NationStates Jolt Archive

In spite of the trials and tribulations that people go through, life does go on, whether we would have it so or not. Even things that affect a nation or two have a way of resolving themselves in one way or another, and through the smiles and the tears, for those involved, or watching, or blissfully oblivious to it all, the days come and go just like they have since the beginning, and will right up until the end.

For the Dominion, the time had finally come for war on a larger sale than they had seen in years – certainly the largest foreign engagement they had seen since the old days of imperialism, conquest, and unification. Some agreed with the move, some did not, but many took pride in being able in some way to strike a blow at a force that had proven difficult for others to get to in the past.

Among the lessons learned was that against a determined foe with vast numbers, wins would be hard-won and long-fought. Another was that drills and training could only prepare troops so far when it came to warfare. The sobering reality was that however they had prepared for possible conflict, and however many troops and arms and vehicles and shiny tech toys they could field, real war was about as far from their training exercises as a quiet game of chess was from rugby. Losses were higher than expected, support wavered, and at many times, morale was low.

There were victories and defeats, the tides ebbing and flowing as these things go, and then something extraordinary happened – reality shifted again. When and how exactly this happened remains unclear, the theories of fractal reality being what they are. Nothing that had happened changed. What did was what was and wasn’t there after the shift. It seemed the entire effort had been for naught, for both ally and enemy were, for all intents and purposes, no more – at least through Dominion eyes.

Blame of course fell on the government, which had a lot of spinning and PR repair to jump on, and fast. Emphasis was focused instead on the offworld projects, and giving the job market a shot in the arm with needing to rebuild and press forward. None of it was easy, and there were several speedbumps along the way, but as with all things … the world just kept turning, and life kept on going in pretty much the same way it always had, regardless.

On more personal levels, the wedding that had been discussed was delayed. And delayed again. Though none of it had been quite how she’d planned, the twins were finally brought home, as healthy and for all appearances, as normal as one could hope. She dealt with most of the problems plaguing the nation from her home for some time on account, relying heavily on Cesare and the Ministry, as well as the Military and its leadership, to keep things running as smoothly as possible.

As expected, Devon doted on his son, and would have nothing whatsoever to do with the girl, trying to ignore her presence as much as possible. Nathi, while disappointed, understood well enough, and for the most part, didn’t press the issue. Much. And when she did, the usual fights broke out, with the usual results, more often than not ending in a visit for one or the other or both to her sister-in-mind for a bit of a check.

Eventually as time passed, Nathi began venturing out more, and gradually, brought the children with her as well. For herself, she started back in with more serious self-defense training, something she had meant to brush up on but hadn’t ‘had the time’ previously. She tried to see that the ‘twins’ had as normal a life as one could expect, all things considered. For their parts, Marcus and Naiya seemed to do quite well, and likely much to Devon’s dismay, displayed the usual closeness that normal twins often seem to from an early age.

The little things were what Nathi treasured most, and the big things seemed to work themselves out well enough that in the long run, it all worked out. Life indeed went on - and if not in quite the way she had once hoped, at least it was in a way she felt she could live with.

Meanwhile, for those two years, life in the Segments went on quite a bit like it had for the time just before the initiation of hostilities: mild epidemics wax and wane from the ecological germ factory of Si'lat, vying political and intellectual factions in the Segments politely disagree at almost every turn, and most everyone is extremely put out that they cannot assist their Dominion allies in sticking it to a foe which has had it coming for quite a long time. Still, they were asked to keep out so as to not get allies involved and once again threaten a large system-wide conflict, despite assurances from the TYCS that with the Nemesis strategic attack cruisers now fully operational that the enemy's emphasis on underground infrastructure was now rendered entirely... academic.

So, while officially playing neutral scorekeeper in the Two Years' War, the Scolopendrans do what they always do: stay true to their idealist roots while admitting reality by quietly going behind everyone's backs. With all the plausible deniability technology can construct SMISO plays a large part in the background; in his rise three ranks (from Second Lieutenant to Captain) Timofeyev Bondayehr plays bullet magnet for his company and gathers more than a few scars from his work there. Then there are always the knights-errant, because nothing says "plausible deniability" like a grass-roots movement that the government openly (although quietly) admits it cannot control.

Looking for fame, fortune, and service, all sorts of different militant chapters of knights-errant flood the target rich environment of the front, each fighting for their own reasons. al-Arba'in Sahaba al-Adl, or "The Fourty Friends of Justice"--a slightly conservative Islamic secular-justice group--grew far, far beyond its original roster of fourty knights-errant with a Segments-spanning grass-roots recruitment campaign, eventually reaching division strength and using that constantly-replenishing strength to liberally water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants and patriots. That explains why the ASA is the biggest openly militant knight-errant chapter nowadays; its captains living in self-accepted exile in the Periphery.

Everyone knows where they are, but no one bothers to get them. Not worth the backlash.

Meanwhile, the Gettehfuhs--a Nihilist group using knight-errantry as an excuse to be violent--simply rampaged around until they were killed to the man and the avowedly Neitzchean Knights of the Table Built Upon Broken Tables used the war as an exercise to improve themselves, although they didn't end up being any more or less popular afterwards. The Combined Aryan and Teutonic Knights were decimated but generally gave a good showing; their claims of racial superiority needlessly limited their numbers and their inability to stay on the field actually harmed their cause, especially given the far better showing of the decidedly non-Aryan ASA. The Knights of the Shrugging Atlas, an Objectivist knight-errantry group led by the Titanian leaders of the academic ethical egoism movement, fought solely for plunder and was completely destroyed when the enemy lured them into a trap at an apparently overstocked but mostly empty supply depot and hit them with a few tactical nuclear landmines. The rest of the Segments did not mourn much for the "Randroid Army" and the Objectivist movement in the Segments has still to recover, especially now that quips about "Randian tactical genius" have become just as common (and indeed interchangable) with similar insults concerning Pilon.

Then, as mentioned earlier, reality broke; being used to this sort of thing, the Scolopendrans simply saw it as a sign from Allah and the ASA in particular claimed victory. A few curious S.I.N. reporters and TYL fleetwatchers noted that afterwards a HELLSING escort carrier and a Nemesis SAC returned to the fleetyards at about the same time; the first to be quietly replenished and cleansed so the hull would stop bleeding from every joint, the second to be completely restocked of its limited-war compliment of a hundred and fourty-four medium high-distort strategic missiles. The TYCS was decidedly tightlipped on the matter and the question still remains whether "Operation Dropkick" (something which was later found floating around the Matrix) was part of the mythical War On Fracticality or some sort of finishing move against the now-disappeared adversary.

It was a busy two years, but now it's over. Bondayehr signed off saying that he had ceased to legally exist during his time in SMISO and so all operations never happened, then got reassigned to the Dominion; the TYCS continued to expand but now finds itself wondering why given that the original threat is gone; and the knights-errant gained still more notoriety and street crediblity due to the willingness (or dumb luck) of more than one chapter to die to the last knight still swinging.