NationStates Jolt Archive

[OOC: Okay, I started a thread, A Letter to the Geletians (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=443533), and this continues from it. That was a long-winded story and it seems that... nobody cares. So here's the action that follows. Feel free to look at that thread for background, and to ask if confused over context. This is still kinda A Letter to the Geletians, in that the letter in question will only be written during the course of this thread.

The Kingdom of the Geletians, by the way, is a capitalist parliamentary democracy of five and a quarter billion persons, situated in ten to twelve million square kilometres of the continent of Sarnia. Beth Gellert doesn't really exist at the moment.]

Gwancus Mine, Pennymount Estate, Sygun Copper Mines, Geletia, Sarnia

The mine had been out of action for weeks now since the Pennymounts skipped town with a small fortune in spite of the debts run up by their business, leaving the government out of pocket and the miners out of work. The whole community was inactive with this primary employer suddenly ripped away after years of admittedly inefficient and dangerous work. Some of the workers had tried to join the International, but they'd received no support since most of them weren't Marxists and since they weren't really doing anything, anyway... it wasn't as if they were suffering because they were on strike. Others had by now pawned some of their essential work tools in order to get by, while remaining tools were locked-up inside the silent sheds and shafts of the great copper mine.

Talk had been sparked by a young man's passionate and vitriolic rant on a semi-popular TV talk show a few days ago. He'd interrupted a comment about Geletia slipping back into the dark days of the industrial revolution with its ignorant underclasses and poor houses (started by a debate on increasing numbers of school truants and what it meant for the nation's future) to say, "Good!" and then clarify that he felt such regression was the only way that people would awaken to the inferiority of their position under the capitalists. When times were good, people got by. When times were bad, the capitalists would reveal themselves as fair weather friends, he insisted, in fact nothing more than condescending saviours offering employment as a happy alternative to death. But, he insisted, employment wasn't the only way, and certainly wasn't a gift. Work was there to be taken, and with work would come power. It would just take a collapse of modern employment standards for people to be forced to see it.

The copperbelt was already enduring such a collapse, though the young man hadn't known it. The workers were on the brink of despair as capitalists fell victim to their own greed, to government regulations tightened in scant concession to the unhappy masses, or to poor productivity quickly blamed either on the workers or on the foreigners prepared to work eighteen hour days for basic wages. It was competition, the market, you see, it couldn't be helped!

The silence hanging oer Gwancus' gaping maw was interrupted by a rattling, rising on to a terrific roar. Dozens... hundreds... thousands of miners marched on the inactive mine. They brought their tools and forced-open the gates. They smashed their way into other toolsheds and broke-open the lift shafts. They...

...went back to work.

[Bump before I put anyone else off with another little text block]

Royal Crown Colony of Corcyra

The moist maritime air blew softly over the clear waters of the estuary, rippling the surface, pushing waves onto the sandy beaches and salt up into the mouth of the mighty Avon. Along the shoreline, dim lights could be made out just to the west of the mouth of the river and heavy, reverberating clangs of a metallic sort, could be heard echoing among the chirps and cricks of the night. At the edge of the shore stood a small house, only a small wraparound veranda to distinguish it from its brother and sister prefabricated homes, upon which a man of medium build stood with his brown hair neatly brushed, his face adorned by rounded spectacles of the older fashion and a small pip hanging from his chapped lips.

From the large French doors strode a smaller man, more plump than the first, his hair greyer and his eyesight far better. The two both wore grey suits; though their dress shirts, the first man’s blue and the second’s white, had both lost their ties after the sun had set to the west. Basil, the second called out softly, I have the latest from the engineers and from the ABN.

Excellent, Charles. Pray tell, just how is the work on that railroad carrying along?

Colonel Markinson informed me that the connection will be completed within the week, and actual rail operations can commence within weeks after that.

Indeed… the first man half-muttered. Sir Basil Ashford puffed on his pipe, listening to the rhythmic pounding of metal on metal somewhere to the west. The sounds were of that railroad, which would soon link the colony’s two main towns: Port Royal and Avalon-on-Avon. Preliminary settlements had already been established near some mines to the south and west and at the head of the other major river, one of the six most important of the continent of Sarnia. The two rivers would be able to irrigate Azazian crops in times when the moist climate failed Ashford’s new territory. But for now, he needed lines of communication. Lines of commerce. Those lines were slowly being laid inland, to the agriculturally-based settlement of Avalon-on-Avon. Port Royal merely served as the outlet for the colony’s goods.

And sir, Charles continued, noting Ashford’s eyes beginning to stare outwards, sign of his wandering mind. The local reporters sent by the ABN have begun to report of violence and instability in our neighbour to the west, the Kingdom of the Geletians. It appears some of the private investors have pulled out of the formerly profitable copper mines.

The two men stood in silence, the second man tapping his foot quietly on the wooden planks while Ashford smoked his pipe, contemplating the news from the west. In the distance, out on the horizon, the two watched a small light appear, growing ever larger by the minute. I see no real alternatives, Charles. Instability means nothing but trouble for Corcyra. Hell, we’re already going to have a tough enough time with the Sarzonians to our south. Did you read the latest from Imperium?

No, sir, I cannot say I have had the chance.

Well, that impetuous twit of a president of theirs dared to insult and denigrate His Majesty’s colonial ambitions while the Sarzonian flag flies just south of here. I daresay, Charles, the Kingdom has found itself in a most unpredictable predicament here in Corcyra. A rabble-raising group to the west that loathes capitalism, apparently, and then to our south a country that loathes our government back in Imperium.

Well, Basil, I suppose then that the troop ship on the horizon is in our best interest.

‘Tis a shame it carries mostly engineers, Charles. I fear that in time we will have to defend Port Royal through violence.

I hope that day never comes.

Nor do I. But, in the meantime, the least we can do is offer economic assistance to those red chaps over to the west. Have William send some prospectors and geologists over to those abandoned mines, see if there isn’t anything that can be extracted from them. We need friends in these lands, Charles. More than anything. The Kingdom will send us whatever we need, but being so far away, it’s quite possible what we need today that arrive next week may bloody well be too late. The two men nodded in agreement before Charles walked back through the doors out which he had come. Ashford finished the tobacco in his pipe and turned to look at the growing silhouette of the troop ship due to arrive in an hour or so at the only real docks in the town. He shook his head and looked upwards towards the stars, white, yellow, red, and blue pinpricks of light that fell across the folds of space, black with the milky grey band streaking across the sky. Yet, despite the infinity that was space, man still felt compelled to wage petty wars and bicker over miles that were less than dust to the cosmic expanse.

Nothing more than a bloody waste, I suppose. Ashford muttered before turning and following Charles back into the house.

The trouble had started hours earlier. The drinkers at The Favour, a pub on the vast estate of the Pennymount's copper mines, had realised something in the words of their old barkeep as they discussed the televised ranting of some young rebel. "Stop asking, start doing!" the landlord had said. And they had stopped asking foreigners, the International, their government, the Pennymounts, their relatives elsewhere in the Kingdom, loansharks, pawnshops, betting shops, the government again. They'd had enough after weeks of waiting.

They hammered at the door of a local pawn shop containing many of their tools, given over for coins enough to get bread for the family and ale for the belly. "We can't ever work without our tools! We shall need them back! We're going back to work!"

"Back to work? Ha! The Pennymounts are in... Azazia by now! Europe! Thames! Who knows? Gone from here, anyway, you won't be working down Gwancus again! Ha! Anyroad, the tools are mine, now!"

"Oh, fancy yourself a miner, do you? Here, take my pick, then! Ha-ha! You'll come down with us, won't you?" "No, I don't think he will! Get away with you, we're taking our tools!"

Four men had been followed by forty, then four thousand. Everyone took back their tools and they marched to the mine, though the capitalists, shareholders, upper-managers, all were gone and the business -though it had still been producing until the moment of its closure- owed tens of millions of dollars.

The miners set to mining as the pawnbrokers and stockholders went to their natural work: calling the police to do theirs, and so these were dispatched to protect property from the majority. But today they would find the majority a little bit grabby.

The Kingdom of the Geletians was, on official platforms, welcoming to its new neighbours from the North Pacific. That region of earth, it was generally the impression of the upper classes, was one worth noting for good breeding, an opinion held since the intervention by forces from Iansisle against the Igovian Soviet Commonwealth on behalf of a Geletian prince -Llewellyn- whose attempt there at empire building went horribly awry.

What impression these new arrivals would take from the Geletians, however, remained to be seen.

It was only in recent years that the ancient practices of holding in common land and tools were abandoned by these shambling titans. Hardly a one of their adult number under six feet tall and all dressed in fashions struggling to catch those of the so-called western world (having only in living memory begun to depart from the styles worn since before the world heard words like Rome) the only certain thing was that they would make an impression that lasted.

Adiatorix, King of the Geletians, set an example to the many princes, chieftains, and untitled capitalists of his massive domain. Visiting Azazians of any official status or significance in business would quite commonly be invited to endure lengthy entertainments, often the turning-out of warriors. These were compensation for the pitiful size of Geletia's standing army, millions of men across the land who could be counted peasants and in official parlance were working class often employed to support police operations or hired by corporations to, "provide security". They usually were armed in traditional fashion, sometimes with weapons that doubled as farming equipment or other tools, though some amongst them could be expected to present shotguns and hunting rifles when turning-out to greet/protect guests.

If the Azazians wished to visit the Pennymount mines they would certainly be assigned an escort of these warriors, probably ordered by Adiatorix or his largely insignificant prime minister and laid-on by the arrangement of a locally based Prince (who has little power compared to career capitalists but is sufficiently influential to play a part when said capitalists leave town). Somebody had to get around to dealing with the trouble, anyway, it was just that, with the Pennymounts absent, nobody was really pushing for a resolution.