NationStates Jolt Archive

It was far from the first time the Elentári had been to Washington D.C. She had in fact, been there several times before for different reasons, not least using the Washington Monument as a location for triangulating locations of magical disturbances from, by use of her palantír. However, today seemed to be a particularly significant day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which was unsurprising, given that Menelmacari speeches were usually made, when outdoors, without such things.

That said, there were a few ominous looking objects in the sky, including the red and black dagger-star of the Menelmacari battle-plate Bragollach and half a dozen Egalmoth class destroyers, the most recent improvement of the ‘classic’ Menelmacari design of starhips, a pronouncedly aggressive design that shared its profile with many generations of Menelmacari ships going back to the venerable Gilthoniel class and earlier. Both new classes of ship were the culminations of projects Menelmacar had been working on during its… (comparative) absence from the international scene.

By the base of the Washington monument, surrounded by various lieutenants and guests – including, no one really knew why, a great eagle – Sirithil was speaking.

“And so, over the years, not only has the instability of this region declined significantly, but the independent industrial and economic capability of the province of the Federated Menelmacari States of America has justified the move to the next phase of our Ardan colonial policy.

“The first thing that must be stressed to some states is that while the decolonisation process in these areas is a full political process, such states will continue, until such time as they opt to de-federalise their defence operations, to be considered a part of Menelmacar for the purposes of response priority and policy.

“Secondly, we intend to continue, in accord with the future governments, to maintain the same free trade status with the resulting states as we do with the current Menelmacari provinces on Arda.

“As such, it gives me great pleasure to unveil the Working Timetable for the Reestablishment of the United States of America. Needless to say, as the single largest colonial holding of Menelmacar on Arda, the challenges posted in this retrenchment operation are likely to be the largest, however, as the most developed province, we also believe that the unforeseen difficulties posed by the retrenchment policy will be least problematic.

“Over the coming months a policy of devolution will be executed to bring the civil service of America under American control, though during the transition period, I can guarantee that taxation and other government policies will remain as the Menelmacari norm.

“After that, the government transfer should take place in a series of elections…”

The speech wasn’t so interesting after that, as it covered a multitude of topics fairly concisely, including the plans that the Menelmacari Conclave had drawn up for the establishment of an integrated union that would provide the same economic interconnectivity and trade links as that of being a Menelmacari province. There was also talk of, without specifics, the assignment of Menelmacari Imperial Defence Force assets to new states.

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Republican Party Presidential Campaign Headquarters
E-Day –12

James Johnston frowned at the latest campaign literature, his people hadn’t been given very long to prepare for a presidential campaign, the first in a long time, but they’d done quite a decent job. Some pollsters were already confidently predicting his victory in twelve days, but Johnston wasn’t being so optimistic in private. There were gaps in his support. He was delighted to see that the ‘green party’ hadn’t done much at all in gaining the headway some commentators had expected it to. Though there had been, given the imported Menelmacari pro-environment prejudices, predictions that they would gain massive support, there was the problem of there being few issues left. No one really cared about industrial waste when it was released as neutrinos.

The Democrats were still something of a threat, too, his advisors cautioned. Most assessments made the Democratic Party the second most influential party in the United States, and their congressional seats suggested this, too. Isis East (a concise name, he had to admit) his democratic rival, was a charismatic woman with just the right attitude to harness a large section of the electorate that were in favour of moving towards a Large Government.

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Elsewhere life went on much as it always had. The election fever as intense as anyone, with the surprising range of candidates that hoped to capitalise on congressional gains or to balance against them with excessive, and remarkably slick, presidential campaigns. Debates, as they usually tend to be, were heated across the nation, and somewhere, flag-makers were already turning to an antique design ( http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/flags/23star.gif) that was once again current, though an ‘unofficial’ version, featuring dagger-stars, was used by some people, though it had been the provincial flag.

Twelve days later; Election Day

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In what was a cross between a bar, a sitting room, and a movie theatre, Sirithil and a large contingent of her friends and associates were celebrating. So far, everything had proceeded with optimal speed and with perfection. There were very few complaints with how the fledgling post-Menelmacari bureaucracy had handled the operation.

Half a dozen holograms occupied spaces between scattered cushions and couches occupied by most of Sirithil’s cabinet, and a number of other governmental pen pushers. The various news programmes, most of them from the FMSA – Or rather, the USA now – offering analysis of exit polls on the second elections of the day, those for the president.

The earlier ones had been for the forty-six senators, which had raised an interesting problem in replicating the traditional ‘staggering’ of elections – the current resolutions varied between randomly assigning two, four and six year terms for the initial appointees and trying to solve this quandary by allowing the dates of re-election for each state to be chosen by national popular vote.

Of course, this wasn’t the only matter in discussion, it was expected that the congress (elected the day before – people were routinely confronted with blocks of paper the size of textbooks in these elections, and it was expected that a Menelmacari-style electronic system would be introduced soon, but most of this excessiveness was brought about by the immediacy of the proceedings; which had been timed to coincide with national holidays to increase voter turnout, presently hovering around ninety-five percent for the less significant elections) would introduce a joint resolution to amend the constitution to remove the Electoral College and replace it with direct elections, though almost all political analysts expected that idea to be defeated.

Other business anticipated in the short term was the main bill proposed by the Menelmacari government’s lobbyists, carefully created and written by some of Menelmacar’s best financial minds (be they elven, surprisingly often, human or otherwise) to alter the USA’s existing tax laws to bring them in line with those used by the defunct FMSA. There were several such bills, on a number of issues; the price of returning to a set of defunct laws was the amount of legislation required to bring them up to speed. At present, it was intended that most Menelmacari laws would continue to apply in the short term.

Siri, leaning on one of the couches, was talking to the prefect of defence, examining a list of ships. “So, it comes to about forty-nine ships in all, that’s a battle fleet, discounting the support ships and the flagship,” Serendis said, “according to the analysis of their economic contributions.”

“Let’s assign them a fleet then…” Sirithil mused, “but try to persuade them not to rename the flagship. I like all our flagship names.”

---

As it turned out, a slender majority voted for a single candidate other than James Johnston, a third party overtook the Republican party in its presidential campaign. Along with a Republican senate and a very narrowly Democratic House, the forty-fifth President was instead to be Jennifer Aracelis, running with Jason Liftman as her deputy. Aside from being the first woman, she was also, at least in this particular continuity – there were other Americas (though of course, the inhabitants of the FMSA viewed themselves, as well as NYNJ, and hell, even the Californians, as the definitive article) – the first African-American president.

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Enemies Foreign And Domestic…

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Of course, the arrangement wasn’t intended to cut either America or any other protectorate off from the greater Menelmacari war machine. Despite the technical independence, it was known on all sides that nations with small populations such as the US, the largest of all those nations intended for secession from Menelmacar, could not effectively defend themselves from aggression.

As such, along the western border, there was no celebration or relaxation for those who were charged with defence against the socialist barbarian hordes there. Indeed, the defence was stepped up, with three fleets in the area, backed up by half a dozen necron ships and several ground armies, over thrice the amount of forces normally assigned to defend the area.

There were many Americans in the MIDF, in different roles, however, they were not all in the same units. At present, the plan was to continue personnel in their current posts, something which would allow those persons to continue in their current roles, as well as gain access to more prestigious (which is to say dangerous) postings such as the Elrandir or Mars commands.

After some consideration, Prime Minister Sacker decided it would be appropriate for her to personally issue her Government's congratulations to the newly elected President. She had her people make arrangement for a telephone call. At the appointed time, she picked up her end. "Madame President?"

((OOC:Assuming Aracelis takes it and all))

Gold and Diamond Mining in the Congo
Extracted from Journeys in Provinces and Protectorates by Revioelleth Barafaer

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One doesn’t really connect the mass quantities of natural gold and diamonds with the Congo – which is, to be fair, one of many suppliers. However, one should. A large quantity of these essentials of cultured life and manufacturing come from that country. While it’s easy to make both in fabricators, the Menelmacari market for jewellery and other such products generally demands the real deal, something that was once organic matter, rather than just compressed carbon.

The Congo, is, as most readers doubtless know, for this reason, a major source of not only raw materials, but one of the primary centres of Menelmacari jewellery manufacture, Kinshasa being second only to Washington in its expatriate elven population, and its jewel district, controlled to a surprising degree by local citizens, is the single densest concentration of diamond jewellers and goldsmiths in the Menelmacari empire.

This is of course, why the Congo’s been held up as the prime example of greed being the motivation behind Menelmacari imperialism: in truth, the case is somewhat better with oil-producing provinces, which supply mass quantities of plastics. The enormous amount of diamonds, gold, copper and even (and no, I have no idea what anyone does with it, I think some of it’s sold abroad in low-quality munitions though) uranium from the nation are generally extracted in underground mines, and I resolved to see one of these after my visit to Kinshasa.

The descent into the bowels of the Earth brought apprehension out in me. The lift was quite extraordinarily outdated, a rattling box of steel with a meshed sliding door that descended on four rails through a bored excavation held out by regular, fearsomely wide steel props.

Therefore, it came as a pleasant surprise to find that the main section of the mine’s headquarters section was spotless white and – beige, okay, it was nice, but it wasn’t tastefully appointed. I found out later that this brightness was to allow dust to be seen and swept away by the omnipresent cleaning mechanisms. The main underground excavation served as changing rooms and control areas, as well as equipment storage, and everything else there.

The face itself was even weirder, in a way. If you’ve seen gauss flayers, it’s the same general principle, but configured to create a sort of shock wave in the rock that makes it all fly apart into shale. Mining lances are impressive, whatever they are. The particular mine I was in, as I’ve implied, was big at promoting its image as a wholesome hand-done mining operation. Hence, the lances were even more gunlike. They let me play with one, too, which was fairly neat. The longer you hold the trigger, the more space is drilled out. I think, if you pointed one at the side of a cliff, so as to excavate the debris by gravity, you could probably cut quite easily for miles, but it’s just my perception.

Overall, however, the place managed to be quite clean, aside from an annoying dust that sticks to one’s clothes something fierce (they did warn me to get some coveralls, but…)...

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Racism, Accusations of, Congo
Extracted from Journeys in Provinces and Protectorates by Revioelleth Barafaer
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Of course, of all Menelmacari protectorates, the Congo is the one most prominently used in accusations of ‘racism’ both by the inhabitants, and by outsiders. This is unsurprising considering both the history of the state, created in a manner best described as farcical, and the region. Not only because of skin color, but because of general social structure, many analogies have been drawn between Menelmacar and previous ‘colonialists.’

The major preventative force in this matter, and stabilising agency, has generally been the think-tank labelled ‘The Institute for Needs Assessment’ a group of policymakers and investigators with the unfortunate acronym of ‘TINA’ in English. Their role in most Menelmacari occupations has been to (usually before occupation) investigate logistical and humanitarian needs, and form plans by which changes may be rapidly implemented.

Nowhere has this been more obvious than in the Congo, a nation which pre-occupation possessed around three hundred miles of paved roads. Ironically, it still has less than its neighbours, and many highways through jungle areas have disappeared. Now however, it is due to their being obsolete outside urban areas, thanks to the prevalence of displacers, gravitic vehicles, phase runners and portals.

Notable in this respect is the Edmond Dene Morel Starport, one of the largest terrestrial gravports in the empire, sprawling over twenty miles long and ten wide, and capable of landing around a hundred large transport ships at any one time. It also boasts a particularly fine statue of its namesake, well worth seeing, which rivals any in Vinyatírion.

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The Democratic Republic of Congo, The Present
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The elections here were rather more subdued than the American ones. This particular protectorate had, for the last thirty-seven years, maintained a large-scale independent government. In the same way, instead of resurrecting a dead state, it was more of a case of independence for what was a pretty functional one. In that respect, things weren’t so rapid, or hectic there as they were in America.

The final choice in the role of Head of State (the office of which had acquired a near-parody of a title ‘High Lord President’ every effort by reformers to delete this extraneous title-inflation in the past had been stalled, much to the consternation of some.) in the latest selection of elections had been Lamia Adoula, an aggressive militarist whose long efforts for independence hadn’t been expected to win him as many votes at it did by his rivals. That said, the parliamentary regime hadn’t changed from the previous incarnation, and its leader was surprisingly, an elf with a strangely local cultural bias in his manners, by the name of Claude Ostcerth. He even had a clichéd ‘French-style’ moustache to go with the name.

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The White House, Washington D.C. United States of America
(Wasn’t hard to guess, was it?)
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President Aracelis was of two minds about the call. On the one hand, it wasn’t of paramount importance compared to the long and arduous task of sorting out the legal structure of the US at present. It was currently easier on the red tape to travel from South Carolina to Menelmacar and then back to North Carolina than to cross the border directly – admittedly, this was only if one did it with portals, but still, prodigiously difficult. In the same way, customs agreements with Menelmacar meant that the difficulty in trade through what was theoretically a third party was negligible and so the US’ trade and relations with Foreign powers weren’t of paramount importance.

On the other hand, she was interested in talking to Prime Minister Sacker, and it was, after all her first official contact with a foreign head of government. Picking up the handset, and wondering how long it had been since anyone had used that particular prop, she punched the speakerphone button, and sat down on a large, elongated couch. It creaked ominously under her, in truth, slight, weight, and she considered that she’d have to see if some damn fool hadn’t left the thing in damp conditions while the facsimiles had been here as museum pieces. She glanced askance at the desk, and contemplated having it examined carefully for rot, when the voice came over the phone. She smiled, though no one could see her, except possibly someone pointing a high powered lens through the window. The building needed a slight renovation of anti-snooping technologies, she ruminated, too – “Prime Minister,” she said, her accent placed her as hailing from Florida, though actually, she was born and raised in Louisiana, such an accent shift was a factor of greater influence of that peninsular state in the FMSA. “A pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to you. What can I do for you?”

“Thank you for speaking to me.” Sacker began. “I know this must be a very hectic time for your Administration. I was calling to congratulate you on your election on behalf of His Most Esteemed High Majesty, the Danaan people, and on my own behalf. As President of the Intergovernmental Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Peoples, I’d also like to congratulate you on behalf of His Majesty of Marlund and His Imperial Majesty of Adoki, as well as all the people of the Commonwealth.”

Sacker herself spoke with an accent typical of African-Danaans in the Principality of Wintermore, comparable, but not identical, to the sort of accent one would find in the American South, especially the Mississippi Delta. Wintermore, more than any other Principality, had a cultural connection to the United States of America (and to the surprisingly similar United States of Laneria). Except for a small British settlement early in her history, Wintermore’s people had mostly come out of America for the same reason people stereotypically went into her, seeking freedom. The people of Wintermore were descended, overwhelmingly, from runaway slaves, Amerindians seeking new lands to settle, and Mormons fleeing persecution. The relationship of these people with the land of their origin was a complicated one, containing elements of both love and hate.

December 9, 2259

Alexa S. Vassaretti Government Plaza. Los Angeles, Los Angeles S.A.R. — Californian Federation.

President Jennifer Anne Jourgensen sat in the large leather chair glued to the DVP Screen all day after hearing that the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar had allowed the Federated Menelmacari States of America to declare independence to re-emerge as the United States of America. President Jourgensen called her secretary Amanda Weaver into her office without takig her eyes off of the news, "Amanda, I want you to get ahold of our Foreign Affairs department and have them set up meetings with the diplomats of the United States of America, also I want you to set up a meeting between myself and U.S. President Aracelis." I want to meet this new American president myself.

Jennifer looked at the far wall of her office wherein on the east wall stood a massive Old World style cartographic map of the World as of 2259, with the new Soviet Union, the Californian Federation, New York and Jersey, and the FMSA listed with the mainland of Menelmacar being listed as a small island in the Atlantic with a small notation on the landmass in parenthesis reading "Atlantis" looking across the map she settled on the Middle East, looking at the area termed by Californian military strategists as 'Abyssinia' the land once consisted of the former 21st century nations of Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somaliland before the area plunged into a hotbed of anarchy and terrorist black marketting in the mid 23rd century.

Looking at the map she gave what could be called a pained sigh "It's times like these when such massive changes need to be made... I have only been in office for less than four months since the death of Sharon Vassaretti and the Menelmacari have pretty much packed it in and left the FMSA to govern itself. With all of the sh–t hitting the fan in the Middle East with our little excursion in 'Abyssinia' it's begining to make us look bad, especially since we went in there to help the region avert a collossal war and ended up having to invade the area just to take out the goddamned trash. My military advisors are telling me this so-called war is winnable however we've been at it for little more than a century of nothing more than intermittent fighting... Maybe it would be in the better interests of the Californian people if we just cut 'Abyssinia' loose and let them deal with their own affairs. It'd be a helluva lot better than asking our citizens to foot the bill for a war they didn't want."

She looked to her secretary who was still standing there attentively, "Amanda, I am sorry for the rant, however recently I have had a tremendous amount on my plate what with defeating this domestic terrorism bullsh–t, and then to have to deal with the fresh list of casualties in this goddamned fiasco we jumped into because we thought we'd be the better ones to help out a few nations in need. It's a nightmare." Amanda nodded and smiled back "It's all right Miss President."

Jennifer sighed "Also before I send you on this next errand I want you to go and arrange a meeting for the U.S. President to come here to visit with me in the President's Mansion at Ranchos Palos Verdes, so me and her can talk in person without the presence of security and news cameras... face-to-face. You understand?"

Amanda nodded succinctly "Yes, Miss President. What else is it that you need?" Jennifer gave a myrthful smile "I want you to go and find my wife, Sandra M. Devnostraeva she'll be around here somewhere… most likely with another woman in her… clutches, if you see her tell her to come here… also, once you finish relaying all of the Foreign Affairs business to the proper offices, put on something… comfortable and come back here as well." She looked up at Amanda playfully.

Amanda smiled shyly "Y-Y-yess, Miss President." Jennifer got up and gave her a peck on the lips before sending her off. She looked back at the DVP Screen and silently stood amazed at the coming of events that have unfolded with the re-birth of the United States of America. Smiling as soon as both Amanda and Sandra came back both dressed in 'comfortable' attire she mused to herself "I sure as hell hope that she isn't as hot-headed as Maddox was that pompous ass. God help her and the populace of America should they start shit over something that happened two-and-a-half centuries ago."

San Vittorio Naval Base, San Mateo — Californian Federation.

The change of Border Guards was as usual today along the western border of the Californian enclave of San Mateo the only thing that seemed off was that the guards on the opposite side of the border replaced the long-standing flag for the Menelmacari States of America with a newly made flag for the newly independent United States of America, thirteen stripes seven red, six white with a blue canton featuring twenty-three stars for the remaining states within the American Union. The Californian guards stood dumbfounded as the new flag was raised, realizing that most likely that their potential adversary with whom they'd been in a cold war with for almost two-and-a-half centuries may have just left the continent. The guards knew that this ushered in a whole new world of politics and relations now with the newly independent United States. Across the nation within the next weeks the new flag rose all across the United States of America. All along the Inner-American border or Western Border Californians in the eastern states of the Californian Federation could see in border cities like Kansas City the new American flags rising in place of the old Federated Menelmacari States of America flag.

On the news for the whole time this lasted political news commentators throughout California were completely confused, dumbfounded, shocked, and even worried that something had seriously gone amiss in the world of politics within the last few weeks. For President Jourgensen, to her it was the beginning of a whole new relationship, with a country that hadn't seen the limelight since the early 2000's.

On a belated side note... I think it would be better for the pattern of the stars to be like this:

Touched up 23-Star American Flag (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v734/California_CSDSF/th23star.gif)

"I hope that we can continue to have the same friendly relationship with the USA that we previously enjoyed with the FMSA." Sacker continued.