NationStates Jolt Archive

Dumezil's pavement café, looked out across the plaza in the capital city of the United Socialist States of Anti-Oedipus. The ageing, repeatedly worn down and repeatedly re-varnished dark wooden tables carried small cups of strong dark coffee, half-empty packets of foreign cigarettes and newspapers in myriad diverse languages from the region and beyond.

This café was the regular hang out of Anti-Oedipus foreign emigree community. Those individuals who for various reasons had made a home in this staunchly independent and open minded society. Some were political exiles, radicals plotting the downfall of their governments back home whilst sheltering under the protection of the Anti-Oedipian state's intense dislike of extradition. Others were the fallen remnants of deposed royal families, now living hand-to-mouth, avoiding poverty only on the backs of their history, their stories of now lost grandeur, and their dwindling numbers of supporters. Some were simple travellers, just passing through, but attempting to submerge themselves in the bohemian culture of this notorious café. Of course, there were others, not all the foreigners were enemies of their government. Some were spies and agent provacateur, keeping tabs on the dissidents and rebels whilst they argued over coffee.

Then there were the Anti-Oedipian political police.

Or at least it's one representative Sergei Vlasenko. He was largely indistinguishable from the other intellectuals discussing politics and philosophy in hushed tones that occasionally slipped into shouted exclamations. This was not so much because he was a master of disguise who knew his quarry well enough to impersonate them. Rather, because he was one of them. The dissidents were comfortable around him, not because they did not know his role, but because they did. He was unusually open about being a political police-man. His warrant card sat on the table next to the book of philosophy he had been picking through in a quiet moment.

This was typical of Anti-Oedipus's attitude towards those that sheltered in it's capital, who others might even call terrorists. Anti-Oedipus was a refuge to those who had political beliefs, they read in the libraries in the morning and argued in the cafe's at night. The state knew most of these people were harmless. Vlasenko, was there to keep some semblance of order, to provide a calming influence, to dissuade these idealists from their crazier moments. This was, the government believed, more effective and more productive than trying to lock them up or extradite them. They were more worried about the agent provacateurs who would try the opposite, who would egg on the radicals and try to get them to commit crimes back home. This would bring down even more diplomatic scorn upon the small and independent state. Vlasenko's job was to prevent that.

Vlasenko looked around as he lit another cigarette. There were some new faces in Dumezil's café today, and the argument was already under way. It looked like it might be an interesting afternoon.

The group of four were technically Rouge Jiggady citizens, though they wore that distinction with little pride or care. Having to live there was just a bump in the road to them until they could return home and ply their old trade. They had long since left RJ for other 'waters' needing to get out of the region in order to clear their heads so that they could regroup, reorganize and return to rebuild the anti Jiggady coallition.

Nathaniel Bly, Francis DuBios, Abdulkareem Hakef, and Rasha Hakef; all ordered another round of coffee as they continued their argument. While they all supported the government of Rouge Jiggady, they didnt feel that it was doing enough to try and take its rightfull control over the nation of Jiggady. They all supported Chief of State Xander with their lives but they quickly realized that they would have to take things into their own hands if they would ever be able to return home to Jiggady. This was nothing new to any of them, they all were founding members of the AJC and they had all been at Caira during the massacre by the Jiggadyn army. Now turning over the government wasnt their only goal; revenge for the friends they had lost and returning home was the key...

"So, you're telling me, Nicholas, that you would rather sit with your coffee then stand up and make a difference?"

"My dear friend André, that is a perversion of words the likes of which I have never seen. I merely said, violence in not the absolute and only situation to a problem."

"Forcible change is the only solution now! I tell you, the people of Halibris won't stand for this much longer, soon the barricades will ar-"

"My good comrade, I think you've just stood up without knowing it. Calm yourself."

The two Halibrisians were in the country on a student visa, though one had had been called a "violent revolutionary" by his conservative PoliSci professor, and the other an "unmotivated child who has yet to grow up," by a student across from his room, so, according to their two most active critics, they hadn't actually gotten much work done during their stay.

"This is a cold place, is it not..!?" said Iaki in his native Iakeokeoian tongue.

"By the gods (probably), it is..!" replied Iako, "Perhaps another of these warm bitter drinks?"

These two, the first travelers in their family to venture outside their native island nation in the warm tropics, were SO inexperienced in off-island matters that even the word "coffee" had not been fully assimilated.

"WHERE are those two 'gentlemen' from?!" inquired the elderly lady of her waiter.

"Ah... A couple of savages from Iakeokeo island, somewhere in the warm tropics. I do rather like their dark stocky athletic form, and smiling faces, though they smile a bit TOO much for my taste, and they seem pretty well behaved, for savages,.. but I CERTAINLY wouldn't bring them home to Mother!" explained the waiter, in his usual effete way.

"'Scuse,.. great one,.. We may have more Kawfii..?" Iako requested of the passing waiter in an attempt at the local speech, who smiled and nodded at the pair as if they were children.

They were,.. in so many ways.

"It is so sad that Keiki'olu had to withdraw our land from the UN. It is sad that they will not allow us to have our ways." sighed Iaki, again,.. for the twelvth time in the last 25 minutes.

"Will you please get off that..! We have other things to do, silly one. Such as warming up, most immediately.." retorted the shivering Iako.

The pair looked a bit odd, each wearing their native tapa cloth (pounded bark cloth) loincloths, Iakeokeoian "flip-flop" style sandals, a long jacket that some good person gave them in pity, and "leg-warmers" from a nice gaggle of girls on their way to the "gymnasium".

"You know what I think..!? I think, since we need to find a good meeting place to talk-talk with other people from these other lands, like we have back home for the families to talk-talk. We should just make a place, and invite people..!" spouted Iaki.

"Hmmm..." mumbled Iaki as he scratched his privates, drawing some odd looks from other patrons, most notably the elderly woman who continued to stare at them in curiousity.

He was both surprised and vaguely annoyed that Iako had actually had an idea, and even more so that it seemed like a pretty good one.

"OK,... maybe we'll do that. But you tell Keiki'olu. He always makes me feel stupid, 'cause I can't talk like these other people around here as good as him." blustered Iaki.

"O-- K--..!! Very Good Thing I Do...! Slap me high-five hands..!" exclaimed Iako in a booming voice, as he rose from his chair in preparation for the handslap with Iaki.

The elderly woman half jumped out of her chair, startled by these exhibitionist savages, and succeded in nearly falling over backward, stopped only by another waiter's quick lunge to steady her chair.

"You da Guy, Iako..!" boomed Iaki right back at his cousin, as he too lept to his feet and smacked hands with him.

"No,... You da Guy, too..!" said Iako.

They quickly noticed that the customary "High-Five Hands" celebratory manuever had startled the locals.

"Oh... sorry to you, good ones. We just think good thing and gotta make iaa-iaa hands. It OK now,.. no trouble,.. keep smiles going." was Iaki's attempt at calming the nice people with horrified looks on their faces.

"Are you OK, good maa-maa..?" he said to the elderly lady who'd almost fallen, a VERY sincere look of concern for her on his face.

"Uh,.. Uh,.. why yes. I'm fine my good boy. I'm fine.... Thank you." she said with a growing sense of affection, in a grandmotherly kind of way, toward the savages.

"Oh... That is good thing. We get you one of Kawfii drinks? They make ME warmer,.. maybe they make you warmer too?" said Iaki, as both of them kneeled toward here in supplication, and genuine concern.

She smiled warmly, as most people seem to do at the strange childlike sincerity of these Iakeokeoians when they talk.

"Uh,.. no. No thank you. May I offer YOU another coffee and perhaps we could talk? You seem like nice boys, and I'd like to know more of your country." she said with a smile.

"Oh,... SURE,... We like talk-talk! We don't speak so good as people here, but we learning. What you want to know..?" Iaki said, as he and his cousin pulled their chairs up around the elderly woman's table.

The crowd calmed down quickly, and the cafe returned to normal.

Well,... as normal as it EVER gets, at any rate....

A pair of men entered side by side one clad in heavy black greatcoat and a pilgrim style hat, carrying a cane. The other wore a black greatcoat with a silver breastplate and a red sash, he wore a officers cap on his head. The man in sash was talking to the other man, "Instead of blasting other races to oblivion why don't we simply give them a chance to side with us? You never know who might fight for the Emperor. I mean look at it this way Constantine, if we encounter someone who wont side with us and we simply blow them to hell, soon we will run out of potention allies, and let's face the facts the Adeptus Mechcanicus does not even know how half of our technology works. Some of these races out there may know how to unlock our past." The other man known as Constantine Hammerfaust rubbed his chin as he ordered a drink and sat down. "The way you are speaking could be percieved as heresey Commissar Ravenstorm, but you must face some facts as well. We are at war. We are attacked from without by aliens, demons and all manner of unkown beasts, while from within their are mutants, militant extremeist cults, heretics and traitors. We cannot afford to doll out our trust to everyone we meet. While some of the younger races like the Tau see the benefits of truces with the Imperium some races cannot be reasoned with. Would you have us try to parlay with Tyranids? Negotiate with orcs? Have tea with the Eldar? All these races that are trying to destroy us? No Marcus, trust and tolerance of other species is not a thing that the Imperium can afford."

The Commissar nodded. "I understand that, but you know one day the people will grow weary of war, we have been at war with the rest of the galaxy for almost 41,000 years! I do trust in the guidence of the Emperor but for Terra's sake man how long can we go on like this? The wars must end eventually or we will destroy ourselves and everyone else will be dragged down to hell with us."