Tension Rise as Factions and Guilds Prepare For SCREAM

Barely a week has passed since the conclusion of the 2022 Council of Peace Assembly and already tensions are beginning to rise between the three factions. COPA 2022 was supposed to mark the endurance of the long-standing peace treaty between the MUD, ONI, and USTUR factions. By the end of COPA, spirits were high and unity was thought to have prevailed. Now, one week later, cracks in the interstellar peace treaty are beginning to emerge. The factions, wary of one another’s secret expansion plans, have enlisted guilds to bolster their numbers. Predictably, guilds have begun to align themselves along faction lines to strengthen their own positions.

On the current Star Atlas political stage, formation of alliances is generally perceived as a defensive measure against the other two factions. However, this week also marked the amplification of faction-on-faction rhetoric.

This tweet and attached image was posted yesterday by DrumCarlos, a member of the MUD faction and ranking member of DEEP Profits.

The poster calls for an increase in MUD citizen recruitment to the MUD Army. Reaction to the poster was mixed, with the most anti-MUD sentiment coming from the ONI and USTUR factions. Calls for MUD supremacy were met with equal calls for ONI rights and USTUR independence. Members of the ONI and USTUR factions often view MUD expansionist actions as imperialistic. Conversely, the MUD perspective of ONI and USTUR inhabitants portrays them as the invaders occupying MUD territory. For the past 100 years, the Council of Peace has mostly negotiated the use agreements between the three factions. However, the expansion of all three factions has increased the difficulty by which the COP must govern. Additionally, dwindling resources within the low risk safe zone has led to an increase in friction amongst the three factions.

In response to the distribution of the MUD recruitment poster, the following poster was circulated by the USTUR faction:

Pirates at odds with one another

With the increase in tensions all around, even the pirate community could not escape faction-tribal engagement. It was believed that pirates would be able to shirk the conventional oversight of the three main factions. However, exchanges today between the pirate guilds Dark Matter and Skull & Bones indicate that tension are rising even in the fringes of space. The heated exchange began when Mjr_Eazy of Dark Matter accused Skull & Bones of copying guild recruitment ads. In return, Skull & Bones levied counter accusations against Dark Matter arguing that they had copied Skull & Bones [pirate?] code. The exchange continued for several hours with each side increasingly levying new accusations. By the end of the day, tempers seemed to have cooled and a stalemate reached.

Can multi-faction guilds survive SCREAM?

The increased tensions over the past week have highlighted some of the challenges facing multi-faction guilds. There is a renewed focus on multi-faction guilds and their way ahead with some coming under scrutiny for their multi-faction operations. Some citizens have even gone so far as to accuse these guilds of profiteering and manipulation of the political and economic system for their benefit. Others have labelled these guilds initially untrustworthy in faction matters until proven otherwise. Multi-faction guilds have largely remains silent on how they intend to address the multi-faction problem.