Sol Bulletin #24

The following is excerpted from issue #24 of the Sol Bulletin, an ad hoc news sheet distributed electronically among survivors of the Battle of Earth in the chaotic period following the firing of the Crucible. Issue #24 was released twenty six days after the Crucible fired.

Asari Justicar Killed Attempting To Escape Police Custody

Despite an eleventh hour compromise in the Inter-species Summit that would have delivered her to Systems Alliance jurisdiction, the Asari justicar known as Samara was killed today attempting to escape from UNAS military police. The Alliance personnel charged with relocating her to the fleet had actually touched down at the facility where Samara was being held when she reportedly used biotics to break out of her cell and began to fight her way toward the base perimeter. Images released by the UNAS military show a hole torn directly through a thick cement wall.

Samara went down fighting, and the UNAS is reporting that she killed 3 soldiers and wounded many more during her escape. Several eyewitness accounts contradict that number, however; one soldier who spoke to the Sol Bulletin on condition of anonymity estimated that at least 20 soldiers had died fighting Samara, with several times that seriously wounded.

Responses have varied across the Sol system, and camps that praise or decry Samara's action have sprung up in almost every fleet present in Sol. Admiral Zaal'Koris of the Migrant Fleet made a statement to express his sympathy with the loved ones of the soldiers who died, while his counterpart Admiral Han'Gerrel delivered a fiery invective in the Inter-species Summit protesting "the disrespect of our Asari allies" that he said characterized the incident. "It's less than 30 days since the Asari entered Sol and helped rescue Earth," Gerrel said. "I didn't realize humans had such short memories."

Alliance High Command issued a measured statement, expressing regret over the lost life on both sides and urging continued cooperation between Earth and the various fleets in Sol. The lack of a firm stance is widely suspected to belie a divide among Alliance leadership. Admiral Hackett, famous for his role in multilateral operations like Operation Sword or the Battle of the Citadel, has historically been extremely friendly to alien and extrasolar concerns, but not every member of his senior suborindates shares a similar disposition. Such a divide would mirror the opinions of rank-and-file Alliance soldiers.

Even the Asari response is far from unified. Matriarch Lidanya has already survived a vote-of-no-confidence from all Asari in Sol, via an electronic referendum, and is expected to face another today or tomorrow. Her opponents, however, come in equal numbers from the camp that says she should have taken a hard-line and extracted Samara by force, and from the opposing camp that says she should have worked closely with the UNAS from the start to avert the foreseeable consequences of Samara's escape attempt.

Only Earth-based governments presented a united front, with every government condeming Samara's actions and the lack of cooperation from the Asari government. Several nations, including the European Union and the Chinese People's Federation, are in the process of expelling Asari relief workers and soldiers. The UNAS has taken an even harder-line stance, and has ordered all aliens out of its territory immediately. Many aliens are being shuttled back to their fleets, but a general evacuation is pending attempts to negotiate with President Lisa Ford in the Inter-species Summit.