Everybody,
The events of the last few days have occurred with such speed that it is unlikely that many of you in the senior echelons of our movement will have too clear a picture on the current situation in the Badlands, so I'm using this mail to bring you all up to speed on events.
Undoubtedly you are all fully aware by now of the events surrounding the assault upon the Marauders' home system of Dante. We had to come to terms with the shocking fact that an alliance of corporations, spearheaded by the Maas Corporation and the arms manufacturer Von Schelling Industries, have been responsible for recruiting and funding the Marauders. With hindsight this now makes perfect sense.
Considering the Marauders' brutality and terror campaign in the Badlands, this is an unconscionable action; the corporations have stepped way over the line. However the corporate propaganda machine has apparently stifled any news of their deeds reaching outside of the Badlands. We are still officially regarded as a criminal organisation. Essentially we are on our own against a massively powerful enemy who no longer needs to work behind a cover story. We can expect the corporations to bring their full weight of arms against us.
However, they have been forced into revealing their treachery much earlier than they may have wished. This has given us an advantage. Their forces in the Badlands, although substantial, have been caught totally unprepared for the commencement of full-scale hostilities, and as a result several significant gains have been made against much of their strike capabilities.
Immediately following the battle in Dante, we ordered strikes to be conducted against Maas enclaves in Coyote and Kompira and other corporate targets in Hoffer's Wake, Santa Romera and Dagda. All, aside from the Dagda assault, were an overwhelming success, destroying much of the corporates' offensive capability. Furthermore the problem of Dagda should prove to be slight. The system is a fortress designed to protect Maas' neutronium interests against an aggressive rival corporation; the system is lacking in any other natural resources and will not survive if its supply lines are cut.
What we must do now is keep up the momentum of our actions against the corporations. They must bring in reinforcements through the jump accelerator, and this is their bottleneck. If we ensure that they lose men and material quicker than they can replenish it, we can drive them clean out of the Badlands cluster.
Well done everyone for a magnificent job, and although the fight is far from over, I have the utmost confidence in each and every one of you. Each of you must now continue the fight to bring justice to the Badlands. I will follow this general announcement with specific missions for each of you.
To the future.
Franklyn Hoffer