NationStates Jolt Archive

Iskra!: Victoria & Salvador returns to mainland rule as Llewellyn flees!

While King Llewellyn’s castle-palace at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch was over-run by jubilant unionists the once mighty monarch of all Beth Gellert fled the reunited country. His destination is unknown; Haverton was friendly to his regime but unlikely to risk upsetting its powerful communist neighbour, other New Tiamatian states are generally uninviting or unknown. Some speculate that the deposed king may make for the likes of Roycelandian East Africa or for distant Iansisle. With him have fled coalition government leaders Sir William Duncan, ex-PM and Prog-Loyalist leader and Lord Howard Drumble, DPM and Tory-Royalist head-honcho.

It was a grand day for the rest of New Tiamat’s southwestern corner as the islands of Victoria and Salvador finally rejoined the mainland. Commonwealth Restorationist Party leader Comrade Morgan Barrie appeared on the balcony of the king’s Sumer palace while crowds were surprised to see disgraced Democratic Socialist leader and one time PM Miss Elizabeth Powell speak at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch castle.

It had become apparent that the little islands of Victoria and Salvador could not survive alone given their massive population following wholesale Royalist evacuations during Sopworth Igo’s revolution on the mainland. Ever since Igo’s Maoist/Stalinist style “Igovian Soviet Commonwealth” was over-thrown in a counter-revolution by less brutal enforcers of communist principle there have been Victoria Salvadorian movements to reunification.

“After all” said Powell, “it was Sopworth we fled, and the current Beth Gellen system that caused his flight, we have nothing to fear from our comrades, indeed our families, on the mainland.”

There are of course on Victoria and Salvador still many opponents to reunification under the Beth Gellen communist system, most noticeably local entrepreneurs who do not relish the prospect of a centrally planned economy.

While comrade Graeme Igo, CPCS, said to them simply, “Tough!” others in Beth Gellert have been more philosophical and less committal. Commonwealth Chief Consul comrade Chivo said that it was Beth Gellert’s widely held opinion that once skeptical Victoria Salvadorians witness and participate in the post-Sopworthian political system in The Commonwealth they should probably come around.

King Llewellyn’s motto was Vox populi, vox Rex, and as the people have spoken so the king has turned tail and fled.

Certain portions of the Iansislean intelligentsia, those same men who made up the core of the Progressive Reformists and Democratic-Socialists, had actually come to feel a certain degree of sympathy for post-Sopworth Beth Gellert. The firm entrenchment of big business in every aspect of Iansislean culture and the tenacious persistence of colonialism ensured that all but the most left-wing of the Shield’s politicians were still well to the right of the world’s center, but many cautiously looked to Beth Gellert as something of a model.

The memories of Salvador were at last beginning to dim, faded by the passage of time and the horrors of much larger conflict. Names like Frederick Woodlark, Robert Halders and James Redford had replaced those of Thomas Gurney, John Northrupt, and Kenneth Jones; there hadn’t been a single monument commissioned to those who died at Salvador in over three years.

Unfortunately for the liberal elite, the expulsion of Llewellyn from his kingdom gave new ammunition to the hard-line anti-communist groups. Their new charge, led as always by the growing Widows of Salvador (how the number of women related to men who died in the Advance Fleet or IV Rifles was going up rather than down was anyone’s guess), swept across the Shield. The growing divide between the working class and the aristocracy was forgotten temporarily as they joined hands in condemning “those filthy ingrates!” who drove Llewellyn out.

Edward Tarriff’s conservative government, ever fearful of treading on powerful toes (especially as the navy’s new expansion program was little more than two years old) found itself under siege by public opinion. In fact, if Tarriff and Earl Inswick had their way, Iansisle could simply have ignored the entire manner and avoided poking at a dragon to see if it would wake up.

As it was, the government was persuaded - almost at gunpoint - to invite ‘King’ Llewellyn to the Commonwealth (that is, the Iansislean Commonwealth). There, he would be free to undertake a vigorous letter writing campaign, living in splendid luxury at government expense, until such time as he persuaded his wayward subjects of their grievous error. Or else drink, womanize, and gamble to his heart’s content, whichever fit his fancy better.

poking at a dragon to see if it would wake up
OOC: What? That's Jeff's job!

Victoria

Beth Gellen military personnel ashore on Victoria and Salvador were a little puzzled. Sopworth had told them that the Royalists had built up on the islands before the evacuation all manner of terrible armaments, and that the large island of Victoria was divided between war industry, army bases, and royal estates, while little Salvador housed the oppressed and crowded lower classes.

Some had wondered who ran heavy industry on the mainland if not the working class, but still, even they were surprised by the middle-class over-crowding on Victoria. Terraced houses. That's all they have! Where are the factories? There exist in the major cities some advanced information-technology labs, but precious few facilities capable of turning out stealth bombers or intermediate range ballistic missiles.

Sopworth had insisted that half those evacuated to Victoria and Salvador were in the army- the post Sopworth system had not supported this finding, but the idea of disproportionate militarisation had remained. Now, open records indicated a Salvadorian army half the size of Beth Gellert's even after the 20% spending cut following Sopworth's fall.

There were not even two thousand modern battle tanks available.

The Commonwealth Professional Civil Service carried out detailed surveys of military equipment delivered into Beth Gellen hands on reunification.

550,000x FAMAS 5.56mm assault rifles
275,000x Browning Hi-Power MkIII 9mm pistol
65,000x Sterling 9mm SMG
72,000x L96A1 7.62mm sniper rifle
45,000x L86A2 5.56mm LMG
20,000x GPMG 7.62mm MG
8,500x L1A1 .50” HMG

7,000+CFAR H2 81mm mortar
9,500+ 51mm mortar
4,850+ Stinger SAM
6,700 LAW 94mm
2,900+ CRAR M5 medium anti-tank weapon

5,600x 105mm light field gun

220x Phoenix UAV

1,485x Rapier Field Standard C low level battlefield air defence system

258x Merkava Mk3 MBT
1,120x C1 Ariete MBT
740x TAM medium tank
1,500x Warrior MCV
1,030 AAAV1X advanced amphibious assault vehicle
340x FV104 Samaritan armoured ambulance (Scorpion variant)
185x FV105 Sultan command post vehicle (Scorpion variant)
338x Samson armoured recovery vehicle
400x Shielder anti-tank-mine laying armoured vehicle (Stormer variant)
119x Python minefield breaching system armoured vehicle
65x Unipower 8x8 Tank Bridge Transporter
650x Panhard VBL Scout Car
180x AMX-10RC 6x6 reconnaissance vehicle
562x Supacat All Terrain Mobility Platform
720x Heavy Equipment Transport (tank transporter)
3,900x 4x4 Leyland/DAF 4-tonne General Service lorry
30,000 Landrovers in various configurations

125x Mangusta A129 helicopter gunship
110x Merlin HC3 transport helicopter

100x JAS39 Gripen
206x Tornado IDS
160x Tornado ADV
44x A4 Skyhawk trainers
35x MR2 Nimrod

2,200x Combat Support Boat (CSB)
86x Landing Craft Vehicle/Personnel (LCVP)
850x Rigid Raider fast patrol boats

2x Nirit FAMB trimaran
1x GM corvette trimaran (8 missile array)
1x Helicopter corvette (1 SH60 Seahawk)
8x Shaldag MkII patrol boat
2x Wasp Class assault ship (HMVSS Manco and Percival)

Assorted Reserves:
4x MiG 21 2000
50x Dassault-Breguet Mirage F1
8x Apache helicopter gunship
240 AMX-30 MBT

The former United Kingdom hadn't even managed to get planned heavy ship-building industry off the ground. The landing craft of which Sopworth spoke existed, but they had no serious escorts. No wonder Sumer was so open to reuinification- they could not have lasted a month against The People's Commonwealth.

As former PM Powell insisted, there were no "WMD" programmes.

Now Victoria Salvadorian units would join Beth Gellen forces facing rogue Roycelandian forces on Madagascar, and everyone felt that they'd probably be safer there, hiding behind not from superior Beth Gellen tanks.

Liberation, Andaman and Nicobar

Hundreds of metres above the Indian Ocean the deposed King regarded his new realm. It was a nice suite, sure enough, but several hundred thousand times smaller than his old domain.

"Why didn't we build this way?" He mumbled, half catching his queen's ear. Morag raised a jet black eyebrow at him but didn't pick-up the conversation, she was wondering when they might go back for her dogs.

Just then the couple's sombre reflections were interrupted by the arrival of Percy Lombard, former Defence Minister and now something of an aide to the royals. He handed Llewellyn a slip of paper before departing with a bow.

"Looks as if we've still decisions to make." Said the King with a look of minor inflation.

Shortly there after five Victoria Salvadorians were arranging flights to Iansisle.

"I wonder if the A380s fly to Iansisle!" Said a suprisingly excited Tory-Royalist leader to Lombard's glance.

"I don't know if their facilities are large enough."

While there were several airfields, mostly in western Iansisle and at strategic locations throughout the colonies, specifically designed to launch and land those behemoth heavy bombers that forced Chiang Maï to accept a peace much more favorable to Iansisle than would otherwise have been possible, it was highly likely not even those could have landed an A380; certainly, none of civilian aerodocks could have done the trick!

Not that transportation was a huge stumbling block; while the pragmatic government was perfectly happy to let the exiled king find his own way, the much more numerous and vocal idealists convinced them to provide one of the governments newest model Bankfield aerotransports for the job.

No doubt the four-engined propeller driven contraption was something of a spectacle for the more modern Andaman and Nicobarese. And while it could only two hundred and thirty knots (with a tailwind), the Bankfield was rather nicely appointed. The five Victoria Salvadorans filled ludicrously few of the flyer’s eighty double-leg room leather seats, and there was nearly a 4-1 ratios of flight crew / servants to passengers, but at least there was plenty of stretching time as the Bankfield stopped for fuel three times on the way to the Commonwealth.

They were met at Gurney International Aerodock, outside of Ianapalis, by an enthusiastic crowd cheering and waving miniature flags of both Llewellyn’s defunct kingdom and Iansisle. Given the welcoming crack of a twenty-one gun salute, the virtual sea of brass-ridden military uniforms and high-ranking administrators’ faces, and the marching band busy pumping out one national anthem after another, one might wonder if he had wandered into one of Caesar’s triumphs rather than the arrival of a deposed monarch.

At the head of an incredible array of administrators, both from the ruling government, the massive bureaucracy, the great houses of the Shield, and the military (mostly the navy, at that) was the one face every single person in the Commonwealth knew. The five years of war and turmoil since the Knootian visit had weighed heavy on the shoulders of High King James III, sovereign and protector of the Grand Empire of the Shield and its Dominons. Now, as he approached on thirty, considered middle age in a culture beset by cholera, small pox, and a host of other infectious diseases, the Iansislean monarch could no longer wear the protective mask of youth. He had learned by hard example his responsibilities - and limitations - as the Head of State, and one might even say he had aged well in advance of his years. However, the regal good looks, now refined by the passage of time, the same deep brown eyes, and the quiet, conversational tones that had rallied the country behind the reforms and modernizations of his reign remained unchanged.

“Your Majesties,” he greeted Llewellyn - whose name only several long and arduous hours of practice had taught him to pronounce - and Morag. “It is my pleasure to welcome you both to the Empire of the Shield.”

(Sorry about the sloth of my response, I seem to be having more trouble than ever with the forums, of late. For the record, as I'm posting with BG, no one wants to maintain V&S anymore (unless there are volunteers) so I'll probably be letting the account die off)

Llewellyn's living conditions had not at any time put him in much danger from many of the rather old worldy threats to Iansislian health, but the thirty-something ex-monarch too looked a little worn, probably by stress as much as anything.

"We are...happy to be here, your majesty." Came Llewellyn's eventual reply to the High King, rather forced though it was by a piercing glance from his own queen.

"Glad of Iansislian hospitality and good grace." Added Morag.

Lombard, Duncan and Drumble stood quietly a few yards behind their chief royals. The former defence minister looked especially bedragled in his relatively cheap and now crumpled suit, while the deposed PM and Deputy maintained a little more dignity and lead the weary Lombard in a marginalised bow upon realising James' identity.

(no problem at all; my own NS time's been rather limited of late)

“It’s my pleasure, Your Majesty,” smiled James to Morag. He was glad of the reply; the silence before, no matter how brief, had seemed to last an eternity with the entire population of the Shield staring at him. He acknowledged the ministers briefly, then turned and led Llewellyn towards his coach.

“We’re in the process of setting up appropriate Ianapalis accommodations for your majesties,” he continued. “In the meantime, I had rather hoped you’d be my guests at Dun Adien.”

James hadn’t hoped anything of the sort, of course. No one else in the Commonwealth knew it yet, but Christin was four weeks pregnant, and this hardly seemed to be the time to be entertaining guests. Especially disgraced monarchs that doubtlessly fixated everyone with the surname Igo’s eyes directly on the Shield.

Especially disgraced monarchs that doubtlessly fixated everyone with the surname Igo’s eyes directly on the Shield.
OOC: Ouch. It took me a minute of brain-hurting to figure out what that means (though, after careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that it is, in fact, valid English).