NationStates Jolt Archive

Edit: This thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=411596) is the newly-created IC thread served by this OOC thread. If that makes sense to you.

Attention, er, everyone! As this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=391652) describes, Jipangunesia is a vast archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, and has no effective central government. It comprises hundreds of islands from the very large to the very tiny. It is home to just about every reasonable and crack-pot ideology imagined, and has both emerging (relatively) modern cities and isolated stone-age tribes of headhunters and what not.

It has been ravaged by centuries of imperialism and exploitation by private traders, slavers, and pirates.
Equally, it has suffered tropical diseases, weird wild animals, violent storms, earthquakes and volcanic activity, tsunamis, and famine due to reliance upon seasonal monsoons recently disrupted by the industrial world's pollution as in Ethiopia in the early 80s.

What I'm hoping to do -unsure of where I want my nation to end up, politically and economically speaking- is to make a big RP of the struggles to decide these things. With so many islands there's a lot of scope to follow different ideas. As hinted at in the thread linked in the first line, I want to invite lots of people to have a part in the chaos.

Some of the little islands can have been trading stations for C18th and 19th empires and companies, and a residue of those times will persist- perhaps your nation was somehow involved and might as such have Jipangunesia high in its consciousness? Other islands are totally lawless and open to exploitation by international pirates, drug cartels, gun runners, and other smugglers. Some tiny paleolithic tribes may have been open to manipulation by savvy westerners -or more likely lunatics- who've set themselves up as gods, or other empty islands may now house criminals or deposed rulers running from justice or assassination.


The main forces are several fold:

Self-proclaimed President Syungma Santosoputra has set himself up as the industrious pro-western face of Jipangunesia and has significiant militia and private security forces entrenched on Tingun, with Samepeng his de facto capital, though he probably doesn't have majority support even there.

Setiawan Dianputra is based on the western isle of Sencang not far east of Japan; but counts significant support on Tingun, Powlomo, Sulawaka, Immannanng, and other islands. In most cases they are the second most powerful force in an area, behind a local interest group that has majority support locally and none 'nationally'. Setiawan's agenda is generally considered quite radically leftist and claims to seek democracy without the corruption of capitalist agendas and division of party politics. It has in remote parts of Jipangunesia been infused with -some say hijacked by- Islamist elements cautiously embraced by Setiawan in search of widespread support.

On Powlomo, the local interest group that dominates over Setiawan's influence is that of Emperor Ban Xuande and his quest to restore the half-mythical Ban Kingdom, an ancient Jipangunesian civilisation half way between the Khmer and Atlantis in myth and history. On Powlomo Ban Xuande is viewed as something of a deity by the majority of the population, but beyond the massive island his name has hardly been heard.

Other major forces include the growing number of as yet disunited extreme Islamist scholars across a number of islands, and the Sulawakan Sula Rada. As stated, many Islamists are becoming associated with Setiawan's movement, which is -while the most widespread political movement in Jipangunesia- in serious danger of being consumed and smothered by religious fanaticism. The Sula Rada meanwhile are one of the fastest growing local movements and are violently assaulting Islamists, Setiawan supporters, Syungma supporters, and none-aligned townships alike across Sulawaka. They are a secretive organisation whose name is actually assigned to them by a foreign journalist while they have many names for their own organisation. They recruit largely by force and furious oration from both pre-modern tribes in the jungles and from more modern settlements near the coast, and violently destroy all signs of modernity or foreign influence. In some ways they are akin to Ban Xuande's attempt to restore the old ways he sees through a rosey tint, but at the same time they preach strongly against the influence of (relatively minor) local Sulawakan royalty.

As a fellow archipelago nation in the Pacific, it could be possible that my country, which is transforming into its own liberal imperial power, could see the opportunity to expand into the underdeveloped, less-centrally controlled areas and establish local government sympathetic to my own... if not direct colonies.

A brief note on the sorts of colonies. Semi-homerule situation. Direct governance from the Parliament which appoints a governor who oversees the locally elected governments. He has ultimate veto authority, but usually abstains to the locals except in areas of economic, military, and foreign policy... all areas in which the Commonwealth presses its authority. The colonies themselves have independent cultures and religious freedom.

So if you'd like for me to get involved, just let me know. It could be interesting.

I imagine that Azazia then would probably have something to do with Jiapangunesia at some point, yes.

Establishing colonies in Jipangunesia may be a nightmarishly difficult prospect, but you're welcome to try :)


To anyone reading, there's more rich pickings than just the generic and obvious weak central authority looking to be replaced (given that no Jipangunesians can create unity here, why would your random nation be any more able?). Opportunities for individuals apart from nation states, opportunities for ideologies to take hold, opportunities for rogues to hide out or make a killing, opportunities for markets to be made of the various warring factions- the Ban Kingdom and Sula Rada may hate outsiders and modern industry, but even they use any guns they can get their hands on.

So what about the prospect of lending some support to Dianputra. Say, something along the lines of formal recognition to his government, and the establishment of aid to his areas and such in return for some land and port cities. Sort of like the development of Hong Kong and Macau and the numerous cities along the Indian subcontinent. The Commonwealth's, however, would be permanent, and not long-leased.

The Commonwealth itself has forged a strong central government over its large land, and would be perhaps willing to instruct Dianputra and his followers about strong democratic governments. And the whole Islamic extremist bent could be interesting as I am soon going to be attempting to develop an Islamic discontent in some of my underdeveloped islands... perhaps the forces could link up and demand something or something... I'm still sketching out ideas. But what do you think?

Also, do you have a map or rough ideas about the mineral and natural resources of the islands - because that would potentially help myself and others in determing the local... factions... that they wish to support.

Overall though, I must say I like the idea of a decentralized chaotic Pacific islands state. Good idea.

At the moment I have only this basic map giving an over view of where the major islands lie in relation to one another and where they few existing cities are.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Chivtv/NS1/jipangunesiamap.jpg


Anyway, yeah, sounds okay. I wasn't really expecting Setiawan to get much support from imperialist governments, but whatever works for your agenda, I suppose :)

<OOC>
Since the Dominion is located in the central/southern Pacific and the Overlord considers the entire Pacific Rim to be his sphere of influence, my country would doubtless have an interest in the goings-on in Jipangunesia.

Due to the recent nasty turn of events (in "Chaos amongst calm"), perhaps I could get involved in trying to evacuate foreign nationals from Bakonpa. This would naturally require EOE troops to set up security around the embarkation areas, clearing space for helicopters to land, etc.

Since the Dominion is capitalist and officially atheist, an EOE military presence ought to stir up the locals.


TEO

Sorry about fading out like that. As you can see in the edited first post, I've established an IC thread on this theme, at last.

At the moment it mainly introduces readers to the sort of conflicting forces at work in Jipangunesia, from self-styled and corrupt nation-wide capitalist presidency to the resurging empire of a long forgotten and ancient golden age, or the idealist socialist democratic theorists increasingly subverted by Islamist influence to the savage xenophobic leftist revisionists.

I don't mean to sound as if I don't care about my Nation State, but, for the record, I don't mind if it is blown to pieces (so long as nobody turns the whole thing into glass: i.e, provided I still have some characters to play in the end!), so whether this remains relatively low key or sparks an intercontinental war it'll be okay with me.

I don't know if Azazia's still interested after all that delay, but it looks like -with TEO's interest- they shan't be the only significant Pacific force turning an eye to the stricken archipelago. Anyway, might be fun: I have no objections to either of the players/nations who've shown an interest, and my nation is fairly under-developed in RP terms as yet, so within some reason, you may feel free to start sticking your noses in :)


And the rest of you who may be reading, come on, pretend that you're interested!

I was thinking of something basic: The EOE Task Force is dispatched to evacuate foreign nationals from Bakonpa before the rebels overrun the city.

The Dominion is not interested in trying to conquer or hold territory beyond whatever is necessary to evacuate foreign nationals from Bakonpa. The Task Force will come in, off load several hundred troops to secure and protect the Embarkation area; organize, identify, and load foreign nationals onto the helicopters; and get the hell out.

Under the circumstances, the only way the Task Force Commander can make sure his ships and personnel are safe is to keep everyone at more than arm's reach. This will inevitably result in people who don't get the word (or refuse to learn from experience) getting killed.

There are several potential options for the RP I have in mind:

- The local government gets a little upset about the security measures the Task Force commander sets up at the Embarkation area. This could result in occasional clashes between local troops and EOE soldiers.

- Locals upset over the Dominion's politics/religion try to cause trouble at the security zone around the Embarkation area. This would probably result in lots of dead civilians.

- The rebels start attacking the city during the embarkation, and are either unaware of the presence of foreigners or don't give a damn. This could result in firefights between the rebels and the EOE forces.

- Rebels or government troops take potshots at EOE military aircraft flying patrols over the city. This would result in massive response against whomever did the shooting.

- Fanatics of one sort or another from a nearby island decide to try and attack the Task Force for whatever reason.

- Local citizens get upset at taking casualties whenever someone shoots at Dominion troops. This could result in mobs of locals attacking my troops, government troops, the rebels, or some combination of all three.

- The local government- just before it is too late- decides that they want to be evacuated, too. If I decide to evacuate them, the rebels might get upset. If I refuse to evacuate them, the government might get upset.

There are lots of other scenarios that might come up, but those are the ones I came up with off the top of my head.

This should not turn into a situation like Mogadishu for several reasons. For one thing, the Dominion does not use wimpy rules of engagement like the US. Dominion troopers also don't care much about "collateral damage", and see nothing wrong in plastering a village with artillery to get at a sniper, for example. By local standards, the EOE Task Force massively outguns the local forces and the rebels combined.

Let me know what you think.


TEO

still interested and all that jazz... don't worry about the delays, i've got my final art projects looming on the horizon for the end of the semester, so i completely understand. i have a lot of work to do this afternoon/evening... so if i get it done in a timely fashion i'll write more later. But yeah, still interested.

woohoo for having large neighbours to the south!

blah, papers to write comparing Imperial Roman art and Hellenistic Egyptian art...

A note for general attention: I haven't any more specific maps than the basic over-view posted above.

That shows only islands big enough to support -for example- a significant airport or large harbour, and even the smallest shown are actually fairly substantial. There are thousands of tiny islands and islets throughout the chain, several of which are inhabited.

Geography can generally be assumed to be whatever people coming in don't want it to be, partly explaining the islands' under developed nature. The seas are usually rough and littered with half-hidden dangers, the islands are covered in hostile jungle.

All the marked islands do have some coves, bays, and beaches that can be accessed, and towns tend to have some sort of infrastructure, though it is probably limited and crumbling.

Basically, new arrivals can more or less make up the nature of conditions as they go along, bearing these things in mind, whether they choose to come to a 'virgin' region and negotiate reefs and other problems, or go for sheltered developed facilities and find them falling apart.

I have gone ahead and made up a vague description of the Bokonpa harbor area using your descriptions. Since the map only shows Bokonpa in a relatively large bay, I have decided that the city and harbor are mostly on the northwest side of the bay, near the inland end. I'm visualizing the city as a decaying modest metropolis, with a mixture of Neolithic and 20th-century-modern architecture. It probably used to bustle with activity at various times, all of which booms inevitably ended in major busts- each more sever than the last. The jungle - city border was once sharply demarcated (you could be walking on a paved road in a residential neighborhood, take a left turn, and find yourself in primordial jungle), but the jungle has begun reclaiming neighborhoods in some areas- especially on the northern and western edges. The core of the city is near the center, where the government offices and what used to be the business district are located.

The harbor is bordered by the remnants of a light industrial area on the north (mostly abandoned, mid-20th century architecture, with broad streets in poor repair), modest residential/shopping district to the west (a mix of Spanish, Nipponese, and local architecture- all in various stages of dilapidation- and paved streets) and an area I call "the Maze" to the northeast. The maze is a warren of shanties, winding alleyways, small plazas, smaller shops, and the odd temple- all constructed of whatever materials were available. The eastern side of the tip of the bay (east and southeast of the Maze) is home to the local fishermen, their boats, and the fish market (entirely local construction, with packed dirt streets).

The harbor area itself has a row of 1-2 storey warehouses running from the main road to the water (west to east), a four-storey building near the center of the docks that used to be Port Operations when the harbor saw a lot of shipping. Several scattered small buildings from various periods in the 20th century roughly define the western edge of the harbor area. The harbor is well paved (cobblestones in some areas), and the buildings are in fair-to-poor shape.

Two paved roadways lead into the harbor- the main road (which runs due north toward the government buildings in the center of the city), and another good road that was originally intended as a frontage road for the harbor district. From the entry to the harbor compound, it runs northeast along the line of warehouses, separating the Maze from the harbor and the fisherman's district. The road also runs from the harbor to the southwest, toward what used to be a posh residential district at the southwest end of the bay. The road here separates the harbor district from the industrial area to the north and the residential area to the west.

I'm going to try and make up a map. I'll let you know when I finish it.

I'm going to drop a reinforced mechanized Battallion into the harbor district. They won't have tanks, but there will be several LAVs configured as weapons platforms. There will also be about 1600 troops, armed with light machine guns, mortars, and battle rifles. The troops will all be wearing Jaguar combat armor (similar in design to the prototype Scorpion combat armor developed by the US Army). We never hashed out the numbers, but I estimate that there might be as many as 400 - 500 civilians of various nationalities (including locals) who will want to get out of town. If there are more, let me know.

The harbor is unlikely to be deep enough to permit capital ships, not that I planned on bring carriers anywhere near the city. The carriers and their escorts will remain north of Flatpan Island, between Sulawaka and Tingun. A squadron of dedicated air-surface interdiction ships will proceed to the waters around Soleisola, along with the Malmouth- a helicopter assault carrier. One cruiser and two destroyers will actually enter the bay to serve as floating artillery platforms for the troops ashore. Two supply ships will be anchored at the mouth of the bay with a pair of destroyers each for protection.

The civilians will be searched, separated from their luggage (which probably won't make it to the ships), issued ID bracelets, and grouped in one of the warehouses until their flight arrives. Transportation will be via TT-11 transport aircraft (which are similar to the Osprey tiltrotor aircraft developed for the US Marines), with 40-50 civilians per load. Only foreign nationals will be allowed into the harbor until they are all taken. Locals who want to depart will be permitted afterwards. If there is time and transport available, the luggage will be searched and taken aboard.

Once the Sula Rada close off access to the harbor, the operation will begin winding down. Anyone lucky enough to be inside the perimeter at that time gets a ride to (relative) safety. Anyone outside the perimeter is SEP (someone else's problem). My troops will not go outside the perimeter for anything but other EOE troops. Once the last of the civilians is evacuated, my troops will get ready to take off. The engineers and the LAVs will go first, followed by the Military Police troops, and then the remaining 3 companies will board the helos and TT-11s, destroying any equipment that can't be safely removed. If necessary, the cruiser will pull in close to the piers to provide direct fire support for the dust-off. There will also be considerable air power invested in protecting the pullout.

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.


TEO

That sounds pretty much what I would imagine for the city, TEO, sounds good. I am inclined to think that Jipangunesians have generally had relatively little to do with the design of their 'modern' cities (though they may have provided labour to raise many of them), and so it seems fitting that other players contribute to the description of at least some.

I'd imagine that there's probably not more than a couple of hundred foreigners, yes. From journalists (some of whom may want to stick around until the last minute, I suppose: if anyone else wants to get involved, perhaps RPing a reckless action reporter type will get you in?) to perhaps adventure tourists and maybe businessmen interested in a bit more plunder, and most likely some criminal types who will be no less keen on self preservation. Anyway, I can write about that stuff in the IC thread, I suppose.

Sorry about delays, again, mostly it's these darn forums being down every time I try to catch-up.

I have a question about the Sula Rada: What is their level of military sophistication? I've been assuming that it is a vaguely-organized bunch of neolithic savages with AK-47s (in other words, little or no unit cohesion, no defined chains of command or rank structure, etc). I've been operating under the assumption that no central directing authority exists for the Sula Rada (this explains the security set-up I've described in the IC thread). If a band of them encounters my troops, they might be willing to just go on about their business and leave us alone, but the next bunch might not be so inclined.

I'm also assuming that they don't have much by way of military equipment. I figure that the most they'll have is a few RPGs and a wide variety of antiquated rifles (in addition to machetes, spears, and AK-47s).

If they have RPGs, one or two of them might get fired at the helicopters or reconnaissance drones I have orbiting the city. If they have something more modern (shoulder-launched SAMs, for example), those might get fired at my aircraft as well. AK-47 and other rifle fire is unlikely to damage the attack helicopters, and the RPVs are a bit too high for rifle fire to be effective. An RPG hit would destroy one the the RPVs, and could damage the helos. A SAM would also destroy the RPVs, and be much more likely to bring down a helicopter.


TEO

I've been feeling a bit out of it, lately, which is why I keep dropping out, but don't worry, I'm sticking with this.


The Sula Rada... good question. Well, they're fairly new as a serious organisation, and with the sheer size of the island (it's tens of thousands of square kilometres) and lack of infrastructure there's great flaws in their unity. The central part of the organisation is strong: there is someone in charge, but it's not even clear whether it's a single person or a committee of some sort. Even members of the Sula Rada fighting in the jungle and the city won't seem to know much more if you spend a month torturing them.

At the moment, you might say that there's three elements. There's the command part and those who know what that is... there's a complete black hole in the world's knowledge, there, and Bokhonpa doesn't contain much to shed light on it.

There's the uniformed soldiers who've spent months fighting in the jungles, clashing mainly with Setiawan's relatively anarchistic (by which I mean democratic) communists, and with stone-age communities. These guys have the beginnings of military regimentation, though the chain of command is still frequently broken. They tend to have AKs, some RPGs, a few LMGs and that sort of thing. Perhaps they've one or two MANPADS here and there, but they're probably Strela types and the operators really aren't familar with the technology. They may not even be in working order.

Then there's the new recruits... little more than slave soldiers. Dressed in their peasant garb, half naked out of the jungle with their bow swapped for a looted M1 carbine or a Japanese bolt-action rifle they'd been using to prop up one end of a hammock or something before the Sula Rada explained what it was really for. Others will be seen running around in Disney character shorts and Nike T-shirts and probably drunk or high on some part of the jungle they're chewing, having been convinced to join the biggest gang in town.

The last sort might well be armed with totally... ununiform weapons of the sort that just end up in 3rd world dives, and that they run about in ignorance of what the Sula Rada really is, wearing western cast-off clothing, probably speaks volumes. When the uniformed Sula Rada arrive at the city, they probably won't treat some guy in a pink shirt and Bermuda shorts as any less an enemy than they would foreign soldiers.

So at the moment, there's a rabble fit for a Somali arms market distict, and on the way is an indoctrinated guerrilla army with aged equipment but fanatical hate and months of combat experience. The first lot will fight because they want to be bigshots or because they're off their faces, the rest because it has become their lives.