NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This thread is a collection of bits and pieces of life in the Undershi Empire and its territories, from the viewpoints of various different civilian and military perspectives. Here's the first:

Undershi Embassy, 23Eris

Ambassador Eisenholm pulled nervously at his high startched collar, and cursed once more the strict dress code of the Undershi diplomatic service, impracticle in any sort of heat... and, while he was at it, he also cursed his government, for sending him in to lie to people he had come to like, whispering false hopes about liberalization and democratization to them while the IIS consolidated its hold, eliminating all remaining traces of liberalism within the Empire. He had seen pictures of the rows of crosses, where so-called "traitors" screamed out their last agonized breaths... and he had no desire to join those sufferors, so he lied...

OOC2:
Undershi Terms:
- Norm: A normal human, one who hasn't been genetically altered to become a "True Undershi."
- Norman: An insulting term for an unmodified human, like "Ivan" for a Russian or "Abdul" for a Turk.
- The IIS: This stands for The Imperial Internal Security Service... which maintains elite combat troops and has recently seized control of my government in a coup.

Paxton, Undershi Occupied Territories

Grey uniformed True Undershis in the uniforms of the Occupation Police stood at the street corner, their faces concealed by mirrored masks, their automatic shot-guns a brutal reminder of their authority, of their "discretionary powers" - they could shoot anyone they wanted, and no one would ever ask them "why".
Paxton had been a minor city of a minor republic, once, a long time ago. That was before the Undershis had begun expanding, gobbling up the little states they bordered. Back then, there had been trees lining the clean avenues of Paxton, and the people had been free and happy and peaceful.
They had hated the thought of war... perhaps too much. When the Undershis started massing troops along the border, they had held protest marches, had organized rallies. Sure, their tiny army was put on alert, but then the Undershis had invaded and brushed it aside. They had tried peaceful resistance, but it hadn't worked... the Undershis killed and killed and killed until the survivors obeyed, and that was all they cared about.
Now the trees had all been cut down for fire wood, and trash filled the streets, and Lisa Ficks, who could barely remember what life had been like before the invasion, when she had been a student, studying Ancient Egyptian History, stood in a food line and shivered.
Coats were scarce this year. When the war had broken out, the factories that would normally have produced this years batch of winter coats had all, every last one of them, been diverted to producing winter gear for the extra troops who had been called up - ironic because no fighting had taken place in any terrain where winter gear might have been useful.
Now, as fall came, hundreds of poor norms shivered... while the winter uniforms that had been produced instead of their coats sat useless in warehouses, from which the government refused to release them on the grounds that they weren't appropriate "civilian issue".
The food lines seemed longer than usual, but that was probably the cold. Right now she longed for warmth, but knew that her apartment would be little better - even though it had been built before the occupation, and therefore had an excelent central heating system, she was a mere secretary, and therefore didn't rate highly enough for the appropriate ministry to give her enough Heating ration cards to keep her home warm. Therefore, the thermostat stayed low... and she shivered even at home.
The line was moving, finally... as she moved towards the front of the line, she came under one of the old foot bridges over what had used to be the main thoroughfare of the city when it had been free... she tried to ignore the faint whimpers still coming from the pitiful figure stretched out upon the cross, but shuddered and felt terror gnawing at her bones, as revulsion threatened to turn her stomach.
She looked up, trying to read the placard hung around the crucified criminal's neck, where it said his crime. This one was a real criminal, it seemed - the word "rapist" was printed on the placard about his neck. Mostly, though, the Undershis killed "traitors" and "rebels" and "terrorists". The penalty for many crimes was death in the Undershi Empire, and resistance against their New Order was one of the first on their list.
Turning her gaze back at the shop ahead, she cursed - more shortages. The shop had run out, and lowered the steel shutters across its window. A few others in the line grumbled, but they ceased as soon as the Occupation Police men glanced in their direction. It did not pay to antagonize the occupiers - that much they had learned in all the years of their occupation. Sighing in frustration, Lisa walked on. She would not eat tonight, it seemed, even though she had the ration cards.

Undershi City, Undershi

The Ministry of Civilian Supplies had its offices in a post-modern seeming construction of glass and steel in the center of Undershi City, near to the rubble-pile that had once been the Winter Palace.
In a small office on the eighth floor, a True Undershi, overweight, which was rare amoungst that race of so-called super-men, sat behind a desk and read with pride the letter he had just recieved from his superior, the under-secretary for Paxton Province of the Sub-Minister of Colonial Civilian Supplies:

"I would like to congradulate you on your recomendation to delibrately create shortages of warm clothing. Your recomendation to not release the surplus winter uniforms is in and of itself an excelent recomendation. With the norms kept shivering and freezing, they will have less spare time to plot, and any increase in grumbling will be swiftly delt with - we have already ordered the local Occupation Police to fabricate a conspiracy against the Undershis and destroy it, which should discourage any real attempts at rebellion. It is my pleasure to send to you news that this last recomendation in particular has led this Ministry to recomend that you recieve a special commendation. Congradulations.

Finished with the letter, the obscure bureocrat took a moment to smile - it was always good to have ones ideas appreciated.

Southlands, Undershi Occupied Territories

The Southlands were always brought up whenever anti-imperialists argued against further expansion of the Empire. Years had passed since the first invasion, and still the natives fought on, even when their old villages were ruins and most of their populace lived in Undershi prison camps, or was scattered throughout the Empire, dispersed amoungst other, more peaceful, ethnic groups, so that their rebelious nature might be removed. So far, that last tactic had had almost the opposite of the desired effect - sure, some Southlanders were becoming less angrily resistant, but others just brought Southlander style resistance to other territories, ones which had never before had to deal with guerillas.
Sergeant Joseph Ficks, True Undershi and member of the 108th IIS Division, wipped sweat from his forehead, and paused once more to examin the GPS system built into his armour. His patrol had been hunting guerillas for days now, and he was starting to get the feeling that they might be on the right track... of course, it was hard to tell in the overgrown hell of the Southland jungle - this place was a nightmare, that occassionaly broke even hardened True Undershis of the IIS units - he had watched broken men, even broken True Undershis, dragged from the jungle weeping uncontrolably.
No one, not even the True-Undershi-and-proud loonies of the IIS Storm Trooper units wanted to be assigned to the Southlands. A positioning on the front lines, where they would face the bullets and the Gauss rounds, was considered something of an R&R assignment for units stationed in the Southlands - there at least they would not have to contend with the horrid jungle as well as with determined enemies trying to kill them. No one wanted to be assigned to the Southlands.
Sighing, Sergeant Joseph Ficks cursed his luck and replaced his helmet. They were near enough to where he thought they should have been... but that was almost meaningless. With a wave to his squad mates, the patrol continued on its way.

Paxton, Undershi Occupied Territories

The office where she worked had once been an art museum. It had held some semi-decent modern art, and she could vaguely remember going there on a class cultural trip in fourth grade.
When the Undershis had come, their general had taken one look at the imposing neo-classical facade of the Paxton Museum of Modern Art, and had ordered it seized as a government building. The grim, tired looking Janissaries sent to convert it to office space had simply tossed the art into the street, leaving it for scavangers to steal or preserve as they saw fit. The general had had an odd dislike for modern art, and had, upon noticing the sculptures and canvases piled in the street, ordered the larger sculptures moved to a bombed out lot next to the museum, where he used them for target practice, blasting chunks off the cultural heritage of the Republic of Paxton with his sidearm.
Now, years later, the real command had moved to the fortress they had built on the high ground to the north of the city, but the Old Museum was still a government building - now it housed the puppet Paxton City Government, which was officially elected, but which answered to the military authorities in all matters, however trivial. It was joked that the mayor needed the permission of the Military Governor in order to piss.
She worked as a secretary there, using an old model computer to write out e-mails and letters and requests for the mayor, and it was depressing work. The building was never well enough heated, for one thing - the Undershis liked to make their disdain for the "norms" who supposedly governed the city perfectly clear.
As she walked up the front stairs, she noticed two True Undershis in the black uniforms of the IIS standing at the doors, rather than the usual unarmed local police officer. Something about those black figures, tall, imposing and inhuman in their power armour, made her afraid... then she noticed the first body.
They had shot the security guard, and thrown his body onto the pile of trash on the street. She felt afraid then... but they had seen her approach, so she continued in - it wouldn't do to give them a reason to shoot...

Later

Lisa Ficks was afraid. The black uniformed IIS soldiers were everywhere, asking questions, confiscating files... it seemed as though something big must have happened, for there to be so many of them.
One of their officers, a lieutenant, waited at the door of the mayors office, stiff backed and grim faced, like all the True Undershis she had seen in her life. When you looked at just his face, and ignored the unatural curve to the back of his skull and his massive stature, he looked... almost human, with his helmet off. He looked like a young man, who knew something terrible but was doing his best to look brave.
Suddenly, she was shaken out of her thoughts by a hand on her shoulder, pulling her back to the reality of her desk in the dimly lit hallway outside the mayor's office.
An IIS soldier was behind her, saying:
"The Colonel will see you now." that said, he motioned towards the door, leaving Lisa cursing the uncanny organization lent to the Undershi by the communicators built into their helmets. She would have given much to have heard what the Colonel had said when he had asked for her to be sent in.

When she entered the mayor's office, the first thing she noticed was the smell. It smelled... like urine and fear and something worse, like pain... then she noticed the blood on the floor... and the mayor, covered in bruises, some of his skin pealed away, sitting weakly in a chair in the back of the room.
A massive True Undershi stood behind the desk, his helmet removed, showing the grim, gaunt, features that one expected of a True Undershi... but also something... cruel and sadistic, that one did not see in most of the Undershis that one saw throughout the day - the Undershis were ruthless, true, brutal of course, but most were just... well, were just people, who took little or no pleasure in crucixticions and executions. This man looked like he would enjoy every bit of the dirtier duties of a member of the IIS.
Noting her discomfort brought a faint smile to his lips, and he spoke, a chulling voice:
"My name is Colonel Yursef Schmidt. Your Mayor was helping anti-Undershi rebel groups with information meant only for the military government." he paused, then asked, in that same voice, "You didn't know anything about this, did you?" filled with fear, she replied:
"No. No, sir, I did... I did not." which seemed to satisfy him. Making a note on the computer built into the wrist of his armour, he motioned that she could go.

Later

The crucifixtion had come almost as a relief, ending as it did three days of brutal interogation. They hadn't gotten anything real, but then they never had expected to - the mayor had been one of the false rebels named to them by their superiors in Undershi City. They hadn't needed to torture him... but appearences needed to be maintained. Anyway, thought Colonel Yursef Schmidt, he loved that part of the job.
As he watched, the broken body of the mayor, already dead but not spared this final indignity even by death, was raised onto the cross, with two dozen other community leaders around him. The screaming started, and Colonel Schmidt shivered lightly - this was why the Selectors had chosen him for the IIS, this was why he was always sent to the most reluctant and rebelious provinces to enforce the will of the Empire on some bunch of dumb norms. He was good at his job... because he loved it.

Another View

No one had known that there had been so many rebels in the government. Even she had not known, had not noticed... unless, thought Lisa Ficks, none of them had ever been traitors, and this was all a show to terrify the public into obedience... which it might well be. Shivering and wishing once more for a warm winter coat, she watched the crosses rise into the air, wincing in sheer horror as the screams began. She would never get used to things like that...

Imperial Undershi Government Fortress, Cavalry Hill, Saint Rynald City, Undershi Occupied Territories

The old fortress had been converted into a quite modern one when the Undershis took over. Now its old towers bristled with SAMs and Gauss autos, and its masonry had been coated in angled concrete, which had been reinforced with steel beams... this fortress had been made into a physical reminder of the fact that the Undershis were here to stay in Saint Rynald. The rotting corpses on the crosses around its walls were another...
In a small, quiet and dimly lit room, the True Undershi governor of the Saint Rynald province, a former Lord General named Paul Ficks, stood in front of a desk, feeling... nervous. The man he faced had flown in from Paxton overnight, and his reputation had preceded him - Colonel Yursuf Schmidt, mass murdering sadist to some, hero of the empire to others.
The fact that this man was here could not but bode poorly for Saint Rynald province... he was sent in just before the crosses began to rise, just before the traitors were taken in. He was sent where the Empire needed a sadistic monster to torture and interrogate. That fact made Governor Paul Ficks nervous... as did the fact that the High Command had ordered him to obey this man in all reguards. That was always a bad sign too...
They began to talk, to speak of treachery and betrayal... and of punishment to be swiftly delivered.

Saint Rynald City, Undershi Occupied Territories

A bomb went off at one AM, tearing through the night like the fist of God striking the earth... it had been a roadside bomb, targeting a patrol of Rynaldi Janissaries, made from a 105mm artillery shell, a cell phone and some basic electrical wiring.
The shell had gone off, and three of the ten Rynaldi soldiers, walking through the night nervously, since such attacks still happened, were suddenly so much scrap and hamburger.
Already the invaders, as many still called them, had raised ten Divisions of Rynaldi troops, and already the first thirty thousand Rynaldi-stock True Undershis were under production, developed from samples taken from the genetic material of Rynaldis who had proven their loyalty to the new regime either through dedicated service in the burocracy or through enlisting in the Rynaldi Janissary units.
Now, people awoke in their beds and cursed - they knew Undershi counter-terror doctrine well.

Morning

Occupation Police, grim in their helmeted power armour, went through the streets, collecting men at random, until they had three hundred - one hundred for each soldier killed. They led them into the main square, in front of the old cathedral, bombed out during the war and yet to be rebuilt, then lined them up in groups of ten.
They made them wait for an hour, during which someone could come forward with information leading to the arrest of a rebel, a zealot as they called themselves, and save ten men's lives. No one did.
When the hour was up, they shot the first ten men, forcing them to kneel, then blasting their brains out with their shot guns. This continued, with another ten dieing every ten minutes... until a woman, the mother of three of those men and boys who had been taken, came forward with the information they had been waiting for... and the killing stopped.
They checked out the tip... and found six zealots and some bomb making supplies. Such was their gratitude, they let sixty men go... but kept the youngest of her sons, as part of the last batch set to die, to motivate her if she knew anything else. She didn't, and neither, it seemed, did anyone else - they killed the rest of the hostages, leaving their 240 bodies bleeding in the square.

Saint Rynald City, Undershi Occupied Territories

Later That Day

Colonel Yursuf Schmidt watched the as the bodies of the slaughtered Rynaldi were dragged away. Terrorism against the Undershi Empire was always met with brutal reprisals, and this time had been no different.
The Occupation Police were already acting on the information they had tortured out of the captured Zealots, and looked set to make a fine string of arrests... things were looking up already. Yes, things were looking just fine...

On The Ground

The Occupation Police, in full battle armour, kicked in the door to the little apartment, entering with their shotguns shouldered. As they entered the main room, the combined living room, kitchen and dinning room, they took fire - there was a young man, probably still a teenager, hiding behind the couch, firing wildly with a bulky handgun, tears blinding his eyes as he tried to stop the invaders...
His bullets bounced off their armour, and it was with almost casual, almost contemptuous, ease that one of their number aimed his shotgun and blasted the boy's head open. After that, they fanned out, kicking in the other doors even though none of them had locks.
In one of the two bedrooms, they found the only other two inhabitants of the appartment - a teenage girl holding a baby, hiding in a corner, weeping as she saw the battle armoured soldiers come through the door, the boy's blood spattered aross their uniform, impersonal, grey. One of their number came for the girl, to take her away to interrogate about the resistance... but as he leaned down to secure her and take the baby away to be raised in some orphanage, where it would be raised to be a loyal citizen of the empire... as he leaned in, she detonated herself, commiting suicide, killing also the Occupation Police officer and her baby.

Later

Alexander Schneider, who had been a member of the Occupation Police for twenty years, who had marched with the army when its boot heels trod upon the rubble of conquered cities, who had seen men die in oh so many ways and had not wept... now he sat on the curb like some lost child, and cried, as even True Undershis sometimes did.
In all his years, in all his campaigns, he had never seen anything quite like that. A woman, a young mother, had killed herself and her child so that they might take an enemy with them. It was... it was beyond understanding, how these people could fight like that when they had already been beaten, when Undershi soldiers already marched through their streets.
Somehow, though, he felt more than just revulsion at such a senseless sacrifice... somehow, he felt also fear - how could they, the Undershis, win against a nation of people who were willing to dothat? It was beyond comprehension.

The Zealots, the Saint Rynald underground, were having a meeting of their leadership commitee in the basement of a low-prices apartment building. In the dark, dank, basement, thirty men sat on crates and oil drums, and plastic cases of pure water, and together whispered a prayer to God, to rid their nation of the foul Undershi... that done, they spoke of other things.
One man spoke first, for no reason other than that he was the quickest to speak:
"What about the Occupation Police raid? They killed two of our followers, and would have gotten more if we hadn't been lucky... as it is, they seized a small stockpile of badly needed weapons. What the heck are we going to do?" in response, a man in the corner spoke up, his voice quiet:
"We make the dead into martyrs, and tell the people that the Occupation Police murdered a family of three who were doing nothing wrong. We do what needs to be done." this earned him some agreements, but it wasn't long until another issue was brought up:
"What about the mass killings they conduct every time we succede in killing one of their soldiers?" this caused a minor shouting match, or at least a minor loud whispering match, until one man won out:
"We keep fighting. There is nothing else we can do. Anyway, whenever they kill a few hundred of our civilians, we gain a few more recruits." he seemed to believe this, as did most of the others present, but there were some grumblers - their arguement seemed to be:
"We are Christians - there has to be a better way." still, they would keep fighting... they would keep fighting as long as they could.

Later

Almost four hours later, with night dark outside, the meeting adjurned, and the leadership of the Zealots stumbled off to their homes, there to make ready for the next day. They would keep fighting as long as they could.

Undershi City, Undershi

Thousands of soldiers in the grey of the Imperial Undershi Army marched through the city streets, with techno music, that sort that the Undershis set to a militant beat to make what passed for martial music in the empire. On the sides of the streets, civilians watched the ranks pass by, each moving in perfect lock-step, like automatons rather than people...
As they reached the square in front of the Winter Palace, still in ruins from the so recently ended war, they turned to face to the south of the sqare, all those thousands of men, where the monument to the war against NSAA, the war where the Winter Palace had been ruined, stood.
As one, all these thousands of True Undershis saluted, the sun flashing off the their mirrored visors, their total synchronization and the lack of individuality lent by their power armour and helmets combining to make them seem more like a colony of ants than like people.
A True Undershi in the black of the IIS returned their salutes, then spoke:

"On this day, we commemorate our victory over No_State_At_All in a solid manner, one more real than paltry marches and speeches. Here," he gestured behind, towards a marble arch, "we have a lasting monument to the sacrifices made by so many True Undershis and norms of the Empire. This here... it stands so that the world might know - Undershi will last not for a mere thousand years... but rather, forever." with that he pointed to the top of the arch, where words had been carved into the stone:
"In Memory of Those Who Fell so That The Empire Might Prevail". Above that motto there was a deaths head with a laurel wreath about it, a symbol of glory and death... below was another carving, only slightly smaller: "The Empire is Forever."
On the other side of the arch, where the greater number of people would see it as they came into the square was a note: NSAA War - We Prevailed.
That was how the Undershi did war memorials.

Saint Rynald City, Undershi Zone of Occupation

The Zealots launched their new strike at three PM - as a certain school let out, the boys ran down the steps to begin their walks home... while the girls, those few whose parents let the government take them and send them to school, were led, under guard by Rynaldi Janissaries, down the steps of the school building... to waiting Viper IFVs, which would carry them to their homes, as part of an Undershi effort to protect them from Zealots with bombs and guns.
As they made their way down the steps, a car that had been driving by slowed... and men inside lept out, four of them, men who, even as they lept from the slow moving car drew submachineguns out from underneath their heavy coats... and opened fire.
They had had no chance of survival from the moment they left the car on. A quick thinking Janissary even got one before he had a chance to fire... but the other three managed to make their attacks, firing wildly at the school girls and their guards, killing two of the girls and wounding one of the guards... before all three of the remaining ones were cut down by accurate return fire.
When the Janissaries came to examine the bodies, they found one was still alive. A Janissary, a Rynaldi himself but still shocked to the core by what he had seen, knelt by the still living terrorist, and asked:
"Why did... why did you do that?" the terrorist responded slowly, as if speaking with great care, the blood in his lungs obvious in the rattling of his slow speech:
"Because... because God wanted us to make sure that... that these women didn't... didn't move beyond their place." as he finished his last sentance, he seemed to smile, in spite of the holes that the Janissaries Gauss fire had blasted through his body. The Janissary started to speak, to ask some other question... but then, in a flash of light, the three dead terrorists, the still living one and three Janissaries vanished, torn apart by the combined force of four suicide bombs. Even in death the Zealots struck.

Meanwhile

In an apartment building just down the road, Martin Silvera, leader of the Zealots and True Believer, shuddered and thought of the deaths that would come from the reprisals... and wondered, was there a better way?

Saint Rynald City, Undershi Zone of Occupation

The Zealots had struck again. That much was known to the masses even as the Drake MBTs and Viper IFVs rolled down towards the town from Fortress Hill. The purpose of those armoured vehicles, that metalic display of Undershi might, was also obvious - it was to awe the Rynaldi into obedience... and if that failed, then it was to punish the city with Gauss auto and Gauss cannon and fire and slaughter... such was the Undershi way.
As the column approached, a figure was seen, riding atop the lead Viper, the black leather trench coat of his IIS dress uniform flapping in the breeze, his shaven True Undershi head covered in a black peaked cap devoid of any insignia save that of the IIS.

Another View

As the collumn neared the city, Yursuf Schmidt smilled to himself, and shivered in anticipation as he easily kept his balance atop the shaking, rumbling, Viper. Soon the Undershi Empire would have its revenge... and the fools of the High Command would hardly object if he took a little more blood than they had ordered him to - they wanted an example to be made, and so one would... before the sun set, Saint Rynald City would no longer exist - he would kill 20% of its populace and disperse the rest throughout the Empire. After all, what else would serve so well as a warning to other potential rebels?

As the Undershi armour rolled down into the city, no one resisted - the Zealots obviously hoped that if they hid, the reprisals would be light. That belief was soon shaken away, and at that point, they took to the streets, doing what they could to take as many Undershi with them as they could. Saint Rynald City would die - it was just a matter of how many Undershi would die with it as every street corner was turned into an ambush...

The Drake MBTs and Viper IFVs moved throughout the city with choreographed precision, herding the populace into the main squares where battle armoured Occupation Police seperated out 20% of the populace at random, taking men, women and children alike.
Meanwhile, the Zealots fought with the fury of possesed men... but even that fury was to be proven insufficient - they had too few men, too few guns and they faced an enemy that was too strong - their resistance, though valiant, was doomed from the start.
As the sun set, the fires of burning buildings lit the night, making the dark into day. By that light, thousands of Rynaldi were led off, marching in huge collumns into the night... while thousands of others, 20% of the total populace of the city, were crucified amidst the ruins. It was a night that would never be forgotten.

Paxton, Undershi Occupied Territories

Life went on, after the slaughter when the so-called "rebelions" had been smoked out by the Undershi. Thousands had died at the hands of the oppressors, but... when that was done, the survivors still wanted to survive, and so they worked and worked and worked, and hoped that if they worked hard enough, they just might be allowed to survive to die of natural causes. Life went on.
As winter came, the shortage of coats was begining to be truly felt - people had frozen to death already, or so it was said. Still, life went on... at least as well as it could under Undershi occupation.
The streets were dark in the residential neighborhoods. The Undershi didn't believe in wasting power on street lights where their workers lived - after all, as they had said so many times, workers could always be replaced.
As she walked towards her building, Lisa Ficks couldn't help but feel a touch of hopelessness - there was nothing waiting for her but another day of hard work, then another and then another... until finally she couldn't work anymore, and the Undershis "euthanised" her to prevent her from becoming a drain on their resources. Still, she would go on and keep working - such labor was better than a quick death tommorrow, or a slow starvation, such as had already claimed too many others. She would go on.

Undershi City, Undershi

The High Command had assembled, as it did every so often, as it had done before the IIS coup... but now it assembled to listen to the orders that came to it from the IIS, not to discuss and decide on which course of action to take and which orders to send to that same inteligence organization.
As they sat, sweating from the fear that gripped them all - that they might join so many of their former collegues upon the crosses that had sprung up throughout the Empire since the coup had occured - the IIS delegate entered the room.
He smilled at them, which didn't calm them - these IIS men were like demons from some myth - they could smile at a man as they cut his heart out. Still, he merely moved to the speaker's podium, and began to explain why they were here today:
"We have discussed matters, and come to a conclusion. The recent destruction of Saint Rynald City has proven even more effective at the destruction of the Rynaldi resistance than we had anticipated. As such, we are considering moving such tactics to the refugee camps in the Southlands - or rather, I should say, of altering the nature od the refugee camps. Right now," he continued, "we are feeding and housing huge numbers of unproductive norms who were forced out of their villages when we tried to deprive the local terrorists of their support. Not any more." as he said this, the assembled generals and admirals and other officers stiffened in shock - could he speak of the annihilation of these civilians? Could he speak of some campaign of genocide? Yet, as though he hadn't noticed their stiffening, the IIS man continued to speak:
"We plan to take the populations of these refugee camps, and drive them north into the Empire proper, where they can be set to work in the agricultural, industrial or service sectors of our economy. However, even the common norms of our Empire have some rights, and these particular ones have proven that they deserve no such rights. As such, they, and the Rynaldis recently removed from Saint Rynald City, will become the center of a new social class - we plan to reinstate slavery. That is all." with that said, the IIS presentation to the "High Command" was over - they were not allowed to question the decision they had just been informed of.

The refugee camps had been disolved in the morning, as the miserable inhabitants had lined up for their daily rations. They had been herded into huge collumns, then ordered to march to the north while the Undershi Army Core of Engineers demolished the camp.
They marched throughout the day and then throughout the night, a pitiful collumn of half starved refugees like something from some nightmare photo from some mad regime's death camps... they marched to their point of endurance, and then past it. As they marched, many couldn't keep the pace, and fell back... and were shot by the IIS soldiers at the rear of the collumn. It was like something from hell...
As it was meant to be. The architect of this scheme had meant it to be used as something to break the spirits of any other potential rebels - this march, made when ample air transport was available, served only one purpose - it was a death march, meant to demoralize the remaining Southlander guerillas through this callous cruelty towards their families. They were being marched to the north... and many of the older or younger ones were dieing along the way, so that they could be enslaved and forced to labor for the rest of their lives in the factories of central Undershi.
Later, when that first day and night were over, and they had been allowed to rest, the living were tallied, as were the dead, and it was found that some one hundred thousand odd norms, mostly old people and children, had perished along the path of the march.

The terrified survivors of the Undershi decision to destroy Saint Rynald City trudged forward, misery clearly written on their faces. They had suffered so very terribly, and now... now they had just been told of the fate that awaited them - they were to be slaves to the Undershi, even more so than they had been before.
Here and there individuals whispered prayers - they were christians through and through, and not even the recent horrors and the best efforts of the Undershis could remove that from them. Still, other minds turned to what they now faced... and they whimpered in terror and thought to themselves: better to have fought, and died amidst the ruins of our city than to be take alive and forced into slavery. Still others didn't think at all - the horror of the last few days had utterly broken them, had transformed them from thinking, feeling, human beings into... into mere unthinking automatons, alive but barely more than animals. Such as those were well marked - they would be the easiest to prepare for their lives as slaves.

Undershi Naval Bases, Danteri West Coast

PFC Gulimann watched as the last of the Vipers made their way onto the heavy transport, then waved to the Janissary at the transport ship's ramp's controls for him to raise the ramp. It looked like the Undershi Empire was abandoning their recently added on colonies in Danteri, rather than annoy any of the amazingly powerful allies that Haraki had turned out to have. Still, even that was tolerable - there was, after all, a reason for it. The thing he couldn't understand, though was why they were letting the slaves go - there had been some five million slave laborers in Danteri, and they had released them all, rather than take them back to Undershi. That fact, that he couldn't understand. After all, weren't they still useful? Still pondering, he watched as the next transport entered the harbor. Soon there wouldn't be too many Undershis left in Danteri...

Sunlight flashed on metal, the light seeming to make the silver pommels of the daggers they wore for their dress uniforms shine. Ten thousand fighting men of the IIS stood in Imperial Square, facing the remains of the Winter Palace, which was only now being rebuilt, as the sun rose to their backs. They wore their dress uniforms, and looked almost human when one didn't look too closely.
In front of the ruined Palace, a rough platform had been set up, with a massive Undershi Star hanging over it, shinning brightly in the light of the dawn.
Special Agent Yursuf Schmidt, freshly back from the slaughter in Saint Rynald City, faced the crowd, standing off to the side of the platform. He was one of the trusted leaders of this new order... but he was not The Leader. It had been an odd decision - there had been no single leader fo the Undershi for decades, but in this hard time, it had been decided that one was needed - and so they had chosen one - Aleksander Miller, tall, broad-shouldered, his skin that odd sort of brown that one never saw on normal humans, only on True Undershis. In his black IIS uniform, its synthetic leather storm coat flung back at a dramatic angle, he looked... imposing.
Now he addressed the newly reformed 122nd IIS Storm Trooper Division:

"True Undershis! You have been chosen to serve the Empire as only a few men, only a few True Undershis, are chosen to serve! The last battle fought by the 122nd IIS Storm Trooper Division resulted in that unit sustaining over 98 percent casualties - that many lost. Now, that unit has been reformed. You, you True Undershis, you will serve the sacred state and the glorious Empire, as the most elite warriors it has to offer. You will endure the worst of any battle, the most terrible fighting of any war shall be yours. Brothers," he continued, gesturing dramatically,
"When you were told your lessons in school, as they taught you how to field repair a Gauss rifle and how to read, they also taught you this - you are True Undershis. Your soul belongs to service and your body to the state... and now, now you have the chance to do what must be done, to give your lives for the Empire. What do you say to that?" for a response, he got a cheer - loud and long, these IIS men cheering and crying out in proud exultation - they were like children, who believed authority implicitly. Yursuf wondered if that idealistic dedication to The Cause, that blind subservience to sacred Authority, would last when they had seen battle, when they were wounded, their faces reduced to sausage meat, when they struggled to hold their intestines in... knowing Undershis, he did not doubt that their blind dedication would continue. After all, they weren't Old Style humans, were they? It wasn't like they could doubt or question...
Shaking his head, he watched the new Storm Troopers march away, off to the armories and then to the transports, and then... and then, off to some battlefield. Such was, after all, the way of the Undershi...

Undershi Occupied Southlands

The village was burning. As it burned, a Crusader gunship hovered overhead, the odd variety of martial music that the Undershis prefered, basically a sort of techno, playing loudly from its external speakers.
On the ground, a Viper IFV sat on a nearby hill, overlooking the burning village, and a young True Undershi officer stood there beside it, looking down at the burning village, and feeling... an odd mix of emotions.
He saw the miserable survivors being led away in chains, the unmoving bodies, the flames leaping higher from the houses... and he felt satisfaction in a difficult, dirty, job done well... but also something else, something very un-Undershi - he felt disgust at what his own people were doing, and sympathy for the norms they were doing it to.
He shuddered there, on that hill, looking down at that burning village - after all the horrible things the Undershis had done, and were doing, the last thing they could affoard would be to develop consciences. If they did, then the Empire would fall... he shivered, that Undershi, in spite of the heat from the burning village, and wondered why they were doing these things to the poor illiterate peasants of the Southlands... why they did any of what they did. He could find no good answer.

The freighter had been running with its lights off, moving through the waves as silently as it could, using the storm and trying to avoid the Undershi naval patrols that it knew had to be out there, trying to escape from the Undershi Empire, carrying within its holds a load of refugees, fleeing the Undershi military as it occupied another small country.
They hadn't spotted the aircraft in the storm - they kept right on moving as best they could, trying to get out into international waters...
As squadron leader, he got to fire the first shot. A heavy anti-shipping missile launched from his Thunderer struck the refugee-filled freighter amidship, blasting a crater into its side, opening up the hold to the fierce sea.
As the Thunderers circled and came by a second time, he could see the refugees, those left alive, thrashing in the sea or trying to get the life-boats into the water...
He spoke then, an order to his squadron:
"Use your guns - these norms were kind enough to provide us with an oppertunity for target practice - lets not let it go to waste." as he spoke, he opened fire, the light Gauss autos, a left-over from the days of dog-fighting, opened up, striking the water like stones, sending up splashes... or striking the refugees in the water, blasting their bodies apart.

Aleksander Miller opened his eyes, seeing not the darkness of that stormy night from his early life, back before the IIS recruited him, back from before he achieved his present position of power, as the Leader of the Undershi Empire. He noticed that his heart rate was significantly higher than normal, and spent a moment calming it, using the techniques that came instinctively to True Undershis.
This latest dream... it unsettled him. That attack on the refugee ship had been a... distasteful assignment - he would much rather have been in there at the death of that little nation, conquered and added to the Empire so long ago, when there would have been enemy fighters still in the air, waiting to be smashed to pieces and sent crashing down to the earth in flames... but his squadron hadn't been chosen for that. They had instead been chosen to ensure that no norms escaped to freedom... whatever that was.
Shaking himself to chase away the dark thoughts, he made his way to the office that connected to his bedroom. He could hear the faint hum of the bunker complex's generators in his office - his rooms were down at the bottom of the IIS bunkers, right next to the generators and the other essential sections.
As he entered his office, he sighed to himself, at how much more complicated the problems he faced now were - back then, he hadn't been commanding millions of fighting men on assorted different fronts - he had only commanded a single squadron, one single squadron dedicated to hunting down a boat load or two of refugees... it had indeed been simpler then.
Trying to distract himself from such thoughts, he checked the papers that had been left on his desk. A new cell of Southlands rebels had been found and delt with - their village burned, the survivors led off to the camps... and he gave it only a moments consideration before moving on. After all, such an event was no great occurence in the Empire.

He watched as the slave laborers sweated in the heat, dragging massive plates of chobham armour into place. The factory was lit through the smoke-darkened sky-lights overhead, and by the dancing light cast off by welding torches and the heat-releasing forges...
He was Ernest Finn, a True Undershi... and the Number Two Overseer on Viper Assembly Line 42B, out in the Occupied Territories, where surplus labor was quite literaly worked to death... they were only norms, after all. He walked along the line, feeling stiff and hot in his matt-grey half-armour, sweating as he walked, a cattle-prod ready to use if the norms slacked off during their sixteen hour days...
When he reached the end of the line section he was assigned to patrol, he stopped a moment, and took a drink of water from the cooler, slaking the thirst that the heat of the furnaces had provoked. A worker near the cooler groaned, pain on his sweat covered face, his greying hair matted by that same substance, his muscles visible as he strained to hold the chobham plate in place while the machine bolted it onto the frame. Seven hours to go.
Ernest began to walk back along the line, then stopped, and drew another paper cup of water. He walked down the line to the old man, who had a few seconds to recover as the line moved along, before he had to struggle with another chobham plate. The old man looked at him, and his face hardened - he might be exhausted and near death, but he still had the strength to despise the men who had occupied his country.
Ernest offered him the paper cup of water, and he took it, the look of barely restrained hate never leaving his face. The old man held the cup of water in his hands, seemed to smell it... and then passed it to the young boy of fifteen or so who labored beside him, and who Ernest vaguely recalled was his son. The boy took the cup, and drank half of it - maybe a bit more than half - before passing the cup back to his father.
Ernest was walking by then - he was also shaking his head in mild puzzlement - what was it with those norms? What was it that made them so impossible to grasp? Why had the father offered his water to his son, and why had the son given any back to the father? It all made no sense, to a rational True Undershi...

Undershi City, Undershi Empire

The grim industrial nightmare that was the heart of the Empire lay sprawled out across the horrizon, covering the land, the smog from its hundreds of towering smoke-stacks blackening out the sun, making any part of the day short of noon into a grim twilight.
That sort of a world fit in with the Undershi who ruled it - it was a place of grim, horrid, industry, where normal humans who were little more than slaves toiled their whole lives building missiles and tanks for the Undershi war machine.
IIS Colonel Yursuf Schmidt turned in the Leader's office at the top of the Administrative Tower, and looked out through his other window, onto the southern half of the city, towards Memorial Park. There there were triumphal arches, recalling all the glorious wars that had brought this state into being. There there were the smooth marble walls with the lists of cassualties written upon them, listing those True Undershis who had fallen in the name of the Empire.
Those walls didn't list the names of the Janissaries, those normal human soldiers the Empire still used and relied upon. That struck him as odd - it wasn't like they were poor fighters - he could remember the Janissary dead, stacked like fire wood along the roads after the fighting in Saint Rynald, when they had held against the worst the NSAA military could throw at them... without them, the Empire would not expand. Yet, they were hated and despised, like all norms... where was the justice in that?
As he thought on that subject, the elevator arrived, straight from the deeply buried bunker where the Leader spent most of his time. Aleksander Miller, the Leader of the Undershi Empire, walked with a sort of proud exhaustion, coming to Yursuf's side, to face the south and look out onto Memorial Park.
Aleksander pointed, to one of the newest of the arches:
"That there is the arch commemorating the defeat of Saint Rynald in the Rynaldi War. All of those arches, they serve a purpose, to remind us of what we exist for. They all show us why it is we must always triumph." Yursuf chuckled at that, and gestured towards the factories to the north:
"No. Those things there, those factories... they show us why it is that we must always triumph." the Leader raised an eyebrow at that, seeming to question, and Yursuf explained:
"You see, those factories are what we would do with the entierty of the human race... and they know it, those of them who are not utterly blind. That's why, if we ever lose a war, we won't be allowed to survive as a power. We have a choice before us - conquest or the extinction of the True Undershi race. There are no other alternatives." he paused a moment, before continuing, damning the consequences:
"That's why I serve the Empire - I hate what we are doing to those poor norms, but I know that we need to do it or they'll kill us, kill us all." he was silent then, waiting for a reply... and he got one, though not the one he had feared:
"You're right of course. Conquest or racial death - those are he two choices that face us." he held out his hand, making Yursuf aware of the abnormally pale skin the Leader had - pale skin, almost as pale as the skin of some white norms, giving away the nordic stock from which his genetic line had been bred - which contrasted oddly with Yursuf's darker skin, showing the arabic influence that still persisted in his own gene line.
Yursuf took Aleksander's hand, and grasped it as an equal might grasp the hand of an equal, commenting as he did:
"You know, it's an odd thing, isn't it, that we have taken what we consider to be the best of humanity, the smartest and the strongest from all the human ethnic groups, and tried to create a new race... and that, when we have done that, we find ourselves refering to the rest of humanity in terms that racists from one of those groups that make up our populace might have used." Aleksander seemed to consider that for a moment, then shrugged, replying:
"There's one difference, though - all the human ethnic groups are equal to each other... but we are superior - in a few generations, we will truly be a new race, that is what the scientists say." Yursuf could only nod, the moment of connection he had felt gone - he found himself realizing that Aleksander, like many of the True Undershis, actually believed in the inherent superiority of the True Undershi "race."
The problem, though, was that they weren't a race, weren't anything really, just circus freaks... just mutant monsters that could barely question the beliefs that had been drilled into their minds from birth. He hated that thought, but it was true - he had seen the old records - amoung the many things that True Undershis could do as well as or better than normal humans, there were a few things they were quite inferior in. One of those things was creativity - they all tended to think alike... and another was questioning. They had all been designed so that they would not, almost could not, question superior authority. That was just... sad.
Nodding to the Leader of the Empire, he made his escape, back into the underground warren of bunkers and tunnels that existed beneath Undershi City. He had work to do... work to do to preserve the Empire he was, he admitted at last to himself, coming to hate.