NationStates Jolt Archive

Tamil Nadu, The Igovian Soviet Commonwealth

"It's a strange thing, you being out here like this." Mumbled the big Geletian, accidentally spitting a little of the food that crammed his bearded face as he spoke while gesturing about the camp with his rice-filled paw. His hosts, much smaller than the Celt and all of much darker complexion, smiled and one spoke up in a friendly refrain, "Oh, yes, well, you know, it is some times nice for friends to get out of their respective communities and join together. The Phalanxes are well and good, but one can not choose his family, eh?"

"So, ah..." another started, "...comrade Adiatorix... strange name for a Sovietist." he said, noting the rix suffix that indicated more authority than was usual in a Beddgelen name these days. "What brings you out here?"

The Geletian grunted a little as he tucked into another of the food items presented to him. He didn't address the matter of the name by which he earlier introduced himself, thinking to make it a story for the camp fire if he should be invited to stay on over night. "I've been dispatched, mm, very good, very nice, dispatched by the, ah, 149th Madras-Porthmadog Soviet to follow-up one of our senate liaison officers. He's been missing for nearly a week since we sent him to meet the regional senate up here." He finished with a nod up the road on which he'd been riding when, by chance, he had met these wandering locals.

Glances were exchanged amongst the three apparently semi-nomadic Indians in question. No, they said when Adiatorix asked whether they might have seen his associate, no outside Sovietists had been past this way.

"Wine?" Adiatorix was asked.
"Of course!" He replied with a grin, rising to his feet as one of the three walked to the tent that was near by, really little more than a glorified wind-break, presumably to fetch the mentioned intoxicant.

While the fellow was away, Adiatorix took to stretching, rubbing his stomach, and saying what a good meal it had been. Even as the other two Indians got to their feet, their perspective towards the Geletian was still inferior by more than half a foot.

"I say, you've spilled your sugar in the dirt, there." Adiatorix noted.

The big fellow belched, which was considered quite polite in reference to the feast laid on by his hosts and how much he enjoyed it, and was leaning back, stretching, in the middle of a great yawn when the third stranger returned from behind him and Adiatorix, eyes half closed and turned up to the sky, felt a sensation as if something was rushing towards him.

A blurred shape flashed across his face and suddenly there was a garrotte around his neck. It felt like silk, which was of little comfort! One of the two men in front now had hold of the Celt's left arm and was trying to reach at his belt, and he was aware of the second bearing down on him. Adiatorix swung his right hand, balled into a huge fist, and caught the approaching fellow across the left side of his face. It was far from a clean strike, but never the less it ruptured the attacker's ear drum and left him dazed and planted on the floor.

The Geletian's free hand then dove under his cape and caught hold the hilt of his sword, the high-carbon wootz blade attached to which, when swung upwards from its sheath, looked certain to catch in the heavy fabric of that cape but instead cut clean through it as it would through the man holding Adiatorix by his left arm. The second of his attackers howled in surprise more than in pain, realising that the blade had struck in his right armpit and taken off the whole limb, which now lay in the dirt, clutching a piece of brown fabric sliced with it from Adiatorix's cape.

By now the Celt had endured choaking for several seconds and had made a third swipe with his right hand, the second while grasping his sword, this time wildly back over his right shoulder. The blow struck the last assailant on the back of his own shoulder and left a gash that was eight inches long but far from crippling. The injury was sufficent to cause a loosening of his grip on the twisted silk held around his victim's throat, however, and with the rest of his body now free Adiatorix was able to give one last great effort, which he did, and put it all into a stooping turn to the right that brought him almost beside his wounded strangler, facing the opposite direction and crouched on one knee, and which came with an upward swing of his sword arm.

Minutes passed and the Sovietist regained most of his senses. The man behind him was now lying with his face turned to the clouds and an expansive field of bloody sand as a pillow, his eyes wide open and skin now pale as the Celt's. Adiatorix's sword had struck at the base of his skull and considered it no obstacle to progress that continued through his brain, cutting off the whole rear part of the strangler's head. In front and to the left of him the swordsman saw his second attacker twitching his last, one hand clasped around the flowing open wound where his second arm ought to have been attached.

A pattering sound at his feet made the Geletian look down and realise that he too was bleeding. His second sword-swipe, the one over his shoulder, had sliced off a part of his own ear. He almost laughed but didn't quite follow it through as he took his hand away from the bloody lump on the side of his head... the first man to fall was now sat upright with a confused expression plastered on his face and a terrible pain in his ear. Adiatorix broke his neck with a savage kick that only so briefly interrupted the strange calm in which he stood amongst carnage that recently was a supper between friends newly-made.

OOC: Finally, The mAoist house of cards crumbles.G

(A Tag, so we can monitor the situation...)

5th Tirupattur Commune, Tamil Nadu

Adiatorix arrived at the phalanstery nearest to the scene of his attack with his cape in tatters and blood turning to crust in his long hair and the right side of his impressive moustache. His horse seemed unphased by the whole affair, even by carrying three human heads (well, two and a half) on a cord around her neck.

The sight of this warrior fresh from battle caused a stir as Adiatorix rode slowly through the earth ramparts and across the drawbridged ditches leading to the community of some two thousand odd Tamils and mixed Geletians, and he was greeted by half the citizenry. Soon he was cleaned up and his wounds attended to, and the east coast Celt was the focus of a Local Senate discussion.

Describing the attack was sufficient for one of the older residents to utter the words, "Ari Tulucar." This caused some gasps, some laughs, and a lot of hushed talk. Ari Tulucar here, Phansigars to Adiatorix when he was suddenly hit by the realisation, and, to most of the world, Thugees. Kali worshippers, infamous for three centuries and by some accounts a million murders until thought exterminated by the British during the C19th, were now at large once more in one of the most civilised and free lands on earth.

Adiatorix was enraged by the passing comment of one citizen, made during a discussion of the problem. This fellow said that the Ari Tulucar should be respected, and though his sentiment was widely opposed by the assembly and would soon have been retracted on further consideration, Adiatorix picked it up as a weapon against what he saw as a grave decline in the Igovian Revolution. It was awash with hippies, probably coming from Hindustan! Hardcore revolutionists were leaving for the Philippines, South America, even Europe and the Russias! Are we left only with followers and the sort of liberals who'd rather respect culture than individuals? Westerners? Brainwashed and bowed followers of spirits in the sky, and those who thought they ought to be left to it rather than helped or stopped?

Adiatorix departed and headed back east, carrying tales of disorder and the inevitible return of crack-pot religions and tribalism under the anarchistic Commonwealth. He was just the most vocal man in a nationwide subculture, a subculture that claimed it should never have become subservient to a mainstream so casual.

Various Commonwealth news services had picked-up on the return of religious cults and a concurrent increase in crime rates (from almost nil to only a few times lower than most other nations!), and these stories ran alongside opinion pieces from doomspeakers fearful for the future of the economy after the Commonwealth had turned down the opportunity to do business with many nations because of political differences, while the Hindustanis, Spyrians, even the Neo-Anarchans seemed to be comfortable trading with less progressive authorities. Economic hardship would only lead more people to crime and religion, or so it was widely maintained.

OCC: Hey...not cool. Hippies my Owen-brandishing...well...you can guess the rest, eh?

IC:

Maharasthra Province

It was truly a superb operation, and Counstable Ibrahim Rajpuna isn't afraid to admit it.

Two weeks earlier, his staff in Aurangabad recieved unusually reliable intelligence concerning the comings and goings of a certain smuggling gang operating out of Goa, with considerable business in the rest of India and operations dangerously close to the Igovian border. At Chandrapur, said the informant, a force of nearly fifty smugglers and bodyguards was due to recieve a mixed shipment of poppies, Sten guns, and explosives on the night of the eighth, and some highly-placed individuals would be present.

When the smugglers finally assembled at the agreed-upon building, they found themselves surrounded by no less than one hundred Parliamentary Counstables, two companies of the Maharasthra HAuxGDF, eight Ferret armored cars, and several Alouette IIIs.

Now, standing beside a line of handcuffed smugglers, guarded by heavily-armed Counstables and reservists, he can't help but feel a sense of satisfaction.

"Excellent work, everyone! Leftenant, I tust you can handle this lot?"
"Aye, sah! Right, get them into the trucks!"

Counstables and army troops stand around the four columns of prisoners, about ten in each, Owens and Sterlings at the ready. The smugglers, many of them quite high, wear dazed and dejected looks. To say that they were caught off-guard by the presence of over two hundred troops and counstables, in addition to armored cars and helicopters, would be an understatement and only a few, no longer alive, were bold enough to try and shoot their way out.

A tall Sikh army leftenant, brandishing a Webley revolver, shouts at the new prisoners to get into the several Mahindra trucks waiting to take them to the provincial reformatory. More trucks arrive, escorted by several armored cars, and take the smugglers' goods away for destruction.

Several hours later, Counstable Rajpuna arrives back at HQ in Aurangabad, only to find a new stack of files on his desk. After hanging his Owen and magazine pouches on the coat rack, and flipping on the ancient desk lamp, he begins to flip through them.

"Whats this?" he says aloud, "Beth Gellert? Their border is bloody air-tight! What kind of idiot messes around with them? Here, Arjun, take a look at this!"

The mere thought of a criminal operation functioning in Beth Gellert at all is enough to make most of the counstables present laugh at the intelligence. It must just be some kids, they think, trying to sell opium in Beth Gellert. If the problem is a dangerous one, they assume, the well-armed and motivated Soviets will deal with it before the PC is out the door.

The idea that Thuggees, of all people, could be operating near the Hindu-Bedgellen border never crosses their minds, and if one were to suggest it to the counstables they would justifiably say that William Sleeman wiped them out in the 1830s...

Mumbai

While it would be nice to be able to restrict Hindustani trade with strictly 'progressive' states, Hindustan, unlike Beth Gellert, cannot do so and expect to come out of it with a health service, transport service, educational service, and defense force worth speaking of. The same style of government-arguably-is conducted by both Hindustanis and Igovians, but things are going much worse in Hindustan. If the Igovians are up in arms about a few stranglings, they're apt to faint in terror upon a trip to northern Punjab.

The situation in the Hindustani capitol is especially dire. Parliament recently sold off the last of its motor pool and fine furniture, and still relies on radio to stay in contact with provincial and local Parliaments. In the poorest parts of the city, children turned glue-zombies roam the streets, a lack of funds and trained personnel thwarting Parliament's efforts to take them in.

After fighting Beth Gellert for 40 years, Parliament in 1990 found itself confronted by the new revenue white paper and forced to take up the social work that was left off in 1949. Reversing four decades of decay and decline has had its successes, but there is still very much to be done and it has by no means proven cheap.

Therefore, say many Hindustanis, Beth Gellert has itself to blame for the present state of affairs. It isn't Hindustan's fault of Igovians find themselves afflicted by liberal ideology, they say. Aren't Igovians the best-educated people on earth? Can't they decide for themselves what they want to believe? Oh, and give us some Marathons in the meantime...

His Imperial Majesty Emperor Royce I put down the dossier he had been handed and chuckled to himself.

"I told you organised religion was nothing but trouble" he said.

He thought for a moment. "Wiggles, find out if there are any crackpot religious loonies in Roycelandia that we've been looking to get rid of, and then offer them funding to establish a Mission in Beth Gellert- on the strict understanding they don't come back once they go."

"I'll get right on it, your Majesty..."

OOC: Because of course religion leads to crime...

"Hey man, I was going to go to college and become an upstanding citizen, but then I found Jesus in my life. And he said to me in a vision, "Pablo, go forth and sell crack unto the world."

Or...

"Yo homie, I was walking to the youth center to educate poor mentally ill minority handicapped children, but like, this street preacher named Abdul was really passionate about his cause. I got converted to Islam, and now I serve Allah, b*tches! Now I have a sudden urge to hold up grocery stores, graffiti walls, and generally act like a sullen and disobedient teenager. Now if you'll excuse me, I have old ladies to beat up in the name of Allah most merciful."

But seriously, there have been no connections between religion and crime.

OOC: I suppose it is appropriate that you put that observation here, then, since there is no connection between what you said and the prior content of this thread.

OOC:
"Economic hardship would only lead more people to crime and religion, or so it was widely maintained."

"Various Commonwealth news services had picked-up on the return of religious cults and a concurrent increase in crime rates"

Those statements seem to be pretty damn explanatory, but meh. Perhaps I misinterpreted---I am known widely as a fool, after all.

Hmmm...BG, this seems to be working up to be an interesting RP...I'll TG you an idea I have soon...

OOC:
"Economic hardship would only lead more people to crime and religion, or so it was widely maintained."

"Various Commonwealth news services had picked-up on the return of religious cults and a concurrent increase in crime rates"

Those statements seem to be pretty damn explanatory, but meh. Perhaps I misinterpreted---I am known widely as a fool, after all.

Hmmm...BG, this seems to be working up to be an interesting RP...I'll TG you an idea I have soon...

Just becuase a rise in crime and rise in religion generally tedn to go hand in hand does not not mean cuasality and neither of those quotes specifically state any such link although if you read it the right (or worng depending on your view point) it is certainly implied and i'm sure there are Igovians who think that way, of course in the subcontinetal region religion and western morals don't always combine, the Thugee cult being a good example.

OOC: I apologise for this brief diversion, but there's a few things vis-a-vis Roycelandia and Religion that I should clarify in the context of my earlier post.

The Official Roycelandian Religion is "Atheist". However, this does not mean that there is no Religion in Roycelandia- far from it.

In effect, the Roycelandian Government does not believe in God/Allah/Jehovah/Yahweh/Satan/Kali/Pagan Gods/The Great Green Arkleseizure/Any Other Deity. However, the Roycelandian Constitution guarantees (to a large extent) Freedom of Religion, with the caveat you aren't allowed to force it on others.

In short, you can believe and practice your Religion to your heart's content, but don't force it on anyone else or expect the Imperial Government to buy into to.

All the major world Religions are present in Roycelandia, with the exception of the Mormons, Church of Scientology, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, who are all prohibited from maintaining a presence in or being anywhere NEAR Roycelandian territory.

As with any religion, there will be extremists and people who have their own, shall we say "unique", interpretations of the relevant Scriptures of their faith.

It is these people- the ones who think, for example, that God is telling them to marry 12 year old girls, maintain the sort of arsenal that would enable Strathdonia to successfully invade Lusaka, and that anyone who disagrees with them is a Heretic/Unbeliever/Infidel who must be put to the sword lest the contaminate the Word with their untruths, you know the sort- that Roycelandia is thinking about packing off to Beth Gellert with a view to using them to stir up the locals, get into fights with the local authorities, and generally create just a bit more mayhem (which should not be confused with Project Mayhem, which is *Classified Information Deleted- The First Rule Of Project Mayhem is You Do Not Talk About Project Mayhem*)

I'm well aware that Religion and Crime are not related (except in Northern Ireland, and even then it's generally a case of rival factions using Religion as a convenient label rather than any real ideological differences), but of course "Crime" is defined by local laws, and what's legal in one place might get you locked in a rather unpleasant dungeon for 10 years in another.

IC: Port Royal, Roycelandia

"Here's the list of Religious Undesireables, Your Majesty" Wiggles said, handing His Majesty a surprisingly voluminous dossier.

"Excellent work, Wiggles. When you get home tonight, there'll be another story on your house!" beamed His Majesty.

"Thank you, Your Majesty. Now then, I've categorised them all for easier reference. The 10 files at the front are the dangerous ones who have effectively denounced the wider world as being the work of Satan, The Hated One, C'Thulu, or (he leaned over, trying to clarify a translation) 'The Unclean One'. In effect, they've got compounds, a leader with a Messiah Complex, and enough guns to arm an entire Division of the Imperial Guard."

"Charming" said His Majesty, reaching for a Ham & Egg sandwich.

"The next lot are high-profile preachers or televangelists, but with unusual and possibly subversive teachings. Some of them are just out to line their pockets, but others seem to have a similar sort of Messiah Complex and basically want the world to be run their way."

"But I want the world to..." started His Majesty

"Moving right along" continued Wiggles, heading off the Emperor's line of discussion, "Are the general Religious Fundamentalist Sects you get anywhere- there's a wide cross section here, and some of them could be very useful for Project Mayh... erm, other projects throughout the Empire."

"A lot there to think about, Wiggles. Leave it with me... take the rest of the day off, and I'll see you again on Monday with Commander Blackadder. It's always nice to poke the Igovians a bit, you know..."

As indicated by Strathdonia, there is no causality indicated between either concept of crime or religion in the first quote you selected, AC, and in the second the cult reference is, considering the context, directed at the Kali worshippers who've -to a yet unknown degree- resurfaced in the south and begun strangling people and looting their bodies. If that's not criminal in your estimation, then you're a lot more liberal than I thought! That's the sort of liberalism that the Commonwealth will not abide.

The concept of rights never developed in Beth Gellert though the Europeans and Roycelandians attempted to introduce several different sets when they arrived in the colonial era. The flexibility of the concept struck the locals as part of the primitive nature of the newcomers, who initially had inferior metal working technology, generally smaller stature, a propensity to burn if they stood outside for too long, and in most cases a belief in personified deities as well. At best they were humoured.

There's no right to any sort of belief, because the idea is absurd. Society has... no right to dictate rights, essentially.

In the Commonwealth, if you express religious sentiment, your friends try to help you get over it, they worry about you, and they may eventually hold an intervention. The state doesn't give a damn until you start strangling people or upsetting the economy by trying to waste resources on pet projects and religious buildings that consume a disproportionate amount of resources.

Much like how one can sell goods he makes off his own labour (so long as he isn't trying to live off an unwilling commune without contributing to its national economic work in the meantime), but if he tries to give someone else the right to make it for him while he sits back and takes a cut of the profit (or tries to use 'rights' to stop someone else stealing his idea) he's liable to disappointment.

Some foreigners have no doubt tried to compile a charter of Beddgelen rights based on how the Commonwealth works, but they'll tend to be frustrated by inconsistancies and the fact that nobody ever refers to rights in Commonwealth legal proceedings. Since criminality is subject to law, the ideas of crime and religion are tied in here, too. There arguably is a link between religion and crime in the Commonwealth, it's just that westernised minds are generally too closed to see it.

This isn't a land of social-democrat parties, of Maoist collectives, of Marxist ambitions, or of Leninist authorites, nor is it a primitive one of pre-capitalist tribalism or other forms. I'm not saying that because you should understand what it is, just that one should be careful about judging the Commonwealth by the narrow concepts and experiences of his own life.

Oh, religious nutjobs coming in to the Commonwealth are likely to struggle for food and shelter, by the by! You pretty much have to find a commune willing to take you in if you want to visit Beth Gellert, and most have at least a couple of hundred militia weapons and auxiliary members prepared to deny access to anyone who makes themselves unwelcome (or tries to pitch a tent and steal crops/livestock/game)!

OOC: I misunderstood, sorry...Blame my school, dammit! I've been working until 2 AM everyday this week, forgive me...

Anyhow, Royce, I understand that Jehova's and Scientology is an outright scam, but the Mormons, although damn weird, are not at all harmful. Why keep them out of Roycelandia?

And BG, I think your views are frankly discriminatory. How do you expect people to be free if they're not given permanent rights? So I guess it's alright if the Tsar murders a few hundred people, because their rights are diffferent? Oh, and you say you have such a free nation...But the government decides what is a good use of resources and what is not? Why can't the person decide for himself? Would you want Blair deciding which party is "a good use of resources"? And people having "interventions" if someone shows religious sentiment? Is that not what all of my atheist friends complain about whenever an overzealous Christian friend of theirs gets on their case? Seriously, for a nation that claims to be so tolerant, you're surprisingly authoritarian, beneath the surface...

OOC: Well, for what it matters, I know that your views are of facades and not the lies behind them, but usually I don't pin the death of the market or the sell out of party politics on your stories. Cheers.

OOC: Eh, I can't for the life of me figure out what you're saying (I have several theories, but they're not based on concrete enough information to come to a conclusion) but that's likely a result of my sleep deprivation. You could clarify, or I could check again in the morning when I'm more coherent.

EDIT: By the way, check your TGs...

EDIT 2: Ah, drank some caffeine, starting to get my mind working...Are you saying I'm taking your political views from your stories? I was under the impression that BG represented your views fully. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry. (Wrong about this interpretation or wrong about my thought about what BG represents)

Many Hindustanis find themselves utterly confused with Igovians' constant lecturing on rights, and many train cars near the border areas erupt into heated discussion over the merits of Igovian revolutionary ideals as opposed to Hindustan's constitutionalism. "What does it matter, rights or no rights," says one passenger, "as long as nobody's being oppressed? Call it what you will, but you've got to admit there are certain things that we all consider unacceptable as human behaviors."

No doubt this does little to dissuade the Igovians present, but that comment expresses most Hindustanis' dismay over what seems a Bedgellen refusal to accept that there are certain basic things that you must prevent from happening in order for a society to be civil. What Igovians dismiss as 'liberalism' is most likely Hindustan's financial inability to establish as pure a revolutionary society as exists in Beth Gellert. Some particularly cynical Hindustanis might note that, "if you Bedgellens didn't invade a third of our treaty land and destabilize another third, we might be better off today. Not everybody can reverse such a history overnight." Still others say that Hindustan needed a revolution in 1962, and simply dodged the bullet of great revolution with, at long last, military success.

If one were to ask Hindustanis if they are happy with their lot in life, many would say yes and many would say no. If it wasn't for the regular and quite direct role played by even the poorest citizen in government and free, accessible medical attention, no doubt the countryside would be in constant turmoil. But save a minority, albeit growing, of extremist elements, Hindustanis have largely proven exceptionally willing to participate in government and civil society. The economy is definately growing, if slowly, and becoming more and more self-sufficient. What the country needs, say most people, is a few decades of calm and good international standing in order to sort itself out.

It remains to be seen if the world will be so kind as to oblige Hindustan in that regard.

Heil

Most Beddgelens -Igovians- will talk to Hindustanis almost as if they were members of the Commonwealth.

Today especially there will be Igovians near the border talking about their 1982, 1989, and more recent miniature revolutions, and in light of economic troubles bearing down on them and already labouring the progress of Hindustani society there will be specific focus to be noted. Many will talk about the conflict over what exactly was to be done, and they try to associate it with the concept of rights.

Some called for justice after the 1982 civil war, and this to a large degree came to levelling-down. Why should one free-born man end up with more than another? This was especially hard to understand when the one with less had worked every hour hunder the sun for most of his life. People, thinking of rights as introduced from the west, tried to make abstract provision for real things that were owed naturally to every Igovian, essentially as a birth-right. Of course, this came to be seen as an expression of private property. And once everyone's rights were satisfied, an individual was free to seek more for himself, and soon was seeking the protection of rights for the sake of his fortune, and before anyone knew it law was arisen to protect property from the majority.

Igovians tend to worry about the origin of things. When Hindustanis talk about rights as in reference to simple things that must not be allowed to happen or that must be perpetual in civilised society, Beddgelens will wonder whether these are natural things or societal. Perhaps the most important and simple feature is that rights may always be subjective, changing, in the control of men, relative, and cultural: a man standing up to suggest that the Thugees be left alone, thus enraging Adiatorix, exemplifies this. The Igovian revolution is rooted in need, not in justice, law, and rights.

Needless to say, Igovians aren't likely to see life as a right, but a condition.

Rights, as Igovians see them, are given, earned, taken away, and have to be subject to change, interpretation, and to protection and enforcement. They are sometimes justification for action. They certainly are justification for government, and often become political weapons there after. The concept of rights is usually viewed as a somewhat patronising one, and to an outsider it may look as though it is regarded as un-Beddgelen, or, in Beddgelen culture as somehow unmanly to accept the protection of rights ordaned by or enforced by some external body.

Murder is still viewed as a crime, but, on a societal level, it is a crime against the revolution rather than against the individual. To take away a person's right to life, as one old man will explain to his Hindustani chess partner in some café on one side or other of the border, seems a personal thing, and we don't want to involve strangers in that. To break the condition of life, to interfere with willing participation in the revolution, this is something else.

Most of the body of rights in the world arose when classes were formed that started to interfere with others left-out, and in many cases in order to keep them out. Igovians would rather take part in sustaining their revolution and its progress than sit down to fortify and bind what they happened to have so far. There's just no real interest in the concept, and Beddgelens are fine without it, much as without a police force, ordinary prison system, head of government, political parties, or capitalists, amongst other things.

That many continue to advocate the abolition of the army has become a more significant issue since the time of the Coral Sea Crisis, and, indeed, that it is an issue at all -with advocats in the army's favour- raises the question of how much of the Commonwealth's freedom may soon be opposed.

Adiatorix, when the world saw him, appeared as designed to suit the physical form of one from the two strains of modern tyrant. The Drapoel, to Geletian eyes the Chinese, perhaps the French and the Quinntonians all had their small sometimes almost pitiful but always intense focal figures; the Russias had their more obvious Tsar. And it was initially to the latter that Adiatorix bore some imposing similarity... but he wore it naturally and was no genetic freak, for a large part of his audience stared back from the same height and with the same great health and all the self assurance and courage needed to look such a potentate in the eyes.

The Geletian in focus would talk to his comrades as if he expected that they would know what he was intending, that he wasn't an informer, a promiser, a bearer of threats or of bad news. But he did this with Geletian authority as a warrior of proven repute, a politically equal participant in his soviet, and he allowed his peers to forget that these things on which he spoke were matters to which such men -as he and each of them wanted to be regarded- ought to have long since attended. Actually, the process of forgetting their long forsake of duty as warriors and revolutionaries was a contributing factor in the ferocity of their revitalisation. That is to say, casting off their inaction made their new action more intense than it would have been if sustained throughout.

Adiatorix was a Beddgelen who knew how to talk to modern Beddgelens. They weren't part of the Asian mainstream, but had deliberately rejected western influences and were in some ways more eccentric than the world's more extreme hermits because of this. The Drapoel hyper concentrated a certain blend of Asian norms, the Glakatahn just preserved something that everyone had been well able to read about in history books, the Neo-Anarchans exemplified the fruition of a global under-culture, but the Beddgelens... Diodorus Siculus accused their forefathers of being quick-learning, melodramatic boasters who spoke in subjective riddles, and the Geletians who uprooted themselves and continued east once again not so very long after that historian's death were still very much the same in some since enriched respects, and Adiatorix spoke on his return to Madras-Porthmadog.

"Dead men of '47 and '82, who, pale from the hard kiss of freedom and calm - you whose hearts lept with love under your rags, O soldiers whom Death, noble mistress, hath sown in all the old furrows, so that they may be regenerated - you whose blood washed clean every defiled greatness, dead men of Kolkatta, of Madras, of Salvador, O million benevolent heroes with your soft dark eyes; we were leaving you to sleep alongside the Revolt; we, cowering before monarchs and spirits as if before dragons and giants. Messrs Cassagnac are talking to us about you again!"

This meant that -apart from the fact that appropriation of another's prose was no crime in a land where a commune's bards were more watched than its televisions- the revolution had been left to idle, someone had usurped the milk and the apples, and -as the waking conscience of the warriors realised- eyelids had sunk and supernatural forces were stalking the dreams that resulted (revolutionary youth was turning to middle-aged spread, and anarchist students were taking 2.4 kids to church - rightists had been able to calm-down and elect the John Bulls and other moderates of the world). But, as the address concluded, it could be understood that the reactionaries had cause to resurge and chatter once again because (the melodramatic boasters were prepared to take credit for the European right-swing to which they were so opposed, and) a Beddgelen had awoken with a jolt from his nightmare of thuggery, and where one warrior walked four hundred million would protect his flank.

OOC: Bravo BG! Excellent writing! Such passion, such a broiling cauldron of destiny! Your posts before have hinted at your hidden writing talents, but this is perhaps the first time I'd say you fully revealed them. I'd say your only literary fault is a lack of clarity at times...

OOC: Heh, you just have to read that as a Beddgelen thing, I fear :) I tried to work that in as... well, as an excuse with the whole bards/riddles/melodrama bit.

Oh, I mean, thanks! Hopefully BG will do a little more, in future... running it the way I would want a society to function was too conflicting for me when I tried to interact.

Good crap, I'm tired [slides out of chair]

OCC: Indeed, BG, excellent work!

How I wish I could write like that...I find my prose generally lacks character.

*Writes about something objective*

IC:

More often than not, Hindustanis probably try to end debate between themselves and Igovians with something like, "Well, I suppose we don't see eye-to-eye on everything, but it doesn't look set to cause a problem soon. Let's drink alcohol now, eh?" And with more and more rail lines being converted to Igovian broad-gauge (one can now get to Port Muhammad bin Qasim without switching trains), Igovian revolutionary ideas gain ever more popularity amongst Hindustanis, even though few see it necessary to change what has so far amounted to an agreeable and beneficial commonwealth system.

On the subject of police, Hindustanis explain that the Parliamentary Constabulary is entirely an elected body of officers, and relatively few in number to boot, with a reputation for proffessionalism. It would be a waste, they say, to use such dedicated and able officers, what few there are, on anything besides detective work and large-scale raids. Local order-keeping is generally the providence of the HAuxGDF, another highly inclusive organization, so, say Hindustanis, there's not much oppressing being done by the Police force.

Despite the almost entirely amicable relationship between Hindustan and Beth Gellert, word of this Adiatorix character worries some. Those with history texts nearby might discover that the Bedgellen in question shares a name with an ancient Gelatian king, and it begs the question as to if this is not conicidence. A more authoritarian Igovian Soviet Commonwealth would be less than ideal, but Mumbai is now tied to Madras more strongly than ever and is not inclined to abandon its eastern neighbor just because of evolving ideologies, which don't seem set to do any more harm than those in Britain or Quinntonia.

Of course, they'll just have to wait and see how the situation plays out...

OOC: Not necesssarily. It tends to have this twitchy, scholarly, fiesty style.

And is Dubya a go or no go, BG? You never gave me a straight answer and I don't want to meddle if I'm not welcome.

(OOC: Well, there's nothing stopping him coming in and trying something. How much impact it'll have remains to be seen in an ocean with stronger currents.)

Adiatorix, son of a tetrarch in Galatia, massacred one night the Romans of Heracleia. Unlikely to be a given name in the modern Commonwealth, and presumably not adopted by one likely to trust Romans or Antonys.

Adiatorix had little trouble raising elements of the 149th Madras-Porthmadog Soviet to embark on a local campaign against counter-revolutionary activity. This included a lot of casual questioning in the community, a slight increase in activity on the shooting ranges -most of which, in the Commonwealth, utilise moving targets-, and a stake-out of a local Hindu temple that did nothing more objectionable during the week's watch than fail to clean up a few spilled offerings on one night before Civil Servants turned up to prepare a Local Senate meeting at the public building.

Before long the riled Geletians assembled a party that Adiatorix would lead west to exterminate the Kali-worshipping Phansigars and assess the condition of misrule and mismanagement in that part of the Commonwealth.

Strangely, news of the marching of several dozen armed Sovietists did not immediately break: Adiatorix had talked local reporters into marching with him and recording what went on for later publication rather than going to print with half a story, and this was because he knew that the Commonwealth's usual apetite for information would have the stranglers warned well in advance of his arrival.

Border Post, Roycelandian Goa

It was a surprisingly humid evening, and so far nothing of note had happened on the border between Roycelandian Goa and Beth Gellert. (Nothing had happened on the Goa/Hindustan border either, but Roycelandian/Hindustani relations, whilst not exactly warm, were certainly civil, at any rate).

The border guards on duty were filling in the evening's paperwork, when one of them stepped outside for a smoke.

There was nothing especially unusual about the rusty old car that pulled up as he did so- Bedgellen knock-off cars were very common in these parts- but the driver and his family were a bit more interesting.

They were requesting residency in Roycelandia, based on the fact that there were some rather strange and disturbing things going on in more remote parts of the country, including the Thugee resurfacing.

Naturally, Roycelandia is always happy to accept Bedgellen emigrants, but the reports of religious problems and the Thugee were a cause for concern.

"The Thugee?" asked another border guard later, as he field-stripped and cleaned the border checkpoint's Lewis Gun. "Didn't the Brits wipe them out sometime in the 1800s?"

"Evidently not" replied his colleague, who was sitting on the bonnet of a LandRover, drinking a Coke.

"Well, if they try anything here they'll be very sorry indeed" said the first, re-assembling the machine-gun with the air of someone who's had a lot of practice at it.

Meanwhile, of course, Port Royal was trying to find someone to send into Beth Gellert to find out exactly what was going on...

The Thugees had indeed been wiped-out by the British better than a century before independence, with hundreds hanged and others shot. The Geletians had often been employed in capturing members of the cult. But this cult of Kali was indeed a sort of cult, not a race, and it could arise again. It could also be attacked again without anyone calling it genocide.

Adiatorix -and others like him, since at this stage he was not the only big character filled with the new mood- pursued the Phansigars for weeks, during which time news began to leak out. But Adiatorix went further, not entirely be his own design but in seeing that his most enthusiastic and committed revolutionary comrades wanted to, and attacked the inferior phyiscal but equal mental corruption of other cults. Such cults as swore allegiance to Rome were most easily removed, and their obviously rancid core made it so much easier to encourage more Beddgelens away from other cultist fruits. It was fair to say that religious activity in the Commonwealth was declining now faster than it had during the authoritarian Sopworth Commonwealth, and this time by choice and associative propaganda more than force of Russian-supplied bulldozers.

Communities ceased to voluntarily support religious leaders, who long since had lost most of their influence and seen their doctrine diluted by the popular imposition on their institutions of democratic functions, and volunteers to help in the upkeep of religious establishments and buildings were increasingly thin on the ground.

But there was more happening and more to come. Adiatorix, after capturing several dozen extreme cultists and reputedly killing perhaps as many as three individuals, he -along with a minority of his comrades from the 149th (some returned home to Madras) and some new comrades made on the progress of his quest- embarked upon a tour of the Commonwealth. He went by horse, and stopped often along the way with his comrades to engage a faltering community with encouraging words and practical help. Where citizens had become politically idle and were sinking back into personal isolation, the party of Adiatorix stayed on for a few days and shook-up the community, usually suspecting current senate and soviet officials of wrong-doing, perhaps by nursing the atmosphere of disengagement and apathy or else by creating the impression that only pigs were smart enough for brain work.

Few could stand up to the passionate assault of the 149th when they entered debates and visited local senates. Adiatorix invariably left a commune louder and more active than he found it.

Whenever they stopped with an audience, Adiatorix spoke on extra-Commonwealth criminality in India and the open border with Hindustan, the persistant colonial stain on India's west coast, and the worsening obscurity and regression of the northeastern states. His words largely went over well, but not without significant and often lively, well-informed resistance from some quarters.

In West Bengal, however, crowds ate-up the speaker's words. People here grew-up in a sham-communist state aligned at various times with the USSR, Mao's China, the Kanendru revolutionaries, and other East Asian communists. The old party-driven communists were still popular, though they hadn't really achieved social, political, or economic progress since independence. They (the West Bengali communist parties) had done a good job of convincing people that communism was something they had to work towards in time if they did not want to befall terrible bloodshed as seen in Korea and China when they attempted to reach it over night, even though -without relying on government control- the people of the Commonwealth had made vast progress already. And when that wasn't enough, they'd been able to blame gangsters within and capitalists without for hampering their work, and then the counter-revolutionary traitors of China and Russia for abandoning it. West Bengal had joined the Commonwealth along with Jharkhand following the latter's ideological break with Bihar, but West Bengal made less progress than the smaller and better developed partner. Through Adiatorix, the people of West Bengal were, it seemed, finally able to relate to their more left-wing comrades in the rest of the Commonwealth, and it was here that progress was fastest in respect of the realisation of a new mood.

In the Commonwealth, this was just another revolution, and like the leftist swing concurrent with the Coral Sea Incident rather than the revolt of 1982. It now took a keen eye to understand change as it took place in Beth Gellert, for though the personal fame of Adiatorix was spreading through heads like champagne bubbles from a shook bottle this was not the rise of a new individual authoritarian but of an aggressive and self-ashured mood shared amongst the body of a society comprising four hundred million individuals. Free people who realised that they were two for each under the thumb of the Tsar, active bodies and minds seven for every wasted Frenchman, knights who matched piece for piece the pawns of Port Royal and Washington combined.

OOC: I'm going to try and be involved soon (HW! AUGH!) but can you please tell me...By "cult of Rome" are you referring to Catholics?

(OOC: Alright, first of all, I hope any of you can put aside any grudges you have against Dubya for the sake of this RP---he’s like Vladimir Putin in that I borrow some aspects of the real man, (although in Dubya’s case it’s a lot more than name and hair color. Dubya looks, sounds like, and shares some personality aspects with the real man.) but he is not in any way at all the same person as in RL. So don’t just use this thread as a way to snipe at the politician you love to hate---please treat him as you would any other character with any other name. And BG, I know you’re going to come and point out how poverty is rare in BG <Completely unrealistic, but it’s your country> and people live in Phalansteries, not cities---but that’s why I’m basing this in the poorest parts of newly annexed territory, which obviously have a long way to go to catch up. Okeh, enough explanation, let’s get this show on the road!)


Bhavishhyadvakt

The sun had begun to rise, giving the sky an orange hue, and filling the air with a sticky, humid warmth that weighed so heavily upon the denizens of the Indian ghetto in the newly annexed portions of Beth Gellert that it seemed as if a swarm of locusts had decided to rest upon their bodies. The heat brought forth a putrid smell from the piles of trash littered across the streets, and this, combined with the scent of sweaty flesh produced by the mobs of people passing back and forth within the busy street, made the already crime and poverty ridden area even more unpleasant. But such was life, and the hum of business continued unabated, as smells of sweat mingled with the scent of curry, merchant voices crowded the air, and everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. Supposedly this city was a part of Beth Gellert, and supposedly it was well on it’s way to a relaxed and prosperous utopia, but to its to citizens, and especially to a certain Ms. Lakhnauti, it certainly didn’t seem that way.

Mrs. Lakhnauti, a proud but poor middle-aged Indian woman, lay against a wall, screaming and crying. A nasty band of hoodlums, wearing filthy rags eerily reminiscent of the garb of Quinntonia’s urban youth, ransacked her home with savage ferocity. They smashed through furniture with reckless abandon, trampled her family’s heirloom rugs, and bashed open glass cabinets in order to pillage the antiques inside. Lakhnauti had not always been poor; in fact, she had been married to one of her city’s wealthiest denizens for nearly twenty year. However, the untimely combination of a Thugee crime wave, the collapse of Mr. Lakhnauti’s rug business, and his death in a freak sponge accident had left Mrs. Lakhnauit in dire financial woes and reduced the once prosperous woman to poverty. Still, she had retained many valuables that her honor prevented her from selling, and had thus ensured a visit from the local band of criminals. She squealed and begged and protested, but it was to no avail. The gang leader would not be stopped by a whining woman with a broom, he said.

“Will you be stopped by my fist, then!?!” barked someone in Hindi with a heavy accent that was, of all things, Texan.

The gang leader whirled around, only to lose his last tooth. A fist smashed into his formerly grinning face, and he fell back onto the cement floor of the apartment. Mrs. Lakhnauti couldn’t help but stare at the strange man who had knocked down the gangster. He looked like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie, with his brown cowboy hat, leather jacket, faded jeans, and steel spurred cowboy boots. Two glistening revolvers lay in wait in their holsters, and his hands were curled into fists, tensed and ready for combat. A black bandanna with a strange white cross emblazoned on it concealed most of his face, but the part that remained visible seemed to radiate the focus and determination of a man who was on a mission he knew was right.

“Alright, ya sonsuvbitches…Who else wants some of the Lord’s justice?” said the man, now in English, but retaining his Texan twang. The other gang members stared at the cowboy for a moment. They then glanced at each other, shrugged, and charged at the cowboy with their knives and clubs raised. The man’s eyes seemed to smile as he stopped the first gangster’s club-wielding arm with both hands and delivered a sweeping kick to his legs. The gangbanger collapsed backwards and nearly fell upon a knife wielded by his comrade, but for some reason the cowboy stopped his foe’s fall, saving his life. The gangster stared at the man’s eyes in bewilderment, and then the man hurled the gangster aside, knocking down two of the thugs in the process. Two knife wielding men leaped at the cowboy, one from each side. The jacket donning fellow leapt forward, dodging the deadly knives, and then snapped around, delivering a powerful kick to one of the would-be assassins’ neck. The other knife wielder howled and raced towards the green eyed cowboy. Within seconds, the green eyed man had drawn his two revolvers, and the gangster’s eyes widened in horror. With two quick shots, the knives had flown out of the gangster’s hands, and the cowboy pistol whipped the criminal in the skull. One of the injured criminals had somehow managed to dial his cellphone during the fight, however, and streams of thugs began pouring into the small apartment from every direction.

Mrs. Lakhnauti shut her eyes, trembling, and the last thing she heard before fainting from the stress of it all was the sound of knuckles cracking, and the words “Let’s rock and roll, bitches” in an accent that could only hail from the deep southern regions of the United States.
_________________________________________________________________

“Ma’am, are you alright?” asked a strangely comforting voice within the void. The darkness slowly began to clear out of Mrs. Lakhnauti’s mind as she regained consciousness, and the body of the strange cowboy began to form within her sight.

“Are we dead? What happened?”

The man chuckled strangely, as if her words had triggered an old memory, and shook his head.

“No ma’am, I don’t think we have come upon the Lord’s kingdom just yet.”

The woman was about to ask who this Lord he kept on prattling about was, until she looked around the room and the words became lodged in her throat. Her mouth fell wide open in astonishment as she saw piles upon piles of unconscious young men lying in her now ruined apartment. Had this man really taken them all on…by himself?

“Don’t worry, Ms….?”
“Lakhnauti. Mrs. Lakhnauti.”
“… Mrs. Lakhnauiti. I just called my boys on the cellular phone---they should pick up these gangbangers a lesson.”

Mrs. Lakhnauti suddenly panicked, and rose wildly.

“No! No! Please don’t kill them! They are scum, yes, but they’re so young! Please do—“
The cowboy put his hands in front of him in a calming gesture, and said, “Not to worry ma’am. My boys are all followers of Jesus Christ---we just want to educationalize these youths about our Lord and Savior. We’ll keep ‘em locked up, preach to them, and once we feel they’ve been punished enough, either let ‘em join us, or if they’re unwillin’ to see the light, let ‘em go. You don’t want us to call the police now do ya?”

The Indian woman shook her head and shuddered, remembering the horribly corrupt reputation the police had around this area.

“True…But…who is this Jesus Christ? And who are you?”
The cowboy smiled, and said, “I’m glad you asked, ma’am. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior---he came upon this earth about two millenia ago, and, as was predicted by even older Jewish prophecies, preached a message of love, peace, and salvation.”

As a group of clean cut young Indian men bearing similar garb to the cowboy and various bits of Christian paraphernalia entered into the room (each respectfully greeting the cowboy and his new Indian friend) and began to clear out the piles of criminals, the green eyed man continued, seeing that the woman was eager to hear what he had to say.

“He taught that we should not continually wage wars of revenge, but turn the other cheek, that we should love all our neighbors, regardless of race and religion, that we should aid those in need, and most importantly, that we could achieve eternal salvation simply by repenting all our sins and accepting Him into our heart. For ya see, the Messiah (as we also call Him) was no ordinary man---He was, and is, the Son of God. He proved this by performing numerous miracles, and then, He, the son of God Himself, died upon the cross so that our sins could be forgiven. He died for humanity, He died for me, He died…for you. Ma’am, I’m sorry, but my men tell me we have other…situations to deal with, but here’s my card…stop by and we can talk s’more, alright?”

He handed her the card which bore the name of his organization (Formally, it was the “Christian Salvation Church”, but informally it was called “Cowboy Christianity”), its motto (“Kicking Ass For Christ!”), and an address (a bar-turned-Temple-of-Christ), but it lacked one thing: his name. As he began to walk off into the sunrise, she called out after him.

“Wel, my birth name is George W. Bush. But you can call me… Bhavishhyadvakt.”

“…the Prophet.”
_________________________________________________________________

George W. Bush had come to Beth Gellert in a stealthy manner totally uncharacteristic of the former Russian Speaker of the House. Armed with tens of millions of dollars and followed by a band of Christians he had befriended during his travels as a member of the A-Team, he had infiltrated into a poverty stricken district in a large, only newly Bedgellen city on the fringes of the nation. He was on a divine mission, or so he felt, and the work of God had to be done very carefully. Thus, he began slowly, suddenly showing up at fires or other disasters with men and money, and imparting a few hints of Christ. He eventually expanded his aid operations, and more and more often the people of the district would find that, when they needed help, his hand would be right there waiting for them. A father lost his job? He would get the family some cash and food to get them through. Some criminals were harassing a widow? He and his boys would break a few skulls and then fill them with so much Christian kindness that the ex-criminals would show up a week later offering to fix the damage they had wrought.

He was never intolerant or oppressive with his preaching, but he would so consistently speak of his Lord that curious minds, impressed with the kindness and strength that this strange man in a cowboy hat seemingly drew from this “Christ” he continually spoke about, inquired further. His church grew at an astounding rate, especially after he and his men essentially took over the local government’s job, keeping the peace and delivering welfare services. Although they refrained from interfering with the actual government, tensions soon rose as the corrupt district officials saw all power seep away from their hands and realized that their subjects neither needed nor wanted them anymore. After all, all social services were handled far more effectively by this newly minted group of Christians, and they actually fought criminals instead of working with them.

Bush’s preaching seemed to be working in a dramatic fashion to all who witnessed it, but this was truly only a drop in the national bucket. His followers numbered in the low hundreds, at most, and whether he was to succeed in spreading the word of Christ or not was still up in the air.

Some may think it a little odd that a crime wave in the north could be blamed on cults to the south. Some may think it a little odd that Bengali hoodlums understood Hindi. But this was the Commonwealth, and anything could happen. Specifically, this was the greatest bastion of enthusiasm behind the hardline reform espoused by such Igovians as the increasingly famous Adiatorix, and people, long trusting in the old-fashioned Marxist-influenced faux-communist leadership they persistantly re-elected before finally annexing themselves to the Igovian Soviet Commonwealth quite recently, were certainly of the belief that this was finally it.

It was originally a minor miracle of regional radicalism that the place -administered for more than a century and a half by Geletian warlords and contractors to the British East India Company- had not joined Beth Gellert in 1947, having fought with exceptional anti-colonial vitriol during the largely Geletian-led revolts. The popular decision to associate at various times with Moscow and Beijing rather than Beth Gellert had made the Bengalis roughly equivalent to the Hindustanis in the loathing of Prince Llewellyn, and seen them waste the next thirty-five years fighting off air strikes and insurgencies directed by the crown-wearing, money-grubbing, cross-waving Principality, until the Igovians finally rose to drive the Prince's influence hundreds of miles back to Victoria and Salvador.

Anglo-Saxon Christians walked a fine line when visiting the long-suffering region at the best of times, though many people were more polite than in the south, but choosing now to turn up and save the day when the Bengalis had fought their like for more than a generation and now finally re-found comradeship from like-minded southerners, well, individual incidents of good service aside, it wasn't going to make a good impression.

Adiatorix and the 149th were soon in town, by sheer coincidence of course! They liked West Bengal because it was in the spotlight for being new, because it was a big base in which to cultivate support, because it was the most desperately hopeful clinger to the communist life-raft, and because -thanks to this last item- it liked the 149th.

Men and women like Adiatorix were the most visible cases of the majority finally getting their way. Unlike Sopworth they were genuinely interested in social change and mass liberty, while unlike Chivo's ilk they were prepared to call a spade a spade... and use it to bury things.

They said that societies persistantly went the wrong way, shutting individuals up in little box homes, throwing men on the mercy of an intangible market, and hording in times of prosperity because, as anti-communists were so fond of saying, they consisted of human beings, and human beings were the product of evolution and chance, not of intelligent design. But instinct can be over-come by the rational assessment of a history and of conditions in a situation. To some anarchistic wings of Commonwealth society it was easy to interperate the thinking and actions of such as the 149th as authoritarian and to panic about it, to some hopeful wings of Bengali society it was easy to interperate the thinking and actions of such as the 149th as authoritarian and to get firmly behind it.

West Bengal

"...how dare they? Now that we're getting back on our feet, they come back and take an interest?" The Bengali man spat out that one word with quite frightful loathing. "Are we just going to let another prince set-up shop in our town and send his goons about like they're the constabulary?"

A youth in the crowd fired a two-shot burst from his AKM-BG. It helped to encourage the crowd, though his motivation was in that his gang of mates were beaten up and his crew humbled by the subject of the gathering's attention, and he just wanted to shoot the hard-case who did it.

Well, Adiatorix turned-up at such a convenient moment he could almost have been hanging around, planning it, instead of stepping-in to help right away.

"They've taken over a building and put it to no productive use, you know." He boomed from somewhere in the back of the crowd. "I'm waiting for a referenda on tearing it down ahead of time and getting reconstruction work here going with what we have to hand, see if we can make any progress before the harvest. Need ten dozen more signatures for the petition before the referenda's legal..." his last words there were drowned by the din of volunteered signatures. A stall was soon established by the 149th and, with the help of literate locals, interested parties confirmed their desire to put their mark.

Christian Salvation Church

It sounded like a heavy knock on the door, but it didn't repeat. Perhaps a ball kicked against it. Investigation would reveal the point of an iron nail protruding through the inside of the panneling. Outside a note fixed by a nail with a single drive of a Geletian palm. It was from the Local Senate, dated and signed by the presiding chairwoman elected for the meeting that day, and by the re-elected captain of the 149th Madras-Porthmadog Soviet, explained by the attached minutes to have been visiting.

It was someone atypical of Adiatorix's hand that the papers informed of merely a possibility rather than a matter of menacing fact. The body of the document informed the occupants that this building was the subject of a referenda taking place the very next week in the new Local Senate a few hundred metres down the street, and that it may be torn down immediately rather than at some unfixed point in the near future as was initially intended for all the 'non-historic' old buildings in the district.

Thanks to the 149th, Mr.Bush and his associates were already under observation by GSIC.

Strangely, many of West Bengal's old mobile phone masts remained in operation even today, while those in Jharkhand were going off-line for replacement by Igovian systems that enabled communists to sign-out communal handsets when required, uploading and downloading appropriate information at their Phalanstery's communications depot so that contacts could keep in touch no matter what sets were being used. It was ridiculous application of high technology in pursuit of property elimination, but it drove the Igovians to new heights while the market economies of the world innovated at a pre-industrial rate, and one supposed that West Bengal's size and geography simply meant that it would be slower in coming than in previously better-developed and less populace Jharkhand.

That simply meant that conventional cellular phones didn't work in most of the Commonwealth and that foreigners had a hell of a time using public telecommunications there, while in West Bengal their use was still possible thanks apparently to the infancy of redevelopment and actually to the Sentinels' preparedness to snoop on foreigners in such a way as they would not dare on Beddgelens.

(OOC: Well, Hindi is an official language of RL India, so I assumed it would be fairly commonplace even in the AMW versions. And when I called those gangsters "thugs" I didn't mean to associate them with the Thuggee cult---they're simply run of the mill criminals)

Surprisingly, Mr. Bush read the note with utter calm, and his followers whispered that truly the months he had spent wandering the hot Texan deserts had changed him for the better by giving him divine enlightenment. (The more skeptical would have said he had simply gone stark raving mad) He smiled and then said "Unproductive, eh? We'll show 'em unproductive..."

Dubya quickly scrawled down a note and sent one of his followers to deliver it to Adiatorix. It was polite and kind, and requested that the Bedgellen leader first allow the Church to find a way to become a "productive" part of Bedgellen society. Propositions include turning it into a school, (Here was a perfect opportunity for the children of Beth Gellert to learn about the outside world!), a library, or even a Texan Style BBQ restaraunt. (Communally operated by the Christians all according to Bedgellen economic practices) If none of these were found acceptable, they were open to suggestions.

As for the growing tensions within the community, the Prophet himself delivered a rousing sermon in the middle of the town square to address the issue. (Whether anyone listened was another matter). Surrounded by a phalanx of Christian fanatics (all specifically selected to represent a virtual racial rainbow), he spoke with a bright smile on his face that was almost eerie.

"My brothers and sisters, my loved ones, I am deeply wounded by the charges levelled against me by certain members of this community. You say that you are disgusted with the Anglo-Saxon west and want nothing to do with it, and I say to you---I agree! The West has failed you by sponsoring corrupt monarchical regimes and refusing to come at your time of need---I failed you by coming here not so long ago and playing some silly music while ordering you around and telling you what you should do."

"But I do not come before you today as an Anglo-Saxon; I come before you as a follower of Christ. It is true, I hail from a white, English heritage...but do not your brothers and sisters from the south hail from the British Isles as well? And those who come with me to bring you the Gospel are a mixed bunch. They are composed of friends I have made all over the world, from every continent and from dozens of countries."

"The Lord loves us all, and I love you all---and both of us only want to help you and bring you closer to Him. We may have to break a few skulls to do that, but rest assured, we mean no harm. We refuse to kill, and only fight if it is necessary to defend the downtrodden. God only wants to extend his loving hand...will you take it?"

(OOC: CoughQuinntoniahelpmepleaseCough)

Whilst it was true that Roycelandia as a whole as an Atheist (or perhaps Agnostic) Empire, it was also true that there were a number of religions, minor and major, operating within it.

Perhaps the most unusual, and certainly the most well-known of the "Minor" religions was the Church Of The Sacred Towel, which had originated in Africa of all places (No-one is sure whether it was in The Sudan or Kenya), albeit surprisingly recently- approximately 1985 or so, as near as anyone can tell.

The Church Of The Sacred Towel believed extensively in, amongst other things, something they called "Field Research For The Guide", and as a result Towelists (known as "Hitch-Hikers") could be found all over the world teaching "Strags" (Non Hitch-Hikers) about the Universal Truth that could be found in their sacred texts.

It was in places like Beth Gellert that they set up churches, known as “Bars” (because quite frequently that’s where they were), and began to bring the Wisdom of The Guide to the Universe. And it was in a small Southern Beth Gelletian village that a Towelist Service (“Guide Reading”) was being held…

"... And thus we beseech you, oh great Guide, to give us the Ultimate Question to Life, The Universe, and Everything, so that we may experience the Universe in all its glory, before it is replaced with something even more infinitely complicated, Amen."

"Amen."

"Fellow Hitch-Hikers, let us read together from The Guide, Vogons 3:31.

A Towel is the most massively useful thing an interstellar Hitch-Hiker can have. Partly, it has great practical value- you can wrap it around you for warmth on the cold moons of Jaglan Beta, you can lie on it on the marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V..."

Yes, only in Roycelandia could the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy series actually form its own Religion. A Religion that was gaining surprising numbers of converts, too.

"...A towel has immense psychological value, too. For some reason, if a Strag discovers that a Hitch-Hiker has his Towel with him, he will also automatically assume that he is in possession of a toothbrush, face-flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, mosquito repellent, wet weather gear, space suit, etc. Furthermore, the Strag will then happily lend the Hitch-Hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the Hitch-Hiker may have “lost”, on the theory that anyone who can Hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where their Towel is is clearly someone to be reckoned with.”

The origins of the Church Of The Sacred Towel appeared to have begun in Africa, where a primitive tribe were left with a copy of Douglas Adams’ anthology The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by a passing trader or Colonial Guardsman. Years later, when visiting Anthropologists discovered they’d taken the books literally and were worshipping Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect as deities.

Eventually the religion found its way to civilisation, where it was adopted by, well, the sort of people that actually learn to speak Klingon- you know the kind.

A bit later on, it morphed into something closer to the Church of the Subgenius… in short, some people treat it as a serious religion, others as a spoof of real religions.

Either way, it’s now quite popular in Roycelandia, especially in the 18-35 demographic…

The Church of the Sacred Towel is under review in Germany for their illegal practices. Actually, the only followers in Germany were arrested when they managed to steal 17 crates of towels and bathroom supplies.

A recent wave of towel stealing hit Hotels. Dozens of hotels such as the Deutchland Hilton, and the Deutchland Hotel have reported crates of towels in their supply room have been lofted off. When ask you stole the ones in the rooms, "Well, guests have been stealing em since, but anywho, these guys are weird, jail em!" said the manager of Hotel Berlin.

Infinitus est numerus stultorum, nihil sub sole novem.

Ecclesiastes

The repugnance of Geletian behavior bothered not the Holy League powers at all. The attitude in Versailles and the Winter Palace was let them drink, eat and be merry, for on the morrow their judgement shall be underway.

And on that note no doubt video of the Tsars Coronation, Wingert as Master of all Russia, would have made its way south to Beth Gellert. That, and the harsh and religious language used at the Coronation.

Wingert I takes the Throne. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=460714&page=2)

George W.'s Church has also made sure not to create any new laws, only to enforce the ones the local police force was supposed to. They strictly follow all Bedgellen laws (well, except for the whole "vigilante" thing) and make sure not to overstep their boundaries. They have begun to aggressively expand their preaching efforts, sending missionaries out to other towns and increasing their social services.

They have also sent several pleas to Christian nations, such as France and Quinntonia, requesting aid for their missionary efforts.

Everyone was trying to convert the Beddgelens, it was a weird thing. Most found it to be a highly offensive thing. Some stuck to weird. People with almost uniformly inferior intelligence to the Commonwealth audiences they courted, desperate to give good people an excuse to do evil things, trying to answer questions that nobody asked, recounting stories made up by people with no direct relation to them, often at a time that the Geletians were rampaging through the scene in which they were set.

"Tell us one we don't know!" "My twenty-times great grandfather killed the guy who wrote that. He said it wasn't true!" "Get off the stage!" "My dad could take your god!" "I prefer the one with fourteen boobs!" "You're not even a real bard!" "That's not how you do Paul's voice! You've got to wag your finger, too!"

Every state, almost every town, every phalanstery, every community was busy picking its champions, and none wished for one they couldn't see and had absolutely no cause what so ever to believe. Adiatorix looked like being adopted by West Bengal, and as time moved on he lost interest in the single incidence of the Church of whatever it was called, as did the people, who found the erection near by of the city's first Pantisocratic Phalanstery of infinitely greater interest.

In the event, it was agreed by the Local Senate to allow the foreigners to establish an outlet for southern Quinntonian food, out of passing curiosity more than anything. In West Bengal they would find it possible to operate for now as a small business, but the Civil Service would call on them more often than domestic institutions, making sure that those running it were indeed running it themselves and not employing others to do it for them on any different level of income relative to work done. They would also be expected to use domestic ingredients where they were essentially the same as the Quinntonian, and standards would be high in all imaginable areas from hygiene to animal welfare.

In the long run it would probably fail, and the proprietors would not be entirely wrong to blame over-regulation, though a popular chef there might get themself a place at a new phalanstery and convince comrades to set-aside profit for importing the ingredients needed to put Texan food on the community's kitchen menu.

Often they would get the ear of diners at the business, while it lasted, and many would probably be polite and engage with them, much as with the loopy Roycelandians, but ultimately it would be in the interests of sociability and perhaps recreation, and one would find that hardly one in a million Geletians and not many more in the other ethnic shades of the Commonwealth really believed what was being said, or had any lasting interest in practice and observance.

The more that missionaries persisted, the more people lost patience or began to really examine their cause for doubt, and the more people began really to think them stupid, which usually was a matter of small importance but ultimately would make the outsiders unwelcome and see them homeless.

This was the long-term future of missionary work in the Commonwealth.

Politics and democracy in the future were perhaps more surprising in their manifestation. Strong personalities such as that of Adiatorix looked to many as if on the brink of subverting the revolution.

But it wasn't remotely true.

To put a populist spin on it, over three quarters of all Beddgelens had read such simple works as Animal Farm, and unlike the popular majority of, for example, Quinntonian readers, they had understood it, certainly after reading it in the communal environment of their Phalansteries and their common classrooms. Most of them had lived it. There was no danger of the 1989 revolution being misappropriated.

Adiatorix and his ilk merely personified the mood of the nation. They would remain many. For reasons apart even from the fact that he knew it would fail like the sermon of a religious man in Beth Gellert, Adiatorix wouldn't think to try having his Snowballs destroyed.

Far from centralised domination, the Commonwealth was moving -not entirely unlike Hindustan- to greater federalisation. Beth Gellert was to find strength as a shoal of piranah rather than as a shark, caterpillars forming a carpet as it suited them.

West Bengal was gearing-up to continue building hydropower plants independently after the Commonwealth co-operative effort to build enough for its own needs plus 5% of that exportable internally, and to sell the resulting excess to its desperately wanting Bangladeshi neighbours. Kerala was planning to outlaw religion as an irrational weapon of indiscriminate damage, which would make it almost the first place in the Commonwealth to outlaw just about anything. The whole Commonwealth was preparing at last to launch new space missions to bring on-line a GPS network, with Victoria and Salvador leading the way while being compensated by other states for lost product while pursuing this unselfish task.


(I decided to push on a bit, because my Commonwealth has started to get too bogged-down in areas of no significance to it and I feel as if haven't made any real creative headway with the nation since coming to AMW. Hopefully I'll find my way to something enjoyable, and regain my frequently flagging interest in NS.)

OOC-BG and I have already been down the Quinntonian missionary road, and long ago we agreed that there may even be a couple of small communes of Socialits Christians among the 400 million people of BG. WE also interact in limited unrefined resource and commodity trade, if that is suprrising to anyone.

There are many Quinntonian missionaires in BG, as you can all assume tyhere are many in all of your ations, but they are usualy specifically trained to work here, they carry all of their own supplies, are highly educated, with each missionary being required to have at least a five year degree in some kind of Religious Studies, and one extra language, Greek, Hebrew/Aramaic or Latin; as well as a local one. They are also given heavy political training. A BG Missionary training certificate is a two-year course that can only be applied for as an after-degree program. Most only stay for a year or so, before burning out and leaving to go home. However, there are many who work in BG full-time, and have the above education or more, with Masters Degrees and/or Docterates in carious branches of political science or theology, and their Missionary Director for this region, Dr. Don Hindle, holder of three docterates, two masters degree and living full time in Hindustan, where he maintains a Misisonary School and Seminary, as well as a Sociological School for studying Sub-Continental leaders. They try to set up schools and so on all over BG, but most only last for a couple of years until violence or something of that nature closes them down, and then they usually take whatever two or three families have been brave enough to be converted and either go to one of teh Christian communes, which are very small and can only take new members of especially skilled natures lest they have more poeple than they can support; or move on to Hindustan and the rest of India, where they either set up local Christian communities, or eventually apply for Quinntonian citizenship (though the last is especially repugnant to them, a state deciding who it considers its members, not its members deciding..ah, forget it)

That being said, the population of Christians is very, very small, and it is the hardest mission field in the world, with the lowest acceptance and productivity, but we are there. I don't know if the Christian population would even show up on a demographic, and teh rest are harrassed and seen as wierd, with very, very few exceptions.

IC-When the plight of George Dubya comes to the notice Dr. Don Hindle, he arranges for whatever they need, if it cannot be produced locally, to be brought to them. They are also incorperated into the small netwrok of Christian institutions that can serve as homebase for Christian Missionaries, with offers to donate materials to build a school, free medical clinic, and especially a hostel. Dr. Hindle asks if the group would like a political advisor to be assigned to them, in order to formally put forward their request for building, given that it would improve the community as a whole, would be entirely staffed by people that George Dubya would find, and the materials would be donated, as not to strain the local economy. Each of the buildings and services would completely open to the public in any way, just run and staffed by the Christian community here. Dr, Hindle also explained in his letter that they would most likely be ignored, or even expelled out of town if they began to grow.

WWJD
Amen.

(Just a brief couple of notes, one I meant to give as a nod to AC's OOC retort on the thugs/Thugees, "However, the untimely combination of a Thugee crime wave, the collapse of Mr. Lakhnauti’s rug business, and his death in a freak sponge accident had left Mrs. Lakhnauit in dire financial woes and reduced the once prosperous woman to poverty." I'll let that speak for itself.

Otherwise, well, the thing is, in Beth Gellert, unlike the real world, people aren't afraid of shooting down beliefs and opinions because it's socially unaceptable or personally impolite. Missionaries will find that instead of being ignored or humoured they're repeatedly shot down, and the fact of the matter is that they are inarguably wrong, and in the Commonwealth that just doesn't fly. They don't have much chance with the disadvantaged and vulnerable, either, and there's no scope for saving people through divine power, because people already get help, or are able to find the provision to help themselves. Whatever else may be said about faith and religion and personal feeling and opinion, one has to regard Beth Gellert as a place where PC doesn't even mean police constable or personal computer, let alone politcal correctness, and where what Americans would call liberalism simply doesn't exist, and a place where a religious person will be badgered by non-religious friends and relatives, and where the community will offer them counseling, and schooling at a university town. And people won't typically be upset by that, whatever the foreigners may think of it. If they persist, in many cases they're likely to find communities passing democratic resolutions against them as cultists and brainwashers, and angry relatives coming after them with swords and assault rifles.)

(Just a brief couple of notes, one I meant to give as a nod to AC's OOC retort on the thugs/Thugees, "However, the untimely combination of a Thugee crime wave, the collapse of Mr. Lakhnauti’s rug business, and his death in a freak sponge accident had left Mrs. Lakhnauit in dire financial woes and reduced the once prosperous woman to poverty." I'll let that speak for itself.

Otherwise, well, the thing is, in Beth Gellert, unlike the real world, people aren't afraid of shooting down beliefs and opinions because it's socially unaceptable or personally impolite. Missionaries will find that instead of being ignored or humoured they're repeatedly shot down, and the fact of the matter is that they are inarguably wrong, and in the Commonwealth that just doesn't fly. They don't have much chance with the disadvantaged and vulnerable, either, and there's no scope for saving people through divine power, because people already get help, or are able to find the provision to help themselves. Whatever else may be said about faith and religion and personal feeling and opinion, one has to regard Beth Gellert as a place where PC doesn't even mean police constable or personal computer, let alone politcal correctness, and where what Americans would call liberalism simply doesn't exist, and a place where a religious person will be badgered by non-religious friends and relatives, and where the community will offer them counseling, and schooling at a university town. And people won't typically be upset by that, whatever the foreigners may think of it. If they persist, in many cases they're likely to find communities passing democratic resolutions against them as cultists and brainwashers, and angry relatives coming after them with swords and assault rifles.)


OOC-See BG, I think it libes like the last one that have people questioning whether or not this is an evil empire, though. Everything else, is pretty much old hat in almost every mission field, but it is when people begin to start coming around with guns becuase you disagree with them, that it starts to get wierd.

WWJD
Amen.

It is because of two broad things that the land of discontent so absolutely resists all religion. A Beddgelen perspective as follows, and over ninety-nine percent of the world's landmass is unaffected by this bastion.

First, the missionaries are clearly wrong, and are spreading lies, which on its own gets up the noses of intelligent people at large, and more specifically because the Geletians have been fighting conquerors under the crucifix specifically and also the crescent and whatever else on and off for two thousand years, and most of the rest of the Commonwealth likewise for longer than living memory. Because the revolution is fixated on progress after centuries of imperial domination, poverty, famine, natural disaster, and civil war, and the matter of religion is a backwards aspect, people fear it's influence much as they would the arrival of a man in a crown or a pith helmet, or of a plague-bearing rat.

(The Quinntonians are missing that most of it isn't old hat, this is despite the communal nature a much more individualist culture where people aren't afraid to speak up, and when forced to engage with the issue they all know that the missionaries are wrong.)

Second, the Commonwealth is a borderline anarchy, being just a little less chaotic and... youthful, and just a little more politicised than the Anarchans. With the new changes under way, people are positively re-asserting this independence from the bureaucracy that grew up in a well intentioned effort to protect the revolution. Unfortunately, since people are animals evolved in a manner of speaking by chance, and are not the products of an intelligent design, they won't do what the idealist revolutionaries hope or what they would like them to do (but would never force them to do). If you tell them that they're wrong or that they're missing something, and they disagree, they will tell you, and if you keep at it they will perhaps ignore you, but you're essentially telling a lion to eat tofu and you're eventually going to find that you can't hide behind your sacred beliefs, your human rights, or your diplomatic immunity, and in Beth Gellert that there is no lion king with whom you can agree. Because in the Commonwealth, by and large, the people do their own dirty work.

The Church Of The Sacred Towel has never faced any serious repression from the Roycelandian Government (His Majesty is on record as saying "I'm a huge fan of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but making a religion out of it is a bit of a stretch. Still, as long as they aren't bothering me they're free to do whatever it is that they do."

The problem, as many people have pointed out, is that "whatever it is that they do" involves equal parts of Spiritual Enlightenment and Charitable works, and wandering around the world with a Towel getting drunk a lot.

Indeed, in some parts of the world (notably India), Hitch-Hikers are less likely to be prosleytising and more likely to be getting blind drunk and trying to get laid- nonetheless, people who come across them will likely receive elements of their teachings (and a copy of the books), as well as a massive hangover...

It is because of two broad things that the land of discontent so absolutely resists all religion. A Beddgelen perspective as follows, and over ninety-nine percent of the world's landmass is unaffected by this bastion.

First, the missionaries are clearly wrong, and are spreading lies, which on its own gets up the noses of intelligent people at large, and more specifically because the Geletians have been fighting conquerors under the crucifix specifically and also the crescent and whatever else on and off for two thousand years, and most of the rest of the Commonwealth likewise for longer than living memory. Because the revolution is fixated on progress after centuries of imperial domination, poverty, famine, natural disaster, and civil war, and the matter of religion is a backwards aspect, people fear it's influence much as they would the arrival of a man in a crown or a pith helmet, or of a plague-bearing rat.

(The Quinntonians are missing that most of it isn't old hat, this is despite the communal nature a much more individualist culture where people aren't afraid to speak up, and when forced to engage with the issue they all know that the missionaries are wrong.)

Second, the Commonwealth is a borderline anarchy, being just a little less chaotic and... youthful, and just a little more politicised than the Anarchans. With the new changes under way, people are positively re-asserting this independence from the bureaucracy that grew up in a well intentioned effort to protect the revolution. Unfortunately, since people are animals evolved in a manner of speaking by chance, and are not the products of an intelligent design, they won't do what the idealist revolutionaries hope or what they would like them to do (but would never force them to do). If you tell them that they're wrong or that they're missing something, and they disagree, they will tell you, and if you keep at it they will perhaps ignore you, but you're essentially telling a lion to eat tofu and you're eventually going to find that you can't hide behind your sacred beliefs, your human rights, or your diplomatic immunity, and in Beth Gellert that there is no lion king with whom you can agree. Because in the Commonwealth, by and large, the people do their own dirty work.


Um. Did I miss something, or did you just end up paraphrasing te above posts? Misisonaries go in, they get harrassed, they quietly undure, perhaps try and engage in debate, when possible, and if they aren't being shouted down by a drunken man in the Senate or something. When that isn't able to happen, they just try to help out whoever they can wherever they can and if the question of faith comes up, they state their opinion and leave it at that. That is all well and good. Even if they get screamed and yelled at every day for the entire time they are in BG, even if they are refused food and shelter or warned away from every commune that they come across, that IS old hat for a missionary. At least in hostile mission fields.
And it is when they are beaten, robbed, raped and killed for their faith, that people start to get heated. They try and endure, they are martyred, emboldening others to come and contiue where the martyr left off, but meh.
You see, in say, Quinntonia, an Ignovian could spout all the nonsense he wanted to and never be in danger of being refused services (well, maybe church services, but somehow I doubt that would come up) or being threatened with violence, but in BG, I would get killed for what I beleive, after awhile.

That is where you start to get people coming along and getting upset, you are effectively saying that someone will be killed for thier beliefs in your nation, and are representing that as not a big deal. No matter what the belief is, that rubs me, and most likely others, the wrong way.

No matter, I will attempt to stop hijacking your thread, and if you want to repond, feel free to TG me.

WWJD
Amen.

(It's nothing to do with what happens that's significant, but why it happens.

That's the important part, up there. Now, to put a lid on religion and missionaries in BG, as I've virtually given-up trying to impress in this monocultural age what is really meant by cultural difference, and the significant thing in-character is that I can not be arsed condescending to play the Commonwealth's out of hand rejection of religion on a specific basis or individual character level...

One can't possibly find it hard to imagine a people looking in as a society on countless different religions, many factually incompatible with one another, and coming to the collective realisation that it doesn't make sense. No more than one can be right, and no one has any reason to be believed above the others. Hence, total rejection from the earliest age of reason in a child.

Anyone who comes in to that society and tries to spread known lies is marked out as a malicious liar, and everyone but a few extra-societal nomads -who already have found their own cults but may be engaged if you don't mind risking a near certain strangling- understands this. In the context of a highly controlled society, a malicious liar is tollerated by an impressed culture of PC (that is more oppressive and unnatural than silencing a liar), or is rejected by whatever level of force is required and legal. Meanwhile in the largely easy-going and free Commonwealth the rejection is often by force applied not by the state but by those directly involved, by those being lied to. This is not a place where people are allowed to do whatever they like, it is a place where nobody has risen to stop them.

So, anyone can assume that their missionaries are lying dead in a ditch somewhere next to a little heap of sugar after trying to befriend one of a few hundred nomads surviving in Beth Gellert, or even that they've gone home with one of fourteen or some ex-nomad converts from the Cult of Kali, but-

Commonwealthers [as to distinguish from a handful of nomads in BG but not the ISC per se] do not believe.

I, and the Commonwealthers, really don't care how individual Commonwealthers have been received in Quinntonia. Perhaps they've set up communes that worked, and demonstrated what's behind their words as the missionaries could not. Perhaps they've set up communes that failed, giving no cause for worry. It is vastly different on a fundamental level, and if that can't be understood, there's finally nothing more to be said.

Also, while I remember, there are no police in West Bengal, or anywhere else in Beth Gellert, and haven't been since late 1989, unless you count the small to mid-size intelligence services.)

(OOC: Ay, sorry for that goof right there. My mistake. I threw it in not even noticing, I was just using it to add a little flavor to Lakhnauti's background.

BG, I think you forget something key...One can't be a liar if one truly believes in one what is saying. One can be wrong, sure, but that's far from being a liar.

Also, although I find the whole idea of a nation without a police force laughable, I find much of your nation to be a fantasy. But this is a game to be enjoyed, and I'm sure you find my hyper capitalist state of prosperity to be preposterous too.

Which leads me to the final point: maybe your interest wouldn't be so flagging if you were willing to accept that your nation isn't goddam perfect! I understand you want to display your vision of an ideal society, but let's face it: utopias don't make for interesting RP. A state where everyone is a completely "enlightened" and highly intelligent being, where everyone has basically the same opinion and can't be swayed by emotion to believe something that is illogical and/or stupid (well, at least in your view), where prosperity is perfectly distributed and there are no flaws in the system that can be exploited by someone cunning enough...Just isn't very fun, to put it bluntly. I mean, I was willing to turn my country over to monarchists for the sake of a good story---even though I think anyone who believes some bearded fellow in a crown can rule over me simply because of who his parents were is out of their mind. (No offense NG) I'm not saying you have to allow Dubya to succeed---hell, all I wanted was for him to stir up some trouble and perhaps carve out his own little warlordship in that civil war you were apparently going to start. (And see it promptly collapse afterwards, of course) But in general BG, if we can't ever even slightly influence your nation (even if it's not to your liking) unless we resort to brute military force, then it makes the whole RP experience dull. Can't you just accept, say, a bunch of Igovians turning capitalist? Or Stalinist? Or just plain not toeing the company line? You don't have to agree with your citizens after all...Idiocy is the most commen element in the universe, after all. And the movements don't have to last. But if you don't then there's really no point for this being more than an RP with only your involvement, since I doubt anyone's going to invade you.

*steps off soapbox* Sorry to rant, but I just had to make my point.)

(OOC: But it's not perfect. That's no small part of the point. It's human. And, to adapt a common turn of phrase, ignorance of the lie is no excuse. That the lack of a police force is regarded by yourself as laughable makes it hard to care enough to respond to the rest, since you're clearly just not going to understand it yet. You're seeing the [failed] nation you want to see, not the one I'm trying to present. Maybe part of that is down to my hesitation to really dive into it until now, which is exactly why I'm finally heading somewhere. If I'm unwilling to change right now it is because this is a pivotal time in my own handling of BG, but even so, BG changes almost monthly, if anything happens at all. I don't know how you can think, in light of... oh, there's too much [throws up hands] I'm just going to carry on.)

(OOC: Look, I'm not going to debate the whole police thing. That's a matter of opinion. I think getting pig drunk is laughable too---but obviously you don't. But my point is that no matter what anyone does, Bedgellens are always smart enough not to be swayed, always completely uncorruptable, always perfectly loyal to the cause. The whole point of this game is for us to meddle in each other's nations---but BG does the same thing I dislike about Dra-Pol...we can't do anything!

Oh, and you claim BG changes every month, but frankly to me it all looks to be from the same barrel. But again, that's opinion.

Anyhow, I'll just have a finish up post for Dubya settling down tomorrow...)

(OOC: Seems like if you don't like Dra-pol, joining AMW was a funny thing to do. And you're still totally wrong. Nobody's really tried to do much in BG, but BG has gone in one generation from an unhappy capitalist principality with widely opposed pretentions to Christianity to a revolutionary state soon subverted by borderline Stalinists, to a bureaucracy that couldn't do much of anything and was dishearteningly boring, to the current situation where I should finally be able to settle into something and start playing things out... if only I felt like people would accept BG and stop trying to hit it with the damp religious squid. Why in the heck should I let that have any effect on BG? It would be like Igovians trying to organise a popular referenda in the UK after a law passes. It just doesn't apply. Ooh, what I want didn't work, ooh it happens to be an affornt to my flimsy beliefs, ooh, you're not accepting other people's ideas, use mine! ...Ooh, I sent agents into Brazil, but they didn't speak Portuguese, Brasilia is power-playing! Pfffft.)

(OOC: I never said I didn't like Dra-Pol---It's just incredibly frustrating RPing with him because all you can do is sit around and condemn him. He's an excellent writer and seems to be a pleasant fellow OOC. And keep in mind that pretty much everything you mentioned happened before I came to AMW--and that was over a year ago. And all of those changes were internal, again. And I'm not complaining about this specific incident in general---I really don't care if Bedgellens start converting or not <Although I was looking forward to stirring up some trouble with Dubya, maybe having his forces clash with Adiatorix, but...meh>. My point is that Bedgellens are always immune to following anything but the company line. The outside world can do squat short of outright invasion. But I guess we just see it differently, so I'll just go ahead and drop it. To me the current wave just looks like more of the same with perhaps more pep, but that may very well just be my inability to see the fine lines of leftist ideology, just as you do for the rightist kind.)

(If you'll excuse the brief interruption, I just think there's a difference of style within AMW. Okay, AC, you couldn't get the quite... pervasive and energetic camp troupe of heros into Dra-pol to do anything of international significance, but this is part of Nation States, and while you're quite free to focus on a few slightly improbable characters, this is an age of nations more than of heros. Maybe some of us are more into the idea of cold war or empire, and others of Greek legend in modern context.

Personally, I'm interested in what the Drapoel nation is doing, about Spyrian culture, and about the conflicts and alliances inside Africa. If I send a Hong Juk company to change those [re.Africa] and they make no impression and end up scattered dead across half the continent without the significant governments even noticing, oh well! The states are still having relations, and Da'Khiem has to suck it up, sell the Lusakans some short-range ballistic missiles, and figure-out how to relate to governments in a situation it can not control or directly influence. So, ah, I think maybe that is where some of us are coming from, anyway [shoots sideways glance]

While I'm on it, I have to admit that most of what Da'Khiem actually did was to turn in on itself, but that was partly because I knew I wasn't going to have time to do much, and now I'm admittedly caught in two minds about how long to play-through the impenetrable Neo-Suloist thing (because it's sort of fun for me and I don't want to dump it and then find myself with storylines I can't use), and when to get back on course.

Anyway, that's me done, sorry, right.)

(I understand that, and I realize I overreacted in this case. However, I just don't want us to get to the point where we can't interact at all and we're just stuck sitting on our hands and watching. The whole Neo-Suloist thing has been a fascinating read, but it's basically composed of "Neo-Suloists do bad stuff" and "other nation keeps an eye on things". I don't want AMW to fall into an extreme where we don't even interact anymore, that's all. For every internal crisis I think we should strive to provide openings for other members to somehow get involved. Just my two cents.)

The thing I have to say is I have an enormous amount of trouble understanding what the hell is going in on Dra-Pol and China at the best of times, with all this carrying on about Ringists and Suloists and Neo-Suunists, and what have you.

It's the major reason I don't get involved in any of the Asian RPs, simply because I can't follow what's going on, and even if I could, there's no real scope for Roycelandia to be involved.

Conversely, I imagine there's little scope for the Asians to be in Africa (they do tend to stand out a bit, after all), but I do feel AMW is in danger of splitting into Dra-Pol/China/Japan and Everyone Else.

OCC: Well, I must say I feel for those present AMWers who missed the barrel of monkeys that was the Unification War. That was probably the best modern-tech RP I ever had the pleasure to experience.

But if you didn't take part in the great war against Dra-pol then, I suppose you'll have to wait for the next time around. Although if I remember correctly Dra-pol did send advisors to Kanendru, pilots to Lavrageria, and more advisors to Eritrea, so he's hardly a hermit with no international awareness whatsoever, even less so now that Hotan's broken out.

As for BG, well, the whole Gelatian culture has never been terribly friendly to organized religion. Trying to force it on someone who doesn't want it is a mistake, and no matter how hard G.W. tries he isn't going to get around the fact that Llewellyn, perhaps the most universally loathed man to reside on the Indian Subcontinent in modern history, was an avid Christian and tired to convert non-Christians or Athiests to Christianity, more often than not by force.

I think its fairly important to realize that the Bedgellens have spent the majority of their existance on the Subcontinent reacting violently against the "Company Line." Between the western Mughals and British East India company, and then the British themselves, and then the Japanese, Chinese, and Principality, eh, ists...the list of people who the Igovians have fought, who were bent on the destruction of their unique culture, goes on and on. For the Bedgellens to be generally pissed at someone who they see as trying to make them do something that isn't good for them is quite understandable.

So in short, Indians, Bedgellens most prominently, have a bad taste in their mouths regarding Christianity from decades of oppression under Prince Llewellyn.