Professor Wayne King-Meiouf of the University of ProximaI am currently traveling to a conference on Dino-Land so do not have access to my usual information sources apart from the BBC and P24 but the Eritran Free States joining the DDS has to be the biggest news story of the year.
Since the Clones invaded Kontai and Unatel Gamma it was maybe predictable that the Eritrans would seek to find help somewhere. The Clones knew this too but possibly thought it was a calculated risk to go ahead with their attack. So now the Clones have the DDS on yet another flank, along with an alien race who truly hate them and are now to be armed with TPMs...
But the Clones will not be that sad about it, i'm sure this came up as a fairly likely outcome after they began wargaming their plans. The Clones deal with the DDS on many other flanks so one more will not cause them too many headaches. The policy of pressure will continue, i expect we are in for a rather intense period of cold war in the Eritran sector over the next decade. The Clones know that DDS membership isn't for life, if the Aritans leave because they have a better offer elsewhere then its possible others can too.
(Helinox is interesting by the way, astrally separate to the other Eritran Free States but closely aligned to Sear N7, they haven't joined the DDS yet though i received a tweet telling me that AP might be visiting them on his way back to DDS space so maybe Helinox are just waiting for that.)
