NationStates Jolt Archive

The Empire of the Eternal Dawn demands the end of blood sport in Wolf Ville. According to figures extracted by IDFI recently, twenty-eight thousand sentients have been slaughtered in these so-called sports in the last few months alone, and we require immediate change in order to sway us from the inevitable path upon which we now place our feet.

~ High King Semir-randil I

Father-|Decisions, decisions. The mighty whirring mind of Father contemplated the options; its neural pathways were quite advanced... but quite full of bugs. Yet still it controlled the nation, managing barely to effect a sane exterior for the world to see... mostly.

The random choice came.

No.|-Father

* * *

We will not allow any attempt to breach Father's sovereign rights. The Bloodletting shall continue.

~ Father of Wolf Ville

[OOC: I was handed this nation, and told to do something with it. So I am. This does not tie in with any previous posts by this nation. Uhm. If there are any.]

The IDSS Peacekeeper, escorted by a few dozen Fearless class destroyers, swooped into a low orbit above Wolf Ville. Quietly, her bay doors open-

* * *

"Dropships stacked and ready," the CAG reported through the tinny audio system on the bridge of the carrier Peacekeeper.

"Time until...?"

She left the question hanging.

"Forty seconds."

"Execute in ninety."

"Acknowledged," came the deep bass response from the burly Rhean Commander Air Group.

* * *

'Gamma' squadron - the 212 Air Dominance Squadron - swept down through the atmosphere, silence reigning the tiny cockpits of their mighty strike aircraft. Gleaming hulls spill electrons into the atmosphere, ionizing air and in turn releasing photons, causing them to glow dimly as they descend in perfect formation-

-far below, a wing of fighters lifts, trembling with energy, and vault upwards at fastest possible speed-

-too slow, much too slow.

Hornet missiles drop from the gunports on the lead M# interceptors-

And three of the aircraft far below scramble out of the way, the jets falling groundwards as their pilots black out.

Flames erupt from the fourth, fifth, and sixth enemy jets.

* * *

The day was clear. The sun shining brightly. All was calm, sedate.

"What the devil..."

He had only just noticed it; but there seemed to be a faint... glint... a sparkle... in the sky. It grew before his eyes; hot, hot white-

The flash was blinding. The boom resounded violently, shattering the windows in his office-

-more booms quickly followed, but they were mere dull thuds in the ears of the man cowering under his desk, peeking out but seeing nothing but whiteness in the air outside.

In actuality, the airbase several miles away had been vapourized; precision kinetic strikes devastating the installation in mere instants.

* * *

"All ready?"

Gartri checked his gear one more time as he requested status from his crew. There were sixty of them in here; crammed in like sardines. Stacked in front of them were Hornet Defence Units - designed to take out enemy missiles and bombers. Shouldn't be needed, of course...

...but better to be safe.

"Aye," came the chorus.

"Five seconds," came the call of Durel.

* * *

In Imristil, the capital of Wolf Ville, two-hundred-seventy gleaming white objects fell out of the pure blue sky of midday.

Effortlessly, and without opposition - yet - they vanished as they touched down at strategic locations throughout the capital-

-booms - of thunder - resound overheard. Sundering, roaring violent booms that shatter windows throughout the city below, and cause temporary deafness in thousands - farmers in the countryside will complain for weeks that their cows have not been producing the same quantity of milk; birds drop dead in a three mile radius; and an old guy in the west end of the city will claim for years that the booms gave him his sight back.

Clouds rapidly whoosh into place above the capital, vast amounts of water ice sucked down by the giant ship descending through the atmosphere at speed - lightning crackles above the warship as it falls, casting a vast shadow over the ground as it blocks out the sun from view of half of the city; a Fury class carrier, PDEF beam cluster lines brimming with energy.

[EDIT - double post]

OOC: why are you RPing with yourself?

[OOC: I'm RPing this portion with myself, but I'll shortly be looking for someone else to run Wolf Ville to continue the storyline.]

[umh.. okay. *raises eyebrow*]

tagged

The Holy Tower of Peace and Calm, Imristil, Wolf Ville

The Fury class ship hung ominously over the city, casting a smaller shadow now it was at an altogether lower altitude. Still, it was... impressive.

Father had ordered some thirty aircraft to launch an assault on it. There hadn't appeared to be any opposition - that is, until the aircraft got too close, and pure brilliant white beams lanced out from the hull of the ship, crippling the electronics on most of the planes and incinerating a few. The few aircraft that hadn't been incinerated or hadn't simply fallen out of the sky (relatively speaking - that is, following a small period of gliding) struggled away from the 'battle' that had never really begun; a couple of planes landed at the nearby airbase. A couple. The aircraft were not intended to be landed manually; without instrumentation, the pilots had struggled. It was a miracle that even two had survived; although, of course, they had been summarily executed by their CO for ignoring orders and returning to base without permission. Treason.

Father gazed from the window. His spire was the tallest building in the city, in the south-east - the Rich Quarter. It had been thirty years - thirty long, tiring years - since he had worn this old shell. It was frail, decrepit, useless. He saw no need to use it - until today. He needed eyes to see, to truly see, to appreciate the threat to the control he had carefully cultivated.

And he saw.

It would all end soon.

He reached for his symbolic keycard, tagged around his neck, from days gone long ago; this keycard had symbolized his rule, when he had still lived physically and not digitally. A long time ago. "It may end," his weak, ancient mouth managed to scrape out, "but on my terms." He laughed, then coughed, then sputtered - the body sagged to the ground, and quietly, attendants removed it to the stasis chamber in which it was forever stored.

Usually.

* * *

Various locations in Imristil, Wolf Ville

The Fury class carrier had hung silently in the air for close to two hours. She was comms silent; nary a whisper came from her decks. The ship, displayed behind the speaking reporter high in the sky, glows faintly, the Three Star Sigil not visible. "...and the sky above the capital is being patrolled by the efficient M# interceptors of the 212 Air Dominance Squadron; national civilian flights had already been turned back. - Air dominance is apparently already secured," the reporter is calmly informing the viewers.

"On the ground, activity is surprisingly lacking. There is no sign of combat, as yet; apparently, the EOTED dropships were ordered-"

Flashes, rapidly followed by the double-echoing booms of explosions cut off the reporter - who is clearly at some sort of IDF Peacekeeper position. Peacekeepers, camoflauged and wearing flak jackets, are hankered down low nearby, working on some sort of complex-looking machine. - A Hornet Defence System, a knowledgable person might note.

"-judging by the flashes in the sky I saw a few moments ago, I would hazard the guess that the destroyers that are reportedly still in low-orbit just launched an orbital strike against military targets, which my liason informed me earlier was a likely scenario-"

* * *

The low tones of 'confirmation' signals from the Sensor Division on the small Fearless class destroyer Yttrium Dream. The bridge was cramped, small, and occupied by two of the nine crew of the small-but-tough warship. "Five hits for the 'fleet, two misses, no definite civilian strikes," the SensOps officer dutifully informed the Lieutenant Commander seated in the Nest.

The CO breathed a sigh of relief. "Is that confirmed yet?"

"Not yet," the SensOps officer reported, "we still don't have confirmation of where the last missfire landed. I think - yes, we have it now; it hit a small disused factory in grid thirteen-by-six, elevation beta."

The CO scowled. "Any chance of any casualties?"

"Minimal," the Mission Specialist chimed in, "the economy in Wolf Ville is stale, but it isn't dead. There'd be no need for people to be living in conditions like that place probably once represented; there should be no real casualties..."

The CO cut in. "-But expect a low-likelihood of PR difficulties if the enemy suggests otherwise?"

"Exactly," the MS and the FO responded at the same moment.

The CO sighed. "Resume fire in twenty minutes, as the schedule requires."

* * *

Durel scowled. Nothing to do, nobody to fight, nowhere to go. Gee, this was what he signed up for, all right. The glory of the Empire my arse, he decided.

"Okay. So. We're here. The enemy isn't showing up, as far as I can tell. And we have... what, four minutes to full deployment stats?"

"Yup," the private standing next to him confirmed needlessly.

"Great. So we're sittin' here on our butts, and Command gets to make the call - but they can't give us the call for two hours, because the Peacekeeper is on comms-silent until oh-nine-hundred tomorrow. - This stinks," Cordeth informed Durel with a frown.

"Don't I know it, Cordy, but orders are orders. - Unless..."

Durel smiled.

"Get me a Scorpion requisitioned from one of the dropships - you and I are going on a little joyride, Cordy. Recon isn't slated for just yet on the schedule - but the schedule has gone to hell anyhow, right?"

"Yup," the yes-saying private concluded.

Durel shot him a faintly irritated look. "Sounds fine, boss," agreed Cordeth after a few moments consideration, "but if I were you, I'd check with the CL - I think it's that immigrant-woman, Major Syrell."

"Screw the CL," the private muttered.

"Yeah, you wish," Cordeth informed the youngster with a sly grin.

Durel laughed quietly, slapping a hand against his thigh in an old Nenyan gesture meant to imply emphasis. "Who the hell doesn't?"

|-|He stared, with his Eye, aghast. The flashes of white, streaking down through the atmosphere, were an almost constant flow, now. He could see, far in the distance, great plumes of smoke and steam rising from the coast - the ocean was ablaze, the Wolf Ville Father's Naval Defence Fleet in tatters already, he was certain.

It would not last long.

He had ordered the army away from the capital, away from everything. It would be chaos, he knew. The advancing enemy - the damnable Peacekeepers - would not meet military resistance, but instead would meet angry mobs of rioting civilians.

Father would be gone. He was having his body removed from its stasis chamber again; then he would die.

He sighed.|-|

* * *

He had been sleeping. The wash of the waves against the hull of his little torpedo boat, the FWS Father's Little Helper, had lulled him to sleep; the relief was watching the 'scope, anyhow. Hardly mattered.

Except, today, it did.

He awoke to the sound of silence; throbbing, painful silence. His ears burnt - on fire, he thought - and he scrambled from his bunk, dashing towards the door-

-he burst onto the deck, and halted.

He whirled.

The sky was on fire! The sea burning!

He shrunk back in on himself, whimpering with terror-

Training kicked in. He pushed the fear away, pushed it hard, and he ran faster than he ever had to the prime gun of the little boat-

And found nothing to shoot at. The 'scope read... nothing. Berk was shouting something at him, he thought, because his lips were moving real fast and wide, but he couldn't hear a word. I'm deaf, he realised far too late.

Too late because a kinetic missile rammed itself into the Father's Little Helper the next instant, incinerating the boat almost instantly.

"Santa in a starship," Edrin Mal-Ariyass muttered as his squad picked their way over debris that littered the streets of the filthy capital of this disgusting country. His crisp adaptive combat suit - only his heavily painted features visible, aside from his US/EF wand - was soiled, and even torn in a few places. It wasn't bullet-proof - nobody wore bullet proof gear in the IDF, with the exception of the Imperial Palace Guard. Too expensive.

He hadn't seen a soul, despite wearing the latest in EM-imaging gear strapped over his face - it made him look like... well, something very strange, at any rate. The equipment was light, sure, but it was bulky, and only one in three of his Division even had the stuff. Probably for the best, he mused, or else we'd all be too slow.

And Edrin was slow. But now-

Now he picked out pink amidst the false-colour image projected onto his retina (it tended to make one feel nauseous after a few hours, with long-term usage often accompanied with headaches that could kill an elephant). The pink of movement - and there was the blue of living tissue. "I see movement," he mouthed silently, ducking down low and indicating with a hand that the other twelve men were to do so also.

They were at the corner of one street, and the opposite side of the road appeared to contain what used to be a park. It wasn't any more, however - it was dug up, muddy, and completely impassable to any vehicles that had their 'feet' on the ground.

He could see one person - a woman, if he wasn't mistaken - laying against the crest of a rolling rivet of mud; she appeared to have an assault rifle, also.

"Sniper," he mouthed.

He fiddled with the nubbin on his US/EF wand that tied into the EM-imaging gear, adjusting the magnification.

"Forget that. She's not military; she's not even watching the area. - Hadrij, Rihad, Menjda, scope out the area around her. Be quiet about it."

There was no reply - there never was. It was pointless to all use the LSRs at once; someone might be watching for EM spikes.

It occurred to Edrin slowly that his EM-imaging equipment might well give their position away-

But then, the Scorpion MI tank following behind them would do that, anyway.

He sighed.

And then all hell broke loose.

In just a few seconds, things went from calm...

...to a tumult of noise and confusion.

The first second, the woman on the 'hill' started firing; her automatic rifle glowed fiercely for several seconds, spraying bullets at unseen assailants behind her-

And then, out of nowhere, the crowd surged over the 'hill' towards the soldiers.

Just like that. One moment- nobody in sight. Next- about a thousand inbound angry civilians.

"Take em out," cried Edrin, waving a hand at the tank-mounted heavy-duty Type IV US cannon, and ducking down low away from its line-of-sight, scrabbling out of the way and hoping the rest of the squad had the sense to do so-

The MI tank surges forwards, lifting several feet off the ground in the process, and the crowd surges towards the tank, many howling angry words-

The crowd simply falls down in wave after wave as the laser-contained ultrasound knocks them unconscious; the cannon simply swivels back and forth. There are no bright lights, no sounds from the cannon, no fireworks - simply the terrified cries of the crowd as they try to scramble back the way they came.

"Idiots," Edrin muttered angrily, before returning to mouthing his words and 'speaking' via the LSR; "Hawk!"

Hawk was the guy in the tank; he had the radio system.

"Yeah?"

Hawk was also the most relaxed guy Edrin had ever met. He was seriously calm, all the time; Edrin had served with him twice before - once on a non-combat exercise, and the other during the invasion of the Empire earlier in the year - and both times, Hawk had barely muttered a word except when spoken to. He only moved when he needed to; spoke when he needed to; and kicked arse whenever possible. That was Hawk.

"Get on the comm, and inform Command that we have... about four hundred civilians knocked out here in the street, and we need a medevac or ten for em. And tell em to step on it; that crowd might get courageous and come back any moment. Got that?"

"Yeah," Hawk responded, cutting the channel off to make the call.

"Idiots," Edrin muttered again - this would slow their progress.

And he did not want to spend a moment longer than necessary in this damnable place.

Not one moment.

EOTED announces that it fully expects the Wolf Ville Liberation Campaign to be over within the next few hours, and extends its warmest thanks and respect to the global community for its seeming policy of non-interference in this facet of EOTED foreign policy.

~ Ambassador Dejure

WOLF VILLE, Tuesday - Despite claims by the Government that the war in Wolf Ville would be 'over within the next few hours' as of the 15th of this month of Hísimë (November), the war continues to rage on in Wolf Ville.

As the conflict escalates, claims by the Government on Monday that the so-called 'Father' of Wolf Ville, a recluse of which little is known at this time, had 'ended his own life in an act of extreme cowardice' were today proven beyond all doubt.

Ispen Uckri, 'Senior Aide to Father' under the falling regime of Wolf Ville, admitted that, "Father had given the order to fight to the last man, for he would be dead and the existance of the nation as a whole was over."

Despite sounding like something of an admittance of defeat, it was believed by the so-called 'Followers of Father' - the nucleus former government of Wolf Ville - that "Father would live on in another form, and with victory He would Return". Clearly, such claims are nonsense.

However, this belief appears to permeate the entire Wolf Ville military; despite an early withdrawal from the capital in what looked to be a surrender to the drop of the IDF 1 Peacekeeper 'Shock Assault' Division, the Wolf Ville military staged a surprising re-entry into the capital, driving back the small EOTED force.

Further drops from orbit from the growing space force above Wolf Ville were insufficient, resulting in the ground-drop of a further fifty thousand troops and accompanying tanks.

Fears that supply lines are insufficient were then quickly swatted away by the IDF Logistical Department; Senior Advisor to the LD Command Council Idriani Rihad stated that, "...so far all possible and forseeable circumstances have been forseen with all due rapidity by the capable command team that is co-ordinating the logistics of this operation. Our assets are fully capable of maintaining the supply lines into Wolf Ville, and into the Wolf Ville OIZ [Orbital Insertion Zone - Ed] for as long as is required of them."

Despite these claims, IDF Peacekeeper forces continued to struggle against the rapid advance of the rabid and rampant Wolf Ville ground forces; with the Wolf Ville air force already destroyed on the ground, along with the navy, the IDF High Command saw fit to up the scale of the assault.

Early Tuesday saw the arrival of the 15 Air Assault Squadron, diverted from duties protecting the growing armada in orbit above Wolf Ville thanks to the arrival of the newly-launched carrier IDSS Stability, and that arrival allowed the rapid insertion of further forces throughout Wolf Ville, instead of following the originally-planned 'Rukemia Model' assault.

Joint Supreme Commander of the IDF Peacekeepers, the Imperial Mother Bao Ling said Tuesday, "With the snakes head already removed, the IDF Peacekeepers can now proceed to ensure the liberation of the entirety of Wolf Ville, and not merely the area of greatest concern."

Assaults on major cities, including the major trading port city of Iciro (pronounced 'Iss-EAR-ee-oh', meaning 'this happened') began quickly, lead by IDF AF support aircraft. G# strike-bombers worked to nullify known enemy positions, with Medical Corps units shipped in rapidly (under K# escort) to evacuate the unconscious enemy forces.

Thusfar, this journalist is proud to report that the entire operation has occurred without a single enemy military death; however, the great tragedy of this war - as ever - is the loss of civilian life. As yet unknown, the death toll is expected to already be high and rising. Unfortunately, the Wolf Ville military is equipped with entirely lethal arms, with little to zero non-lethal training at all; the so-called lethal versus non-lethal crossfire effect costs civilian and IDF lives. The IDF Peacekeeper death toll currently stands at nineteen; as ever, our brave men and women bear the brunt of the lack of responsibility of foreigners who refuse to switch to non-lethal arms wherever possible.

The Honourable Speaker Ixri Rihad, Spiritual Advisor to the Government, today stated on behalf of the Church of Eru, "Sadly it is the way of war that lives are lost; yet we who have lost those who have lived in this world can undoubtedly be proud of the bravery of our lost ones - for who braver can there be than those who fight with arms with no bite against teeth and claws that kill? Yet do not mourn; for unto the greater beyond where Eru knows alone have they flown - their feet tread the path that all mortal feet follow. - Mourn not!"

~ Source: Nenya Today broadsheet/Mesh publication; available at mesh:\\itc.nenya-today.mp\ (inside the Empire) ...or http://www.nenya-today.mesh.com/international (international)