by Chester Seaton, News

18/12- With northern territories in one of the wealthiest, most developed Empires in the world going dark with no way to contact them this winter, critics have turned their eye to several projects associated with Crowndonian interests.

This year, Crowndon has announced two high profile, very expensive, and some would say frivolous projects: the first being the joint Imperial effort to build an ocean born super-prison, and the second being the development of a commercial fixed wing aircraft.

“Both of these imperatives are a slap in the face of the Crowndonian citizenry, in wake of recent events,” said renowned philanthropist and scholar Caridan Wellerby this week. “The cost of building and maintaining a prison like the one described is completely unjustifiable when weighed against the benefits to not only Crowndon, but the Triumvirate as a whole. And don’t even get me started on this ridiculous pissing match between Crowndon and Rinkenbach Research and Development. Let the man have his glory; it is just a drop in the bucket of his already numerous accolades. No one will notice.”

Advocates for both projects quickly issued a response.

“Mister Wellerby’s concerns are well intentioned, I’m sure,” claimed a statement by Pavil Lyons, Crowndon’s Secretary of Industrial Development and Oversight. “But they are unfounded. The prison project is being funded mostly by independent interests, as most everyone knows and complained about earlier this year. Any money spent by the Crown is limited to fees for services rendered. And since there is currently no prison, there are no services being rendered, and no coin being spent by the Crown.

“As for the Heisenberg Project…the fact that Rinkenbach is involved is the very reason why we shouldn’t just give it up. That man deserves a good humbling, I say, and Crowndon needs a victory in the industrial race with Nor Easter.”

Wellerby waved off the statement when asked to respond, and in his words one can almost visualize him shaking his head.

“This need for ‘victory’, and Crowndon’s insistence on trotting out ‘National Pride’ whenever the Heisenberg Project is mentioned reeks of desperation. It’s been stated so adamantly so many times, I doubt even Secretary Lyon’s believes it any more. There are people starving to death…if Crowndon wants to feel pride, it needs to find a way to reestablish contact to its northern territories and bring its people food and power.”

***

That super-prison in today’s post? It got built! Find out what happens to it in the full length novel, Where, No One Knows!