NationStates Jolt Archive

Rails rattled, paper rustled, and mid-morning sun warmed the faces and narrowed the eyes. A man three seats forward cleared his throat, and Nicole's gum smacked, releasing strawberry scent to cram the places that sun and sound left unfilled.

"Oh, they're not real, Sash. Honestly! Your face!"

"Well... hmph..."

The bridge of Sasha's nose did that thing, the little scrunch indicating her disgruntled disposition as this less than confident young person tried to make herself contest the scornful assessment of her frizzy-haired friend.

"But... it's not doctored or anything, and it says..."

She shrugged, Nicole clearly not even a little bit interested, and gave-up the conversation. But, as the old commuter train clattered on towards town, the girl never quite managed to move past the story and the images at its centre. Perhaps she was just intelligent enough to be moved by it, though she struggled to understand how anyone could fail to be likewise touched.

N(ews) I(nquiry) M(agazine) had, by unidentified means, got hold of some pictures of unidentified origin, and was doing its darndest to whip-up a storm of edition-shifting interest. Shouldn't be too hard, with a head in a box.

Easy, then, with ten thousand boxes so-filled.

The mysterious series of photographs recounted a macabre storage facility, an otherwise unremarkable warehouse stacked with boxes and shelving units that happened to contain and display disembodied human heads. Heads in various degrees of preservation. Heads of the young, heads of the old. Heads that wore scars and marks of post-mortem tampering and heads that didn't. But all heads that were fixed with tags, impossible to read without closer inspection than the photographs would allow.

Some magazine in some nation, somewhere in the world, had broken a story -or perpetrated a hoax, perhaps even fallen victim to one- that made a mystery of countless thousands of human heads in storage, and nobody seemed to know more.

OOC: Mostly this is just a tool by which to prepare the ground for Kargrazia's introduction. I don't know if I'd take the magazine storyline itself anywhere, though the heads are a part of the nation I'm building, so it doesn't matter if anyone wants the NIM to be based in their country, but, well, anyone can pick-up the story or take an interest in it.

As the week rolled on, more media sources produced more images of the weird collection. If it was not an elaborate hoax -for it was certainly not a thing that anyone could identify- the catalogue of images now appeared to be part of a deliberate record of tens if not hundreds of thousands of severed human heads.

Stacks of shelves and rooms full of boxes, containing heads possibly on their way to shelving units of their own, were marked with roman numerals. Large numerals -three, two-hundred, seventeen, and so on- above smaller inscriptions. The smaller text could be seen ranging between MCMLXXVIII and MMI.

Some people around the world called for investigations into the origin of the images, others dismissed it all as hoax, and some experts suggested that -to the best of their learning- no known disaster or atrocity around the world explained the manner in which these disembodied heads were kept.

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

Ministry of Defense

Office of General Abd al-Kemal ibn Suleiman al-Naresh, Director of Military Intelligence

General al-Naresh sat at his desk, drinking Red Bull to stay awake for another long day at the office. This stuff will kill me. He sifted through another file on some weird country he'd never heard of before. While he was trying to read the badly smudged Arabic, a tall, black-clad, thickly built man in his mid-30's entered the room.

"General, have you received the report on the situation in Kargrazia?" asked Brigadier General Igor Kaselev, one of the most prominent officers in Military Intelligence. The large man placed a file in front of his superior.

"What do you make of these?" asked Kaselev, showing General al-Naresh a file documenting the severed heads found in boxes. "Intelligence has never seen anything like it before. We think it's a scientific experiment of some sort."

The older general chugged another can of Red Bull. "Sit down, General Kaselev." He nodded to a chair with about twenty thousand pages on it contained in numerous folders. The younger officer reached over, picked up the folders, which must have weighed about fifteen kilograms, and set them down in the corner before pulling the chair up and having a seat.

Now seated across from Kaselev, General al-Naresh looked over the document. "I'd have to agree with you... certainly not a war crime or terrorist act like any we've seen before... it could be a Kravenite scheme..."

The old man sees Kraven everywhere. Kaselev did not voice his belief that his superior was growing paranoid, but he spoke, quietly. "Possibly, I believe that we should investigate further before jumping to conclusions. I'd like to assemble a team of intelligence personnel to Kargrazia to bring back information."

Al-Naresh nodded his head. "Send whomever you want. Just don't have them take any risks you wouldn't take."

I never do. Kaselev rose, awaiting the word.

"Dismissed."

---

Two hours later, Kaselev had assembled a crack team of intelligence and special forces to go to Kargrazia. The team had five members; Dr. Leonard Epstein, a physician and computer scientist who had conducted research on Kraven specimens and other advanced biological items that arrived in Kahanistan, Major Thomas Donovan, a special forces veteran of the Freekish and Pwnage wars, Captain Yasmina as-Sabah, an Imperial Marine who had experience in infiltrating the most secured areas, Second Lieutenant Omar Rich, another intelligence officer who specialized in religious extremist cults, and Ensign Mohammed Zulfiqar Abd-al-Haraam, a cybernetics expert.

The Kahanistanians boarded a plane from Najaster to the Kargrazian capital. In eight hours, the investigative team from Kahanistanian Intelligence would arrive.

OOC: Bump, and since I'm assuming nothing major happens on the flight, you can greet the intelligence agents when they land in your capital. Remember that they're disguised as civilians, you don't ICly know that they're intel.

Cetch, The Dictatorship of Kargrazia

Footfalls had echoed down the hall for more than a minute before the Statini Commissar arrived at the heavy double doors on which now knocked. Hearing two sharp reports from the other side, he entered, the Dictator having signalled his allowance by rapping the heel of his cane against the brass-covered hearth at his back.

The Commissar approached without speaking, even without looking directly at Premier Antoi Bexhi, his chin up and eyes to the wall behind the Dictator, and then flung a hysterical salute as he suddenly stopped. His right hand, palm flat and fingers exteneded to the fullest, was stretched up high, almost Roman or Fascist but entirely vertical, almost like a student seeking his teacher's attention. The Commissar held out a folder containing reports, keeping it still for a second before placing it on the desk, from which Bexhi never rose, and turning to leave, taking care to properly close the double doors. He made his way back down the long corridor, which was unchanged for generations, its thick wood-planked floor warped by the sun that just about fought its way through small-pane windows to the left of the Commissar as he walked away.

Bexhi listened to the departure of his secret police captain. He felt that he could discern much from the nature of a man's stride, and glean information about possible intrigue against his rule by the mood of a conspirator's walk, so, having himself come to power in... a certain manner, he always listened.

The folder contained more information about the leak. Gregorei Gelbetov, an administrator who'd gone missing and was long suspected of defection, was identified as the source of the leak. He'd fed illegal images to foreign press after somehow escaping Kargrazia and, with these Kahanistanis on their way, it seemed that the Dictatorship had been correctly fingered as the origin of the pictures. It would be quite the coincidence if someone were simply trying to holiday in Kargrazia for the first time in thirty years while the world was fussing over pictures that Bexhi knew were down to him.

It has been a while since we had such a problem.

Bexhi penned a note ordering a particular officer to come, rolled it into a can, and proceeded to the corner of his remote room where a pneumatic tube waited to carry his dictate to the central office, from where it would be directed on to the intended recipient. The officer soon arrived in the same manner as the Commissar before him.

"This man" said Antoi, passing to the officer a re-packaged page from the earlier-arrived folder, "Is a traitor." The officer didn't have to be told what to do about that. He took the paper, saluted again, and departed to arrange for Gelbetov's assassination.

Aerodrome Iosef, Cetch

The Kahanistanians approached a small country of 21,387 square kilometres, slightly larger than Israel, slightly smaller than Belize. Cool-temperate Kargrazia should have been experiencing a warm, dry summer, but altitude moderated that significantly through the most part of a country that descended to sea-level only close to its short twelve-hundred metre coastline. Aerodrome Iosef might have been built still higher in the mountains, but had to nestle instead between two large hills, or else its Puk-6 attack planes would struggle to operate efficiently and safely.

A pair of the two-seater prop-driven machines, looking an awful lot like Su-6s, were out on the runway, and several ZPU 1, 2, and 3 tracked the course of the foreign aircraft as it was directed in by air traffic controllers stumbling over English words they related with the help of the facility's dusty old international manual. Well, how many foreign pilots speak Cirisie?

The visitors would already have flown over the epic Walls of Kargrazia, which had sprung up around and through the nation since the 1970s and consisted of momentous earthen ramparts and ditches, pillboxes, and other defences. There could be seen many isolated villages, surrounded by farmland and hidden in the hills but somehow connected by roads and tunnels on a scale far beyond what seemed likely or necessary.

Meeting the new arrivals were several pistol-wearing officers in uniforms inclusive of extremely large peaked caps and lots of medal ribbons and badges, and a number of extremely quiet ladies and gentlemen quite conspicuous in the background. In Kargrazia, the Statini watch. There was a bus that looked to have survived the Second World War (in pretty good condition, too), and a lingering smell of oil and turf.

The Kahanistanian crew were vaguely uneasy, as if they knew they were being watched. The pistols each crew member carried for protection were reassuring, though with this lot surrounding them, they would be lucky to be able to draw if things turned ugly.

To break the ice, Captain As-Sabah, the lone female in the group, smiled warmly at the Kargrazians. She was an attractive woman in her late 20's and appeared to be Palestinian. The officer stood about 5'5" and 135 pounds (165 cm, 61 kg) with long dark hair and eyes.

"Yasmina As-Sabah," she said, in the way of introducing herself. She did not mention that she was an officer in the Imperial Marines. She nodded toward the doctor, who stood up.

"Dr. Leonard Epstein. I'm a scientist." He was also a Lieutenant Colonel in the Kahanistan Republic Guard, but at almost 50 years old, he certainly didn't look the part.

The other three Kahanistanians were men in their 20's or 30's. They sat in the background, as if they would rather not mix with their comrades. Major Donovan, an average-looking man in his early 30's with brown hair and blue eyes, was looking at a map of Kargrazia, with two Arabic men in their 20's looking over his shoulders.

To get out of the Iosef Aerodrome -which was indeed, if they wondered, named for comrade Stalin- in a fight, the five would probably have to be Terminators. Though the personnel immediately facing the Kahanistanians were either unarmed or carrying only small-calibre pistols that clearly were Kargrazian state arsenals' knock-offs of the PPK, the single, dual, and quad-mounted 14.5mm machineguns dotted about could be used for more than just point air defence, and air force troops billeted on the base were issued with Hungarian AMD-65 assault rifles.

But, why worry about that?..

"Captain Jetmir Kastriiot." A military officer in a depressingly grey dress uniform stepped forward and saluted in the Kargrazian manner. His fingers were held together, though still flat, with his palm facing forward and stretched up as high as his arm would take it. Fingers were splayed only when presenting to individuals granted the salute, as it was described, and, at the moment, the Dictator was virtually alone in holding that honour.

Kastriiot was probably in his late thirties, but balding and, like his uniform and the whole of the aerodrom and the rocky hills around it, was quite grey. He had sharp, pointy features and a hard voice, but wasn't a particularly large man. The hat made it hard to tell exactly where his dome stopped, and he appeared to be wearing thick-soled shoes with considerable heels.

"Kargrazian National People's Defence Air Force. Welcome to Iosef Aerodrome. And welcome to the Dictatorship of Kargrazia... or Dictatika é Cirisie, if you prefer. If you'll follow me to the headquarters post, we can deal with the formalities, such as your reasons for travelling to Kargrazia."

Aircraft approaching the Dictatorship were usually confronted with a wall of flak or intercepted by aircraft and turned back, if not shot at, so the unopposed landing today was quite unusual.

The Captain lead the way inside, chatting about the weather and the fact that, "We don't get many visitors.." [which was, of course, thanks to fact that the first ruler after WWII was a Stalinist and that, when he was finally toppled, in 1976, it was only because he was considered too soft and liberal, and was replaced with Antoi Bexhi], and asking questions about the visitors, their country, and their purpose here. On the way, a strange roaring in the distance eventually was explained by the rising of a hot air balloon at the far end of the aerodrome. An immense banner, bearing a stylised portrait of Bexhi, was being lifted into the sky beneath the basket. The Kargrazian words meaning, Red Worker, Pure Leader, Green Homeland appeared in large text below his dramatic visage as it rose from behind a gentle rock-strewn slope.

General Kaselev had warned the five that Kargrazia was a Stalinist country, similar to North Korea or 1970's-era Albania according to the intelligence that they had gathered, but even so, the heavy security was quite intimidating. They had decided not to reveal that they were interested in the heads, at this point.

The Kahanistanian Captain was clearly the extrovert of the group. "We decided we were going to explore some... uncharted territories, and we'd heard that this was a pretty mysterious place," said Captain As-Sabah. "Almost nothing is known about Kargrazia. As for Kahanistan... it's a Middle Eastern country, born of fighting between religious extremists. Some time ago a socialist state was set up, and the ethnic and religious tensions calmed down." She hoped that the fact Kahanistan was socialist would endear her group to the Kargrazians.

"Dr. Epstein is a member," said the captain, referring to the Kahanistanian Communist Party. The older scientist nodded his head.

"The Communist Party of Kahanistan strongly believes in equality for all citizens. I'm proud to say that we had a major hand in unifying the religious and ethnic factions in our little patch of desert into a civilized, secular democracy. The extremists were mostly killed or driven out, thanks to the eternal struggles of the proletariat. Our flag is similar to the flag of the old Soviet Union, but with a much larger star and hammer and sickle, in the center of the flag rather than in the corner."

The heavy gun emplacements made Major Donovan feel very uncomfortable. He folded his map up and pocketed it, and wished fervently that Kaselev had seen fit to give them an Israeli TAR-21 or two... or five. The standard-issue rifle of Kahanistanian infantry would have been useful if it weren't so damned hard to conceal. The Beretta M9's would have to suffice. The bastard could have at least given us an Uzi or two...

OOC: Yay! I couldn't get on to the forums last time I tried, sorry.

Kargrazia's own flag was visible over the aerodrome, and could be recognised as virtually identical to that of Hungary. Perhaps the official dimensions and precise colour tones were marginally different, but unless they were scrutinised side by side it would be hard to identify any differences. The bands of colour stood, as in the motto hanging from that balloon, for worker, leader, and homeland, the three respectively identified with bloody sacrifice, complete purity, and rich valleys.

Captain Kastriiot took a seat behind a desk in what almost appeared to be a classroom inside one of the facility's drab blockhouses. Here, airmen and women were briefed and debriefed and, today, the Kahanistanians were seated for the initial discussion before the bigger part of their still mysterious visit unfolded.

"A drink?" He said, taking a bottle from a draw in the desk and gesturing to one of the other uniformed officers, who produced a tray with glasses from a set of draws behind the Captain. "I am not sure if there are religious sensibilities to be offended by the offer, but here it is quite normal at least to offer. It's our national drink." he explained, moving out from behind the desk to display the decorative bottle, in which was contained a rich brown liquid. It was difficult to like, a strange blend of vegetable-based spirit with... whatever made it brown, and about 37% alcohol by volume.

"As to Kargrazia, well, here she lies." The Captain pulled down a map that hung behind the desk, over the draws. "Kargrazia covers some 21,387 square kilometres, and has only twelve-hundred metres of coastline. The second 2006 census revealed a population about to reach a landmark of three million, and we have a fairly young population, averaging just over twenty-two years of age. As dictated by government policy, ours is an atheist state, and Kargrazian our national language. Our climate is described as mild-temperate, and is quite liveable, though we have mild problems with flooding and minor earthquakes in some parts."

Jetmir had not as yet touched on politics beyond the mention of state atheism, even though another portrait of Antoi Bexhi was hanging at the top of the wall, above the map.

"We work hard, skirted by hills and mountains, provided for by our nation's mineral and agricultural resources and the determined policies of the Dictator. Kargrazia is a strong and independent land, humble only in size."

[Factbook/background information now available (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=495798)]

Kahanistan was also now a secular state, though most citizens followed some religion. No one religion held control of the organs of government, and religion was not taken into account when forming government policies.

While Arabs formed a large percentage of Kahanistan's population, most of them had long abandoned Islam and converted to other religions or abandoned religion altogether; fewer than ten percent of the population were Muslims.

Lt. Rich was the only Muslim in the group, and he shook his head politely when offered a drink. Dr. Epstein nodded his head in acceptance; he had little of importance to give should he become too intoxicated.

Major Donovan and Captain As-Sabah had the most information to leak. They knew that if they became too drunk they would get themselves killed, but not wishing to arouse suspicion, they accepted the offer, as did Ensign Abd-al-Haraam. They would simply have to moderate their intake.

After having introduced himself and his nation, the Captain slowed down rather a lot.

He began to leave long, awkward pauses between his comments.

Always he stared at the Kahanistanis.

The Kargrazians hoped to encourage their guests to volunteer some information on the purpose of their visit.

While their flightcrew were offered similar refreshment and some distracting entertainment in an airman's billet, four of the five Kahanistanis might find themselves feeling a slowing in the passage of time... a blurring of vision... confusion of reason. Perhaps Lt.Rich would be the only one to notice that two new faces at the back of the room were attached to uniformed bodies carrying AMD-65 automatic carbines.

The Kargrazian Captain was now braced against his own desk, a stern expression on his face as he fought, with some learned and inherited resistance, to last longer than the virgin guests against the knock-out effects of the chemicals fed them. Rich, an archaic theist, had several gun barrels trained on him as the Kargrazians slowly revealed just how little they liked to be interfered with.

Kastriiot was willing to take a non-fatal hit for the team in order to induce four out of five of his armed guests to share in the poison was was even now robbing them of consciousness.

The Kahanistani aircraft was being hauled inside a large hanger, already boarded by aerodrome security and searched for tracking devices as the state prepared to strip it of technology that might be of interest.

The aircraft was an old Cessna 404, used for covert insertions and as a trainer aircraft for civilian pilots. It was not a main-line transport aircraft of the Republic Guard, and had no technology the Kargrazians would not already be familiar with.

Lt. Rich turned around to face the gunmen. He knew that going for his own weapon when his backup was polluting their minds with drink was suicide. He thought quickly.

"What's with the guns?"

Major Donovan was the slowest to become intoxicated, he was moderating his intake to see if the Kargrazians would try to pump him for information. Captain As-Sabah was doing the same thing, but the young woman's body couldn't handle the drink as well as the men's.

Dr. Epstein was even bigger, but he was making no attempt to moderate his drinking and passed out first, with Ensign Abd-al-Haraam falling a minute or two later. Donovan's senses were dulled, but he figured, a bit late, that something was up when the Captain's face collided with the table in front of her.

He turned to look at Lt. Rich.

"No... idea..." he said in reply to the soldier's query. He wasn't going to be able to stay conscious much longer...

The Cessna Titan wasn't a great find for the Kargrazians, but it was of minor interest, and would at least be looked at in detail by the engineers of a nation that refused virtually all economic contact with the outside world, and didn't have anything much more modern of its own.

Inside, meanwhile, Captain Kastriiot wore a concerned expression, tinted with the beginnings of paralysis. The problem was that he expected to be totally unconscious by this point.

The Kargrazians weren't trying to get their guests drunk: the beverage was laced with a knock-out drug that should put a grown man down easily inside a minute, and Kastriiot was a sacrificial lamb, accepting that he too would succumb for the price of convincing the Kahanistanians that it was safe to drink from the same bottle. Unfortunately, the bottle had been sitting, undisturbed, for longer than anyone could remember, and much of the active element had settled to the bottom, meaning that Kastriiot and the Kahanistanians weren't passing-out so quickly as they ought to.

A second officer entered the room, having been heard talking in a Kargrazian murmer outside the door. He appared, by the fixings on his uniform, to outrank the Captain, who was just now slumping forwards across his desk. The two carbine-toting soldiers saluted the new arrival and, following a nod from him as he walked to the front of the room and forced the contents of a small vial into Kastriiot, each chambered a 7.62x39mm round and pointed their weapons towards Rich.

(OOC: Now, sorry to make such little progress in that post, but I just have to ask, are any of these characters especially important or, in contrast, expendable? Of course I'm not just going to kill them all, but I don't want to do away with anyone lightly, if he or she has a big RP history or an importance to you. Obviously the Kahanistanians have walked into an isolated and paranoid place, here!)

The Kahanistanian Muslim soldier raised his hands over his head. "Why... are you pointing... the guns?" he asked, slowly and clearly. His backup was by now out for the count.

(No, the only character who's appeared in another thread is General Kaselev, and he's just the guy who sent these intel officers on their mission, he isn't there.)

The sound was almost familiar to anyone who'd ever fought a serious war, or even watched an action film. But, the Kalashnikov report was altered by the short barrel and muzzle-break of the AMD carbine.

Shortly, the four-times holed body of the Kahanistani Muslim was carted off, his comrades still unconscious. Rich... was beheaded, post mortem.

His body was tossed on a truck going the right way, and soon rended and processed. Days later, Kargrazians would be washing with soap made of Rich's fat, fixing broken items with glue made of his other by-products.

A tag was affixed to his head, and the item was soon enough stacked in a warehouse, waiting to arrive with the rest in the hall of heads...

...the other Kahanistanis awoke in pitch black. Next to the black... was more blackness.

Captain Yasmina as-Sabah awoke in pitch darkness, her head swimming. Good lord... what did I drink last night? What did I DO last night? This was like the time someone had laced her drink with GHB. She sat up, and tried to figure out if she had been sexually assaulted this time.

"Where am I?" she asked, more to whoever or whatever was within earshot than anyone in particular. "What's going on?"

The surviving Kahanistanis were in individual cells deep inside... something. All they could say for sure was that it had no windows, at least here.

The Statini -Kargraz state security- intended to keep them in isolation until they... well, until they lost the plot.

Each cell, damp and alternately stiffling hot and icey cold, always pitch black, had in one corner a small bucket below a slender pipe -hardly thicker than a pencil- which dripped (barely) drinkable water to be collected in said bucket. In another corner was a small hole that dropped away to God only knows where, and could be used as a toilet.

A third corner had above it the opening of a tube about the size of a drainpipe, and would discharge a daily slop of porridge that sometimes contained lumps of vegetable matter and sometimes diced meat of questionable quality. This pipe emptied directly on to the floor in that corner, and keeping the insects away from leftovers could be a challenge at times.

The final corner had an iron bar across it, from which it would be possible to perform pull-up exercises, but the prisoners had been stripped of their clothes and didn't have much chance of hanging themselves from it if the thought arose.

After two days -it was likely impossible to tell the passing of time, from the inside- doors opened, and light would pour in. Captain as-Sabah could step out into the sun. Perhaps she wouldn't dare, and the door closed less than half an hour later. Two days later, the same thing. Stepping outside would mean being confronted by a small courtyard. It was square, and on the other sides were doors just like her own, but closed firmly. There was nothing in the concrete yard, and nothing could be seen but sky above. The walls were low enough that it almost seemed that two or three people working together might get one of their number high enough to climb out. But the Captain was always alone.

After perhaps twenty-five minutes, a terrible sound was directed into the courtyard. It was painful to the human ear, compelling retreat to the cell, where after the door would close, the method by which this was accomplished remaining always less than perfectly clear.

Rich's body was by now completely converted into useful items, and his head was lost in the stacks as twenty more had arrived since his.

By now the Kahanistanis had been out of contact for some days, and the Kargrazian government remained totally uncommunicative with the outside world.

(OOC:Sorry about the delays. It seems that Kahanistan is the only curious nation, hey?)

The Kahanistanian special forces had eaten far worse in special operations training, often eating insects themselves when they became too numerous. However, the computer experts, Ensign Abd-al-Haraam and Dr. Epstein, were not accustomed to the harsh treatment and were not as quick as their more harshly trained comrades to eat the foul slop which emanated from the Kargrazian pipes.

The special operations operatives took great advantage of the metal bars in their cells for exercise. Major Donovan had even tried to pry his loose in order to escape, but found it to be of no use.

Captain As-Sabah noticed the doors, and figured if she could get them opened while she was outside, she might be able to communicate with the other prisoners. Kahanistanian culture was fairly relaxed about nudity, so to her, or her comrades, it wasn't much of an embarrassment, though they couldn't speak for any Kargrazian prisoners there might be.

Over and over in their heads, Donovan and As-Sabah separately went over escape ideas in their heads. The other survivors were not special forces and had minimal SERE training.

They sat in their cells, unaware of the fate of their teetotal comrade. The Kahanistanians could only wait for an interrogator and try to escape. As they had been stripped, their weapons had likely been discovered and they would have some trouble explaining them to the Kargrazians even if they wanted to.

OOC: Mostly this is just a tool by which to prepare the ground for Kargrazia's introduction. I don't know if I'd take the magazine storyline itself anywhere, though the heads are a part of the nation I'm building, so it doesn't matter if anyone wants the NIM to be based in their country, but, well, anyone can pick-up the story or take an interest in it.
[OOC: Good effort, Kargrazia, for an introduction post. Very nicely written....or are you an older NS player that has chosen to create a new nation for whatever reason?]

(OOC: Thanks. Yes, actually, I was just in another thread -about past-tech- talking about resurrecting my old nation, which never fitted in any better than Kargrazia does!)

(OOC: And, after a long absence, Kargrazia returns! If Kahanistan is still around and wants to go back and RP the fate of his operatives, that's okay, and in any case, the rest of the world can act like it just heard about the leaked photographs and the Kahanistani suspicion that they're sourced from Kargrazia.)

OOC: Mind if I join?
IC:

From The Department of National Defence
To Kargrazia:

Greetings,
It is not our business to know about the heads. However We would like to make sure that no Citizens of Talentay were harmed in the making of this photograph.

Sincerely,
The Department of National Defence