Terix II, Xarantine Sector (GNN) -- Of the Xarantine Sector’s independent worlds, Terix has biggest defense sector. Terix’s navy alone is responsible for sixty-seven percent of the world’s expenditure. But the colony has also experienced some of the largest amounts of poverty in the Xarantine.
But what happens if you mix some real incentives to bulk up your military with a lot of money and support from external partners like Mirhassa to potential closed-door deals with the most secretive government in the world? You get a lot of corruption, according to the interplanetary watchdog group Transparency Galactic.
In its recently published Corruption Ranking Index, Transparency Galactic identified Terix II as one of the colonies with the highest average risk of experiencing corrupt practices in the defense sector.
“Defense corruption is leading to insecurity and instability on Terix,” Transparency Galactic Officer Shib Th'qiathrin said. “It weakens the institutional capacity and effectiveness of the armed forces and it repurposes these forces for commercial and predatory ends.”
One particular example of this corruption comes from the purchase of approximately ten thousand disruptor rifles for the Federation equivalent of 50 million energy credits, despite their not being a formal ground military branch, and only three marine divisions. Even though these have been used in the past decade against pirates and skirmishes with the RSE, the price was over double the normal price for such weapons. Most of the extra money has been found to have gone through the Klingon sellers, and back to Enriov Cutait t’Kajir, the officer in charge of the marine branch.
While the navy has been experiencing corruption, the Terix government continued to dramatically ramp up its crackdown on political expression. More people were being arrested for speaking out against the government last year than in any other year since it became independent. This form of political corruption is what is preventing military reform in its navy.
Following a wave of anti-government protests against peace treaties with the RSE in 2413, culminating in the March of Galixori, the Terix senate soon proposed and passed strict laws imposing new rules and heavy fines, up to a year’s salary for most people, on unsanctioned protests in public places.
The largest protest since the retraction of the RSE from Terix, Galixori spawned dozens of criminal cases and changed the landscape for the colony’s political expression policies. Law enforcement officers charged and arrested protesters, dozens of whom were tried, jailed, some exiled, others committed suicide. One Galixori prisoner just finished serving 5 years in a detention camp for assault on a police officer.
Last summer in 2414, the government effectively criminalized all peaceful protests and assemblies. With these laws and their particular application against political critics, the senate is sending a powerful message heard throughout Terix of a repressive new reality unseen in years. If one dares to speak out against government policies or leadership, the authorities will treat them as a criminal and send them away for years in penal colonies.
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