NationStates Jolt Archive

Andaman and Nicobar, two island chains peopled since pre-history by Asian and African stock, rediscovered by Marco Polo, visited by the Dutch and taken by the British, invaded by the Japanese, liberated and made a territory of the Geletian Principality, offered Commonwealth on Llewellyn's defeat but, refusing, for the past sixteen years surviving as one of the world's smallest independent nations. 8,249 square kilometres of tropical jungle broken in the course of two decades by shining cities equal to any in the world by respect of modernity and opulence.

ISAN was ridiculously wealthy, per capita dollar figures a rival to those of Luxembourg, and surprisingly diverse, having fingers in industrial as well as financial pies. FBCo was dominant, and had major interests in China, and to a lesser degree in other nations, and was the main Nicobarese user of cheap foreign labour around Asia, but it was not alone in ISAN. Nico Cars could be seen on the streets, usually not well received at home (they concentrated on small cars while ISAN's population was obsessed with status symbols, usually SUVs and sometimes high-performance sports cars and luxury saloons) but trying pretty hard abroad, and some mid-size businesses held out in the long term. Fossil fuel exploration hadn't come to much, but the islands were moving into increased tourism, selling themselves on both rich luxury and island paradise platforms, not to mention the gambling.

Liberation, on the southern tip of the national chains upon Great Nicobar, home to 142,000 people, was an ambitious capital city. The island's tallest peak was Mount Thullier, at 642 metres the highest point in the Nicobars... until Eustace F.Brown, son of upper middle-class English settlers in India and President of FBCo, built the uninspiringly titled BrownCo Towers as headquarters for his multinational business empire. 140 floors reaching 700 metres into the sunny sky, his penthouse offices towered over nature, looking down almost sixty metres before Mount Thullier caught the eye.

It was only a shame that the Andamans' Saddle Peak reached 732 metres. He'd have to add a spike to the BrownCo building... or have Saddle Peak shaved down.

Brown was something of a control-freak. He was an absolutely furious looking man, bald with narrow-rimmed circular glasses and a little Hitler moustache, he wore a black suit even under the blazing Bengali sun. It was hard to say whether he wasn't perhaps more mad dog than Englishman.

After proclaiming himself president of the Nicobar Islands at the Principality's collapse, and leading them into a laughable attempt at war on the communists who outnumbered him at the time several thousand to one, Brown had survived, hanging on like a rabid pitbull, to annex the more populace but less prosperous Andamans into his Freely Incorporated States, typically called ISAN. Eustace and the Brown Party, lead by sycophantic FBCo shareholder Mr.Giles [first name unknown], had won two elections since the end of the 1980s, and with media domination and scaremongering over communism they absolutely refused to let go of power.

Despite briefly eye-catching incidents of dissent such as started by authors Samuel Reubens and Johnathen Tendulkar, who wrote the scathing Brownsheviks: The Majority Party in Nicobarese Politics subtitled And How Fixing Became a Capitalist Trait [first edition subtitle specified Price Fixing, reprints included notes criticising electoral practice since the first edition], the largely spoiled and often ill-educated masses soon lost interest in change, often afraid of being branded communist sympathisers.

Of late, Brown had been trying to edge Liberation towards Beijing and to a lesser degree Washington and London, notably buying eight Ching-Kuo multirole fighter aircraft from the Chinese.

But something was wrong. Deep into his second decade of rule without significant opposition, the gloss was peeling from Brown's imposing facade. The average schmo wasn't actively discontented per se, but just for the sake of it many were asking, because they could, why exactly it was that Brown lasted.

Nobody in the Andamans and Nicobars had kicked up much of a fuss over British rule, nor that of the Principality, and it was only Brown who had brought in elections. But, it was fair to say, the population was largely unmoved by them: voter turn-out was substantially lower than even the most institutionally disenfranchised western democracies.

The islands hadn't joined the Geletian-led anti-British revolts in the early C20th, and would have idled under the Principality to this day had the Victoria Salvadorians not kicked Llewellyn out on his ear. ISAN had even been happy to accommodate the Prince's family, and had protested France's harsh judgement on Llewellyn.

The stage was set for Brown's political demise (though he clung firmly to corporate power), but he faced no vital opposition able to count on significant public support.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Princess Morgana -from the shore of the sea- concluded her mourning for husband Llewellyn and son Bedwyr, both killed in faraway France. Since then she had given birth, being unable to attend Versailles due to her doctors' advice against flying so late in her pregnancy. Llewellyn hoped keenly for a second son, Morgana for a first daughter, having no idea that her first son would soon be dead. Both would have been pleased by the result, which was the birth of twins, brother and sister, whom Morgana named Modlen -from Magdalene, meaning tower-, and, potentially significant to anyone or thing named for or like a dog, Maelgwyn... Prince of the Hounds.

Looking upon her new babes, Morgana, alone, collapsed into an epic depression. Before long it was announced, Princess Morgana was gone, her title surrendered. Abdicated, in essence. Her children remained in Port Blair, but the Geletian Princess could not be found anywhere in the islands.

Though Quinntonian influenc outside of being consumers was limited in ISAN to perhaps a single Name it and Claim it Prosperity Docterine Evengelical Meg-Church, catering to the high income people of ISAN, the Quinntonian government kept its presense on the island at all times, and spent millions upon millions on their embassy and so on, using this as a strategic piont to watch the Beth Gellert coast closely.


OOC-BTW, do you remmebr that during the Nepalese civil war you OKed the building of an 800 man, 30 aircraft Quinntonian military base? Can we assume that is still in operation?

WWJD
Amen.

Roycelandia had never really managed to get much of a foothold in India, besides the colony of Goa, which was a shame, since His Majesty was a big fan of Indian culture and food.

Wiggles had tried hard to keep the political situation on the Islands secret from His Majesty, since the population of the Islands were so small that an army of Telecom Roycelandia linesmen with rifles could conceivably capture them.

Unfortunately, His Majesty kept a close eye on Current Events and was already thinking of some way to meddle. "If they don't care who rules them, perhaps they might be interested in joining the Roycelandian Empire as a Commonwealth? It would certainly keep the Chinese on their toes..."

OOC: Andaman, is there room for RP or are you dead set on removing Brown?

OOC: Yea, if you want to assume the base is still going, that's fine. I don't suppose that you can remember where we built it?

Anyway, of course people can get involved. There's still going to be an attempt to remove Brown (though probably not in double quick time, knowing me).

Tsar Wingert does send a missive explianing that he was more than willing to accept ISAN as a vassla-state in the Tsarist Empire.
Tsar Wingert the Great.

The Indian National Union never had much to do with the Andaman and Nicobar chain over the course of its 55 (almost 56) year history, being faced towards the west and separated overland from the Bay of Bengal by a very large chunk of Beth Gellert. While the concentration of both Igovian and Indian National warships in the area during the Malacca War must have been unsettling, Mumbai doesn't see much reason to invade the islands and never has. After all, as long as they aren't hurting anybody else, who's to say what the Andaman & Nicobarese should do?

During the Islands' days under the Principality, they were doubtless visited often by the INMDF's initial brace of T-Class submarines, but despite plans for a submarine-borne invasion of the Nicobars military involvement stopped at that.
Nobody is about to shed any tears for Eustace Brown if he is deposed. A long time coming, many will say, and nothing less than he deserves. But most Indians believe that the INU has bigger problems than Eustace Brown and the Andamans & Nicobars.

The Japanese government have no real problem with any political changes as long as they are bloodless and in the people's interests.

Mitsubishi, on the other hand, has almost completed refitting two former-Chinese aircraft carriers as part of an agreement with ISAN; one carrier being a floating casino, the other a floating hotel. If the deal gets scuppered for any reason, then Mitsubishi will probably whine long and hard at the Japanese government before seeking out another client. Of course, if Mitsubishi were to blackball ISAN, most of the keiretsu (the successors to the zaibatsu) would follow suit and find elsewhere to do business.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Chivtv/Stuff/sentinelese.jpg

Flimsy pretext for an invasion by the mainland? Perhaps not ;)




(Ah, for anyone who doesn't get it, North Sentinel is an island in the Andaman chain! I'm just glad to hear that these guys survived the Tsunami: Forested Shoreline one, Modern Civilisation nil.)

(One day we'll subdue the Sentinelese without giving them all diseases/being shot by them, and have a proper islander equivalent to the Gelert Sentinels ;) )

With ordinary Nicobarese going about their business, the largest political debate in their minds was likely to be over whether or not they really ought to be called Nicobarese. Southerners certainly thought so, while Andamanese tended to differ!

Certainly not a one amongst the islanders had thought of joining the Roycelandian Empire, and if they hadn't thought that, they were a billion miles from considering vasselage of the Tsar's Empire! They'll probably bring the cold with them! Scoffs one haughty merchant banker to one of the friends he is yet to overtly backstab. Yah, yah, or the poor! His even less witty companion guffaws.

For whatever contempt in which the Anglo-Saxon and Mongoloid southerners may hold the sharply contrasting Negrito and Geletian northerners, and whatever shame the Andamanese may feel over the Nicobarese, there's bucket loads of racism and haughty nationalism to chuck about the rest of the world. Even the Chinese remained subject to comic derision fit for the Roycelandian cinema, though they -with the Japanese- were at least considered worthy of being at the core of yet another petty rift as islanders argued over which one to back. Lately, in truth, outsiders like the Quinntonians and the Arabs were starting to edge the Japanese back into obscurity so far as Nicobarese attention was concerned.

Almost everyone in the islands thought that Europe was dead as Africa and the non-Quinntonian Americas.

Except...

Ross Island

The approach by sea to the Andamanese State capital, Port Blair, was watched by a tiny island close to sinking under the weight of its history. Your granny could skip across it before she had time to lose her breath, but she'd have sights to see on the way. It was 217 years since the British made something of the island, though it was only as a penal colony for, dependent upon your politics, convicts or freedom fighters.

Colonial buildings, left to the creeping forest until mid-C19th revolts on the mainland brought a British return, were now active parts of the Incorporation. In what for centuries had been called Paris of the East, a bazaar, shops, water treatment plant, tennis courts, printing press, government offices, hospital, cemetary, and a church all established concurrent with the start of the French revolution continued to operate, though no longer as the hub of British power in the islands. The East India Company commissioned most of this, and the Brown Corporation ran as much of it.

Ross was a survivor in view of other repossessed relics of the British era. With Port Blair looming on the mainland shore, a bridge out to Chatham Island was crossed by the same goods now as when it was built, and it seemed that those gathered today on Ross Island could hear the screeching of Chatham's on going work- that island was home to Asia's biggest sawmill, processing local woods along with more from Burma and elsewhere across the region.

This was a forbidding place for a person to be found involved in conspiracy, for turning the gaze in another direction would be sufficient to reveal for consideration the unmistakable shape of the Indian Bastille. Cellular Jail was so called for its 698 solitary confinement cells, in which mainland freedom fighters had been detained, often Geletians who hardly fit in the tiny rooms of the flower-shaped prison and who would later help to build the Incorporated States.

Undeterred by the not so distant buzzing of saw wheels and the lonely sufferings of petty criminals, aboriginal troublemakers, and corporate fraudsters unfortunate enough to have clashed with Brown Corp, cloistered in a quake and time damaged bunker of WWII-vintage Japanese construction, ideas met in the persons of several men and a very regal lady.

Do we so quickly forget what these dogs have done? We should rather side with the Godless communists... than give even... consideration to... the idea of forgiveness... for those Catholic... to allow them... it is too much!

Morgana's hands moved for a second in search of something that might be thrown with force in keeping with her rage at the suggestion of reconciliation with her husband's killers but, finding only her handkerchief and the few papers arranged atop the small folding table in this dank and miserable setting, she gave a frustrated yelp and turned to scramble from the bunker with little of her old grace, learned as beautiful teenage Princess to half of India and lost barely two decades later as a widow in obscurity.

Your Grace!

No, Cardew a firm voice, placing a fair hand in the path of one who would stop the fleeing lady. No, she won't betray us.

See that she gets where she's going, and prepare our friends. Then get yourself to Versailles.

At once, Master Jog.

Yadita, Middle Great Andaman

Mid Andaman, covering some fifteen hundred square kilometres, the second most important island in the Andamans chain, lay between South Great Andaman and the regional capital, and North Great Andaman and the criminality of that difficult place.

Yadita was a town of just a couple of thousand persons, but that made it significant in Andamanese terms. It was no Liberation or Port Blair, but modern enough, electrified, reasonably prosperous, in fact a place lived in by relatively wealthy commuters who worked in Mayabanda and Pahalgaon at the north end of the island.

Gunfire wasn't usual, not when people could go to the northern islands to hunt, but gunfire there was, in the very centre of the town itself. The local police, armed with pump-action shotguns and M1911 automatic pistols, and even a scoped M-14 rifle, were engaged in an exchange of fire with four men dressed oddly in fashions not seen since the Principality, and armed with ex-police revolvers sold to the public and old Enfield rifles.

The professional law men, being six strong and relatively well trained, were closing in on the civilian shooters when the scene became even stranger. One of the officers let out a yelp, as much from surprise as anything, and followed it with a, "What in the Hell?..." as a second and a third arrow struck him from the east. "Jawaras!" the cry went out as eight painted men came running, half naked, black, brandishing bows and launching arrows against the uniformed men. The officers turned their aims against the forest men, felling one with a shotgun blast before realising that the armed civilians weren't concerned with the savages and were in fact continuing to shoot at the police, another of whom was killed as a result.

France

A small passenger jet, rented by a consortium of the moderately wealthy Andamanese outside FBCo's uber-rich partnership, arrived in the capital to deliver a man named Cardew, who would call himself Captain of the Guard.

He was sent by a, "Sir Dallas Jog, Protector of the Prince and Princess India" with a request for support, needed by the last legitimate claimants to the throne of the Indias, as he would put it, in the civil war that had begun while he was in the air.

By the time he touched down, not only was Yadita lost to the control of a deeply confused and surprised Liberation government, but Mayabanda and Pahalgaon too were under attack by scores of aboriginal warriors lead (in theory if not quite in practice) by servants and associates of Sir Dallas of Jog Falls, a man knighted in the eighties for service to the principality as it fought a losing battle to hold on to mainland India and now de facto protector of Princess Modlen and Prince Maelgwyn.

With Princess Morgana's vanishing, Jog had taken it upon himself to administer the claims of her young children by the late Prince Llewellyn, enabling the Indian crown, essentially, to forget about unpleasantness in Versailles and seek support before government forces in the Nicobars came to bear or realised their own pressing need for foreign aid as the Andamans turned to revolt.

The Nicobarese Delegation would be greeted by rows and rows of gaily decorated Garde Suisse, standing at perfect attention in the Marble Court which led to the Grand Chateau of Versailles. Once the royal children filed past to ways of adorative bows (child or no, a royal was a royal in France, in the public language ‘divinities’) a full twenty-one gun salute was given from the near by Champ de Mars.

They would then be introduced to Monseigneur le Cardinal-Prince Louis de Rohan, Grand Almoner of France. Sir Jog was given His Majesty’s word that no harm would come to the children under his aegis.

Then at the sumptuous Royal Mass that day, the Islanders would see King Louis-Auguste from a distance, with his radiant Queen, as they filed out…planters, surrounded by the thousands of comets which were courtiers. That evening Monsieur Jog met with the King’s eldest brother, le Comte d’Artois, a most supreme honor.

It was common knowledge that the French Pacific Fleet was massively re-arming, abetted by Roycelandian surplus. A full review by His Most Christian Majesty himself was expected in Noumea ere the week waned.

“My brave fellow, why come you here to Versailles? What is it that you seek?” Then, whispering into Sir Jog’s ear he said:

“Monsieur, I am an avid read of the Gospel. Knock, and the door shall be opened! As, and you shall receive!”

(Well, I was intending to play it that just Cardew, the Captain of the Guard, was in France, but it doesn't really matter, so I may as well go with the whole lot. So long as they don't all get killed :) )

Sir Dallas, who was born near Jog Falls, Asia's highest waterfall, into minor Geletian nobility intertwined with British colonial elite, allowed Cardew to talk of his achievements on his behalf, for modesty's sake. He fought, purportedly, against the revolutionaries in Karnataka, and with great distinction, before serving the Victoria Salvadorian principality as a high ranking officer of the constabulary working to protect Ceylon from the Igovian First Commonwealth, finally escorting the royal family to painful exile in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, a former royal possession before the Igovian revolutions, which took independence but declined Commonwealth with the communists.

Cardew was, after clearly having run out of good things to say about the Knight, hushed by a blushing Jog who told him that he couldn't possibly be allowed to go on with such flattery in front of these noble hosts. Dallas spoke to those hosts.

"...Our population growth has been quite fantastic." He said, "Well, perhaps a few thousand extra heads per year is not much to a kingdom of sixty million, but when one considers that our islands, hardly a century past, were peopled by little more than two thousand of the most noble savages, our recently attained landmark of a four hundreth thousand is quite something... quite a change, certainly, given our short life as a civilised people.

"The fact is, that, given our epic rate of change, the Andamans and Nicobars are no longer a cluster of villages such as can be ruled by one ordinary man."

There was a weight to the [i]ordinary, which was in reference to President Eustace Brown.

"The people grow weary of President Brown, but, since he has worked to discredit the Smithian purists and since the socialists too are demonised, there is no vital opposition within the party-political system that he has created in the Nicobars and imposed upon the Andamans.

"Time enough has passed that old men look back with fondness on the Principality, and young men believe the most honourable things of its defeat to the Soviets and have fermented anger positioned firmly behind the still surviving royal line."

The Knight too a moment, squinted slightly, and started again with a slight shake of his head.

"The point is... and you'll no doubt be hearing this, soon, in any case... a rising in the name of Prince and Princess India has taken hold in the Andamans. Surviving servants of the royal household lead an insurrection supported by the neglected and abused aboriginals from the forest reservations.

"I should expect that Mid Andaman is by now quite secure, and there is nothing to prevent the taking of North Andaman. South Andaman is set to be the stage for decisive battle. We think that Ross Island can be counted upon as a Royalist position, but there is every possibility of marine and airborne assault taking it and securing the approach to Port Blair.

"The Indian crown has been reduced one thousand fold in a generation, but still has in it enough for one final fight that may decide the future of the world's greatest continent." Jog almost appeared to seriously believe that the islands were some sort of key to Asia. "To be frank, there is every chance that the Chinese may come to Brown's aid, and for all we know this may be approved by NATO. Such strength may finish legitimate Indian royalty for ever, though it would solve none of Andaman's problems and prepare trouble for the future. Ultimately, I fear, the islanders would end up with nowhere else to turn but to the Commonwealth.

"We can not at this time expect help from the mainland, from NATO, China, Japan, more likely opposition, but the rising can not be aborted. We desperately shall require the acknowledged support of influential foreign authorities before others can make public condemnation. If nobody else becomes involved, the rising may go either way. If one side wins support and the other is cast out by the world...

"The Holy League may be our only chance to prevent the defeat of what was the world's most powerful Christian monarchy."

Jog was right: Mid Andaman was essentially taken by the royalists, and North Andaman, a chaotic backwater, held no particular Incorporation strength. On South Andaman, with major cities such as Port Blair, and in the Nicobars, the state was shaking the cobwebs from its head and activating helicopter squadrons and its two heavy cutters, along with the four thousand strong Nicobarese Marines, that famous fighting force with the dubious distinction of having lost every major engagement it joined.

Tsar Wingert already has members o the Kargat, his Imperial secret police on their way attempting to make contact with the Royalist faction.
Tsar Wingert is ready to make an official condemnation of Brown in support of teh Royalists.

Tsar Wingert the Great.

Secret IC: The violence in the town of Yadita on it's own wasn't much concern to the Chinese, but intelligience reports of a Tsarist agent in Nicobar caused some concern. The decision was taken to send a "clean" agent to Nicobar to investigate what the heck was going on.

IC:

Posing as a tourist keen to explore the backwaters of Nicobar, Chun-Li, a former martial arts competitor and ROCA sniper arrives in Port Blair.

After that fateful meeting, the hour of which proved the Kingdom of France would again display her honor, Monsieur Jog was taken directly to His Most Christian Majesty Louis-Auguste, who sat upon his throne. In all his glory and regalia he addressed the Nicobarese.

“We, after much thought and prayer, have decided that for Christ and the good of the world your movement shall be supported by us. We send our dear brother, Monseigneur le Duc de Normandie, to take general command of all our forces in the Orient. Your presence and cause is welcome here, sir, and we refer you to our brother that he may directly and swiftly assist your efforts, so that they will abide and bear much fruit.”

((It seems short, but there’s a direct post that dovetails with this one on Progressive Restoration…linked here when I do that post.))

Mumbai doesn't take at all long to dispatch one of its frigates, the Indo-Bedgellen War veteran INS Gwadar, to the Bay of Bengal once news of disturbances in the Independent States filters into the subcontinent proper, and after sailing from Mumbai harbor it is to take up position about 50 kilometers north of Table Island in the Preparis South Channel. Right now, the ship's only orders are to sit and watch, since most Unioners don't much care for a "pointless" intervention in the Andamans & Nicobars. The fact that the Bedgellen royal family still exists is unknown in the INU, since it was widely assumed that the lot of them had been killed in retaliation for "that prince fellow"'s assassination of the elder Louis, so once that becomes common knowledge Mumbai might be a bit more interested.

Officially, the frigate's mission is antisubmarine warfare, and the Gwadar is a logical choice for such a mission. Type 12M ships have remarkably quiet hulls and very long-range sonars, as well as a considerable complement of ASW mortars and homing torpedos. In addition to keeping an eye on the recent developments in the islands, it can also block French submarines from using the Preparis channel.

France

Sir Dallas Jog, the last Indian Knight, despite his own impressive status and dress uniform that called back to the days of empire, was greatly impressed by an audience with the French royal.

The Andamani expressed humble satisfaction at the welcome extended, and soon would express a desire to return to the front, so to speak. Jog would invite Monseigneur le Duc de Normandie to visit Royalist territory in the Andamans, with every hope that sending such an important man into a war zone would mean the landing of Royalist soldiers. Though they may be only an escort, the political impact seemed potentially significant, and certainly an impressive statement for all those idle Nicobaris who had not yet thought to join the rising in the Andamans.

Pahalgaon

This town at the northern tip of Mid Andaman was now established as a makeshift capital for the Royalists, and Sir Dallas Jog intended to return promptly to take charge. Cardew, along with a maid, would wait with the prince and princess in the relative safety of Europe. Breaking open the armoury at this regional capital gave the rebels access to several machineguns and explosives, while the population behind the movement now numbered in the thousands and brought with it a quantity of civilian small arms, most of which were ex-service weapons that the government periodically sold off to private shooters. Fat men in suits and ties were racing about in SUVs, their friend and workmate hanging out the window with a 12 gauge shotgun while the boss poked his head out of the sunroof and waved an Enfield or Springfield rifle in the air.

People, by and large, hardly seemed to understand what was going on, but society was to a large part broken down and everyone was just going with it while the sun shines. Naked little black men ran about, hooting and brandishing weapons unchanged in thirty thousand years, and a few police and FBCo employees law about, stuck with arrows or bleeding from gunshot wounds, ignored by the excited locals.

It wasn't quite the sort of impression that Jog hoped to give, and it probably looked like he shouldn't have gone with Cardew to France.

What little royalist authority had been established after the rout of incorporation forces concerned itself with replying to Estenlandic interest in the situation, swearing that Mid Andaman was in the hands of the resurgent Indian crown, and that an operation was being planned to take North Andaman, as a practice landing on Interview Island had gone perfectly. (Interview was several hundred percent smaller than the main islands, and inhabited only by wildlife and some escaped elephants brought from India-proper, which had swum away from logging programmes on the big islands and run feral. Two invaders had been injured when a bull elephant took exception to their celebration of Interview's conquest and charged. It was still at large.)

The Pahalgaon authority's desire to present the royalist cause as a serious one for which it was worth the world's while to abandon Brown had every chance of backfiring- while the rebels spoke of victories and of new invasion plans, the Nicobarese Marines were moving in force to counter attack from the south, with helicopters all still in government hands, along with 90% of the islands' small armoured strength and both of its armed cutters.

Port Blair, South Andaman

Capital of the Andaman islands and one of the nation's two biggest cities, Port Blair was a major prize for either side. At the moment it was controlled by Incorporation police backed-up by private security guards employed by FBCo. Just a few kilometres to the north, Herbertabad was experiencing outbreaks of violence as users of the southern trunk road reported attacks by jungle people as they came from the north of the island, and royalist supporters and disenfranchised muslims clashed with police in the town.

The Chinese agent would find Port Blair a pretty place, though a little defaced by rampant corporate advertising on even the faces of generations-old colonial buildings, churches, and temples. Geletians, Anglo-Saxons, and a few Indians populated the city which, while no Beijing, was a substantial town with more than a hundred thousand residents and a place in which one could make a fairly significant fortune. The atmosphere was close, though. High humidity and a little smog wasn't the half of it. Everyone was talking of savages carrying-out incredible atrocity to the north, and people were trying to find-out whether their peers supported the royalists or the incorporation, and to do it without getting arrested.

Then, not long after the arrival of the 'tourist', a great commotion. In view of the port, two warships passed from the south, heading northeast. Magistrate and, unoriginally, Magistrate II, indigenous coast guard cutters weighing over two thousand tonnes with almost two hundred crewmen between them, the whole of ISAN's seagoing military strength, raced towards Ross Island, shortly followed by a pair of UV-18A Twin Otter utility transport planes and even a C-130 Hercules, as well as several SH-60 Seahawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters... and a Super Cobra gunship. By ISAN's standards, this represented something equivalent to an entire army group, perhaps more than one.

The Dreadnought IRNS Mary Goodknight, about to leave Goa for the Philippines, is instead diverted to the Andaman Islands with a party of Marines on board, just in case a "Situation" develops and intervention becomes necessary...

The Quinntonian commander, Col. Peter Simpson, has begun to order that his base be locked down, and put in a request for humanitarian aid to be delivered to his sight at once. Currently, he has ordered his 30 planes, for the most part older F-16's, to start to fly aggressive patrols, with full armament. He is using this opportunity to get a lay of the land, as his jets photograph everything. He continues to send the information back home as he contemplates whether he should move an insurgency strike team into place to protect the church at the capitol city. He has also begun to dig earthworks in staggered phases around his base, technically violating the sovereignty of A&N, but he sees no other choice. Once that is completed, he sets up a hospital and a free kitchen that is open to all, though patrols from the base that now move out to protect people in the immediate area try and disarm anyone who comes near their base. All patrols, whether planes or the ground units of marines, will only fire when fired upon, though if that happens, they will respond with extreme prejudice. If the ground units are engaged, they will immediately call for back up, and armoured patrols in Bradley’s will respond, as well as the respectable stable of 4 Apache Attack Helicopters, who will move in to act as troop multipliers.

Currently, the breakdown is as follows:
(30) F-16s have been broken into 6 wings of 5 planes each, with one wing on patrol at any time, and another two on stand-by for scramble within 20 mins, and the rest held in reserve, but perfectly able to be put to flight in less than 40 mins.

If attacked, they are to engage if they can from the air, and the back-up wings will be scrambled immediately. If from ground, they are to move to a higher elevation and wait for the back-up wings to arrive before engaging.

(4) Apaches two are ready to be scrambled in ten mins. At any given time, with the others able to be put to air within 30 mins.

(2) Transport Choppers: one is ready at any given time to be scrambled in ten mins., and the other within 30 mins. These are medical choppers, not really useful for insertion.

(800) Marines:
3 Platoons (40 each, 120 total) have been dispatched to serve the populous with protecting and working with the field hospital and open mess tents. They are ordered to protect civilian lives at all costs.
5 Platoons (40 each, 200 total) have been dispatched to the surrounding areas with orders to patrol the area, protect civilian lives, and give assistance wherever they can. They are carrying quite a lot of medical supplies and food with them, for the civilian populous. They will stay close to base, and will only engage when a target has been proven to be hostile, but will stand their ground while calling in the Apaches and any other platoons nearby. They are moving in single platoons.
The rest of the troops are back at the base, seeing to its defence.

Col. Simpson is currently trying to contact the heads of both sides and the higher-ups back home asking for orders.
WWJD
Amen.

The Gwadar arrives on station after about a day at sea, and trains its long-range search radar south. It soon becomes clear that the troubles in the Andamans & Nicobars are no small occurrance, since nearly the whole of the ISAN's small military (with the notable exception of the Chung-Kuo fighters) is on the move. And although Mumbai still has little idea as to what exactly the fighting is about, it isn't long before No.44 squadron is prepared for emergency aid deliveries into Port Blair.

Mumbai also orders a SIGINT-configured Andover out into the Bay of Bengal, in the hopes of determining what exactly it is that is happening in the ISAN. At the same time, the Gwadar recieves orders to move south and reposition itself in the Ten-Degree Channel for a better look at the islands' internal situation.

With multiple deployments of forces by various nations, Beijing asks Brown if any assistance is required, be it military, financial, or policial. With news of a royalist coup now largely out in the open, Beijing has reacted according and (secretly) deployed a large fleet of submarines to the region.

Twelve fully armed Ming SSGNs, some equipped with the Hsieng Feng 5 ASCM are deployed immediately, with preparations for the deployment of two destroyers, one cruiser with a few hundred marines, and a light carrier underway.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Chivtv/NS1/anmap.jpg

(Quinntonia, you don't happen to remember where the base was, do you? The capital you can see on the very southern tip of the chain, the second city at the south of the northern islands, the northern most main island is the under-developed crime-den, most of the visible islands on the map are big enough, elevations allowing for the small/mid-size base.)

President Eustace Brown and his ruling party had, after some days of utter confusion hanging over the islands, begun to describe terrorist atrocities carried-out by the heathen stone-age tribes of the Adamanese and Nicobarese jungles operating under Soviet manipulation. Knowing Princess Morgana to be missing, and not appreciating that her small had fled with her two small children to France, Liberation had taken the decision to announce the suspected slaughter of the last members of the Geletian royal family, either murdered by jungle savages or executed by Soviet agents, the Brown Party actually trying to evoke sympathy in Russia and France in memory of such killings in their own past revolutions.

Of course the truth was quite different, and its outing was likely to work against Brown.

Outram Island, Andamans

A shore party of Nicobarese Marines arriving from the nation's two heavy cutters finds itself reflecting on protestations, a moment earlier, that they had to go in alone before more capable forces arrived via helicopter and aeroplane. Now they were glad of it, and of the length of time they spent at sea only for the others to fly in at the last minute, as they watched, helpless, the burning of wreckage of a downed Marine Chinook. The rebels had taken Mid Andaman's Foo Fighter mid-range missile battery, enabling them to attack the aircraft that had been hopping through the islands off the east of the major landmasses.

The cutters were soon engaged in a rescue operation, searching the waters for survivors from the heavily laden transport helicopter, and the remaining Marines were essentially stranded on their little island while rebels denied them the sky and their ships were otherwise disposed in the search. Sir Hugh Ross, Neill, Havelock, John Lawrence, Henry Lawrence, and Outram islands had all been cleared and left with a singe squad of Marines to boulster police detachments and organise civilians, but the force was unable to take its issue on to the fallen Middle Great Andaman.

Rebel militias, meanwhile, were establishing Royalist control on North Great Andaman, in a fashion. The pirates' nest was likely to remain anarchic at this point, and was little populated, but the Royalists meant to have presence enough to deny it to the Marines should they think to land there at some point, and its jungles offered a possible fall-back position incase of counter-attack.

Baratang and South Great Andaman, or else the Marines concentrated on Outram, appeared to be the next target for Royalist forces as Jog returned with French observers to Pahalgaon. Liberation held its breath as if requiring absolute silence before deciding whether to abandon survivors of the shoot-down and launch an immediate assault, risk airstrikes against SAM positions in their own nation, announce to the world that help was required against largely mysterious rebel forces, or be struck by some other idea. For now, AF-4 Ching-Kuo and AT-2 Hawk-LIFT aircraft flew patrols in the west and out of rebel SAM range, the military apparently fearing a Soviet or Union invasion from the mainland to follow the loss of contact with its northern islands and the temporary stranding of Marines.

OOC-Well, you never really told me exactly, just that I was allowed to set one up with limitations as to size. So, you could just let me know and I will RP from then on as if it has always been there. I don't know what Brown's intentions were when he approved it, if he was just placating us and didn't really want us there, perhaps it is in the crime-ridden portion, but if he wanted it as a crown jewel in his foriegn relations mandate, kind of, look even Quinntonia comes to A&N to help me, and didn't want to upset us then it might be near the capitol. Or, it could be anywhere in between.
I just kind of assumed that it was near the capitol, but I am easy. Let me know.

WWJD
Amen.

The government in Liberation is quite right to expect some trouble from the Indian National Union, and Mumbai doesn't intend to show Brown any extra sympathy during this latest struggle (granted, nobody in the INU has any idea of the rebels' French connections). As if to cause Eustace Brown to lose more sleep, almost the whole of the IN's seagoing combat strength, including its new Invincible-class aircraft carrier, passes relatively close to the ISAN on its way to the Java Sea in an effort to block French ships from entering the Indian Ocean. It wouldn't be the first time the IN has attacked the islands either, and quite possibly some structures, especially the Cellular Jail, still bear holes from bombardment by IN Cruisers.

However, the IN's main body passes the islands by, leaving one frigate on station to the north and another Chhattisgarh-class patrol ship moving in to join it. Between them, the Gwadar and the Bandavgarh have enough marines to occupy perhaps a small island, and Mumbai might very well decide to do so, but there aren't any plans to leave a lasting presence, or even to stay longer than is necessary to establish the situation.

An IAF Andover, configured for SIGINT work, flies out over the Bay of Bengal and follows a course roughly parallel to the Andaman & Nicobar Chain, about two hundred kilometers west of the islands and running the very real risk of interception. The risk is deemed acceptable, though, as it is considered vitally important to both gather information and establish a Union presence around the islands.

(As A&N is about to leave AMW, what happens here?)

(OOC: Oh, this goes on. It'll decide how the islands are left when ISAN stops controlling them, and may or may not end up as a front in the brewing world war.)

A front indeed...

Something of interest to the Royalists, no doubt...

The Walrus and the Carpenter (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=10657789#post10657789)