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Crazycryodude posted:Lol come on what the hell kind of communists would we be if we helped an openly capitalist, openly monarchist, openly colonial EMPIRE start doing their bullshit all over again in space? The Japanese belong in the dustbin of history, the UN is a complete joke (and we should tell them as much instead of recognizing it), and the Comintern/MOSA represent all of humanity and its member states, joining is not vassalage. If the Japanese would like to decolonize, agree to a minimum program of transition towards socialism or at least worker's democracy, and apply for associate status with the Comintern they are fully welcome to. 
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Feb 16, 2021 22:19
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Disproportionation posted:Yeah this is important, we haven't really considered the possibility of these warheads being used as planted explosives rather than via ICBM (though I don't know how feasible that is, so grain of salt). One W58 warhead weighs ~110 kilograms and is about one meter long by 38 centimeters in diameter; removed from the missile, they're easily concealable, at least visually (even a cursory sweep by simple instruments like Geiger counters would find them immediately). Detonating a nuclear warhead is not easy, though - you can in fact blow up a nuke using explosives and it won't necessarily detonate, it has to be done in a specific way. Anyone using one in that manner would have to be trained on how to arm it, or they'd just irradiate everything downwind of the bomb site (which with modern cleanup technologies is less a disaster and more an inconvenience) instead of vaporizing a city. It can be done, though, and in fact was done at least three times over the course of the Great Revolutionary War.
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Feb 16, 2021 22:24
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Okay, after much debate in the Politburo (read, incoherent shouting on the server), we've come to a decent consensus on a general approach. In addition to handing over nukes, turning over the American government-in-exile, decolonializing Hokkaido and Ryuku, and dissolving their UN puppet organization, we: quote:-Propose a joint colonization venture of Venus between Japan and the NOMAD collective, as a show of good faith and cooperation, exposing them to the actual reality that the Comintern is a diverse collection of polities instead of a monolith. This will also focus their attention on the inner planets and away from Mars, and if it succeeds, it will show the value of cooperating with us to the Japanese.
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Feb 16, 2021 22:28
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I'm sure they'll appreciate the parallels to the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter; Give them a bunch of bullshit impossible extravagant tests to prove their worth as our equals and worthy of the bounty of space. Either they succeed, and they see the massive benefits of cooperation with the diverse and benevolent Comintern (and we geta bunch of free poo poo out of the bargain) OR they fail and economically exhaust themselves out of pride in their Capitalist Spirit. If this succeeds, I'll be a legend 
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Feb 16, 2021 22:35
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Getting them to provide the raw materials and technical help for a big boondoggle would be an effective way to let them into the space game without actually giving them the means to go build an empire.... it's not a terrible idea. If they want to try and imply that they have vast reserves of TNE's, well, fuckin' prove it. If they want to be big boys and colonize space, a joint effort to colonize Venus is a solid starter project. It keeps them away from Mars, it offloads a lot of the cost of developing the place to them, and we all get to have a colony on the solar system's only known sorium source. Hopefully it's obsoleted once we get around to scanning the gas giants, if those aren't full of sorium we're actually kinda screwed with Venus as the only source, but for the current environment it's decent.
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Feb 16, 2021 22:51
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Crazycryodude posted:Getting them to provide the raw materials and technical help for a big boondoggle would be an effective way to let them into the space game without actually giving them the means to go build an empire.... it's not a terrible idea. If they want to try and imply that they have vast reserves of TNE's, well, fuckin' prove it. If they want to be big boys and colonize space, a joint effort to colonize Venus is a solid starter project. It keeps them away from Mars, it offloads a lot of the cost of developing the place to them, and we all get to have a colony on the solar system's only known sorium source. We really should get on surveying the nearby gas giants, and depending on what we find we could get up to some funny hijinks. "Okay here's the deal for Venus, we get two/thirds of the Gallicite, and you get aaaaaaaall the valuable Sorium. Deal?" ...or would that be too mean?
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Feb 16, 2021 22:55
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An interesting development from the discord: technically, the UK government in exile claims ascension island as one of their territories. As they do not recognize the comintern as a legitimate body, all they can do is seethe quietly.
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Feb 16, 2021 22:55
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Could I get another link to the discord? Sorry last one didn't work for some reason.
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Feb 16, 2021 23:08
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NewMars posted:An interesting development from the discord: technically, the UK government in exile claims ascension island as one of their territories. As they do not recognize the comintern as a legitimate body, all they can do is seethe quietly. to clarify (I'm going to endeavor not to give info in the Discord without also reporting it in the thread), the territory they actually, functionally administer consists of the British Embassy Compound in Tokyo and a couple small Pacific islands nobody has bothered to steal, but they still nominally claim to administer a bunch of other islands. There's even technically a British-appointed governor of the St. Helena territory (which includes Ascension), although the current one has never been there. sebmojo posted:Could I get another link to the discord? Sorry last one didn't work for some reason. https://discord.gg/fxtZMRHS Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Feb 16, 2021 |
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Feb 16, 2021 23:10
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I still think we shouldn't deal with them and certainly not help a hostile polity get into space, or give them spaceships or their own colonies. If they deluded themselves into thinking they can be the equal of more than half the planet, that's entirely their problem. India accepted to start talking about trade because of their own communist/socialist parties pushing for it, that's good. Meanwhile in Japan it came from the emperor, that's not a good look when dealing with an expressly anti-imperialist anti-capitalist alliance. As for the nukes, that's on the japanese not to use them, not on us to jump through hoops to get their finger off the red button.
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Feb 16, 2021 23:13
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Sanev.Khan posted:I still think we shouldn't deal with them and certainly not help a hostile polity get into space, or give them spaceships or their own colonies. If they deluded themselves into thinking they can be the equal of more than half the planet, that's entirely their problem. Bolding mine. It is definitely their problem, because we intend to take advantage of that grandiosity to get colonies on Venus for half-price. Sure they'd get them too, but that's best case scenario, we'd be quite happy for them to fail. They're all gung-ho about fighting a war to the last man for the right to space. Well, giving your all and losing in WAR shows resolve in the face of overwhelming adversity. Giving your all and losing in PEACE just shows stubbornness in the face of a bad idea. Much more tolerable for OUR conscience, I feel.
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Feb 16, 2021 23:29
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Asterite34 posted:Bolding mine. It is definitely their problem, because we intend to take advantage of that grandiosity to get colonies on Venus for half-price. Sure they'd get them too, but that's best case scenario, we'd be quite happy for them to fail. We can also make them lose the peace by carrying on as we are, not dealing with them and ignoring them entirely. We're already outpacing them in every metric possible and it's only going to get better. Same end result, and as a bonus, capitalism dies on Earth rather than get exported to the stars.
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Feb 16, 2021 23:46
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Sanev.Khan posted:We can also make them lose the peace by carrying on as we are, not dealing with them and ignoring them entirely. We're already outpacing them in every metric possible and it's only going to get better. Same end result, and as a bonus, capitalism dies on Earth rather than get exported to the stars. True, but this forces the issue faster, and lets us soak up some of their industry rather than letting them independently build their own space program. Hell, Hawaii managed it, Japan probably can given time. Left on their own, they could scatter colonies willy-nilly. THIS way, even if they succeed beyond their wildest dreams and we get nothing, they're left with one colony on the most inhospitable Death World we can find. Welcome to Space, jerks.
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Feb 17, 2021 00:04
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SavageGentleman posted:Seconding this notion. Something similar as for Comintern colonies maybe? Everything with more than XXXXX inhabitants gets a chance to go independet; if a votum is involved,it has to be monitored by international observers. Reminder that the following resolution was passed a while back, which covers independence for ComIntern colonies: Mister Bates posted:A-36 passes and the new policy will be implemented, details here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=509498030#post509498030
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Feb 17, 2021 00:24
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Someone's pointed out: they sent a war criminal of an emperor to negotiate with us. How's about putting the imperial family on trial for all those gas attack warrants they signed? Obviously they will refuse. But you have to have some things that will never be agreed to as leverage.
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Feb 17, 2021 00:24
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NewMars posted:Someone's pointed out: they sent a war criminal of an emperor to negotiate with us. How's about putting the imperial family on trial for all those gas attack warrants they signed? Seconding that idea.
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Feb 17, 2021 00:32
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As for other things: the UAWR is for the joint colony project and the strengthening of the working class's position within japan, as for decolonization, Ryukyu is what we want, hokkaido we do not expect them to agree to.
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Feb 17, 2021 00:54
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NewMars posted:Someone's pointed out: they sent a war criminal of an emperor to negotiate with us. How's about putting the imperial family on trial for all those gas attack warrants they signed? Also seconding this. Generally you are going to want to either crush Japan now or take a deal and not needlessly antagonize them, while still applying pressure. Japan isn't an existental threat but it also doesnt have to be to start forcing you to make hard, terrible decisions because you hosed with them a couple times and an opportunity for them to put the screws on you popped up.
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Feb 17, 2021 01:12
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Oh, and disavowing any pretence of legitimacy to the UN. It's not a thing that exists anymore and we won't act like it does.
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Feb 17, 2021 01:49
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Another proposal from the Politburo:quote:-Form a new international organization, that will lay the groundwork for economic and diplomatic relations between Comintern and/or Non-Aligned polities. The purpose of this organization is to expose the benign realities of living as a Comintern nation, demystify Socialism, facilitate peaceful international cooperation, and give Non-Aligned polities the ability to take part without forcing them to join the Comintern first, something which is seen with fear by the uninformed after decades of propaganda.
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Feb 17, 2021 02:53
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zanni posted:Another proposal from the Politburo: I propose this new International body for fostering peace and brotherhood be called... The Solar Assembly Forum!
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Feb 17, 2021 03:01
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I brought this up in the discord but I want to say here that Japan seems pretty clear that this arrangement won’t just be about ships. They see the power imbalance between us as a problem. If it gets too big they will feel pressured to act while they still can, and they’re willing to threaten war in order to extract things from us. But if (unlikely as it seems) in the future they grew stronger, they’d start thinking of acting to end the threat they see in us. So our deal with them is, explicitly or not, a commitment to maintaining the current ratio of strength between the socialist and capitalist spheres. That means that if we got armed spacecraft in the future, they’d want armed spacecraft. They will want access to the Martian facility. If we discover a “hyperdrive” sometime in the future—right now the idea is science fiction, but the presence of alien spacecraft in our solar system effectively proves its existence in some form—the Japanese will demand to be provided access as well. Our way out of this is, long-term, to attempt to bring about a socialist revolution within Japan, but that in itself is dangerous, since the current Japanese leadership would see that as an attack. We can probably push them to some extent without triggering a war, but are we prepared for a scenario in which the Japanese government says “if the current social order is disrupted, the nukes start going off”?
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Feb 17, 2021 04:12
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We have been provided a little bit more information from Intelligence, who have agreed to release some reports for the sake of these negotiations. Obviously, this information must not leave these chambers. Fletcher doesn't look very happy about that even as he says it. Before the War, the last class of United States ballistic missile submarine was the Benjamin Franklin class, which we fortunately know a great deal about. This is because one of the survivors, the Simon Bolivar, is currently serving as the submarine fleet flagship for our Californian comrades.  The then-USS Simon Bolivar on trials. Without getting excessively into detail, while these submarines are nearly twenty years old by now, the technology of missile submarines has not updated that much even with our current evolutions in TNEs. They can still be considered very dangerous, and they were the first to carry the Polaris A-3, with sixteen launch tubes per submarine. Fortunately, most of them were destroyed during the War. However, we know that the U.S. Government-in-Exile (which is to say the one run by the former Joint Chiefs and the one currently being housed by Japan), still controls four.  GRU Operations Photo File JAP-O-JC-NS-424 The four US submarines in Japanese care are all of the Benjamin Franklin class -- from upper left, they are the George Bancroft, the Francis Scott Key, the James K. Polk, and the Will Rogers. They are in a particularly well-defended drydock on Okinawa, which we were fortunate enough to catch unshrouded while some form of maintenance work was going on. As you can see, these submarines are currently in no condition to go anywhere. The Japanese are not particularly fond of nuclear weapons, and have been tapping their reactors to supply power to Okinawa. We can see that at least two of the subs have their launch tubes empty, so where exactly the missiles are is anyone's guess. However, seizing those weapons and the subs would be immediately tearing the authority and muscle out of the Government-in-Exile, which is something that up until now, they have been loathe to do. These submarines do not present an immediate threat, as it would take some time to rearm and redeploy them from their current state. But it would be far easier and would involve much less of an act of war to get their missiles off the table through diplomatic means, especially as the Japanese are offering. It should also be noted that none of these are the Revenge, which was a British submarine and is currently unaccounted for, as the British Government-in-Exile has insisted on maintaining a stronger veneer of independence from Japan. The Revenge also has sixteen launch tubes and would carry the same form of missile. (OOC: This information was conveyed/cobbled-together in conversation, wanted to make sure it was crossposted to here.) Pirate Radar posted:We can probably push them to some extent without triggering a war, but are we prepared for a scenario in which the Japanese government says “if the current social order is disrupted, the nukes start going off”? This part I can respond to at least partially. Japan is the one capitalist country that I can in no way imagine as a nuclear threat. The Japanese have a particular dislike for nuclear weapons that exceeds even us Germans, as evidenced by the fact that they would be willing to give up these weapons even while acknowledging that they cannot hope to win a fight long-term. To give up a nuclear bargaining chip like that either indicates thinking you can afford to lose it, which is laughable, or that you don't want to have it on the table at all. As for the actual question, that would be an unacceptable scenario. It is also a hypothetical, and not in line with the current Japanese trend -- but more importantly, is not covered in our current treaty. If Japan wants more from us, they can come to the table and offer more later. We are not negotiating now and forever our stance for all time to give Japan a taste of all our current technology, this is not a slippery slope situation. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Feb 17, 2021 |
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Feb 17, 2021 04:41
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A counterproposal. They are granted one of our first generation merchantmen. They, in addition to a sum of TN materials, and the US nuclear weapons, hand over all information and known operatives of GLADIO or other anti-socialist cells operating in their territory, and turn over any such individuals they locate in the future to our intelligence services. All currently subjugated territories of Japan are granted independence, and all extraterrestrial Japanese settlements are granted the same independence COMINTERN outposts are. Finally, the Emperor formally abdicates and plays no further part in Japanese public or political life. Edit: feel free to crib bits of this into other proposals as all y'all see fit. Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Feb 17, 2021 |
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Feb 17, 2021 07:55
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I don't get why you keep trying to propose supranational organisations when there's already the Comintern. If they want into international fun, they can join provided they respect our charter which explicitly includes "no capitalism". We've won already, we shouldn't be the ones making concessions. Or why you want to give out ships to an explicit enemy when they're down. What we should do is finish them not empower them. Unless I missed a proposal to reform the Comintern into a Centrist International?
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Feb 17, 2021 09:24
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Sanev.Khan posted:
Because we're still sharing a planet with them and they can and will use their significant resources (TNEs, intel, connections to everyone who hates the COMINTERN, nukes) to absolutely gently caress us if we act like an aggressive overlord? As long as we haven't solved the Gladio problem, Japan will be able to ratfuck us harder via this secret infrastructure than we could ever imagine.
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Feb 17, 2021 11:10
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SavageGentleman posted:Because we're still sharing a planet with them and they can and will use their significant resources (TNEs, intel, connections to everyone who hates the COMINTERN, nukes) to absolutely gently caress us if we act like an aggressive overlord? Then maybe we should counter-Gladio them. Pretend to consider their proposal, set up an embassy, initiate seemingly-peaceful relations, all the while making contact with sympathetic elements in Japanese society(trade unions and the like), whom we train and arm to infiltrate and overthrow the Japanese government. If Japan is provably involved with Gladio, then they've been assassinating Comintern citizens and destroying Comintern infrastructure for a while now, and they should be considered a hostile political entity that is to be brought down. Obviously this will cause some chaos, but we could keep troops ready close by to act as peacekeepers once our comrades in SICKLE(Society of International Communists, Killing Liberal Enemies) have made enough progress that they can prevent or slow any suicidal use of nuclear weaponry during the early stages of the resulting peacekeeping operation.
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Feb 17, 2021 11:55
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Sanev.Khan posted:I don't get why you keep trying to propose supranational organisations when there's already the Comintern. If they want into international fun, they can join provided they respect our charter which explicitly includes "no capitalism". We've won already, we shouldn't be the ones making concessions. We already cooperate on some level with states outside the comintern such as Hawaii, and have at this point for years; not to mention individual member states do the same independently when practical. This was even true pre-war as well - Yugoslavia was an active proponent of the non-aligned movement and engaged in some level of cooperation with its non-socialist neighbours. Some kind of organisational structure to facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation when it makes sense is reasonable.
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Feb 17, 2021 12:00
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Disproportionation posted:We already cooperate on some level with states outside the comintern such as Hawaii, and have at this point for years; not to mention individual member states do the same independently when practical. This was even true pre-war as well - Yugoslavia was an active proponent of the non-aligned movement and engaged in some level of cooperation with its non-socialist neighbours. No, treating with capitalist nations is thoroughly unreasonable and now that the Comintern can definitely stand on its own, it's something we should forbid for members.
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Feb 17, 2021 12:02
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Counter-Gladio operations are a good idea and an important part of our strategy re. a treaty! While I'm optimistic that the COMINTERN will be able to prevail in a fair competition of systems and ideologies and will eventually bring all of humanity into the fold in a peaceful way, we also need tools to make sure that the 'competition' stays fair and that extremists will not be able to lash out against humanity as a whole just because their ideology is loosing. Re. the post above: People in this thread need more trust in the COMINTERN and its power to prevail in a just competition of systems. If we don't have that trust, isolate ourselves against other organisations/countries or even attack anyone not sharing our convictions, what does that make us? I'm not interested in being part of a Communist authoritarian government tbh. SavageGentleman fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Feb 17, 2021 |
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Feb 17, 2021 12:08
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PurpleXVI posted:If Japan is provably involved with Gladio, then they've been assassinating Comintern citizens and destroying Comintern infrastructure for a while now, and they should be considered a hostile political entity that is to be brought down. We have no absolutely no evidence of any connection between the government of Japan and GLADIO. We may suspect there is a connection, at least between certain elements of the government and GLADIO, and we certainly strongly suspect there is a connection between GLADIO and elements of the U.S. and U.K. governments-in-exile, but as of right now we have no evidence and certainly no cause to make such agressive actions.
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Feb 17, 2021 12:10
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SavageGentleman posted:Re. the post above: People in this thread need more trust in the COMINTERN and its power to prevail in a just competition of systems. Hang on lemme just open the history book here and see when these "just competitions of systems" have occurred in the past... hmmm... yes... let's see... are you referring to any of the periods where capitalists have used bribery("lobbying"), mercenaries, lies and outright assassination to destroy competing ideologies? You can have a "just competition of systems" between two different perceptions of how a socialist system should be run, but not with capitalists. Their entire system is based on deceit and inequality. It's like trying to have a reasoned debate with a fascist, who'll just make monkey noises at you, then when you ask him to please knock it off, declare himself the winner because you lost your cool first. Attempting to maintain the moral high ground will simply result in us getting backstabbed by our supposed capitalist "friends" when they feel like it'll win them the debate.
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Feb 17, 2021 12:22
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SavageGentleman posted:Counter-Gladio operations are a good idea and an important part of our strategy re. a treaty! While I'm optimistic that the COMINTERN will be able to prevail in a fair competition of systems and ideologies and will eventually bring all of humanity into the fold in a peaceful way, we also need tools to make sure that the 'competition' stays fair and that extremists will not be able to lash out against humanity as a whole just because their ideology is loosing. SavageGentleman posted:Re. the post above: People in this thread need more trust in the COMINTERN and its power to prevail in a just competition of systems. If we don't have that trust, isolate ourselves against other organisations/countries or even attack anyone not sharing our convictions, what does that make us? I'm not interested in being part of a Communist authoritarian government tbh. It's a good thing the game has started *after* the Revolutionary Wars is over, or you guys would be trying to argue for a return to the statu quo and giving an umpteenth chance to the capitalist oppressors because they pinky-swore an extra day of paid holidays and a minimum wage increase of five cents.
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Feb 17, 2021 12:27
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Sanev.Khan posted:It's a good thing the game has started *after* the Revolutionary Wars is over, or you guys would be trying to argue for a return to the statu quo and giving an umpteenth chance to the capitalist oppressors because they pinky-swore an extra day of paid holidays and a minimum wage increase of five cents. You won't settle for less than full-scale nuclear war with anyone that's ever looked at a dollar bill funny. Any position left of you is going to seem ridiculous to your eyes.
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Feb 17, 2021 12:55
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zanni posted:You won't settle for less than full-scale nuclear war with anyone that's ever looked at a dollar bill funny. Any position left of you is going to seem ridiculous to your eyes. I don't consider counter-revolutionaries willing to make deals with capitalists and offer them gifts to be "left" at all. If you refuse to oppose capitalism and imperialism, you aren't left. I'm all for arguing about whether we should centralize the Comintern, form a federation of countries, of states, or have a network of independent autonomous communes, work from the country, region, city, factory or union level, or a mix of it all. But I don't want to compromise on removing capitalism, the inequalities in wealth and power, and the misery it brings on Earth.
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Feb 17, 2021 13:12
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Man, I can't wait until our diplomatic mission to India later this year, where all of this can be re-litigated all over again. Seriously, guys, this is our FIRST foray into international relations, and we're already wildly oscillating between meek appeasement and pre-emptive nuclear strikes.
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Feb 17, 2021 14:26
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Nuke Japan, and then offer them trade concessions.
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Feb 17, 2021 14:37
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Once I got over my initial negative reaction, I think that's actually a pretty good deal. The heart of their request is that they desperately want TN ships and currently, we have the only shipyards. But that advantage is temporary. Even if we say no, they'll get TN ships of their own eventually. They have the minerals for it, they have shown they have internal cost breakdowns and detailed knowledge of how our ships work and they think that having such ships is extremely important. Short of an actual war or heavy sabotage on our part, they would probably launch their own ships eventually while being much more pissed off about it. This is our chance, our opportunity, to negotiate a deal that could dictate how space exploration and exploitation will go. A treaty on how worlds can or can't be colonized, who gets which resources, how the law of space will work and much more. Because once TN techology gets more widely distributed, more actors will seek to exploit space. Better to have customs and laws already set up and legitimised. Of course, the exact terms of such a treaty is up for negotiation. Given how we are in the clearly superior position, we can likely bias it in our favour.
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Feb 17, 2021 14:38
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Freudian posted:Nuke Japan, and then offer them trade concessions.
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Feb 17, 2021 14:56
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Freudian posted:Nuke Japan, and then offer them trade concessions. Because that worked so well last time someone did exactly that.
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Feb 17, 2021 14:58
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