Gallente President addresses nation – UDI operative confirmed captured

Souro Foiritan, President of the Gallente Federation, last Thursday delivered a sixty-five minute address to his nation.

Calling for heightened awareness of current issues, the President extolled the virtues of free speech and individual liberty while denouncing acts of terror by those who seek to destroy those very virtues.

“Our hard-fought freedoms can not, and will not, be stamped out by the iron boot of tyranny. Whatever the cost, this we must fight for,” said the President.

He then went on to list the possible social and economic ramifications of terrorist activity, citing prior evidence of escalating crime rates and inflation in some of the societies hardest hit by terrorism through history, and providing what seemed to most fairly convincing evidence that acts of terror, in the long run, help no one.

The President allowed himself to get quite in-depth and technical during the first part of his address. One analyst was overheard remarking that Foiritan would be lucky if one-fourth of his nation understood what he was talking about, while others have cited the atypical tone as evidence of the President’s respect for his people’s intelligence.

After a short period of silence to commemorate the Elarel dead at the 30-minute mark, Foiritan spoke briefly of the UDI, the faction claiming responsibility for the massacre. Most notable was the President’s admission that a UDI operative had indeed been captured yesterday, and that his capture had led investigators to further discoveries along the road to rooting out the people behind the UDI. “You know who you are,” said the President, “and you know we’re coming for you.”

Analysts find themselves befuddled over the President’s admission of the operative’s capture in the middle of his speech, as well as the normally populist ruler’s highly uncharacteristic absence at the post-address press conference.

One reporter, a Scope representative, was reported as asking whether the President’s spirits had been affected by the last fortnight’s turn of events.

Replied Thuire Dercoucon, Federal Press Secretary: “The President is fine. He just needs to concentrate on the tasks at hand. The support of the Gallente people is well appreciated in this trying time.”