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City Hall, Boyleston She had wanted to be a chemist, growing up. It was HG Wells that did it. The Invisible Man. The Island of Dr Moreau. Little Connie Amos, always with a book in her hand. She spent every available moment in the library, or sitting in classes at the Hampton Institute. HG Wells’ views of the world fascinated her, and introduced her to the potentials of socialism. From there, it wasn’t a huge leap into the SDS, Black Liberation, and the Weather Underground. Not a lot of people knew chemistry or what it could do, and her expertise was quickly drawn on. Not without a few mishaps - the missing two fingers on her left hand were a harsh lesson. But she learned, and survived. The Revolution was a bad time. She had been drawn to chemistry for the creative elements, but her skills were used mainly for the destructive. Every other day her handiwork was in the news, even if she did not leave a calling card. She had probably killed as many people as Davis, come to think of it, although he had always preferred … the personal touch. And now, when she had pretty much resigned herself to weapon manufacturing, the Germans - and the COMINTERPLAN in general - showed up to rebuild and industrialize everything. The tour of Germany had shocked her, the Leuna Works in particular. To have such a facility! And Sammy was to thank for it. She had argued fiercely in his favor. Some Party members didn’t want to open up as much as they had. Take the food aid, maybe some self sufficiency, close down again. But no, she had dreams. She was going to be a real chemist, with a real lab and real staff. It took arm twisting and not a few arm breaking, but they supported her. Sammy spread his hands. “How can I help?” Connie Amos shuffled through her stack of folders, started handing them out. “Industry.” Davis flipped through them. “What are we looking at?” “Essentially, our entire national budget is available. All programs Boyle had have been stopped, such as bunker building, or outsourced, such as the food and medical programs. We are running multiples of surplus on all needed goods.” She raised her eyebrows. “Toxic waste is being cleaned up, everyone is getting prosthetics and needed care, people have enough food. Our national food stores are maxed out. In terms of available labor, we’ve maxed out the 3rd Five Year Plan already.” Courtney Buckner laughed suddenly. They turned to look at her. “All that for a promise of giving them the warheads. What if we demanded the right to nerve gas and backpedaled at the last minute? I bet Sammy could get them to give us Chicago.” She raised her fist, giving an impromptu speech. “Comrades! To ban the use of these technologies against civilians is a noble goal. However, to remove them entirely is short sighted. It is false thinking to say that we are permitted to use artillery shells and machine guns on the fascist, that we can remove his limbs and organs with metal - and then say it is inhumane to use a chemical!” McRae was already shaking his head. “That trick will only work once.” She lowered her fist. “You sure? Listen to the next bit, it’s great. ‘Death comes to all fascists, comrades, and it comes in all forms.’ That’s got ENERGY. You could make it the motto on a dollar bill.” “Won’t work. The whole thing was that we are showing that we aren’t blood gargling psychopaths. We break out the nerve gas bill, and we’ll get thrown out of the COMINTERPLAN.” “Really? I bet you’d love to be Mayor of Chicago, Sammy.” “It won’t work.” She considered it, shrugged. Reached for the next bottle. Davis looked back at Connie. “And for our next Five Year Plan?” “Excellent question. Debra and I have been putting our heads together,” The Major General of the RAB nodded. “We want to sell off some of the nukes.” Davis cocked his head. “How many you thinking? What level of risk does that put us at?” “Ten of the W33s. We don’t expect to use any of the big ones anytime in the next decade or so, and we can use them to update and repair, say, about fifty each of the W48s and Davy Crocketts.” Sinclair nodded. “I don’t like showing our whole hand, but the W33s were always the most questionable in quality, and getting the others repaired would ease my worries quite a bit.” “Any chance they could sabotage them?” “It’s pretty unlikely. We’ll be watching them, but we’re mostly operating off the old Army manuals. If they do something really fancy we might miss it, but we know the rough principles.” “Okay. And the others?” Connie brought out more of the folders. “Ten of the SADMs for ten new factories. We don’t know if they will keep their word on that, so they are the most disposable for our defensive plans. Idea being we get five machine tool factories. Heavy die forging, factories that build tools to build the tools. Siemens Cooperative would be really good for that. And five chemical refineries. BASF Cooperative would be my choice there.” “Why chemical plants?” Connie smiled. She knew it was a softball question and didn’t care. “Coal.” McRae cocked his hand. “I don’t follow.” “So,” she began. “Back when we were a colony of America, we just exported coal and natural gas to the refineries outside the state. There’s a massive amount you can do once you start getting feedstock for the petrochemical chain. “We and western Pennsylvania - and I wanted to talk about Pittsburgh later - sit on the Marcellus Shale, which is why there is so much coal related industry here. With the new sources of clean water, we can start cycling the Blue water into hydraulic fracturing, really open up the coal options. “Depending on how we do it, we could diverge a huge amount of natural gas and methane from the sites. With the chemical plants, we can use the methane to make commercial hydrogen, which is used for a lot of processes. We can convert the coal and/or methane into ammonia.” Her eyes lit up. “Which makes fertilizer. “New Afrika was sending talks of us promising to disband the atomics in 20 years, in return for 85% of their surplus food. I say we take it up. Once we get the fertilizer process going up, we can ship them massive amounts of it, increasing their surplus food, and getting equally massive amounts on the flip side.” Sinclair shook her head. “I don’t like the idea of disbanding that much or that quickly.” Davis looked at McRae. “What’s the likely response?” “If we broke our treaty on their most foundational issue? Bad.” “How bad?” McRae leaned back, sighed. “Massive sanctions, embargoes, cutting off trade, ending technological sharing, possibly cutting off food. They’ve got almost every tool imaginable to enforce treaty provisions.” Davis nodded thoughtfully. “So if we took that deal, we’d need to do a conventional weapons buildup to replace the atomics.” He shrugged. “I’m not a military officer … but yes, if you accepted that treaty you’d have to enforce it, with whatever policy consequences.” “Lot can happen in twenty years. I’ll think about it.” Connie waited a moment, then continued. “We can also make coal into synthetic fuel. If we get the plants up, we won’t need to worry about energy embargoes, and our armies would have no trouble striking outside Appalachia. We can also use the natural gas to produce heat for homes and commercial use, assuming the COMINTERPLAN doesn’t want to build us some nuclear power plants. That means no rolling brownouts, no factories that are sitting idle. “In addition to synthetic fuel, we could make plastics. This is getting into the weeds a bit, but coal tar into styrene, natural gas into LPG, LPG steam cracked into butadiene. Styrene and butadiene gives us synthetic rubber. We get those online, suddenly we aren’t just a coal producer, we’re a major industrial provider for the core of a bunch of processes.” Davis chuckled. “Seems like that’s more than ‘five factories.’” She shrugged. “Really depends on how they define ‘factory’, but I’ll argue it means a whole processing complex. If we can get a couple Leuna Works and half a Ruhr Complex, well, I’ll be half satisfied.” She smiled again. “Got anything else you want to put in the Plan?” “Lots. A Heavy Press Program. That edges us into aerospace and space technologies. If we’re building parts for the new COMINTERPLAN cruisers, that just makes us that much more valuable. And,” she hesitated. “I had some ideas for Outside work.” The room quieted, and she swallowed. But, in for a penny in for a pound…. “The capitalist class still has some good research and production areas.” Morris was watching her now, an old owl watching a particularly foolish mouse. “Since our hard capital has freed up a lot, we could … hire some of the capitalist companies, and have them build here.” Davis spoke neutrally, not committing. “What companies?” “Texas Instruments. They do semiconductors, and that’s starting to come up a lot in the higher end technologies the COMINTERPLAN are getting into. And Fujifilm, from Japan. They do optics, medical imaging and diagnostic equipment.” “And disposable cameras,” McRae spoke up. Everyone turned to look at him. “I .. ended up getting a trunk full of them while in Chicago.” He reached into his papers. “I took roughly a thousand pictures in Chicago and through Ohio getting back here.” Morris nodded slowly. “Better cameras … that could be very useful.” Connie sighed quietly, continued. “So the idea would be, hire these companies to build us a factory complex. Vet everyone who works there. Get the workers trained up enough, and then in a decade or so have the company leave.” “We’d have to keep paying them.” McRae cautioned her. “What? Why?” “Intellectual property.” Her face took on a puzzled expression. “But they are our workers, our land, and our resources building them.” “Yup.” She made a face. “That’s grotesque.” “That’s capitalism.” Morris considered it. “We might be able to make it work. Closed cities, very carefully watched. I think there’s some potential there.” Connie nodded. “I’ll go over the details with you, and here soon we’ll have McRae write up a proposal. Anything that helps our industrial base is worth investigating.” She turned to look at Courtney Buckner, who had quietly finished three bottles. “Which brings us to you.”
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Jul 12, 2022 01:22
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City Hall, Boyleston Courtney Buckner was here for the violence. A scrawny kid from Chicago, she had been quick to join Hampton’s Rainbow Coalition - and when they didn’t join her in declaring war on the police, just as quick to leave it. When she started hearing about the insurrection in West Virginia, she was on the first bus there, leaving a trail of robberies, hijackings, police ambush-murders, and even the occasional hitchhiking. Davis was everything she wanted to be - a man who just went out and did it. Like Che. Find the enemy and kill them. Landlords, bankers, cops. Defectors, deserters, spies. No mercy and no hesitation. She quickly became his right hand man, and as he rose through the Liberation Army, so did she. When he took over after Boyle’s death, his protege naturally assumed control of the military. She was the youngest of the Central Committee, and eager to point out chances where they could just end a problem. She had the cunning ruthlessness of a feral sewer rat, and everyone knew it. Her troops knew her to be a harsh disciplinarian, but she got victories. Winning permitted a lot of … revolutionary zeal. The logistical side of things hadn’t come naturally to her, certainly not at the scale of multiple divisions, but Connie Amos had been a godsend for it. Planning major industrial projects and moving vast groups of people were the Party’s whole purpose for being, and she drew on their expertise shamelessly. ‘Have a getaway car’ was an entirely different directive when you were trying to move 20,000 troops. “Pittsburgh, and western Pennsylvania, are looking quite good.” She said briskly. “All seven divisions are at the border. The troops know it to be a large-scale exercise, although there is always speculation, particularly since we ordered the fuel reserves called up. The command staff have full plans drawn up. We could cross the border with six hours notice. “We’ll approach along I-75 in column formation. We don’t have air support and don’t expect them to have any opposed. The operational goal is to show up in such strength that the change in government is a fait accompli. The actual effects, if possible, are a friendly merging of countries.” Morris nodded. “We don't want the power players to feel they are losing out. So, defense attorneys and some judges folded into the IA, factory managers folded into the Party, and high level mayors folded into the Central Committee.” She grimaced. “There will be a lot of millionaires getting processed. Trying to work out the factories becoming Party owned, landlords no longer having tenants, that will get some friction. We’re hoping most of them will accept the new title as a sinecure, but some will need a bullet.” McRae nodded. “If you give me a bit of time, I might be able to reach out to them and see if we can reach an accomodation. I’m sure they don't want 100,000 hostile troops as much as we don’t want a hostile objective.” He paused. “They’ll see us coming, of course.” Davis shrugged. “They know already, I’m sure. Us reducing our media lockdown means a lot of our secrets are revealed the same day.” He held out an emphasizing hand. “Pittsburgh will be a part of Appalachia and the COMINTERN, but we are flexible on the terms. Let them know that.” Connie nodded. “That will help our situation tremendously. Coal to Pittsburgh, steel to the new factories. We’ll have a positive feedback loop at that point, and things will really kick off.” Davis looked at the spread map. “Will we need to activate the reserves?” Buckner shook her head. “No point, really. The Germans are providing a division of defenders, and the Revolutionary Atomic Brigade is keeping a section in the north. We have no likely invaders at this stage.” “Will the Germans attempt a coup while the army is away?” “It’d be a really bizarre way of going about it. If they wanted us as a colony they could have demanded it in return for food aid.” Davis nodded at that. “Quite honestly, we could have this bagged in a few weeks. It’s only 75 miles to Pittsburgh, and if the local leadership is on board, there will be little trouble seizing the property documents and so forth. We’d want to find all weapon holders, of course. Police, national guard, militia and private security. They can either join the ALA or hand in their weapons.” She shook her head. ‘“I don’t want to fight an insurgency a year from now.” Buckner paused, looked at the map consideringly. “I’d say keep a division in place to ensure a peaceful merger. That means we’d have six divisions of motorized infantry, and our division of self-propelled artillery. We’ve got options on how to subsequently fulfill the End of the Line COMINTERPLAN directive.” “How long could we keep that deployed?” Buckner waggled a hand. “Maybe three years of low level combat and travel, due to spare parts and fuel use. Ballpark lose 25% combat capability each year. Full on urban warfare, lose 75% in a year. One season of campaigning,” “Possible approaches: Detroit, and Michigan.” Her eyes hooded. “And Midland.” “Dow Chemical.” Connie hissed. ”I want them.” “I’ve started a team to go look for the leadership and upper management,” Morris spoke quietly. “If we don't use the ALA, my guys will get them.” “Day can’t come soon enough.” “Agreed.” Buckner counted on her fingers. “Pros, Detroit would be a massive increase in our capability, if we could capture and hold it. Cons, I don't know if we could. They’ve got a lot more factories than we do, in particular the Detroit Arsenal. They could spawn more tanks than we have vehicles, given half an effort. And they wouldn’t need much fuel if they were operating defensively. “Even beyond that, they are a power player in the midwest, ahead of us in building friendship with COMINTERPLAN powers, and us forcing the issue might make us look like a pack of warlords. Unless the COMINTERPLAN wanted to sign off on the acquisition, and quite possibly provide operational support, I don’t see it in this round of cards.” Davis stared at the map for a time. “New England and DC. If we could bag Kissenger and his team, we’d be the golden child of the alliance. Vietnam, in particular, wants his head.” “If.” She agreed. “I do have a broad stroke outline for that. Six divisions, column approach, along I-76 into Harrisburg. I don’t expect a huge amount of resistance that far, but anything after would be nightmare mode,” she paused to drink somberly. “Could go South to DC, or East to Philadelphia and NYC. Can expect them all to be extremely heavily defended, probably with the last few air force squadrons in North America. We’d be running out of troops, diesel, trucks, ammo, right as we hit their heaviest defenses. If you wanted the ALA to be a forlorn hope for the COMINTERPLAN as a whole, that’s how we’d do it. Whether losing 100,000 troops and all our equipment is worth the alliance’s favor, well, that’s up to you and the Party.” Davis stopped to meet McRae’s eyes. “How was Ohio?” “Messy. Tired. Low on everything. They had their insurgency slash civil war slash cattle raids lasting a decade longer than we did. Even Detroit hasn’t done anything with them, and they’ve had a much stronger base than we have.” He smiled faintly. “I have quite a number of photos of interesting places I got on the way back. Highway conditions and whatnot.” “I’ll want to see them.” Bucker spoke up quickly. “Naturally.” “But, off the cuff ...” Her fingers walked the map. “Six divisions west into Cleveland. Leave two, same integration outline as Pittsburgh. Get the airport active, get Socialist Aid coming in wholesale and distributed. Four divisions to Columbus, activate the airport there. Leave one division, remaining three go to Cincinnati. Leave one, and the others split to Indianapolis and Louisville.” She looked up. “That’s max capacity. All troops dedicated to stability operations and food distribution, we will have no force projection after that, and no real ability to deal with any invasion without activating the Reserves or begging for COMINTERPLAN aid. If it works, we have the Ohio River Valley run by the UMW Party. If it doesn’t, we’re dangerously over-extended and possibly bogged down in a decade long counter-insurgency.” Connie Amos was smiling. “If we held all that … that’s a game changer. Get the factory farms up and running, we’re food secure. Hell, we’re a food exporter. Get the hydro-electric dams on the Ohio repaired, we’re essentially power independent. And we’re providing clean food, water and consistent power, the workers will be loyal to the Party. We’ll triple our population and probably be an order of magnitude better on industry.” “If we pull it off,” emphasized Buckner. “We could be dealing with an m14 behind every cornrow. A few years of that and we’ll have no troops and no support. We’ll be replaced by the euro-communists in a handful of years after that.” She hesitated. “If we go for broke, I recommend Ohio. If we play it cautious, hold at Pittsburgh and consolidate.” Davis filed through some papers, checked something. “If we did Ohio, what kind of consolidation would we need?” “At least a year. At least. We’d be spooling up the food distribution, the new factory farms, inducting a new generation into newly built schools. We’ll need to get new teachers from the COMINTERPLAN. We’d need to train a new cohort if you wanted to project any more troops. And we’d either need time to build vehicle factories, or a few warehouses of old stockpiles.” McRae looked over. “How much are we talking about on this shopping list?” “Essentially replacing all our vehicles for seven divisions. If the alliance wants us to hit a major target like DC, I’d want… “ she checked her papers. “3,000 BMP-1s, 1,000 MT-LBs, 1,000 BTR-60s, 10,000 Strela-3s, 10,000 RPG-7s. It’s a lot of old Soviet gear, I’m hoping they just have an obsolete warehouse they would want to hand off in service of the Revolution. But frankly, using our old fleet of Fords won’t cut it.” “Heh. Anything else?” “While I’m wishing for unicorns, 10,000 Panzerfaust 44s, 10,000 Carl Gustafs, 100,000 G3s and 25,000 G8s from the Eurocoms. Most of our small arms gear is from Korea or Vietnam and will be breaking down soon. I’d love to have the technical training to build it ourselves too. If the Germans are serious about us standing on our own feet and not having a nuclear defense, that’s what I need from them. Otherwise, it’s Davy Crocketts for days.” McRae dutifully took down the notes, sighing quietly.
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Jul 12, 2022 01:23
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City Hall, Boyleston The Second Revolution, as she had come to thinking of it in her own head, was going well. Secretary Davis was capable and focused, and not afflicted with the severe paranoia that had made Boyle such a danger. At least, not as of yet. And, most importantly, he was willing to change with the times. When Boyle died, that opened up a tremendous opportunity, one that a few people with their eyes on the main chance could leap on. She had approached Vice President Akers at the time, seeing if he was willing to be flexible on … a few small issues. Sadly, he had not, and responded quite strongly. He was of the old school, an old Union Miner man, and not enthusiastic for the ideas of the Black Liberation Army. Indeed, he had told her a lot of things would be changing. As well they did. It had taken a conversation with the retired troika member Donna Morris to consider what lay ahead. A list of the Ultra-Boyelists under Sinclair’s command, a handful of known IA super-patriots. Donna’s younger brother, the Secretary of Internal Affairs. But Sinclair had no idea what the outside world would be like, and how they would … receive an all female leadership team. Given his high rank in the Appalachian Liberation Army, Davis was a natural choice for a figurehead. And he was quite content to be the first-among-equals, even knowing his fragile power base. Once he got their list, it only took about thirty hours for his kill teams - Courtney front and foremost - to remove the targets. And then the announcement, a peaceful transition of successors, and no one knew the difference. The Ultra-Boyleists, the ones who would bunker down in the mountains with no food, big guns, and enslaved women, they died quick. The first law changed was the mandatory pregnancy bills, and they hadn’t even needed COMINTERPLAN encouragement for that. Get the food supply stable. Get the kids fed and housed and educated. Everything came from - and after - that. Her attention drifted back into the conversation. “Debra, will the Revolutionary Atomic Brigade go along with this?” Davis was peering at her. Her mind flickered back to what had just been said … “They should, yes. I don’t intentd to end the training classes, in the event that we end up keeping the weapons or building more later, but the weapon turnover should be fine. We have a decade or more to get the troops to adjust to it. And the hardliners have already been retired.” and buried in one of the old mines. “How are your supplies looking? I know the ALA has some concerns about spare parts.” “For ammo and artillery, we could fight for a decade. Spare parts, similar situation as the ALA. It’ll be a couple years of otherwise good vehicles just stopping because we don’t have the widget to repair it, and getting abandoned.” He frowned. “I’d like to keep the vehicles whenever possible.” “Whenever possible.” She agreed. “Our logistical train has some limited tow capability, but eventually they’ll start breaking down too. So for a little while we’ll be able to bring back artillery to one of the cities, but even then they’ll just sit there and hope we can beg for spare parts.” “What’s your fix?” She spread her hands. “Same as the ALA. We need new vehicles across the board, factories to build more, technicians to repair the ones we have, spare parts stockpiles. Basically we need the Soviets to hand us several warehouses, and we’ll provide the manpower.” Now McRae was grimacing. “And what’s on this wishlist?” “1,000 SCUD-2s, 100 S-300 batteries, 100 2S1-Gvodikas, 250 2S4-Tyulpans, 250 BM-21s. Rocket ammo and parts to sustain them, classes to train the crews, factories to build new ones.” She smiled thinly. “So, you know, nothing major.” He shook his head. “I don’t even know what half of those mean.” “The SCUDS will be the least likely, they could hit most of our neighbors. The S-300s are defensive, and to me the most important. The rest are indirect fire support vehicles for the ALA. We can fight battles without them but I would prefer not to.” “High end gear?” “Middling to high. The Revolutionary Atomic Brigade needs more elite equipment by the requirements of our mission.” “I’ll see what I can do.” Davis was appraising the pile of papers. “So, broad policy. Do we think the COMINTERPLAN will have longevity beyond a generation?” He tapped them as he spoke. “Germany abandoning the security state, open trade with the capitalist class in Japan, the Soviets going full Mcnamara … no. I think the internal contradictions will do them in. However, based on their material strengths so far, they won’t fall apart immediately or in the near future. “As such, we want to get as much support as we can - and be a good ally to them - while they survive, with the expectation that they could suddenly collapse with little warning. So while we won’t follow autarky principles, but we will be as self sufficient as is reasonable and maintain stores of critical parts and infrastructure.” He glanced around the room. “We may need to hand in the rest of the atomics. Sammy did a great job delaying the turnover, but if the alliance doesn’t collapse prior to those end dates, we will fulfill our treaty obligations. By the same note, we will need to build and maintain a conventional force now that atomics are out of the picture. Future Five-Year Plans will reflect this. “We need to focus on engagement with our socialist neighbors - Outer Banks and New Afrika being the obvious choices. I’d like to engage the Soviets in extending the TNE rail line from Atlanta to Wilmington and Greensboro North Carolina, Roanoke Virginia, Boyleston and Morganton West Virginia, and eventually Pittsburgh. That would connect our core industry to the Atlantic, and also to the Southern Transcon they are building. “Morris, our intelligence collection on the outside is still a mess. With essentially our entire budget freed up, I want to focus on Connie’s infrastructure goals, your intelligence plans, and McRae’s feel good tour. Now that our critical issues are getting dealt with, we have a lot of options to make good impressions on our neighbors, and find out what they are up to. “We need to be getting ready for the Pittsburgh advance, and have a plan for Ohio. It really depends on how Pittsburgh goes to decide how aggressive we want to be in the services of the End of the Line obligation. Beyond that … let’s get things back in order on the home front. We’ve got all the resources we could ever want, so let’s start using it. “Thank you for your time, comrades.” The Second Revolution was going quite well, indeed.
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Jul 12, 2022 01:23
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City Hall, Boyleston Morris was waiting for him when he got out. He grimaced inwardly, took a focusing breath. “Secretary Morris. I thought you would have gone to bed already.” “Secretary McRae. I had one or two things I needed to tidy up.” I bet. “Very well. How can I assist Internal Affairs?” “You must be very happy to have moved up so far. Your own department! And Secretary position inside the Central Committee.” “I am always happy to help the Party.” She was watching him in that peculiar way she had. Like she knew the day and time of his death, and was counting the days one by one. “I had a quick word with Secretary Davis. We decided the State Department should be within Internal Affairs.” McRae had to raise his eyebrows. “Y’all decided that the Foriegn Service - the guys that go outside - should be overseen by Internal Affairs? The ones who stay inside?” “That’s correct.” “And Secretary Davis agreed with this?” She smiled at him. “Do you think I am lying? Or do you think Davis made a mistake?” Well, when you put it like that… “No ma’am.” “There you go.” She clasped his shoulder, began walking with him. “Have you considered that diplomacy and intelligence are two sides of the same coin?” “I have heard something like that.” “I’m sure. And would you say the level of intelligence we have on the outside … is it what you would say is … ‘good’?” “I’m sure the Party has a dazzling level of knowledge of all aspects of the outside.” Her fingers tightened on him. “Don’t gently caress with me, Sammy. You’re in the inner circle now, and we have to speak truthfully. We can lie to everyone else, and do - but if we can't have real facts, we can’t make real policy. And that gets us all killed. So what do you think of our foriegn intelligence?” “It’s garbage.” He spoke without thinking, then froze. Had it been a trap after all? “Good. Good,” She seemed to relax a bit. “You have to understand, we are coming out of a Boylelist shitshow where everyone lies, and believes the lies. At our level we can’t do that. If it turned out you couldn’t adapt we would have to find someone else - that you weren’t ready for high level operations.” “And kill me.” She shook her head. “You are a good diplomat. One of the best. That doesn’t mean you were ready for policy decisions. If you weren’t able to have this conversation, I would have told Davis to choose someone else. No harm no foul, some people - most people - can’t do it. We think you are ready, and so far you’ve met the standard.” Morris stared into the distance for a moment. “And our current intelligence is garbage.” She paused, seemed to consider something, changed her mind. “Do you know that when Connie got the tour in Germany, they asked her if she’d seen Star Wars?” “Good movie.” “See? That’s exactly the difference.” She nodded to herself. “Connie asked if it was a missile defense program.” “Oof.” “And here you are, familiar with recent pop culture that wasn’t even shown in this country. How many illegal contacts have you exchanged letters with?” “None, comrade.” Morris smiled thinly. “Another lie. I’ve read most of the letters.” She met his eyes, reptilian orbs freezing him in place. “Stop lying to us.” That warred with every instinct and professional training he had. Too many of his friends and coworkers had gotten shot during the Revolution, for talking too much and with too much truth. He shifted uneasily. She smiled, seeming to know his thoughts. “You’ll get there. We’ll get you there. It’s too important and you are too intelligent to not do so. We don’t want a bootlicker, we want focused, aware, pragmatism.” “What do you want, Secretary Morris? It can’t be to just call me a liar.” “I want to run joint operations. I want us working hip-to-hip at all stages. I want foriegn intelligence and diplomacy to be best friends.” She cocked her head, birdlike. “Do you think we can do that?” He considered it. It wasn’t that unusual, historically speaking … it just had him nervous with that foriegn intelligence department also being the domestic intelligence department, and also the justice department. Morris had never heard of ‘conflict of interest’, apparently, or felt it was some unnecessary bourgeois affectation. “How would you go about it?” “Right now, over the next handful of years, we need to mass collect cultural data. We can’t even make a cultural profile for target states. Our best spies are loud, noisy, abrasive tourists who talk about Boyleism in introductory conversations. It’s embarrassing.” He knew that for a fact. He’d met a few, here and there, over the years. Everyone and their blind mother could spot them. “And you want the diplomacy branch involved in that?” “Who better to do cultural exchanges?” She spread her hands guilelessly. “Fair point.” “So I’ve cooked together, if you will pardon the phrase, a little program that serves us both. Your talking about pizza made it click for me.” He blinked. “Pizza?” “Chicago style. Known across 200 million people, three and four thousand miles away from point of origin. Nearly as famous as Chicago style hotdogs. Ever had one?” “Many times.” “It’s iconic.” “It is at that.” “And so.” She gestured meaningfully. “We suddenly have a ludicrous food surplus. We have thousands of people who want to leave Appalachia. We have visitors from a dozen countries that will be arriving soon, every day, and experiencing the culture.” “You don’t want them to think of us as the landmine place.” “I don’t want them to think of us as the landmine place,” She agreed. “And neither do you. So what I want to do - carefully vetted, of course - is send hundreds of these people all to neighboring states. Introduce the Afro-lichian cuisine. Have food tours. Book clubs. Fan clubs. Adopt-an-orphan programs. Mailing lists. All centered on these restaurants that we sponsor, we spread to a hundred cities. Make a tremendous impression of the diverse and storied Appalachian life. And all those letters and penpals and ‘submit a photo’ programs will come back to us, where we can understand the outside, and actually understand who we are dealing with.” He paused for a long moment, gave a deep laugh. Her eyes narrowed. “What?” “I always knew when I got shot, it would be because of that damned pizza.”
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Jul 12, 2022 01:24
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Above posts technically after the vote goes through, but before Paragon's arms deal  But now you know how we got here.
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Jul 12, 2022 01:40
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I appreciate the amazing stories youve written Loel!
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Jul 12, 2022 05:10
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Thank you! It's a lot of fun exploring these guys
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Jul 12, 2022 12:15
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Redeye Flight posted:S-161, the Xenoecological Preservation Act: NO The package that arrived at Fletcher's office was simple and unassuming, brown paper wrapped over a cardboard box and secured with twine. It bore the loving scuffs and small rips that came with a long route over sea and through COMRAIL. The seal on the package was that of the Lower Georgia United Workers' Front: an M14 rifle crossed with a hoe. The postal markings indicated that it originated in Statesboro, Georgia at the People's School, passed through Savannah and the Front's embassy in the Volksrepublik (a generous term, as the embassy was currently operated out of the apartment of Yancy Rivenbark, a former high school teacher with just enough German language skills to qualify for the job as ambassador) before finally arriving at Fletcher's office. Once the twine was cut and the paper pulled away, the box, which was quite heavy for its size, was revealed to contain several books and many stapled sheafs of paper packed in tightly. On further inspection, these documents all pertained to the ecological effects of European colonization of the Americas. They detailed the species that were lost, the invasive species that took their place, and the ways in which this changed the continent forever. Others were about the effects of disease carried by Europeans that resulted in the decimation of the Native Americans. Some of the works were quite recent, a few published as recently as this year using methods that were impossible before TNEs. Atop the stack of documentation was a simple note: quote:Comrade Fletcher,
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Jul 12, 2022 14:22
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Loel posted:City Hall, Boyleston Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the planet… Deutsche Volksrepublik Government Proceedings Provided for the People’s Oversight of Their Government Maintained by the Ministry of the Interior Recordings and Transcripts / Ministerrat Meetings / Informal and Unofficial (Hidden Folder) Appalachian Defense Bill Debriefing 21:22 Local Time / 03.01.1986 PARTICIPANTS: P. Brandt [Vorsitzender / Chairman] F. Schmidt [Interior] P. Waldmann [Defense] B. Bach [Education and Culture] I. Hielscher [Environment] T. Donner [Foreign Office] E. Fletcher [Comintern Congress Rep.] N. Bauer [Diplomat] ABSENT: K. Klinger [Transportation] J. Verlacher [Agriculture] E. Altvater [Industry and Finance] R. Hattenberger [Housing] A. Dern [Health] = = = = = = = I.H.: It's on? F.S.: Ja. P.B.: Good. Alright, then, Donner, I want to hear it out of your mouth. What exactly are we agreeing to here? T.D.: Quite a bit, but hopefully no more than necessary. So, background first. We're dealing with what was primarily once an American labor union, the United Mine Workers, who were run when the war broke out by one William Anthony Boyle, also known as "Tough Tony". Boyle's state has all its own hagiography and glorious history, don't listen to it. Eck found us something. E.F.: So, it should be no surprise, but Boyle's own handpicked history is chunks of reality stitched together with absolute sham. According to some of the older types in Detroit and one very drunk Pittsburgher who was in town on NAF business, Boyle was a protege of John Lewis, the UMW’s most legendary boss, and took over after John Lewis’ handpicked successor died, a man named Kennedy. The part you don’t hear is that Boyle was a terrible union head – the UMW basically stopped doing anything. Grievances never got handled. Scuttlebutt is that he might have been outright covering for the mine bosses, the kind of thing you see when unions get too familiar with management. Anyway, he got challenged in leadership by one John "Jock" Yablonski six years into his tenure when things came to a head. Boyle had the man murdered by drifters in 1969, along with most of his family. Mob-style stuff. F.S.: God in Heaven. E.F.: I forwarded a copy of the history to the Ministerrat ring, if you want all the grisly details. The relevant part is that rather than risk getting rolled by the government, Boyle took advantage of the rising chaos. The rumor is that a lot of other people started to die who weren’t so obviously killed by him – even rumor that Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters boss, disappeared because of him. The UMW broke, and Boyle’s faction fled to the hills, joining with a defector artillery unit and some Black militants, and had a no-holds-barred shooting war with the Federal troops over the course of 1971 and 1972, before it all fell apart. The gates closed after that. Appalachia was considered “aligned” due to its union history and the fact that it warned Comintern members to go away instead of just shooting them like with the splinter Americas or the local warlords, but until Boyle died last year they were an enigma. P.B.: What about the UMW members that didn’t follow Boyle? E.F.: All over the place. Mostly in AVDA Pittsburgh, which was the UMW’s home field, but plenty in Detroit or elsewhere. We’ve asked them for some of this background information, but there’s no point in asking them for help with present-day Appalachia; those bridges were napalmed in 1969 and the non-Boyleist UMW have moved on, they can’t contribute anything helpful. T.D.: Appalachia today has been stewing in its own juices since 1972. Definite shades of Albania, what with the bunkers and the One True Socialism, but the tenor is different. The country is insular, almost naive to the state of the world, and has some strong internal factions. The one costing us is the Revolutionary Atomic Brigade, which was built from that artillery unit. They're the conservative faction and, as the name suggests, extremely invested in atomics in warfare. But since they also control all the artillery, the rest of the country can't piss them off too hard or they risk them leaving in a huff. P.B.: That was in Comrade Bauer's report, yes. So that, beyond holding Rudi’s door open*, is why we are agreeing to build factories for these people. T.D.: Yes. They're not going to give up their nukes cheaply – even the non-RAB Appalachians are thoroughly convinced that their nukes keep them safe. The Comintern could unquestionably just smash them - hell, First Mountain could probably give their militia a run for its money, since First Mountain actually has Leopards - but it'd be fighting a bunch of comrades who have been stuck in a propaganda echo chamber for over a decade. The people in those hills don't deserve that. They'd also absolutely use the things to try and stop us. P.W.: We could manage that in the most technical sense. I'd really rather not, though. P.B.: Agreed. But why us? T.D.: They asked for us, actually. N.B.: Their diplomat, McRae, spun a fine story about the reasons, and for what it's worth I think he believed it himself. There's got to be a fair number of them who see us as a soft-hearted mark compared to their Hard Men Doing Difficult Things bullsh- P.W.: *loud, braying laughter* F.S.: Come on, General, pull yourself together. P.W.: Oh, mein Gott. Sorry. I'm sorry. T.D.: It's fine. Continue, Natalie. N.B.: Uh. So, there's probably some of them who see this as them fleecing us, that we're willing to give them the moon, et cetera. But I do think they were genuine about wanting to talk to us for the sake of our experiences rather than the Soviets or Detroiters or Californians. They have high opinions of Germany, they see kinship there in suffering and experience. But they're going to probably expect us to build the foundations for their new society for nothing. P.B.: What's your take, Tom? T.D.: I think she's 100% right on the current viewpoint. Whether that'll persist? Less clear. This society has gone from not even letting the postal service across the border to letting us send a mountain division and a swarm of technical experts in basically overnight, and that's before you get into what the Soviets are doing. Things could change VERY rapidly. E.F.: They're also very, very young, or are going to be. The old bastard had a birthrate directive as one of the last things he did. The percentage of the population under eighteen is something like forty percent, and the teenagers are a sharp minority in that. B.B.: That does sound familiar, yes. P.B.: *sigh* Hopefully their 68er-Bewegung meets a better response. Though what we do will probably influence that. T.D.: But to get back to the details. Appalachia is getting a lot, but it's mixed -- only some of it is coming from us alone. First off, the teacher program is a whole-Finabel project, and when you get below the surface, it's actually a Finabel-except-us project. France and Italy agreed to take on the bulk of the funding for that, and the Dutch and Belgians have the rest. P.B.: Björn? B.B.: This is where the situation they have is killing them, if you'll forgive me for thinking like a bastard for a moment. They have an outrageous teacher shortage, so anything we offer they basically have to take -- they can't even be THAT picky about the lesson plan, because if they scare us off then they have no backup option. No teachers, no industry, no future, but the teachers shape the future, and we have first say on the teachers. It's basically handing us the opportunity to shape that huge generation of little kids however we see fit. E.F.: *laughing* Jesus. F.S.: Never knew you had that kind of deviousness in you, Bach. B.B.: I did say like a bastard. We didn't win the Three-Pointed War by asking nicely. P.W.: No we did not. I.H.: Especially not in Berlin. Er... P.B.: Well, he's not WRONG. But presumably we can't get completely outrageous about it. B.B.: No, and we're not going to. The plan was for Chicago, Detroit, and New Afrika to send the actual teachers. For one thing, they all speak English natively. The other is that they all have large Black populations, and all had ties to the black liberation movement in the 1960s -- New Afrika basically exists because of it. Chicago's first army was organized one-third by the Italians, one-third by the Soviets, and one-third by the Rainbow Coalition, which still runs the place and was organized by Black Panthers like Fred Hampton and Bobby Seale. Detroit's core is black in the vast majority and there were calls in '67 for an "independent black Detroit" -- well before the US collapse. Given that Appalachia also has a lot of Black Liberation Army in its blood, that should make for immediate connections. F.S.: And? B.B.: And they're all much more open societies than Appalachia is, with much less hardline takes on True Socialism, large T and S. So Appalachia gets the teachers and the education, as they should, but they also get education from outside the bubble. Chicago, Detroit, and New Afrika rub off on the little kids of Appalachia. Sugar and medicine, like Julie Andrews said in that movie. P.B.: Clever. That's the long-term one. What's the story with the factories and nukes? P.W.: Unfortunately, Eric [Altvater, Minister for Industry and Finance] caught the flu, but he sent me some notes, so I'll do my best. The nukes they have are all artillery-capable U.S. Army stuff -- no air-drops, no missiles. F.S.: Wait, how the hell do we know that? All the Appalachians have ever said is that they have nukes, not what they are or how they're delivered. E.F.: The Soviets told us, actually. After we started drafting the replacement bill, they sent us their records from that "Lend-Lease" trip they did in December. The Appalachian artillery was really trying to get them to send over some SCUD launchers, and the Soviets absolutely would not budge. They also wanted a shitload of artillery and the Soviets gave them about a tenth of their asking bill. If they’re asking for rockets, that means they don’t have them. P.W.: Canny bastards. E.F.: The scuttlebutt in the Congressional circles is that the Appalachians have no idea what a proper military looks like nowadays. They basically looked at what the Soviets are using right now and drew up a wishlist. They also sent us one for a hundred thousand god drat G3s, among a few other things. I.H.: You're serious? Do they even have a hundred thousand troops to hold that many rifles? P.W.: Odds are no, but you order spares, too. That one we're not going to fill right away, that's a nonzero percentage of all the G3s we've ever made. Once the StG-85 starts rolling out we'll think about it. But to get back to it, the nukes they have have to be artillery-capable, and they don't have any of the really big Atomic Annie ones either, since the biggest thing they asked the Soviets for was those monstrous Gvozdika things and those are still 40 millimeters smaller than the Atomic Annie. 40 millimeters is “cast a new barrel” territory, not “bore out what you have” territory. Our best guess is they have a stock of W33 two-hundred-three millimeter and W48 one-hundred-five-and-fifty millimeter shells. The W33 is a five-to-ten kilotonne weapon, so, between a quarter and a half of the Hiroshima bomb. There are a lot of W33 craters in Fulda. The W48 is puny -- something like 7/100ths of a kilotonne, or 70 tons of TNT. Still nuclear, terrifying poo poo to face on the battlefield, also plenty of W48 craters in Fulda. They might also have some of the hand-launched suicide devices, the Davy Crocketts, which barely make 20. T.D.: So no city-busters, Thank God. P.W.: The W33s could put one hell of a dent in a city, but nothing above tactical level, nothing thermonuclear, nothing like the W58s that Gladio pulled out of the Revenge. We've adjusted our ratios accordingly. P.B.: They're okay with that? T.D.: To be frank, they have no choice. So long as we remain "reasonable", they're going to have to play along. And we are. P.W.: Let me get Eric's notes. The Appalachians publicly want us to stand up their military industry first and immediately. Number one on their list is a synthetic fuel factory... "like Old. ref?" I.H.: Like the refinery at Oldendorf. Stade. P.W.: Ah. After that it's weapons, tanks, what you'd expect. That's the public stuff. P.B.: Which I gather means we're not doing that. P.W.: No. The Soviets would have a conniption fit, for one. It would ruin their chance to offload the weapons from the six million armies they've been standing down. We have a local AK-74 plant on the list and that's it for now, though that refinery stays -- it's a good idea, anyway. And what we got from Frau Bauer’s meeting with McRae is that what they actually want, but can’t admit publicly for reasons of posturing, is stuff they can live with. Eric's plan is, uh, paper mills, water purification equipment, refining, smelting, and heavy mining gear, both conventional and TNE. So they'll actually probably get a grav-nullifier plant in there eventually. N.B.: Wait, Herr Altvater wants to just give them more of what they were doing? T.D.: No, he read your notes, Natalie. They wanted self-sufficiency. We can't give them that completely, but we can build the industries there so they can process and use their own resources rather than sending it off somewhere else. P.B.: I think that's a smart call. It's one thing to be a miner; it's another thing to be an expert in mining. Not just bringing it up, but designing the machinery, making it, tooling it, teaching others. T.D.: That was Eric's idea, yes. P.W.: Wrapping this up, we don't have formal ratios set up -- we'll play it by ear. Some factories are worth more than others -- that fuel refinery is going to cost them. Between that and the "maintenance" program, we can sharply reduce the stock of W33s they have in short order, and they'll have gotten so much in return that they'll downright thank us for it. Then we move on to the purely tactical weapons. We'll make those artillery jockeys' heads spin. T.D.: That's the idea. We're shooting to make an ally for life here, one way or another. B.B.: "Or another" is right. P.B.: That's the two big cost items. What about the rest? T.D.: Well, the ground forces facility and the antimissile station are Comintern concerns, so that's not on our budget, at least no more than it is already. Prestige pieces for them. The warcraft weapons commission was a very neat little idea of Fletcher's -- that was the counter to their "nukes in doctrine" line in that proposal. E.F.: Making it a whole-Comintern issue means they can't get angry if the entire alliance says no. If it turns out that nuclear-tipped missiles actually are the best space weapons, well, that will be a question of reality rather than politics. That and the temporary sunset exemption got the nukes out of the ground doctrine altogether without the Atomic Annies losing their minds. P.B.: We couldn't get that one more tightly restricted? "Safe" is very open-ended. E.F.: No, sadly. They wanted at least one nuclear weapon test -- staff thinks as a show of force against Kissinger's Feds. Kalmar took a hard line on that, which I can’t say I disagree with, and we had to massage the wording on the sunset deadline to get it off the table. F.S.: drat. P.B.: The cleanup mission? I.H.: We'd have done that anyway, let's be honest. But even considering we're sending our own team AND probably contributing to the Comintern mission, it doesn't slow down our work at home that much. The radiation cleanup is all but done except for the F.E.Z., and the F.E.Z. is still beyond our current capability, though we've been whittling away at the edges. Minesweeping operations have been in mopping-up mode since November '83 -- it never really ends, but we've gone over every field we had surviving records for with tweezers at this point and most of the ones we could infer. The Agent Blue thing, we didn't have anything like that -- we actually had to go ask the British. They sent some of their oil spill experts, a water purification team, and whoever they could find alive from Porton Down and Nanceduke. P.B.: You're saying we're actually nearing the end of our cleanup? I.H.: No, because I don't want to tempt fate. But thanks to all the Comintern help, we've hit all of the '86 targets already. We're ahead of schedule, so we can start helping other people. B.B.: Albert [Dern, Minister for Health] will be thrilled when he gets back from Cuba. P.B.: Hell, I'm thrilled. Excellent news! And, then, finally? P.W.: Fletcher? E.F.: While I of course don't actually know the voting percentages of the Congress right now... Multiple: Of course. (or similar) E.F.: Indications are that End of the Line will pass comfortably. P.B.: God. It's finally happening. F.S.: IvaR has been moving assets into place in the Midwest and the Capital Region; we'll step it up. Not that I know what the Americans want us to do with the Willi Sangers, but there's only so many options. P.W.: Ja. Ehm tells me that Spartacist has been provisioning for maneuvers with the PLAN; they should be ready to go on a moment's notice. Erlitz has Windstorm Group all prepared -- that Captain of theirs is chomping at the bit. P.B.: That was the one who went up after the Interkosmos shuttle, wasn't it? I can hardly blame him. P.W.: As for the Edelweiss, Kerstin [Klinger, Minister for Transportation] has the moving stock listed and has been waiting for the go-ahead to start pulling it off of civilian duties. 1. Gebirgsdivision started decamping from base in Bavaria yesterday for "joint exercises" -- the Appalachian bill was public, so everyone knows that one is a possibility. Once we arrive on the ground, we'll liaise with the Appalachians to get their take on the best attack routes and strategies. They'll probably want us with them, but... P.B.: No. We're going to D.C.. We have obligations. P.W.: Absolutely. We'll also see what the actual state of the Appalachian military is and start teaching them what we can. It sounds dire -- they don't even have armor right now, they're basically entirely light infantry with some heavy artillery support. F.S.: We'll manage. We've been doing this a lot longer than they have. P.B.: What a statement! When did we become the old men? T.D.: You're not thirty any more, Peter. E.F.: Thoroughly untrustworthy! Clearly we must have a spill immediately.** *general laughter* P.B.: Ahhhh, last item. What are the people thinking about the whole thing? F.S.: Surprisingly good. The papers have been posting nice big articles going over the political maneuvering. Internetwork posts we don’t have a full view of, of course, but office rumor says that the response has been mixed-to-positive. Some of the deputies are pissed, especially the manufactory ones, but most of them noticed that the Appalachian nuclear bill vanished into smoke as soon as the defense bill went up. Meyer in Hanover has been especially loud about the whole thing; positively effusive over "disarming the nuclear threat". E.F.: I'll be damned, he's finally good for something. P.B.: Play nice, Eck. So at the end of it, what the DVR is actually paying out here is the landscape cleanup mission and the cost of these factories, which is a lot, but… that’s basically it, in exchange for an entire nation’s nuclear stockpile. T.D.: You can look at it that way, yes. The rest of Finabel is covering the teachers’ program, the Comintern is handling the missile defense and the ground forces facility – which we needed anyway, the deployment of the First Mountain Division is part of End of the Line, and the rest is all paperwork. We make America in general safer. We make ourselves a close friend on that continent. Hell, we’re even making some back from that cost already – the Appalachians wanting to buy G3s we’ve already produced wouldn’t happen if they weren’t already buddying up to us. P.W.: The… *yawn*, the First Mountain’s deployment even without End of the Line is going to be giving us training options we don’t have back in Europe, as well. P.B.: Compared to everything we’ve had to line up to get the Japanese on side with VENUSPLAN it does sound positively cheap. Well, that's covered everything I had to ask, and it is too drat late to sit here any longer, I say. T.D.: Agreed. P.W.: Aaach, this old man needs to get home to the fire. B.B.: I'd rather get to the bar, myself. P.B.: Absolutely. We'll put the actual deployment on the agenda for Monday, the voting should have closed by then. E.F.: God, I hope so. F.S.: Let me just get-- *Recording ends* *DVR founding figure and first chairman Rudi Dutschke made a famous speech at the Vandenberg Summit of 1983, mentioning the responsibility of successful socialists to “hold the door open” for those who would come after. **Historical note: Comrades Brandt, Fletcher, Bach, and Hielscher (among others) were all participants in the 68er-Bewegung protests, which famously held the maxim of “don’t trust anyone over 30” – any politician or major administrator about older than that would have been at least in primary school during the Nazi period.
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Jul 13, 2022 00:42
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Ladies and gentlemen, there are approximately five hours left to vote on the 1985 slate. Please do so. In particular, the arcology vote is currently tied. Any representatives who have not voted on it yet are encouraged to do so.
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Jul 14, 2022 00:58
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America Asia Africa Europe
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Jul 14, 2022 01:20
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Know what place exists that has not been brutalized by a colonizer, or been one itself? Comrade Curry can tell you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Sq1Nr58hM Voting for The Moon Volmarias fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jul 14, 2022 |
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Jul 14, 2022 03:07
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VOTING IS CLOSED! Thank you very much to everyone who participated, we had great turnout this session. I will get a post up soon summarizing the results and then we will begin the next year of play.
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Jul 15, 2022 07:01
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The results are as follows: The Appalachian Relief Act passes, and a task force will be assembled to begin the work immediately. We have much hard-won experience with decontamination and ordnance disposal, and there still remains much work for those willing to do it. It is a difficult and a dangerous job, and even with years of experience and wondrous new technology, illness, injuries, and death remain constant companions for those who do this work. Despite this - perhaps because of this - the work is prestigious and highly sought after, and there is rarely a shortage of volunteers. The East-West Transportation Act passes, and a transcontinental land transportation link will be established in North America for the first time since the War. This will be a road link, at least at first, although with COMRAIL's ambitions rail will likely follow quickly. The Ministerial Integration Act passes, and the bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. The line between the Comintern itself and its members is beginning to get extremely blurry. Build Ground Force Training Facilities and a Ground Military Academy in Appalachia passes, and the Interplanetary People's Army will expand its rather limited facilities. L-134, Expand Z-82 in Regards to Children and People With Disabilities, and Provide Funding as Needed passes, and the provision will take effect as soon as session is adjourned. A-136, the LIMIT Act passes, and a massive industrial development program will be undertaken on the Moon. There is certainly no shortage of labor for it. F-137, the Main and Trojan Mining Act passes, and we will begin developing mining operations in the Belt. Debate is already raging about where the mass-driver mineral receiving facilities on Earth will be constructed, with many people who want them to be built in their own countries, and just as many who want them as far away from their country as is physically possible. H-138, the Solar Fortification Omnibus Bill passes, and, among other things, the Comintern commits to expanding the Lunar Self-Defense Force with batteries of surface-to-orbit weaponry, and makes legally-binding, long-term commitments to eventually settling the Jovian and Minervan systems. Though likely not feasible at the present time, it is a goal to work towards once Venus is settled in the coming months. H-139, the Artistic and Scientific Freedom Omnibus Bill fails. NM-140, the NBC Defence and Cleanup Task Force passes, and the hard-won expertise of the environmental reclamation bureau will be safeguarded, codified, expanded upon, and passed down. NM-141, the Sustainability and Industrial-Agricultural Efficiency Initiative passes, and steps will be taken towards developing plans and strategies to conserve limited resources before shortages become a problem. The proposals that will be brought forward will almost certainly involve some reining in of TNE usage for nonessential purposes, although the emphasis is on 'some'; the text of the bill does not call for any particularly strict or draconian measures. MH-142, the Bering Strait Proposal, and a feasibility study for a Bering Strait Bridge will be undertaken. In addition to the engineering challenges of constructing such a bridge, this will also necessitate discussions with the indigenous population of Little Diomede Island; nearly every proposal for such a bridge ever made involves the use of the uninhabited Big Diomede and the very much inhabited Little Diomede as part of the route. Plans for infrastructure leading to and from the bridge, on both ends, will also be necessary, as currently there are not actually any significant road or rail routes to be found within over 400 miles of either end of the proposed bridge. The most likely terminus on the Siberian side, the Yupik village of Naukan, has been abandoned for nearly 40 years and never had any road link to the rest of Russia even when it was inhabited, while the probable terminus on the Alaskan side, the former Wales Indian Reservation (now a League member), has only a seasonal, single-lane dirt-track road leading away from it. A-143, Antarctic Custodians passes, and a policy for the administration and stewardship of the Antarctic continent will be enacted. A nominally-independent organization will be formed to perform this work. AM-144, Interstellar Investigation and Development Program passes, and we will begin work on interstellar travel, and the study of interstellar space, in earnest. SD-145, The Second Universal Bill Of Rights Amendment passes, and the updates will take effect as soon as session is concluded. A-146, Additional Maintenance Facilities passes, and the facilities will be constructed and staffed. T-147, MOSA Maintenance Bureau Bill passes, and the Bureau will be stood up. The Ministry's administrative infrastructure will expand to accommodate its rapidly increasing size and responsibilities. This will be created as an Admin Command with a flag officer commanding. T-148, Conscription for the Defense of the Revolution Bill passes, and conscription is now formally regulated by the Comintern. D-149, the Defense of Earth Bill passes, and the five-year plan will be undertaken. RF-150, Operation END OF THE LINE passes, and the Great Revolutionary War will be brought, at long last, to a final and definitive end. Necessary steps will be taken to prepare to implement this plan, intelligence gathered, arms procured, troops recruited, supplies set aside, routes scouted, logistics planned. Many months of preparation, at least, will be needed, but the work will begin in earnest immediately. It has been argued by our enemies that we started this war, on May 1, 1968, when we hoisted flags and banners and marched through the streets of Paris. Maybe we did. Or maybe we started it in 1917, or 1905, or 1871, or in 73 BC when Spartacus picked up a kitchen knife. Whenever it started, we are going to end it, forever, soon. A-151, Planetside Nuclear Weapons Ban and Operational Nuclear Weaponry Doctrine passes, and the complete nuclear disarmament of the Comintern will be expedited, with these weapons pointed outward for the future defense of Earth. Some of the member states will inevitably require some serious persuading to give up their arms, and there may be some dragging of feet. We will have to be firm and thorough. That having been said, informal Internetwork polling indicates that public opinion in much of the Comintern is fairly firmly on our side. T-152, Permanent Human Rights Oversight Commission Bill passes, and the Commission will spend the next year assembling their report. Up until now, whether or not the Comintern's members have actually been complying with the body's various human rights regulations has been taken on faith; there has been little actual scrutiny in place. That will now, at least in theory, change. PR-153, 1986 Interplanetary Defense Bill passes, and defense procurement will be adjusted accordingly. P-154, The Directive on Scientific Diversification and Expansion passes, and academicians of the appropriate skills and specializations will be sought out for promotion to leadership positions. P-155, The Ports and Waterways Modernization Act passes, and COMPORT will do to the sea what COMRAIL is doing to the land. Lists of candidate ports are already being drawn up. P-156, The Universal Scholarship Act passes, and the higher education systems of all Comintern member states are now, at least in theory, open to a citizen of any other. RF-157, The Information and Signals Intelligence Oversight Act passes, and SPECTRE will be reined in. RF-158, the General Information and Privacy Protection Enforcement Regulation or GIPPER passes, and the rules regarding privacy and protection of personal data will take effect promptly, although actually implementing them in a practical way will take some time. JR-159, the Genetics Research Act passes, and the somewhat unorthodox research proposed therein will be undertaken. As the first and most important building block of this research, a project to sequence the human genome will be funded. S-160, Addendum to END OF THE LINE passes, and the rules of conduct so proposed will be implemented when the operation begins. S-161, the Xenoecological Preservation Act passes extremely narrowly, with much controversy. The Comintern - and only the Comintern, as the Ascension Accords contained no such provision - is now barred, by law, from establishing permanent settlement on any celestial body found to have an active biosphere. A Bureau of Xenoplanetary Operations will be activated, as a division of MOSA, to study other worlds, catalogue, collate, and organize available data, and develop policies and practices for the human settlement of those bodies found not to have a biosphere - and coordinate the very limited contact that is permitted under the law. This will be created as an Admin Command with a flag officer commanding. L-163, The Appalachian Defense Act of 1986 passes, and weeks of backroom dealing and horse-trading will come to fruition. The proposed Committee for Interstellar Armaments will also be organized, and new designs for weapons, spacecraft, and related equipment will be theorycrafted and developed. K-164, the SAP Extension Act passes, and SAP prefabricated structures and furnishings will be made available on the market in those remaining non-member states willing to accept them, at-cost, no strings attached. An office will have to be established to manage sales, and several private firms in places such as Brazil have already started drawing up purchase orders in anticipation of having someone to send them to. A-165, Sustainable Family Planning and Education Initiative passes, and access to sex education and contraception will be prioritized. INTERLUDE "So, the problem with artificial gravity-" "Pseudogravity, dammit, it isn't actually gravity, how many times do I have to tell you," the exasperated man sitting across from her at the cafeteria table says, with a tone indicating he has already had to tell her many times before and is sure he will have to tell her again. "Yeah, whatever," she says, before turning back to the journalist, who is attempting to interview the two of them for a piece on the work of the Joint Committee for Artificial Gravity. "Anyway, the problem with pseudogravity - well, one of many problems, really, but the one that has been giving us the most trouble - is that Trans-Newtonian space is topologically exotic." The journalist's brows furrow. "Topologically exotic?" she asks, "What do you mean?" The first scientist, a physicist from China whose accent is undetectable, picks up a tortilla from her plate. It's fajita day in the Ascension Island commissary. "So, imagine this is a sheet of Trans-Newtonian metal, say, gallicite. We've stabilized it and extruded it into a bar and rolled that bar out into a sheet. It's a big flat plane, right?" The reporter nods, following along. "Except," the scientist continues, "it isn't. It only is here, in-" she practically spits the word, she hates that word, but it is what everyone calls it "-realspace. In Trans-Newtonian fluidspace, it might be," she twists it, folds it, rolls it up, "any shape, right? Now, with the application of energy in the right places, in the right amounts, we can, briefly, impose a comprehensible order onto fluidspace, make it behave in a way that is more consistent with our understanding of how space should work. For a moment, anyway. The real difficulty was making it do so long-term, making it stable." "I note you're speaking in the past tense, Doctor," the reporter says, smiling. She grins. "I am." Waving her rolled-up tortilla at the other scientist, she says, "Vance, you take it from here, it's mostly your work anyway and I'm hungry." Before he can respond she's unrolled the tortilla and started piling meat on. "Right, so," says Doctor Vance, who has been idly doodling on a napkin this whole time, "the solution we finally figured out was to stop fighting. Stop trying to force Trans-Newtonian space to work the way we think it should. We can do that, we can brute-force it with enough energy, but that doesn't mean we should. I'd be happy to explain the details if you would like me to, but the short version is that, topology aside, TN space can be, and in certain conditions is, stable over the long-term; in layman's terms, things stay where they are and everything stays the same shape and size, sometimes, in the right circumstances and conditions. Identifying where, when, and how will let us work with the fluctuations in TN space, not against them, and once we're doing that, our energy usage drops massively, our available energy budget goes up along with it, and the sky's the limit. There's already some really interesting work being done studying interactions between TN pseudogravity and gravity in realspace, and we think it's really going to start opening up soon. It'll have applications far beyond just...making your feet stick to the floor, or whatever, you know?" He laughs. "Why, you know, looking at the numbers we've been kicking around, you could even-" He stops. He stares off into space for a minute. He looks at the equations he's been doodling on his napkin.  "Huh." He wordlessly slides them over to his colleague, who is attacking her lunch with gusto. He is still staring at the table. She reads.  "Huh."
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Jul 25, 2022 03:07
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Jul 25, 2022 03:15
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So it begins. Which it? All of them!
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Jul 25, 2022 03:27
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Ahahaha we really gotta amend the Ascension accords folks.
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Jul 25, 2022 03:54
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We have gone from the international to the interplanetary and we will soon be a part of the socialist intergalactic 
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Jul 25, 2022 03:59
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i have never been more smug
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Jul 25, 2022 04:20
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Okay, I have a loophole: The Comintern as a whole cannot colonize planets, the juicy real estate that you go after in 4x games, sure. Doesn't stop individual member states from going after them.
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Jul 25, 2022 05:20
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Fivemarks posted:Okay, I have a loophole: The Comintern as a whole cannot colonize planets, the juicy real estate that you go after in 4x games, sure. This is worse than no loophole at all. quote:S-161, the Xenoecological Preservation Act passes extremely narrowly, with much controversy. The Comintern - and only the Comintern, as the Ascension Accords contained no such provision - is now barred, by law, from establishing permanent settlement on any celestial body found to have an active biosphere. A Bureau of Xenoplanetary Operations will be activated, as a division of MOSA, to study other worlds, catalogue, collate, and organize available data, and develop policies and practices for the human settlement of those bodies found not to have a biosphere - and coordinate the very limited contact that is permitted under the law. This will be created as an Admin Command with a flag officer commanding. We should just amend the hell outta this thing next year.
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Jul 25, 2022 06:02
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paragon1 posted:Ahahaha we really gotta amend the Ascension accords folks. Why? It's the Xenoecological Preservation Act that's shooting ourselves in the foot.
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Jul 25, 2022 06:02
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Honestly it's not gonna be that big a deal to amend/repeal/whatever that thing, IC it was explicitly written when the idea of even reaching Alpha Centauri was far-fetched. It's perfectly reasonable to say that "the specifics of this act need to change now that the scope of human spaceflight have expanded so dramatically" or something like that.
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Jul 25, 2022 06:10
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atelier morgan posted:i have never been more smug 
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Jul 25, 2022 11:01
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Weee very excited about the Jump points. Was about to ask if you had melted in the head, was waiting for this update! H-138, the Solar Fortification Omnibus Bill The military hawks in the Utopia Collective holds an impromptu banger of celebrations party.  H-139, the Artistic and Scientific Freedom Omnibus Bill While the nerds retreats to the basement and the artist finds a cat to pet and whine about the establishment. One Bill Passed, one Bill failed and one Bill apparently lost in the burecratic procces. s and so never voted on. Overall, the Utopia Collective consider it a great success! S-161, the Xenoecological Preservation Act Sooo, how is this gonna work in game terms? If it means that we can't settle planets with alien populations, be it non-TN or TN aliens then that is fine, nothing says can't conquer them and rule them as long as we don't put human civs on them.  If it means we can't colonize empty planets that require no terraforming (or worse, the one requiring only a little terraforming) then we really shot ourselves in the foot. Then we need to modify it to say something to the effect that we can colonize but we must catalog everything and develop procedures that ensure that local flora and fauna does not gets impacted by the colony efforts.
Hostergaard fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 11:23
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Have we learned nothing from history? We shall not revisit colonialism!
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Jul 25, 2022 11:57
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Hostergaard posted:Weee very excited about the Jump points. Was about to ask if you had melted in the head, was waiting for this update! That's it, New Afrika's leaving the COMINTERN if it's just going to start doing imperialism. And we'll hand over Jump Point theory to the UN too if we do leave.
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Jul 25, 2022 12:44
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The XPA was written specifically with point 4.1 and .2 of the Ascension Accords in mindquote:4.1 Any discovered, extraterrestrial life should be documented and studied as thoroughly as possible and the resulting data made available to the greater scientific community. We needed more specifics on what preservation looks like. The XPA allows for humans to land on planets with an alien biosphere after surveys are conducted from orbit and to establish scientific outposts for their study. I think the Bureau will need to develop guidelines on how to deal with mining on these worlds, since those resources are going to be desired. With our tech it seems like coming up with a way to do minimally-damaging mining operations can be achieved. And I do think that the wording can be amended at some point to allow full human contact with alien biospheres after we have determined to a reasonable certainty that said contact will not bring harm to either humans or the biosphere. I'm unfamiliar with the game mechanics of Aurora and the assumptions it makes. The XPA was written with the assumption that life is exceedingly rare and that most planets we would want to exploit (I hate to say it, but this is the appropriate word. You can dress it up however you like, but 4X games do not support a non-capitalist mindset in their mechanics) will be lifeless rock/dustballs or gas giants. If the galaxy is indeed filled with life-bearing planets, then yeah go ahead and repeal it because no amount of logic or respect is going to stop the colonization boom. Also, if we're concerned that the other members of the Ascension Accords are not bound by the same rules as us, we could amend the Accords with the same rules. Or, and this is the Front's preference, politely remind anyone who gets any funny ideas that we have all the guns. We may not control the land yet, but we do control the skies, and if we say 4.2 means following the XPA's rules, then that's that.
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Jul 25, 2022 13:19
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Serf posted:
The fact that mankind has already encountered two seemingly independently evolved alien civilizations just hanging around in the Solar System seems to put the Rare Earth Hypothesis to bed, honestly
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Jul 25, 2022 13:22
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Asterite34 posted:The fact that mankind has already encountered two seemingly independently evolved alien civilizations just hanging around in the Solar System seems to put the Rare Earth Hypothesis to bed, honestly The question is massively more complicated than that. How compatible are we with their biospheres and vice versa? Do we breath the same atmosphere? Are we based on the same biological processes? Do their planets have lifeforms that are benign to them but are toxic to us? What about the other way around? The entire field of xenobiology is going to have to be developed to understand their existence and things are going to spiral even more depending on how exotic they are compared to us. If we start encountering silicon-based life, for instance, we will have to do a lot of work to understand what contact between our species and their biosphere will entail. For all we know Earths are extremely rare but things they consider to be Earths are super common. We don't know how much we don't know, and caution is to be exercised while we find out. This may not matter in terms of game mechanics, but the LP has fiction to consider too.
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Jul 25, 2022 13:34
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Still pretty sure planets without biospheres massively out number planets with biospheres. Let's also not forget that it will be a while before the human population will be able to require such ventures, we still have plenty of perfectly serviceable moons for building habitats on and no shortage of materials to just build space habitats. We can amend the terms all in due time.
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Jul 25, 2022 14:02
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How about a compromise: For every biosphere we potentially devastate through human settlement, we terraform some useless airless shithole rock into a verdant paradise forever free of the touch of human habitation. We get our minerals, the net biodiversity of the universe isn't reduced, and we get to play with terraforming toys and practice for any not-useless airless shithole rocks we might want to hit with the ol' Genesis Device
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Jul 25, 2022 14:23
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Asterite34 posted:How about a compromise: For every biosphere we potentially devastate through human settlement, we terraform some useless airless shithole rock into a verdant paradise forever free of the touch of human habitation. We get our minerals, the net biodiversity of the universe isn't reduced, and we get to play with terraforming toys and practice for any not-useless airless shithole rocks we might want to hit with the ol' Genesis Device Technically thats still loving poo poo up, as the conditions of the newly terraformed planet are going to be different in some way even if gravity is slightly off and would require a massive transplant process to replicate the environment of another planet.
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Jul 25, 2022 16:08
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Fivemarks posted:That's it, New Afrika's leaving the COMINTERN if it's just going to start doing imperialism. And we'll hand over Jump Point theory to the UN too if we do leave. Imperialism? Oh no no no we are just spreading freedom and communism to the space oppressed alien proletariat! We in the Utopia Collective certainly do not argue for imperialism, we are a peaceful community of love, harmony and prosperity for all! And safety. And crazy mega-projects. And I guess just a little bit of invading. But only defensively! The utopia collective is open to all minds, hawks and doves! We focus on giving everyone the opportunity to develop their ideas and have them heard, we seek not disapprove ideas or decide what is right, only to have them heard and let the people decide. (Joking aside, the part of the post about the invading alien planet was kind out character, just speculating on technicalities and how it will work in game terms as there is no simulation of alien biospheres so there is no way to know what is deemed to have life or not. And ironically, I am tend to play my games where defensively. ) The S-161, the Xenoecological Preservation Act have some things right, we should probably design some decontamination protocols for spaceships traveling between planets to ensure we don't accidently spread rats to new biospheres or get space rats on earth. And how to visit alien biospheres safely. After that work on how we could colonize planets with biospheres without impacted it adversely. Then modify the act accordingly to say that we can only colonize planets where we know and have sufficient procedures to ensure no impact on local fauna and flora. And after that how to terraform planets while maintaining the local flora and fauna (Say, let in game terms have terraforming take a bit longer or something to simulate that we are carefully moving flora and fauna around and whatnot). Hostergaard fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Jul 26, 2022 |
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Jul 26, 2022 11:24
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Giving JP theory to capitalists because you're mad is a childish outburst. Yea a forever war against capitalists is better then us stumbling forward a bit.
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Jul 26, 2022 15:45
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Incidentally, thanks to a last-minute vote and by a margin of literally one, the location of the Arcology has been decided. The Administrative Headquarters arcology will be located in Vietnam, near Ho Chi Minh City. While there was a great deal of enthusiasm for an African location, in the end, the headquarters will be located in the heart of the global population. The Council wishes to express its thanks for the decision finally being made -- work will begin immediately. The Vietnamese delegation is overjoyed. The Tanzanian delegation has been reportedly overwhelmed by the support for the Africa Option, and negotiations are already underway to see about what project can be placed there given the overwhelming support. The Cuban delegation, having not missed a beat, is already discussing plans to relocate the CIPA headquarters to Guantanamo Bay instead of its planned site in Havana -- the expansion would be easier, certainly. There has been some... protest from the French delegation, however. The Europe option not only received only one first-choice vote, but also received an overwhelming share of the least-favorable votes, far more than any other placement for any other site and in the neighborhood of 90 to 95%. Whatever the ultimate reasoning may be, some of the French appear to consider this gravely insulting.
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Jul 30, 2022 01:19
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A draft briefing, indicated by its metadata to have been first created on 7/1/1986, shortly after the formal passage of Operation: End of the Line. Apparently, CIPA was wasting no time on things. COMINTERPLAN INTERPLANETARY PEOPLE'S ARMY GROUND FORCES OPPOSITION BRIEFING FOR END OF THE LINE TO BE PRESENTED TO ALL PARTICIPATING VOLUNTEER AND NATIONAL FORCES THIS IS YOUR ENEMY The upcoming operation consists of five primary overarching objectives. Specific operational, strategic, and tactical objectives will be presented to you upon relevant deployment. The primary objectives are, in no particular order of importance: 1. The engagement and destruction of all hostile threats belonging to the Federal Government of the United States ("USA-FED") and the United States Government-in-Exile ("USA-GIE"). 2. The live capture by any means necessary of prominent political, military, and economic-social figures responsible for the operation, upkeep, and sustainment of the USA-FED and USA-GIE, and the oppression they maintain. Lists of priority targets with appropriate identification aids are included with this briefing. Additional targets to be determined as the situation warrants by local officers. 3. The intact seizure of any documents, recordings, film, microfiche, archival material, electronic records, and other information storage and conveyance relating to the operation, upkeep, and sustainment of the USA-FED and USA-GIE, the economic and social oppression committed by these states and any actors therein, and the theft and extortion committed against the proletariat within their purview. 4. The securing and establishment of order and security within the territories currently governed by the USA-FED and USA-GIE, and any other targets included within the operational parameters provided to you. 5. Assuring the welfare, health, safety, and general well-being of the common people within those territories. The overall objective of this operation is to free the American people from the tyranny of their oppressive overlords, to ensure that those overlords are brought to face justice, and to free the North American continent from the continued threat presented by these rogue capitalist states. To that end, the following briefings have been provided to ensure that you know who and what you are fighting. General Luis Moreno de la Roca, Cuban Revolutionary Army Chairman of the Communist Interplanetary People’s Army Special Commission for Railroads and Overall Commander for Operation: End of the Line = = = = = FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES Also Known As: USA-FED, Federals, Feds Headquarters: In the vicinity of Washington D.C., possibly Camp David / Old Federal Building, Omaha, Nebraska Overall leader: President-for-Life Spiro T. Agnew Major Urban Areas of Control: Washington D.C., Baltimore (MD), Richmond (VA), Omaha (NE) Key Figures of Note: President-for-Life SPIRO T. AGNEW Secretary of State HENRY KISSINGER National Security Director WALT WHITMAN ROSTOW General CHARLES SOUTHWARD, Commander Capitol Region National Guard Governor of Nebraska JOHN JAMES "JIM" EXON HCIS Chairman Representative RICHARD HOWARD ICHORD JR. The Federal Government of the United States is the primary derivative of the United States of America's civilian administration and has been "led" by Spiro Agnew since early 1969. Agnew's notorious corruption and general fecklessness resulted in the government becoming increasingly reactionary and unstable as the civil and military situation for the United States worsened in the face of the French Civil War and the steady decline of American fortunes in the Great Revolutionary War. Agnew's government orders were increasingly contradicted by the military authorities and he lacked any true authority to enforce them, which eventually resulted in the United States Military declaring an unauthorized martial law order in 1972, resulting in the catastrophic collapse of the United States. Agnew proceeded to appoint a new staff of Joint Chiefs, who would also defect, and steadily lose territorial control while applying what powers and capabilities he had left to exert increasingly tyrannical authority over the territory he did retain, declaring himself "President for Life" in late 1972 and suspending all civil elections. Increasingly paranoid, Agnew withdrew into seclusion in 1979, leaving day-to-day state operations in the hands of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He has remained there since. A defector from the Federal Government has claimed that Agnew has actually been dead for several years, with the news kept from the Federal population. This has yet to be proven or disproven; until observed with your own eyes, assume that Agnew is alive to be captured. Regardless, however, day-to-day operations remain in the hands of Henry Kissinger, whose famous diplomatic skill is matched only by his absolute moral bankruptcy and willingness to achieve his ends through any means possible. Kissinger is to be treated as a serious threat and captured alive if at all possible. The Federal Government possesses the overall second-strongest military force of the five American splinter states, though it is greatly lesser in comparison to that of the USA-GIE. It is the only other splinter state to retain any kind of Navy, which is based out of Baltimore harbor, and possesses limited air superiority and strike capabilities. The USA-GIE primarily relies on civilian and social authorities to maintain control over its population -- that is to say, propaganda, tyranny, and fear. The primary agent of this is the Combined Federal Intelligence Bureau, or CFIB, which was formed from a combination of the American federal police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI, and the American covert operations agency, the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA. The CFIB is run by National Security Director Walt Whitman Rostow, a ruthless anti-Communist and one of the architects of the American terror-state of the 1960s, and can be compared to the Guatemalan Presidential Annex or the German DDR's Ministry of State Security, both in its role, its level of authority, and the way it operates. American commonfolk living under Federal jurisdiction live in a state of constant fear and paranoia, at the thought of being accosted, threatened, blackmailed, arrested, and "disappeared" by the CFIB for disobeying the dictate and order of the central government. Furthermore, under the dictate of Kissinger, the Federal populace is subjected to an almost constant stream of state propaganda, lies, and fabrication, designed to engender permanent anti-Communist belief, keep them isolated from any outside sources of information, and bend them at every level of society to the thinking of the Federal remnant state. This is expected to be a significant challenge to overcome, as it is likely that this propaganda will make the population of the Federal territories extremely uncooperative with any attempt at governance and rabidly opposed to the presence of Comintern troops. You are exhorted to remain calm and collected at all times -- this is not a problem that can be solved with brute force, nor will it be one that can be resolved quickly. Your task is to ensure that the supply of poison is halted by removing the authority supplying it. Absolute social control is inflicted on the American Federal population. Crossing the borders of the "state" is strictly forbidden and punishable by death or imprisonment. Internal movement beyond a certain distance for unauthorized reasons is likewise illegal and punishable. While the American legislative institution of Congress has largely ceased operation in favor of President Agnew ruling by decree via executive orders, the Federal Government has maintained the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee, under the name of the House Committee on Internal Security. This kangaroo court has absolute authority in its operation and regularly sentences citizens to public execution or life imprisonment on invented charges and tortured confessions, overseen by its rabid anti-Communist chairman, Representative Richard Howard Ichord Jr. Federal authority in the Capitol region is considered absolute, and has largely reduced all other local authorities, up to and including the state governors of Virginia and Maryland, to powerless sinecures. Furthermore, Agnew's paranoia stemming from the defection of two separate sets of Joint Chiefs has led him to concentrate all military authority in himself, deferring field command to General Southward of the Capitol National Guard, who is rumored to be under constant Secret Service "protection". The enclave of Omaha, in the Midwest, is considered the administrative center of the USA-FED and is run by Nebraska's governor, Jim Exon. Exon embodies the greatest puritanical moral rot of the old America, being a virulent racist, homophobe, and overall bigot. He is assisted in this by the remnants of the Chicago and Minneapolis Police Departments, who fulfill the role that the CFIB does in the Capitol Region, and possesses significant military force in the remains of the Nebraska and Iowa National Guard. With the full support and encouragement of the Federal Government, Governor Exon has established numerous laws oppressing and persecuting racial, sexual, and cultural minorities within the Omaha area of control, and has aggressively and repeatedly attempted to attack nearby Comintern nations as well as the USA-GIE enclave in St. Louis. He is to be captured at all costs so that he may answer for these atrocities. Finally, the city of Anchorage in Alaska has sworn loyalty to the Federal Government, and maintained this assertion despite being effectively completely cut off from any control, aid, or at times even communication with Kissinger in the Capitol Region. It has been ruled since the collapse of the United States by Mayor of Anchorage George W. Sullivan, a former Representative for Alaska who has maintained American continuity as best as possible in the circumstances but has ultimately produced mostly governmental stagnation, including a steadfast refusal to pass any laws protecting Anchorage's minority populations in spite of his precarious situation. Anchorage has sufficient militia and former National Guard personnel to maintain its independence from the Amerindian Native nations that have regained control of the remainder of Alaska, but is otherwise militarily nonexistent. Troops combating the Federal Government are exhorted to remember the core tenets of socialism and the objectives of your mission. You will be facing an enemy which has systematically poisoned the minds of his own population. He will fight dirty, he will fight relentlessly, and he will happily sacrifice every common American under his "care" to maintain power and authority. His greatest strength is in the battlefield of the mind. Do not allow him to engage you there. Ignore any and all of his entreaties to old bigotries and individual gain -- he will gladly turn every man in the world against the other to save himself. Do not allow yourself to be provoked by him into acting rashly. Your task is to remove the physical agents and tools of his oppression, not to root out every piece of his ideology -- your civilian comrades are best equipped to do that and will do so. You are here as liberators. Keep that always in mind. = = = = = UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE Also Known As: USA-GIE, Joint Chiefs, Chiefs Headquarters: Uncertain. Likely primary locations at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri / Coast Guard Air Station Miami, Florida / Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Overall Leader: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Thomas Moorer Major Urban Areas of Control: Miami (FL); Kansas City (MO/KS); St. Louis (MO); Little Rock (AR); Harrisburg (PA); Helena (MT) Key Figures of Note: Chairman Admiral THOMAS MOORER General GEORGE NAZARRO General WILLIAM WESTMORELAND General LEONARD CHAPMAN Admiral ELMO ZUMWALT General EARLE WHEELER General CURTIS LEMAY The United States Government-in-Exile was formed by the military figures who made up the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the United States Armed Forces' highest military command authority. Obsessed with "victory" in Vietnam, France, and elsewhere, the Joint Chiefs became increasingly detached from the Agnew civilian government from 1969 onwards, issuing more and more orders that conflicted with or outright contradicted those of the civilian government. In 1972, in response to the Allegheny Riots in the region surrounding the city of Pittsburgh, the Joint Chiefs declared a state of martial law in the United States completely without the authority of Agnew, perhaps expecting to cow him into submission and regain control of the country by force. This failed spectacularly, causing the country to shatter completely, and by late 1972 the Joint Chiefs had evacuated to Japan, taking the role of the United States Government-in-Exile and vowing to continue the fight to restore the United States. This fight has continued completely without substantial success for over a decade since. The Joint Chiefs have ruled by martial law non-stop since 1972, running the largest remaining "loyalist" portion of the former United States by remote from the American Embassy in Japan for years. In 1983, the Japanese Government (through coordination with the Comintern) declared this situation unacceptable and revoked its recognition of the Joint Chiefs in the wake of the Gladio Plot, attempting to seize them and their power base in Operation Sonno Joi. However, the Joint Chiefs had gained foreknowledge of this operation and evacuated to unknown locations, later discovered to have returned to the Continental United States. Their exact whereabouts are not as clear as that of the Federal Government, at least at the current time, but provided that they are alive -- all members of this list are over 65 years old -- they are known to be on the Continent and thus in Joint Chiefs territory. The Government-in-Exile is primarily composed of the surviving bulk of the United States Armed Forces, at the time of collapse the most technologically advanced and best-funded military in the world but completely incapable of dealing with civil unrest and strife within their own country. The GiE military in the present day has long dispensed with such issues by ruthlessly crushing, persecuting, and prosecuting any dissenting voices in its ranks. While it can hardly be considered a solid block of capitalist automatons, the GiE possesses the strongest singular military of any of the American splinter states, and the highest surviving grades of equipment and levels of discipline and training. It is also the only successor state of the five to have anything approaching a functional navy and air force, though most of both of these have been rendered inoperable due to circumstances or lack of maintenance. The Government-in-Exile is not a civilian government in any way, and has shown no interest in operating like one following the failure on all levels of the Agnew government. The Joint Chiefs have ruled under martial law non-stop since 1972, a duration at this time of fourteen unbroken years, with the military in their territories acting as police, administration, judiciary, and law enforcement. Any existing civilian government organs have by this point been completely marginalized and lapsed into virtual nonexistence. Civilians in the Joint Chiefs' areas of control have absolutely no say in the affairs of their own lives, control over their own movement or placement, or ability to ensure their own rights and securities. As a result, civilian morale in Joint Chiefs-controlled regions is extremely low, and the population is kept in line almost entirely by the capacity for violence still possessed by the Joint Chiefs military. Having said that, the Joint Chiefs have also made sure to maintain extensive and aggressive anti-Communist programs to prevent damage by "traitors"; the populace in these territories should not be considered as universal communist supporters merely waiting for the opportunity, though some likely are and few are likely to offer substantial support to the GiE in upcoming operations. The Joint Chiefs as a council consist primarily of five figures -- Chairman Thomas Moorer, Air Force Chief George Nazarro, Army Chief William Westmoreland, Marine Corps Chief Leonard Chapman, and Navy Chief Elmo Zumwalt. Each of the Chiefs is ostensibly the ultimate command authority for their respective branch and responsible for its maintenance, standards, and operations. With the lack of any civilian authority in the Government-in-Exile's overall structure, the importance of these five figures cannot be overstated to the operation of their "government". They also bear command responsibility, and in some cases direct responsibility, for American atrocities committed in Vietnam and France, and the unleashing of tactical nuclear warfare on the world. While considered legitimate military targets, they are to be captured alive at ALL COSTS. They must face justice to satisfy the injuries they have inflicted on the proletariat. While their specific location is not concretely known, their most likely locations are at the US military base in Miami -- particularly Admiral Zumwalt -- or at Fort Leavenworth military base near Kansas City, in the Kansas-Missouri enclave of Joint Chiefs control. Admiral Thomas Moorer is the former Chief of Naval Operations, and assumed the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs when former chairman General Earle Wheeler resigned in 1970. Moorer has headed the Joint Chiefs since that time and holds ultimate responsibility for all US Military actions since 1972. In addition, Moorer authorized the use of tactical nuclear weapons with the "Full Blitz" order in 1970 and the martial law decree of 1972, and may be considered responsible for all US Navy activities up to the end of 1970 in Vietnam and France. General Earle Wheeler resigned due to health issues in 1970 but was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs prior to that, and responsible for some of the greatest atrocities of Vietnam. He was a notorious warhawk and advocated for constant escalation of the strategic bombing that murdered millions of Vietnamese citizens, along with the constant increase in US military presence and the decision to intervene militarily in the French Civil War, along with authorizing the use of the nuclear weapons in the Bombing of Abbeville. Wheeler was observed in Japan but suffered a heart attack while there; he may not currently be alive, but he is to be captured at all costs if he is found to be so. General William Westmoreland is the infamous Butcher of Vietnam, having served as the direct ground commander of American forces in Vietnam for many years and subsequently being placed as the Army Chief of Staff, a role he still holds. Westmoreland was directly responsible for the "attritional" mass slaughter tactics the US ground forces used to kill as many Vietnamese as possible, and which subsequently carried over to US conduct in the French Civil War, resulting in hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths. General Westmoreland is to be captured at absolutely any cost. He has much to answer for. General George Nazarro is the Chief of the Air Force, formerly the commander of the United States' strategic air assets. Nazarro was responsible for the continued escalation of strategic air power in Vietnam and its subsequent use in the Great Revolutionary War; millions of deaths rest directly on his head. Nazarro has been observed in Miami but has not been seen there since the start of 1985; his position means he could effect control from nearly anywhere under the Joint Chiefs rule. General Leonard Chapman is the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps and the board's sole advisory member; he has no formal power to influence the Joint Chiefs' decisions, though Chapman's overall role in the Joint Chiefs has increased since the national collapse due to the realities on the ground. Chapman took over command of the Marine Corps at the very end of Vietnam and holds responsibility for their actions there and in France; he has been extensively responsible for keeping the Marines' competitive edge in training and tactics, partly through enacting policies to root out racist practices within the system. Whether this was out of genuine moral consideration or simply a rationalized act to maximize combat effectiveness and available manpower is uncertain, and currently irrelevant. Chapman is a popular commander and his Marines are likely the most combat-capable force the Joint Chiefs have left; they should be treated as a significant threat if encountered, and can be expected to have higher morale and better discipline than other Joint Chiefs forces. Admiral Elmo Zumwalt is the current Chief of Naval Operations, having held the position since Thomas Moorer was elevated to the Chairman seat in 1970. Zumwalt is a highly popular commander in the Joint Chiefs Navy, having taken severe measures to curtail racism and sexism in the surviving elements and overseen the generally orderly withdrawal to Japan and subsequent evacuation therefrom. Nevertheless, Zumwalt holds command responsibility for all U.S. Navy actions since 1970, including all tactical nuclear strikes conducted by naval air and submarine assets, as well as direct responsibility for the use of Agent Orange on the Mekong Delta. Captured and defected GiE Navy members have repeatedly claimed that Zumwalt restricted the use of the Navy's strategic weapons in the final days of the Great Revolutionary War; however, this has yet to be proven with any hard evidence. Zumwalt's reputation among his servicemembers is extremely positive and they possess very high morale for an arm of the Government in Exile that has largely ceased to function; they can be expected to defend him with all available measures. In addition, a final figure is thought to be somewhere in the territory of the Joint Chiefs, though this is not known for certain. General Curtis LeMay, formerly of the United States Air Force, disappeared from California shortly after the Second Californian Revolution, and has not been reliably sighted since. He may be present in either US splinter state or in one of the others. If so, he is to be captured at absolutely any cost. Currently 79 if he is still alive, Curtis LeMay is an ice-hearted butcher responsible for some of the most destructive atrocities committed by air power in the history of the world. He was the architect and executor of the firebombing atrocity campaign against Japan during World War II, and subsequently orchestrated, designed, and oversaw the start of the United States' atrocity-bombing of Vietnam during the Vietnam War, threatening to send the country "back to the stone age". LeMay has evaded justice for decades due to his position of favor in the capitalist hierarchies, and due to his age it is possible that he is no longer alive. If he is found alive, he is to be captured at absolutely any cost. The people of Vietnam have many crimes to level against him, as does the Japanese Republic. The military of the Government-in-Exile is likely to be the toughest single opponent you will face in this operation. Though no longer the world-oppressing giant that the United States Military once was, the GiE military is possessed of more of their equipment, tactics, and training than any remaining force on Earth save for possibly the Army of California. They are likely to be fanatically dedicated to their cause, and to be completely inconsiderate of the status and well-being of the civilians in their territories if forced to choose between their well-being and their military survival. These men have sacrificed millions of lives already with barely a thought or a care. Do not ever take them lightly from a military perspective. Remember your training, remember to respect the enemy, and at all times remember to fight with your comrades. At the end of the day, the GiE Military cannot hope to maintain the cohesion and camaraderie of a socialist military. Their time is over, but they will fight bitterly to defy this reality. = = = = = Capturing any of these men, once confirmed with your superiors, will be richly rewarded, as will the capture of any other prominent political, military, civic, or social leaders belonging to these two governments or other hostile governments within the areas of operation. We are here to bring these men to face the justice they have long eluded. Do not take such matters into your own hands. You are here to liberate; you are not judge, jury, and executioner. Only the people can decide the fate of these men, though rest assured, they will. The parallel side of sweeping away the old order is to create and build the new in its place. You will, in coordination with your comrades in the diplomatic and administrative departments of the Comintern, ensure that stability is kept in the territory once dominated by these men and that further selfish, rapacious remains of the capitalist order do not attempt to muscle in and seize control in their wake. Together, we will ensure that the American proletariat is given control of their own destiny at long last. = = = = = Notes have been appended to the metadata of the text document, presumably by members of the team working on it. Be prepared for possible scope creep. Send request California for pull data on USA-GND, USA-TAC, and DSR for possible further action. Send request New Afrika for pull data on USA-NRC. Send request to Cascadia for pull data on FCS if necessary. LAV, NEC, ALG, LCD, TEX currently designated outside of scope by Diplomatic Corps.
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Jul 31, 2022 08:32
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Loreposts are the best posts!
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Jul 31, 2022 18:04
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I've got a bunch of them that I've been working on, just waiting to make sure I'm not posting a huge unassailable wall of text back to back to back. Stay tuned for the next one tonight, after the update.
Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Aug 2, 2022 |
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Aug 2, 2022 01:31
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Redeye Flight posted:I've got a bunch of them that I've been working on, just waiting to make sure I'm not posting a huge unassailable wall of text back to back to back. Stay tuned for the next one tonight, after the update. 
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Aug 2, 2022 02:02
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