NationStates Jolt Archive

"I will work harder! The Market is always right!"

It was about time that somebody questioned the mantra of a generation. An obese generation. A suspiciously defensive generation such as had attacked the innocent Sel Appans. A generation in which property brought prosperity to the lands of Geletia, but not uniformly to the Geletian people.

Long had the Igovians, descendants of Kronstadt survivors based in Finland, Murmansk, and Estonia's archipelago, infiltrated Geletian society with talk of the past and of the future, and condemnation of the big long now. Finally they were being heard.

Having invaded territory claimed by mineral-rich soft-left Sel Appa, accusing it of crimes against Geletian enterprise and economic liberty, the Kingdom of the Geletians, home to six billion mighty Celts, found that something did not fit. Soldiers and voters had been told that the Sel Appans, with their low cost of living and associated low wages, were deliberately stealing work from the Geletians, espeically the victims of recent copper mine closures. They had been told that the Sel Appan government was a lumbering beast intent on the consumption of slick Geletian business concerns, and that the leftist government intended to destroy semi-independent Anvorbuod...

Conscription was a bad idea from the point of view of the Geletian establishment. It forced millions of young people into association with illegal Soviets established under Igovian influence, and sent thousands to meet face to face with the harmless realities of Sel Appa, which contrasted obviously with sworn word of government and supposedly free mass media.

Those who came home in defeat, battered by partisan resistance and popular disinterest in their efforts abroad, headed straight for the victimised and corrupted labour unions, many taking service weapons to obliterate mob influence over the popular organisations. Fat Freddie, as Porthmadog's big mob boss was 'affectionately' known, was shot by a sniper and his head was taken as a symbol of the defeat of crime in popular society, a flat contradiction of government statistics and media scare stories insisting on a need for law-enforcement crackdowns.

The illegal co-operative ventures, which had reopened mines in Sygun after capitalist owners shut them down to move production to Sel Appa, were now enlightened with real political theories where before they had only common sense and outrage.

Political parties tried to restore calm, insisting that they represented the popular will and that troublemakers were a minority spoiling democracy for the majority. One party spokesman was grabbed roughly while speaking on a platform in Aberpergwm city centre, thrown to the floor, and replaced by a golden-haired young titan, with illegal soviet markings on his army uniform, proclaiming, "Comrades, you are being mislead! We stand for the power of the Soviets, not that of the Parties!" and this was received with breathtaking applause and hollars of support from the crowd, now venting its pent-up rage.

Millions of Geletians were kicking-out share-holders, capitalists, upper managers, and members of parliament. Whole communities took up the tools of work as weapons, the decorative sword and shield remains of prior generations, and the guns of returning soldiers.

Revolt was in Geletia.

(Hey, look, I did start a revolution when I came in drunk, the other night. Better do something about this, soon.)

ooc: real quick, where exactly is this going on? and sorry for the pure ooc post...

(Well, apparently, I got drunk and access to a computer, that's the main of it ;)

All right, anyway, the whole Sarnia thing fell through when, I think, every nation but our two fell to inactivity deletion, so I've gone back to having BG in two parts.)

Part 1 is called The Igovian Soviet Commonwealth and it exists in Finland (including Karelia), the Estonian Archipelago, and the Murmansk region. It was formed in the C20th, largely under the influence of Russians who escaped Kronstadt, where revolutionaries were holding out against the Bolshevisk usurpers who sent the Red Army against them, and went to Finland. Long story short, that region became home to a borderline anarchist commonwealth with maybe eleven million people.

Part 2 is a massive continent in the Indian Ocean, settled by celts called Geletians, who migrated from the Balkans with the massive invasions of Greece et cetera, and followed other tribes to Asia Minor, living as the Galatians. The Geletians split from them when Rome invaded, and, after several generations, departed India by ship and discovered the new continent several centuries ago. They lived as fractured Celtic tribes and spread across the land, until unification as the Kingdom of the Geletians only in the late C20th. High King Adiatorix acts almost as President, and has a Prime Minister and cabinet of ministers supporting him. He introduced industrialisation, fire arms, and capitalism.

Now, recently, the market reforms have disrupted Geletian tradition. Communities used to live with local democracy, sending elected chieftains to regional summits. They held the land in common, and workers owned the tools of work. Now many have been forced to give-up all of that, elect ministers across massive (often gerrymandered) wards, and, most iconic, have been forced to stop work in mines that became privately owned but were shut-down when owners realised they could pay poorer foreign workers less and get less trouble from the unions.

Mineral rich Sel Appa was site of much Geletian investment and absentee ownership of mines and what have you, but they elected a left-leaning government and the Geletian elite felt threatened. Conscription kicked in and armies were shipped off to 'secure Geletian interests'. Unfortunately, the distant Igovians had been well received in Geletia, and had helped to set up illegal Soviets in the military. Worse yet, the troops found that Sel Appa wasn't actually an evil place, and that the workers weren't stealing their work out of malice as they'd been told.

The army had to be pulled-out because of serious fears of mass mutiny.

Now, returning soldiers are refusing to give-up their arms, are organised in democratic and illegal soviets, and are spreading word of Sel Appan leftist policies through the population. Workers are returning to closed mines and factories and running them without capitalists or upper management, even though courts are ruling against them and all political parties are asking them to stop and return home. Other workers are storming businesses that are still operating and kicking-out the capitalists. Police are being sent in to disrupt strikes, soviets, and worker self management schemes, but local populations are rising en masse to prevent them from making arrests. Soldiers are being sent in but are simply turning around when they get there and drinking and celebrating with their comrades instead of dispersing them.

A capitalist constitutional monarchy of six billion celts in the Indian Ocean is rapidly becoming a workers' state, and popular movements are calling for its joining to the remote Igovian Soviet Commonwealth as part of world revolution suddenly come to life.


(Edit: okay, that wasn't really very quick at all, but, urm, the Indian Ocean, that's where!)

ooc: I was going to say, I'm still planning on developing Sarnia, at least what I now call Azazian Sarnia... but if you want it elsewhere, ie the Indian, I might still be able to play a small part if you want

(Ah, sorry about that, I went on the assumption that it had died, and have included a history of the Indian migration in my factbook, now. Anyway, the Geletians are the aboriginal inhabitants of their Indian Ocean continent, but were fractured until the late C20th into weak tribes, and for the last few years have been driven by the government's desire for economic growth, so I suppose that you could even have an outpost on Geletia if you like, so long as it is kept in mind that its a continent with six billion native celts. But, equally, I don't want to tread on your colonial toes, so, eh, whatever :) )

The Spark!: Five killed in Sygun protest!

The Spark, a new, independent publication, was printed by rogues. Rogues outside the laws of property, copywite, slander, and what have you. But the people of Geletia were avid consumers, now that they had choice in the matter.

It was a newspaper that didn't bother to publish the story about an otter stuck in a tree, as every other media outlet did that day. It did talk about the latest foreign famine and how it was caused by a failure of the rainbelt in that area thanks to visible air pollution.

Importantly, it took a militant stand over the events at Sygun Copper Mines, where five workers were shot for attempting to run an army barricade preventing them from returning to work at a shaft closed by the company. They, like others, wished to mine on regardless and find their own markets for their own products, but the owners had decided no, the mine was not viable, and laid them off. The shaft was closed, and the army moved in to prevent theft or other operation while the owners left the place inactive, inspite of its vast copper reserves.

Workers, refusing to accept their redundancy, had gone up to the shaft regardless, carrying tools and safety equipment. The army tried to stop them. They ignored the soldiers.

Now, they were dead, and four thousand Sygun residents were hurling rocks and swinging picks against eighteen soldiers. A bloody slaughter was in the offing, and the state would no doubt react.

ooc: I suppose then if you don't mind I'll have something like a Hong Kong/Singapore kind of outpost. I took a bit of liberty with that last bit of unrest, but I hope in an island of over six billion, having a few hundred rattling the gates isn't inconceivable. If you want it changed, just let me know./ooc

Checkpoint Delta, West Gate, Royal Crown Colony of Port Nelson

Hold the line, lads. Lieutenant Adam Gallagher called out over the din. With one hand holding his helmet firm atop his blonde head and the other held fast to the grip of his rifle he ducked between errant stones thrown from the other side of the border. For the past two hours some Geletians had been demanding access to the United Kingdom at the four entrances to the small peninsula, connected to the main continent by a narrow isthmus where four separate roads led out into a country of billions.

Fucking Christ, Lieutenant, what the fuck are they doing? A nervous private shouted out from behind a concrete barrier, his rifle pointed towards the now-closed gate between the two territories.

They’re trying to live, Harkins, just try to keep that in mind. As he said that Gallagher checked his magazine to ensure it was fully loaded, and as the rattling of the gate intensified he flipped off his safety just in case.

"...they are so many that, even if most are unschooled in tactics and strategy, there are enough wits amongst the insurrectionaries that they can, collectively, make life rather difficult. They do not show themselves until the critical moment. It is hard for me to say whether this is a deliberate conspiracy to attain tactical advantages, hide numbers, engineer surprise strikes and what have you, as the High King is recently fond of saying, or whether it merely indicates hesitation in the masses, not immediately willing to take up arms against king and country. That is, until we plant soldiers on their doorsteps, aiming to prevent the spread of insurrection, and turn hesitating malcontents into grenade-throwing rebels. That leads us only to call our initial decision quite correct and spread the occupation to the next town.. which in turn requires an expansion of the draft and only means that more young men will end up falling in with illegal soviets in the army, which we haven't time or reliable human resources enough to disband."

The Geletian consul -Cacofonix of Porthablwch- assigned to Port Nelson ran out of momentum only when his lungs were emptied, the young clan nobleman having neglected to pause for breath in the middle of his stream of verbalised thought. In retrospect, he probably should have taken a few minutes to prepare himself before trying to convince the colonial authorities that everything was well in hand, the Kingdom of the Geletians wasn't in collapse, and Port Nelson wasn't in any danger of being over-run by any sort of gigantic blade-wielding horde.

At least he wasn't wearing the necklace with the golden representations of heads taken in battle by his father during the all too recent pre-Kingdom history of Geletia.

Checkpoint Delta, West Gate

The crowds here were motivated partly by the impression, to which they'd been given, that recent dockyard closures and lay-offs at near-by Bothcaer would not have happened without the general political unification and market reform in Geletia and the specific arrival and success of the Azazian colony. Port Nelson -despite their resentment of Geletian nationhood- they saw as having being established in underhanded fashion when the Geletian people were disadvantaged by existing in fractured tribal communities.

This was one of the serious fractures present in Geletia. The land was, for centuries, home to hundreds of independent tribes living in thousands of self-governing villages, usually hill forts built around a roundhouse lived by a popular and accountable local leader and set in miles of communally owned and worked land. Only in living memory had Adiatorix succeeded, through one of histories greatest military campaigns, in forcing the unification of all the tribes and the erection of the Kingdom of the Geletians, there after adopting much from the modern ways exhibited by the relatively newly arrived (compared to the Geletians) Azazians. Not just modern technology, but central government, private property, common law, rights, and so on. The people resented the centralised unification and the private property that they regarded as theft, but now, growing up in the Kingdom, felt that the Azazians had taken advantage by elbowing in on their territory and their life while they were a fractured and squabbling people.

Such quandaries were rife and basically significant to the state of things, but probably were not foremost in the minds of either the Azazian border guards or the angry Geletian citizens facing them.

After throwing a few stones, bits of old brick, and the odd rusty bolt or washer along with verbal abuse and visual gestures, the crowd began to break-up and head away. But the participants were only going to look for work that didn't exist, sign-up for welfare that -since the unrest- wouldn't arrive, or drink ale and wine that was too cheap to put a good taste in any mouth. They would quite probably be back... and, significantly, disgruntled farmers from further inland would be arriving in large numbers over coming days, having grown sick of taking produce to markets that saw less and less business by the week. Rural Geletians, unlike most of those in the coast-hugging towns and cities, having been less seriously bombarded by the market's distractions, still gathered around the local or wandering bard to hear stories of wars fought (often in living memory), still brewed their own little-diluted alcoholic and otherwise narcotic beverages, still wrestled violently and rode horses for fun, still didn't speak much English, still didn't care to read or write, still hunted with the longbow, and still worked the fields with tools that looked suspiciously like heavy slashing swords with billhooks at the tip...

Tower No. 30
1400 Pike Street, Port Nelson

Tossing his helmet on his rack, Gallagher ran his hands quickly through his sweaty top of blonde-hair flecked with brown dirt and soil. I don’t know what the hell they’re thinking Terry, I mean for Christ’s sake that’s the second riot this week and this time, Gallagher added, his voice wavering from exhaustion, I’ve got two men laying in cots in the infirmary taking stitches for gashes caused by rocks. Bloody rocks, Terry.

The Pike Street Barracks afforded even lieutenants the amenity of having a room all to themselves; then again in a thirty story building rising high over Aberdeen Bay there was ample space. Pushing his glass window slightly over, he allowed a rush of cool air to flood the room, taking the lingering sweat off of Gallagher’s face before the young officer turned to face Terry Clarke, his platoon’s sergeant.

I think, lieutenant, the tall, lumbering giant responded after a moment’s quiet thought, that you better address these concerns to Captain Wright later tonight. Clarke leaned back along the door post and availed himself of the semi-informal circumstance and took off his own helmet that he cradled in his hands after unbuttoning the top two buttons of his jacket. Years ago, he had seen service in Juristan holding back mobs of thousands of dissatisfied individuals and while the feverish intensity of those days had yet to be matched in Port Nelson, he could see the sign of true desperation in those individuals who pressed their faces against the cold, interlocking wires of the steel border between Geletia and the United Kingdom in the hope of something better. What? Clarke knew all too well that often times it didn’t matter what was better, it just had to be that something was better. The other side of the fence, the unattainable, the unreachable – they all held the promise of something better than that which they knew so personally.

The Royal Governor’s House
Royal Crown Colony of Port Nelson

Anthony Sedgwick delicately pulled the lobe of his right ear twice before stopping himself, an old nervous habit that tended to reappear at the most stressful of times – an apt description that could be ascribed to the situation before him. In his late forties, Sedgwick came from a middle-class family outside of Queensbury where he had enjoyed the idyllic climate of the subtropics and the wonderful peace and tranquility of a stable democracy. Port Nelson was a long way from Queensbury.

Well, Consul Cacofonix, regardless of these official statements of your government I must say His Majesty’s Government remains both alarmed and concerned over the apparently rapidly degenerating conditions across the border. Sedgwick looked across the polished marble table at the young nobleman from the comfort of his black silken suit which snuggly fit around Sedgwick’s moderate frame that supported the light lavender shirt he wore, with a matching silk tie. In fact, Your Excellency, I must here present your government with an official concern of the United Kingdom – that for the second time this week we have seen protests at our three checkpoints into Port Nelson and that so far as can be told there are no Geletian troops securing your side of the border. If you cannot provide adequate security for this land border I will have to begin considering alternative methods of securing this colony and its six million inhabitants.

Unknown to Cacofonix and the Geletian government as well as most of the government of the United Kingdom, Sedgwick had begun to authorize studies that looked at the potential harms and benefits of increasing the number of Geletian immigrants who could legally cross the Port Nelson checkpoints. Having conferred with the new Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, Sedgwick had begun to seek possible solutions to the developing Geletian crisis that would both protect and benefit the Crown – and a source of relatively cheap labour for UK businesses could do just that. However, the problems he needed to resolve first dealt mostly with the cost of poverty on the Home Islands, the Indian Islands (the former colony of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands), and the fellow colony of Avinapolis – the three most likely destinations for Geletians.

And so, Your Excellency, on the behalf of His Majesty’s Government in Imperium, I must ask you to convey to High King Adiatorix that this situation be resolved and be resolved quickly for the United Kingdom will not stand idly by while unrest ferments on its colonial doorsteps.

The Azazians in Port Nelson may have felt singled-out by the growing mass of Geletian malcontents, and any unsettling of the atmosphere there would have been quite justified. But the trouble was by no means isolated here. Across the better part of eleven million square kilometres revolt took different forms. In most of the land, police tried to force their way into communities and industrial concerns taken-over by residents and workers. Elsewhere, though, bands of rebels, often on horseback, ranged back and forth attacking police stations, which just made the Kingdom's actions elsewhere all the more severe, the government largely failing to realise that while it saw one people confined to one state, the citizenry was still fractured. It was easy to suppose that the unrest was orchestrated by the Sovietists and by this to credit the trouble with a cohesion that really did not exist- the Igovians (Sovietists) were too few to have such wide-ranging influence.

Elsewhere, popular reclamation of land and capital went unchallenged by the central authorities, with just a few militias rising in opportunist fashion. These greedy criminal efforts soon fell foul of widespread popular armament in the remote rural communities so neglected by the state, and several pitched battles saw dozens of mobsters attacking farms and factories -reopened by workers after being closed by capitalists citing uncompetative wage rises in Geletia- and being met by scores of citizens brandishing generations-old swords, work and farm tools, hunting bows, and spears and other weapons newly made in workshops.

At several government buildings -tax offices, police stations, army barracks, it mattered not- and now at the checkpoints around Port Nelson, crowds so-armed were joined by disgruntled returning veterans of the abortive Sel Appan invasion, still armed with their 7.62mm Self Loading Rifles, and, increasingly, security personnel choosing solidarity with their disenfranchised peers.

"ES! ES! ES!" They bellowed, Out! Out! Out! sometimes joined by the soul-shaking drone of Geletia's beaten-bronze trumpet, the celtic warhorn, carnyx.

The Kingdom hadn't known how to react. The instinct of the high king was to join battle, the parliament had been sending in police.

But the police were causing more trouble than they were subduing, and there was no clear enemy to engage- all the kingdom was sounding of battle, and no rival army was assembled. Port Nelson offered something, at least. Cacofonix felt some relief just to see something happening that might take the pressure from his need to give the Azazians something of an answer to the problem. The demonstrations at the border were clearly just one of several hotspots, but they were near coastal, highly visible, and growing in size and violence. Adiatorix thought that here, perhaps, he had his battle. Was this the enemy drawn-out at last? Surely the Sovietists would be interested in directing the unrest towards an international stage, and so must surely be at the root of this, directing the stupid workers to cause trouble with the Kingdom's legitimate international associates. Yes, there, a victory there might just put this to rest.

A pair of Hyena Class LPD and several Nibiru Class assault carriers were readied at Porthablwch to head for Bothcaer's docks. Cacofonix would alert Sedgwick to the approach of the vessels once they were underway, promising that the disturbances would be put down in short order and foreign communist agitators removed from the equation.

He still felt something close to embarrassment at how little his government was able to do, and how little it was actually able to interact with foreign authorities. The truth of it was that a lot of former local nobility (who dominated the young parliament, since they had local respect and campaign-boosting fortunes) were still very much in touch with the people from the villages that raised them, and were unmoved by the plight of the kingdom, or even sympathetic to their fellow Geletians' struggle against the freemarket tide.

Sygun Copper Mines

'Stand to but keep your finger off the trigger'? What's the bloody point in this? Well what do you want to do, shoot women and children? If they throw one more sodding rock at me! Steady, boyo, they're Geletians, after all.

The older fusilier almost seemed to be going soft. This were Sygenii, and ours a Durcodi regiment. It's not like they were friends, not even from a proper tribe. Not even Christianised! Cave-rats at worst, stupid hill giants at best. Highlanders! Several of the eighteen-strong line were now quite plainly gritting their teeth, even shaking as they clutched their rifles and struggled against an urge to retaliate under this barrage of thrown rocks and verbal abuse.

It was here, the week previous, that five workers were killed by the 117th Durcodi Rifles as they tried to force the cordon at the infamous Gwancus mine. It had been hell since then, isolated in the mountains, as a single light section tried to protect the entire Pennymount estate from its own redundant workforce. Protect it? Wondered some of the soldiers. Against what, being worked as it was designed to be? The older men in line remembered when they too owned their own tools and places of work. Many of them were near heartbreak since the shootings, and now, pelted by stones, all bruised and several bloodied, finding it almost impossible to put old battles out of their war-wounded minds, they twitched at the touch of raw human aggression. The younger men were no more steady, angry at taking a battering and being disallowed from acting on their instincts, and terrified at the same time by being posted to such a remote place and surrounded by two hundred angry locals to every one of their unit's number.

Suddenly a man in the line cried out, stumbling back half a step before dropping to one knee. The stone-throwers almost seemed ready to pause, slightly upset by actually having hurt one of the soldiers, but two of his comrades moved their rifles from a ready diagonal to shouldered aim against the stone throwers, inciting jeers. The officer bellowed over the din, directing two others to take the hurt man out of the line and ordering the fusiliers to give-up their aim. Returning their SLRs to a less threatening brace against the hip, the soldiers were close enough to their opponents that it was impossible to hide the discomfort and humiliation in their faces at being made to drop their aim, and this lead to a forwards surge of the angry and increasingly confident mob opposite that part of the line.

Of course the soldiers didn't react right away, and citizens at the front of the crowd were pushed further forward by those following them. It was perhaps entirely accidental, but suddenly the hundreds of miners and their families were in spitting distance of the soldiers, and spit they did, starting with the mother of a shot worker. The old girl hurled a great bulb of saliva at the young man who'd earlier admitted his proximity to breaking point. She actually challenged him to do something about it, perhaps like he'd done to her son, she said. The soldier's teeth were now visibly bared, like an angry dog!

The line had to reshape itself to compensate for the reduction in numbers as the wounded man was helped away to the defunct offices of the Gwancus mine. It was hard to achieve this with the mob now at arms length. Rifle butts were raised and pushed up against the outstretched arms and bared chests of the mob's front rank in an effort to keep them back. It seemed the only way to make room, but it was a bad idea. Hands grabbed at the weapons; fists flew; rifles, pulled back and forth, inevitably struck against flesh here and there. The situation was completely out of control, and nobody was even sure how it had happened.

Withdraw to the engineroom!

All cohesion was lost, there was no space through which to withdraw, the soldiers could either back up with villagers hanging on to them and try to force their way through the doors to the machine sheds over the Gwancus shaft or they could move faster than the mob and make space between them in that way. They tried. Backing down was one thing when facing a frightened enemy desperate for a fight-or-flight decision to be made for it, but doing it in such a hurry...

...It looked like running, breaking, admitting the superiority of the mob.

Men with raised tools dashed forward, ran down the soldiers as they retreated, and brought several of them to the floor. When the shed doors closed against the mob, the officer in charge counted only a dozen men with him.

Amergand and Venute are in the office, sir! That's fifteen... I think...

Everyone looked to the door, and suddenly realised what they were hearing beyond it. These weren't just the frustrated cries of a mob locked out.

C’mon lads, let’s shore it the ‘ell up already!

Gallagher watched from a high observation post with his company commander as his platoon heaved sandbags against portions of the chain-fence that had been perceived as adequate until the appearance of Geletian firearms amongst the growing crowds. Through his binoculars he could follow rough-edged stones and rusty bolts striking the body armour of his men – something he had ordered them to don much to their chagrin as the first rifles appeared to the checkpoint guard. Although the force of a Geletian round would knock a man down, and some of those men flat unconscious, the round would be unlikely to fully penetrate the body-armour and at the very least he could save his men if some rioters lost control and started firing off random rounds.

For his platoon’s part, Gallagher had forced his men to double-check their rifles. The L62 fired an 8.5x70mm round designed to tear through modern body-armours, although at the cost of a lower rate-of-fire. Indeed, Gallagher now resented the fact that this checkpoint only had two heavy-machineguns tasked to its defence and that the platoons on station would be heavily dependent on their rifles to take out large numbers of individuals should the barriers be breached. Glancing down to the floor of the observation post he found his own rifle with its butt upon the dirt and dust-coated floorboards, its sleek and compact body resting against his leg. Finally looking up he found his captain, who appeared to be staring beyond the border and out into the rugged lands of the Kingdom beyond.

I don’t like this, Captain.

Neither do I, Adam. There’s so bloody many of them all, and so few of us…

True, and that worries me too, Captain, but the Spartans held off the Persians at Thermopylae despite being outnumbered. And besides, we have tanks – they simply had spears. Gallagher forced a smile, knowing that although there were tanks in Port Nelson they’d be a bitch to maneuver all the way over to the checkpoints – doable, but it’d take some time to clear all the requisite roads.

In the distance he heard the rumble of diesel engines and upon turning he saw the first of what were several trucks hauling blocks of steel-reinforced concrete to the checkpoints. At the head of the column came a small utility-vehicle bearing the flags of the royal governor, which swerved off at the entrance to the observation post. Captain, Gallagher said after a moment, I think we have company.

The two men climbed down the ladder and found an aide to the governor standing in a grey suit with a black silk shirt and tie, his eyes hiding from the bright sun behind dark sunglasses. Gentlemen, this came from Governor Sedgwick. He wants to start letting in refugees.

Refugees, sir? They have rifles with them.

Then disarm them before letting them in.

Gallagher walked away shaking his head at the idiocy of the civilian government. Very shortly they’d start allowing the first Geletians through as economic refugees. The border would be opening to men with rifles and a hatred for the very economic system that the UK openly embraced. Perhaps the only common ground between the two parties aside from the physical earth was that the UK was currently ruled by the Democratic Socialist Party.

It was the same every time, stealth deployments always gave him an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Cameron Comyn had never had his brothers calmness, the younger son of one of his countries largest clans Cameron had never had an independant command in the field, but with his brother Richard off fighting for the workers of the Marxist State, his clan had intrusted him with command of 100 specialist warriors.

The convoy of helicopters that carried them was flying low to avoid detection. Then a low ping sound was heard from up in the cockpit and the pilot turned to tell Cameron what he already knew "Sir, we're detecting the radar beacon from the rendevous point." "Aye, seems like it right enough. Bring us in quiet and have the weapons ready to go, It never pays to be an optimist behind enemy lines." with his orders given to the pilot, Cameron turned to his men, "none of you are new to this, in fact I trained with most of you. I see a lot of faces that were full defence force members when I was still training and i'm glad of your exeriance. Now we're not quite sure what we're dealing with down there but these people are fellow workers and fellow celts and they know we're coming to meet them. Remember the briefing this morning and be watchful and swift. Fire teams, look for stong positions and hold them while the rest of us get these choppers unloaded quick." Then the red light came on in the cabin and everyone was silent.

Cameron moved forward to observe the terrain ahead, as the mine came into view he could see the open fires of sentries and the barrack-like structures that he assumed housed the miners.

The Blackhawks came down in a clearing in the woods about 500 meters from the mine. From there the warriors deployed on foot led by Commander Comyn, with fire teams skirmishing ahead and forming a rearguard while the carriers hauled their burdensome crates in the centre. 15 minutes later that had reached the miner's picket line and had responded in Gaelic that they were friends and clansmen come to aid the rebels. The troop was then led to a large building atop the mine shaft that Cameron noted was topped by a machinegun nest. Cameron and a lieutanant entered the building that seemed to be full to the bursting with miners. "Welcome comrades to Geletia, we are glad you have arrived and hope that it was without incident" This came from a barrel-chested miner with a beard and a brace of pistols in his belt. Looking around the room Cameron noted many had bucklers on thier backs and basket-hilted swords like the one he himself wore at his hip. "We're glad we could be here to help brother, we heard of your rebellion, that you were defying the capitalist oppressors with rocks and blades and it reminded us much of our own history, noble as the fight is in these terms we hope you will not object to a few more modern armaments?" At that, the lieutenant who had joined him popped outside and returned with two men holding green crates "These my brothers are AK-74 Kalishnikov rifles, union-made in our own home land and supplied to you for use against the capitalists. We have brought with us 50 crates such as this, each with 20 rifles, that's 1000 rifles, we also have crates of ammunition and 40 RPG-7 anti-tank weapons. If you can distribute these, we can set up a supply station here and bring in many more, we would also like to be allowed to set up a field hospital to see to wounded warriors. We are glad to be able to assist fellow Celts in your struggle for Saoirse."

Outside, the carriers stacked boxes against the wall while the fire teams took out their field shovels and began to dig in to their chosen positions. The job of spreading revolution wasn't easy, but it had to be done and there were few people better suited to the job than the warrior-clansmen of the Cuimeanaich republic.

Port Nelson border

Being let in, well, at first it would seem like a victory, the crowds forcing through, hollaring and brandishing weapons. But, once inside, the momentum was gone from the front ranks. Some people reached out to grab at Azazians, but, if they caught hold of any, little more than a shaking and some more shouting would come of it. Until then, the mobs continued to gather, only taking on more organisation as time passed before the act of opening the gates. Demobbed soldiers and arms would show up, ancient armouries broken open, more music would be played, the demonstrators would even be seen cutting down trees, capturing wild animals, bringing in livestock, and building roundhouses out of timber and softwood sticks, straw, mud, dung, hair, and blood, seemingly primitive but a lot more roomy and comfortable than pitching a tent, plus a very clear act of, well, being Geletian in Geletia, on the border with a perceived colonial force, an extreme case of absentee ownership such as that of the Pennymount mining estate that was reactivated by the workers.

A few scuffles broke out, actually between priests, druids, and atheists, with one luckless fellow whimpering something about man's species being before taking a wooden crook to the head. Some people wrestled, and there were hunting expeditions with the bow. One would be left doubting whether the border guards had heard such sounds and smelled such odors as came from the listless celts near by, with the internationale sung in several unique dialects drifting with the taste of spit-roasted wild boar through a miasma of opiate smoke as the crowds grew along with their makeshift city.

Sovietists were now moving amongst the masses, distributing propaganda along with factory standard molotov cocktails.

The Royal Marines approached next night, five large ships with several hundred infantry, arriving from the west.

(OOC: One of these days, I shall make a map of Geletia, though I have only MS Paint and precious little skill, so it will be basic. I mention this because there'll have to be some reference to Port Nelson, and I wonder if there's anything really vital that must be included. Broadly, Geletia is around 11million square kilometres in the Indian Ocean, with cold rugged areas in the extreme south, some tropical and marginal monsoonal areas in the extreme north, and vast continental and temperate heartlands moderated by mountains and valleys. I have imagined the Azazian colony to be probably on the north coast, possibly as a peninsula or something, but it's not as yet important to me that it be so, and so it is largely up to, well, Azazia.)

Sygun Copper Mines

The foreigners were fortunate to arrive here in one piece. They probably owed their security to the vast size of Geletia that they were undetected. The government was desperately stretched, there was a lot of highland terrain by which to be screened, and the Kingdom had done most of its rearming a couple of decades earlier, and now lagged in military technology behind the cutting edge. Until the late C20th, the Geletians had almost no mechanisation, industrialisation, and firearms, and Adiatorix had balanced the personal and social benefits of economic growth over three decades with military development: buying several million small arms, several billion rounds of ammunition, tens of thousands of vehicles including thousands of armoured machines, tens of thousands of aircraft, and thousands of warships, along with simply reorganising a military of millions, all this was done in the 1970s or there abouts, and was a grand achievement... but updating defence technologies since then had proved an epic headache as nobody wanted to mess with the early logistics established by the first wave of modernisation.

Canberra, Victor, Mirage III, Harrier, Buccaneer, Vulcan, Mirage 4000, Lynx, Gazelle, they all could be seen in the skies, while two-metre celts with SLRs, Sterlings, and, unusually, Browning Type D small arms marched about. The coasts were, on the face of it, rather well defended, with Geletia being one of the first nations in the world to take advantage of trimaran warship technology, which since had become something of a craze. Friendship with the since defunct nation of Western Asia had made Adiatorix an early buyer of frigates, destroyers, and aircraft carriers in the three-hull configuration. That masked, however, an epic lack of tactical and strategic experience on the waves in a people more keen to ram and board than evade and torpedo.

Still, with government forces out-dated and badly stretched, the 100 with Comyn would indeed arrive without interception by Mirage, Rapier, or Blowpipe.

Sygun Copper Mines, a clumsy name, was a vast district. The Pennymount Estate was almost as large, quite sufficient to be its own small country, in truth, and it did account for most of the historic territory of the Sygenii tribe, proud and fierce highlanders numbering in the tens of thousands.

When the foreigners touched down, they may be disappointed to find some initial communication difficulties. Greeting the Geletians in Gaelic was a damn sight wiser than trying Latin on them, but the Geletian dialects -many had developed over the centuries- were Continental Celtic in origin, as opposed to the Goidelic stock applied by the visitors. Still, one would struggle to recognise Sygenii, like most others on the continent, as, "P-Celtic" since so much had changed on the migration from Central Europe, through the Balkans, Asia Minor, Parthia, and India, and, recognising this, bilingualism had been made widespread in Geletia.

The Sygenii were obviously delighted to see people from Na Cuimeanaich Saoirse taking an interest in their struggle, and AK-74s would be exchanged for alcoholic and other narcotic beverages all but forced upon the guests along with tall tales of past glory and suffering endured. Bards would be sought out, game hunted for the spit, and songs improvised for the event.

The AK-74 didn't exactly fit with domestic ammunition supplies, but this didn't exactly seem like a major disadvantage given that the alternative was one 7.62x51mm rifle, two swords, and four spears for every ten men.

The broad chested fellow, a former minor noble who finished up in a clerical position to which he was ill-suited until, made redundant, he joined the revolutionaries, was keen to agree with the foreigners about the hospital, distribution of arms, and anything else. However, he was calmed-down and reminded that the community intended to discuss and vote upon such matters.

...the result of these proceedings was the same. The Sygenii were happy for all the help they could get, and would smuggle weapons to neighbouring communities as well.

(OOC: Long story short, I got me some alcohol [vodka and bitter] for the first time in over a week, tonight, so, eh, if this post is especially rubbish or confusing, that'll be why =) )

Trafalgar Boulevard, Port Nelson
Royal Crown Colony of Port Nelson

Jane Matheson pulled her peacoat closer to her in an attempt to trap some warmth next to her silk blouse as night had fallen upon the small peninsula that she called home. In her early twenties, a recent graduate from Hamilton University outside Artega, she worked as a low-level investment officer for the firm Tarrow Shipping Ltd., a moderately sized cargo and freight shipping company that maintained its headquarters outside the Home Islands in the small colony tucked away in the Pacific – mainly for the low corporate taxes.

Matheson, however, had moved to Port Nelson for the money, which wasn’t a great deal for someone in her position but the fact she was starting out as a junior investment officer for a mid-cap company had seemed far more important for her résumé than an extra few thousand pounds per annum. And so she had bought a small condominium on the thirtieth floor of a high-rise that fronted Aberdeen Bay and Trafalgar Boulevard. Walking along that same street, with its wide lanes and faux red marble sidewalks interspersed with planted palms, potted ferns, and archaic wrought-iron lamp-posts that held electric lights in the shape of candle flames, Matheson felt content and at ease except for the lingering images of her lunch break.

For some time she had watched as long convoys of military vehicles rumbled down the main arteries of the city with soldiers hanging from the back gate with slovenly and despondent-looking persons corralled in the rear beds, only some of which had a canvas cover against the tropical sun. As she had sat underneath an umbrella at an outdoors café, nibbling on a local fruit quite sweet in taste, the convoys moved through the city as if hauling hundreds of individuals away from the borders and to the docks where hastily-impressed vessels were taking refugees aboard for a long, but hopefully somewhat pleasant journey to ports in the Home Islands.

As she reached her apartment following a long trip up in the elevator, she pushed her key into the door and turned the handle and threw what remained of her energy into pushing the door open. Staggering over to the leather couch she had bought on the cheap from a colleague she threw the peacoat over the back before collapsing and kicking off her three-inch steel-tipped stiletto heels. Stretching forward for the remote she turned on the news and began to rub her temples as local reporters segued their pieces into earlier-recorded footage of the assistance rendered to the refugees while a makeshift city slowly built itself up along the border. She dozed off before the anchors mentioned the scraps of anti-capitalist, anti-foreigner propaganda leaflets seized on a few persons brought through the checkpoints earlier in the day.

[ooc: took some time to draw up a little map and then to colour it in, although I admit the colouring bit sucks because the map is hand-drawn and the scan likes to incorporate the smudging and stuff as off-whites and so I'd have to fix it pixel by pixel... and I don't quite want to do that... but yeah, it's pretty simple (I hope) to understand. Up is north, 1 is Port Nelson, 2 is Aberdeen, 3 is Invergeletia, and 4 is checkpoint delta. The other checkpoints lay on the raised, but relatively flat isthmus connecting Geletia to the colony, three on the eastern side, one to the west... I figure the mountainous area is too rough for roads (though there are walls and remote sensors along the length.)

Map (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v318/fbcatholicsfan/Political.jpg)/ooc]

Port Nelson border

Being let in, well, at first it would seem like a victory, the crowds forcing through, hollaring and brandishing weapons. But, once inside, the momentum was gone from the front ranks. Some people reached out to grab at Azazians, but, if they caught hold of any, little more than a shaking and some more shouting would come of it. Until then, the mobs continued to gather, only taking on more organisation as time passed before the act of opening the gates. Demobbed soldiers and arms would show up, ancient armouries broken open, more music would be played, the demonstrators would even be seen cutting down trees, capturing wild animals, bringing in livestock, and building roundhouses out of timber and softwood sticks, straw, mud, dung, hair, and blood, seemingly primitive but a lot more roomy and comfortable than pitching a tent, plus a very clear act of, well, being Geletian in Geletia, on the border with a perceived colonial force, an extreme case of absentee ownership such as that of the Pennymount mining estate that was reactivated by the workers.

A few scuffles broke out, actually between priests, druids, and atheists, with one luckless fellow whimpering something about man's species being before taking a wooden crook to the head. Some people wrestled, and there were hunting expeditions with the bow. One would be left doubting whether the border guards had heard such sounds and smelled such odors as came from the listless celts near by, with the internationale sung in several unique dialects drifting with the taste of spit-roasted wild boar through a miasma of opiate smoke as the crowds grew along with their makeshift city.

Sovietists were now moving amongst the masses, distributing propaganda along with factory standard molotov cocktails.

The Royal Marines approached next night, five large ships with several hundred infantry, arriving from the west.

(OOC: One of these days, I shall make a map of Geletia, though I have only MS Paint and precious little skill, so it will be basic. I mention this because there'll have to be some reference to Port Nelson, and I wonder if there's anything really vital that must be included. Broadly, Geletia is around 11million square kilometres in the Indian Ocean, with cold rugged areas in the extreme south, some tropical and marginal monsoonal areas in the extreme north, and vast continental and temperate heartlands moderated by mountains and valleys. I have imagined the Azazian colony to be probably on the north coast, possibly as a peninsula or something, but it's not as yet important to me that it be so, and so it is largely up to, well, Azazia.)

Sygun Copper Mines

The foreigners were fortunate to arrive here in one piece. They probably owed their security to the vast size of Geletia that they were undetected. The government was desperately stretched, there was a lot of highland terrain by which to be screened, and the Kingdom had done most of its rearming a couple of decades earlier, and now lagged in military technology behind the cutting edge. Until the late C20th, the Geletians had almost no mechanisation, industrialisation, and firearms, and Adiatorix had balanced the personal and social benefits of economic growth over three decades with military development: buying several million small arms, several billion rounds of ammunition, tens of thousands of vehicles including thousands of armoured machines, tens of thousands of aircraft, and thousands of warships, along with simply reorganising a military of millions, all this was done in the 1970s or there abouts, and was a grand achievement... but updating defence technologies since then had proved an epic headache as nobody wanted to mess with the early logistics established by the first wave of modernisation.

Canberra, Victor, Mirage III, Harrier, Buccaneer, Vulcan, Mirage 4000, Lynx, Gazelle, they all could be seen in the skies, while two-metre celts with SLRs, Sterlings, and, unusually, Browning Type D small arms marched about. The coasts were, on the face of it, rather well defended, with Geletia being one of the first nations in the world to take advantage of trimaran warship technology, which since had become something of a craze. Friendship with the since defunct nation of Western Asia had made Adiatorix an early buyer of frigates, destroyers, and aircraft carriers in the three-hull configuration. That masked, however, an epic lack of tactical and strategic experience on the waves in a people more keen to ram and board than evade and torpedo.

Still, with government forces out-dated and badly stretched, the 100 with Comyn would indeed arrive without interception by Mirage, Rapier, or Blowpipe.

Sygun Copper Mines, a clumsy name, was a vast district. The Pennymount Estate was almost as large, quite sufficient to be its own small country, in truth, and it did account for most of the historic territory of the Sygenii tribe, proud and fierce highlanders numbering in the tens of thousands.

When the foreigners touched down, they may be disappointed to find some initial communication difficulties. Greeting the Geletians in Gaelic was a damn sight wiser than trying Latin on them, but the Geletian dialects -many had developed over the centuries- were Continental Celtic in origin, as opposed to the Goidelic stock applied by the visitors. Still, one would struggle to recognise Sygenii, like most others on the continent, as, "P-Celtic" since so much had changed on the migration from Central Europe, through the Balkans, Asia Minor, Parthia, and India, and, recognising this, bilingualism had been made widespread in Geletia.

The Sygenii were obviously delighted to see people from Na Cuimeanaich Saoirse taking an interest in their struggle, and AK-74s would be exchanged for alcoholic and other narcotic beverages all but forced upon the guests along with tall tales of past glory and suffering endured. Bards would be sought out, game hunted for the spit, and songs improvised for the event.

The AK-74 didn't exactly fit with domestic ammunition supplies, but this didn't exactly seem like a major disadvantage given that the alternative was one 7.62x51mm rifle, two swords, and four spears for every ten men.

The broad chested fellow, a former minor noble who finished up in a clerical position to which he was ill-suited until, made redundant, he joined the revolutionaries, was keen to agree with the foreigners about the hospital, distribution of arms, and anything else. However, he was calmed-down and reminded that the community intended to discuss and vote upon such matters.

...the result of these proceedings was the same. The Sygenii were happy for all the help they could get, and would smuggle weapons to neighbouring communities as well.

(OOC: Long story short, I got me some alcohol [vodka and bitter] for the first time in over a week, tonight, so, eh, if this post is especially rubbish or confusing, that'll be why =) )

OOC: I feel like an idiot, lol but would love to continue the thread if everyone else is interested.

(OOC: Of course, the thread continues. It's just a very slow-paced affair. You'll probably want to be involved in some other RPs while you wait :) New post coming, erm, later, heh.)

Sigh, I am conflicted. I'm not sure how to go about this, anymore. To go into the detail I'd like, and on the scale of Beth Gellert's eleven million square kilometres and six billion residents, well it makes sense that so few others have taken an interest, it's just too big an investment of time and other resources and the scale of the thing means its momentum is sufficient to steamroll just about any contribution.

Perhaps I should break this down into more workable parts? A basic map of Geletia with old tribal divisions, clan territories, and principalities within the Kingdom of the Geletians... perhaps I ultimately shall set-up the post revolutionary society as one comprised of republics in commonwealth. A bit like the USSR, but with more success for the left-wing.

Then, perhaps, a new thread springing from this one in which we could deal with just one or two of the territories, such as the one bordering Azazia's colony. Then there may be an opportunity for the involvement of, for example, international brigades, and I can more easily portray the break-down of central parliamentary and regal authority and simply include updates on the tide of revolution in other territories as background.

Hm, does this make more sense to anyone else who may be reading, or am I just wandering off into the recesses of my own bewilderment, again?

to Azazia
From General Grimm, the Leader of The Holy Republic of Bloodbank
My friend you seem to be having troble keeping the Commies in line if you want i will send you aid and men to help you keep these dogs in line I'll even come down there myself to help out if you want

Hm, right, so, I've been [with MS Paint, heh] sketching a few maps of the continent of Geletia (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Chivtv/NS1/geletiamap.jpg) and its regions, and thinking about what I should be doing.

On that map, a very basic overview, an outline, really of the continent's shape (I may erase the inland waters and put them on a topography sketch), I am basing regional ones with broad detail about the peoples of each area (the Durcodi shall reside near the northern shores of the extreme west, and surrounding that inland sea, and they shall be relatively moderate in revolutionary terms). I intend to make another with political divisions and cities marked, and one with at least a basic idea of topography.

Hopefully you can see Azazia's colony up there in the northeast. It's no exact reproduction of his map, but I expect that the viewer gets the basic idea.

Eh, I dunno, does it look vaguely believable as the shape of a continental mass of eleven million square kilometres?

Probably there will be a good dozen or so major tribes, corresponding to counties and principalities in the Kingdom of the Geletians and, later, to republics in the revolutionary commonwealth.

So, I don't know if anybody's reading this, but I'm thinking that, perhaps, I'll start a new thread to win interest in the fate of a continent. Once I've got all the regions and tribes worked out, I can list them and see if there's interest in the fight of tundra-dwelling primitive socialists against multi-nationalist oil exploration in the south, or Sygenii highlanders full of Marxist dogma and fighting after the closure of their mines, or whatever else. In the unlikely event of high interest, it could become a series of wars as the Kingdom is ripped apart.

This was just too poorly thought out, I have to admit. Next time, no starting until I know what I'm doing and can let everyone else know what's going on, too.

Back to working out the tribes and terrain, then...