S1C3: Setbacks and Tragedies

To those with our cause in their hearts,

The Governed has gone further than I thought they ever would.

Under the Council of 20, they swept their atrocities under the rug and hide it from the public. Jerit is parading his handiwork around the entire dome.

The Governed decided to completely burn down and massacre the southern village of the Reeds. You can see the smoke from Level 99, only growing bigger as the burn more corpses. The Governed has become completely out of control. Before, they were predictable, easy to manipulate. Now, they have become a devastating wild card. Even our intel teams in Atlas are unable to unearth Jerit’s next move.

We need to keep an eye on the Governed but we have more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.

The invasion of the Smoke was a hard fought one but the Oasis Network were much stronger than we first thought. We were able to break their border defences with our EMP Cannons and punch all the way to the factory. The second we stepped foot on the factory floor, a never ending barrage of lasers filled the halls. We were pushed back by the androids all the way to the northern border. We lost tens of thousands of troops from that invasion and that will weigh on my conscious for the remainder of my life.

While this was happening, the androids managed to break through the exterior wall of Valhalla and rapidly advanced to the city centre. If we lose Valhalla, that would be a ginormous blow to our war chest. Their Chips count for about 60% of our funds. That isn’t just for our war efforts but our ration programs, smuggling operation, and re-housing initiative. Losing that would be catastrophic.

In addition to this, the stalemate at Rivers End continues and our water reserves are starting to run dry. We’ve had to set up a smuggling operation from the Reeds but that’s been paused due to the majorly increased risk from the Governed’s presence.

Right now, we’re spread too thin and we need to focus on one thing for now.

We can attempt to re-engage the Oasis Network in the Smoke. This would send even more troops to their deaths but if we were able to cut deep enough into the territory, we could roll EMP Cannons onto the battlefield. This would allow us to bombard the factory and deactivate the extra security. However, this would be assuming that they haven’t implemented EMP counter-measures in the factory which seems unlikely.

We have a bit of a choice to make with Valhalla. Do we evacuate the vault and civilians, leaving the territory to the Oasis Network or do we focus on repelling them, risking all those people and resources? Both options have a risk of failure but we can’t just sit around and wait for Oasis Network to take the entire territory.

We do have the option of striking against Atlas, like always that is an insanely risky move because the Governed is currently distracted by the Cultivation Society. There are some portions of the Circuits cell that want to avenge the Reeds for what the Governed did. Their heart is in the right place and this would likely gain us some favour in the Circuits but this could be a massive distraction from the Cultivation Society and the Oasis Network.

Finally, there’s the option of re-capturing Rivers End. This would let us replenish our water reserves (which we are in desperate need of). The Cultivation Society seem distracted with the Reeds but that might change on a moments notice. This would the least risky play we could make with major benefits but that would require abandoning both our operations in the Smoke and Valhalla. The choice is ultimately up to you, however.

I trust you, I know you will all do right by us.

Atiley Ona | Level 99 Cell Leader