3 July 3071
[Jubilee Daily News] We hear reports here on Marantha every time a ship hits the tarmac in Jubilee that the Magistracy has fallen, that the Magestrix and the Crimson Council are slain, that the Armed Forces are shattered and fleeing before an unstoppable horde of murderers and pirates.
Those are spaceport rumors, always unfounded and easily disproved. It's only been in the last few months that the silence of Canopus is giving more credence to such rumors… and then we got this:
<<image blurs and refocuses into shape of a BattleMech moving through flaming rubble…the backdrop is urban, and a caption across the lower edge of the screen reads "'Crimson?'">>
According to MAF analysts, that BattleMech is called a Nexus, and it's a common reconnaissance vehicle for both ComStar and the Word of Blake. While no noticeable landmarks have been positively identified our own researchers have not been able to say with any certainty one way or another that it is in fact Crimson or even another Canopian city. What we have been able to identify, however, is this marking:
Those are spaceport rumors, always unfounded and easily disproved. It's only been in the last few months that the silence of Canopus is giving more credence to such rumors… and then we got this:
<<enhanced and expanded image of the Nexus appears, showing an insignia on the 'Mech's right thigh, of a downward-thrust broadsword set atop golden flames with the number forty-one beneath them>>
Whatever the location, that is clearly a Word of Blake 'Mech. If it is indeed Crimson, then like so much of the rest of humanity we are now at war with the Word of Blake. Local MAF officials refuse to comment on this video, but we do want to remind our viewers that this information was received physically from the crew of a passing JumpShip and not via our Word of Blake-controlled HPG.
