As an addendum, may I add:
a) What a delightful thread!
b) Congratulations on having run this thread for so long, and for offering the CE you did have (I was going to say "for over a year!", but soon realised my datemark-parsing mistake).
c) Sorry for the wall of text - first post on these forums and I was expecting a few more formatting options! (No [sup] [/sub] [small] [/big]? But my art! Le gasp! *swoon!*)
The biggest threat facing most Knights today, apart from rampant inflation[1], would have to be the ever-increasing strain on our fledgling health systems, due in part to both rising overpopulation and lacklustre public awareness campaigns.
Too often have I seen comrades - who should have, given proper and timely treatment, made a full recovery and returned to their Knight-wives and Knight-children happy and healthy, and maybe taken their Knight-families out for the day, maybe to the park, maybe had a picnic and brought their Knight-pets along too - pass out in the heat of battle from earlier (but may I stress, minor) afflictions.
One friend, Jukken, had a nasty case of Paladin's foot (entirely attributable to the sub-par outfitting supplied to Squires these days) which - had it been treated without the need for exorbitant CE overheads - would not have caused him to pass out on the battlefield a few days later from toe-poisoning and significant pangs of discomfort. Admittedly, this may have been exacerbated by the mild food poisoning suffered from receiving a Virulisk to the face earlier that day, but to that I say: why doesn't Spiral HQ supply us with better trans-substance particle filters?
I mean, all you ever see these days are young things running around with flowers and confetti flying out of their ears, with all sorts of gaudy knick-knacks sprouting from their helms, and you have to think: we've crash-landed on an alien planet, my other friend Derghan just passed out from Severe Re-Frosting Syndrome, and what are we producing? THIS?! I ask-- I ask you, fellow Spiral-bound Knights, what does Spiral HQ think they are doing? Aren't we fighting for survival on this rock[2]? Don't we need to pool every resource we find, to replenish our battle-stores and to keep research[3] into the Clockworks Affair[4] from stagnating? And yet, here we are: the self-elected Spiral HQ pulling resources from front-line veterans to produce gew-gaws for Knights with more money than sense!
And that's why the biggest threat to Our Knights today is: Communism.
[1] And why doesn't the ruling triumvirate at Spiral HQ just stop printing money mining CE?
[2] Not that they're really rocks - good, honest rocks like back home - more like Gremlin-forged mockeries of that proud, natural element, and an abomination to every right-thinking Knight.
[3] Surely Wegner knows the heavy burden he is placing on all Knights during this time, demanding his tithe in minerals when a struggling Apprentice might do better to sell a shard or two on the Free Market.
[4] Which, I am beginning to suspect, is the nexus of a tangled conspiracy. I have yet to receive satisfactory information from Spiral HQ regarding these bizzare subterrainian machinations - a good friend, Kora, being unusually tight-lipped about the entire business - and am beginning to suspect the rising CE exchange rate may have more to do with denying Knights access to the mysterious Core that Spiral HQ is ostensibly "encouraging" us to jouney to than is comfortable (I, myself, have not seen this "Core" section, and have come to believe, in the wake of recent inflation, that I may never do so).