NationStates Jolt Archive

While the central parliament of Rejistania is elected in a tedious process consisting of time-shifted elections on kalesic level, the municipal elections are taking place on exactly the same date in Rejistania (give or take the time zone differences, which of course matter in a country of more than 8 billion inhabitants) and on every year which ends with a 5 on the first Sunday of March. (OOC: yay flexible time!) Some people say the nearly twice as long legislation period compared to nanti- and nation-level has the reason that the municipal parliaments are almost twice as important. Others say it is because a municipal parliament manages to stay in office for more than 15 seconds. Of course a lot of predictions were made. There can not be an election without predictions by so-called experts who analyze the data they have to the hundredth of a per cent to make their guesses before the elections and explain why they were wrong after it. None of them however predicted the outcome of the elections on these fateful day.

The morning was rather eventless. It is traditional that the most votes in Rejistania are cast in the afternoon or evening. Still, it was alarming that very few people found their way to the schools, townhalls, huts or other facilities where the democratic process took place. When the last polling stations opened in Sumumusumu (when this island was the communist sister-state it established a different time zone and after the reunification, no one thought it was worth reverting the island to Western Rejistanian Standard Time), it suddenly was like a signal in the entire nation. People everywhere in the tani rejis left their homes and workplaces and went to the polling stations, they were registered for. Among those, people who voted the last time 30 years ago. While voter participations of 60%-75% for municipal elections are expected, this time, the numbers in some of the kalesa'ny were reaching nearly 100%. Journalists started praising the democratic spirit in Rejistania, making foreigners from democratic countries feeling either awkward or envious. This feeling changed when the votes were counted. Most TV stations did not bring projections "because results were unconclusive". This should have been a first sign that something was wrong, severely wrong. this was however ignored as warning sign, therefore, most people in offices in the government were completely surprised that the amount of valid votes was only 25% on average. Liside'ny were getting 5% which would normally have reached 30%, others, which would normally get 2% got 1.7%. Almost 75% of the ballot papers had not a single pencilmark on it - none of the up to 120 boxes (depending on the municipality, of course) were ticked. Most confusing was that the elections one week ago in kalesa'ny in the East had no remarkable results. From one week to the other, Apparently Rejistani was hit by an idea, more dangerous than fire.

OOC: Some rejistani, you might need for this thread:
kalesa = subdivision of a municipality
nanti = state (in Rejistania the nanti level is almost unimportant since very few political decisions are made on nanti level)
liside = political party (This however is a loose approximation of the term liside. A liside only covers one topic and most politicians run in at least 5 liside'ny)

Sanani Solivasas walked into his home in KaMaRi kali. He had been working for a telecommunications company in the Rejistanian metropolis for eight months now, but was a Vephrese citizen, a native of the small island city of Nenbondle back home. As municipal voting had just ended here in Rejistania, it turned out that the same elections back home were now fast approaching. Solivasas had done his research (or as much as he could; Vephrese newspapers were difficult to obtain here, especially small ones like the Nenbondle Courier, and Vephrall barely has the infrastructure for local television, never mind Internet), but the city of 15,000 didn't seem to offer any promising candidates.

He frowned at the absentee ballot he had just retrieved from his mailbox ten minutes earlier. Any vote here for the mayor's race would be a vote for the least of five evils.

Suddenly, Solivasas got an idea.

Being in one of the largest cities in Rejistania, he of course had heard about all the empty ballots submitted in the recent elections there. "What better way to show my dissatisfaction with them all?" he thought.

He skipped straight to the bottom of the ballot and put his signature on the appropriate line, placed the ballot in an envelope, and stuffed it back into the mailbox. Maybe the politicians of Nenbondle would finally get the message.

"Re-voting", in rejistanian, this sounds even more ugly, but despite that was heard often in the following days. Since the results of the elections in Kalisimu, in Na~ovi, in Hetda, in Inkatil, in Kalimnintan, and in other cities in a crescend-shaped area stretching over the entire country with the exception of the capital Sike were so far off that they could not be explained otherwise, it must have been manipulation. Stories of magic ink on ballot papers were spread and other peopple believed in an anarchist plot to destabelize Rejistania. The Na~ovi Nanti (which in the international edition calls itself "Na~ovi National" instead of using the badly translatable reference to the state-level) of all newspapers did oppose the re-voting. "THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN" was the headline of the international edition on the following Monday. In small letters below that, the words "these bastards!" could be read. The Sikenian Daily was most harsh in its condemnation of the anarchists (the term the Sikenian daily used, and which many other newspapers adopted was "kovomin'sis'ta'he'ny", which means: "those, who are not users of the active voting right" or simply "shensa'ta'he'ny", which means "anarchists"). For the Sikenian Daily this farce of a number of elections was a serious threat to its very existance. If no one cared about politics, what should the Daily write about? The relegation-endangered H1SR team?

In all this chaos, KamSalDa happened. KamSalDa is not even a real kalesa, it is three kalesa'ny merged together for political reasons. All three kalesa'ny or the one kalesa, depending on whether you use the old or the new counting are in Hetkali. The activities of the anarchistic terrorists were not blatant in Hetkali. There were lots of invalid votes, sure, but it was not was bad as in Kalisimu. This was one of the reasons, why the politicians did not speak out against making the election there take place as normal. "Jilih'ra tani, jilih'ra kali" was something, politicians of all political affiliations said. The Sikenian Daily translated it as "Here is the country, there is the city", the Marshalliston Times from Oliverry in one of its articles translated it as "This is the country, this is the city" by this exposing the political way to 'say 100 and mean 10'. Miran Tari was a rare exception: When reporters asked her about her predictions, she did not even try to follow an agenda: "Tahoj, we are talking about an election. As we all have seen, on election day, anything can happen."

Of course, the Rejistani central government and the administration of the city of Hetkali made sure that everything would work as intended, that you had to be Ltenukansa himself to change the value of one single vote ("and even Ltenukansa would have a hard time" as a member of the 'liside for infrastructure' said, when a reporter invoked this comparism). The election in this kalesa would be the most secure one ever in the history of the tani.

This time, there were no rushs. All over the day, people went to the voting booths to do their democratic duty. The participation broke all records of the kalesa (but seeing that the elections there were traditionally on a Wednesday and this was the first kalesic election on a Sunday, this was not hard). The reporters and commentators attempted to summon normalcy by pretending nothing was wrong. Only the statisticans of Nemva JSK, HislanSeaRii JSK and HuVenti JSK had different stories to tell. Almost no one who left the polling station wanted to tell where on the big sheet he or she made her cross. A local radio station was desperate enough to use the results of the election 3 years ago as projection, the other stations claimed 'technical difficulties' (which in Rejistania can mean everything between 'no clue what went wrong but we have no human scapegoat' over 'no idea how this thingy works' to 'that damn thing blew up when we flipped the switch'). The results in the kalesa were counted, recounted and then recounted a second time due to a difference of 2 votes. The general trend however was clear very early and manifested later even more: 86% of the voters preferred not to put anything on the ballot paper.

You could not have made Sike kali more nervous if you blew up the spire. (OOC: the skyscraper containing the ministries of the rejistani government)

It is one of the remarkable things about the Rejistani legal system that there is no law against terrorism. Of course this does not mean, that terrorism is legal, rejistania has laws against murder, against battery, against misuse of dangerous substances, willful damage of property, and so on, but the fact that you belong to an institution that wants to overthrow the government is not a crime itself. After a group of monks were charged with terrorism because they publically prayed for the death of the first lentine and the nantical government, the Supreme Court ruled that the terrorism laws were unconstitutional and thus invalid and they never were replaced. Of course this does not mean Rejistanis are all nice people and do not need these laws, It just means that it sufficed to use the existing laws to cope with the Lyin Indedendance Front (which was defeated not by military action but by a different assignment of municipalities and kalesa'ny so they did not include Seleken strongholds) and the occasional Karelan Dissidents. Until now.

Tade~n Lii, first lentine of Rejistania, was rather sure that this was a terrorist attack. Not overtly like a bomb blowing up but subversively terrorist. Ignoring the lacking projections, ignoring the participation numbers and the fact that the voters decided to go voting at about the same time in the first election, the first lentine decided that such results can only be te result of a msene (=crime, criminal coup) of never-before-known proportions. empty ballots were sent to different laboratories in Rejistania and abroad to check whether some form of tampering occurred. Until the reason for this mis-voting was found out, the parliament of Rejistania declared national emergency and delayed all oncoming kalesically elections since their security could not be guaranteed. the maximum amount of delay, the rejistani constitution grants are 32 days. The liside for the Elimination of Crime wanted to pass a modification of the constitution increasing this to 128 days. It hadthe full support of the lentinate and was passed almost unanimously (the hani numbers were 96.146% for, 3.13% against, 0.724% abstentions).

Sociologists called this phenomenon social-political teratoma, but nobody cared about them. It seemed self-evident that the preferences would not change that drastically within one week. Newspapers still condemmed the "mis-voting" (Rejistania: "'mer'amei" from "'amei" for "to vote") in their recent editions. and even the Na~ovi Nanti changed its tone subtly. Not because they suddenly saw the light, but because the only reason the Nanti still exists as it does is the delicate balance of kissing and kicking the asses of politicians. Not supporting the apparent majority could get them the lentinal help to avoid the consequences of the latest lawsuit (the Nanti is always getting sued for one reason or another. Their spectacular stories are often acquired by illegal means or just invented). This meant there were only a few newspapers, who were on the sides of the majority. All small and regional papers and all without a rejistanian edition.

Military Base on the Rejistani shore

Lieutenant-General Friedman rushed out on the runway. On it's edges, aircraft hangar doors rose slowly and noiselessly, exposing dozens of 'Flying Tux' SU-25AL combat aircraft and air superiority fighters.

Before Friedman, the Allanean fighter pilots stood in a long, thin, line, holding their helmets under their left arms, saluting the General with their right ones.

"Greetings, Pilots!"

"Greetings, Colonel!" – the formation barked.

"As I understand, none of you read the local papers. This is okay - I don't expect any of you to learn the local language – any of the three thousand local languages. But in point of fact, an important event has occurred. There is a political crisis in this nation, and we suspect a coup."

Behind Friedman, the ground crews rushed too and fro, attaching and detaching fuel lines, cluster munitions and napalm bombs to the aircraft, labeled clearly with slogans – "FOR MOTHER LIBERTY" and "FOR THE QUEEN, FOR OUR FREEDOM".

"But surprisingly enough, we have no yet received clearance to bomb strategic locations in and around Sike Kali. However, you are hereby in Condition Red. You will sleep under the noses of your aircraft, and you will remain ready to strike at your assigned targets. All tanker teams are already preparing, and Nakil crews will move out immediately to support your strike, should it be necessary. In the meanwhile, remain on alert."

"May God bless Allanea."

OOC: The KaMaRi Han'Ines/Update, the Na~ovi Nanti/National and the Sike Sijah/Sikenian Daily have English editions, which are available in big citiess and tourist centers.

IC:
Yes, Elan Tarit was disappointed with the government. He would never deny this fact. A kalisimuan radjavedan who even ran for municipal parliament once and lacked just a tenth of a per cent to get there with the minimal hani number, who lost his enthusiam a while ago in the latest scandal and replaced it by cynicism and sarcasm. He wrote in an online forum a day before the municipal elections: "Why do you abstain and give these guys higher hani-number? A vote not cast is a vote for all of them!". Never mind that this thread had only a hundred views and surely did not suffice to explain 75% invalid votes, he was the first person, who was something like a suspect. Never mind that there was no crime. The rejistani police therefore constructed a simple case of fraud and ymeti, so hastily constructed that it would fall apart if someone seriously challenged it. Then the kalisimuan police sent to officers to the house to arrest him due to danger of collusion. The police asked polite questions relating to the forum entry and Tarit'he explained that he posted a message containing a political statement, not violating the limits to freedom of speech and that the question whom he voted for was not relevant anyways since it was a matter between him and the Gods he believed in. The officers understood that - both disvoted without anyone telling them, it just seemed the right thing to do. They told him it was their job to ask and that their colleagues of the Service had some questions as well. They believed in the integrity of the state and its institutions enough to cooperate with the Service (which is not the Secret Service, since that has all sorts of bad conotations, but the "Service for the Protection and Defense of the Constitution"). One day later one of them quit and went to the press. His conscience could not handle arresting someone for a crime which was purely constructed. The name of this officer is Halja I Tarede.

The newspapers were either pro-constitution or pro-government on this issue. Even though none of them even admitted this difference even existed. Pro-constitution meant they emphasized and insisted on the fact that 'innocent until proven guilty exists in Rejistania, that this behaviour is a disgrace. Pro-governmental newspapers insisted that the very security of Rejistania is at stake and that I Tarede'he was a traitor at minimum to disclose information and should be prosecuted by the full extend of the law.

While the central parliament of Rejistania is elected in a tedious process consisting of time-shifted elections on kalesic level, the municipal elections are taking place on exactly the same date in Rejistania (give or take the time zone differences, which of course matter in a country of more than 8 billion inhabitants) and on every year which ends with a 5 on the first Sunday of March. (OOC: yay flexible time!) Some people say the nearly twice as long legislation period compared to nanti- and nation-level has the reason that the municipal parliaments are almost twice as important. Others say it is because a municipal parliament manages to stay in office for more than 15 seconds. Of course a lot of predictions were made. There can not be an election without predictions by so-called experts who analyze the data they have to the hundredth of a per cent to make their guesses before the elections and explain why they were wrong after it. None of them however predicted the outcome of the elections on these fateful day.

The morning was rather eventless. It is traditional that the most votes in Rejistania are cast in the afternoon or evening. Still, it was alarming that very few people found their way to the schools, townhalls, huts or other facilities where the democratic process took place. When the last polling stations opened in Sumumusumu (when this island was the communist sister-state it established a different time zone and after the reunification, no one thought it was worth reverting the island to Western Rejistanian Standard Time), it suddenly was like a signal in the entire nation. People everywhere in the tani rejis left their homes and workplaces and went to the polling stations, they were registered for. Among those, people who voted the last time 30 years ago. While voter participations of 60%-75% for municipal elections are expected, this time, the numbers in some of the kalesa'ny were reaching nearly 100%. Journalists started praising the democratic spirit in Rejistania, making foreigners from democratic countries feeling either awkward or envious. This feeling changed when the votes were counted. Most TV stations did not bring projections "because results were unconclusive". This should have been a first sign that something was wrong, severely wrong. this was however ignored as warning sign, therefore, most people in offices in the government were completely surprised that the amount of valid votes was only 25% on average. Liside'ny were getting 5% which would normally have reached 30%, others, which would normally get 2% got 1.7%. Almost 75% of the ballot papers had not a single pencilmark on it - none of the up to 120 boxes (depending on the municipality, of course) were ticked. Most confusing was that the elections one week ago in kalesa'ny in the East had no remarkable results. From one week to the other, Apparently Rejistani was hit by an idea, more dangerous than fire.

OOC: Some rejistani, you might need for this thread:
kalesa = subdivision of a municipality
nanti = state (in Rejistania the nanti level is almost unimportant since very few political decisions are made on nanti level)
liside = political party (This however is a loose approximation of the term liside. A liside only covers one topic and most politicians run in at least 5 liside'ny)
8 billion is too many i have launched nuclear missles to reduce population..transmisson ends

8 billion is too many i have launched nuclear missles to reduce population..transmisson ends
I fire ignore cannons. At you. Look at my ingame population.

The Tani kalesa of Rejistania is a massive, safe nation, remarkable for its absence of drug laws. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 8.157 billion are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

Emperor Boston was sat in his office, the large windows behind his desk letting in the morning glistening of the sun from the many mirror-windowed-skyscrapers that made up the form of Fort Boston's skyline.

The Emperor strained to read news.channel9.co.bp, (the most reliable source of news in the whole country) because of the glare coming in from the windows. Even more reliable than the Government sponsored BTV (ooc: think BBC), which, while not being dictatorial in it's editing stances of what made the news and what didn't, couldn't match the private finances of Channel 9, which therefore had better journalists and better reports.

A small whirr was heard as tinting was added to the windows behind the Emperor. Bostopian scientists excelled at this, developing a system that applied just the right amount of tinting to cope with the sunlight, but was also easily washed off when sensors knew the tinting was no longer required. Of course, the system worked the other way, applying more tinting as the glare got worse.

"Ah, it's good to be able to see again" the Emperor thought, while clicking on a page linking to "Non-Regional News"

Rejistanian Elections Return 86% Unmarked Ballots caught the Emperor's eye, but there was also a sports story from Jeruselem featured, naturally with a large picture of Dazza Dallas next to it. However, the door to the state room opened, leaving the Emperor to hit the red X quickly to close the page, though he was fortunate to see it was only his aide, Haelwen, enter the room, rather than his wife.

"Haelwen, my friend, what brings you to my office?"

"Well, sire, you know of the nation 'Rejistania', correct?"

"Of course. I've met their leaders at World Cup Qualifier draws and such."

"Indeed. Well, they're in a bit of a situation at the moment. They held an election the other day and a large proportion of the ballot papers came back without a mark on them. 120 odd candidates and not one of them favoured-"

"By 86% of the voting population. Yes. I know."

"Oh. Well, I thought I'd best tell you, we have elections coming up next month."

"Yes, the Government is up to it's fifth year in power. I don't know why they couldn't have held one in October, when I was out of the country, now I'll HAVE to do adverts. You know how much I hate those directors. 'No, no, Emperor, you need to say it with more conviction, let them know how much you REALLY love Bostopian democracy!' Good lord, those guys really annoy me."

"Anyway, there's a threat our population could decide to do the same thing."

"Not in this ward there isn't."

"Well, no, there are only two people eligible to vote in the Castle and Park Ward, yourself and your wife. And you're standing."

"Exactly, even if half the voting population of this ward didn't vote - which she wouldn't dare to not vote - I'd still get elected."

"Indeed. Well, anyway, to compound Rejistania's problems, a nation called 'Kampoochu' decided it was going to solve what it percieved to be a population problem in Rejistania by nuking it."

"Good god! How recent was that, it's not on Channel 9's website!"

"They've declined to report it so far. The missiles barely made it out of Kampoochu's territorial waters, and didn't go off. Another rogue nation flummoxed by it's lacking of expertise and dignity."

"Aye, that is so. Do we have reason to declare war against this Kampoochu?"
"Absolutely none, sire. We're not in alliance with Rejistania, so we really have no legal grounds to do so. Not that a lack of legal ground has stopped us before."

"No. Anyway, tell Channel 9 to amend the story on the Rejistanian elections to note that it's a blatent disregard of true democracy or something, don't want any Bostopians getting ideas."

"Well, whatever happens one of two parties will win nationally following the Political Parties in Bostopia Act (2006) anyway."

"Yes. The usual 5% of those in Port Flamerty State won't vote, seeing as we got rid of their Socialist Party. Who never got a seat anyway, thanks to a bit of gerrymandering."

"Nothing like democracy, sire."

"Exactly."

"Anyway, do let the Rejistanian government know that if they require any Bostopian assistance, whether it be on how to modify the party system or whatnot, they only have to get in touch."

"Yes, sire."

The Sikenian government and its special institutions were not happy with the findings of the Service for the Protection and Defense of the Constitution. The people who were arrested (most without causing such a scandal as the arrest of Elan Tarit caused) stated unaminously that they did not disvote and did not tell others to disvote. Without forgetting to emphasize that if they would have disvoted, hypothetically speaking, it was only a question between them and heir deities. The citation was almost the same despite the suspects never got to see each other. It took them a while that all modified a Hank~hila Sede citation. Of course, the first first lentine of Rejistania was well-known, almost as much as SyLy, but to know a quote like that? It seemed rather ominous. Polygraph tests were inconclusive. Even twinning did not yield any results. Twinning is a technology where a person is connected to a polygraph and told that in the case of a wrong answer, a person he had no personal relation with was given an electic shock. In reality of course, these shocks come from recording, which is why the Service does not claim it is a friend.

The only somehow irritating fact which was discovered was that every one of the suspects was Chi-positive. Which meant that the DNA samples has one significantly changed chromosone, in contrast to most foreigners. For some reason, the Service would have expected foreigners or second generation immigrants to be main suspects and not Rejistani citizens.

The first lentine sent a top secret communique to the Allanean government asking for technological and methodical help to find the terroristic anarchists who were apparently invalidating the elections.

In the meanwhile, the Na~ovi Nanti did what it does best when the news situation is not to its liking. It showed naked bodies. This time of the actress Najajara Hiljan and her boyfriend Mirat Jan as seen by a surveillance camera.

In the skies over Sike Kalii, 4:25 AM

The first sign of what was about to take place was a single, enormous Allanean military aircraft, moving through the night sky of Sike Kali, escorted by some smaller craft. For a few minutes, the personnel at Ratansa Sike Kali would believe they were on some training mission and have gone astray – sometimes, this happens even in the best armies in the world.

That wasn't true this time, however. The pilots knew exactly where they were and what they were doing.

4:30 AM

The flight commander aboard the Blackjester Electronic Warfare aircraft nodded to the man next to him. “It is time now.”

John Mercury was the most important person aboard the aircraft after the commander – possibly even more important then the pilot himself. He was in charge of the electronic warfare devices with which the aircraft was packed.

He was destined to fire the first shot in this short war.

He grinned madly as he reached out to the switchboard in front of him and flicked a single switch.

KDE is up and running. Loading rejistaniajam.rpm...

Within several nanoseconds, the high-power computers inside the Blackjester fired up a precoded program. Within the horizon from the aircraft, in Sike Kali and around it, civilian and military radios began to sputter and fill with static and RADAR screens began to fill up with white noise. Obviously enough, Allanean military frequencies were excluded, and Allaneans did not plan to use conventional RADAR on this one at all.

4:40 AM

“123rd Kurufinwe Feanor Memorial division! First Battalion!” - the Colonel speaks. “Does anybody know why we are here, at this road junction?”

He was proud-looking Noldo, decorated with badges for Operation Kahanistan Shield and the Antanjyl Campaign, as well as the Terminator Badge. Taller then even the elves that comprise the Feanor division, he looked down at the soldiers.

“Training mission, Sir?” - someone asked.

“No. Under a special order of the Congressional Committee of National Security, we are authorized to wage war against Rejistania, to overthrow their government, and to undertake any and all means possible to preserve a pro-Allanean, democratic government in this nation.”

Nobody was really surprised.

“As the Storm Battalion of the division, you will have the high honor of disabling and capturing key enemy positions. The First Platoon “Feanor's Faithful” will enter Sike Xixty, where the local railroad dispatcher is located. You will use the infrastrucutre to give out the signal that train travel to Sike Kali is hereby blocked.”

“The Second and Third Platoons, the “Furious” and “Ferocious” will take over the local power station, and cut power to Sike Kali. Platoons Four and Five, “Faithful” and “Valiant”, will enter and seize the phone stations, while the engineer platoons of our division will disable Internet cables linking the city to the national backbone communications. All of you will be accompanied by interpreters who know local languages. This is to ease your communications with the locals. You must avoid harming any civilians at any cost.”

There was a pause.

“In the meanwhile, I and the other five platoons of the division will drive into the city, to plant the Division Banner and the Flag of our Motherland on the Rejistani parliament and to seek out the members of the Rejistani government.”

4:55 AM

Several dozen infantry vehicles and light tanks drove through the streets of the city, engines roaring, troops sitting as tank-desant on the hulls. Most of of them drew, inexorably, towards a single point - the Spire, the Rejistani seat of government. Once they arrived, the troops jumped off immediately. The vehicles charged forwards, engines roaring, ramming holes in the wall surrounding the Spire Park.

“Engage combat loudspeakers!”

Inside the vehicles, dozens of switches were thrown at once. The very air shook, as the Rejistani were exposed to the loudest Spice Girls performance they had ever heard.

Then, the troops rushed in behind the tanks and IFV's, Colonel Orgol Naenir charging ahead.

When inside, they began to look through the various documents. They were looking for one piece of info only – the home address of the First Lentine.

5:35 AM

A platoon of the First Battalion encircled the house and charged in. If she was still sleeping, she would surely awake when the Allanean soldiers kicked in the door.

“This is a foreign invasion! Surrender now and you and everybody in this city will be allowed to live!”

Of course, things did not go as planned, they never do.

While some of the connection was indeed jammed, Rejistanis are trained not to rely on technology. People who saw the allaneans and heard no news about that in their radios want to get information and so the semaphores and bush drums are put to good use again. a message does take a long time to travel from Sike to the Ly settlements by that, but it does travel. It also warned the Sikenian population.

Platoon Faithfull almost immediately got into the biggest problems of the Rejistania road system. Namely: construction works. Imagine these people being stuck because the road was blocked due to repairwork. Tiny rejistani cars might fit through because of their tinyness, but even offroad vehicles do not cope with meter-deep holes in the road well. When the drivers realized the mess, a swarm of tiny Lanit'ny and Sydi'ny wanted to take the exactly same way andd did not want to turn back. Among those cars was a rejistani policecar on the way to a razzia. Let's say that they were not pleased. "Elenha selme ve astati, blockinh traffic you are, No matter how but get your selme kovomin out of the way and xka~e'han!"

The other platoons faced similar difficulties. No matter how good the sattelite views are, one-way roads, construction work and just good old outdated plans can not be coped with with just technology. And that Komunikatije'ny rejistaniha JSK did manage to warn the KaMaRian subdivision when Elinxe Hiran saw the Allaneans taking the wrong road.

Also in the spire park, the guards did profit from the warning of the anonymous drummer. The Allaneans were welcomed with all the niceness they had to offer: tear gas, bullets, decommisioned va'karela'ny.

Of course, Tade~n Lii was scared. but she did fear an attack on herself some way or the other... so at least now she knew. Allanea. How disgraceful is that? she grabbed her Kimi Salan in one hand and her golf club in the other hand, jumped out of the window, into the garden, and attempted to get away to family Jejten maybe. Their family was always very friendly to the Lii ken-te and they are on the other side of the fence.

Spire

The vehicles cut a path of destruction towards the Spire, crunching small trees and bush with casual ease as their enormous engines brute-forced their way in. The Allanean troops followed close after the immense vehicles, protected both by it's hull and the strength of their armor.

In the meanwhile, from the vehicles, a cloud of thick, multicolored smoke rose, obscuring the 'battlefield'. Within a few minutes, nobody would be able to see the Allanean troops, much less aim at them. Only the front vehicles were seen, as they moved ahead of the smokescreen.

“Sir, I sense an attempted magical intrusion into my brain. Quickly... do something before it overtakes us all?”

“What the hell do you expect me to do?” - but then, a thought arose in the commander's brain.

“Sigma, this is Alpha. There are multiple glowing orbs right ahead of you. Prepare ADS. Fire on location.”

Within minutes, anybody holding anything within reach of the ADS weapons would begin to feel the hurt – literally.

Platoon 'Faithful of Feanor'

“I really don't see why we should listen to him.” - the tank driver giggled as a the immense turret swung menacingly, the 105mm cannon pointed at the front window of the Rejistani car. “Now, someone give us radio connection to the birds. There's always plan B.”

Minutes later, the Platoon commander began to speak. “Birds, this is Faithful, repeat, Faithful here. Am restrained at coordinated by what appears to be impromptu entrenchments. Engage plan B.”

Two black, small aircraft, with their noses painted bright yellow – in a pattern resembling a penguin, if penguins could fly – lowered over the rail system.

KDE up and running...

...FireTux active...

From the lead aircraft, six streaks of fiery smoke unraveled – guided FAE missiles, targetting the railway at several key points. Should the drivers be smart, they would stop here. But just in case, the second aircraft fired it's own weapons – dropping two guided bomb casings on the rail dispatcher center. They were boxes, containing no explosives, but with a message written on them – explaining to the dispatcher that the rail has been damaged and that he should stop rail traffic.

The Lentine's home

“Hey there!” - the Allanean soldier's voice was audio-enhanced to be much louder then it was naturally. “I really wouldn't do that if I were you. First of all, we will catch up to you, and second, I'm not joking about torching the city. If I were you, I'd at least hear me out – unless of course you do not want to save the city. Besides, we will solve the terrorism problem for you.”

The last sentences made the first lentine turn around, screaming: "This country, inherent in this place. You are not those who belong, you just want power, influence. you way to fix means have no elections, no kalesicality, no representation! You think nothing counts what was arranged and agreed upon!" She then shouted syllables in her local language at the intruders. you would need a good understanding of Minohiton culture and language to understand it: "[From] now, [to the] three after [you], be outside [the] sikire!" She did dropped her weapons despite that outcry.

"Actually, I believe we have an amicable plan for you- but I am not a diplomat. First of all..." - the half-second pause was used by two of the armored sturmbattalione troops to catch up with the old lady and gently, yet firmly, old her by both hands. "First of all, stop struggling. Second, I would like you to make the announcement of surrender - this will ensure that no... excessive reaction will be provoked, and the city will remain on the map. After that, we will travel together to the Spire. We have certain issues to discuss."

You remember things you forgot when you most need them. The rejistanian first lentine thought as she remembered the Hito - Minohito wars in school. She started in rejistanian: "The flow continues, but the earth stays the same, powers change but the land remains under the hands of the gods*. I just hereby lose all association with it as the sikire goes to those who now control its capital." She recited the surrendering speech of the last Minohitoan Ra-Je, only in Rejistanian, the new language of the land instead of in Minosa.

*"under the hands of the Gods" can be (mis-)translated as invincible

“Very well.” - smiled the soldier, though the lady would not be able to see it. - “You can rest now.” - he turned to one of the men behind him - “Make some tea for the lady. With milk.”

Within about half an hour, the message of the surrender was sent to the various Allanean troops, who immediately ended all interference with radio and phone communications, and broadcasted the message of the surrender.

Pictures of the Allanean flag and the 123rd division banner waving from the Rejistani spire were taken for the Allanean media, where they would immediately take up the first pages of the newspapers. After that, only the Allanean and Rejistani flag would fly from the building.

The Allanean Occupation Force was immediately prepared, and flown in on aircraft towards the Sike Kali airport. But it had no soldiers in it. Instead, thousands of M.A. And PhD.-bearing researchers from DREAD – historians, sociologists, statisticians, doctors, biologists, psychologists, and even five experts on the history of religion. They were empowered to requisition any statistical information they needed from the Rejistani government – everything from voter turnout to thyroid counts of the population. And when the information was not available, they had a budget of 500 million dollars to spend on polls and research.

In the meanwhile, the Allaneans began to compose a pro-tempore government of the most radically pro-market libertarian Rejistanis they could find. These were given simple instructions: They had to repeal the anti-treason laws and fire the people enforcing them and they had to pretend to be arguing with the occupation forces on as many issues as possible, while in fact aiding them as much as possible on their main mission – finding out what the hell was wrong with the voting.

In the meanwhile, the Allaneans announced the date for the next election – exactly 1 year after the date of the invasion.

It was not easy to find rejistanis who are both of the political ideology and of the right mindset to do so. Aserem Ri, who was a candidate for several liside'ny which the allaneans would have called libertarian was rather drastic. He told the allanean delegation to wait a bit and then went to the roof of the ken-te and jumped, not before shouting: "I feel disgraced mortally for even being approached!"

Those which the allaneans got were the corrupt and the power-hungry - and the false-positives. Many of those who were not in best standing in the tani. the anti-treason law concerning software was repealed, but Rejistanis still did not actually let the "treasonware" into their stores or their computers. Maybe the fact helped that most architectures, Rejistani computers used were not supported.

The rejistanian state seemed unchanged but that was just an illusion, in reality, inside of the nation, things started to assume a form. as soon as the trains started moving again. On the first day, people from the villages nearby and from Sike itself came to protest peacefully against the invasion. On the next day, Jinhesi came so the spire park and protested in peace and almost complete silence.

It was a very busy morning in the KBC newsroom as the editors and writers pored over the news script trying to fit in the gushing torrent of information into a concise news bulletin, glancing at the clock as the top of the hour approached.

Meanwhile Mark, an editor charged with removing bias and inserting weasel words, bit his lip over the Rejistanian news, momentarily forgetting the Dovakhan election news which had actually been ready to go.

"We can't play up the 'bloodless' part too much. We don't know enough to state it and we'd look like idiots if it later turned out that Allanean soldiers had mowed down a bunch of civillians or something."

Someone yelled "damn it!" in fustration as the clock hit 10:00 and the familiar chimes went out on the airwaves and the announcer declared that it was 1 hours UTC and 10 hours in Neorvins and that this was the KBC World Service.

With a red marker Mark also struck out the word "invasion". Frowning at the now-incomprehensible sentence, he changed it to say that Allanea had "occupied" the Spire, rather than "invaded" it - connotations of bursting in and pointing guns at everyone would be rather unfair when they didn't really know too much about what was going on, and it was after all a developing story. Looking through it again, he decided it was good to go and slid it under the studio door. At least the news bulletin wasn't over; they wouldn't have to interrupt a program with it.

About a minute later they breathed a sigh of relief. Emergency over, the staff dispersed in pursuit of coffee.

"We begin World Report with a breaking news story. Reports indicate that Allanean troops have occupied the Spire, the building housing the offices of Rejistania's government. A message of surrender was broadcast by the Rejistanian government and relayed through the Allanean military. According to statements an Allanean occupation government will be appointed. There are no reports of any violence or bloodshed at this time. We'll have more upodates as we get them as well as a report from our correspondent in Sike Kali."

(OOC: I'm sorry for this bit of self-promotion, but I hope you enjoyed it. You can hear the actual thing at http://www.switchpod.com//users/kelssek/kbcworldservice07jul2007.mp3 )

Everything that Allaneans do has a reason. The only reason they got the ATL cancelled – apart from just feeling it was unfair – was that this way, their scientists could now utilize their powerful computers on Rejistani soil – massive Cray Gaming Special, Allanean Arms Titans, Kazansky Havy Industries ‘Silmarils’. What all those computers did was merely crunch numbers and calculate likelihood of various explanations to the Rejistani phenomenon – psychological, psychiatric, cultural, even biological.

As the days passed, it was the biological explanation that was drawing more and more attention.

* * *

In the meanwhile, the Allanean troops retired to their training bases and sat tight. They didn’t need to patrol the streets, since Allanea did not plan to occupy the nation in the usual sense. Only the scientists were in direct contact with any of the local populations. So the REjistanis could keep protesting.

In KaMaRi, sociologists did slready work on explaining the social-political teratoma, as they called it. The rejistanis did offer the allaneans help on this issue by explaining some of the reasons why the tani abstained collectively. These factors did include things like: "I am sick and tired of voting for lesser evils", "there was no candidate, I felt like voting for, I disagreed with them all at some point, I considered important", "I am annoyed with the short time politicians are in office in Rejistania" even: "a relative was running whom I did not agree with and it would be treaseon towards him to vote for someone else and treason towards me to vote for him." or the simple: "none of the candidates was of my ethnic group". In short, Rejistanis did have their reasons, but why they all suddenly decided to abstain, that was not clear.

In general however, people were very reluctant to give the invaders data. The good old file msene was an often-used technique, since all you needed was a random number generator (which many unixesque OSes have), a weird file extension, which resolves to no filetype at all and a storage medium to hold said entropy in files. Since getting data from A to B in the rejistani multitude of computers, OSes and disks always is a hassle, this is a common technique. Others used mikre, which can lead to about the same result.

No one believed this would lead to anything else than a indefinite occupation and that the elections in 1 year, if they would happen at all, would be more fixed than the normal Rejistani ones. The allaneans fail to understand some general rejistani concepts as jasika and thus would destroy them - and with them, both sides of a balance. There would be times when the number 111 566 443 582* would not lead to free internet from every phonebooth but to a message saying: "The number you dialed is not assigned". There would be times when you would not be able to get from Na~ovi to Hetkali for just 20000 lil'kansu'ny. A time when the radio schools would fall silent. And when rents would rise ten-fold. When there were no spirits in the jungle but roads and plantages and shopping malls. When there would be only a few colors instead of whole rainbows at the stations of the various etju. Where universities would fall apart rather than to give up quality which would normally be needed after the privatizations, when there would be no network when you switch on your mobile phone because the companies are again dragging each other to court. When you had to pay whatever the private contractor sees fitting for electricity, and water and refuse disposal service. When the jungle villages would get their mail once a onth instead of daily. And when there would be no Telekomunikatije, Konihekta, Sarataku, Asene Sekhika Rejistaniha, Hilane kali, exkola nanti, Neneretu, Etju tani, Etju kali, no TV-R, no TV1, no Radio RejisCAST, no Radio tani and worst of all: no H1SR.
Rejistanis do not believe that private companies are inherently better than public ones. It is exactly the opposite. Rejistanis generally have proven statistically that employees of the government are more efficient, and if only for the psychological reason that you have to swear on the constitution to work in government institutions.

On the other hand, the puppet government did start some things which got it a kind of support. Like not allowing arabic numbers in public. Numbers (the term eha was used here instead of sivire, which includes things like telephone numbers and room numbers) would at least need to be unified rejistani which means: 2ke instead of 20 or 2ky instead of 2000. On the other hand, the actions, which quite overtly targetted the Na~ovi Nanti cost them a lot of sympathy again. There was no allanean reasons for the ammendment to certain rejistani laws which would make it possible to hinder newspapers from being issued a number of days after deliberate disinformation insults and other things the Nanti is infamous for. The reason was merely the fact that these people were human as well and did not exactly like that the Na~ovian newspaper tried whatever it could to discredit the newspaper. Politicians in general do not like if their msene'ny come out - or even worse: if msene'ny are published so ingenious that they are annoyed of not having thought of them first.

OOC:
* generally typing 111 and the name of a government institution works, like 111 KONIHEKTA. National calls start with 1-<area code> <number> and international ones with 10-<country> <area code> <number>
Other terms in that paragraph:
Telekomunikatije: national telecommunications company
Konihekta:national ISP
Sarataku: national mail
Asene Sekhika Rejistaniha: National soccer association
Hilane kali: minucipal services
exkola nanti: state schools
Neneretu: holdings company, which owns shares in all mobile phone companies and works there as coordinating side
Etju tani: national public transport
Etju kali: municipal public transport
TV-R: national rejistani television, international edition
TV1: national rejistani television, rejistani edition
Radio RejisCAST: national radio station, international edition
Radio tani: national radio station, rejistani edition
H1SR: well, the well known rejistani first league.

A jaded bunch of young adults hopped on a plane. "We wanna go to Rejistania...yeah..." they muttered, completely mispronouncing the foreign name.

The Precalculus Party had disbanded several years previously, their single issue addressed by the government. They'd reconvened to design the complex preferential voting system of Zwangzug. And now, it was time for one more hurrah.

The current party system of their country had failed them. If the government had voted in a bunch of idiots that would stick their noses up at Rejistania simply because the latter got a little giddy with their punctuation, it was time for a change. And if a nation was being overrun by warmongers (where was symbolic negotiation when you needed it?) that banned numbers...It was clearly time for some partying of a different sort.

DREAD Headquarters

“Good day. Miss Matsuzawa?”

“I don't know who you're talking about. This must be a mistake.”

“Oh come on, you know...”

“No, I don't. It offends my boyfriend when you call me by that name, do you want him to fire you?”

“No, Miss Techno,you're completely right. Can I leave a message?”

“Okay, then.”

“Miss Techno, please tell your boyfriend that the Rejistani are not giving us the data we need.”

“Okay then.”

~~~

Several hours later

“Hi. I see you called me, now here's what you need to do. Get your people in the field. I want you to go to the hospitals and collect every scrap of medical data on the populace you can, every statistical bit you need from the libraries. If anything is lacking, collect it yourself – pay for polls and stuff. Get hair and blood samples from the populace if you can't get this stff from the populace, and hire a dozen of poll companies.”

When a group of allanean soldiers appeared in a hospital in Inkatil, the secretary reacteed quickly, and disabled the door opening before they'd come near. She did not even have a weapon except her voice and her at knowledge of the legal system of Rejistania (this job is just a part time job to finance her law studies at Inkatil university). "No way you come in!" she said over the loudspeaker near the door. "This not property of the state, this property of Amiha Kanjan Foundation. Neither allanean nor rejistani law allow enterinh private property. Come back with a warrant - and not one from Sike republic but from local court, no more 40 kilometers away!"

"That's a point." - said the Allanean and the delegation left.

Relevant in later view was maybe the term 'Sike republic'. Normally, the expression would be a bit different and she just confused to words in her hurry, but then...

---

A few hours later, elsewhere:

Etii Semuvukana was not asked to help in the allanean government. His theories of economy were too radical and too weird even for allaneans in desperate search search for anyone who'd call himself libertarian for the rulership of Rejistania. He did influence rejistani politics with his books about economy, but calling gold backed currencies 'tulip money', calling intellecual property laws 'state sanctioned censorship' did not make him exactly popular. People saw him more like a clown than someone who had something worthwile to say. His main idea was right now, that after the Allaneans would have ravaged the economy, the nation would be forced to start from zero and so he wrote about his idea of non-lentinic government and pareto-optimum based economy. It was not new. Just before, no one would have taken him serious.

“Well, what do you mean you cannot have the information?” - the voice in the phone said - “Just start bribing people then. You know. Ymeti, they call it.”

"Tahoj-alsedu" the foreigner at least attempted to use the right form of address and that counted something in the eyes of the elderly judge, who in his life has experienced all forms of respectless people. Even that the foreigner carried a phrase book for Hito was a positive sign in his eyes. He at least did attempt to say some key phrases in Hito. The foreigner explained in a few words his status which the rejistani confirmed and they talked a bit about the insecure legal status at the moment. The allanean attempted to clear the water, the judge noticed that. Something not quite kosher was about to happen. When the reason for the visit was expressed, the rejistani smiled slightly. This sounded like a puppet theatre to him - and puppet actors are payed well. The Rejistani never exactly mentioned that the entire situation was yearning for an efficient solution and the allanean never offered it - to be more exact, if someone bugged the room, he would only have heard innocent chatter. Despite that, in the end a lot of 'fictions as neutral intermediate form in bartering' changed their owner. And the document, which the allanean wanted. And if the judge would not have heard the foreigner breathe in relief after leaving, he would even have kept a positive opinion of him.

OOC: zwangzug, get onto IRC, please!

IC:
There were no direct planes to Sike kali at the moment. However some companies still served routes to KaMaRi kali and Na~ovi kali. Ratansa tani'mesit KaMaRi was having a slow day. Those who wanted to leave did so already and few people came into the nation. Isa Taari~n was reading a book when the delegation from abroad arrived. He quickly put away his lecture, checked the documents and chatted a bit with the Zwangzug'he'ny, "Sike, you want to go to? I hear all sorts of stuff are happening there, non-nice stuff. It's not even the capital anymore. To me it seems as if most of the nation is losing its integrity. Feels like parts of the country are independent and they just not told the allaneans." He then excused for the rambling and told them where to find the station since the airport/etju hub was rather confusing to newcomers.

[Roleplayed with Rejistania over IRC]

The Precalculus members wandered out of the airport and into the xentira, trying to get their orientation. In the distance, a couple of Allanean soldiers were wandering in the other direction. The city pulsed around them as Rejistanis went on with their lives as best they could. A young girl rushed into the street, picked up a soccer ball which she had mistakenly kicked in, and dashed back across. One of the group, a young man named Jonathan, dizzily tried to refold the etju map which had given him a headache. "Let's just keep walking."

They meandered around, looking for someone who might look like they were in charge of things. "Hey! You!" Shelly gestured vaguely.

"Su?" a random passer-by answered, looking around if someone else was meant.

"You take it from here," Shelly hissed to Brian, the newly-appointed leader.

"Um," Brian turned on the random passerby, "Who are you?"

"Who me is? Why are you wanting to know that?"

"So I can find out if you're in charge around here or not," Brian fired back without thinking.

"In charge? Are alhanejan? Officially the municipal lentine is in charge here..." The rejistani himself seemed to hold something back.

"Excellent," said Shelly, feeling a little more confident. "So which way is the municipal lentine?" None of the group picked up on the rejistani's body language.

"Selme hesurtu! What you want at there?"

"We want, uh, to tell them that banning numbers is wrong," Brian said.

"Tahoj, might you be in the wrong nanti? I know, alhanejans and their orientation..."

The group looked nervously at each other. "This is probably the wrong nanti," Leah ventured.

"What's a nanti?" Jonathan asked, loud enough for the rejistani to hear.

"Have you dropped from the sky somewhere here? Are you citizens of Sa~edi hi?"

"Yes, actually," Leah answered with a smile to the first question, while Shelly said "No..." to the second.

"Now,... What are you up to? have you eaten the from mushrooms?"

"We're trying to set up a better election system," said Drew.

"And get the numbers back," Morgan added.

"Tahoj'ny," he looked at the group. "If we had a trustworthy police I would call them... I know that foreigners experiment with drugs here, get a night's sleep and the world will much more make sense."

"We're not on drugs!" Leah cried indignantly.

"Where can we sleep?" Jonathan eagerly asked.

"Find a vedjeti... or go back to the campus. You should remember there where your dormitories are."

"We're not-" Brian began, but Jonathan interrupted. "What campus?"

"My english not good. Place, University King Exkeja is located"

"Could you point us which direction?"

"Reach Riandu... ask there..."

"Which way to Riandu?" Jonathan pleaded.

The rejistani vaguely pointed in a direction and the turned around and went into the other. He turned around and said: "Not you worry, tomorrow, this all looks more coherent!"

Leah gave a weak smile as they set off.

DREAD Headquarters

“Repeat this again, slowly. What is this strange chi-factor you are talking about?”

“You understand, Alex, there's a difference between Rejistani cell membrane structure and everybody else's. This difference is called the Chi-Factor.”

“And?”

“In itself, it is meaningless. But here's the thing. We discovered a virus affecting exclusively chi-factor individuals.”


“Oh God.”

“Yes. It's a hivemind virus.”

“WHAT?”

“Rejistania is slowly mutated into a giant hivemind.”

“Shit.”

“Shit is the right term.”

Several hours later

Around Rejistania, the Allanean troops suited up, putting on powered armor and HAZMAT equipment.

The Allanean government issued a call for the government of the Sike Republic. It was ordered to evacuate all personnel from Rejistani military bases, leaving the Nakil 1A1s and Tighrana'ny aircraft, as well as other heavy equipment, in the open.

Should the Rejistani refuse to comply, “extremely harsh” measures would be taken immediately.

In a case like an invasion, it is impossible to follow all strands of the action, and every method of summarizing of course has its shortcomings. It was therefore impossible to tell of those things which happened in the Asene Divensi Rejistaniha (or rejistani military) because the narrator had to not tell everything because otherwise, the story would only needlessly longer without gaining something. It of course can lead to the fact that something happened, which was not told of, but later will become relevant. Among these things, which the narrator to its shame not considered important enough to mention were the fact. that the ADR somewhat dissolved after the capitulation. Many Generals and Sanu either committed ritual or not so ritual suicide or fled the country. The military bases were abandonned and people went there to get whatever could be found. Many bases looked as if the ADR was not defeated but went chapter 11 (even though in the rejistani legal code similar laws can be found in paragraph 165 and following). People did take PCs, maps, uniforms, weapons, tents, all sorts of equipment, furniture, vehicles, even toilet bowls were taken. Nearly none of the really important material however since you can not use a plane or a tank as private citizens. Some Kasahela'ny of the first type were diverted into mysterious channels by nostalgics however. Bases near Sike more or less complied, in other bases however, not even the cleaning personal could be reached. If even the cleaning personal deserted, it means no one is left. The municial governments in Jinhes, Na~ovi and Telik even stated that they are no longer assigned to Sike kali except being in the same system of telephone codes. Only when the Sikenian government fell back into the Commurejis era of ettiquette and style, the municipalities decided to take care of the situation. It might be notable that the three municipalities never claimed to belong to the same structural entity but clearly stated they were shensa Jinhes, shensa Na~ovi and shensa Telik.

It was not clear who in the team of allanean experts actually knew things about the vinali tikira revolution, the vinali revolution or the general strike which led to the first independence. For rejistanis, these events were always ascribed to kansa tani, Relekhakansa, Taderekansa or another rejistani god, goddess or natural force. While the explanation of an improved exchange of information surely explained much about these remarkably synchronous events, it was never actually considered. But rejistanis were not asked and the allanean experts were trained to see things in terms of power and economy. Maybe they did not see the links because they vastly overestimated the effects of the virus. But to the defense of the allaneans: neither did the rejistani, whom did not think anything was wrong or just nonstandard in their nation. This can of course mean that the previous uprisings were completely unrelated to the misvoting and that the narrator just tries to draw a link which is not there. (Who can blame him seeing that he is only human and therefore prone to see pattern which do not exist.)

Of course, the Allaneans either did not know this, or did not care. Off the army bases, vast amounts of cargo aircraft were taking off, filled with as many Allanean soldiers as equipment as they could take. Allanean embassy clerks were busily contacting any tourists in the country and telling them to “Get the fuck out, now, it’s for your own good.”

In Allanea, the Immigration Enforcement Service was rounding up all the Rejistani programmers, tourists, and gastarbaiters they could have gotten their hands on. There was no polite service here – they were merely shoved into the cargo aircraft and taken back into Rejistania, there to be deposed after a landing in some empty field, miles and miles away from the nearest Allanean Army encampment.

Sariel Bombers were at work. Within one flight, one hundred bombers had bombed 2,200 tons of anti-tank cluster munitions on Rejistani bases. And there would be more flights – one for every two hours.

In the meanwhile, four armored divisions of the Allanean military approached the bases. Even should the Allaneans have confronted a full-out Rejistanian military – which did not exist anymore – it would not be a problem. As it was, the artillery entered positions, and began to ferociously shell the Rejistani bases – showering them with thousands and thousands of incendiary, FAE, guided anti-tank, and cluster shells for hours and hours on end. The argument was simple – Allanea was not going to just leave these shells lying around for the Rejistanis to pick up, so they could as well use them.

The naval bases were similarly attacked by four Sariels, which dropped out a rain of five-ton munitions, targeting the large dry-docks needed to service the four cruisers of the ADR.

In the meanwhile, Allanean submarines approached the cruisers proper at sea. By radio – and from a safe distance of about 1,000 furlongs – they instructed the crew to get into their life boats and off the ships. Once they got away from the ship, it would be sunk, of course, by a hail of quality-made Kriegzimmer torpedoes.

And in the meanwhile, every single Allanean that was not participating in this important work left the country.

The horrible violence had side effects not intended by the Allaneans. Fires spread, garbage flew. It was said to evacuate the military bases and the Rejistanis, lured into a fake security by the efficiency of the operations so far did that. It was not said to evacuate nearby towns as wildfires spread. It was not said that houses next to administrative buildings of the base were in any form of danger. The firefighters put a veritable fight and eventually emerged victorious, however to many people it felt like a phyrric victory. The attacks were later called the jeo-attacks, not because there were actually mje jeo (one million) victims or jeo involved people, mind you. However the naval basis which was attacked was called called Na~ovi ihijeo divisasi, or if that pathetic explanation does not suffice, expecially not since it neither conforms to Isesi nor Rejistani rules of pronunciations, the term ri'ta (in 100) refers to something notable or even big and linguists would later think that the explanation that jeo'ta was used instead of ri'ta was more likely and the other explanation a kind of backronym to hide the slangish expression. It was like a wound in the nation. More exactly several bleeding wounds in the nation, which in many religious movements was either considered a living being or a community or living beings. These attacks ripped the metaphorical flesh of Rejistanhakansa open and left her wounded, injured and defiled. If you believed that everything on earth was just a manifestation of children of Mjekirkansa, then one of the children of the Gods was now collapsed on the ground, her clothes torn apart, attempting to obscure her private parts by her arms.

However life goes on. Citizens from Allanea came into the country. Often they were an additional issue since even small efficient governments like the allanean ones sometimes do not know what the respective other hand does, meaning, people were droppped only later to be found by firemen, angry about this new issue. Others found settlements and used the etju there to get to their former ken-te. As if either by magic or by careful scheduling, the plans of the busses or trains subtly changed to allow these people to reach their destinations without most others noticing the slight delays and subtle changes (or seemed not to notice, while the etju is known to be efficient, a certain delay is never taken serious). Later these people would attempt the find jobs as programmers. the Allanean IT industry was seriously weakened and some companies capitalized from this. Especially Rejistani ones of course. Rejistania might or might not have intellectual property laws, but this did not mean any semi-autonomous city would actually enforce them, thus giving Kalisimu an advantage.

The university campus looked rather like a less wealthy suburb of a first world city. The buildings all seemed to be rather new for a university, and the parks were filled with students who were studying, chatting, eating, flirting or sleeping in the sun. From somewhere, kaneka music was heard.

Staggering, Jonathan pointed at an open grassy expanse. "I'm just going to sleep right there."

A rejistani girl looked at the strangers who arrived. She was in her mid-20ies, black and her hair was cut very short and died green. Her clothes fit in color. She asked something in a local language, maybe sounding a bit like English.

"My friend needs a place to stay," Leah gestured to Jonathan, who was already stretching out.

"Oh, you are no kiressi... sorry, I wondered whether you're from a kiressi Ken-te and could help me out with something... Your friend can not reach your place with you? Ressource conflict?" She grinned at the last words, which referred to a rejistani geek-joke which was known at the campus.

"Our place-" Brian began.

"We can try and help you," Leah piped up, to edgy looks from her companions.

"Likely not. I am linguistic student and wondered whether 'Sis stati' or 'Si is stati' was the form you'd use in kiressi English. Professor not believing that Sis is a veritable form in present tense."

They quickly glanced around. "I think I'm with your professor on this one," Morgan muttered. "No offense."

"Not that we know anything about kiressi English," disclaimed Drew.

"Just misestimated because you have foreign errr white complexion. Most whites you see on campus are kiressi, or these allanean selme kovomin! Now, why can't you get to your place? your girl replaced you?"

"Because," Brian began, "our-"

"The Allaneans? Aren't they invaders?" Shelly asked.

"Are now... out of the blue sky, yeah! We used to have good relations to allanea and some science-students enrolled here to dodge the mountain-high tuitions at home."

"Could you show us towards the science department?" Morgan put a wild plan of action together. "Or how about math?"

"That's it!" Shelly exclaimed. "We're...foreigners. We want to vist your school to study abroad. Is there a political science wing?"

"Haaa," the girl said and made a gesture indicating them to slow down. "First things first, even if chronological order will differ. There is political science department in " she murmurs something in a local language. "Now, to reach somewhere, just follow the plan of the campus... you do understand rejistani?"

"Not in the-"

Once again, Shelly interrupted Brian. "We'll fake our way through."

"And then you want to enroll in a rejistani-speaking university?" She grinned. "Are you on-revenge to someone at political science? Su?"

In disarray, they glanced around. "We want to help out," Drew volunteered. "Make a system that doesn't fail."

Rejistanis never like the term system being used alone. While they do understand it, it is totally against their way to abbreviate (removing the classificator instead of using only it). Therefore, the student was confused: "What kind of system?"

"Electoral system," Drew clarified. "We heard that you had some sort of...chaos."

"That is like calling a hurricane a bit of a wind, yeah. We had chaos since Hank~hila Sede resigned..." She seemed to be in thought for a while. "I have an idea, but need to know you are relevant."

"Relevant to what?" asked Shelly.

"Sorry, english of me often not that good. What I mean is, whether you are..." she paused apparently searching for a word "credible? honest?"

"Yes," Shelly responded.

"We understand there's no way for you to trust us, but we'll do what we can: we want to help you," Leah added.

"Heh... I see... if I had any proof that you are real and not a sort of allanean, siddin or just a selme, I could lead you to those you need to introduce the idea."

"How do we prove it?" Brian asked.

"Either you tell me where you are from and what you are up to or... we go to the lana temple for a prediction..."

"We're from Zwangzug," Morgan confidently replied. "And we want to make an election system that works and..." He looked to the others for confirmation. "Bring back the numbers that were banned."

"Numbers banned? The Sike shensa is not exactly relevant to the KaMaRi people, especially since the puppets are in government. What have they fiscked up during now??"

Tentatively, Drew spoke. "We heard that arabic numerals were banned." He counted on his fingers to demonstrate what he meant. "One, two, three..."

"kila~e... that law... It's not that it's actually matters seeing most people use unified. Only people who use zeroes are foreigners and those who scam them.... errr sell to them..."

There was a quiet murmur among the visitors. "But that's still discriminatory, isn't it?" Leah prodded.

"We don't have anything against isolationism..." Brian muttered.

Shelly rounded on him. "So what the [bleep] are we doing here?!"

"Well, it's horribly inefficient, I mean, you say 3 thousand not 3 zero zero zero, thus you write it like that: 3-ky." She made the symbol for thousand in one hand.

"For sufficient definitions of "you"," Shelly winked. "What about the election system?"

She murmured something which a nen-knowing person would have translated as 'there goes my free time'. "We go to the dining hall, su? I think from there, I can make some calls. Or you have a cell phone?"

"Yeah, I do." Shelly produced one and handed it to the girl.

The rejistani typed a long number into the thing before hitting the wrong button and having to start over again. It was no number within the nanti as it seemed. Then she held the phone to her right ear and afer a while 'hehhah-ed' into the phone (foreigners have a reason for the onomatopoeic term hehhah: the speech of Rejistanis on the phone often sounded like that - an audible reminder of the times when phone connections used to be very staticy and unreliable).

The group waited patiently, not minding how long it took: it seemed to be progress.

After a few minutes and a decisive "ehe-a" (or so it sounded), she hung up and gave it back to Shelly. "Do you happen to speak nen? The kelit lentine awaits you!"

"No such luck," Shelly replied. "Sorry."

"We really didn't think this through," Brian sighed.

"I would speak for you, but my nen is a bit rusty... Do you know any Nen or H~sidi who can represent you?"

They glanced around at each other. "Do you really have to ask?"

"Maybe we can go to the residing magician? Esemu'he might be able to help you. You just can not enter a kente and not speaking the language of the residents... and Lten'he is STRICT on etiquette... yeah, I hope you are not broke as well?"

"The-" Brian stammered.

"What kind of an economy do you have?" Drew nervously asked.

"kavitalije'tan jasika ve sosija errrr, jasikan social market-based economy"

"Social...ism?" Leah asked hopefully.

"That is what Capitalists call it. Socialists call it capitalism."

This explanation, perfect sense though it made, was nevertheless disappointment. "Then we're probably broke," Brian summed up the situation.

"Sign of kansu... how did you plan anything here?" She was a bit annoyed. "Esemu'he takes memories as tender... I would not try that but nje..."

"We didn't plan anything," Brian retorted, "and we'll pay with memories...uncontroversial glimpses of foreign life should be fine."

"han'iln, kir'iln!" the rejistani said as she started to turn around to show them to the magician. The reason she did that was not so much empathy or compassion but a genuine notion of schadenfreude. She wanted to see them screw up big time and felt as if they could not let her down on that.

Nenex Lidan (who nearly everyone called Nene) led the group of weird people through the university, until they reached a smaller building, in which the nerds of the computer science department dwelled. The building was the typical crowded place full of nerds and nerdettes. The walls were full of advertising for any kind of student related service or product and did so in Rejistanian, Nen, Minokajeti, Majuvedan, Sela... even some in English.

The visitors followed Nene, glancing at the few signs that they could read. The door to the wizard was not in the least remarkable. It was in a corridor next to a vending machine, which the nerds here called 'lifesaver' because it seels 5 sorts of caffeinated beverages and a lots of snacks, starved hackers need when they eventually remember to leave their realm. The posters on the walls here were a lot of less formal, most dealing with tutoring or housing. Among those, nerd-humour. Morgan glanced at one of them and smiled, almost understanding a pun that involved pi and pie.

Nenex knocked at the door thrice, it opened and led to complete darkness. nothing could be seen there, even though the corridor was well lit. "After you", Nenex said.

They looked around edgily, none wanting to be the first in. Eventually, Drew entered, with Morgan close behind him. Then Brian, Shelly, Jonathan, and Leah.

The room seemed to be big judging the echos of the footsteps, it was completely dark. Suddenly a voice was heard in the room, it was not quite clear where it came from. "Hejida! Excuse the darkness but since I am blind as well, I wanted to make things equal for us"

"Shouldn't "equal" be "what we're both used to"?" Shelly muttered edgily.

"Hello!" Leah smiled cheerfully.

"What led you to this establishment? Surely not the sightseeing?"

"A student here," Brian said.
Shelly tried to turn around to see if Nenex had followed, but it was too dark to see.

"We heard you might be able to help us: we want to try and fix your election system."

Nenex felt the need to help them: "They want to present their ideas to the council of I Tare and are far from being able to understand and speak Nen and so I think one of them needs to be ... adjusted to represent them to Lten"

"You hadn't told us that," Shelly said, almost accusatorily.

"I'll do it, or be done...whatever," Brian volunteered.

The voice of the wizard was heard again (and again from indeterminatable origin): "This is very good. Before I ask more... what about the monetary part of this? How do you want to pay off the one hundred thousand lil'kansu this would be?"

"She suggested that we give you memories."

"Hey, he said 100,000 in English!" Morgan exulted. "So some kind of foreign numbers are still here."

Nenex looked embarassed: "It was all about the way to write numbers - and only relevant when doing business and when in Sike anyways"

"That's not what we heard," Shelly muttered.

"Let's just focus on the elections," Leah spoke firmly.

"I am sure you will understand things far better soon. When the instance known as Brian is willing to commit to the process, can he step forward, please?"

"How does..." Brian shook his head. "Never mind. Um...this should be fine. If not, well, make something up. It's worked so far." He stepped forward.

A weird chant seemed to be heard, at first it seemed to occupy all places at once but then, as if it would take up space starting to solidify around Brian. The process took place and and while the others only could heard the strange syllables, Brian started to extract some form of mearing from it. No one was quite able to say how long it took, minutes or hours, but eventually, other strands of melody attached on the others. Were there faint lights accumulating on the edge of ones vision?

An image leaps, unbidden, into Brian's mind.
He is seated in a classroom, after school. He traces the grafitti in his desk and listens, half-aware, to the rallying cry of a fellow student, then begins to pay attention. What if they could do something?

He did feel a strange sensation of being moved into a certain pose, but it was not his body, which was formed, it was his mind.
The others were sure some form of presence entered the darkness, but it was nothing you could put your hands on.

He angrily presses a button on a computer to stop the flow of data. This is too chaotic, too unpredictable. He goes back to tweak the parameters...Patriotism is more trouble than it's worth.

He felt some memories as they left him, but sometimes, they just vanished quietly. The voices became louder and covered higher intervalls, Nenex felt this was coming to a new stage

For the others, it was impossible to tell what was going on. They were unsure how long the process was taking-or when it would be long enough to be problematic.

Suddenly, they all saw images appearing in their minds... of the computer science building on the KaMaRi campus. The noises for student life interfered with the chants - and suddenly, they realized that they were there for real. It was not an illusion, they were standing in a corridor of the computer science building.

Brian looked at a sign written in Nen. Slowly, his eyes narrowed, and focused as he attempted to read.

Things did make some form of sense but he realized that despite being able to extract some of the meaning, stumbled at one word before realizing that it was the name of a place. That explains the errorneous grammar.

"Wow," he exhaled.

"Does it work?" Nenex asked in Nen, she has a rather strange accent in that language even though for a foreigner Nen and H~si sound nearly alike.

"I think so," he replies, trying to speak in Nen.

"Great! I am sure you will be a good representative of this group. I can introduce you to I Tare, but it is not my Ken-Te"

"Thanks," he smiles. "We've come this far: if you don't mind taking us."

"Jilih'halen'ta!" She said and led the group off-campus to the Ken-Te in which some of the constitutional meeting would take place. They followed, gawking at various intervals. Brian, buoyed by self-confidence, followed closest behind Nenex.

The central place of the ken-te was occupied by a group of children, playing a game of soccer. the houses around the place were on stilts. Even though the houses were not constructed using exclusively traditional techniques, they looked very traditional and authentic.
The children, immersed in their game, started having an argument about one scene. One of them noted the foreigners in the Ken-te ran to them and asked : "You saw the scene? Ihix did foul Ljenax, didn't he?" He pointed to the respective children when using their names. Brian translates for the group.

They look around nervously. "I don't know anything about soccer," Drew apologizes.
"Too right you don't," Morgan snaps back. "The game's called football!"
They get into a heated argument.

The children looked at the adults eagerly. "Now, what do you think?"

"He did run into him," Leah said. Brian translated.

"ah, veka!", the little one shouted the result to the other players and was about to turn around to continue the game as well. The group watched nervously, unsure whether they'd made the right decision. The rejistanis were about to continue the game when the child asked: "What are you waiting here? Are you from Hades Lavamje?" he smiled about that joke.

"We're here to talk about the elections with..." Forgetting, Brian trailed off.

"Ah..." the child was disappointed. "then hurry over to the house of the Lten, where they are busy setting up things for the council"

"Thank you. Which one is that?"

The child pointed to one of the houses.

"Thank you." Brian walked over, the others following. The house did have the traditional symbols of the family of Lten on its front and somehow it made sense to Brian that this was the house, even though he did not understand the symbols (which in fact are from an old ideographic alphabet). The door was open and voices were heard from the room, there was apparently a discussion going on. Not wanting to interrupt, he silently walked in, beckoning the others. The central room was nearly empty, it looked as if the stuff which normally was here was moved out recently. On the ground, a dozen people were sitting and talking about seating arrangements when an old person on the other end of the room noticed them and greeted. He used a rather formal and complex way, maybe in order to confuse people, or maybe because he was feeling like being polite.

After parsing the message, Brian responded. "Hello: my name is Brian McAdams. These are my friends," he gestured to indicate them. "Please wait until I have translated this."

Quickly, he said in English, "He's just saying hello; so am I."

The senior focussed Brian "You are of this land, even though you look different. You are here from your kalesa to participate in the council of constitution?"

"No, we are foreigners. I have been...endowed with the ability to communicate in your language."

"Oh... You come from a foreign kalesa, yeah, things are falling apart. Matix used to be the same kalesa, now it is no longer the same country. Are you here as delegates of your kalesa?"

"Our kalesa is far beyond Rejistania. I do not think it has ever been a part of it."

"Oh..." they saw others turning their heads around. until then it all sounded normal: a kalesa asking for representation, but now, there was something different. "Can I ask in that case why you are here?"

"We heard that your electoral system was very chaotic. We have ideas for how to fix it."

"Can you in this case maybe answer a few questions: What do you see as issues and how do you plan to fix it?"

"The problems that happened after your last election seem to be "issues". We think that using a preferential voting system would help make things more stable."

"The issues after the last elections... those were reactions of inept politicians. If anything happened during the last elections it was anger at the corruptness and ineptness. I am maybe interested to hear how you plan fixing this, if it is convenient to you"

"Certainly." In English, Brian asked, "Drew, Morgan, can you bring the printouts?" They handed him a large booklet with various pieces of paper sticking out at odd intervals.

Returning to Nen, Brian explained, "The way we have organized elections is that all voters are allowed to rank their candidates in order of preference. If there is an absolute majority of first-place votes, whoever has it wins. If not, whoever has the fewest of the first-place votes is eliminated, and the second-place votes of the people who voted for them first are counted instead. Then the process just repeats itself until someone comes up with an absolute majority.

Discussion arose in the group and even Brian felt left out because as this kalesa was not completely Nen, people started using their native languages or rejistanian as well as Nen. Eventually, a ehila~oan female in her 40ies (Brian knew at once she was ehila~o even though he had no idea how) asked: "This means, a lot of candidates despite reaching many votes do not advance into representation?"

"Yes. There is a good balance, we think, between stability and diversity."

The discussion became more heated. Terms like "shensa", "undemocratic" and "weird" were thrown through the room.

"What are they saying?" Shelly asked.

"Ssh," Brian said. "Just wait."

"While we do see this is relevant, we see it more as an idea to reach a better system than a better system in itself" The eldest of the Lten-clan seemed to be polite here and concealing something, maybe a feeling that this idea will not work. "I however do think this is relevant enough to be presented at the council of constitution tomorrow. Will you be able to represent your group there?"

"Of course, if we have a place to stay overnight."

Again discussion arose. Ideas were made and overthrown. Most of the ideas delt with how it would reflect the status of the group and whether this was adequate for a foreign lentinic group.

"We'll be fine anywhere," Brian rushed to counsel them. "We can split up if that would be easier... Nothing is going to offend us."

Eventually somone suggested the house in a nearby ken-te which was used to house visitors or monks after the owners, family Kui, died in a plane crash without relatives. It was kind of an obvious idea but of course it needed to come from someone of that ken-te to be aceptable.

"Sure," Brian said. "Perfect."

The only person from its ken-te however did remind others that this house sometimes also houses Jainists monks - of the school, which thinks that clothing is an unneeded possession.

Brian translated that. It did cause some perturbment among the group, but he finally snapped, "We could be a whole lot worse off. This is lucky."

The person from the ken-te in question seemed to ponder something before saying: "I will lead you to the place, but first we need to solve some other issues for the council." He turned to the eldest of the Lten-family: "Is it possible that they can wait here and I will lead them later to this place. I do not want the Suiva-ssue be addressed in my absence".

"It is alright, these questions need adressing before such small things destroy the whole picture"

"Sure, we don't mind waiting," said Brian.

The foreigners were invited to sit among the others as the discussion arose anew about various topics, all referring to the council. It was easily seen that the Rejistanis were eager not to screw up. They did not see themselves as an elite, but they did try to organize things and spent very less time on the actual contents of the meeting.

Once in a while, Brian would try and explain what was going on, but mostly he listened and tried to make sense of it all.

At some point in the discussion, people turned around to Brian and ask him about his opinion. It seemed very important to them. The question who would lead the discussion was in places which were more modern not an issueat all, However the group was in one of the most conservative territories and here such things still mattered rather much. Brian was a natural choice to turn to because he was seen as the most neutral person among them.

"Um, I don't c-" Immediately he was pummeled with the thoughts of others: Leah wanted a kind, diplomatic leader; Shelly, a productive, no-nonsense one; Drew and Morgan, logical and analytical. Jonathan was apathetic.

"Yeh?" Hahirix Lten focussed him "You have not heard who are the candidates?"

He did hear it from their discussion: Hjenex Sija was a natural choice because she was seen as very fair and a good leader of her ken-te, however she was considered to be too involved and having too many favorites to be a good choice, Hahirix Lten was a choice because the discussion did take place in his ken-te, however people did fear his temper. Jerjenx Hisi... well, was Jerjenx... people seemed to be desperate enough to propose him even though most agreed he did not have what it would take (despite not excatly being clear what it'd take).

The group, themselves erraticly random, came to consensus on Jerjenx. Dubiously, Brian relayed that decision.

"Jerjenx Hisi..." Hahirix Lten paused as if he was smelling something. "I guess times really do change in this country and so they can change in this kalesa..." Of course, this was the expected way to go over personal losses without losing ones face.

The day and the evening passed rather quickly. The group had supper with the other members of the ken-te they would be spending the night in. The monks were disappointingly old and all male. After dinner, they huddled up in an attic room, hopefully far away from the monks. The night, Brian was visited by ghosts and creatures he could not name who told him that his status could only be temporarily, that he would have to decide between his old and his new place. The group woke up in the morning, knowing this was the day, they would present their ideas to the Rejistanis of KaMaRi. Brian glanced around wildly as Shelly shook him awake. "Wha-oh, just you." He blinked back his dreams. "Come on, it'll take both of us to wake up Jonathan." Eventually, all of them made it downstairs. The different families left something to eat for the monks and the foreigners since they ate breakfast earlier to prepare themselves for the day. They sampled the Rejistani food. Leah especially enjoyed it, but everybody was able to find something palatable.

The Lten ken-te was looking different when they went there again. A big canvas was being installed in the central place and a projector as well as loudspeakers. This ken-te was connected to all the other ken-te'ny of KaMaRi where constitutional meetings were held. The decentrality of this event struck them. For some reason, things in Rejistani tend to organize in that way, even though only the allaneans would have an idea why. The foreigners were offered a place away from the main group, except for Brian who was accepted as Nen for them. The meeting was started eventually and Jerjenx did not as bad as people feared he did. It was surprising how civil the meeting was so far. Eventually, there was the question about the electoral system and the resulting divisional organisation and after different kalesically inspired models, Brian was asked to present what he thought. It was later that he realized that people used the name Rajinx to refer to him, instead of his Zwangzugian name.

In the meanwhile, Allanea bore the economic cost of the blocking of Rejistanian trade relations. IT companies collapsed outright or were forced to find some other nation to ouitsource to, and often costs of IT products increased as companies were forced to hire Allaneans to do jobs Rejistanis did before.

Regardless, the government insistes maintaining the boycotts and exclusions.

"In our system," he spoke, "the voters of each kalesa would rank all of the candidates on the ballot, from first choice to last. Then, whichever candidate got the fewest number of first place votes would be eliminated, and instead of counting votes for them, the second choices of the people who voted for them would be counted instead. Whoever has the fewest first place votes then is eliminated as well, and the cycle continues until only one candidate is left. They become the representative for the kalesa" Hands were raised but Jerjenx indicated that he should continue "Um..." he trailed off. "I'm not really sure what more there is to say."

"Okay" Jerjenx said and let's handle the questions, Hades was first to mention something? Lia'he su?" A voice craked through the loudspeakers and the cameras showed Minsirai Lia giving the microphone to an elderly person in one of the last rows. She said something in ... Minokajeti? Majuvedi? Heturu? and Lia'he translated.

"There is only one person elected to represent the kalesa, is that correct?"

"Yes," Brian nodded.

The noise started to become louder. In this ken-te as well as in others which were connected. Jerjenx gave the word to Karela where a stereotypical Lines'he was given the word. "Does this system require a centralized voting system?"

"In each kalesa? No, there can be different polling places and the results sent to one place to tally...Is that what you meant?"

The Karelan again had the word and someone translated "Wouldn't a system with such a representation require a temporarily centralized election instead of decentralized ones as happened in Rejistania?"

"At the same time? Yes, probably."

The noises became louder and more aggressive. The next person who had the word was an ehila~o who asked in rejistanian because obviously he was a minority in his ken-te: "If that is the case, how do you make sure constant feedback to the liside'ny?"

"Okay, I'm lost." Brian laughs. "Feedback as in how well their candidates are doing?"

"Hai ve!" replied the ehila~oan, the translator made of it: "exactly that!"

"Well, the ballots would be secret, so they couldn't know while the voting was going on. But after the elimination was done-a computer could do it virtually instantly-all the data could be made public."

The ehila~oan shrugged and a new person asked questions, this time from Xentira and its ethnical affiliation was not clear: "How do liside'ny over the course of one period of legislature get feedback on how well their politics suits the people?"

"The people can contact them?" Brian suggested.

Some people laughed, others were quite offended. The Xentiran asked for a followup question and was granted it: "This could mean making unpopular measures in the middle or the beginning of the legislation period so the public does not remember them as present and so they do not affect elections too much?"

"I suppose. But," he adds, as the thought has just come to him, "The kalesa'ny themselves do not all have to hold their elections at the same time. So different legislators could be held accountable at different times."

Another question came from Liatema kalesa: "This sounds like a technical issue, but how would the ballot papers be designed and how much longer would voting take on average?"

"The ballots could be computerized, or else have blank slots next to the candidates' names. Voting would take significantly longer, probably the amount of time squared."

A question came from the local ken-te: "Can this system lead to tyranny by majority?"

"Not if the kalesa'ny are sufficiently diverse to represent different opinions."

Someone asked about how prone this system is to gerrymandering or as the rejistanis call it: Setil-ing, ie to the assignment of kalesic borders to have more favorable outcomes at elections.

"It would depend on who re-draws the borders. Are they based on population?"

"Based on population and ethnic association. I can find the part in the legal documents..."

"How often are they drawn?"

"It depends, there are some upper and lower bounds as criteria..."

"Well, I won't say that it's impossible, but I think if an unbiased group could be found, the problem wouldn't be too bad."

The rejistanis continued a noisy discussion when the next person asked a question: "Ha ve, You said elections would be synchronous in all kalesa'ny and that they can be asynchrously, how is that now?"

"I...did? The kalesa'ny don't have to all hold elections at the same time, but whenever one of them does, all the polling places within that kalesa should be at the same time."

Since the noise level rised too much, Jerjenx asked for a period of ken-te internal discussion. No one objected to it. The canvas went white, the loudspeakers fell silent and the discussion grew louder. It still was not aggressive, but people were kinda confused at the idea - some even insulted - and had to sort it out for themselves. A rejistani scientist once said: "A new idea which does not offend is either not true or not new" and it seemed this idea was new (and truth generally does not apply to political theories)

During the pause, Brian hurriedly translated as much of the conversation as he could remember to the others.

The discussion continued locally of course, while the idea had a certain charme, it was somehow against the 'democratic instincts' of the Rejistanis. More than once however the advantage of a fixed-size lentinic assembly was mentioned. A rejistani, who was typing into a small portable Advansid suddenly asked a question which made others fall silent: "Would it be doable to create a synthesis between both major systems?"

"Quite probably. We experimented with other systems, so I presume there would be some sort of combination."

The idea spread because said person was online and via IRC connected to the other assemblies and the KaMaRians went into a contructive phase. The idea of different forms of kalesical runoffs were proposed and when the 5 minutes of internal discussion ended, it was surprising how similar the ideas were, which emerged, differing mainly on hurdles for representation, fixed amount of representatives or not, and calculation of the hani-numbers. Brian flipped through some of the paperwork he'd brought for anything similar, but couldn't decipher Drew and Morgan's shorthand. The discussion went on to specific options about the system. There was a consensus that kalesical asynchronous collections would be kept and that the hani mje'het (short for: 'the hani number of a politician is the percentage of first votes he received') idea was rather suboptimal.

"You could make second votes worth a fraction of first votes when it comes to calculating hani-number," Brian suggested, "and so on proportionally."

The Rejistanis seemed to like that idea and advenced to more critical points. Especially the idea of limiting the number of candidates or installing a percentage as hurdle was discussed passionately, somewhen during this discussion a rejistani asked for the opinion of the group on the two ideas.

They supported setting a specific percentage as a cutoff line more than limiting the number of candidates, as the latter seemed to hurt political freedoms.

Eventually, the rejistanis came to a solution, which was rather typical as it attempted to unite the advantages of both systems: a cutoff line and a minimum amount of candidates, which meant that the Ly-years would not be repeated (the term 'ly years' referred to a time when Ly, because they felt cut off from representation resorted to let attacks speak for them). Before the voting procedure, a samutii delegate asked for a pause to re-think about it and have lunch. No one objected to that idea.
Brian didn't have much of an appetite, which was good, as he didn't have much time to eat: his companions were pestering him, trying to figure out what was going on. The others were more agitated.
"Did we do it?" Leah whispered unnecessarily.
"Not yet," Shelly snapped.
Drew and Morgan were debating various minutiae, trying to figure out the best procedure, while Jonathan seemed to be mechanically stuffing himself. Others used the pause not so much to eat but to communicate. Someone knew a person who works in Kalisimu, moved to Na~ovi, married someone from Jinhes, or studies xexexkansa-knows-where, in short, other municipalities were informed. Some decided to adapt parts of it, some decided to go for completely different ideas, but the idea spread as ideas, which's time has come tend to do.

Brian kept an ear open to that sort of chatter: it seemed to be an encouraging sign. He also experienced an odd sort of apprehension that he couldn't place, but tried to shake it off.

The pause was ended on time - quite an archievement for such an event and the ballot papers have been prepared, which listed different alternatives: KaHiJu, ETaKi, and the new system, which some smart person named KoInXiDa (Kovomin Ines ve Xiada Dahire'ta=new and asynchronous government) as well as the option 'none of the above'. Jerjenx told 'Rajinx' that he as Nen was eligable as well, even though his former roots were elsewhere. People lined up at the huts, which are normally used to store shared goods of the ken-te. The air was thick of excitement. "Rajinx" took his ballot. Hand trembling, he selected KoInXiDa. After everyone had the chance to vote, another pause was necessary to count the votes. Again people left in all directions. Someone invited the group to a quick game of Takitaki,, the children of different ken-te came to see their parents...

Leah eagerly accepted the Takitaki offer: after a pause, Brian did as well. The Samity'ny lived less traditionally than the Lten did apparently. Their house had both a computer and a TV in the living room. Hikite attempted to explain the card game in his rather suboptimal English. It mainly deals with using the right strategy to get as many high takis as possible and avoid getting the negative ones. The foreigners enjoyed the strategic component of the game, getting a fair dose of "beginners' luck". After a while, the Neni and Brian knew it was the right thing to leave and returned just when the vote counters finished their magic. Ateli Kama, who was in charge of the canvassers, attempted some comedy by imitating the announcers of the Kanami Academy Awards. Eventually, he opened the envelope, and read the contents: "Dear Ateli, I saw you with Miha and Estuku last night. Assume our relation to be terminated" he then stopped and asked for the right envelope while the audience laughed. When he had the right envelope, he announced the results like in the WorldVision from the lowest percentages upwards. ETaKi finished behind non of the above, then the Kahiju system. the KoInXiDa won with a percentage high enough not to require a second ballot.
For a moment Brian was silent. Then, at the others' querying, he translated. "Was that just this ken-te?" asked Drew. "Or everywhere?"
Jonathan's eyes lit up, not apathetic for about the first time since he'd arrived.
"We did it!" Morgan exclaimed.
Breathlessly, still surprised that they'd pulled it off, they congratulated each other. Lten'he came and also gratulated the group in Nen and bad English: "Maaive! Well done!"
"Thank you," Leah replied on their behalf.
The discussion reached a different subject now, however when the group attempted to leave, people did object to Rajinx's decision. He as Nen surely was interested in seeing how the meeting would continue.

"I'm not really Nen," he muttered half-heartedly. "This magician gave me the power to speak the language, but I'm not rejistani at all."
People disagreed with him, the way he spoke and the fact that he underwent such a procedure showed that he was related to the tani, if not before then at least now. Others said they also were not rejistani anymore since this meeting was exactly to break away from Rejistania.

"I'll be glad to stick around if you want me...but what do you mean, "break away from Rejistania"?"

"We are a council of constitution." one person explained. "The Sike government disappointed us and it disappointed you." Rajinx realized that he used a term for government, which implied lacking democratic legitimation. "This means the Sike state does no longer exist. The KaMaRi state, the Jinhes state, the Na~ovi state, the Telik state... they all replace the Sike state - probably as a federation later"

"So, you're just changing your government, right?" Leah asked after Brian had done his best to translate. "Not seceding?"

"We honestly do not know whether there will be a nation to seceede from." The nen paused. "As far as we are concerned, Sike ceased existing"

There was more confusion as the group realized how little they understood.

"It was their decision too," Shelly whispered to them in English. "Even if there is fallout-which I can't imagine given the general chaos-it isn't our fault."

The Neni saw the confusion: "We did not feel represented by the Sike state, we felt that the government there did its own thing independent of the people. With corrupt municipal governments and distant, stoic central government the people of Rejistania desired a change"

Smiles grew on the group's faces as Brian translated. "And we wanted one for you," Drew replied.

"We are grateful for the process of introducing new ideas into the communities. You might have heard that the idea was already shared."

"No, we hadn't," Brian said immediately.

Brian laughed. "You're welcome...I think."

The Neni pointed Rajinx to a place, they reserved for him. "We have made room for you on a more... advantagious seat, this way you can follow the proceedings easier"

He smiled. "Thank you."

The place was more in front, but still at side of the place so he could see and translate to his group. While the Neni nearly instinctively saw Rajinx as one of them, they were a bit cautious of the others and their weird language. The constitutional council continued - again rather civil, even though at times, the discussion became emotional.

While he didn't understand some of it, Brian/Rajinx became engrossed in what he did. Often, he would be too busy paying attention that he forgot to translate, much to Shelly's annoyance. Eventually, the meeting was adjourned and the group was invited to the ken-te again. They eagerly returned, pestering Brian to explain what had happened.

OOC: Yeah, these RPs are consisting of zwangzug and me RPing via query in IRC

The group was again offered to eat with the kente, and of course the ken-te did still discuss the day and basically whatever else was urgent. Someone just learned that Na~ovikians planned a protest against Sike shensa and people from all over Rejistania planned to come. After the dinner, Brian somehow could not get himself to leave. The rejistanis still stayed to talk and for some reason, he felt like staying with them. One reason of course was the Asamara (OOC: rejistanian liqueur), but another reason the community he felt here - the feeling he belonged here.

"You coming back to that monk place?" Shelly asked, dragging Jonathan out of his seat.

"Probably, yeah," Brian muttered distractedly, unsure if he meant it. "I just want to hear what this woman's saying...You can go ahead, I'll be along later."

The neni seemed to like the evening together. Plans were made for the next day, or for the protests in one week in Sike. People chatted, played, drank and generally had a good time.

"We're going to stick around for a week?" Leah asked.

"Sure, why not?" Morgan replied. "Besides, it'll give us more time to find out more about how things work."

The neni seemed to be delighted at the idea of the group still staying - even though someone said that they'd probably need to borrow the group to "Matix ki'tani" soon.

Eventually, they trickled out of the room where they had been eating. Brian, however, stuck around, listening intently to another discussion.

At some point, someone brought drums and another one a guitar and people started to sing together. Brian seemed to know some of the texts -even though he did not know that before. He sang along when he could. Early on in the songs, he wondered vaguely if Leah or Drew might appreciate the musical theory behind the intervals, but such thoughts quickly faded from his mind.

Eventually, the kente decided to get some sleep, Hikite led Brian to his house and wished him a good night.

He responded in kind and climbed up to the attic. Somehow, the monks he passed didn't seem as out of place. The night was short and this time, the ghosts of this place did not haunt him neither did any zwangzugian ghosts (or just the normal nightmare). In fact, he could not remember his dreams. On the next morning, he saw people decorating the kente with a strange flag with a candle and a butterfly. Brian did understand that this was a guesture of loyality to the new nation - as this rather uncommon flag was the KaMaRi one.

The others were all awake-even Jonathan. He must have stayed out late...Clambering down, he helped raise the new flag.

The day was sunny again and the constitutional council again efficiently handled conflicts. In the afternoon, the meeting ended, not because it was postponed again, but because the constitution was finished. Most of the other laws would be established. Common morality and remaining pre-allanean laws would govern most of the everyday life.The municipal government with the unbelievable low hani-number would remain in power but only to organize the first elections using the new system.

"So how many countries will be formed?" Brian relayed Morgan's question. "Or new states?"

Hikite seemed a bit unsure about that: "It will eventually depend on the amount of places, people feel loyal too. Think of the nation of Telik. Everyone expected them to join different nations - and instead was Telik the first new nation."

After getting the translation from Brian, Morgan nodded approvingly and began chatting with Drew.

The next days went in a hurry. The group was invited into a neni kente of Matix, who were themselves getting ready to break away from the Sike government. Neni also live in this city even though the KaMaRian Nen call them Lii-Nen. The constitutional council in Matix was somehow similar. It was not quite as decentral: the decentral groups were bigger and there were far less. The Neni were a minority in their group, but there was a group of translators willing to help. Rajinx was again invited to explain his system and the KaMaRian compromise.

He did so easily, not needing to rely on the others for statistics. They faded into the background, feeling somewhat purposeless. But he did need translators to speak for him. It felt like an odd sort of comeuppance, but he didn't worry about cosmic vengeances for long: he had a system to promote.

The compromise which the city came to was rather bizarre attempting to use the best of the KaMaRian, Na~ovian and Sikenian models. The group in total was seen as KaMaRian, one nen and two KaMaRians by association. Again, the quick way the groups reached a compromise was rather surprising. The right solution seemed to be inherent. "Whatever works" seemed to be the general consensus among the foreigners.

"In retrospect," Morgan commented later, "this was a lot smoother process than it should have been."

"Yeah, well, we were overdue," Shelly retorted.

The last days before the protests, the group was invited in a progressan proto-nation. It was rather strange for the group since the progressans or kireshi were English-speaking refugees from former Kaze Progressa. Selatepa-Nanjit at least spoke something similar to English. Here someone else was able to explain things.

Relieved at last to be able to directly communicate with some people, the group was much more talkative than usual. Even Jonathan had gotten over his jet lag enough to explain some of the details of the various compromises they'd seen.

Rajinx somehow felt strange. Somehow he did not quite belong here. "When's the protest?" he said impatiently.

Eventually, the week passed and the group found itself on the train to Sike kali. They were a small group among many rejistanians: Nenis, majuvedians, minokajetians, ehila~os, and a lot of other different groups were present. They interpreted that as a good sign: a wide range of support meant they had a better position and a more serious chance of being heard.

The schedules in Rejistania have always been a flexible affair, but currently it seemed that everything either went to Sike or from it due to the heavy demand on these lines. Sike was completely in the hands of foreigners: The east, the west, the south and the north were present. Seeing that Sike is a very small city, it meant the natives were a regrettable minority in their own city. Ironically, seeing the diversity that had shown up made it look more like a national capital than it had been described. The only thing that seemed to draw the Rejistanis to unite was opposition to a central government.

The Allaneans already left in a hurry for not quite disclosed reasons and the rejistani police was rather undecided on where to side. The crowd started to chant something in rejistanian: Rajinx did understand it for some reason: "Xen'aru'ta tani jilih / xen'lentine xen hajit / iln'aru'ta keva ve meva / Tani'xen! Xen'ki viki!" (we are not this country / we represent ourselves / you are not our parents / our nation! We will win) He began to repeat it slowly as he picked up the words.

"What is that? What are they saying?" Jonathan pestered him, but he didn't notice or care to reply.

The group advanced towards the spire and the obelisk: the centre of Sike and the centre of Rejistania since the spire was at the exactly geographical middle of the country. The government had emergency meetings, but while you can scare the blackbird, you can not stop him sing: the Rejistani government was completely overwhelmed by the opposition.

By that time, Drew had picked up on the rhythm of the chant and was waving his hand in time like a conductor. Leah followed his lead: the others just stood together, adding their bodies to the mass.

The problem for the sikenian government was, that no one seemed to be responsible for the revolution. Everyone and no one was in charge. The solution seemed clear for anyone who is at least a bit democracy minded (or at least hopes to leave the spire in the near future). In the evening, the Rejistanian flags on the spire were lowered and replaced by the Hiisa: the new flag of the association of independent states. When the protesters saw that, loud cheering erupted, people were hugging each other and generally behaved as if the World Cup was won.

Leah embraced random foreigners, Drew and Morgan chucked confetti in the form of shredded graphs into the air, and Shelly and Jonathan high-fived each other so hard that they bounced back and knocked over the people around them. Only Rajinx remained aloof from the situation, gazing into the sky just beyond the new flag.

Someone from the first constitutional council they attended saw them and shouted: "Great thing, su? You wanted to get some laws repealed and the government collapses!"

Jonathan laughs. "We're overachievers."

The members of the former government left the spire unceremonially and headed for whereever you go to after you are 'jisued out of office by a nationwide revolution. They were greeted with jeers and shouts. After a while, people started to leave the place of their victory - out of exhaustion, happiness or claustrophobia. The trains and busses brought the the protestors back to their respective nations.

"Do you think it's going to be okay?" Drew whispered nervously. "All these new nations?"
"They'll be fine," Shelly said.

"And besides," Morgan beamed, "they're going to use old pre-invasion laws. No illegalizations, methinks."

"So, let's get back," said Leah.

Rajinx opened his mouth as if to speak, but didn't know what he wanted to say.

A group of Neni was about to go to the station when they saw the group: "Heya! You'll go back from Sike? Heya Rajinx, The next 2971 is leaving in fifteen minutes, will you join us?"

"Yeah!" he answered eagerly, following them. The rest of the group followed him more slowly.

One of the younger neni saw that the group followed and attempted some small talk: "What are you planning now, To KaMaRi? or to Zwangzug?"

"KaMaRi, then maybe we'll decide from there," he replied.

"No idea how advantage-having that is. Seeing you need to get to foreign country. I have not knowing how they are related to Rejistania."

"We might be able to get a plane to come there," Leah said.

"Here? To Sike? Likely, I guess. Sike is still in Rejistanha. While KaMaRi..."

"That's a good point," Shelly nodded. "Maybe it would be better to stay around."

"Nah," Rajinx countered. "The Rejistania government did just leave."

"Did leave?" Morgan laughed. Rajinx didn't see what was funny.

"Laija... but Sike is still Sike... The sun goes down but the ground does remain the same!"

"We're going to miss the train!" Rajinx called.

"How can we miss the train if it's not coming for fifteen minutes?" Jonathan asked.

"You are seeing how many people plan to catch their trains?"

Jonathan looked around. "Yeah..."

"Let's just go and not have to worry about it," Rajinx said emphatically.

"Always best!" said the Neni, while walking through the streets of Sike to the station. a hideous thing, big enough to be the main traffic hub of Rejistania and so everyone can get lost easily. Rajinx followed close behind. The others, unsure whether they had any choice in the matter, trailed after him, trying to keep sight of them in the large crowd.

The protestors which stayed apparently did so to celebrate their victories, at more than one place, cheerful music was played and others joined in, singing or with their instruments. Eventually, the group made it to the Central station (even though it was not even quite in the town itself, it was called central station).

"Just give it a rest," Morgan was saying to Shelly. "We were just in KaMaRi, it's still civilization." They caught up to Rajinx and the Neni.

The Neni looked at the display outside of it and made some gestures to Rajinx and others of his group: "Platform 109, it is for us." He then resorted to English for the foreigners: "Will you use the train to ratansa sike?"

"I...don't think so," Shelly responded. "Brian, what is he talking about?"

"The...airport," Rajinx translated nervously.

"Oh, sure!" Leah responded. "Thank you, yes, which way is it?"

"Use 70!" the Neni said, his English failing him. "This league and this direction" he pointed.

Jonathan and Leah turned immediately in that direction. Shelly glanced at Rajinx, then turned and followed. "I should have known," she muttered.

Drew shrugged. "Quit while we're ahead?"

The neni also had a similar way as it seemed until they arrived at an escalator.

Morgan nodded vaguely, and they followed the others.

"Wait!" Rajinx said, but the group didn't hear: he had spoken Nen without thinking. Staring at the floor, he went to the escalator with the Neni.

"We need to go here to our platform," a Neni said as he saw Rajinx hesitating.

He nodded. "Which way?"

The Neni looked around himself until he saw what he looked for: "This way, 100-109!"

A little more eagerly, Rajinx went to the designated platform.

Things still appeared to be the aftermath of the biggest awaygame in rejistani history. The platform was full of people with similar destinations. Rajinx stayed close to the Neni, but still felt confident that he could manage.

When the train arrived, people behaved again rather civilly, let the few people who needed to get out and then boarded the train. The Neni and Rajinx managed to get in, but there was no chance to sit down.

Rajinx was unable to keep his thoughts focused as the train sped back to KaMaRi, partially because he felt aimless and didn't know what to do next. He only hoped the Neni remained as hospitable as they'd seemed.

Sialx and Nenex talked about Rajinx in some distance. They planned some things which would concern him and arranged it like this so he could speak out if required. They agreed that the house in this kente was okay for the time being but Sialx assumed he would not stay there for a long time. Nenex laughed when he understood the gestures Sialx made.

Finally, the train stopped and the riders poured out.

Those few who did remain in the ken-te'ny prepared something to eat for the hungry protesters and were eager to listen to their stories. Even though it was already near dawn, no one (except the children) wanted to miss out. Rajinx retold his version of the exciting events and listened to the others, eating as he did so.

Someone made coffee for those who already had some sleep on the train or decided to stay awake. The discussion shifted to the topic of the economy and how much things would change now that KaMaRi and all the other places reached nationhood. Having very little to contribute (literally or figuratively) when it came to economic discussion, Rajinx simply listened attentively, enjoying the coffee.

Sialx remained near Rajinx and often smiled at him. When she asked him whether someone waited for him at a different place, she felt the glares of the group on her for implying he lived anywhere else than where he lives right now.

"My parents," he said, not necessarily understanding the question.

Sialx smiled at him, embarrassed of the attention she drew to herself.

As the night grew late, Rajinx finally got up from his chair. "See you in the morning," he called, heading off to the monks' house. "...If it isn't already."

The group wished him a good night or rather morning. When he woke up, it was the heat of a rejistani day, which woke him up. judging from the position of the sun and the length of the shadows, it was noon or past it already. He left the place and looked at the now already surprisingly familiar activity in that place. Harinx was hanging up the washing, Ijinx taught a group of children to read and write in Neni, From the house of Tavuren noises were heard indicating that he was busy working.

Yawning luxuriously, he grinned, happy to be back on the erratic sleep schedule of a collegiate. Anybody know where I can get some brunch?" he asked the world in general. "I'm hungry!"

Harinx saw him and after she finished to put a neon green t-shirt on the line, she walked to him. "Good Morning Rajinx, Someone asked for you when you were asleep. I did not want to risk to wake you up after such a day like yesterday! Oh and in a few minutes the class will have lunch, if you can wait"

"Excellent, sure." He paused. "Who asked for me?"

"Ah hueee" she hehhahed and he understood it correctly as: "I do not remember" Then Harinx found a sheet of paper and gave it Rajinx. "He left contact informations. I think he is from Xentira though." The paper had a name on it and a number, a telephone number from KaMaRi, from the Maiju part of it, to be exact.

He narrowed his eyes. "Okay. Is there a telephone I can use?"

"Sure! Use ours. As long as you do not phone abroad - or rather: to places about which Telekomunikatije thinks they are abroad!"

Rajinx went in and dialed the number.

"Hello, Kansu Hatikim, here."

"Hi, my name's, um, Rajinx. Did you call me?"

"Rajinx McAdams? Yeah, I came over to the kente since things are in a limbo here, but the good people there decided you need some sleep. We met each other indirectly at the constitutional council. I wondered what you plan for the future?" Only now he realized that this person was speaking more or less correct rejistani and he seemed to understand.

"I have no idea," he sighed. "To be honest, until recently I thought I was going back h-back to Zwangzug. But I guess that doesn't have as much allure anymore." He spoke without knowing what language would come out of his mouth.

"I see. Well, your experience in the place, where you lived earlier might be advantagious to the nation of KaMaRi. Also the fact that you are in no liside and other association makes you very neutral..."

Rajinx paused to try and understand the various implications before replying slowly. "Do you have a suggestion for me?"

"When Etaki told us that you still resided in tha nation, we wondered whether you were interested in working for the Sede-section. I guess with your help we can avoid the typical mistakes of first-timers."

"Sure," he replied. "Any sort of job would be great."

"This is good! With the new constitution, of course the entire process of kalesical elections needs to be revised and we found at least 5 places where we would need data from experience."

"I could definitely help with that." Even though the person with whom he was talking could not see him, Rajinx beamed.

They did discuss a few things but this conversation went not very long and very smooth. Hatikim'he expected him on the next day.

...

Dear Mom and Dad,

I hope you are doing well, and that this does reach you okay. I guess I should feel sorry that I haven’t kept in contact, and would not know if, you changed your address.

Anyhow, I am engaged! I will marry Sialx Etaki next year. I know, this is a long time in advance to send an invitation, but better you know sooner than later. To fly, between Zwangzug and KaMaRi is not easy!

Please come, and bring other relatives that would want to be there. Just relatives, though, as I’m not really that close to my old friends. It was difficult to leave them behind, but, it was the right thing to do.

If you ever see Leah again, explain to her how to make the sign for ky (thousand): I think she was impressed by how simple it was.

Hope to see you soon. I’ll send more information, when I have it.

Love,

Rajinx McAdams (Brian)

The universities of Na~ovi, KaMaRi, Kalisimu and the seleken territories cooperated on the data, they got from Allanean sites concerning the virus, which was dubbed the "alhates"-virus (from: Alhaneja'la'tes: "Allaneans did leave", yes, a second consonant in rejistanian is replaced by an h). It was not exactly something new, but the Allaneans disproved what Rejistani scientists used to think about the way it works. First of all, it seemed to be a mutated version of the so called 'Prophecy'-virus, which caused a lot of people to react incoherently. More often than not, people suffering from it were found to spread insane ideas "in the name of the gods and the country". The effects of the Ly-virus was found to be more subtle and at the same time stronger: While the consciousness and intellect were not affected, on a subconscious level, the state of others around oneself is known. Subconsciously, infected people will make a lot of decisions which they would not make if they would not know of the (hi)stati of those around him/her, normally optimizing for an optimum for all. A strong negative correlation between criminal activities and Lyness were found. While the rejistanis would not lose their autonomy, they would become linked to others in a certain way when infected with the Ly-virus. In that respect, the findings of the Allaneans were exaggeration. The first one to react to these findings of course was the ASR. They re-structured the league in a way, they claimed would prevent the general rejistania histati from breaking apart.