NationStates Jolt Archive

Over ten million square kilometres of rolling hills and green valleys between seas torrid and biting made the Kingdom of the Geletians a grand domain befitting its proud people: Celtic beings whose male gender could be found averaging some two metres in stature. A little better than five billion in number, the Geletians represented probably the crowning development of their broad and historic ethnic family, but they lived now in some ignominy.
For hundreds of years these people ranged a great land as champions. Moving freely they took to battle on the slightest pretext, snatched plunder but never fully destroyed, influenced all and dictated to none. They settled disputes, won victories, and hired themselves out as mercenaries in other people's struggles, always moving on and retreating in their own time into the vastness of their continent.

Their success was, of course, their undoing as Geletian numbers grew and pressures increased. Their influence was more lasting, their raids more taxing, and other civilisations became destructively competative as the shifting Celtic masses inadvertently pressured them more and more. Ultimately, nothing could survive that was not Geletian, and little that was could survive the Geletians.

The barbarians traditionally held their land in common, along with most significant wealth in terms of productive tools and plunder or tribute. Villages had leaders that, while not always exactly elected, persisted with the general approval of the community and rarely without it, and they sent these on a regular basis to epic meetings that gave the tribes and villages a sense of cohesion without loss of independence. Even in antiquity they farmed the land with an efficiency not rivaled anywhere on earth even during the industrial revolution, in fact not until chemicalisation and other controversial advances. Their growth and the collapse of those more classical civilisations with which they had lived in symbiosis, along with the less than timely coming of globalisation created tradgedy all the more sorry for its lack of drama and its awful aura of resignation as would surround the whole people.

As other civilisations crumbled around them, their populations were absorbed by the sprawling Geletian sponge, which also took-in the cities that they left behind. Petty religions and absurd personified deities scorned by the Celts now polluted their society through these absorptions and created in the Geletians an understanding of empire-building that had not sat naturally with their old ways. Old methods of conflict resolution, bloody as they sometimes were, no longer applied. Independence was lost, industry and commerce found the settling barbarians easy fodder. Populations exploded and the satisfaction of need initially drove production onwards before production began to free-wheel and eventually quite forgot its purpose, shrunk from sight in the rear-view mirror.

The Geletians were now a kingdom. Farmers became peasants; artisans became employees; sculptors became a drain; and warriors, judges, and chieftains became capitalists. Though important to their ancient barbarian society, these people last mentioned had never worked the land, and so it was held in common in order that they not suffer for doing the job of protecting or of administrating. The recent coming of change and most vitally of urbanisation and the productivity imbalance saw the epic corruption of tradition. Chieftains with no independent tribe to direct and warriors with no enemies to fight declared that areas of land rightfully belonged to them: it was the unwritten law of the Geletians that they should have the benefit of land in spite of their not working it, and everyone had agreed.

Now these laws were written, and the former chieftains had of course over-seen it. These rightful belongings were now rights, which never before had existed, and more than that they were inherited. With rights came crimes, and, having unwittingly absorbed religion, the Geletians now found themselves laboured with sins. Oh, what a good thing that the chiefs and warriors, now politicians and capitalists, had risen to give rights and offer salvation! They still were guides and protectors, after all!

The people forgot that they had never needed any such things. They consumed to satisfy production, obayed to satisfy law, worked to enjoy rights, and died to be closer to God.

So two, three, four generations, more, were wasted, but in each lived a few called hope, waiting to hear those words, true words, words that recalled and that would be remembered!

OOC: Okay, there now follows three paragraphs of me talking about the past (on with the rose-tinted retro-spectacles, then), and then a little bit on where things stand. Any decent RPers can get their nations involved if they wish, but I would appreciate it if you at least just skim the last bits of this post (the first three paragraphs aren't really important) so that you have some idea of what's going on, and ask any questions you may have. The first couple of posts will probably continue to be back-story, but once things get moving I'm hopeful for some participation, or at least input! Thanks for reading.

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Right, here we go with the rambling: This is meant to bring Beth Gellert back into the world. Two and a half years ago Beth Gellert was a tiny, poverty-stricken state with vaguely left-leaning though somewhat pointedly nationalist politics and was situated on a fictional continent of my creation, namely New Tiamat, which sat in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and which was (initially) populated by nations run by a large number of my friends from both the wider internet and that half-forgotten real-world outside. Here, Beth Gellert began to develop slightly stronger politics and to engage in limited role-play in the NS forums, such as they were back in 2003. From what I remember, we mostly sat around getting shot at and bombed by religious fanatics and rogue individuals, and proudly sailing our grand fleet around for no reason: it consisted of about four Western Asia-built trimaran frigates and other such vessels but means that we're able to scornfully dismiss any accusations about us lately jumping-on the trimaran bandwagon ;)

I then tried RPing in the region Eastern Europe and ignoring the main boards, but, alas, I soon missed it (I can't say why!), and returned, but found that BG lacked identity outside the inately defiative insular regions such as EE. I joined the almost equally insular RP group A Modern World, with BG residing on the Indian sub-continent, and am still there to this day. It's a good group.

BUT, here we are, trying to make the mainstream version of Beth Gellert work, again. I very much appreciate the qualities of the AMW group and intend to remain there for as long as it lasts, but since there's surely still a lot of good role-players outside said group (I know that a lot have, sadly, quit NS over the years) I feel that I must continue to take-part. I just can't do it without having the character I really want about my nation, so this is meant to re-create what I've lost, and if you want to help out, I'd appreciate it!

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That brings me to the here and now. The Igovian Soviet Commonwealth (history can be found in my signature) has been established in Finland, Murmansk, and the Estonian islands, and contains a few tens of millions of people. What I need to do is to get the rest of my population (approaching, I think, 5.2bln at time of posting) and the characterising Celtic element established and, in doing so, to re-create the Beth Gellert of old. Only bigger.

So, the fictional landmass on which the Geletians reside is somewhere vaguely near Europe, but, quite obviously, wouldn't nearly fit on earth. It just has to be assumed to be fairly near to Scandinavia, and that will suffice.

Notes:
-At this point, Beth Gellert simply does not exist!
-The Igovian Soviet Commonwealth is essentially the nation I have right now, and consists of Finnish, Russian, and Estonian territories described in more detail in threads linked in my signature.
-The other society involved in this thread is called the Kingdom of the Geletians. It is massive, so feel free to get on its side, but be warned that it is also fifteen miles up a certain creek and quite without a paddle.

ooc: if there is any way to realistically open relations between our two nations I'd gladly do so, except the now United Kingdom of Azazia exists in the northern Pacific and has very little business on the other side of the planet... a really, really... really big planet.

OOC: Well, a big part of the Commonwealth's history (to be linked with Geletia once I finish another IC post) involves an intervention in their affairs by the Iansislian navy, and they're based in the North Pacific, too, so it's not impossible or even unusual, too us! The Commonwealth, mind, is communist (some people might say anarchist), and very difficult for any nation to get along with in an official capacity. For now, the Kingdom is probably well worth any nation's time, being as it has an economy worth tens if not hundreds of trillions of dollars and morals that will be exposed as highly suspect, as you may gather from the tone of the first post! More IC information once I have something to eat and then get drunk :D

OOC: An over-night bump for views, really. Cheap, I know, but I should have the next part, tomorrow. For now, just soak-up the history and condition of the Geletians... or else!

Scores of miles beyond the domain of the Geletians, Northern Europe. The cold forests and icy lakes of Finland, warmed now as if by the burning red flicker of the red flag, were fundamentally tied to the Celtic kingdom by events of the twentieth century. Rising against the forces of Nazism and the Lapua Movement, the Bolshevists, and the Republic, Finns inspired by die-hard revolutionaries escaped from Russia after the Red Army's betrayal and the assault on Kronstadt had in the last few generations come in from the cold and burned away the darkness with glorious fires that sent rays of hope dancing across the earth... across the sea.

Finland's borders, saved by the true Soviets from the advances of Bolshevism and of Nazism and still surrounding all Karelia, had been brought down by the same come Commonwealth with Murmansk and the Estonian islands (the mainland a cause at that time hopelessly lost to Bolshevism). Utopia lived for an instant before the ignorance and savagery of those outside it -in civilisation- fed it poison. A pawn in the struggles between east and west, the Commonwealth was lumbered with a western leadership, a dictator with a four year mandate, replaced at its end by another dictator if he could not find a way to hold power. These dictators, heads of government arrogantly adopting the title Prime Minister as if unashamed of their police-protected hierarchy, ruled under the watch of an ever-present chief of state, imposed upon the Commonwealth by a world unable to trust the people's ability to continue their private battle against the Red Army.

This man was Llewellyn, Prince amongst Geletians and heir to the throne of that mighty kingdom. He made a Principality of the Commonwealth and practiced his craft in a territory less alien to the world than was his homeland. His works here undid the heroic efforts of the revolutionaries much as had the majority party in Russia and her satellites.

But this treachery was too much a work of the modern age, and so was the reaction. The people of the Commonwealth were taken too quickly away from their revolution, and with too much awareness of how this had happened to their comrades in Russia, and they refused to accept it. Never once asking for their rights, the people simply siezed upon the governmental power, throwing-up barricades against the police and locking factory doors against managers and employers. Confidence in the emerging market on the doorstep of the USSR crashed into the barricades and the Principality's economy lay ruined except where it was under worker control. Desperate efforts by the Geletian, Llewellyn, and his imperialist allies from Iansisle -who sent a fleet of warships from the distant Pacific- forced the people of the Commonwealth to accept help from any quarter, even the hated USSR, which furnished them with the means to fight-off the slave-drivers.

That help came only when requested by a man called Sopworth, a fellow of varied ancestory, who allowed the population to believe that their cause had been helped by Moscow, where in fact it was his pro-Brezhnev stance and authoritarian ambitions that made the Commonwealth's restoration under his leadership attractive to the Russians.

Sopworth lead a reduced Commonwealth from 1982 to 1989, affiliated closely with the USSR and locked in his own cold war as the Estonian islands remained as a sanctury to the Prince, who had been driven from the mainland and remained supported by his family in Geletia. But glasnost and perestroika as they were carried-out across the border were put into their timid context by the continued resistance of the Commonwealthers. Sopworth's seven years were filled with violent protest and heated debate, mirrored on the islands that Llewellyn renamed Victoria and Salvador, before the decline of support from a troubled USSR and the unpublished words of his father, Graeme, convinced the premier to volunteer the return of power to the people before they took it from him as they had from those before.

Sopworth's name, and that of his father, was Igo. Graeme's popular ideas, his manner before a crowd, and his preparedness and ability to tear power away from his own family without bloodshed have been sufficient to ensure that the Commonwealth today is called the Igovian Soviet Commonwealth, and that reunification with Victoria and Salvador could happen peacefully.

Llewellyn fled, some of his family and supporters to Iansisle, most back to Geletia, where the people had been suckered into a web of hierarchy, debt, and rights over generations rather than over-night as in the firey Commonwealth.

(Bump to see if anyone's interested in reading about the Commonwealth and the Geletians before they're brought together and the revolution comes to get you all :) )

OOC: Is Sopworth's period of close relations with the USSR also reflected in AMW?

OOC: Kinda. I had it down that, in AMW, in 1982 when the Principality cracked-down on the Unions and Llewellyn probably spent half his time fawning over a certain Iron Lady, the USSR sent help to Sopworth primarily to frustrate Roycelandia, which was fairly chummy with the Principality and apparently the USSR's main annoyance.
In both 'realities' the Commonwealth started to drift to the left and broke with Moscow shortly before the USSR collapsed. Of course, here, in the mainstream, we also have a long tradition of fighting with the USSR on and off, but that's not unrealistic if you look at how the USSR got on with Yugoslavia, Albania, Czechoslovakia, and so on.
In AMW, BG and the USSR were enemies up to 1982 because BG was Royalist, in the rest of NS the Commonwealth and the USSR were enemies up to 1982 because first we were Sovietists (and the USSR hates/fears Soviets) and then, briefly, Royalists.

Pennymount, Sygun Copper Mines, Geletia

The 21st of March in this part of the vast Kingdom of the Geletians was, this year as most others, a day most flatteringly described as brisk. The night before had been just short of what was needed to leave a frost on the ground, but it saw the residents of Pennymount risen with a familiar chill in their bones.

Pennymount was a small part of the district called Sygun Copper Mines, a name earned after generations of productivity. That was a little odd... other mining communities retained names like Siwriti and any number of other things unrelated to their working.

The most productive of several mines here was called Gwancus. That was, at least, unofficially. The name was nailed to this pit by the sorry workers whose great frames stooped in the half-light of its belly. The voracious chasm took, even in this modern age, one or two workers every year, usually refusing ever to give them up, or sometimes spitting them out limp as if the rubble and dust of a cave-in had filtered-out their life-force as the recovered corpse passed through.

This year hadn't been the worst in that regard. A few serious accidents and dozens of minor injuries about which nobody complained, but as yet no fatalities, unless you counted old Gurix who lingered in hospital since late last year before slipping away.

In another respect, though, things were as bad as ever they had been. Worse. The Pennymounts -the family took its name from the location, since this was the Kingdom of the Geletians- had driven Gwancus into a debt of some eighty-four million dollars. That didn't much matter to them, since production was still trundling along and sales' figures were reasonable enough. The Pennymounts were just like any others when it came to overdrafts and loans, and most of the capital for the sinking of a third shaft came from a heavy loan.

It was most unfortunate, now, that the government was weighing a little more than usually heavy on the accounting department. Typically, the Pennymounts paid only a token ammount in tax, thanks to creative book-keeping and corporate loopholes, but the government had made some crazy promises in order to satisfy labour movements and reformers in the Kingdom, and so needed a little budgetary inflation. Since the Pennymounts found themselves owing wealth that they didn't really own, they locked-up the pit's facilities one night and left town, probably run-off to some foreign haven.

The scene was one of unreported confusion as several hundred workers and the thousands dependent upon them found the facilities locked against them. Their most expensive tools hung-up before leaving work the day before, unreachable within the closed mine. The Pennymounts vanished. The people shrugged, scratched their heads, and waited...

A large television studio in the Kingdom of the Geletians, run for profit and generally disinterested in quality, poorly appointed and poorly staffed, played host to a talk show that could expect anything from thirteen to seventeen million viewers, making it a borderline flop by national standards. On this day, the topic was, loosely, the truancy problem, specifically the fact that now several whole percent of Geletian school children were guilty of illegally skipping classes on a regular basis, many never even setting foot on school grounds unless to cause damage or carry out theft after hours.

It was being suggested that, after primary school and perhaps a brief middle-school as a sort of tester, trouble students and persistent truants be put into trades as apprentices and quite give-up school by the start of their teenage years.

Of course, many people felt that this was absurd, that such babes would learn nothing, that we were failing them. A few thought that it was a grand idea, that the little buggars should learn a useful skill and do some hard graft. As radicalism was once again on the rise in the Kingdom, a lot of audience members and callers and even one of the semi-celebrity panelists had indicated their belief that it was nothing more than a step backwards towards feudalism that the constitutional monarchy was supposed to have left behind.

Then one audience member stood, a young Geletian man of a typical six-foot five inches, and declared after one such comment from the rogue panelist, "Good!" where upon he was very near set upon by some of those who had been causing consternation by applauding the panelist in question. But he continued.

"We must recoil before we can spring forth and break-down the doors closed against common people!" Where upon he won-back many and quite turned-off others. "If this sort of thing persists, and we continue to repeat our mistakes in order to fix the problems arising from them, then, in time, the old conditions shall, at least in part, rise again. The dreadful old conditions that fired the engines of progress before our time.
"In 1848, and again in 1871, when thousands of Geletians, the desperate and the courageous, joined their brothers and sisters in Europe in a long-awaited drive for better lives... and they all were crushed by Republican and Royalist armies -those advertised enemies showing their true colours, each as running-dog to the other- and here, we took that as proof that the revolution was wrong! This is proof that poor education is in our blood, I fear!" and there was some laughter, much of which was checked by self-conscious listeners.

"If you shoot your friend for telling you that one plus one is two, he does not die wrong! Next time, however, people shall watch you, and friends shall have left you, and you may think twice before shooting the next mathematician who crosses you with proper arithmetic!"

Another suppressed laugh and the young man continued, cameras and aghast panelists and producers fixated upon him and his oratory, which appeared to have digressed quite seriously from the point that everyone thought was being argued today but that was undeniably lighting-up the switchboards.

"So, I say it is for us! The French state may have shot and enslaved tens of thousands of its citizens; and this Kingdom may, without care for those Geletian free-thinkers inside, have fired the wooden buildings from which red banners flew, but now this Kingdom has a constitution designed to prevent the same, and who here can imagine the [French] 5th Republic standing women and children up against a wall to be shot as in 1871?

"Radical action can be taken without such brutality being lain upon the people, our recent ancestors died that it should be so... but we do not take it, because we are placated by this constitution and by this forgiving administration that allows us the luxury of continued life in spite of outrages that we no longer even dare to commit! What have we gained but another unexercised right dressed in condescension as privilege?"

The speaker finally drew to something of a conclusion as he made his way back around to the intended focus of the previously vacuous TV debate.

"So, I say, let us regress. Put the disenfranchised children back into the workhouses or cram young minds, unformed, into a vocation-for-life. Only then, bowed and twisted, will the men and women they become finally see that the boot is still on their neck!"

A typical feat of ill-timed reactionism saw a couple of poorly-suited private security personnel approach from the wings, just as the troublemaker retook his seat. In the moment, though they may usually have been more moderate and though half of them hardly even understood what had been said or implied nor even what happened, members of the studio audience first heckled and then physically jostled and arguably assaulted the over-weight men in their poorly fitted uniforms.

The Kingdom of the Geletians, Sarnia

The young man who'd caused trouble on a failing chat show was now something of a national celbrity, though nobody actually new his name. The press had been out to track him down, but most outlets were facing government intervention to discourage them, as the authorities were not keen to see the fellow become a radical hero. There was talk in powerful circles of turning him into a caricature of himself and his politics and making radicalism a commodity in the process of discrediting it, but as yet it was not fully clear how widespread may be the opinions that he expressed and any such venture seemed risky.

Life went-on as people and institutions waited.

At Pennymount, the people were tired of waiting.

The Favour Sygun Copper Mines

Just four of the Pennymount workers sat in the community's favourite drinking establishment today, and conversation was slow. Usually it was hard to notice how dimly lit was The Favour, since dozens of comrades would be drinking in good cheer and the place would be bright with smiles and laughter as customers tried to drink-off the difficulties of the day. Usually somebody had been compelled to accept extra shifts and another been cheated out of part of his insurance after losing part of a finger, and a few others had just been bullied by managers and prefered to talk about the barmaid or the chariot race last weekend rather than complain about it.

But since the Pennymount capitalists packed up, there'd been no work to escape. Everybody was unemployed in a sort of limbo. Some of them were getting hassle over their debts and couldn't do much about it since they were locked out of work. Many had begun to pawn what tools they been allowed to take outside the mines when they were locked-up.

Another result of their inactivity was a drastic increase in the watching of television, with some workers having kept hold of their sets in spite of pawning tools. At least this meant that three of the four in The Favour were now able to discuss that youngster's radical tirade.

The miners at the Gwancus mine had been amongst those driving the labour movement that compelled the government to make a number of what it saw as concessions to the vast working class of the Kingdom, and as such were indirectly responsible for the mine's closure: the government needed cash to back-up its promises to the workers, and looked to tax-dodging capitalists such as the Pennymounts as one means of getting it. Seeing that, the Pennymounts -in debt to the tune of eighty-four million dollars- resolved to do a runner rather than start paying a reasonable fraction of the taxes they rightly owed, and now the miners were, as one put it, screwed.

"...but this lad's right, you know." Said one, wiping the head of his recently drawn tankard of ale from his five-inch long whiskers, speaking of the television radical. "Great... grandparents got shot in eighteen, ah, eighteen fif..forty-eight and..." "Seventy-one." "...seventy-one so that... we'd end up with a constitution... so as we'd not get shot next time we asked for something!"

Some nodded, a couple raising their drinks to the idea.

"Bah!" a familiar figure arrived behind the bar, bringing with it the stench of an old meat-eating rebel. "Bah!" the landlord said again. "Stop asking!" he snorted, pulling himself a remarkably poor draught and taking a big cloudy swig. "That's 'is point! Stop asking, start doing!"

The miners exchanged glances as a few eyebrows were raised and what few pennies these unemployed men had left dropped in unison.