Presidential Candidate Remembers Hueromont Dead

Senator Mentas Blaque, one of two remaining candidates for the presidency of the Gallente Federation, yesterday paid a visit to the city of Hueromont on Gallente Prime. The visit was undertaken in order to commemorate the roughly fourteen thousand Gallente who died when Caldari Admiral Yakia Tovil-Toba flew his carrier into the planet’s atmosphere 188 years ago, during the Gallente-Caldari war. The senator held a speech at the site of the calamity, after which he was toured by the city’s mayor, Emile Touscagne, through the districts hardest hit by the attack.

During his speech, Blaque paid tribute to the dead of Hueromont, urging his audience to “remember the sacrifices given by those who came before” and to “remain alert to the presence of evils that still today lurk just beyond the horizon.” He also encouraged Gallente citizens to “continue engaging in meaningful dialogue about our Federation and the citizen’s duty to safeguard his homeland.”

The senator’s speech, as well as the occasion of his visit to Hueromont, has been criticized by liberal parties as deliberately inflammatory. “It seems fairly obvious that the senator’s hateful tirade is meant to incite tensions among the good people of Hueromont,” stated Senator Audrey Rairix, a long-time opponent of Blaque’s within the Senate. “I think it should be apparent to anyone listening that this was not a speech about acceptance and reconciliation. It was one of anger, mistrust, even vengeance.”

Among the assembled crowd no signs of discontent were superficially apparent, though isolated pockets of dissenters within the crowd briefly vocalized their contempt before being escorted off the premises by guard personnel. During key moments in the speech, applause and cheering carried as far as outlying districts as a thousands-strong crowd roared approval at Senator Blaque’s words.

Hueromont is today the ninth largest city in the Gallente Federation, with thirty-six million inhabitants in the greater metropolitan area. In the nearly two centuries since the Hueromont Incident, it has been generally regarded as a sore point for Gallente pride and remains something of a taboo subject in international political circles.