NationStates Jolt Archive


Civil War in the Republic of New Cotyledon.

New Cotyledon
27-05-2004, 19:51
Another demonstration marches along the main street of New Cotyledon’s capital, tens of thousands of men and women and children armed with placards and posters and chants. “We want more!” they scream, “We want war!”

For they are a pro-war demonstration, out to show their patriotic bloodlust, to show their support of the government’s war with Psychotic Pedants [OOC: the thread’s out there somewhere, called War with Psychotic Pedants, by Gulag No 443], a war termed meaningless by its detractors. Away on the killing fields of the Pedants, millions of fighting enemy children have already fallen, and New Cotyledon’s small but psychopathic battalion of soldiers are doing their bit for their country.

But lo! A second march is moving through the capital, equal in size to the first. This is a march of anti-war demonstrators, led by their leader, Harry MacUnpronouncablesurname. The two marches are on a collision course, separated only by 1,500 riot police, a thin black line between two angry swarms of civilians.
They are maddened by the sight of each other, and shriek angrily as they surge against the line of police, demanding the chance to break free upon their ‘foes’. The tension hanging in the air is palpable.

Sounding out with a sudden shock, sounding out over the brutal noise of the mobs, comes a single gun-shot, fracturing the atmosphere into a million pieces. The crowds panic, running madly in all directions, struggling with themselves as the police. And lying dead on the ground, a gaping bullet-hole in his head, is one of the anti-war protestors.

More shots ring out, and more of the peaceniks fall dead. It seems the firing is coming from the roofs of the surrounding buildings, but there should only have been police up there.

The police on the ground, however, react fiercely to the panic: they charge the anti-war protestors, lashing out with batons and attempting to drive them from the scene. Soon a full-scale riot is in progress, and both crowds of protestors are grappling murderously with each other and the police.

The government reaction is swift. They send in thousands more police with licence to kill, and a helicopter gunship. They will be needed: many of the protestors (on both sides, oddly enough) had carried weapons with them – handguns, knives, even AK-47s.

After twenty minutes of fighting, hundreds of dead litter the ground. The anti-war protestors have grouped together and are charging towards the Tower of Government, seat of New Cotyledon’s leaders. Running street battles have erupted all over the inner city, some linked to the protests, some not. Already, buildings are burning, and the looters are out in force, also armed.

A full-scale state of emergency is declared, and the military is called in. Harold MacUnpronouncablesurname storms the front steps of the government building, smashing TV cameras as they do so, proclaiming, “The revolution will not be televised.”

The rumble of tanks and APCs is heard. The city appears to be stuck in the middle of a war. And as the news spread, so does the turmoil. Just an hour after the outbreak of the fighting, the following reports have arrived from throughout the land:

In the town of Creatin, several hundred dissatisfied civilians have seized key buildings and erected barricades... In the second city of New Leaf, police barracks have come under attack, and heavy street fighting has been observed on the offshore island of New Atlantis... Anti-government fighters are taking to the streets of the small city of Thessitywitnonaim...

As the cabinet take off to escape in their custom-built, emergency-use only helicopter, the glorious leader of New Cotyledon turns to his ministers and says grimly, “Gentlemen, we have a civil war on our hands.I want all troops withdrawn from the war against the Psychotic Pedants, and returned home to settle this war of our own.”

All hail to the Grand Supreme Almighty Omnipotent Omnipresent Great Ultimate Illustrious Illuminated Lord-General Regal Imperial Emperor of the Republic of New Cotyledon!