every ordinary working man or woman on Tier One owns) when the government is 'in need' of extra funds and feels like unfairly taxing the very slightly better off in order to avoid the negative publicity generated by causing mass starvation, as often happens whenever those lazy, unemployed poor people which all decent folks revile are made to pay their fair share.

Not everyone is willing to accept Officer Andreas' 'excuse' (their words, not ours. Praise the Emperor!) however; our foreign correspondent over in Camelot interviewed our long-time and recognisably trustworthy source, Sir Eldwin von Chivilrosivitus, who had this to say on the subject:

"Pshaw! Poppycock, I say! 'tis utter drivel! Those Empire fiends are readying their men for war, I tell thee! 'Tis the only explanation! Dost thou seriously claim that a council so domineering could truly have no knowledge of the actions of their own underlings? What absurd twaddle! We must all be prepared for a long and bloody conflict!"

It may be worth noting that Sir Eldwin has been denounced many times in the past by Camelot's minor representatives for any number of reasons, up to and including the use of peasants as chew toys for his prized hounds... however we are sure that simple, common, not-overly-wealthy people such as our readership is comprised of can empathise with him in that regard, haha.
Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, their King has yet to actually condemn Sir Eldwin personally (perhaps due to never having actually heard of him, but perhaps not), and as such we can only assume that every word which comes out of the mouth of our trusty source is not only a perfectly accurate and undeniable truth, but also an excellent representation of King Aragorn's feelings on the subject at hand.

Upon returning to speak to Officer Andreas a second time (as she was the only one willing to give us more than a sentence or two in the first place), she merely laughed and told our reporters:

"You call that a credible source? You can't be serious."

Clearly the stress must have caused her to lose her mind for her to doubt the noble Sir Eldwin. For now, it seems we can only hope that some other, less crazy, officer will step forward to resolve this travesty, before Aragorn the Evil loses his patience and invades!

Follow our account over on Omnitwitter for constant updates on this situation as it unfolds.

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

Welcome to The Coruscant Mail (.omni)
The Official Website of Tier One's Favourite Daily Paper
Disclaimer: All newspaper popularity polls used by this newspaper are conducted 'independently' by members of our own staff and may or may not actually be remotely accurate.

Our Top Story Today:

EPD Barracks Assaulted!
Ruffians Target Stormtroopers on Tier Five!

Avid readers may remember a recent issue of ours which covered the dangers of increased recruitment of stormtroopers, however, it seems that we were not alone in our concern. Yes, dear readers, as you may have surmised from our wonderfully attention-grabbing headline, an Imperial outpost in Tier Five has actually been attacked by one of the local gangs.

Indeed, it was the same outpost that had promised to increase the hiring rate of stormtroopers. Is this sudden increase in anti-Empire aggression proof that this was a bad idea from the start? Probably. Have these stormtroopers realised this yet? Apparently not. After beating back the repugnant peasants who oh-so-courageously stormed the EPD base whilst it was completely unoccupied, the unit stationed there seem to have simply returned to their plotting as before, with no sign of being bothered in the slightest by this obvious reaction from the gangs that fill the tier.

We sent a reporter down to Tier Five to investigate. Yes, readers, you read that correctly. We risked one of our disposable interns top reporters to bring you this story! The reporter in question was accompanied at all times by a mere four bodyguards. Truly, it was a feat of astounding valour. It was thanks to this brave man that we were able to question Lieutenant Davion Calrime, the man in charge of that barracks, personally. Here is the statement he gave us:

“Yes, we do still plan on going ahead with our attempt at expanding stormtrooper recruitment, despite some resistance from those pen-pushers up on Tier One. They may not be too keen on devoting any additional funding to this tier, but until we can convince them of the need for more troops, we've found ourselves a workaround; Primes. We currently have two Primes stationed at this barracks, one of whom is currently away on a... special mission, whilst the other remains here to help out with day-to-day, routine policing.”

When questioned further about his 'funding-via-Primes' scheme, the lieutenant elaborated on that by explaining that they were confiscating the assets of criminals and reducing them to raw Omnilium, with which they could then pay the people they were hiring... though, of course, without the proper training in an official Tier One or Two Imperial military facility, it is highly doubtful as to whether any of their 'stormtroopers' could really be considered anything more than hooligans with fancy equipment.

We briefly considered sending our intrepid reporter out to interview the denizens of Tier Five to find what they thought of these latest developments... but then remembered that they're all poor people down there, and so nothing they say is worth listening to. Therefore, we instead had him head up to Tier Four and speak with a Nicholas Timothy Bosworth III, a relatively well-to-do – but not 'wealthy', no, no, not wealthy at all – casino owner (Mr Bosworth owns only three mansions, to the best of our knowledge), who had this to say:

“No, no, no! We absolutely cannot let these EPD goons recruit more men to better police-” at this point he was interrupted by an aide who whispered in his ear for a few moments, before he continued, “Now, where was I? Oh yes, I was saying that we absolutely cannot allow our glorious and fair and just EPD be corrupted by the filth of these poor people. Yes indeed, there is no doubt in my mind that hiring such vagrants and fiends would only make the situation down there worse, not better. All hail the Emperor...! There, did that sound patriotic enough? Good.”

Given such convincing and clearly honest testimony, how could one ever doubt his words? Strangely – and somewhat disconcertingly – though, our latest attempts at conversing with EPD officers, government officials and random citizens on the streets of Tier One have revealed rather more disparate stances on the matter. Such as, for instance:

“I've said since we first found out about this mess that these people need dealt with! We must immediately send Space Marines down to Tier Five to wipe out all the stormtroopers who even dared to think such rebellious, independent thoughts!”

“Who's doing the what now...? Oh, oh, right. Yeah. Tier Five... yeah, what a terrible place to live... and stuff... yeah... we all care so much about what happens on Tier Five... what was the question again?”

“Who gives a damn about these blasted stormtroopers!? Just blow up that whole tier why don't we? And Tier Six and Seven too... we don't need those places anyway! It's not like poor people contribute anything to society!”

“More stormtroopers? Oh, wonderful. I have never seen this fifth tier myself, but I did once travel all the way down to Tier Two, and let me tell you, the lack of security was appalling! These lower tiers are so poorly protected, it is no wonder they have crime problems. Yes, I say we keep expanding the Imperial army as much as possible! These ruffians cannot be allowed to go unchecked any longer.”

“Of course we at in the Imperial government are extremely concerned about the well-being of- ahahahahahaha...! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, hahahahahahaha... just... just give me a minute, haha...! Oh, my sides... sorry. It's okay. I'm good to continue now. -the well-being of every citizen of Coruscant, whether rich or- hahahaha! Oh god, I'm sorry, this is just so... hahaha... -or poor. Yes, that's right. We care about poor people too. As such, we cannot approve of recruiting them in this way, since attempting to police a dangerous location such as Tier Five without the proper training will only result in these individuals getting themselves killed, which would be- hahahaha... -would be tragic, of course. Yes, we would all be devastated if- hahahahahaha...! -If some poor people were to die- hahahahaha!”

Whilst we understand that many of out readers could empathise with any of these arguments, we feel that it is important to remind everyone that this expansion of the military is the sort of thing that could potentially be funded by a tax rise, were the Imperial Council to ever officially sanction it, and given how little these degenerates in the lower tiers pay in tax already, it is likely that such a burden would fall primarily on the shoulders of the loyal and hard-working citizens of Tier One... and if that doesn't convince everyone that this initiative is a horrid, nay, an unforgivable offence... why then, we couldn't possibly imagine what would.