Greetings to all Odanites, our allies, and our enemies.

Let me start by providing two critical items that I promised in my last report: my opinion on Solo and a picture of my bird.

Solo was fun and I liked it but it wasn’t life altering or anything. I enjoyed it but it’s probably the first one since maybe Attack of the Clones that I won’t see multiple times in the theater.

And this is my bird:

Station to Station

This month we’re moving forward into some overdue lore developments, namely the release of two new platforms. Well, the first isn’t exactly new. Palioxis Station first appeared way back when we introduced the Kiast system. Kiast itself is in the depths of the Palioxis nebula, where a bunch of astrogational hazards make getting into and out of the system itself a massive pain. The way the Vatali interact with the world is through Palioxis Station, which is a platform just outside the nebula, along the Perlemian trade route. For the vast majority of the galaxy, if they’ve ever interacted with the Vatali, it was through this platform or one of its predecessors.

The second one is brand new. As mentioned, it’s no small feat moving one warship through the debris fields and into Kiast, and even more of a headache to move our entire fleet through. It makes quick response to the Collective or the Sith a bear, and it’s not exactly subtle having them go through a major trading port before launching raids. Additionally, having our fleet loitering around in Vatali space is making certain parties very nervous. Enter Pharos, the Odanite Expeditionary Force’s dedicate staging point in deep space at the edge of the Palioxis cloud.

“Man, Arch, those wiki pages are kinda sparse.”

Well then do something about it! I would love for both of these facilities to have articles like what we have for Sky Breach base, complete with a variety of cool NPCs and nooks and cranies for members to explore in the years to come. To that end, we’re running two art competitions and two for lore development. Much like Wally’s Collective Chronicles competitions, your entries to these comps will directly impact COU’s lore moving forward. Also there’s a puzzle, because schuttas love puzzles.

Odanite News

Where Are We Now? — For the best in recent Odanite news, see Talis’ AED report for Satele Shan and Celevon’s QUA report for Hoth. Additionally, there have been some minor tweaks to the COU chat policy, mostly to bring the language in line with the current version of the Covenant.

Everyone Says 'Hi' — Welcome back to returning members Tebbo Jensen, Lu`aisha Gresee, Tyraal Bitshiver, and Zeon Blacktooth! Welcome to new transfers Saba Astor Tarentae (formerly known as Farrin Xies) and Constantine! And last but certainly not least, welcome to new joins Knightfall98, Dia Zoler, John Villa, Z'non Corvac, Balong, Ardyn, Father, Zakal, Imperius Rex, Gordonpaul, Halehound, Kwalak, leon, Rex'zar, gray raven, Thorn, Bagheera91, Warmonger, and Syrano!

Fame — Congratulations to Ozosi, who was promoted to EQ1 with recommendations from the clan, the Herald, and the Shadow Academy. Additionally, congrats to Ozosi, Maximus, Turel, Aura, and Mauro for being recognized with Seals of Loyalty on May 4th!

Repetition — The Holocron is still there and still hungry for content. Feed it your fiction, your graphics, and whatever else you want to share. The major change since last month is that the member art directory was removed; “Member Fiction” was renamed to “Member Folders” and all the art was moved over to the users’ respective folder. If you can’t find a folder with your name on it, hit me up and I’ll take care of it.

Nero wanted different birds, so here you go. Or maybe it’s my bird again. You can’t tell, can you? Racist.

Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) — After countless hours of hard work by Vyr, the Herald staff, and others across the DC and their offices, the Shadow Syndicate is real. There are two takeaways from this. First, there’s a cool new society to reward members for participating in the DB art community. That’s something that really blossomed over the last few years and I’m thrilled that Odanites—including Esca, Moro, Osozi, Maximus, and of course the Tree himself—have contributed so much to its growth. Second, the DB universe just got a little bigger as we’re seeing an organized, club-wide criminal element for members to play with in their own stories.

Fashion — On the subject of art, Slags and the Herald staff have launched a Soloriffic batch of dossier bling for your enjoyment and edification. For those of you who like to run competitions, be sure to check this report for some more detail on the new options for graphics comps.

Changes — The Electorate recently approved new changes to the Covenant, prompted by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Heroes — There have been multiple appointments over the past month. The king of all codgers, our very own Seraphol, is now our new Headmaster. The Fist staff rotation saw Junazee take over as P:Fist (see that report for a shoutout to her predecessor Edgar’s accomplishments) and Justinios and Ayden

Hallo Spaceboy — As mentioned elsewhere, Farrin walked out of the Shadow Academy and into our arms. See his last report for more information, and don’t forget to check out his last work: How to Not Get CoJ’d.

Absolute Beginner — Bubba has been making a lot of noise as the new sheriff in town. Aside from the Cov updates, he’s hired Arden to replace him as LHoJ and issued an introductory report

Let's Dance — See Atra’s latest report for a new transparency mechanism in ACC judgments, and be sure to wish Tisto Kingang, Tyraal Bitshiver, Ka Tarvitz, Kah Manet, and coach Luna Okami's Team Red Panda luck in their Coach's Corner event matches!

Loving the Alien — Wally unveiled the newest and wrinklest of the CS system’s species in his latest report In addition to the Weequay, he also gave a quick rundown on some other odds and ends.

Boss of Me — And to wrap things up, have a look at the Grand Master’s report for some high awards, appointments, and other odds and ends.

As the World Falls Down

Turel asks: What's next for the Kiast system? We've had some house events shake things up but is there anything coming in the near future for developments at home you can share?

First I should probably recap who the Vatali are and why we care. Way way back before the Disciples of Odan-Urr or the modern Brotherhood existed, the Sephi somehow discovered the Kiast system and colonized it, even allowing non-Sephi to migrate in and help extract the copious resources. After several centuries, King Vatal realized that, given what a massive pain Kiast would be to invade, he could probably get away with declaring independence from the larger Sephi empire, keep the system’s goodies all to himself, and rule with an iron fist. That worked out pretty well for him, but less well for his successor, as all of those non-Sephi (the Quorahi) rebelled from borderline slavery and overthrew her.

Her successor, Emperor Taselm, took the lesson to heart and managed to avoid any future issues. The Quorahi, the powerful Sephi noble houses, and the imperial administration managed to get along just fine until Taselm up and died, leaving three surviving heirs. Eldest son Essadan took over for all of ten minutes before his little brother, Vauzem, offed him in a coup backed by several of the Sephi houses. Vauzem was not about all that Quorahi rights crap and wanted to reinstate the old governing system of ‘Frack you, I’m the Emperor.’ A bloody civil war erupted, but ended as the Quorahi and the more republican-minded nobles killed him and put his little sister on the throne. Empress Kaltani got about forty good years of peace and prosperity before the fault lines started to show.

Two years ago, then-High Councilor A’lora Kituri managed to negotiate temporary asylum in the Kiast system for everyone who made it off New Tython; in exchange, Odanite forces launched a quick raid to clear Kiast from the First Order’s navigational charts. We then proceeded to bumble into Vatali politics long enough to get the Conclave, which holds the real power in the Empire, to grant us permanent residency across Kiast, Daleem, and Solyiat. With the last civil war decades behind them, and feeling nice and insulated from external threats, the various factions in the system promptly turned on each other. Powerful guilds maintain a stranglehold on Daleem and have been building up their own private armies, Vauzem’s supporters were never completely purged, and the Odanites brought their own trouble into the system.

Uh…

Although the Council of Urr has tried to stay out of Vatali politics, they’re about as good at it as they are at staying out of wars. JTF Shan leapt into guild politics almost immediately, and more recently helped forcibly nationalize the massive Shipsmiths’ Guild. JTF Hoth managed to keep to themselves until Solyiat’s governor launched an open rebellion with Collective support a few months back.

So what’s next? Well, let’s take a look around:

• The Collective wants to kill us, and they managed to slip at least one company into the system before Hoth killed them all.

• Speaking of which, Pius Kopchak’s failed rebellion left a pretty big power vaccuum on Solyiat.

• Meanwhile, on Daleem, the already-powerful guilds are racing to secure their positions after Shan crushed the Shipsmiths.

• Marick called the Inquisitorius off our backs to deal with the Collective, but certain people still believe they can move up in the world by climbing on top of the corpses of dead Jedi.

• There have been rumors circling the Conclave for years that Vauzem’s supporters still have weapons and supplies cached all over the system.

So yeah, probably nothing to worry about.

We'll see all this play out over the summer. Mauro's already written most of the introductory fiction for a short Shan event later this month, Blade and I will be do a clan update in the coming weeks, and then sometime in July we'll see another fiction to kick off a big clan event.

In Conclusion, Carthage Must Be Destroyed

Constantine asks: Now that the Clan has won the GJW last year, what are the plans for next years Win?

I’m probably not going to be the Consul on the hook for GJW XIII in 2019, but I suspect it’ll be more of what we did last time. To be honest, a lot of our success in GJW XII came from having a large and highly active member base going into the event, but the summit did do several things that I think directly contributed to our success. We set up a war room for proofing, teambuilding, and such and tried to keep it a positive and hyped up atmosphere. We plugged comps. Probably most importantly, we were all very visible and active and committed to leading from the front. I would expect to see all of that happen again in GJW XIII. But, like I said, the member base was key and it’s going to be on me and the rest of the summit to keep COU active and healthy until then.

Tune in next month for:

• Clan fiction!

• Teasers for the summer clan event in July!

• Some pretty pictures of XQ2 platforms!

Now... DIVE, HAWKMEN! DIIIIIIIVE!

Who wants to live forever?

Alethia Archenksova
High Councillor, Odan-Urr