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What the gently caress butterfly effect happened in this timeline that Tang is blue now?  fake edit: clearly he's floating in Bacta. Empire Strikes Back came out fairly recently, after all.
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Aug 15, 2021 13:24
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Clearly its LCL for an Angel. That pattern blue bastard!
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Aug 15, 2021 13:29
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It's horseshoe crab blood. To detect contaminants.
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Aug 15, 2021 13:50
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Mister Bates posted:She forces a smile. "Director Hughes, I presume? Or may I call you Howard?"  I was hoping that mad old bastard was still kicking, but this is better than I was expecting.
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Aug 15, 2021 15:11
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Mister Bates posted:The briefing for Operation Hastings indicates that the missile launches are to be a signal to 'allied forces' to begin the 'primary phase' of the operation, and stresses how absolutely vital it is that they take place at the appointed time. I wonder if there is a way to exploit this? Assuming, of course, that it's legitimate intel and not a lie intended to bolster the morale of the crew (captain only?) of the Revenge.
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Aug 15, 2021 15:12
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So the queen isn't there. Maybe she made off with the warheads? Alongside that I do find it interesting how much the various different Gladio operations seem to be just barely stitched together things held up by the desperate and the dying.
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Aug 15, 2021 15:54
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Gwyneth Palpate posted:I wonder if there is a way to exploit this? Assuming, of course, that it's legitimate intel and not a lie intended to bolster the morale of the crew (captain only?) of the Revenge. It's a lie, they just wanted to be sure that the missiles would be launched to catch everyone at the conference. Z the IVth posted:It's horseshoe crab blood. To detect contaminants. I actually hope this is the answer.
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Aug 15, 2021 17:03
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Josef bugman posted:So the queen isn't there. Maybe she made off with the warheads? Not too dissimilar from the irl concept of Gladio to be fair.
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Aug 15, 2021 17:16
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Did these chumps even know about the conference? Were they just told to tactical nuke these Pacific naval bases at this exact time with the only context being "firing the starting pistol for WW4"? What "allied forces" were they expecting? What "primary phase?" The loose network of domestic terror cells? Were they expecting an army? A global counter-revolution? What do these guys even KNOW about the state of the world? Have they just been kept utterly in the dark for the last decade aside from the odd resupply every year or so? No wonder they ended up fragging their own high command, I bet the enlisted men weren't too keen on their resistance against the Red Menace involving an attempted (and botched) suicidal terrorist bombing of a peace conference done just so people take their dumb HYDRA organization seriously. I would almost pity these poor fools if they weren't accomplices to a global reactionary conspiracy. They knew what they were signing up for, or at least they thought they knew, anyway.
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Aug 15, 2021 17:17
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We do know they're in contact with m16 and that there is very much a network of capitalist holdouts throughout the world. Anyone from the madman in the bunker on the US's east coast to the heads of brazill to the governments in exile in Japan. This is the problem in dealing with insurgent groups, after all, their reach and numbers are like fog.
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Aug 16, 2021 01:12
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Blood and Bullets Below the Magic Kingdom Part One: The Cursed Castle By Zanzibar Jones From the Savannah People’s News Collective paper Worker's Special Report “This is a poo poo detail inside of a poo poo mission,” said Wolfman. A hand-rolled cigarette dangled dangerously from his lip, ash almost meeting skin. Chat glanced over at him, adjusting the radio pack and tucking strands of her messy blonde hair behind one ear. “What makes you say that?” “Because it is. They got us marching to Miami in this fuckin’ heat, loaded down with gear. Who the gently caress’s idea was it to leave the fanboat behind and hoof our asses through this muck?” His boots made hollow sucking noises as he lifted them up out of the soft muddy ground. Sweat dripped from his tangled mass of a bushy black beard. The large black machinegun he carried slung over one shoulder couldn’t help either. He'd removed his jacket and wrapped it around his waist, leaving his brown shoulders exposed, though more sweat wringed the neck and arms his tank top. Were I a better man, I would have felt guilty that all I was required to carry were my camera, personal effects and the simple revolver I had been issued by my liaison with the Okefenokee Revolutionary Vanguard. Oh, and a small leather bag containing the finest cocaine you could still get in the collapsed United States. But as you know, dear reader, I am not a better man. “You gotta forget about the fanboat, man,” said Tape from somewhere behind me. I didn't have to look back to know that he was pushing his thrice-broken thick black glasses back up on his nose. “Swamp ain’t that deep out here. We go on foot or we don’t go at all.” The man always took up the rear during marches. He hung back to sneak bits of his rations to the baby alligator he kept in his satchel that he thought we didn’t know about. His fingertips were covered in small bandages that everyone politely ignored. Wolfman shook his head. “I thought we were supposed to be linking up with the Cubans. Why’s Command got us off-road in the middle of the swamp?” Marching at the center of our little formation was the squad’s leader. Wearing a cowboy hat and mirrored aviator sunglasses she looked to Wolfman as if just hearing him for the first time. “That’s need-to-know and you don’t need to know,” Rodeo said. The woman was just a hair over five feet and so skinny that her fatigues draped off her shoulders, but I had seen her cave in a man’s face with the butt of her M14 in the middle of a firefight without flinching. Even Wolfman couldn’t retort to her impassive face and settled on spitting out his cigarette butt with unnecessary enthusiasm. Off to the side I heard a small chuckle. Trudging not far from me was a tall, stocky man wearing ragged fatigues that matched the others, but added a frayed clerical collar to the ensemble. He carried a backpack filled to the brim with grenades and plastic explosives. Reverend, as he called himself, gripped a half-burned Bible in one hand and kept his eyes trained on the horizon. Drifting closer to Wolfman, I put some distance between myself and the grinning preacher. As I walked in my non-military hiking boots I stuck a hand down my pants, adjusting my underwear, which was riding up and soaked through with sweat. The muggy Florida heat was oppressive even on this overcast day and my giblets were braising in my own juices. I had been assigned to observe Rodeo’s squad for the past four months, and their little dynamic never ceased to amuse me. Though they were all avowed Maoists, they struck me as having more in common with anarchists like myself, despite their purported hatred for us. They each resented authority in their own way, but Rodeo maintained discipline through sheer force of will alone. Even I felt chills when she looked at me. The squad was a microcosm of the ORV as a whole. Dysfunctional at the best of times, but united by a shared hatred for the bourgeoisie, the reactionaries and the counterrevolutionaries, the “swamp Maoists” of the Okefenokee fiercely defended their territory. I knew they saw me as a weak-willed traitor and a lifestylist and considered themselves the true radicals. But Rodeo had been ordered to let me be and they would have died at that woman’s command. To that point, I had seen them charge headlong into enemy positions at a nod from her, and in turn watched her take bullets to protect them. Strange though they were, the squad stuck together with a fanatical loyalty. Something rustled in the tall grass to the left and the squad reacted fast. Wolfman brought his weapon to bear, dropping to one knee as Chat pulled her sidearm and Tape leveled his sawed-off shotgun. Reverend fingered one of the grenades dangling from his bandolier and Rodeo placed her hands on the grips of her revolvers, watching. Stepping out of the overgrowth was the other outsider. Extremely tall, towering over Reverend, gaunt and pale-skinned. He wore darker fatigues, in much better condition than the ORV uniforms and carried one of the Kalashnikov rifles favored by foreign fighters. A pair of binoculars dangled from his neck and if he was disturbed by the weapons aimed at him it did not show on his face. “Oh hey Dracula,” said Wolfman as he stood and raised his rifle to the sky. “I have located the target,” Dracula replied. His English was halting as he spoke in a thick Romanian accent. His ghostly appearance and Lugosi-esque manner of speaking had made his particular nickname quite easy to determine. Rodeo didn’t have to speak, she simply motioned in Dracula’s direction and the squad followed him into the thick grass. ============= ============= ============= ============= ============= ============= “Well ain’t that some poo poo?” said Chat. Wolfman whistled and Tape adjusted his glasses. Reverend made the sign of the cross and Rodeo blew a bubble with her gum. Dracula said nothing, merely looking through his binoculars. There was a castle in the fog, jutting out of the swamp as if teleported in from Arthurian legend. Well, it would have been if the Round Table were made of plastic. The massive structure was half-finished, with metal girders and rebar jutting out from unfinished sections where the facade of stone walls had not been attached. It was a ghostly image, a ghoul out of time. It almost felt profane to look at, its skeleton exposed like the rotted corpse of a stillborn baby. “All right folks, that’s our destination. Command wants us to scout the area, look for anything unusual.” Rodeo nodded at Dracula, who dropped the binoculars. They were so heavy and his neck was so thin that I was afraid it would snap. “All jokes aside, ain’t a loving castle in the middle of the swamp unusual?” said Tape. Wolfman was quick to join in. “Yeah what the poo poo is this?” Rodeo shrugged. “Command says this was supposed to be some kinda amusement park. Built by that guy Walt Disney. Didn’t manage to finish the place before the war started.” “Wait, Walt Disney like the movies? Like Snow White?” asked Chat, scurrying to keep up with everyone else, the radio equipment on her back bouncing as she pushed her way through the tall grass. “Yes,” said Reverend. “Also Walt Disney died before the war started.” Everyone looked at him as if expecting an explanation for how he knew this, but he kept his eyes on the castle. The man had a disturbing tendency to know strange things like that and never explain himself. No one knew what he had done before the ORV. “I love that movie!” Chat said as she too looked back at the castle, her eyes growing large. “Pinocchio! Bambi! Mary Poppins! Do you think they’ll have movie stuff inside? I wonder if there’s people in there. I want to meet Julie Andrews!” Tape laughed. “Chat, you’re not gonna meet Julie Andrews. I doubt she’s hiding out in some hosed up swamp castle.” He withdrew a bottle of pills from his medical bag and popped a few in plain view of the rest of the squad. No one reacted. So the doctor liked to get high on his own supply, what's the harm in that? We were only in the middle of a protracted people's war. “You never know. It could happen.” The radio operator kicked at a tuft of swamp grass with a huff. While Chat and Tape argued about the possibility of meeting Hollywood stars inside the castle that should not exist, I kept pace with the squad. I considered doing a bump but reckoned that things were strange enough without getting high. The swamp ended and we found ourselves walking across asphalt, cracked and weed-infested in places. Brown pools of stagnant water swarmed with mosquitos and we gave them a wide berth. Alligators sunned themselves outside of unfinished buildings, and we passed by several abandoned trucks, their tires long since rotted away. Bird calls filled the air and the buzzing of insects was maddening. There were no trees or tall grasses to absorb the noise, it permeated everything. All around us the swamp was reclaiming this place even before it could be finished. What could the point of it have all been? I tried to imagine the place as the builders envisioned it, full of people gawking at statues of cartoon characters and lining up for fried food and soft drinks on their way to a roller coaster. It was an aborted monument to the excess that had almost destroyed the world. The castle itself turned out to be less impressive and more sad up close. From here we could see how truly far it was from being finished. The interior was bare and the walls had huge gaps that showed the cloud-ridden sky overhead. Exposed electrical wiring, unconnected plumbing and rusty discarded tools were all evidence of a massive undertaking that would never be finished. “Looks like there ain’t poo poo here, Rodeo. I walked all around the perimeter and it don’t look like anyone’s been here in years. I guess once the shootin’ started they dropped all their poo poo and never came back,” said Wolfman, leaning against one finished section of wall, obsessively checking over his weapon. Chat knelt next to her oversized radio, tuning the dials as she grabbed the microphone. Suddenly a pale claw covered her hand and she jumped, dropping the metal instrument and scrambling away from Dracula, who had just appeared there. “No,” he said. “No contact.” She looked to Rodeo, who nodded. “We don’t call this in yet.” I found that curious. I knew that ORV Command, such as it was, demanded regular radio checks. Not checking in just wasn’t done. Dracula straightened up and adjusted his uniform. I regarded the man as an oddity, but the way that Rodeo obeyed him when she was known to clash with her superiors, it bothered me. He said he was a Comintern advisor, whatever that meant. The man had a bad habit of never blinking, which I remembered at that moment because I found him looking right back at me. I glanced away. There was something in his unwavering eyes that I just couldn’t meet. “Uh, Rodeo? I think you’re gonna want to see this,” Tape called out from the other side of the large unfinished castle interior. He wasn’t wrong. Behind a service access door he’d found a false wall that had fallen apart. Behind it was a staircase that led down into the dark. At the bottom, lit by our flashlights and a flare held by Reverend, we found a landing that terminated in a large metal door. The sort of door that closed in the middle and was usually found only in military installations. It bore no markings and appeared to be shut tight. Disturbingly, a keypad set into the wall glowed with electric light. Something was supplying it with power. Sweeping past Wolfman and Tape, Dracula approached the keypad and entered a long series of digits in a single smooth motion. From inside the thick doors, something heavy went ka-chunk and they slowly, with a loud grinding noise, pulled open. Stale air washed over us, tinged with antiseptic and rot. Dim lights burned within, illuminating a long hallway that stretched on into the darkness. Rodeo shared a look with Dracula and then she walked through the doors. The squad followed. Wolfman quickly rushed to take point and Tape stuck close to Rodeo while Chat nervously adjusted her backpack straps, looking this way and that. Dracula held his flashlight high and sniffed as he entered. I brought up the rear with Reverend, who again made the sign of the cross but grinned at me with those yellow teeth. When he spoke, it was with that same eerie calm and the crinkled eyes of someone who is in on a joke that you aren’t. “What a peculiar place to have a party.” As the man followed his squadmates I glanced back upwards towards the bit of natural light shining through that passageway above. Feeling like there was a distinct possibility I would never see the sun again, I pulled out a vial of coke and did a bump. My brain burned to life like the booster rockets on those big, beautiful MOSA ships and I eagerly followed the rest of the squad into the unknown.
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Aug 21, 2021 05:59
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Of course, it was all disney's fault.
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Aug 21, 2021 06:41
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excellent post serf
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Aug 21, 2021 07:32
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February 24, 1983 The debriefings of the captured Royal Navy submariners continue. A picture of their activities since the war is beginning to take shape. Brief periods of shore leave at isolated ports during the worst of the chaos, when they could get away with such things - and, more recently, in barren uninhabited wastelands in the Earth's more isolated corners, where no one will see them. Resupply secretly taken on from civilian freighters in the dead of night; maintenance and repairs conducted at temporary outposts in Greenland, Antarctica, northern Canada. The team debriefing them is already in the process of compiling a report, and cross-referencing what they're learning with what is already known or suspected of Gladio activities. Meanwhile, the ship they rendezvoused with is conclusively identified - the Amy Dear, a Nigerian-flagged container ship owned by an originally US-based shipping firm now headquartered in Brazil. Her route since then is plotted out - from there she continued on to her scheduled destination of Philadelphia, then back across the ocean to Amsterdam, then finally to Lagos, where she has been for the last several months undergoing maintenance. She offloaded an entire hold full of cargo at Amsterdam, and attempting to track that cargo is already underway. February 26, 1983   Earth. Home. Looming impossibly large outside the windows. So tantalizingly close. The Cydonia survivors cannot take their eyes off of it. They crowd around the windows, awestruck. They'll be there tomorrow. They'll be back. February 27, 1983 The inaugural session of the World Forum is officially convened at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The multi-day summit will, first and foremost, attempt to codify this as a permanent body, incorporating Comintern and non-Comintern nations in an international diplomatic forum. It will present the early draft of the Ascension Accords, a treaty you voted to propose, and begin working on revisions to that treaty to produce a final version that can be voted on and formalized (the draft you passed is here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3943978&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post513634019). It will, in closed-session meetings, present your diplomatic proposals to India and Japan. It will, perhaps most importantly, reveal the existence of the Mars ruins to the world, and welcome the Cydonia survivors back to Earth, publicly. It will also technically serve as the beginning of the World Socialist Exhibition, although the main event will not happen until May, when it is spring in the Northern Hemisphere; more amenable weather for big outdoor events. Hundreds of delegates are present, from most of the functioning polities on the planet, including several that are inveterately hostile to the Comintern; there are a few exceptions, of course, but anyone who isn't here is missing because they chose not to attend, not because they weren't invited. While the 'Knights of Cydonia' were told what to expect, throwing them directly to the wolves was seen as a bit rude, so they'll be brought down privately, and given a day to adjust, before the big announcement is dropped tomorrow. Their arrival is officially the arrival of representatives from the Mars science team, to present a report to the assembled delegates tomorrow. In the meeting hall, a temporary structure constructed out of a huge disused aircraft hangar, the first day is mostly spent on procedural formalities - working out credentials and seating, schedules and agendas, formally opening the session, introducing the whole affair with speeches I will not recount in detail here. On the other side of the complex, out of sight of anyone but the Ministry team assigned to greet them, the landers bearing the men from Mars touch down. The first man out immediately scrambles off the pad to the bare grass nearby, and falls to his hands and knees, big, racking sobs shaking his body; the second sweeps a member of the ground team up in a crushing bear hug; the third lets out a long, wordless scream at the sky. Hundreds more follow, displaying a range of emotions and reactions from solemn dignity to uncontrolled exuberance. Earth's wayward sons have come home. By degrees they are rounded up and herded into their temporary shelter, to be fed, groomed, and prepared for the world stage. You voted to award a medal to these men, the Abduction Medal, to be awarded to survivors of alien abductions. Design this medal. You will have three days to submit designs, at which point the thread will vote. The LP will not pause for this contest and there will be at least one more update in that time. Also, if you've got any speeches you want to deliver on the world stage, you'll have an opportunity to make them when the floor opens after the next update. People will see these in-universe and they may have consequences. Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Aug 21, 2021 |
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Aug 21, 2021 09:30
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I'm so glad to see them back. Also, We found a candidate for the flag of california. Although the name's off and I have no idea who actually did this. (I found it on a blog that is literally nothing but variations of the bear flag)
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Aug 21, 2021 10:42
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Excerpts from Flottes de Combat, 1981 (translated from the original French) Even as the eyes of the world turn to space, the sea remains as important as ever. A decade of peace following the effective end of the Great Revolutionary War’s naval fighting has meant surprisingly little has changed -- while there has been no major fighting to reduce the size of fleets, the devastation to world economies and subsequent reconstruction has prevented the launch of much new floating stock… ...The most powerful navy in the world remains the Soviet Navy, following the devastation of the navies of the prior major naval powers (and the destruction of the country wholesale, in one case). Still mostly equipped with submarines and small craft, the Soviet Navy has been ill-equipped to take the “world policeman” role previously held by the Royal and American Navies, to the delight of pirates worldwide, and has shown little interest in doing so, at least outside of direct Soviet interests. Nevertheless, the Soviet Navy is still the world’s largest, and does feature some devastating surface combatants, including the world’s most modern “super-cruiser”, the brand-new missile cruiser Kirov, which has taken its place as the pride of the Soviet fleet… ...The Japanese Navy has dropped all pretense at being purely for self-defense, following the Constitutional Reform of 1974 -- though in practice, its role has changed little. Japan’s limited access to raw resources, particularly fuel, has forced the republican Navy into a very different form to its Imperial predecessor; fast, flexible, and efficient, Japan’s fleet of destroyers are a common sight in Asian ports, often escorting her two light aircraft carriers, Akagi and Amagi, and providing one of the few active anti-pirate forces in the western Pacific. Japan also hosts a large number of United States Navy fleet units, though few of them have moved or patrolled in years, due to the situation of the Government-in-Exile… ...Indeed, many of the U.S. successor states have taken over parts of its navy -- and often much older parts than expected. The bulk of the U.S.’ “mothball fleet” was located either in California’s Suisun Bay or in Philadelphia harbor. The latter was moved to Baltimore by the Federal Government when control of Philadelphia became in doubt; the government has reactivated almost none of it due to lack of resources and has been slowly scrapping select parts of what remains to keep the national budget in the black. The former has provided a large part of the fleet reserve of the People’s Republic of California, along with its prize flagship: the veteran Iowa-class battleship Missouri, which was purchased from the Cascadian Worker’s Collective in 1977 as part of a larger economic package and recently re-entered service after an extensive refit. California also features one of the only surviving U.S. aircraft carriers, CSS Republic, formerly the Essex-class Hancock, which was stuck in drydock due to extensive fire damage at the time of the Californian Revolution... ...Two other successor states prominently run US battleships as their flagships. The more prominent of the two, USS Massachusetts is the flagship of the New England Naval Defense Force, and while such information is not public, best estimates suggest she is nearly running their naval force bankrupt to maintain. She is, however, still regularly seen at sea nonetheless, mostly used in posturing at the Five Nations and occasionally as a major representative for New England at diplomatic events. The other, the USS North Carolina, leads what is known as the Shoestring Fleet, a navy collectively operated by the three Southern Cominterplan states of New Afrika, Outer Banks, and Lower Georgia. The Shoestring Fleet is assembled out of various ships scattered across the South prior to the War (with the exception of USS Alabama, which is still in NRC territory and has not been reactivated), and mostly consists of Coast Guard assets and gun destroyers; the North Carolina is only rarely out of harbor, due to shortages of parts and materiel, but just by existing it gives the three Cominterplan states a major diplomatic edge in the region. Finally, the dreadnought USS Texas is formally commissioned as the flagship of the Texas Navy, but in practice has not sailed in decades; it is questionable whether it even could in the present day. Most of the Texas command is housed in a nearby office complex… ...The Republican Navy of the Union of Britain is now the second-largest in Europe, due to the loss of much of the force either to control of the British Government-in-Exile or being sunk in the course of the Great Revolutionary War. The flagship of the fleet is the WW2-vintage WLNS Victorious, the only British carrier to survive the combat; she had been deemed obsolete immediately after a reconstruction and was awaiting scrapping when the British Revolution struck, freshly outfitted. A new carrier, WLNS Triumphant, is nearing completion to replace her in this role… ...The French Navy is the most modern in Europe, due to almost all of it having been sunk; almost all of its ships are new builds, though none are currently larger than destroyers. The outright disappearance of the old battleship Jean Bart remains one of the unsolved mysteries of the war period; currently the French flagship is the Liberte, formerly USS Arlington, which was the US command ship for the French theater until its capture in Brest harbor by a combined French/Italian force... ...The German Navy survived the War surprisingly intact, but with its infrastructure nearly annihilated for both East and West. As such, the German destroyers and modern submarines have been largely based out of French ports since the Volksrepublik’s founding, a situation which irritates Germany’s naval commanders but which has laid the foundation for solid international service cooperation. While the fleet’s stars are the cutting-edge destroyers Liebknecht, Luxemburg, and Zetkin, the formal flagship of the German Navy is the ancient battlecruiser Goeben, formerly in service as the Yavuz in Turkey; reacquired shortly after the War, it has been in continuous refit ever since, acting as the source of considerable conflict between the Navy and the Shipbuilder’s Union… [Liebknecht, Luxemburg, and Zetkin were, in real life, the Lütjens, Mölders, and Rommel. The reason for their renaming is self-evident.] ...The Italian Navy suffered almost no losses thanks to Italy's withdrawal from NATO prior to the start of the Great Revolutionary War, and today is the largest in Europe (excepting the Soviets), which has greatly increased Italy's prominence and prestige in naval spheres. The Mediterranean is almost exclusively patrolled by the Italians in the modern day, using their slowly increasing fleet of helicopter cruisers and missile destroyers, led by the flagship Italia. Plans for a proper aircraft carrier are nearing final authorization after years of negotiation and planning, spurred on by the increased Gladio terrorist efforts in Italy pushing the country back towards an internationalist footing... ...Thanks to the country immolating from within, the Australasian Navy survived the War to become the most powerful single navy in the South Pacific, though not necessarily the largest. Ironically, this is not a role the Australasians particularly want -- their power projection units are the light carriers Sydney and Melbourne, which are generally seen as a boondoggle project in a Navy focused on light patrol units for its seemingly endless islands, coasts, and reefs. Nevertheless, as there is no realistic way for them to regain that edge if they discard it, the UAWR has continued to find roles for its “heavy units''. The Sydney is usually seen in UAWR semi-signatory Hong Kong, where it has developed something of a rivalry with the Japanese Akagi which also frequents the harbor. The Melbourne, meanwhile, has been in refit since 1979 due to a series of collisions with other vessels, and has gained a hushed reputation as a cursed ship...
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Aug 23, 2021 00:20
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February 28, 1983 Vandenberg was not designed for major diplomatic summits, and there is already confusion and grumbling among the neutral nations about why, exactly, the Reds were so insistent everyone meet here. They are still meeting, though - this is the first time since the outbreak of the war that there has been even an attempt to put on an event of this scale, and no one wants to miss out on it. The mood is quietly anticipatory as the delegates are shuttled from their lodgings to the hangar, beneath a dense layer of low-hanging clouds that warn of rain later in the day. The first day was procedural; the second day is where you lay your cards on the table and explain why exactly everyone is here. Who exactly was to preside over this meeting was a matter of some contentious internal debate, and, in the end, the least controversial option was selected. It had to be someone who would not be seen as favoring any one of the Interplanetary's various internal factions; someone who would not be seen as representing the official position of any state or organization; in short, it couldn't be a personality - but it still had to be someone people would respect, someone important enough that people would listen to them, and, most importantly, someone who was already cleared and briefed. Various diplomats and statesmen were considered, from all over the world. In the end, it was the Mars issue that decided it - the announcement needed to come from someone with firsthand knowledge. An extremely reluctant Fleet Officer Emma Brzostek, Commander of XCOM, was drafted into the role.  It is a role she is quite untrained for, and she's spent sleepless nights studying parliamentary procedure preparing for this; even now, frantic staffers coach her through her earpiece, as she sits at the podium in grey dress uniform. As specific topics come up on the agenda, she yields the floor to one speaker or another, trying her best to keep things moving along. It's...easier than she expected, and she grows more confident in her performance with each passing minute. The following major issues are being brought up at this 'World Forum' summit, and will be presented to the floor in order - just a brief overview on this first day, with days of debate and discussion to follow. First, the World Forum itself, as passed by you: quote:The World Forum The existence of this body must be ratified, policies and procedures drawn up, terms of membership decided on. Committees will need to be struck, break-out sessions organized. Second, the draft of the Ascension Accords is to be presented, as voted on by you, text of the draft to be found here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3943978&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post513634019. Interest will be assessed, feedback solicited, the process of hammering out a working final draft begun. Third, the creation of Comintern Observer Nation status, as voted on by you, will be publicly revealed, and interested parties solicited: quote:This will create the status of "Comintern Observer Nation" for those nations aligned with us or that we are negotiating with. This status would confer upon it lesser benefits than a full member, but without many of the obligations that some are unable to or currently unwilling to abide by. They will be able to observe the actions of the presidium, but not to vote themselves and their nation will gain access to such benefits as development grants, access to TNE materials and civilian technology, possibly even full technology and perhaps intelligence sharing. Included is the right to engage in the comintern customs and postal union. The right to maintain their own civilian spacefleets, ect. Edit: In return, they must abide by comintern regulations on the rights of workers, cooperation with comintern observers and full transparency on their end as well as full cooperation with international regulations and treaties. Fourth, North American outreach will be emphasized, via the creation of the North American Forum and the publicizing of the North American Outreach and Reconstruction Act, as voted on by you. Fifth, the Socialist World Exhibition will be inaugurated, and invites extended to the main event. There will be a period of open floor discussion for subjects not previously discussed. Any speeches delivered before the Mars revelations will go somewhere in here. Finally, the bomb will be dropped. Commander Brzostek herself will take the floor for this one, initially. This is the part she's focused on, and the rest of the day up to this point passes by her in a fog; years later, when asked about it, she will remember nothing of the day before the moment she takes the podium, to deliver the announcement. She bangs the gavel for order, and, as expectant silence descends on the hall, broken only by the pattering of rain on the metal roof of the hangar, she takes a deep breath. She is acutely aware of the cameras focusing on her, and that her every word is being broadcast live, worldwide. "My friends, I am going to be direct and to the point. In March of 1981, the Ministry geological survey ship Karzelek discovered a complex of ruined alien structures on the surface of Mars." The projector behind her displays orbital photographs from this initial survey, annotated. "Additional investigation did not occur until almost exactly one year later, in March 1982, when additional ships and resources could be mustered. Upon arrival, our second team discovered that several of the structures on the surface, though abandoned and heavily damaged, were intact, retaining power and atmosphere. This atmosphere was breathable." More projector slides - thermal imaging, low-orbit photography, statistics and data readouts. Staffers pass out hundreds of packets full of photocopies. Another deep breath, as she flips to the next slide - a very carefully framed image of the Martian cryostasis tubes, showing several rows of the human occupants. "The largest of these intact chambers contained several thousand living humans stored in suspended animation, similar to our own cyronics tubes." There is a general uproar in the room, and she has to bang her gavel again to restore order. The next slide is a transcript of the first communications. "Over three hundred of those survivors had already been freed from stasis approximately a year previously. We believe this was an automated process. No other living beings have been discovered in our explorations of the complex." The next slide - stock images of the ships the survivors came from. "These three hundred men are the crew of the United States Navy vessel USS Cyclops and the German Navy submarine U-61. They have been missing in action since 1918. They have not aged a day." More uproar, tinged with shock and disbelief. The clamor eventually dies down with more gavel-banging. "These survivors were stranded on an alien world, low on supplies. A mission was undertaken to rescue them. They have been through an extensive period of quarantine, received the necessary examinations and immunizations, and have been confirmed to be sound in mind and body. And," next slide, a photograph of a man in a space suit embracing a Vandenberg ground technician, taken just yesterday, "they are home. They are, in fact, on this very base, as we speak." Chaos. It takes a full five minutes before proceedings can resume, and even then it's over a general murmur that takes quite a while to die down to full silence. "That there is other intelligent life in the universe, that they are technologically advanced, that they have visited Earth in the recent past, all of this was already known to us," she says, eventually. "But the sheer scale of this contact is a revelation none of us could have anticipated. The Mars ruins remain largely unexplored, and what we have explored, we do not understand. As an urgent priority, the Communist Interplanetary will be conducting an extensive xenoarchaeological survey of the site, and will be conducting further survey operations throughout the Solar System, in order to acquire knowledge and ensure the safety of Earth and its people." Brzostek yields the floor to other Comintern officials. If you had a speed to deliver after the Mars revelations, it'll happen sometime around here, or later if you specifically wanted to speak with the Mars survivors present. Once that wave of talking is done, there's still one last thing. A side door is opened. A literal red carpet is rolled out. In parade formation, in full dress uniforms - some beautiful bastard even located, or had manufactured, period-appropriate US and German navy dress uniforms for them - the crews of the Cyclops and the U-61 are marched out to meet the world. Their faces - plastered with expressions that are half delighted smile, half terrified grimace - show up on virtually every television on Earth and the Moon. They're presented with honors and medals. More talking - speeches to them, about them, even a few from them. It's nowhere near enough, of course, and delegates will inevitably request or demand interviews, debriefs, interrogations - but this is a rescue mission, not an exhibition. There is still one final objective to be achieved. These men are to go home. Under heavy security, they are eventually ushered out of the hall, and returned to their quarters, from there to be sent back to the various places they wish to go. There will be much more to be done with them later, of course, but, inside the hall, the effects of what you just did must be dealt with. Now that it's all done, no one quite knows what else to say. The overall impression is one of shock. A recess is called. Almost as soon as the recess begins, every line out of Vandenberg is jammed to capacity. The local Internetwork hub temporarily crashes and has to be reset. Phone, telex, fax, satellite communications, every goddamn way a person can get a message out, they're all overloaded, as practically everyone at the Forum phones home for instructions. Amidst this chaos, a small, elite team of Comintern diplomats prepares for their mission, almost serenely calm. They were briefed, they knew this was coming, and they were ready. It's time to talk to Japan. It's time to talk about Venus. Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Aug 23, 2021 |
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Aug 23, 2021 09:09
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This one is post martian reveal. "Oh, god, they're already screaming out there." Robert Walker sat, with his head in his hands, listening to the clamour in the hanger. Across the room, his liaison with the UAWR's Council on International Cooperation, finished dragging her cigarette down to her fingertips, then flicked the butt away into the bin. "We knew that would happen. Anyway, you're up. Go gettem." Swallowing, composing himself, he took the stand as his name was called. So began his speech. UAWR: on Our Nature "We are not alone. We have known this for years, now. But it's different. They're here. They were here just decades ago. And they're almost certainly alive out there. I can see on your faces the questions that first come to mind: "Are they friendly? Are they enemies? Are they like us? Are they different?" And for a moment, you see the person standing next to you as a human, against an enemy unknown. That's very disappointing. I see now, across the world, while the fires burn out and the ashes are swept away by time and the winds of fate, enemies cease to be so and we start to wonder where we stand with those we have always been shoulder to shoulder with. Is mutual antagonism all that united us? Is hate all that can bring humanity together? I don't think this is so, but even if it was, we have that power to change. Solidarity is not just a word, it is the continual action whereby unity can be crafted, of mutual respect and goals aligned. We do not need an enemy, do not need an other to align ourselves against. If we work to craft a society, a world, of great wonders and works, we may define ourselves by the peace we have secured, by the millions who do not go hungry and by the privation none may endure. That is a future that could be, yes. But I am not blind to the present: there are those who will leave here as enemies and many whose very nature is set against a peace won by us. And I am not so naïve as to think that those beyond our skies will be universally peaceful either. But wars to come do not need to be the centrepiece of our nature. Let peace and shared effort be the nature of our comintern, and those beyond it. If both meet as foes again, let victory be gentle."
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Aug 23, 2021 09:41
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Post-Martian bombshell The woman who walks onstage seems too young to be here. Jessie Lin wears civilian clothes, a black t-shirt with an unbuttoned red flannel on top and jeans with work boots. Her attire is rebelliously casual for such a momentous occasion and a direct statement to the world. The Lower Georgia United Workers' Front enforces no dress codes regardless of the event in question. Just offstage her superior officer Hector Torres wears his modified old National Guard uniform in contrast to her. Her clothing sparked a heated confrontation with their Cominterp hosts, but in the end she won the right to wear her everyday clothes, but now in the light of what was just revealed she feels as though maybe she should have worn something a bit nicer. The woman herself is decidedly average. Five and a half feet tall, straight black hair tied up in a simple ponytail and light brown eyes. To her comrades, she has titles like "Valkyrie" or "The Angel of I-95." She technically holds the position of Lieutenant in People's Will, the largest militia in the Front. She was 15 years old when the war broke out and her father, a Teamsters organizer who led a truck drivers' strike in Savannah, was murdered by the Georgia State Patrol. She piled dictionaries in the seat of his truck and tied wooden blocks to the pedals and drove his big rig up and down the coast to deliver food, medicine and arms to the people resisting the federal and state government. She had run roadblocks and engaged in shootouts with Army Reserve forces when she should have been studying math. Her convoy of trucks had saved countless lives with the supplies they delivered and had provided transportation to people fleeing the worst of the civil war. In her truck she'd driven through hurricanes, outrun tornados, dodged artillery fire and braved high radiation levels. After the war she had organized the logistics network that currently supplies the Front and beyond, and been awarded whatever medals the various factions could think to give her. All of that paled in comparison to the task of delivering this speech. She could use a sawed-off shotgun to blow the tires out of a reactionary militiaman's technical while doing 75, but public speaking terrified her. Jessie had never gotten anywhere by running from her fears, so she marches dutifully to the podium, fidgeting with her eyepatch. "Hey there," she said, doing her best to just focus on the bright lights that hid the crowd from her. "Boy I sure wish I'd known that all that spaceman stuff was gonna happen. Kinda a tough act to follow, y'know?" No one had warned her about the Martian reveal, so she decided to go off-script. "If any little green men want to come down to Claxton, Georgia and give me a spaceship I'd sure appreciate it. I could get a lot done with some fancy tech like that." Jessie laughs nervously and looks at the cards in front of her. It all reads like gibberish now. "So, um, what I wanted to say was... Well, I was selected for this duty because I kinda bridge the gap for the Front. Durin' the war I was military, well sorta. I fell into it like lots of folks did. Had to fight back. And then when it was over, I went back to bein' a civilian. Mostly. I think that sometimes people forget that the fightin' ain't done for a lot of folks. I don't go nowhere without my .45 because the pigs is everywhere." A murmur runs through the crowd and she holds up her hands. "Sorry, I don't got it right now because y'all got plenty of guns and plus they told me I couldn't. Sorry, sorry." She smiles as best she can. "Anyways, I finished high school a bit late and then I went to the People's School and got an education. Mostly stuff I'd already picked up runnin' beans and bullets all over the state but with some fancier words. Started a family, didn't get married though on account of I don't have to anymore. I can do what I want, y'know, within reason. "That's what I wanted to talk about y'see. Life's better now than it was before the war. People I know don't worry no more about bills, or how gettin' sick will make 'em go bankrupt. They don't worry about keepin' a roof over their heads or how they're gonna eat. My ma don't have to worry about gettin' discriminated against because there ain't no capitalist pig-dog tellin' people that they got to worry about some Chinese person takin' their job. We are buildin' that better world my daddy, God rest his soul, died for. It was worth gettin' shot at and stabbed and almost blowed to hell over. Some folks'll say that the old ways was broken, but that ain't true. It was bad on purpose! It was bad so that they could make a few extra dollars, drat what that meant for the rest of us. Them people at the top stood on our necks until they was almost broke. Took us goin' drat near to the apocalypse to finally throw 'em off. "And some of them people are still around. They woke up today dreamin' of goin' back to that world, and schemin' about how they're gonna do it!" She bangs one fist on the podium, sending a jolt through the crowd. "They sit there in their mansions and their bunkers and they think of ways to take us down. And to them I say: do your fuckin' worst." She's getting less nervous now, falling into the mode of the fire and brimstone preachers she seeks to emulate. "We shed blood and sweat and tears to get to where we are, and you ain't gonna take it from us without a fight. I'll be a corpse in the ground before you get back what we managed to win. I will not go back to the way things was, and I got millions of comrades who think just the same! "So all y'all capitalists, imperialists, racists, reactionaries and general pieces-of-poo poo better enjoy breathin' while you still can because your days are numbered! And to the bootlickers and cowards that still serve 'em, I say throw down your guns, or turn 'em on your masters! Eat 'em alive, and we'll welcome you with open arms! To all my comrades out there who are still fightin' every day for our better world, I say help is on the way. It's got eighteen wheels, forty tons of metal and it's armed to the teeth and it don't take no poo poo from anyone!" Picking up her cards and neatly shuffling them into a shirt pocket, Jessie turns to walk offstage towards Torres, who stands there slack-jawed. Mid-step she remembers something and hurries back to the podium, interrupting the host as she grabs the microphone. "Oh yeah, I dunno if any of y'all space aliens can understand this, but the same goes for you! But if you're friendly and were just kidnappin' people to save 'em or somethin' I will still take that spaceship." With that she smiles politely to the host and relinquishes the podium, retreating off-stage and brushing past the security officers sent to usher her away.
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Aug 23, 2021 15:28
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Post Martian Announcement "...well, that takes care of showing off the stick at least. Now, let's make that carrot look nice and sweet..." "Ahem. My fellow delegates, foreign dignitaries, members of the press. I know you've all had a rather severe shock at the recent revelations. Some of you may feel that this information should have been announced sooner, but let me assure you, we have revealed information as quickly as was possible while doing our due diligence, minimizing the possible risk to mankind in the abstract, and upon their discovery, the Cydonia captives in particular. Forgive us. Besides, everyone keeps their little secrets." pointedly tries not to shoot a glance at the Japanese delegates "With these revelations comes a new perspective on our place in the universe. We have, for several years now, known that we are not alone in the universe. The Roswell crash showed that in the late 40s. These new discoveries, however, truly show the enormity of this situation. We have had extraterrestrial beings intentionally interacting with Earth for at least a century, probably more. The exact nature of these interactions is still opaque to us, but it is there. Mankind is not merely some backwater that is stumbled upon by chance. We are a part of bigger things, like it or not." "Some might find this notion terrifying, and it certainly can be. We are small fish in an immeasurably big pond. But it is important to remember that, though we all have differing philosophies and worldviews, we are all descended from explorers, going all the way back to Homo habilis. Long have we looked at unknown frontiers and felt a pull to see what was beyond the horizon. Well now, ladies and gentlemen, the horizon is the sky itself." "In recent years, we in the Comintern have begun our first hesitant steps into truly exploring the Solar System. Our technology is currently insufficient to truly even appreciate what we have already found, other than its broad significance. There are those who scorn our way of life, but it has always been our creed that all mankind can be freed from bondage, free from want and deprivation, that ALL mankind can be uplifted. And now, in the dawning of this new Age of Exploration, we are finally truly approaching that goal, for space has untold resources and discoveries waiting for us." "But it is not with mere greed that we look to the stars. That is the way of the Old World, a world that destroyed itself in nuclear fire and is never coming back. Space contains more than riches, more than land. It contains wonders, wonders undreamt of by all the artists and theorists and philosophers in humanity's history up to now. All of it, waiting for us, Mankind's shared birthright. We at the Comintern have the expertise and resources to reach for them, and if you're willing, if you're ready, we wish to share it with you, with all our brothers and sisters and comrades. The sky calls to us, a civilization that is finally prepared for it. I hope you join us. Thank you"
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Aug 23, 2021 16:56
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Pre-Martian Announcement, Delegate from the USSR "The old world is dead. We killed it. Through righteous struggle, love for our comrades, cleverness of mind, and strength of arms we beat the life out of the old hateful order of imperialism, capitalism, and strife. Its corpse has lain cooling on the ground these past 14 years. Sometimes twitching, spasming in a mockery of life, but well and truly dead. For the past fourteen years, we have been digging capitalism's grave. With shovels made of new metals, crafted and wielded by the hand of every sort of worker, the grave now beckons that hateful corpse. Now is the time wrap it in the burial shroud, the time to shove the whole rotted thing into the pit and cover it over and finally begin anew. Some of you lie to yourselves, to each other, because you loved that awful corpse. 'No, our friend, our love, cannot be gone. Look, see how it still moves!' you tell each other, unwilling to face the truth. In the coming hours, weeks, and months, you will learn the depth of your error, your self-deception. You will see it in these talks, in the wonders we and our comrades bring into the world, in the unparalleled might behind our words that you haven't even begun to comprehend. And then you will be faced with a choice. You can join hands with us. True freedom, wealth, and forgiveness can be had for all. In the game of states, mercy is the luxury of the unassailable. It is a luxury we have in abundance, that you have partaken of, often without even realizing, these many long years. You need only reach out, grasp a shovel, and help us bury capitalism and imperialism and bigotry in all its forms forever, and it can be the luxury you give to others. Or you can cling to the lie. You can try in false hope and vanity to keep us from our work. You can try to cling, wailing, to that fetid corpse as we shove it in the grave. But be warned, this will not stop us. Will not even slow us. If you insist on that foolish course then know, just as Comrade Khrushchev promised, that we will bury you as well! Choose life instead. Choose international camaraderie, justice, and socialism. Thank you."
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Aug 24, 2021 00:58
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It was somewhat surprising in back-circles that, having direct interests in the Martian abductees, that the Deutsche Volksrepublik would insist on having a speaking slot before their announcement. The expectation in general was for the Germans to send someone important, of course. One of the state leaders, a union leader, maybe a Minister. Perhaps Representative Fletcher would be given yet another task for his heavy slate. What they got, however, nobody expected. Two dour-looking Willi Sängers take position at either end of the stage, doing their best and failing to blend into the background. Down the stage and up to the podium, looking more animated than in the last five years of public appearances, and wearing his famous smile, marches Rudi Dutschke, Rudi the Red, Chairman of the German People's Republic. He may be leaning on the podium harder than he did as a fire-breathing youth, but his voice is strong and his tone as breathless as ever as he speaks, head bobbing, eyes alight. Speech of Rudi Dutschke, Vorsitzender der Deutsche Volksrepublik, 28 February 1983. “I have never been happier to be proven wrong. To see all of you here in this room, I know I have been proven right and wrong in the same breath, and I cannot begin to describe the feeling. Fifteen years ago I thought that a revolution, a better world, was so far in the distance we could not dream of reaching it, that we would have to crawl there by inches. In that I was wrong. We may not be there yet, but we have climbed countless miles in a few short steps.” “And it is because I was right that I can be wrong, though I risk proving right all those who claimed me selbstverherrlichend.“ [There is a pause and some laughter, even from those who don't speak German; Dutschke's meaning isn't hard to grasp.] "I knew that no small elite could lead a true socialist revolution; only the people could do that. And they did! The people of Germany, of the world, stood up against the hideousness of Vietnam, of France, of colonialism, of rapacious greed, and said 'we will no longer let this on our conscience!' It was aufklärung, a rise from unconsciousness, as though a light had been turned on to let the world see, and what I had thought would take decades arose in the span of months, of weeks, where people threw off the institutions and the ways of thinking that had blinded them and turned to a new way. A kinder way! A better way. Even as we struggle through the world left in ashes, I am the happiest man in the world, because all I have dreamed of has been surpassed." "I am, of course, not blind myself, to that I stand before representatives of countries which still hold to those old institutions which have not failed them, which will think I am scolding and mocking them. I could not be further from this! I have always derided the idea that I am a wise man, set above other people on a golden chair in an ivory tower of knowledge. Ruling the world is not what I desire, and it is not a solution to our problems, so I have never sought it! The people of Germany have been shown far too often to be fallible to declare ourselves the arbiters of truth. We cannot tell the people of Japan, of India, of Brazil, of Nigeria what they should want for themselves, cannot dictate life to them as it was once dictated to us. Aufklärung cannot be forced upon the population. But we can, and hope, to stand before you, and show you the way we have found! Liberation is our responsibility, to repay those we once exploited with the fruits that the exploitation has wrought, to ensure that they are not left behind and hungry in the wake of our awakening. Our bright future can be yours, and everyone's, if you decide that you wish to follow in the footsteps of our long march. We will not make the decision for you, but we know what we have gained, and we will hold open the door." "Our march has no end, for revolution is not an instant, or an event, but a process unending, a constant effort of improvement that does not end because guns fall silent or banners of victory are raised, an ideal to pursue rather than a goal to be reached and rested upon. It is a continuous motion, and a collective motion, and we Germans – all we socialists – will never declare it finished and that we stand atop its mountain. We stand, als Kollektiv, and welcome you to see what we have reached already, and to join us in continuing to find ever-better tomorrows!" There is a, perhaps, surprising amount of applause – it is a classical Dutschke speech. Few notice afterwards that Dutschke leans on one of the paratroopers after he descends into the crowd, the way he sinks heavily into his seat. But when the Cydonians make it on stage, and the German U-boat crew salutes the crowd, Dutschke nevertheless is on his feet, clapping, grinning from ear to ear. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Aug 24, 2021 |
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Aug 24, 2021 04:27
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This speech is made post-reveal. A young woman approaches the podium. She stands, watching the crowd for a few moments, appraising them with a smile, and begins. 'Friends and delegates! I am honoured to stand here before you today, acting as but one representative in the great meeting of peoples that is this conference. My name is Tsastiqualus, and I am here today on behalf of the Cascadian Workers Collective. I was originally elected as the representative for the Pauaquachin nation, but trust me when I say that the.. shall we say, active, political landscape of the CWC lends itself well to an education in public speaking. I know that many of you are still reeling from the implications of the Martian reveal, and the speech of yet another young socialist may seem like nothing worth your interest, but I ask you to stick with me. I promise that what I speak of is something that is relevant to everyone here.' There is a small silence as she gathers herself up and takes a quick glance at her notes, before she continues, never once looking back at them. 'Now. I doubt many of you have heard of the Cascadian Workers Collective before this conference, and I would like to take a few moments to share what it's like. About her people. About my home. The CWC is a collection of autonomous communities located along the Pacific northwest of North America, from small settlements with less than a hundred people, to the many First Nations finally able to organize and govern themselves in their own rightful lands, and all the thousands you can find in the many neighbourhood communes of the Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland metropolitan regions. There are over one hundred individual collectives in the CWC, all with their own needs, expectations, goals. They vary wildly in population, resources, infrastructure, and means of production, and are as diverse a group of peoples as you could ever find. ...Sounds like a complete mess, right? (There is some scattered laughter.) And yet, it works! People are happy, well fed, and fulfilled. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard the same thing as I've toured the CWC in my duties as a representative: things are better now. Better than before the war. Yes, there is always hard work to be done, and we've had to get used to doing without certain luxuries we had gotten accustomed to, but the people are happier. They're able to freely do the occupations that call to them without worrying about putting food on the table, able to go home to their families and spend time in leisure and study as they see fit. And all it took was cooperation. Simple cooperation. Collectives trade with each other. Look out for each other. Collaborate on things like infrastructure, defence, economic projects. It all works because while we are all individual communes, together we form a community. And a community looks out for each other. I tell you all this because what I see in front of me is a parallel of my home. Everyone here comes from their own community, be it a nation, a polity, or simply an organization, and the citizens of those communities need things. Your people desire food and shelter, comfort and prosperity, progress and security. They all have goals and dreams, things they wish to accomplish, things they wish to protect, things that are worth protection. All around the world, the human condition is to strive, to constantly grasp at improvement, to do their best to flourish. And what I tell you is that that future is possible. Not only possible, but achievable! I see all of you here today, and I see what could be. A potential for something greater; a community not of towns and cities, but of nations, of peoples, of us all! I see people the world over living comfortably, pursuing their interests, proud in their work, taken care of in illness, disability and old age, secure in the knowledge that their future looks bright, that they and their families have a place in the history that we will all write together. I see what could be, if we were all brave enough to see it through together. And I tell you that this future is not only a dream, but now, a necessity. With the discovery of an unknown alien society active in our solar system within the last 40 years, the importance of humanity uniting becomes more critical than ever! Their intentions are unknown, and although it is entirely too early to attribute either malice or kindness to them, what is true is that, if it comes down to it, we can never hope to show a strong united front if political and economic divisions weaken us.' She bangs her fist on the podium, inciting a few jumps from audience members. Her eyes shine as she continues. 'We need to move on! We need to advance the clock, past the time of ideological and national conflict, and sieze the potential of our peoples! We must together overthrow the villains of poverty, sickness, and neglect, and fully realize the destiny of humanity; a united Earth, bright eyed and facing the future, strong and vibrant, in an era of peace, scientific advancement, and prosperity. We must secure a future, not just for our children, but for our descendants for all time; we must ensure that there is a future for humanity written in the stars until the stars themselves go out!' She pauses, bringing herself back a bit, and appraises the crowd. Some watch excitedly, some merely interested, but she hopes, none sit in judgement and scorn. 'I truly believe that in the coming years, in meetings like this one, facilitated by organizations like the World Forum, that we will together lay the groundwork for further cooperation and mutual understanding. I enthusiastically invite all of you, and your diverse nations and polities, to approach each other in warmth and with an open hand. There is so, so much we can gain from each other, and so much we can do for the future. Thank you.' She bows to the seated delegates, and quietly exits the stage. There is strong applause, but she barely hears it, instead returning to the CWC envoys; that is, the friends and family that have supported her all the way. Her father looks at her with pride as she tears up, and takes her into her arms, and holding her, murmurs: 'You spoke from the heart. That is all that matters, nene. You did well. They will see.' zanni fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Aug 24, 2021 |
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Aug 24, 2021 08:13
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Pre-Reveal Good afternoon, all. My name is Doctor Charles Young. I'm a delegate to the Lunar Assembly, representing the Artemis Psychology Collective. And I'm speaking to you, live from a quarter of a million miles away - to talk to you about my home, and what it took to build it. There's a very curious phenomenon that's been noted among cosmonauts since spaceflight began - noted in Gagarin himself. Now I don't mean some kind of- some physical phenomenon, I am not here to tell you that the Fantastic Four are real, strong, and right here out of frame. No, the phenomenon I'm talking about is altogether more subtle, and psychological in nature. The cosmonaut blasts off, rocketing- literally rocketing through the atmosphere, moving at speeds the human body never thought it could handle, like being on a rollercoaster that's on fire - and then it's over. The cosmonaut looks out of the window, and he sees something for the first time. He sees the Earth, below him, so far below him that he can see the planet curving below him, proving a multitude of Church Fathers wrong with a single glance. He sees entire cloud systems, whole continents, the transition from desert to grassland to mountain to the snowline, all laid out in front of him like out of a geography textbook. But he doesn't see any borders, anywhere. All he sees is a single planet, lush in the boundless diversity of its ecosystems, but unified by a common biosphere. And something happens to our cosmonaut in that moment. And he comes back down to Earth and says, why aren't people like that? Why do we put up borders, why do we see ourselves as separate homogeneous blocs? And lest you think this is just socialist propaganda - which, to be fair, it absolutely is! - this has been reported by cosmonauts from all kinds of nations - even from the Apollo 11 mission, the crew that first brought human life to the place a million people now call home. Think about that. A single glimpse of Earth from orbit can change a human mind, a human outlook, profoundly. Can make you want to work for the rest of your life to achieve on Earth what you saw from above. We're calling it the Overview Effect. Now consider that up here, we see that two weeks out of four. We look up into the sky, and often as not, you're up there. Big, bright, and beautiful. And not a border to be seen. You get a different perspective from up here. That perspective was something we worked towards from the start. From the first two hundred and fifty, we were of thirty-eight different nations, and without a single common language among us. And I mean that - we all knew at least one of French, English, or Russian, and we made it work. From what we knew at the time, we were going to be a small affair, not reaching even into the tens of thousands for years to come. We were determined that as the new pioneers arrived, they shouldn't find an outpost of a single country, of a single culture - not Russian, or Chinese, or French, or even Anglophone. As Armstrong said, nearly twenty-five years ago - this was one giant leap for mankind. For all mankind! Of course, we never could have predicted that within a few short days, the Queen Lili'uokalani would make all of this planning redundant - the sheer volume of the Passage to the Stars made it impossible for any one faction to gain dominance over the rest. There was too much chaos, too much work, too much sheer variety for that. And now there are over a million people up here, living their lives, keeping our motley republic in one piece. And a lot of people ask us - why? And there's a lot of different "why"s in there - Why did we choose to start up a settlement in the first place? Why did we go with the Hawaiians' proposal, throwing all our best-laid plans out of the airlock? Why did any of us, individually, sign up to live so far from the rest of humanity? - but I think they all basically condense to the same... why? Now, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States of America, had something to say on this matter. He said that the United States would launch the Apollo Program "not because it is easy, but because it is hard". This is typical for a Kennedy speech, because it is horseshit. You don't do something like this "BECAUSE IT'S HARD". You do it because to do otherwise is inconceivable. Because there is something in the human spirit that looks upon our world without borders, something we've never known as a civilization, and says "we can do this". Because when I look up to the stars, I see an Earth around every one, and I feel the Overview Effect. We are here because once, twenty-five years ago, a man took a single step. And it is up to us to make the giant leap.
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Aug 25, 2021 21:40
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February 28, 1983, cont. in an improvised conference room, Vandenberg The Japanese delegation are doing their level best to look unmoved by the Earth-shaking revelations that have been delivered. They're not doing a bad job of it, either; they're good. Your people are better. The team you send to meet with them includes real, classically-educated diplomats, of course, from China and Vietnam, Russia and France, Namibia and Chile. It also includes a few spies - all diplomatic teams do - and representatives from the Ministry of Outer Space Affairs. A few Americans are present - a Californian, a New Afrikan, a couple from smaller polities. Representatives from NOMAD, and a delegate from the Arab League. Rounding out the whole thing is one of the scientists from the first 250 to settle the Moon. It's a diverse assembly, and it's absolutely intended to send a message. The counter-offer to the original Japanese proposal is made. Joint development of Venus. The Japanese will be responsible for research and development of the aerostat habitats that will be deployed in the upper atmosphere. The Comintern will be responsible for developing the tugs to transport them there. The TNEs extracted will be shared. Japan will be able to go into space - as part of a joint mission, ultimately under Comintern authority, but in a way that lets them save face and maintain a degree of independence. A requirement you voted on is that the deal be contingent on Japan accepting observer status in the Comintern, which, to recap, has the following requirements: quote:This will create the status of "Comintern Observer Nation" for those nations aligned with us or that we are negotiating with. This status would confer upon it lesser benefits than a full member, but without many of the obligations that some are unable to or currently unwilling to abide by. They will be able to observe the actions of the presidium, but not to vote themselves and their nation will gain access to such benefits as development grants, access to TNE materials and civilian technology, possibly even full technology and perhaps intelligence sharing. Included is the right to engage in the comintern customs and postal union. The right to maintain their own civilian spacefleets, ect. Edit: In return, they must abide by comintern regulations on the rights of workers, cooperation with comintern observers and full transparency on their end as well as full cooperation with international regulations and treaties. You lay out your terms. You present survey data for Venus, and other relevant technical data. The discussion lasts all day and into the night, with periodic breaks for one side or the other to confer with their superiors. At about four AM local time on March 1, as a few early risers from the other delegations are already preparing for the next day of the summit, a final telex is received from Tokyo, from the desk of the Prime Minister. It simply reads: YES. It is followed by another minutes later, informing those present that Japan will, as a show of good faith, formally withdraw recognition from the US Government-in-Exile, and take their remaining military personnel and equipment into custody, including their nuclear arms. They invite the Comintern to send a military observer to the proceedings, which the telex calls 'Operation Sonnō Jōi'. March 1, 1983 12:45 Ascension Standard Time The summit continues. It is scheduled to last three more days. Elsewhere, there are rumblings. Ever since the beginning of the event, FESTER surveillance - and more traditional intelligence-gathering networks - have reported a sharp and sudden uptick in communications and movements among known or suspected GLADIO cells. They're high in volume, but they're also scattershot, disorganized, confused, like they were expecting something and are now trying to figure out what to do. They're vulnerable, and they have to know it, too, which makes them extremely dangerous - especially with those warheads still out in the world. All stops have been pulled out in the effort to track down the missing nukes. Radiological sensors originally developed for environmental cleanup operations are pressed into service. Shipping containers are tracked, meticulously. Every location they could have possibly been is checked. Thousands of people from hundreds of agencies in dozens of countries are involved. Even as diplomats work on formalizing the details of the new World Forum, on the other side of the world, in a van outside an abandoned farmhouse in Denmark, a team of commandos waits for the go-signal. In central Copenhagen, another team is gingerly working to disarm the active nuclear warhead they found in a private hangar at Copenhagen Airport. It must be disarmed before they move; it is rigged to detonate via radio signal, and the men inside the farmhouse, suspected members of a Danish fascist paramilitary with ties to the GLADIO network, probably have the detonator. It's their hangar, and the bomb was shipped directly to it. After agonizing minutes of waiting, the go-code is received, and the balaclavas go on. The men and women in the black uniforms go to work. People die. One down. 1:30 Ascension Standard Time Four down. One never left the Netherlands, and was hidden in a ditch just outside the walls of an army base. One was in the bilges of a fishing boat moored in Stockholm. One was in a box truck in Bremerhaven. All were rigged to explode. FESTER makes tracking down the men who planted them trivial, once the location of the bombs are known - just work backwards; who was there, when, and where are they now? So far all of them have fought to the death. Three of ours have been killed, one in Stockholm and two in Germany. At Vandenberg, an agreement in principle on the existence of the World Forum is reached. 2:45 Ascension Standard Time Nine down. The locations of the rest are nearly all known. Your agents operate with a sense of extreme urgency, fully aware that these weapons could detonate at any moment. Four of the GLADIO cells who planted the bombs have escaped unscathed - there simply weren't people in place who could eliminate them; your forces are not omnipresent, and this is all happening so fast. In Lyon, France, a militia patrol car reports taking gunfire. A few minutes later, an urgent report goes out across the entire city that a large number of armed assailants have attacked a neighborhood militia station. Reinforcements are quickly dispatched. A firefight develops. 3:00 Ascension Standard Time These weapons were very well placed. Military bases, critical road and rail infrastructure, power plants, throughout Europe. If there was any kind of coordination here, if they had all detonated at once without warning, they would have crippled the Comintern in Western Europe, and killed millions of people. The enemy's disorganized response, and your near-godlike surveillance, has saved you. Five of the eleven weapons you've located so far were not even set to detonate; the enemy did not have time to do so before your local forces closed in on them. Over a dozen cities throughout Europe are now reporting active terrorist incidents, including armed assailants assaulting police or military installations in France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Portugal. Internetwork bulletin boards are lighting up with posts from panicked citizens. 3:30 Ascension Standard Time Only one weapon remains unaccounted for. Everything is happening everywhere at once. Pirate radio broadcasts, television broadcast highjackings, and Internetwork postings have been made throughout Europe and the Americas, from various sources and with highly varied content, all calling for the same general thing - an end to 'Communist tyranny', an uprising of freedom-loving people coming together to overthrow the red yoke and blah blah blah. The response from the GLADIO network is sluggish and indecisive. There are more and more attacks. A few of them are large, professional, sophisticated. Some are pathetic and desultory. A few cells under surveillance don't do anything at all; others scatter. A FESTER thermal sensor catches a very good image of a suspected GLADIO cell in Greece piling weapons and munitions in a clearing and destroying them with explosives, then all of them going their separate ways; on the same pass, it catches another suspected GLADIO cell in northern Italy getting into a gunfight with each other, and shots of the group of about one hundred men engaged in heavy fighting with French militia and regular army in the streets of Lyon. 3:40 Ascension Standard Time There's only two places the last bomb could be at this point. Either it never left the ship transporting it or...the other possibility leaves everyone thinking about it feeling cold. It may, just may, have been loaded onto a train and sent east, very far east, into the Soviet Union. From there it may have been transferred to a truck, and from there to another train. From there it may have been offloaded at Baikonur Cosmodrome. 3:43 Ascension Standard Time All orbital traffic at Baikonur, including a dozen scheduled shuttles, are grounded, and the complex is placed under lockdown. An orbital shuttle launches without clearance. It burns suborbital, arcing west. Surface-to-air missiles are salvoed, but they could miss, and if they do, it could hit anywhere in Western or Central Europe. For the first time since the end of the war, a nuclear attack warning is formally issued. 3:44 Ascension Standard Time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up0_Kde3iwY It's an instinctive response. You don't even think about it anymore. You know what to do. You've had to do it before. Maybe, as you spring into action, you wrack your memory, asking 'was there a drill scheduled today?', even though you're quite certain there wasn't. Either way, you don't let it delay you. You can't risk it. You don't have time to think. When you hear the sirens, you drop what you're doing. You look for the closest shelter, or, if none is nearby, something, anything, that might provide some protection. You put your head down. And you run. Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Sep 8, 2021 |
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Sep 8, 2021 09:23
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Dear loving lord almighty.
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Sep 8, 2021 09:37
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 Oh poo poo
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Sep 8, 2021 09:39
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this is the one thing we didn't want to happen
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Sep 8, 2021 09:41
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 I suppose the silver lining is it could've been much worse had we not captured the submarine
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Sep 8, 2021 09:47
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Oh poo poo indeed. 
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Sep 8, 2021 09:48
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If only we had a gigantic railgun in orbit.
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Sep 8, 2021 09:58
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UAWR General Congress, currently meeting in Christchurch In the dining room of an old hotel, repurposed for the occasion. Well, not this occasion. It was supposed to be about the outcome of the California congress. With the recent developments, things have fallen into what could be called a "state of well-ordered chaos." There is no running around. There are no red lights. There is barely any shouting. But there is a lot of smoking, a lot of very terse talking and a restrained but noticeable amount of drinking. Phones little the long table, three additional telex machines have been hastily acquired. Every few minutes a phone rings or a number is dialled. Occasionally, a telex prints out, the message read and then hastily disposed of. "Message from the defence council: militia deployed through the syndicates in AUS, NZ people's guard on standby. Lockdown orders in place until situation update." Says the delegate, breathing out. "At least that's going well." "Still being in control of the cities is reassuring. With the last group, we're up to what, five cells now?" Said another, slumped in his chair. "One in each of the old capitals, minus, well, you know. Plus the one up in Auckland." Says a third, placing another telex report on a spike. "Wasn't the current theory that they were hiding out in the outback, plus the mountains?" Said the second delegate again, looking over to their contact with the defence council. "The problem is that that still might be true. There's more of them than we thought. Thankfully they're useless. But if they'd all gone at once..." No one wanted to finish that thought. "Well, there's no need to worry about that. If the lockdown's in place it's a defence council matter for the moment. That, on the other hand, was a far more welcome idea. Delegation slash passing the buck always is. "Right, we can put a pin in that for now. But what about the.. the nuke." There was a sharp intake in breath. It was too soon. They didn't know anything. They needed to know everything. All they knew was a shuttle had taken off, there was a weapon aboard and it was armed. "The warning is in place until we know the heading of that ship. Even a minute could be the difference between a thousand and ten thousand, especially with how centralized everything's gotten. The Australian continent held six cities with the majority of the population within, even one of them going down could cause everything to shatter, as it did two decades ago. "Well, it could-" At the discussion was interrupted by the soft whirr of a telex printout, plunging the room into an uncanny silence as the delegate reached over and tore it off. "Bearing is west." There is a palpable sensation in the room: guilty relief. Thank god. At least it's not us. Followed by rising alarm and dismay. "Europe." America is too far. It would be shot down, no doubt. "Where?" Everyone in the room thinks. Warsaw? No. Moscow? No, that would be north. Berlin? Maybe... but then, collectively, a realization strikes: what would be the symbol? Where did everything go wrong for them, so to speak. Where did this war truly begin? They all look to each other. No one remembers who said it first. "Paris."
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Sep 8, 2021 10:08
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Honestly this is a stellar performance and a big win for the Reds. We took the lynchpin out of their plans and kneecapped most of the followup. Reducing our opponent's big strike by an order of magnitude, if not two, is nothing to sneeze at. If that package heading for Europe hits it will of course be a tragedy, but we have already stopped that tragedy from being repeated a hundredfold. Let us start the propaganda machine spinning and forever brand the reactionaries with this blind, violent-lashing out at innocents, and cripple what sympathy they may have left.
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Sep 8, 2021 10:10
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Herzgeist Command Center, Harz Mountains, Deutsche Volksrepublik, 4:30 PM Local Time The old command center hadn't been this noisy in a decade. Cut into the Harz Mountains prior to the War and given a typically painful German play-on-words codename after it, Herzgeist served as the heart and mind of the Deutsche Volkswehr. From the moment the Californians relayed that there were warheads missing from the Revenge, the German military had gone onto alert. Now the loud hum had turned into a riot of noise, with dozens of ratings and staff answering phones, working computers, and generally trying to talk over each other. “Augsburg reports gunfire in the southern suburbs.” “Buchel Air Base is reporting mortar fire!” “No word from Weiẞes Hemd yet.” “Avalanche has checked in. All hostiles neutralized.” In the big chair in the middle of the command center sat the man himself, the Minister for Defense and the head of the People's Military, General Philip Waldemann. He was still focused on the reports on his table, and the man next to them. “Two more bombs since the one in Bremerhaven.” “They seem rather mad at the Germans,” Agent Denis Smirnov observed, lighting up another one of his hideous Belomorkanals. Waldemann snorted. “Can't imagine why. Disgustingly astute of them. Bremerhaven harbor, Braunschwig railyard, and the Hamm-Uentrop reactor. It would have cut the country in half and crippled our ability to do anything.” “Fortunately we had the tools to put a stop to them.” Smirnov's eyes crinkled up at the corners; it was the closest Waldemann had ever seen the attache get to a smile. “I do love living in the future, with all these intelligence tools to be used.” Waldemann just shot him a look, do you really want to start this discussion again, KGB Man? Smirnov's “smile” faded, but he remained otherwise impassive. “Besides the bombs, though, we've had many incidents but few serious attacks. We seem to have hit them with their pants down.” Waldemann shuffled his papers. “If they had been organized then this could have been much worse, but it would hardly have been unrecoverable...” A voice from down in one of the pits cut through the chatter. “Contact lost with 354 Blackmoor!” Waldemann stood up immediately. 354 Blackmoor was the Luftwaffe's radar outpost in Döbern, right on the border with Poland. “All contact? Not just radio?” “Einsatzführungsbereich Drei reports complete cross-comms failure, radio and landline!” The analyst looked up, holding one hand on her headset and looking quite worried. “Holzdorf is scrambling Starsnoopers for immediate report, expected in ten minutes.” “Excellent. Give me that as soon as it comes in.” Smirnov had faded into the background, watching and smoking as Waldemann turned to his aide. “Is Windstorm readied?” The man nodded. “Schönefeld reported the Tornados were warming up thirty minutes ago; they should be on standby... now.” He looked up at the clock on the wall as he spoke; it was almost 4:40. “Good.” Waldemann let out a sigh, turning back to where he knew Smirnov would be. “When is enough for these capitalist die-hards?” Smirnov opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly the door slammed open, and a tall form clattered down the steps into the command center. Waldemann took a moment to recognize who it was – it was Shevtsov, Smirnov's other half, the big man who formed the other half of the KGB liaison. It took him another moment to realize the reason he'd had trouble was that he'd never seen Shevtsov look that rattled. The big man was holding a piece of paper, which he thrust at Smirnov. The impassive little man took it, and read it. For the first time since he'd met the man, Waldemann watched Smirnov's eyes bulge and his expression drop. The KGB man looked up, the room suddenly seeming quieter than it had been. “Lubankya has a probable on the last Revenge warhead. They believe it may have been smuggled into Baikonur.” There was a moment in which you could have heard a pin drop. “Possibly onto a shuttlecraft.” Every eye turned to Waldemann, and the Minister for Defense shoved the screaming part of his brain into the back room, falling back on training, going fully automatic. Attacking the radar station on the far east side of Germany accomplished nothing but blinding them to anything coming from the east. Anywhere he could imagine that bomb going, was either in Germany, or on the far side of it. “Code Red! Full alert, nationwide! All radar sets, aim east! Tell the Luftwaffe to launch every plane we have! That shuttle CANNOT get through us!” The room exploded in noise. Alarms blare at every airbase in Germany. Thousands of feet scramble and clatter across linoleum, metal, and tarmac. The Tornados rip into the air with a howl of turbojet exhaust, climbing skyward at nearly a 50 degree angle as Schönefeld, Holtzdorf, and Herzgeist clamor on the airwaves with Baikonur, trying to get any information they can. Minutes later, everything imaginable follows the Tornados up – MiG-21s, MiG-23s, Phantoms, Fighting Falcons, Dornier Alphas, anything with a gun on it. The entire Luftwaffe shrieks into the air as one confused unit – as the air-raid sirens begin to blare. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Sep 8, 2021 |
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Sep 8, 2021 10:57
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Just watch, with any luck the shuttle will thread the needle and impact right dead center of Switzerland  ...
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Sep 8, 2021 17:18
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Eagerly awaiting the next update
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Sep 8, 2021 18:59
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Wow that's some really good writing, good job Bates. Also wow we really got lucky in like four different ways here. Let's hope we can get lucky a fifth way and nail that shuttle before it gets wherever it's going, but even if we don't taking out 90% of the nukes and scattering their conventional attacks is a solid victory. Also what I'm hearing is spend more money on spooks because this was way too close, it might be time for a COMINTERN unified intelligence agency or something rather than hoping the KGB is good enough to catch everything everywhere. And obviously a heavy crackdown on GLADIO in the wake of this, try and snap up as many cells as we can before they finish scattering.
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Sep 8, 2021 19:36
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Academician Kodos flopped onto the sofa of his hotel-room and helped himself to a generous measure of local liquor. A day of presentations and endless negotiations over industrial standards had finally ended, finally hammering out an agreement over palletized cargo for space-going freight. A glance at his watch, a battered Ruhla Quartz-LCD, told him, that it was almost 7:30 PM, the jet-lag and the negotiations made it feel like midnight. Hefting the mobile computer to the table, thirteen kilo of Californian electronics stretched the definition of 'portable' to its utmost, he waited for the Osbourne 2 to boot up and took a sip from his drink. Like everyone he knew about the phenomenal discoveries made on Mars, and although he had already been briefed upon many of the technical details involved, he couldn't help but admire the sheer guts and ingenuity of the poor sailors stranded on a hostile planet. Dialing into the electronic real-time chat maintained by his colleagues he looked forward to browsing the gossip and rumours circulating between some of the brightest minds of the planet. code:code:code:code:
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Sep 8, 2021 19:47
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This is an amazing update. Between this and the Stellaris LP there is some really awesome work going on in the forums.
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Sep 8, 2021 20:06
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Crazycryodude posted:Also what I'm hearing is spend more money on spooks because this was way too close, it might be time for a COMINTERN unified intelligence agency or something rather than hoping the KGB is good enough to catch everything everywhere. That's in the works! We've been planning a bit over in the discord, I'm putting together the proposal and we have a goon volunteer to run them.
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Sep 9, 2021 21:13
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