NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This is a bit of a factbook in narritive style, I desire OOC comments, but I'm not really prepared to start an RP here... if you want to RP, contact me by TG or OOC.

This is taking place in the late 21st century, similar to the Azanian Economic Bloc. We should be starting an RP soon.

IC

“Wakey Wakey! Come on baby, open your eyes, it’s a brand new day out there. Up! Up! Up! Lets go, Bobby baby, and take a look at what your Uncle Charlie whipped up while you were sleeping. It’s money, baby, pure money. Honey, don’t make me beg.”

Robert Chen, Vice President in charge of Personnel at Verdant Archipelago Inc. opened one eye and glared balefully at the speaker above his bed. He considered Charlie, or C-AI-009. Verdant Archipelago Inc. had been working on artificial intelligences for some time as an expansion of the expert systems built into most of their products. The results had been a mix… the first three models weren’t actually self aware in any meaningful way. The next four had been successes, technically, but the first one went homicidally insane within the protected artificial testing environment, while two others had become suicidally depressed and reformatted themselves. The eighth model simply refused to interact with humans and sat still, presumably calculating imponderable questions until it was scrapped. The ninth, Charlie, was the sanest of them all. Sane, of course, is a relative term.

“Please, don’t make me beg…. Alright, you want I should beg? I’ll beg. I’ll beg. But only cause it’s you, baby. Anyone else, I’d be gone.” Then, in nasal voice, slightly offkey:
“I know you want to leave me,
But I refuse to let you go.
If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy,
I don’t mind cause you mean that much to me

Ain’t too proud to be-eg..”

Robert shot upright in bed, “Alright! I’m up, I’m up!”

“Hey, good morning sunshine! How was your sleep?”

“Good,” Robert rubbed the back of his neck and blinked rapidly. “Such as it was. You have something to show me?”

The room began to darken, and the sounds of his manservant preparing breakfast began to sound muffled as white noise generators kicked in. “Do I ever, baby. Remember what you were saying about needing a new recruitment ad to get the ‘right’ kind of bright young sociopaths?”

[The room is pitch black, there is no extraneous sound. A pretty, young woman emerges from the darkness. She is wearing a very respectable grey business suit with the VA logo on her jacket buttons, cufflinks, and tie clip. All are silver. Her features are elegant, but not of any definable ethnicity. While she appears physically young, she moves with the assurance of a woman twice her age. She does not exist in reality; her face is a digital compilation of women from all across the world. She smiles and begins to speak. Her voice is a pleasant alto, but businesslike.]

“Hello. My name is Charlie, and I am here to tell you, a prospective employee, about Verdant Archipelago Inc. and our place in the world. But first, a bit of corporate history.”

[A globe materializes and the view zooms in on South-East Asia, pushing Charlie from the screen, though you can still hear her voice.]

Origins

“Verdant Archipelago’s antecedents go back to the late 20th century when Singapore began investing heavily in the biotech and telecom industries. These sectors, particularly the biotech, proved extremely lucrative during the next two decades, and induced a significant influx of young intelligent scientists and engineers. Given the amount of resources amassed by investors and the difficulties associated with conventional rocket launches, in 2015, Singaporean Orbitals was started, with the express desire of building a space elevator on offshore platforms in the Singapore Strait. After a few false starts, the world’s first space elevator opened in 2025.

[An accelerated digital simulation of the process is shown, extrapolated from actual footage and plans, including the capture and stabilization of a massive asteroid in geosynch orbit, the initial launches bringing the nanocable up to the asteroid, the paying out of the line down into the atmosphere, the capture of the line by a refitted container ship, the transferring of the cable to the platform, the first cars going up the cable, deploying more cables behind them and reinforcing the existing ones.]

Savage Wars for Profit

“Given the remarkably low cost of getting objects into orbit via elevator, it was possible to undercut the rockets and space planes of competitors while still allowing domestic industries to use the facilities almost at cost. Other elevators followed, including three more owned by Singapore Orbitals, but E-1 gave Singapore Orbitals an incontestable foothold in trans-atmospheric transportation. Singapore Orbitals began a merger with Singtel, and became Singapore Orbitals and Telecom. Simultaneously, the biotech companies began to group together under Verdant Enterprises against competition in North America. Unfortunately, relations were deteriorating with the surrounding nations. Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, after a run of bad governments depressed their economies, were extremely jealous of Singapore’s increasing affluence.”

[Footage of a rusty, shabby trawler with a large recoilless rifle on the bow, and men lining the decks cradling RPG-30s and AK-2010s. Along side them is a large SOT container ship. Cut to a group of men with a machinegun armed jeep attempting to set fire to a field of extremely healthy looking fruit trees.]

"Incidents of piracy and bio terrorism were on the rise in Southeast Asia, directed primarily at Verdant Enterprises and SOT. Intelligence indicated that the attacks were being carried out by our neighbors, but were actually financed by western corporations through their intelligence agencies. Verdant Enterprises and SOT worked together to solve the problem by hiring PMCs to deal with the situation directly."

[A line of dust is walked along the road onto the jeep, which explodes into a fireball, throwing men in every direction. More bursts of gunfire cut down the remaining men, and a black helicopter gunship lands nearby, with black-clad troops jumping out to check the dead and wounded. Cut to the ship. Three barely visible white tracks leave the SOT vessel under water and slam into the freighter. Three enormous waterspouts. Concealed machineguns scattered about the container ship open up on the lifeboats. The camera lingers on one drowning sailor who goes limp as bullets send up splashes about him. A fin appears in the water, then two or three more.]

"We implicated Malaysia and the others before the UN, and imposed sanctions… which included denying them access to our elevators. Further, we began to hire the pirates away from them and deploy them against their own shipping. While the others took their lumps, Malaysia decided to take the elevators for themselves. SOT employed forces protected the platforms…”

[Ten Malaysian troop transports escorted by six destroyers and two frigates are under way. Twenty UCAVs dive out of the sun. The frigates and destroyers begin launching missiles. The UCAVs scatter and deploy flares and chaff. Fourteen are hit and explode in dirty fireballs, while the remaining six close, and each drop two long, dark objects into the water. White tracks begin arcing towards the transports and escorts.]

“…while VE and Singaporean troops slaughtered the lead formations, and imidiately counterattacked, taking Johor.

[A Singaporean Army tank crests a small hill. Something that looks a great deal like a bush stands up and picks up a phone at the rear of the tank and gestures beyond some trees. He then walks away, pulls a motorcycle out of another bush and drives off. A flight of helicopters cross overhead and the camera follows them. One of Johor’s water reservoirs is visible.]

“Despite pre-war theories, resistance in Malaysia continued, and it was decided that the easiest way to remove the threat was to decapitate the government. The problem was that, after the little to do over the Spratlys…

[Hovercraft with SOT markings drive up onto a beach, and infantry bail out. Mortar fire begins to fall on the SOT troops and machineguns crewed by Chinese troops open up. Black clad infantry begin to die and the survivors crawl for cover behind the hovercraft. A Chinese ATGM hits one of the hovercraft, which detonates spectacularly. A destroyer off-shore fires a broadside, and six 200mm ICM shells blossom over the Chinese positions.]

“… the Chinese had outfitted the Malaysians with excellent air defense systems, so an airborne assault would be suicidal. Still, a solution was found. Four days after the fall of Johor, SOT networks suggested that Malaysia evacuate Putrajaya. Given that China had made it extremely clear that use of nuclear weaponry would not be tolerated on either side, the Malaysian government believed that it was merely an idle threat. Regardless of the government’s position, almost all Singaporean citizens and a significant number of other civilians managed to escape.

[Putrajaya: The Parliament buildings are visible, as are Chinese HQ-12 emplacements. Suddenly, the HQ-12s begin to train upwards quickly, very quickly. Frantically. Fiery Red-gold lines streak straight down from the sky, clustered around air defense batteries, but a number go wild and smash into civilian buildings. Whenever they hit, there is a massive explosion and plume of dust. There are hundreds of them. Too many to count. Now they fall indiscriminately on military personnel and civilians alike. Fires are raging throughout the city. As the red lines fade from the blue sky, large boxy objects can be seen descending on parachutes from space. There is no organized resistance left on the ground. The boxes touch down, and heavily armoured infantry in black pour out.]

Consolidation and Asset Realization

Following the raid on Putrajaya, the Malaysian government publicly apologized for the invasion, surrendered all its forces, and agreed to seceding all water rights in Johor, and to turning the area into a DMZ enforced by Singapore. The government fell shortly after, and most of the MPs were subsequently assassinated by Islamic extremists. Due to the completeness of the victory over Malaysia, a stable government has yet to form. One benefit of this situation is that we can operate with impunity within Malaysia. Unfortunately it is a breeding ground for terrorists.

[An image of one of the water pipelines from Johor. There are two APCs and a number of infantry with dogs patrolling, and cement roadblocks prevent anyone from driving directly to the pipeline. Machinegun armed zodiacs patrol along the shoreline.]

“Despite the unstable situation in Malaysia and hostile governments in Indonesia and the Philippines, Singapore’s situation has never been better. In 2060, Verdant Enterprises and Singapore Orbitals and Telecom merged into Verdant Archipelago Inc. in a bid to increase our already considerable resources. Despite our powerful economic situation, both corporations had been fairly closely held by the principles. We began extending stock options to employees, and buying out small business left and right. We raised the minimum wage of all employees to $20000 American… if you weren’t valuable enough to the company to earn that, you were given an excellent severance package and a ticket to any Southeast Asian country. As more and more land was bought up, the minimum wage went down, but housing became complimentary.

[A white, well maintained row-house with a number of young professionals standing at a bus stop.]

Verdant Archipelago Inc began scholarship programs that supplied schools with new textbooks and equipment before the government could manage it, and supplemented teacher’s income with free housing near the school and limited stock options. We also began starting small private schools specifically designed for the education of children who may not fit into the public school system. The children are our future.

[A schoolroom, where 16 children and a single teacher sit in a circle. Each child has a laptop computer. The teacher is leading a class discussion on the scientific method, not instructing but allowing the students to explore the ideas on their own.]

A chronic shortage of good teachers lead to one of the most controversial laws… that any full time employee of VAI should be considered a citizen of Singapore, as VAI was paying their taxes. This triggered the race riots of 2071.

[A line of soldiers in black, fully articulated powered armour march in step towards an enormous mob that is breaking windows and beating foreigners to death. With a howl of rage, the mob flings itself towards the armoured troops, flinging Molotov cocktails. A few gunshots are heard, and one of the soldiers begins writhing on the ground. The others draw large guns with a tube connected to a reservoir on their back, and begin spraying the crowd with a liquid. The liquid hardens on contact with air, trapping those who are hit, but there are too many charging forward; the pressure of the group is too great. In unison, the soldiers draw single shot grenade launchers and fire them into the crowd. Instantly, it begins to break up, with only the most fanatical moving forward as they vomit from the smell of the grenades. These are disabled with smaller guns firing a different liquid… the victims of this weapon fall to the ground convulsing.]

Due to new forensic techniques and video evidence from the mercenaries contracted to break up the riots, almost all the violent participants were apprehended. Unfortunately, there was no way to incarcerate them all, and the judiciary was forced to adapt. Rather than standard corporal punishment or incarceration, the criminals were given a choice, permanent exile…

[A boat filled with disheveled looking prisoners and black-armoured troops lands in Malaysia. The prisoners file off, each clutching a single bag, while the troops cover the exits and the mainland. A mob of Malaysians wait just outside of range to strip the prisoners of their clothing and personal belongings.]

chemical rehabilitation…

[A line of vacantly smiling people leave a white building.]

service in the PMCs…

[A helicopter gunship touches down near a rice paddy, and eight infantry storm out towards a small farm house. They enter, and there is a spate of gunfire, and the high pitched whine of an electromagnetic needler. The farmhouse explodes, with four of the mercenaries still inside.]

…or death. Humane execution is one of the more popular choices.

[A very nervous young mercenary lieutenant begins putting bullets into the back of prisoners’ heads. By the end, his hands are shaking and his eyes are tearing up. He stumbles out of view of the camera and vomits.]

The courts may choose to commute the sentence to a hefty fine, indentured service, or expulsion from Verdant Archipelago Inc., though this is quite rare.

A Lucrative Future

Even while the judicial system changed, social systems were changing too. With the development of the commercially available uterine replicator in 2064, women no longer had a monopoly on bearing children. Any person could choose to have themselves cloned, or even have offspring created from a cell of each parent. This technology led to a renascence in Biotech, as experiments could be conducted on fetuses without the emotions of the mother becoming involved. These technologies allowed for comprehensive removal of the standard genetic disorders from the gene-pool, and selection for intelligence and physical characteristics was common. By 2076, the service was freely available to all shareholders. Oddly enough, this self regulated eugenics program actually decreased incidents of race related violence within the shareholder community because the physical attributes of the offspring no longer directly correlated to those of the parent. The underclasses who were not employed, however became even more violent, and often entire communities had to be deported to Malaysia and Indonesia. While there certainly is an impression of superiority amongst the new generation of improved shareholders, it is too soon to determine what are the effects of the new social and educational systems, and what the effects of the eugenics program are.

[A doctor and several technicians do their rounds through a hospital’s obstetrics ward. There aren’t any private birthing rooms, but there are banks and banks of 1m x 1m x 2m white boxes that look a little like stretched washing machines. A diagnostic panel on the front of each details the nutrient conditions, temperature, toxicity level, and has a real-time feed to a camera on the inside. Two young men enter the building shyly and whisper something to a technician. The technician calls over the doctor, and all four of them walk up to one of the boxes. One of the young men can’t stop smiling, while the other’s hands are shaking terribly. The doctor places her thumb on the screen and mutters something into an audiofiler. She steps back and the two young men grab onto a latch, look at each other, and pull. The door hisses open, and the technician leans forward to cut away a fleshy membrane. The doctor reaches in, and pulls out a small baby, and cuts off the umbilical cord with a vibro-scalpel. She hands it to the young man with the trembling hands. The baby starts to cry. The smiling young man spontaneously hugs both the doctor and tech, who are themselves grinning, while the man with the baby begins to cry too.]