Breaking: Merchant City, Altareth: The highly anticipated Xandrian Challenge was a resounding success, attended live by over 220,000 spectators at the Altareth Chaos Battle Arena, and streamed by over 3.1 billion households across the Firmament. Viewership ratings were highest across Convocation-member planets such as the Massieu homeworld of Prevarus. Surprisingly, the Xandrian world of Moufette, not known for their enthusiastic spectatorship of Shard Battles, had the third most viewers across all planets.
The viewership was no doubt enhanced by the high drama on offer by the Xandrian Challenge. Officially, the Chaos Brokers team made a clean sweep of the Challenge, winning all 9 Victory Conditions across 3 Matches, including 2 Triple Victories: Lavin Nomatterwhatus of the Mahdi directed by Zhawk of the Cunning Champions, who also won a stunning 5 of 9 overall Win Conditions, and Bratcher the Thrifty of the Tsallis directed by his namesake MrThrifty of the Sovereign Warriors.
In a stunning turn of events, the results were thrown into tumult when three of the Chaos Brokers — Luchapetal, MrThrifty and Pickles — each made an official request to “donate” their 4 Win Conditions to the Xandrian team in a show of support for the Xandrian cause of becoming fully-licensed Chaos Brokers.
As previously reported by The Red Sun News, the Challenge was a celebration of Xandrians being given the license to direct Rhodian Agents in Chaos Training Battles. It became clear, however, that the true goal behind the Challenge was for the Xandrians, and their supporters, the Padoccia Trade Union, to strengthen their case for the Xandrians being allowed to become fully licensed Chaos Brokers and run their own Brokerage Houses. The results of the Challenge had a lot riding on them beyond a friendly competition, and the outcome did not disappoint.
The first of the 3 Challenge Musters started off close, with the Xandrians adopting an aggressive swarming strategy, but soon the Chaos Brokers unveiled brand new team collaboration tactics that slowly but surely whittled the Xandrian-directed Rhodian Agents down till none of them were left standing. Zhawk with Nomatterwhatus took Survivalist and Shardmaster, while The Merchant of Pew Pew, guided by Luchapetal, took Brawlmaster. Of note is that The Merchant was the only Rhodian Agent to compete for the Brokers, though sources inform The Red Sun that Padoccia did attempt to bring The Merchant over to play for the Xandrians along with Gillie. The Merchant refused to comment on the situation.
The second Muster was utterly dominated by Nomatterwhatus and Zhawk, who won all 3 Victory Conditions, forcing MrThrifty to declare that “Nomatterwhatus might need to be banned.” However, MrThrifty and his namesake Bratcher the Thrifty took over the third Muster themselves, earning the second Triple Victory during the Challenge. The Xandrian Handlers fought valiantly, especially XN-1005, who directed loaned Agent Gillie the Grizzled.
It was after the third Muster and the official announcement of results that 3 of the Chaos Brokers — Pickles, MrThrifty, and Luchapetal — made the extraordinary offer to “donate” their Victories to the Xandrian team. Through this gesture, these three Chaos Brokers have sent a loud and clear message to the Academy and Convocation Council that there might be burgeoning support for the Xandrian claims within the Academy itself. The Red Sun is investigating rumors that the Xandrians and Padoccia Trade Union might have offered the Chaos Brokers incentives leading to this dramatic turn of events.
The three judges of the Xandrian Challenge — High Regent Dusana of the Clausius, Padoccia CIO Edrei Gesa, and legendary Chaos Agent Sorith of the Brillouin — have agreed to review the request of the 3 Chaos Brokers to “donate” their Win Conditions to the Xandrian team. This would change the “official” results of the Challenge from a clean sweep 9-0 victory for the Chaos Brokers team to a 5-4 victory for the Brokers. However, the outcome will not change, as the Brokers win the challenge in either case.
The Academy chose not to address the “Victory Condition Donation” controversy, instead highlighting the superiority of Chaos Brokers in battle, and commending Broker Zhawk for their stunning 5-Victory performance.
“We congratulate the Chaos Academy Brokers for their stellar performance in the Xandrian Challenge,” said Provost Marblemaw in a post-Challenge interview with The Red Sun. “A clean sweep of 9-0, while not expected, is most welcome and proves beyond any shred of doubt the variance in training and quality between Academy-trained Brokers and those not trained by the Academy. The Chaos Academy commends Chaos Broker Zhawk and their Agent Lavin Nomatterwhatus for a spectacular 5-Victory Condition performance in the Tournament, and for upholding the traits and values that we hold dear at the Academy.”
On the other hand, Edrei Gesa of the Padoccia Trade Union released a statement highlighting the valor and potential of Xandrian Handlers.
“With severely limited resources, time, practice, and Agent choices, our Xandrian brethren put up a commendable display of skill and abilities as Chaos Brokers. While it might have been too much to expect the Xandrians to win against Academy-trained Brokers, the results clearly demonstrate the natural skill and potential that our Xandrian brethren possess. This potential is further highlighted by 3 of the 4 Chaos Brokers competing in the Challenge being willing to donate their Victory Conditions to the Xandrian team in show of solidarity. Surely, the Academy and Convocation Council must look upon these results and facts as proof that they must offer Xandrians a fair opportunity to become fully-licensed Chaos Brokers.”
The Red Sun’s Editorial Opinion: The extraordinary request by three of the four Chaos Brokers to “donate” their Victories to the Xandrians is no doubt a blow to High Regent Dusana and Provost Marblemaw, the public faces of the Chaos Academy who have declared strong opposition to the Xandrian claim of becoming fully licensed Chaos Brokers.
The Red Sun News will closely follow the judges’ decision on the offer of the Chaos Brokers to “donate” 4 Win Conditions, which in turn will determine the final results of the Xandrian Challenge. Even more significantly, this decision will likely have political and economic implications across the Firmament, indicating whether the process of becoming Chaos Brokers and the ability to run an immensely lucrative Brokerage House will become more open and democratic than the Broker Academy’s current inscrutable process.