NationStates Jolt Archive

Because I’m contemplating a major RP soon and haven’t done much in II since the spring, I figured a reminder about EWT might be in order, especially for those who have never really seen me before or have short memories. Note that this is incomplete (and I find parts II and III to be the least important, just so you know, because they weren’t RPed). Parts IV and V were RPed on the RMB and no longer exist in a form accessible to NS. I’ll finish it when I get around to it;)

*now open for comment*

Table of Contents.

I. Generally Useful Information. (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9853952&postcount=2)
II. The First Five Centuries of Evil Woody Thoughts.
III. Tourism (20th century).
IV. The Christofascist War. (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9853971&postcount=5)
V. Industrialization.
VI. Overpopulation and Volcanology Research. (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9853989&postcount=7)
VII. Climate Change. (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9853992&postcount=8)
VIII. Leaving Earth/Sol. (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9853999&postcount=9)
IX. Future Tech Industrialization. (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9854008&postcount=10)

I. Generally Useful Information.

Economy

Population: Total>2.4 billion

In Sol System: 400 million, declining due to resettlement.

In White Diamond System: >2 billion.

Economy: Frightening

GDP (2005 constant dollars) per capita: $45,200

GDP, total 2005 constant dollars: $109 trillion

Territorial Claims:

In Sol system: The Woodian Archipelago, a series of islands ranging from 300-1000 nautical miles east to southeast of the Canary Islands. Many of these islands, including all of the largest ones, are manmade (see part V-Overpopulation and Volcanology Research). This claim is largely “left over” from Evil Woody Thoughts’ days as a MT/PMT nation.

The White Diamond system in its entirety, approximately 700 light-years away from Sol.

Government

Government Type: Civil Rights Lovefest

Civil Rights: World Benchmark

Political Freedoms: World Benchmark

Current Prime Minister: Mike Frazier

Major Political Parties (in order of influence):

The Übernationalizt Party—economically conservative, small government but big defense budget.

The Green Party—self explanatory.

The Democratic Socialist Party—emphasizes civil and political freedoms in the extreme, but very liberal economically.

The Independent Party—all over the place, lacks a central ideology, for those who hate the current multiparty system.

The Capitalizt Party—self explanatory. Much of their agenda has been co-opted by the Übernationalizts, although the Capitalizts are far more hardcore.

Executive Branch: Headed by the Prime Minister, and similar to that of the RL United States in function. However, there are two major differences: the Prime Minister cannot use executive orders to write laws that “go around” the legislature as the RL U.S. President can. The Prime Minister, rather than his subordinate, presides directly over Parliament.

Legislative Branch: Unicameral, 100-seat Parliament. It used to only have fifty seats.

Judicial Branch: Similar to the United States court system in structure, though the names of the courts are quite different, the most common difference being the substitution of the word “District” for “Circuit.”

Military

Annual defence budget: $10 trillion, 2005 constant dollars

Est. Troop Strength:

Army: 4,500,000

Navy: 150,000 (planetside), 2,150,000 (spacefaring)

The Ministry of Defense does not maintain a separate “marine” or “air force” branch of service. “Marines” are incorporated into the Army, while the “air force” is incorporated into the Navy.

Major Military Combatants:

Ground:

Domestic Ground Assault Platforms (‘Mechs) (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=419235)

EWT also employs other ‘generic’ BattleMech designs that already exist in the BattleTech technology base, with relatively minor modifications. While the exact composition of ground forces remains classified, the military discloses the following:

Noncombatant Support Vehicles—approx. 230,000
Tanks and treaded Ground Combat Vehicles—approx. 30,000
Light ‘Mechs (<40 tons)—approx. 120
Medium ‘Mechs (40-59 tons)—approx. 180
Heavy ‘Mechs (60-79 tons)—approx. 140
Assault ‘Mechs (80-100 tons)—approx. 170
Heavy Assault ‘Mechs (>100 tons)—approx. 60

I probably don’t pay as much attention to my ground forces as I should, for I seldom use them in RPs.

Space:

Support craft number approximately 400, consisting almost entirely of troop transports and DropShips carried in the docking bays of my Star Destroyers. Resupply ships are largely unnecessary because EWT claims only two systems, relatively close together, and spacefaring vessels can be resupplied at the White Diamond Drive Yards. However, civilian transports operated by the Ministry of Commerce as part of the Sol-to-White Diamond resettlement operation number about twenty.

Approximately 1,900 starfighters, mostly consisting of TIE Oppressors, though including various other designs, deploy from the docking bays of Star Destroyers, though said docking bays currently do not operate at full capacity due to a lack of fighter production. A few starfighters of various types are owned by wealthy private citizens.

Capital Ships--Combatant

10 B'rel-class Birds of Prey (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9824074&postcount=336) [8 active, 2 disassembled for reverse engineering]

10 K'vort-class Birds of Prey (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9824204&postcount=337) [8 active, 2 disassembled for reverse engineering]

5 Vor'cha-class cruisers (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9824049&postcount=333) [4 active, 1 disassembled for reverse engineering]

36 Knossos-class (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8733879&postcount=10) destroyers

10 MC-60 Star Cruisers (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8502823&postcount=17)

22 Immortal-class (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8714167&postcount=2) Star Destroyers

*reserved for part II*

*reserved for part III*

IV. The Christofascist War.

Note: The Christofascist War was an RP based very loosely upon RL events, carried out on the region message board. No record exists of it in II, until now. Moreover, the other nations that RPed this have since inactivity-DEATed.

Starting in the late twentieth century, religious conservatives bemoaned the increasingly liberal policies of Evil Woody Thoughts. The government passed legislation in the 1990s that explicitly permitted both abortions and gay marriage, among other liberal "sins." However, religious conservatives, mostly of the Christian persuasion, were not numerous enough to countervail a society desirous of more and more freedom.

Therefore, they looked outside of Evil Woody Thoughts for support, and found that certain other nations, and certain wealthy individuals, were all too willing to help them.

Christian conservatives were able to stage a coup d'etat in the nation of Elveshia in 2001, with outside funding from North American megachurches and their leaders. This coup brought General Dredd to power, who made it a point to "liberate Christians who are being oppressed by nearby nations using any means necessary." Elveshia bought arms from the Dominion of Corporate Republics, another nearby nation, the government of which succumbed to business moguls and arms contractors.

The nation of Elveshia then carried out a series of acts of war throughout the region, bombarding ports of the nation of Arthalion, an ally of Evil Woody Thoughts, and raiding Evil Woody Thoughts' shipping. As Evil Woody Thoughts had never seen any point to war before, she did not have more than a token navy, and scrambled to find the funds necessary to purchase one and hire sailors to crew the ships. The newly formed Ministry of the Navy quickly bought itself an assortment of relatively cheap frigates and destroyers, along with a couple of Iowa-class battleships, for this was all the developing economy could support at the time. The military also bought about five nuclear warheads, just in case. Parliament passed a military draft to find warm bodies (aka "sailors") to crew the influx of new ships.

The new navy quickly saw action breaking up the scattered Elveshian raids, and managed to capture a little bit of technology. About six months after her mobilization, the Navy was called upon to break a blockade and bombardment of Arthalionian ports, and did so with moderate casualties. General Dredd responded to this escalation by purchasing a nuclear device.

Shortly thereafter, General Dredd sought to force a quick surrender of the "heathens" by sending a submarine to smuggle said nuclear device into Evil Woody Thoughts. When the submarine was detected entering the harbor of Great Woody City, the sailors on board the submarine detonated the nuke prematurely, resulting in the destruction of about sixty percent of Evil Woody Thoughts' capital.

As the federal civilian government was effectively destroyed, and civilian authority reverted to municipalities, it was solely up to the military how to respond to the nuclear attack. Admiral Douglass, the highest-ranking officer in the military, ordered the five nuclear weapons in EWT's possession to be fired at the five largest cities in Elveshia. This strike forced the conservative Christian government of Elveshia to collapse, and killed General Dredd.

Several high-ranking Elveshian military officers who survived the nuclear retaliation were put on trial for war crimes, convicted, and sent to maximum-security prison for life.

The Christofascist War, and especially the nuclear strike near the end, reduced EWT's population from roughly 300 million (at the time) to 285 million. As Woodians organized elections to replace the destroyed federal government, they realized that they would need massive amounts of foreign investment to rebuild their capital city, and voted en masse for capitalist candidates for the first time in national memory.

*reserved for part V*

VI. Overpopulation and Volcanology Research.

As Evil Woody Thoughts rapidly moved to industrialize and "catch up" to the rest of the NS world, a government report (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=7272016&postcount=1) argued that the nation, with its rapid population growth, would soon deteriorate into having the usual social problems caused by overcrowding, namely famine, disease, social unrest, and the like. The option of imperialist expansionism quickly fell out of favor, because the nation could not then field a military substantial enough to wage war against many nations at once. Clearly an alternative solution was needed.

The then-Minister of Education, Dr. Podolefsky (who also happened to be a brilliant scientist) argued for a crash volcanology research program. She envisioned a nation that could raise up land from the sea by forcing underseas volcanic eruptions. A research project was commissioned in 2006 to find a way to do this, and this project consumed the entire nation's research and development budget for many years.

On 6 November 2014, this research project finally bore fruit. Sixteen prototype seismic devices, somewhat akin to a geologist's nuke, had been "planted" more than twenty thousand feet below the depths of the sea in the season immediately preceding, put there by heavily specialized deep-sea oil drilling rigs. At 0415 local time, the seismic explosives were simultaneously detonated by remote control.

This "experiment" of sorts was a success, and resulted in something akin to the creation of a new Hawai'i, albeit with the formation process condensed from a few million years to a few months. The test yielded thirteen new islands with a total land area of approximately 50,000 square miles, or enough to double the land area of Evil Woody Thoughts, at a cumulative cost of several trillion dollars.

However, government officials realized, after a period of about three years, that even this new land would soon overcrowd, and sought to embark on an even larger project: the creation of a single island on a scale that would rival the natural formation of Japan. Such a project would require many more years, and a commitment to industrializing production of the highly specialized equipment that made the creation of artificial volcanoes possible.

The eventual result of this project was Woodyeen Island (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=7520425&postcount=1), tipping the cartography charts at 102,386 square miles in the year 2033, at a total cost of about $18 trillion (over 15 NS years). This was sufficient to allieviate overpopulation problems until Evil Woody Thoughts experienced a massive climate change...

Shortly after the Woodyeen Island project, the technology used was adapted for ground detonation as a deterrent (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=381422) in the war that then raged between AMF and the Right Wing Collective. Even though Evil Woody Thoughts remained neutral, military officials believed that standard nuclear weaponry was insufficient to deter such large nations. Despite Evil Woody Thoughts' evolution beyond this technology, the Ministry of Defence still maintains a stockpile, the size of which remains classified, should the missiles prove useful, be the use in war or terraforming.

The cumulative cost of all volcanology projects undertaken by Evil Woody Thoughts is approximately $30 trillion USD. Currently, this is a dormant sector of the economy.

VII. Climate Change.

Due to her location southeast of the Canary Islands, Evil Woody Thoughts enjoyed a subtropical climate for most of her existence as a nation. Summertime high temperatures were generally in the eighties or nineties (Fahrenheit), while wintertime lows generally did not drop below fifty degrees. The rainy season occured in the autumn, similar to (RL) Spain's.

However, industrial pollution and greenhouse emissions from Evil Woody Thoughts, and the rest of the NS world, put this climate in a precarious balance. Within a few years of the Woodyeen Island project, the ash/sulfur/carbon emissions of which violently disturbed this balance, Evil Woody Thoughts' climate rapidly started to deteriorate as the rapid climate change started to shut down the Gulf Stream Current.

The Gulf Stream Current was the provider of Evil Woody Thoughts' mild winters, and the loss of it stunned scientists who thought it would not occur for another century, if at all. Evil Woody Thoughts immediately did everything in her power to curtail her own greenhouse emissions, and called various climate change summits to persuade other nations to do the same. While a few nations agreed, most did not.

Meanwhile, in the span of ten years, Evil Woody Thoughts went from winters with no snow at all to winters that recorded eighty or more inches of annual snowfall. Climatologists warned that the climate was deteriorating at an exponential rate, and that Evil Woody Thoughts could expect a boreal climate in the future. They further warned that crop yields would fall precipitously, and that Evil Woody Thoughts would need to rapidly expand to offset the rapidly declining productivity of the land. However, more volcanology projects were no longer feasible, because of the tremendous greenhouse emissions of volcanic eruptions.

As Evil Woody Thoughts found itself dealing with significant snowfall for the first time, it also found itself dealing with a "secondary" hurricane season. The atmosphere found itself disturbed enough to produce polar cyclones, similar in basic principle to hurricanes, but originating in cold Arctic waters and meandering south. Such storms brought prolific amounts of snow, sometimes in excess of five feet. While appearance of these storms was initially highly sporadic, within about seven years, their appearance was frequent and regular enough to justify the declaration of a new "storm season."

On 16 February 2048, an editorial (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=398392) appeared in the Great Woody Times, and it had far-reaching effects. The Parliament considered its ramifications the very next day, and undertook a vote that would fundamentally changed the internal politics of Evil Woody Thoughts.

Subsequent votes in Parliament had an even greater effect, eventually leading to an exodus from Sol.

The winter after the first vote mentioned was especially harsh; Great Woody City reported measureable snowfall as late in the season as May 2049. Also, Evil Woody Thoughts was unfortunate enough to experience Polar Cyclone Arlene (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8606313&postcount=137) (picture) (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8591705&postcount=126), the most intense storm (measured by lowest pressure), of any kind, recorded on Earth, that August.

VIII. Leaving Earth/Sol.

The editorial (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8219128&postcount=1) that appeared in the nation's most influential newspaper on 16 February 2048 finally moved Evil Woody Thoughts' politicians to action. The very next day, the Parliament debated, and approved by an extremely narrow 26-24 vote, the plan advocated by the editorial, for many simply did not know what else to do. After all, the country's more traditional method of dealing with its looming problems would simply make another looming problem worse.

Objections were mostly based out of concerns that the request would go unheeded, or worse, result in contact with a hostile alien civilization looking for an oppurtunity for conquest. Fortunately, these fears did not materialize.

Days after the vote, the nation broadcast a request for help with its SETI equipment. Within a few weeks, Evil Woody Thoughts received offers for varying degrees of assistance from an assortment of future-tech nations. The Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Defence pooled some of their appropriations to purchase a wide variety of colony ships, transports, and light escorts from the various offers.

However, the most extensive offer of help came from the Gaian Ascendancy (http://www.nationstates.net/gaian_ascendancy), which offered not only a few ships for sale, but significant amounts of technology and large amounts of assistance in updating the country's industrial capacity to keep up with this infusion of technology. Moreover, they offered Evil Woody Thoughts their claim to three star systems near what was then their border, all of which contained at least one Class-M planet. However, so far, Evil Woody Thoughts has not expanded beyond the first star system, White Diamond*, because it has not needed to, and is currently preoccupied with developing the White Diamond system.

This offer sounded "too good to be true" to a significant voting bloc of Members of Parliament. This created a complication for then-Prime Minister Jacob Whitfield, who found himself negotiating with the Gaians without the support of his own political party, the Übernationalizts. The Übernationalizts formed a near-majority in Parliament, with the remaining seats split amongst other political parties, and the Übernationalizts felt that the Gaians would soon dominate Evil Woody Thoughts economically and turn her into a vassal state.

As a result, the leader of the Gaians, Lord Aleiac Kerensky, found himself debating various members of Parliament, in live session, to convince the MP's to ratify the proposed treaty. The debate transcripts can be found here:

Introduction of the Gaians to Parliament (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8293084&postcount=102)
Lord Aleiac Kerensky's speech (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8302116&postcount=107)
Questions, Round 1 (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8302410&postcount=108)
Kerensky's Answers, Round 1 (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8307033&postcount=109)
Questions, Round 2 (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8307528&postcount=110)
Kerensky's Answers, Round 2 (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8317161&postcount=111)
Last "Question" (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8317286&postcount=113)
Kerensky's Final Speech (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8317917&postcount=121)
Reflection (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8317991&postcount=123)
Internal Debate and Ratification (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8321823&postcount=125)

Evil Woody Thoughts immediately started to recruit interested citizens, both civilian and military, and began training them for life on another planet. One year after the Gaians' proposal was ratified, Evil Woody Thoughts conducted its first tests of the starships she had acquired, with crews native to Evil Woody Thoughts. On 20 July 2049 (which happens to be the eightieth anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon), the colonization fleet that Evil Woody Thoughts had assembled left Earth for White Diamond system.

While the Gaians had informed Evil Woody Thoughts of the presence of a class-M planet (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8368301&postcount=28), the Woodians were suprised to discover its immense size, approximately that of Saturn. Moreover, the Woodians found pre-existing cities (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8402459&postcount=36) on the system that they called their new home.

The presence of a pre-existing urban infrastructure speeded the recolonization effort immensely, as the government did not have to worry about building huge housing blocks for millions upon millions of colonists. As a result, the government focused its efforts during the earliest years of White Diamond colonization on moving as many citizens as practicable, moving a little more than 1 billion people in the first ten years.

The urgency of this operation has decreased somewhat, now that Evil Woody Thoughts' population living on Earth is only one-fourth what it used to be, and the government has focused its efforts of late on building industry and defensive capacity instead of moving colonists in the last two NS decades.

During his own time in White Diamond system, then-Prime Minister Jacob Whitfield discovered he had latent ability in the Force. Not long after his return to Earth, he announced that he would not seek re-election. Shortly after his term expired, he left for Jedi training. Little is known of his activities since.

*The Gaians originally referred to this system as White Sapphire, but then-Prime Minister Whitfield misspoke and called it White Diamond, not realizing that the Gaian capital system shared the same name. However, White Diamond stuck, and is the system's current name.

IX. Future Tech Industrialization.

The extent of the help provided by the Gaian Ascendancy allowed Evil Woody Thoughts to "industrialize" quite quickly. The country was able to spend funds that it had expected to use building basic infrastructure in a new star system to instead buy technology from other future-tech nations. In most technology-buying contracts, Evil Woody Thoughts insisted on a right to reverse-engineer it, and EWT's scientists quickly consolidated information gleaned from several disparate technology bases. Evil Woody Thoughts quickly became (and still is) a massive importer of technology.

With the help of the Gaians, Evil Woody Thoughts quickly built the White Diamond Drive Yards, a shipyard capable of producing roughly six to eight Immortal-class Star Destroyers per year, or greater quantities of smaller cruisers or destroyers, and the White Diamond 'Mechworks (http://www.forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=419235). These two facilities comprise a major portion of Evil Woody Thoughts' new industrial base, but recently, civilian sectors of the economy have discovered that new manufacturing processes increase efficiency enough to be worth the high initial investment. As a result, future-tech methods of production are quickly being adopted by the private sector as well.

Bump for a couple of updates. Reserved for future sections.

Bump for major updates. FT section is now complete.

Bump for another update.