Andaman and Nicobar
07-11-2004, 04:32
This post contains three key parts. Some can be skimmed, as it's just common-sense and for-interest stuff. The actual IC even is way down there at the bottom.
This part is meant to inform readers of ISAN's position in a realistic RP community using real-life geography as a basis, and operating with realistic populations. For this event, I am willing to have interaction from outside the community provided that it does not become blown-out of proportion or effect the community in any unrealistic or unwanted fashion. ISAN's a very small part of the community. You can get involved, but be aware that in this RP, certain other nation's have prior claims to much RL territory, so if your nation happens to be in... India, for example, you're going to have to pass, or else be some other, distant India. Also, responding by threatening to invade with ten times as many soldiers as ISAN has people will get bits of you wrapped around an ignore stick (or I could revert to one of the hundred-odd richest nations on earth, buy your country out from under you, and sell it to the fat lady with all the cats). Anyway, that aside, the next bit- a background on ISAN which you can read for reference if you so desire, but may not be vital to the RP.
Introduction and brief history
Lying in the Bay of Bengal, the island chains that now rest in part beneath a towering capitalist haven of concrete decadence were first inhabited centuries, even millennia ago, by people of Asian stock in some parts, and African in others. The British made several attempts to colonise the Andaman Islands, while other Europeans settled the Nicobars, which were later sold to the British. Many of the native people were receptive, others passionate in their resistance. Their stone-age technology and few thousand strong numbers were rarely sufficient, and many were slaughtered, not least when the Second World War brought Japanese occupation along with imprisonment and bombing.
When most of India was granted independence from British rule the island chains too were set loose. Settlers, both Western and Indian, enacted local administration of built-up areas such as Port Blair, while tiny primitive populations continued on in isolation on some of the several dozen tiniest islands and in the jungle interiors of the larger ones.
In the early 1990s a man named Eustace F. Brown rose to power on the island of Great Nicobar, turning his grand estate –born of a successful career as a businessman- into the foundations of a new city called Liberation. His private security firms brought order, and his construction concerns effectively controlled the ambitious industrialisation of The Nicobar Islands. Brown’s ambition culminated in the annexation of the tiny archipelago of Lakshadweep (AKA the Parmis Archipelago), an act that angered mainland communist power Beth Gellert and was linked to the accidental sinking by Nicobarese forces of a ship belonging to the powerful nation of Azazia. The two-fronted war that followed saw the Parmis Archipelago fall into communist Beth Gellen hands, and ended only when Brown ceded five eastern islands of the Nicobars to Azazia.
Desperate for a popularity boost with elections looming, Brown’s government approached the Andamanese at Port Blair offering political and economic unification and promising prosperity and freedom from mainland meddling. The deal created The Freely Incorporated States of Andaman and Nicobar, and though some observers suspect bribery, blackmail, and intimidation on the part of the Nicobarese, the Andamans have seen major development in recent years. The temporary collapse of Azazian authority was pounced-upon by Liberation, which moved-in troops as soon as order broke-down, reunifying the eastern Nicobarese islands with the Incorporated States.
Today, ISAN is one of the world’s wealthiest states though home to little more than a third of a million people, and is engaged in a major military build-up in response to a hostile socialist coup in Indian neighbour and long-term foe Beth Gellert. The tiny island chains are supplemented now by floating power stations, airports, hotels, and even city blocks, making maritime defence incredibly important. Other attempts to relieve the looming threat of over-population by application of force in pursuit of Lebensraum have ended in failure and a string of military defeats for the Nicobarese Marines, at least twice thanks to Beth Gellen intervention against their arch rivals.
Today, along with the construction of countless floating facilities, artificial islands, and a whole class of wealthy people living on private boats, ISAN houses thousands just below ground and throughout whole stretches of the nation it is hard to see ground. BrownCo Towers in Liberation is 740 metres tall, containing 142 stories. Most buildings extend above ground for more than 150 metres into the sky, and any new development under five stories requires prohibitively expensive permits. This has actually lead to a trend for the super-elite living in low-rise homes that cost more than skyscrapers, one’s personal wealth and the expression there of being all important in Nicobarase society. It also tends to a high ratio of wealthy people resident in hospitals and care homes, as the narrow streets of major ISAN islands –cast in 24 hour shadow- are thick with pollution that can not escape for a forest of towering steel and concrete.
Only 7 of the 28 islands in Nicobar are inhabited and fully administered by the Nicobarese. There persists in Nicobar a primitive native people known as the Shompens.
The name Nicobar or 'Land of the Naked People' was probably rendered after its inhabitant tribes who do not wear any clothes.
The name Andaman comes from Handuman which is Malay for the Hindu god Hanuman
Government
The capital city of the Incorporated States is Liberation, situated on Great Nicobar at the southern end of the chain.
ISAN is a Party-oriented democracy, but the system is heavily weighted towards the ruling Brown Party, which has never lost power since the nation’s birth more than two electoral terms ago. This is due to the great fusion between the state and the FBCo corporation, Eustace Brown being president of both.
Today, ISAN, the Bay of Bengal
The Incorporated States is finally prepared to try again. The Nicobarese Marine Corps has been consolidated into a reasonably modern force of four thousand warriors. The Air Force prides itself on an effective force of forty-two aircraft including fifteen helicopters, and employs some sixteen hundred men and women. The Navy continues to draw funds for the support of two heavy cutters and one destroyer and the fourteen hundred hands needed to crew and support them. The Nicobarese armed forces insist that they can defend the islands’ 8,249 square kilometres from the looming specters of Beth Gellen and Marimaian Igovian-communism and Neo-Sunnist ideology, and that they can do more than that.
Rutland Island, Andaman
The tropical island, like many others in the chain, was inhabited usually by just a few score citizens of the Incorporated States, and seemed a long way from the smoke of the principle cities of Port Blair and Liberation. All this talk of over-crowding struck locals as strange, as most had half a square mile to themselves, and enjoyed the sun, sea, and coconuts that came with it. That was, until the military turned-up.
“Come on, you off-colour maggots! Move it, or by your various gods I’ll rip-out your extra-eyes! Look alive!”
Nicobarese officers weren’t known for tact or sensitivity, nor for political correctness when dealing with the almost uniformly Hindi conscripts, or even the primarily Muslim NCOs. Then again, they weren’t known to compensate by being especially talented, or for bravery when it came to the nitty-gritty. In fact they’d never over-seen a victory, unless state reaction to that anti-nuclear-power rally counted.
Almost the entirety of the Andamanese and Nicobarese military had descended upon little Rutland, and although that meant only seven thousand extra bodies at most, it represented a level of activity never seen on the island in prior history. This had to look suspicious.
Still, Asia had bigger worries. ISAN was home to less than four hundred thousand people, and most of the region was caught-up in war on Bonstock’s quarter of a billion. Liberation had come extremely close to offering support to the Bonstockians, but President Brown thought better of it on realising how fast the tide was turning against that nation. Relief was widespread, as even the generally squishy minds of the ISAN population were able to process the probability of Bonstockian involvement in the islands ending in nuclear stupidity and death.
No, ISAN had much more important things in mind. Much bigger prizes in her sights. Sort of...
“F*%$ING HURRY UP! Those Sentinelese aren’t going to shoot themselves out of the Paleolithic! Get those choppers loaded!” Screeched a sunburned Lieutenant, M1911 automatic waving above his head.
“I hear there’s hundreds of ‘em.” Said one young recruit to another.
“Yes, two hundred, at least.”
“And they’ve got their own arms industry, and boats.”
The soldiers were soon hustled aboard a Meadows Nicobarese Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle and taken into the Indian Ocean. Aboard, like others aboard the nation’s four Chinook helicopters, the recruits were lectured on the nature of their destination. Sentinel Island covered about sixty square kilometres, and hid anything from eighty to two-hundred-and-fifty of their enemy. The Sentinelese were possibly the last Paleolithic tribe on earth having no regular contact with the outside world, and having completely resisted all attempts at integration. Their island was part of the Andaman and Nicobar chain, and so, according to President Brown, it was part of ISAN, but expeditions had all been met with spears and arrows, and nobody had penetrated the interior of the little island. The heathen locals were fully naked, and only called Sentinelese because the outside world called their island Sentinel, and nobody knew what they called themselves. “Remember, they’re niggers, tall ones, and they’re savage as the day they were cast out of the Dark Continent, for whatever God-awful reason!” Said one wise officer, with no regard for the differing opinions held by many of his downtrodden troops.
Soon, little North Sentinel island loomed before the advancing AAAVs, and machinegun turrets swung to face it as ISAN’s two ground-attack aircraft, the formidable A-9B Pigeons, thundered over.
Ashore, just a few pairs of eyes turned up to watch the rare and still far from understood passing of aircraft. There was no reason to suspect that anything other than a few metal trinkets –customarily picked-up by the Sentinelese and put to use in making arrowheads and the like for fishing and hunting- and the equally far from understood phenomenon of fabrics and clothing would fall from the mysterious objects in the sky. If the barely stone-age natives struggled to understand diplomatic gifts, one could only wonder at their likely response to napalm.
This part is meant to inform readers of ISAN's position in a realistic RP community using real-life geography as a basis, and operating with realistic populations. For this event, I am willing to have interaction from outside the community provided that it does not become blown-out of proportion or effect the community in any unrealistic or unwanted fashion. ISAN's a very small part of the community. You can get involved, but be aware that in this RP, certain other nation's have prior claims to much RL territory, so if your nation happens to be in... India, for example, you're going to have to pass, or else be some other, distant India. Also, responding by threatening to invade with ten times as many soldiers as ISAN has people will get bits of you wrapped around an ignore stick (or I could revert to one of the hundred-odd richest nations on earth, buy your country out from under you, and sell it to the fat lady with all the cats). Anyway, that aside, the next bit- a background on ISAN which you can read for reference if you so desire, but may not be vital to the RP.
Introduction and brief history
Lying in the Bay of Bengal, the island chains that now rest in part beneath a towering capitalist haven of concrete decadence were first inhabited centuries, even millennia ago, by people of Asian stock in some parts, and African in others. The British made several attempts to colonise the Andaman Islands, while other Europeans settled the Nicobars, which were later sold to the British. Many of the native people were receptive, others passionate in their resistance. Their stone-age technology and few thousand strong numbers were rarely sufficient, and many were slaughtered, not least when the Second World War brought Japanese occupation along with imprisonment and bombing.
When most of India was granted independence from British rule the island chains too were set loose. Settlers, both Western and Indian, enacted local administration of built-up areas such as Port Blair, while tiny primitive populations continued on in isolation on some of the several dozen tiniest islands and in the jungle interiors of the larger ones.
In the early 1990s a man named Eustace F. Brown rose to power on the island of Great Nicobar, turning his grand estate –born of a successful career as a businessman- into the foundations of a new city called Liberation. His private security firms brought order, and his construction concerns effectively controlled the ambitious industrialisation of The Nicobar Islands. Brown’s ambition culminated in the annexation of the tiny archipelago of Lakshadweep (AKA the Parmis Archipelago), an act that angered mainland communist power Beth Gellert and was linked to the accidental sinking by Nicobarese forces of a ship belonging to the powerful nation of Azazia. The two-fronted war that followed saw the Parmis Archipelago fall into communist Beth Gellen hands, and ended only when Brown ceded five eastern islands of the Nicobars to Azazia.
Desperate for a popularity boost with elections looming, Brown’s government approached the Andamanese at Port Blair offering political and economic unification and promising prosperity and freedom from mainland meddling. The deal created The Freely Incorporated States of Andaman and Nicobar, and though some observers suspect bribery, blackmail, and intimidation on the part of the Nicobarese, the Andamans have seen major development in recent years. The temporary collapse of Azazian authority was pounced-upon by Liberation, which moved-in troops as soon as order broke-down, reunifying the eastern Nicobarese islands with the Incorporated States.
Today, ISAN is one of the world’s wealthiest states though home to little more than a third of a million people, and is engaged in a major military build-up in response to a hostile socialist coup in Indian neighbour and long-term foe Beth Gellert. The tiny island chains are supplemented now by floating power stations, airports, hotels, and even city blocks, making maritime defence incredibly important. Other attempts to relieve the looming threat of over-population by application of force in pursuit of Lebensraum have ended in failure and a string of military defeats for the Nicobarese Marines, at least twice thanks to Beth Gellen intervention against their arch rivals.
Today, along with the construction of countless floating facilities, artificial islands, and a whole class of wealthy people living on private boats, ISAN houses thousands just below ground and throughout whole stretches of the nation it is hard to see ground. BrownCo Towers in Liberation is 740 metres tall, containing 142 stories. Most buildings extend above ground for more than 150 metres into the sky, and any new development under five stories requires prohibitively expensive permits. This has actually lead to a trend for the super-elite living in low-rise homes that cost more than skyscrapers, one’s personal wealth and the expression there of being all important in Nicobarase society. It also tends to a high ratio of wealthy people resident in hospitals and care homes, as the narrow streets of major ISAN islands –cast in 24 hour shadow- are thick with pollution that can not escape for a forest of towering steel and concrete.
Only 7 of the 28 islands in Nicobar are inhabited and fully administered by the Nicobarese. There persists in Nicobar a primitive native people known as the Shompens.
The name Nicobar or 'Land of the Naked People' was probably rendered after its inhabitant tribes who do not wear any clothes.
The name Andaman comes from Handuman which is Malay for the Hindu god Hanuman
Government
The capital city of the Incorporated States is Liberation, situated on Great Nicobar at the southern end of the chain.
ISAN is a Party-oriented democracy, but the system is heavily weighted towards the ruling Brown Party, which has never lost power since the nation’s birth more than two electoral terms ago. This is due to the great fusion between the state and the FBCo corporation, Eustace Brown being president of both.
Today, ISAN, the Bay of Bengal
The Incorporated States is finally prepared to try again. The Nicobarese Marine Corps has been consolidated into a reasonably modern force of four thousand warriors. The Air Force prides itself on an effective force of forty-two aircraft including fifteen helicopters, and employs some sixteen hundred men and women. The Navy continues to draw funds for the support of two heavy cutters and one destroyer and the fourteen hundred hands needed to crew and support them. The Nicobarese armed forces insist that they can defend the islands’ 8,249 square kilometres from the looming specters of Beth Gellen and Marimaian Igovian-communism and Neo-Sunnist ideology, and that they can do more than that.
Rutland Island, Andaman
The tropical island, like many others in the chain, was inhabited usually by just a few score citizens of the Incorporated States, and seemed a long way from the smoke of the principle cities of Port Blair and Liberation. All this talk of over-crowding struck locals as strange, as most had half a square mile to themselves, and enjoyed the sun, sea, and coconuts that came with it. That was, until the military turned-up.
“Come on, you off-colour maggots! Move it, or by your various gods I’ll rip-out your extra-eyes! Look alive!”
Nicobarese officers weren’t known for tact or sensitivity, nor for political correctness when dealing with the almost uniformly Hindi conscripts, or even the primarily Muslim NCOs. Then again, they weren’t known to compensate by being especially talented, or for bravery when it came to the nitty-gritty. In fact they’d never over-seen a victory, unless state reaction to that anti-nuclear-power rally counted.
Almost the entirety of the Andamanese and Nicobarese military had descended upon little Rutland, and although that meant only seven thousand extra bodies at most, it represented a level of activity never seen on the island in prior history. This had to look suspicious.
Still, Asia had bigger worries. ISAN was home to less than four hundred thousand people, and most of the region was caught-up in war on Bonstock’s quarter of a billion. Liberation had come extremely close to offering support to the Bonstockians, but President Brown thought better of it on realising how fast the tide was turning against that nation. Relief was widespread, as even the generally squishy minds of the ISAN population were able to process the probability of Bonstockian involvement in the islands ending in nuclear stupidity and death.
No, ISAN had much more important things in mind. Much bigger prizes in her sights. Sort of...
“F*%$ING HURRY UP! Those Sentinelese aren’t going to shoot themselves out of the Paleolithic! Get those choppers loaded!” Screeched a sunburned Lieutenant, M1911 automatic waving above his head.
“I hear there’s hundreds of ‘em.” Said one young recruit to another.
“Yes, two hundred, at least.”
“And they’ve got their own arms industry, and boats.”
The soldiers were soon hustled aboard a Meadows Nicobarese Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle and taken into the Indian Ocean. Aboard, like others aboard the nation’s four Chinook helicopters, the recruits were lectured on the nature of their destination. Sentinel Island covered about sixty square kilometres, and hid anything from eighty to two-hundred-and-fifty of their enemy. The Sentinelese were possibly the last Paleolithic tribe on earth having no regular contact with the outside world, and having completely resisted all attempts at integration. Their island was part of the Andaman and Nicobar chain, and so, according to President Brown, it was part of ISAN, but expeditions had all been met with spears and arrows, and nobody had penetrated the interior of the little island. The heathen locals were fully naked, and only called Sentinelese because the outside world called their island Sentinel, and nobody knew what they called themselves. “Remember, they’re niggers, tall ones, and they’re savage as the day they were cast out of the Dark Continent, for whatever God-awful reason!” Said one wise officer, with no regard for the differing opinions held by many of his downtrodden troops.
Soon, little North Sentinel island loomed before the advancing AAAVs, and machinegun turrets swung to face it as ISAN’s two ground-attack aircraft, the formidable A-9B Pigeons, thundered over.
Ashore, just a few pairs of eyes turned up to watch the rare and still far from understood passing of aircraft. There was no reason to suspect that anything other than a few metal trinkets –customarily picked-up by the Sentinelese and put to use in making arrowheads and the like for fishing and hunting- and the equally far from understood phenomenon of fabrics and clothing would fall from the mysterious objects in the sky. If the barely stone-age natives struggled to understand diplomatic gifts, one could only wonder at their likely response to napalm.