NationStates Jolt Archive

I wish here to explain certain basic points of the Neralli way of life.

First, the Neralli are nomadic dwellers in large airships, and have no ties to the land over which they float.
Second, the Neralli are, of necessity, masters of the art of kluge-making. This has two implications: one, that no two pieces of equipment look exactly the same; and two, that non-Neralli engineers/code-hacks/whatever will find Neralli systems hard to even understand, let alone repair by other than empirical methods. Neralli equipment tends to look ugly, by the standards of outsiders, but none can deny that it functions at least adequately, and in most cases superbly...when operated by the Neralli who modified it.
Third, that each airship is independent of all the rest on day-to-day matters, run by an elected council which is subject to review and, if needed, recall by the citizens. The councils of the airships select a High Council, composed of six Speakers: First Speaker, who is nominally in charge; Second Speaker for External Affairs; Third Speaker for Internal Affairs; Fourth Speaker for Education; Fifth Speaker for Health and Medicine; and Sixth Speaker for Production. These Speakers are subject to the same review and recall by the councils as the councils are by the citizens. It may look like an unworkable system, but, like any other tested Neralli kluge, it gets the job done.

Questions are now welcomed from interested parties; no answers are guaranteed, but I shall do my damnedest.

(bump)

How many airships are their, and how big are they (on average?)

At this time? Some thousands, ranging in size from small villages to great cities. Only in the greatest cities are new airships built and launched. The typical Neralli airship consists of two Zeppelin-style hulls, each containing a number of gasbags, connected by a multi-deck "platform". This configuration is, in most cases, too heavy to be supported by the gasbags alone, and must therefore have additional lift; typically this is provided by boom-mounted rotors.

The peoples of Neralli are diverse, and mostly non-human; catfolk, foxfolk, and wolf-folk are among the most common. Hybrids are also more common among the Neralli than in many other nations. However, a eugenics program, consisting primarily of payment for work in ration books, is in place to eliminate drains on the limited resources of the airships.

This update to the public information documents provided by the office of Second Speaker for External Affairs concerns the military forces of the Neralli.

The Neralli military, in both branches, is very limited, although the Aerial Warfare branch is somewhat larger than Ground Warfare.

Ground Warfare consists primarily of low-slung hexapodal walkers mounting remotely-operated turreted weapons, but also trains and deploys special infantry units (as scout sniper teams, commando units, et cetera). The reason for this dearth of line infantry will be explained later in this document.

Aerial Warfare maintains and operates a number of multirole-capable aerodynes aboard each airship, as well as manning the anti-aircraft systems of the airships. The most common of these aerodynes is, perhaps surprisingly to "modern" readers, a canard-winged biplane driven by twin pusher props, and serves as a patrol aircraft; to this end, it is only lightly armed, bearing a single 30mm autocannon in the nose. A variant, armed with four such nose-mounted cannon and mounting four disposable-weapons hardpoints on the wingtips, serves for local air defense, aiding the gunnery crews of the airship, as well as providing limited ground-attack capability.

Naval Warfare and Space Warfare are not presently part of the Neralli military structure, for the simple reason that the Neralli have no ships save those of the air...yet.

In addition to the forces listed above, all Neralli citizens are trained to serve as a militia, providing infantry support for Ground Warfare's armor as well as a home guard.

Let those who would take us be warned.

--Second Speaker for External Affairs

Fourth update to Neralli public information documents: Groundside Operations.

There are only two occupations requiring actual ground contact: farming and mining. For these works, an airship grounds itself and is made fast. All housing remains aboard the airship, as do all facilities not directly related to either groundside operation. Those facilities erected outside the airship are designed to be packed up and hauled back onto the airship in under fifteen minutes (the time required for the airship to cast off and get aloft), or rigged to self-destruct and abandoned in place...necessary precautions, in the event of an attack. Both types of groundside operation use standard Ground Warfare armor units as tractors, and all external facilities have at least one arms locker each. These precautions may seem paranoid, but the fact that the Neralli airships are vulnerable to conventional assault only while grounded should bring matters back into focus.