NationStates Jolt Archive

Excerpts from a high school student's essay.

Mauricie

''The Principality of Mauricie was once only a small maintenance port built by a major colonial trading company. The few but huge trees found on the islands were perfect to replace broken masts and had basic facilities to patch up various damages caused by the chaotic and powerful weather of the islands. Huge storms could form in mere hours forcing all nearby ships to take refuge in one of the severals bays around the two islands.''

''As the colony grew, it's economy expended, diversified and was given a little autonomy from the trading company. That autonomy consisted of a council of five individuals elected every 2 years by the population of the island. The company retained a veto right, that was rarely used. They would issue minor laws and regulations mostly about permits, education and health for the small population.''

''As many colonies around the world became autonomus and declared their independence, the trading company failed to renew trading monopolies with major nation, tried to ship for private industries but slowly got out of buisness. The islands were put for sale but nobody wanted to buy them. Ships avoided the general area due to the hazardus weather. The company gave the islands to it's old employees and the population that lived there. The council quickly formed a governement based on trade and social equality.''


''Today, Mauricie is a burgeoning nation of 14 million souls with ''average political freedoms'' and ''very good civil rights''. It's ''developing economy'' is based on the automotive industry, naval engeenering and mining.''

''The main cities of Mauricie are :
Ste-Marthe : name given to the original emplacement of the colony after the council named the entire nation ''Mauricie''. Naval engeenering,
Sherbrooke : industrial city, automotive industry
Bagotcity : military city
Thedford Mines : mining capital of Mauricie, metalworks, machine parts, automotive and naval simplier parts.
Gaspé : fishing industry and small drydocks.
St-Louis : communication and transport hub ( air, train, road )''

Annexed map with the essay :

http://www.iquebec.com/lacavernedudragon/images/citiesc.jpg


Maps and comments taken from the latest National Maurician Geology Institution educational brochure.

http://www.iquebec.com/lacavernedudragon/images/geography.jpg

http://www.iquebec.com/lacavernedudragon/images/topographie.jpg

Comments :

''The eastern ''Thedford Mountains'' contains a wide variety of industrial ores. Iron, copper and coal are all found in big quantities.''

''The south east Great Plains contain medium sized patches of petrolum that suffice to supply the country and it's big commerce fleet. It is also called the ''Attic'' of Mauricie because of the plentiful production of cereals of that region.''

''The western ''Le Bois'' forest homes birch, pines and oaks. It is a somewhat dense forest.''


Excerpts of a report destined to the new minister of defence :

Army :
1rst Armored division ''The Turtles''
- 32 ''Bengale'' Heavy tank
- 64 ''Cougar'' Medium tank
- 64 ''Puma'' Light tank
- 7000 Infantry with transport trucks
- 20 Anti-air light tanks
- 200 tank transport trucks
- 6 ''Bengale'' Recovery vehicule
- 650 various supply trucks
- 6000 logistics personnel
Total personnel : 17500

Coastal Brigades x 30
- 1000 infantry
- 100 combat engineers
- 8 155mm coastal guns
- 16 105mm coastal guns
- 32 Prime movers
- 500 logistics personnel

These brigades are spread on the coast of both islands with prepared fortifications, gun pits, bunkers, back-up supply caches and prepared fall back points.

Total personnel (brigade) : 2000
Total personnel (all brigades) : 60000

Total army personnel : 57500

Airforce

- 30 torpedo bombers ''Albatross"
- 16 dive bombers ''Seagull''
- 30 fighters ''TyranTri''
- 24 training planes
- 3000 logistics personnel

Shared equally between 2 airbases : Gaspé Airbase
St-Louis Airbase

Total personnel airforce : 3500

Navy

First Fleet : based in Bagotcity

- T.M.S. Ste-Marthe : Battleship : 950 men
- T.M.S. Sherbrooke : Battleship : 800 men
- T.M.S. Champlain : Cruiser : 350 men
- T.M.S. Duplessis : Cruiser : 350 men
- T.M.S. Laviolette : Cruiser : 300 men
- 8 escort destroyers : 1600 men
- 15 supply vessels : 3750 men
- 16000 logistics personnel

Total personnel First Fleet : 24100


Second Fleet : based in Sherbrooke

- T.M.S. Thedford : Battleship : 750 men
- T.M.S. Vodkaya : Cruiser : 350 men
- T.M.S. Tour : Cruiser : 300 men
- 4 escort destroyers : 800 men
- 6 supply vessels : 1500 men
- 7500 logistics personnel

Total personnel Second Fleet : 11200

First Submarine Fleet : based in Bagotcity

- T.M.S. Tube : Attack Submarine : 100 men
- T.M.S. Tritsch : Attack Submarine : 100 men
- T.M.S. Tratsch : Attack Submainre : 100 men
- 500 logistics personnel

Total personnel First Submarine Fleet : 800

First Transport Fleet : based in Bagotcity

- 20 troop tranport ship ( with 10 landing craft each ) : 4000 men
- 10 supply vessels : 2500 men
- 6500 logistics personnel

Total personnel First Transport Fleet : 13000

Total personnel Navy : 49100

Total personnel Defence : 130100

OOC : Hi, i hope you like the way i've put up an ''introduction'', comments and constructive critisism welcome. If you want other kind of info, just ask, i probably missed some vital points and will be happy to inform. Hopefully more to follow.

Ste-Marthe Telegraph, Economy section, page E-1

Yearly Economic Report : Economy stagnating

''This year's report shows that our economy has stagnated, keeping, with minor variations the same shape as last year. The national GNP has reached 93 billions and and private compsumtion 59 billions. Both staying proportial compared with last year's results and population.

The GNP per capita had a negligable variation and is at $5,796.

Consumer confidence stayed at 68% hindered by the hign unemploment of 11.3%

The exchange rate Maurician$/US$ hasn't even flickered by those results and closed at 0.31$/1$ today.

''Why do we have to fly with these pieces of junk?'' thought the Air Lieutenant Ark Johnson. As he slowly led his new dive bombing squadron north. Him and the 7 other Seagull dive bombers, on a training mission, were to hit a fake truck convoy in the ''Le Bois'' forest. The Seagull was the most dreaded plane of all the Maurician Airforce. Most pilots tried to fly on fighter or torpedo bomber squadrons if they could. One that joined the dive bombers by choice was usually noted as a slightly suicidal person.

The Seagull is, by military definition : '' a close ground support bombing plane ''. By pilots the definition was : '' a flying rock ''. The plane had just enough agility to climb back after dropping it's 4 50 kg. bombs before crashing to the ground, which was not uncommon with the unreliable plane. At least the 2 30mm cannons located in the wings packed some punch and were easier to use in a strafing run. On top of that, the plane had to use has much parts in common with the other designs as possible. The replacable parts doctrine of the whole Maurician army had its downfalls and limited the plane with less engine power then it could have had.

Ark's squadron had just been formed and deployed to Gaspé to support the 22nd, 23rd 24th and 25th Coastal Brigades. '' A boring city '' Ark thought. The pilots he had been tasked to train were some of the worst pilots from this year's graduation from the St-Louis Military Flight School. Most were forced or ''heavily suggested'' to join it as the other squadron already had their quotas of pilots.

Ark wasn't a bad pilot, but he was much better at guessing bomb trajectories then guessing what was the next move of his dog-fighting opponent. He knew the fragile limits of his plane, which was illegally modified by a mechanic friend of him. The plane had some civilian high performance parts that gave it that little bit of power and speed that the dive bomber needed in a last second pull.

The squadron was approching his target, and Ark relayed by radio that the wooden truck replicas were in sight. The training orders were to drop the bombs on target and then finish the trucks with strafing runs.

Suddenly, the barks of a 30mm anti-aircraft battery filled the air with multicolored paint shells. Two of the Seagulls got hit by the guns and let loose trails of white smoke, meaning to the gunners they had hit them. '' Evasive maneuvers! '' quickly said Ark in his short range radio. The 6 planes clumsily broke formation, while the ''dead'' planes turned south and headed to the airfield, located south of Gaspé.

Another plane was hit while the Seagulls approched the target, trying to do what appeared like zig-zags. The five planes dave stepply from their 1000 altitude to reach a speed of 375 kph. At that point the planes dropped 4 50kg paint bombs each. The wooden trucks were splattered with various colors of paint, each plane had it's own, to see individual results. The planes then pulled back to reach horizontal flying keeping much of the speed they gained in the dive. They stayed low on the ground to keep them safe from the aa guns and turned back to see if any truck was ''unpainted''. Ark looked down on the multicolored column and just whistled, all the trucks were painted, most only partially, but partially was enough for a ''kill''. Ark said on the radio : '' Congrats guys, could not have hoped for a quicker job, oh and by the way, Glissando owes us the beer today ; he missed everything. An ''aw'' and some cheers were heard on the radio as they carefully got out of range of the aa battery, flying low over the trees.

OOC : comments anyone? I don't want to attract attention by saying ''omg i take over the werld with my 1000000nooks and troops!!1111oneoneeoneleven'' ;)

OOC : Random stuff i have around some threads that i want in the same place before i have too much stuff to remember it all. To be edited later.

Characters

Admiral Watergate : Commander of T.M.S. Grey Taskforce
Air Lieutenant Ark Johnson : Squadron Leader of a Seagull squadron.

Council

Gina Lebay, Foreign Affairs
Art Vandelay, Commercial Affairs
Hun Cooper, Military Affairs
Albert Curie, Scientific Affairs
unnamed, Domestic Affairs

Unnamed Major corporation
- first food chain (supermaket, groceries, quickiemarts, you name it)
- some control over some medias (some radio and some newspapers)
- small restaurant chain
- minor investements in other sectors
- hates Pouliot