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Hunting For A Nonce
Rathun has the chance for revenge (PRB P2)

DDS do army shuffle

The New DDS Army has completed a "cascade" of brigades between its 3 divisions to allow some brigades time to regenerate after active service and for newer units to take their place in full readiness. The 2nd and 3rd Fire Support Battalions have also been declared operational though the 4th (which never got much beyond existing on paper) has been disbanded.

New DDS Army Commander Zeppelin said the cascade of units would be carried out every year to keep units in the full readiness 1st Division fresh. Two light brigades will be "upgraded" to heavy brigade next year once armour and vehicles has been procured for them, the DDS are said to be looking at the surplus tanks the HCS will soon put on the market.

New Arit to expand fleet

Stung by criticism by Dino-Land and Sirikwan New Arit have pledged to increase their defence budget from next year and will expand their fleet so they can play a bigger role in the DTA. Exact figures have not been given but a source said the budget would increase by 3% from next year, there would also be an extra 500 million zark one-off boost in 2113.

The Aritans turned to the Clones for their extra ships, they have bought the 4 Kalahati Tuuls the HCS recently withdrew and these will be added to the 7 KTs bought from the DDS. The bigger deal however is the order for 8 Shark-E frigates which will be delivered from 2114. The Aritans will also buy 3 Dino built Provider-EDAs.

However to help afford these ships the Aritans say they wish to sell their single Pentekonter-E and have asked Sirikwan and the DDS if they would be interested in buying it. The Aritans said the sale was partly to raise funds and also partly because it did not make sense to have a single example of a ship with the resulting extra maintenance problems.

The Dinos have said they will accelerate the deliveries of Dinomark XTs to the Aritans with 2 second hand examples to enter service by the end of this year.

HCS to withdraw 1,500 tanks

The HCS have announced the disbanding of all of its remaining reserve armoured regiments which will be completed by the end of next year. Nine regiments in total will be disbanded along with 4 infantry regiments in a separate cut. The reserve regiments are the last remnants of what was once scores of regiments which backed up the Category A armoured force at the height of the Clone Wars. In latter years these regiments have been slowly wound down and in most cases are at a fairly low level of readiness with decaying equipment.

The cuts will enable the withdrawal of 1,500 tanks, 1,200 being T-88s (nearly half the remaining force of this type) and the rest older T-55Zs. Six bases will also be closed and the land sold off. A total of 210 million zarks a year will be saved, the HCS will try and sell the withdrawn tanks.

A HCS spokesclone said despite the cuts the HCS would still have nearly 25,000 tanks in service. The aim is to reduce the total force to around 20,000 by the end of the decade with a 50:50 mix of T-89s and T-55Zs.

Explosion aboard Windy's ship

An explosion has been reported about Windy's personal ship SS Stoke City which is usually in orbit over Proxima 7. The purpose of this ship is unknown but it has been rumoured that prisoners are questioned here (there are other darker rumours too but we cannot publish them here for fear of sparking mass panic...)

Two people are reported to have been killed in the explosion. The reason for the explosion has yet been established.

• A HCSAF A-85 COIN aircraft has been reported as being shot down by insurgents on Lornaca Melnig, though other reports indicate it may have crashed due to technical problems. The two crew were lost.

Wayne King-Meiouf : The mysterious world of Dino politics

Professor Wayne King-Meiouf of the University of Proxima

While on Dino-Land for a business trip i have been able to experience at first hand the mysterious world of Dino politics. Democracy is a fairly recent innovation for the Dinos who were led by a line of Emperors for centuries until the establishment of the Dino Republic by Ronald a few years ago.

Then for the first time the leaders of the state (2 Consuls) were elected. However democracy is still limited, the decisions are really taken by the Senate (the Consuls mostly being Senators with a few extra perks like power of veto) and the Senate are unelected.

There is an Assembly at a lower level in each Dino province though the link between these and the Senate is fairly limited. The Dinos seem to like leaving the mundane every day job of running the planet and the job of running the Republic to separate spheres. Each Senator has a minister role and officially runs a ministry feeding into the Assemblies but in reality the ministers only interest themselves in high-level decisions such as which alien civilisation to fight next while the Assemblies and the ministry workers get on with everything else. The only real consideration the Assemblies have with new legislation and governing is to apply a simple rule to everything they do : if it would make Ronald angry then don't do it.

Thus Assemblies have vast powers and can get away with so much as long as they obey that simple rule. This i think satisfies the Dino population who do not then mind not being able to vote for their Senators, in any event the Senate is more like a group of rock stars to your average Dino than politicians (and being Dino of course its ear splittingly awful Dino death metal - honestly do they not listen to anything else?!)

For most aspects of their lives the Dinos have a democratically accountable Assembly, for everything else they leave in the hands of demi-gods (or in Ronald's case an actual god). And it they don't like it then some gentlemen from the SS will be around for a chat... dissent is not tolerated here much actually.

Its a mysterious system that seems to mix democracy, fascism, authoritarianism, theocracy and celeb watching in equal measure. Somehow it works.