Back at the end of February the corporate HQ of C7 was raided by government agents and all the executive staff were detained. Workers were furloughed. Questions were asked, but very few answers came back from the seat of government in Sheltered Rock. This kicked off a string of events over the next 2 months which culminated in the airship Barons, wealthy business leaders of the various airship conglomerates, also being detained under mysterious circumstances. We gave in to some speculation here and there but were unable to get any solid answers to what was going on. Recently the announcement was made that all parties were to be released and everyone could go back to business. Records of the whole ordeal were sealed up and stashed away – anything made public was so full of redactions it was practically useless. Our founder and Operations Director Drew Kerman was recently invited to Sheltered Rock for a briefing since KSA works closely in partnership with C7 but upon his return he said he was unable to speak about it.
What the government can’t hide however are several new laws and amended statutes – all aimed at setting strict business guidelines for the airship and fixed-wing industries in such a manner that they are unable to directly compete against one another. This adds credence to our earlier speculation that the airship Barons attempted to somehow take down C7 as they saw the larger aircraft and increased production as a threat to their business. The government uncovered their plot and now they were in hot water as well. Thankfully it seems an agreement was reached for everyone to stay in business and not meddle with each other in the future.
C7 will be resuming operations next week. Flight Officers Tedman and Aldeny are already back to work here at KSC and the HAB is being brought back to work readiness as well to prepare the Dhumla to return to flight testing. Although C7 had plans to build aircraft larger than the Dhumla, they are no longer allowed to do so as part of the new laws in place – among other things such as Umbarg will never have an airport but approval has finally been given to allow KSC to expand to serve that function.
While historians will continue to struggle to piece together exactly what went down between the two industries, we’re just happy to be allowed to continue to support C7’s work in fixed-wing aviation and one day take it to space!
