(Xbox) Let's Play XGRA Part 12

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Published on December 21, 2023 5:00:16 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7_JUZFHdWA

Duration: 22:21

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EVENTS

Fobos Championship
Class: Supersonic
Type: Peace Keeper
Available Points: 160

Race #1: ERF Unit
Location: Pan Station, Encke Gap, Saturnian Orbit
Distance: 3 laps (25.5 miles (41.0 kilometers))
Sponsor Contract: Beat Rider Rival (Diva/Gekko; Inferno/Romulus; Jakar/Katerina; Mark IV/Jesuit)

Race #2: Scavenger City
Location: Musorshikograd, Okhota, Russia
Distance: 3 laps (21.0 miles (33.8 kilometers))
Sponsor Contract: Exceed 655 MPH (1,054 KMH)

Race #3: Dunroth's Folly
Location: Dunrothia, Thailand, Khapsamutra
Distance: 3 laps (31.2 miles (50.2 kilometers))
Sponsor Contract: Beat Rider Rival (Diva/Gekko; Inferno/Romulus; Jakar/Katerina; Mark IV/Jesuit)

Race #4: Anomaly 19
Location: Anomaly Facility, Cleito Abyss, Sohmland
Distance: 3 laps (36.3 miles (58.4 kilometers))
Sponsor Contract: Get a Best Lap Time (TerraNova/Vixen: 1:37.00; Palus/Starcom: 1:36.00; Talon/Manta: 1:35.00; Scarecrow/Templar: 1:34.00)

TRACK SPOTLIGHT

Circuits: ERF Unit; Mining Dome
Length: 8.5 miles (13.7 kilometers); 8.9 miles (14.3 kilometers)
Location: Pan Station, Encke Gap, Saturnian Orbit

HISTORY

In economic circles, references to Khama’s Curse elicit either eyerolls or awkward solemnity. Named after Botswana's first president, it seemed blasphemous to link Seretse, who shepherded the country to post-independence security thanks to his shrewd calls on the diamond trade, to any act of shortsightedness. However, due in large part to a more critical reappraisal spearheaded by Aggy Umashiqela, the case that he and every extractionist like him were heralds to a ticking clock was unpardonably cemented.

Citing case studies in Venezuela and going as far as to proclaim it a cousin to Dutch Disease, the Umashiqela-Khama monograph became secular eschatology throughout Africa after its publication. Regardless of uniform living improvements, everyone dreaded the day the well went dry. Despite countless conferences with the best and brightest of industry and academia across the new metropolises – Kimberley, Gaborone; Kinshasa, Lagos; Kigali, Dakar – all that seemed to get confirmed were increasingly stricter harvest quotas, wound-licking labor amendments, and empty platitudes of rebirth. The ship was sinking, and all the AU had to stay afloat were sieves.

Nevertheless, against the unimaginable stakes, the conferences found considerably more traction antagonizing the comic relief. With their fair share of crank scientists and delusional moguls proclaiming to have developed the silver bullet, continental cataclysm was still insufficient to not indulge in an educated Two Minutes Hate. Across the board, one of their easiest targets was the Milhouse of the neo-oligarchs, a man named Stijn Umashiqela. Try as the more focused members of the room did to hobble their hazing of the South African and refocus on the crisis at hand, he was classified as a target within seconds of his debut.

Contrasting the animosity lobbed towards its delegate, Inkanyezi was a conglomerate ursine enough to make prodding it a remarkably foolhardy idea. Blooming into the public consciousness after singlehandedly covering Nelson Mandela’s legal fund, many had suspected the mining company had the best chance of metamorphosing a country throttled by apartheid through beneficence alone. However, that philanthropic sheen had eroded as the twentieth became the twenty-first, their association audited after a series of corruption scandals found links to several ANC lieutenants in their kickback ledgers. Nevertheless, it was going to take more than that to topple the social capital Inkanyezi had accrued.

That being said, in the elephant hunt that was capitalism, oxpeckers like Stijn were just one bored hunter away from taking a magnum round. Often humiliated as “Aggie’s husband”, he confided that the comforts of a particularly privileged childhood did little to soften the volleys of his bullies. Hardly alleviating in retrospect, the fangs of a playground pecking order on a socially maladroit child was a better context for harassment than a place where national economies hung in limbo. The difference being that, apart from standard black tie attire, glamor made familiar bile even bitterer to swallow.

The more legitimate reason for rejecting Stijn, as the lucid voices in the room reminded, was his constant defense of astroprospecting. Positing that the cosmos hid the material supply for their demands in its bosom, all that was needed to harvest was the funds and the means to do so. Indeed, as Stijn frequently harped, South Africa had the ability to usurp the title of spaceport harbormaster from its Russian rivals once they got the approval to do so. Whether or not said comparison was actually praise when it was digested was, like the motives of his instigators, determinant on prior biases. To Stijn’s surprise, all he needed to do was staple an artificial scarcity proviso to confirm the support of the crowd who wrote him off as a joke.

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