NationStates Jolt Archive

Asbenian trains have been seen from space performing strange acts. Trains often disappear completely on stretches of track between pictures. At last a train was seen heading into a mountain and never coming out even though the tracks continue as if it cut through the mountainside.

Until recently few pictures of these strange dissappearances would be noticed...however recently among the thousands of trains it has become more and more noticable that trains are simply vanishing.

Most noticable was a massive 100 car train that was carrying several thousand tons of uranium.

Reports of massive amounts of mining machinery have been seen in Asbena....particulary near the north and an endless stream of rock has been reported being moved out of five such tunnels near the Wasteland.

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OOC: OOC is allowed....but keep IC comments....ICly

OOC: Hrm... I think it's gonna be a massive Green Peace terrorist Attack in the mountains with uranium... on a serious note, nice idea for starting either a nuclear weapons program, or a nuclear energy facility...

OOC: Hrm... I think it's gonna be a massive Green Peace terrorist Attack in the mountains with uranium... on a serious note, nice idea for starting either a nuclear weapons program, or a nuclear energy facility...


OOC: We already had a nuclear program from long before, though this is something that almost no nation can avoid. Its akin to the North Vietnamese army bringing in chinese weapons through an underground railroad system!

Its going to have MAJOR relevance in 14 years when the base is built in a previously inhospitable wasteland (Called the Wasteland) which has temperatures below -50 or -40 degrees F. Almost constant storms and a frozen freshwater sea next to the ocean. A secret base will be built there. (The area is so harsh that even radar fails to show up anything do to the storms and high mountains)

OOC: We already had a nuclear program from long before, though this is something that almost no nation can avoid. Its akin to the North Vietnamese army bringing in chinese weapons through an underground railroad system!

Its going to have MAJOR relevance in 14 years when the base is built in a previously inhospitable wasteland (Called the Wasteland) which has temperatures below -50 or -40 degrees F. Almost constant storms and a frozen freshwater sea next to the ocean. A secret base will be built there. (The area is so harsh that even radar fails to show up anything do to the storms and high mountains)
OOC: Know exactly what you mean, I have a few myself...

OOC: Asbena has been doing these stupid tunnels since Irathia. Its a wonderful way to survive nuclear wars if you are far enough underground. Also a great way to beat the elements. Cause the Wasteland is a terrible place to live and nothing can survive there, tunnels will allow a perfect place for it. That's akin to having a military base in Antarctica!

Koryan Border Intelligence Center

"Sir, you should probably take a look at this..." Cheryl shouted to her boss amidst a concert of ringing phones, beeping computers, and hundreds of conversations. The KBI Center had become extremely overcrowded after military budget cuts had ruined their hopes of getting a new, much bigger building. Jim Karlson, the Minister of Defense, wandered through the chaos to the border survelliance unit and found the girl who had called him.

"What is it?"

" It's our border with Asbena. Our satellites have been picking up strange activites. At first I thought they were just technical problems but the new satellite is showing the same thing." Cheryl brought up an array of pictures on her screen and scanned through them. They were blurry pictures of trains running through the mountains. She refocused them and zoomed in until it looked as if they were looking right at the locomotive.

"Now watch this." She scanned through the pictures so that it appeared as if they were watching the train move. Suddenly it was gone. Karlson wasn't sure what to say. "That's not the only one." Cheryl played through nearly a dozen different sets of pictures, each ending with a missing train.

"This is confidential. Continue monitoring the border but report to no one but me. Try to find a satellite with a higher frame rate so we can figure out where these things are going. Project Ghost Train is the codename for this information, okay? I want you to change your computer's passwords as soon as possible and make sure you don't get re-assigned to a different area. Understand?" Karlson's sudden burst of secretness was scaring Cheryl.

"Why hide all of this? The trains are all operating on the Asbenian side of the border. That's not illegal or anything close."

"We don't know where those trains are going or what they are carrying. For all we know, they could be using these "ghost trains" to smuggle bombs, weapons... even soldiers into our nation! We have to find as much information on them as possible." Karlson gave her the look. She knew it meant to shut her mouth and obey. She did exactly that and turned back to her computer. He marched back through the circus of survelliance teams and to his office. He shut and locked the door and called the president's cell phone - a number only he and a few select individuals knew.

"This is McKnight. It's a tied game in fourth quarter with less than a minute remaining. This had better be good."

"Lord McKnight, we may have a security issue on the Koryan-Asbenian border."

"Is anyone dead yet?"

"No, sir."

"Are there foreign soldiers on our soil?"

"Uh, no sir."

"Then it can wait until the game's over." The president hung up without another word. Karlson signed and put down the phone. Somedays he really hated his job.

OOC: Since Asbena has its own continent its now really a border....but we can say its close anyways (just like the rest of every NS nation to every other NS nation that doesn't have a specific map part in relation to others)

IC response after school. :)

After much searching the nation of Koryan got the proof they waited for.

A long train was seen on the tracks, it appeared to be more then 10 single trains on the same track set to the same destination. All the cars were linked into a massive 600 car train that was over ten miles in length.

The many engines required to pull this heavy load was linked to the rest of the cars, it appeared as if the foreign train imports were doing a large amount of the brute work. Asbena's purchases of an overabundance of trains had finally been realized.

On the massive train of cars were pipes and steel piled up and bundled in massive cords and chains. Among the interesting thing was 50 ft tall steel beams layed on the side of the cars. These giant steel beams were matched with a large amount of refrigeration materials and what appeared to be entire cars full of compact sealed insulators that had been over heaped and repeatly chained down, it overflowed and was obivous that out of desperation they put chains to hold it down by sheer force.

Some large drilling equipment was seen along with what appeared to be several cars full of high explosives that was in a heavily armored car. A chain of 20+ food cars were next, these huge cars were refrigeration units, but it appeared as if they had been extra-insulated for the trip, extra sheets of metal adorn the cars with an extra unusual seal.

Then came the strangest part of all, a series of long passenger cars that were painted in the Asbenian color scheme....they were all military cars. Conditions appeared cramped as soldiers lined the top of the cars, branishing weapons and cheering, it was as if they were drinking and partying!

The long train headed towards the north, dissappearing and reappearing in many places, for the first time Koryan Satellites were able to record the length of the underground passages that Asbena had built. Some times the train would go under a mountain and reappear several miles away while the back side of the train was still entering it! Other times the train would move along a mountain pass, weaving and winding through them like a snake on the ground.

After a long while the train was in the far north, and the train was headed towards a mountain with the tracks continuing right to it. The train was not stopping at all and plowed headfirst into the rock face only to have it push in and be revealed as a paper skin that revealed a strange tunnel into the frozen Wastelands of the north.

The entire train dissappeared into the tunnel and never came out, however a small series of trains with passengers and some with many ores in them came out. Koryan seen the largest train car disappear into the mountain and never exit.

The Wastelands though are known for their cruel environment, internationally! The poor conditions and unusual storms that hover in the valleys and over the mountains make it the worse place in Asbena if not the entire world. What would the military be doing sending such a train into a secret tunnel in the first place? Was the only logical question people could or would draw from the strange happenings.

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OOC: :D

OOc: how about ground penetrating radar? I bet that would spot your tunnels...

OOc: how about ground penetrating radar? I bet that would spot your tunnels...

OOC: I doubt there is such a thing as 'ground-penetrating radar' as you won't see anything anyways.

Edit: Typo

OOC: Since Asbena has its own continent its now really a border....but we can say its close anyways (just like the rest of every NS nation to every other NS nation that doesn't have a specific map part in relation to others)

IC response after school. :)
OOC: ? Does that mean this isn't on Irathria?

OOC: ? Does that mean this isn't on Irathria?

Its not on mainland Irathia. The Wastelands is a frozen hell...you can't get that on Irathia!

OOC: Oh, I thought you were talking about the Irathrian Asbena (it's cold up there, too)

IC:

McKnight Stadium, Korya

A soccer game Saturday, a football game Sunday, and now a dodgeball game Monday was beginning to take it's toll on the president. That, combined with the late-night parties after every game had him exhausted to the point that he was living off Red Bull and Vault. As he watched the West Koryan Vipers win the semi-finals, his cell phone rang. He chugged the rest of his Vault and answered:

"Let me guess, the republic is in danger and you need my position to do something covert and illegal."

Karlson could tell already that only 5 hours of sleep in the last 40 hours was starting to wear down the president. "We've began gathering info using satellite imaging and high-altitude intel jets. Although our border isn't that active, we've detected much larger activity on the continent of Asbena. We put in a call to the space station and they had an answer for us within a few hours."

"Hmmm...." McKnight went over all the movies he'd seen trains doing secret missions. All of them had the same job: "Let me guess, they're either transporting nuclear weapons or the materials to make nuclear weapons."

"Uh... correct, sir. How'd you know?"

"Ever wonder what a president is doing when there aren't any foreign leaders' asses to kiss or speeches to make? I kick back and watch movies until I fall asleep."

Karlson was becoming irritated. "Sir, this is serious. We've watched train after train filled with soldiers, equipment, and materials vanish. They could have a full military base operating somewhere!"

"Send them a bottle of red wine. And stop being so nosy. When they start shipping around uranium and rocket shells in Irathria, then call me." McKnight hung up and returned to watching the game. Karlson was shocked. Highly religious nations and nuclear weapons didn't mix, no matter where on the planet they were. He would continue monitoring the situation. Perhaps he would forget to tell the president about his plans.

OOC -
OOC: I doubt there is such a thing as 'ground-penetrating radar' as you won't see anything anyways.

Edit: Typo

GPR (http://www.g-p-r.com/introduc.htm) exists.

OOC:I stand corrected....but it appears as if GPR isn't exactly capable of identifying an object under X amount of feet and although it can tell the differences in metals and things, it wouldn't be able to see inside of the tunnels themselves which are deep in the ground. Got any more info though?

OOC - Google the phrase, see what you get. Apparently, though, it can be used to detect mines, and, according to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar):Applications include locating buried voids/cavities, underground storage tanks, sewers, buried foundations, ancient landfills. It can also be used to characterize bedrock, the internal structure of floors/walls, water damage in concrete, and the internal steelwork in concrete...
Oh, and would you mind posting your nation's reaction to what's going on in this (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=477144) thread?

OOC: Asbena has been doing these stupid tunnels since Irathia. Its a wonderful way to survive nuclear wars if you are far enough underground. Also a great way to beat the elements. Cause the Wasteland is a terrible place to live and nothing can survive there, tunnels will allow a perfect place for it. That's akin to having a military base in Antarctica!

Not really, a few hits with modern nukes and your mountains are big radioactive craters.

Not really, a few hits with modern nukes and your mountains are big radioactive craters.

OOC: Its deep tunnels over a mile underground....we don't care about the stupid mountains and they are infact annoying as can be because its unlivable space.

OOC; Actually, a Military versione xists, it doesn't do any more than look for holes in the ground (not capable of anything near the detail of comercial GPR). Russia and America used sattelite based versions to play tag with each-others ICBM silos for years until they learned the trick of disguising the things.

Probably useless against the deep tunnels, but unless you've made an effort to disguise the tunnels that the trains are using to 'disapear' the we would at least be able to get an outline of your under-ground tunnel network

OOC: You can see the entrance and exit points, but you can't map the insides...which is the real complex point, all the switches and secret things are hidden deep underground.

Bump!

Bump!

Bump >.>?!

Final bump before this dies.

To: Absena
From: ICCD External Affiairs Division

We are writting to inform you that a undiscolved underground tunnel system appears to exist connected to your rail system, in addition to this various materials seem to be missing from atleast one train upon entering and leaving this system. We are uncertain if this is a absena governmental project or otherwise and we though that we would alert you for potential security reasons.