NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC Thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=508778) Please, all OOC comments there.

Donnerinsel Island
Hopfenland, Krataerbech
It was a cold, dreary day in Donnerinsel, and Calvin Studebaker was more than just a little nervous. He and his girlfriend of a year Rachel were walking one of the islands many sandy beaches, and he was about to propose. They walked the beach, talking of there future and times gone by, both completly engrossed in one another.

"It's just such an excellent day for a stroll on the beach, isn't it Calvey?" said Rachel, looking lovingly into his eyes.
"Yeah. Of course honey." It was no secret that Calvin's girlfriend was not the smartest of women, but that didn't stop him from loving her.
"Rachel, what do you want out of the future?" Calvin asked, holding her hand.
"What any girl wants I suppose. A house, kids, a darling husband." Rachel said, looking into the distance.
Calvin knew it was time. He got on one knee, and began to propose.
"Rachel, will you..."
"Wait Calvin, what is that?" Rachel interupted, looking down the beach about a hundred yards at what looked like an pile of reeds.
"I'm not sure honey. Would you like to check it out?" Calvin said.
"Well of course! We might find treasure!" Rachel said. Calvin rolled his eyes and headed off to the structure.
As they got closer, they began to realize what it was.
"Its a...Boat?" Calvin said, looking at it curiously. "Oh my, theres a man inside it!" Rachel exclaimed, begining to run. "Are you ok?" she screamed. They got near him and stopped. There was a man about five feet tall, with dark skin and medium length hair slumped over the side of the boat with his eyes closed. He was thin, too thin to be healthy.
"Is he alive?" Rachel asked inquisitivly.
"He's breathing, so I assume so." Calvin answered as he looked the man over. "He can't be in very good shape though. Call the emergency service honey, quickly." He looked at the man more closely, and discovered a festering wound in his side.
"Sir, can you hear me? Are you alright?" Calvin said. The man didn't answer.
"Sir, help is on the way. Can you hear me?" Suddenly the man picked his head up, widened his eyes, clutched Calvin's arms, and said in a hoarce almost unintelligible voice,
"Grantuza!", and slumped over.

The Presidential Palace
Gesetz, Gebirgsgesetz
Secretary of Defense Paul Rosenfield stabbed a fry with his fork, dipped it in ketchup, and put it in his mouth.
"So what do you think of that native they found over in Hopfenland?" he said, his mouth still full of potato mash and ketchup.
"Pssh. Who cares." Secretary of Public Relations John Deerfield replied. The two cabinet members of the King were sitting in a largish office eating lunch. The office was as well decorated as it was utilitarian, with nothing but black and white marble tiles, ebony crown moulding, and two desks facing one another at oppisite sides of the room. It was no mistake the heads of the Departments of War and Public Relations were seated in the same room, it was infact planned that way by the first kings of democratic Krataerbech to insure there was no contridiction in what the other was saying.
"Well I for one think it is quite intriguing."
Paul Rosenfield was an articulate, well educated man, however most of his collegues say he just "doesn't get it". His many eccentricties, such as eating fries with a fork, are not a result of being simply eccentric, but being so far out of touch with the rest of society. Since joining the Department, and gaining and office with Public relations, he has gotten more in touch, but his eccentricities remain the same.
"The fact that a man can travel over a thousand miles in a twenty foot reed boat is simply astoinding. Do you know what they found on his boat? Do you?" the Secretary said, now drinking a soda with a spoon.
"No. Of course not. My people don't tell me anything about whats happening in the Kingdom. But I suppose thats what I get for being in public relations..." John replied sarcastically. Paul apparently didn't get the remark, as he began to explain exactly what happened.
"Well, the native was dead when the authorities got there, so there was obviously no questioning. But they did find a journal, written in a strange language unknown to the Kings Royal Linguists. And in the journal, there were pictures drawn in charcoal. There was one of a gigantic city in the mountainside, one of a man with sores all over his face, and another of some sort of warrior, standing on top of a pile of human skulls and entrails!"
"Paul, if you haven't noticed, I'm eating, and so are you. Please stop, you know how squimish I am." Paul laughed and resumed eating his fries, then opened his mouth and began talking with his mouth full again.
"John, aren't you supposed to advise the King on this or something?"
"I told him not to make a big deal about it." he replied. "Its not like its a matter of global security, there natives with bows and arrows and poison darts. Besides, there is no hint of anything going on in that hole of an island, no war, no genocidal maniac god-king, nothing."
"Au contrare!" Paul said. "Did you know that some crazy hacker-codebreaker kids online have cracked the journals code, and discovered that its the journal of some kind of dissident priest of the island, who preached that the people are ancestors of these giant worms, which according to the code are a delecacy on the island? The king of the island got so mad that he rounded up all the preists who were saying this, as well as there followers, and tied them to a hundred thousand giant eagles and flew them off into the sun?"
John burst out laughing. "Oh Paul, there are so many things wrong with what you just said, but I'll start with the first. There is no code. There never was a code. The journal wasn't written in english, it was written in a foreign language, which probably has an entirely different gramatical structure. You can not crack a language." Paul was about to reply when he was interupted by John.
"Wait a second, you didn't get that from the same website that told you the meteor that hit Krataerbech a million years ago was really a giant glob of alien space jelly, was it?"
"Of course not." Paul replied, pretending to eat his fries again.
"Well, even if you didn't, heres the bottom line. I guarentee the public will not care one bit about this whole native business, not a lick. My bet is the whole nation forgets about it before Sunday breakfast." Paul nodded his head and got back to sipping his soda through a spoon.

The Emperor and Empress of British Londinium were lying in their bed at Kensington Palace, whispering sweet nothings into to each others' ear, when the Minister for Defence came into the room.

"Sir. Ma'am. The nation of Krataerbech found a native from an unknown land to the south," she said.

"So? Who gives a damn? He died, big deal," retorted the Emperor.

"But, sir - this may lead to some interesting developments," the minister replied.

"Fine, fine. If you care that much, send a fucking SIS agent," ordered the Emperor.

"Yes, sir," she said.

Channel 5 Newsroom Kirsche
Frosttraume, Krataerbech
The lights shown down brightly on anchor Jimmy Wiesenoff. He shuffled his papers as the camera man counted down.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
"Hello Krataerbech, I'm lead anchor Jimmy Wiesenoff of the Channel 5 Newsroom Kirsche, and welcome to headline news. In recent developments of the Darian Brown murder case, a bloody knife linking his brother George Brown to the crime has been found. George was arrested at 2:30 this morning. In other news, a group of freelance anthropologists have come forward with new information that may prove the findings of a decoded journal found on the body of the Donnerinsel Man. Carrie White recently talked to the head of the group, Adam Price, and we have that interview to show you now.

"So what are you and the other anthropologists trying to do here?" Carrie asked.
"Good question Carrie. You see, we've discovered a code in the journal found on the Donnerinsel Man, and this described to us exactly what happened to this poor man." Adam said.
"So your saying you beleive exactly what that website said was in the journal?"
"No no no," Adam chuckled "Thats just a tad bit ridiculous. The journal states an act of genocide by one of the kingdoms of the island on another one of them. The journal also says that this was done to prevent some sort of uprising or social unrest. According to signs given to us in the journal, this is happening right now, and it must be stopped. We're trying to create public interest in the story, so we can pressure the goverment to intervene."
"But all this is just based on a journal, whats there to say this isn't just an elaborate hoax?
"Well Carrie, a group of us chartered a flight around the island, and we think we may have enough evidence to prove that this really is happening right now. We have pictures of mass burial grounds, spread all across the island. But we can stop this. All you have to do is call your local Mayors and Nobles, so we can get a peacekeeping force in there."
"Alright thats all the time we have, Jimmy, back to you.


All across Krataerbech, people began calling there local goverment officials. The push for a peace force had begun.

The Presidential Palace
Gesetz, Gebirgsgesetz
"Good job John, good job!" The King and Secretary of Public Relations were both in the Kings Royal Office. His room was much more decorated, with all black marble floors, mahogony furniture and crown moulding, trophy animals he had hunted ranging from the lowly pheasent presented on the wall to the gigantic standing Crescent Bear, with unique markings resembleing the national emblem. The King was pacing behind his desk, while John sat in front of him.
"You know, you really couldn't have done much worse here. I asked if this Donnerinsel guy was importaint, you said no. Then these arthopologists do all this research, and theres a public uproar about it. You know they pushed for a public referandum? It passed! I am actually required, by law, to send a peace keeping force to the middle of no where, because you wouldn't make a big deal about it." The King was obviously very angry.
"What do you want me to say? I guess I made a mistake. But you know what, its not my fault the publics so damn retarded. Thats right, not uninformed, not dumb, RETARDED. I told you, its not possible to crack a LANGAUGE. Especially something we don't know anything about. I did some research. Those "anthropologists", there the same people who made that joke one up on the internet! This is all a huge hoax, I'm telling you." John said defensivly.
"Well I suppose your right, but theres nothing about it we can do now, can we?" King Fredrich said. "I suppose that means I'll be sending those men now. God I hope theres nothing there."

PFC Sam Cranston clutched his seatbelt. He was one of five hundred soldiers picked for the peacekeeping operation, three hundred fifty of them being in noncombat roles. The Kingdom had told the public they were sending an entire brigade over, but that just simply wasn't the case. They had dropped all the tanks, artillery peices, and all but a couple helicopters. In truth, only fifteen squadrons would actually see combat in the incident.
If any. Sam thought. He was one of the "smarter" citizens of Krataerbech. He, along with precious little other people, did not believe the lies told by that group of antropologists. The fact that others did simply astoinded him.
Sam took off his helmet and unbuckled his seatbelt.
I still got three hours left on this damn boat. He said to himself. Sam hated the hovercrafts, with a passion. It wasn't just the loudness, he just hated the fact he was floating above water. Is it really that hard to find a sandy beach? Sam already knew the answer to this, and it was a resounding "yes". The island the men would land on was covered in thick rainforest, with 5 major rivers and constant rainfall feeding them. On the outskirts of the rainforest where it met the ocean were limitless mangroves. Thick and impassable mangroves.
The PA system turned on.
"Were in luck, we've found a landing location and we'll be heading in shortly. Buckle in boys. It'll be a bit bumpy."

Took them long enough. Sam thought. He put on his helmet and sat down again. I better be able to shoot someone after this trip.

Sam was now sitting in a tent on the island. The fleet had successfully found a location to land on, and had the landing crafts unloaded by nightfall. Camp was set up quickly in a large field near the landing zone, with access to the river. Each Platoon had its own individual site, with a central location set up for the base and logistics barracks. Sam's platoon was set up right next to base camp, which was nice because he hated haveing to walk much farther to eat at the mess hall. He felt sorry for the rowdy 313th, they had the farthest location, at the top of the hill. Sams CO walked into his tent.

"Private, command wants us to scout the area up the river out. We'd take the helicopter, but I'm afraid the jungles just too thick to see anything from the air. You and Private Williams will take the RHIB up the river five miles to the bend, and then head back if you don't see anything. You hear?"

"Yes sir!"
The CO walked out of the tent and sighed. I hate Williams.

Sam and Williams headed for the portable floating docks that held the RHIB. Sam didn't know Williams' first name, and he never bothered asking. He always guessed it was something crazy like William, something a backwards Brandbodian would have as a name. Williams' was as dumb as they come, and Sam knew that was the typical stereotype of his home provience. Sam stepped on the boat and took to the driver seat.

"Alright Williams', lets just get this done as soon as possible. I don't want to be here either." Sam said. Williams simply grunted. Sam started the RHIB up and began to head up the river.
----------------------------
Several miles up the river, Sam saw something. It appeared to be a reed boat. He pulled up closer. People? Sam had believed the whole operation to be a hoax, but could it have actually been based in fact. He brought the boat close to the boat. There was a man and a young boy on board, with dark skin and short brown hair, cowering in the boat. Sam, remembered his helmet. The full mask must make him look like an alien creature to these primitive people. He took off his mask, and began to speak.
"Hello. We are from Krataerbech. We come in peace." He waited for a response.

The tribesmember looked at him, still fearful, yet Sam saw a hint of curoisity in his eyes.
"Ney dell a ka?" the tribes member said.
Sam decided it'd be best to use hand signals instead.
"I" pointing to himself "Am from Krataerbech.", pointing to the ocean. "I am Sam", pointing to himself again. "Where do you live?" he said, with an exaggerated look of confusion at his face, and then putting his hands by his head like he was sleeping.
"Ka se Tulu." The tribes men said, pointing to himself, placing emphisis on Tulu.
"Ka se foor Sulzu" he said, this time mimicing the sleeping gesture Sam used.
Sam hesitated before asking the next question, thinking about how many movies the line was used in.
"Take me to your leader." he said, first using his hands to simulate walking, than pointing to himself, then putting his hands on his hips and looking upwords.
The tribesmen nodded, tied his boat to the RHIB, and got on.
He pointed to a spot of open land on the river, and Sam sped towards it.

Sam brought the boat to the shoreline, where he saw a peak of a small village. However, it certainly wasn't what he expected. Sam was expecting something primitive, like the natives of the Amazon. What he got was something that looked like it came straight out of Imperial Rome.
The village consisted of one street, leading from the stone docks into the river, past about a dozen dwellings, and ending in what was probably a small temple. All the buildings were white stone, possibly even marble.
"This is amazing" Sam said under his bridge. Williams grunted. A small crowd of 10 or so had gathered at the docks, where Sam was now parking the RHIB. Sam and Williams got off the boat, tied it up, and helped the tribesmember and his son off. The tribesmember yelled something obviously foreign, and the crowd began to yell with excitement. He led Sam and Williams to the temple-looking building, and took them inside.
This too was not what Sam expected, he was thinking it was going to be dark and damp inside. On the contrary, it was very well lit, and featured a beautiful black white and marble spiral design on the floor, and pure white marble walls and dome.
"This isn't amazing, this is incredible! These people have been isolated for years, and have the technology to build domed buildings of stone!" Sam said with excitement. He looked towards the center of the room, and saw a man sitting on a enormous wooden carved throne. He, unlike the other villagers, sported a long, thick, graying beard, and long hair.
The man spoke to the tribesmember they had found on the reed boat.
"Ney dell a kell?"
"Kell se Krataerbech." The tribesmember responded in his unintelligible languge. However, Sam was beginning to pick up some consistancies in the conversations he had heard. The man on the throne motioned for Sam and Williams to come forward.
"You..Talk....English?" the man said in very broken english.
"Yes, Yes I do!" Sam replied.
"You...Are...Who?" The man on the throne said once again.
"I am Sam. I am from Krataerbech." Sam was very excited now, out of all the things he had seen today, this was the most suprising. Speaking with a native!
"I Torsalt. I live Sulzu. I leader!"
"Will you come with me? My leader wants to speak with you."
"Yes. Torsalt will come and speak."
Sam lead the way back to the boat, and they made there way back to base camp.

Sam, Williams, and the leader of Sulzu had made there way back to base, and were walking to base camp. On the trip back, Sam had learned that the leader had learned English as a boy. He explained that on the other side of the island, where he used to live, there was a small foreign run port that cruise ships regularly docked at. Torsalt worked with his family there, selling fish and sugar cane to travelers. He moved back to the jungle when he was a teenager, and soon became the leader of his village. He explained to Sam that his village was actually part of an Empire, known to them as the Grantuzan Empire. The people of the Empire worshiped not any unearthly deity, but there leaders. Torsalt was thought of by his people as a mini "God-King", with the leader in the capital city that shared the empires name. He said no mention of genocide, nothing of the sort. Sam walked into Brigadier General James Isanhoff's office. Sam had Torsalt stay outside the door.
"Sir!"
"At ease private. What have you found?"
"We were heading up the river, and we found a reed boat, just like the Donnerinsel man had. There was a man and a child on board. We had them tow us to where they live, and he brought us to there leader, who is outside with Williams right now."
"Really? Bring him in. I'd like to have a chat with him."
"One thing though, he and his people seem to be deathly afraid of our helmets."
"Fine fine, I'll have everyone take them off."
The General got on his headset, and radioed for all military personell to take off there helmets.

"Private Gold, Private Wake, I need you two to scout for firewood." CO of the 313th Harry Eldridge said. He hated Gold and Wake, with a passion. Their antics had earned them the spot farthest away from camp, and worse, a terrible reputation. Of course, he couldn't deny that being the CO of the 313th wasn't interesting. The rest of the men in the platoon weren't bad, they were just lazy. And pranksters. And had a strong distrust for authority. Hell. Eldridge thought to himself. I pretty much belong with these guys.
But Gold and White were different. Its not that they got in fistfights with the other men for no reason, or were brownosers, or anything like that. They were just, as Harry always joked, socially retarded. Yes, that was the perfect term to describe the two. It was almost like they had grown up in a bubble, with robots as parents. Wouldn't be suprised with these two. Harry thought again. He walked back into the tent.
--------------------------------------
"God damn him! Why do we even need wood?" Gold said to Wake, as they walked down the hill and into the jungle.
White answered. "Captain and the others are sneaking into the woods and having a bonfire tonight."
"Really? Can we come?" Gold asked excitedly.
"No you dumbass."
Wake and Gold walked farther into the jungle, until they came to a clearing.
"Whoa. What the hell is that?" Wake said.
"Looks like a giant poofy thing." Gold said. It truely was, a giant poofy thing. It was flesh tan, and about fifteen feet tall, with the same radius. "Touch it."
"Absolutly not."
"I will." Gold walked over to it, picked up a stick, and poked it. "Its spongey." Gold put his hands on it. "I'm gonna climb it."
"See if I care." Wake said, watching intently. Gold climbed to the top. Every time he moved, large chunks fell out where his hands were. "Looks like a mushroom head." Wake said. Gold got to the top. "Its one of those smoke mushrooms, only big!"
"No shit its bigger. Now get down here. Gold put on his helmet, and reached to his belt. He pulled out a grenade.
"What the HELL do you think your doing Gold?" White said, yelling this time. Gold pulled the pin, threw it inside, jumped off the mushroom, and ran.
POOOF!
The mushroom exploded, with Wake standing right next to it.
Wake got angry. He could feel all the hate he had ever had against Gold suddenly come to surface. He began to breath heavily. Suddenly, as if a voice in his head had told him to, he knew what to do. He pulled out his pistol, and pointed it at the now panting Gold.
"Wake, stop, what the hell are you doing? Come on, it was all in good fun!"
It didn't matter what Gold said now. He was dead before he even had a chance to turn and run.

--------------------------------------
A giant purple cloud began to float towards the camp.

Captain Eldridge was standing outside eating a bowl of chowder when he saw the giant purple explosion. Several Privates ran outside.
"What was that?" one of them asked.
"Nothing. Put your helmets back on. And don't go down to that ceremony down there. Might end badly." Harry took another bite of his chowder, put his helmet on, and went back inside the tent. Slowly but surely, the purple cloud was moving northward, to the camp.
---------------------------------
Sam was excited again. Very excited. He just knew he'd get promoted for this, he knew it. He and the General were standing in full ceremonic dress by the flag pole, the rest of the camp surrounding them. In the middle was Torsalt, along with a dozen of his relatives from the village.
The General spoke.
"Hello. I am Brigadier General James Isanhoff, of His Majesties Krataerian Royal Army. As Commanding Officer in this theatre, I would like to extend friendly relations between our two peoples." He stuck out his hand.
The purple cloud drew closer...
Torsalt looked confused. He stared at the hand outstretched for a moment, then had a look of satisfaction on his face. He stuck his hand out, grasped the Generals, and shook vigourasly. The men laughed.
"Well its obvious we have some...cultural differencies, but none the less, I commend you for accepting our offer. As we look to the future......."
General Isanhoff began one of his long, rambleing speaches. But the cloud grew closer. And closer.
A man in the back began to cough, as the cloud reached his lungs. Suddenly, almost everyone was coughing. Sam caught a sniff of the purple cloud, and began to feel strange. He looked around at all the coughing soldiers.
How disrespectfull of them! Coughing so loudly, at a meeting that could determine our very relations with the nation. He coughed again. They must be stopped! I'll kill them! Yeah, thats it! Kill them ALL!He pulled out his pistol, and put his finger on the trigger. He heard a crack.
That wasn't me.... Who was it? He saw the General with his pistol out also, firing at the now rowdy coughing soldiers. How dare he! Shoot one of the bastards before me! I'll kill him! I will! He shot at the General.
-------------------
Back at the hill, the 313th were looking down.
"Jesus" one of them said.
"Yeah. Fuckin' good thing we got our helmets on."

Harry stepped outside to see what the commotion was about.
"Good God! Someone, notify command!" he said.
"Can't. You see that radio tower we have right there?" Private Barry Esters pointed out.
"Yes, yes, its still standing, what about it?" Harry said hurridly.
"You see that crazy guy holding the grenade right next to it?"
"Oh no...."
"You see the radio tower fall? Thats why."
Harry turned around, put his head on one of the poles holding the outside of the tent up, and turned around again.
"Alright men, get collected. Whos here, who isn't?"
Barry piped up.
"Gold and Wake were screwing around in the woods; they probably made that purple cloud in the first place, and fucking Williams ran down to help."
"Poor bastard. Williams, I mean. Screw Gold and Wake." another soldier, Will Graber said.
"Well if thats everything, we should probably make an attempt to get back to the ships." Harry said to his troops.
"Can't" Barry told him.
"And why?"
"Didn't you hear the message right before the tower fell? There placeing the entire island in Red Alert Quarentine. You know what that means right?"
"No?" a small soldier in the back by the name of Frank Perkins said.
"Ok retard, what it means is that if they see us, and were acting funny in any way, there gonna shoot us. And if they don't shoot us, they'll ship us off to some underground lab in Gesetz and do all sorts of wierd ass tests on us. Is that motive enough for you not to go back?" Barry explained.
"I guess..."
"Damn straight it is."
"Ok,ok, lets calm down. What the hell are we going to do about this?" Harry said.
Will spoke now. "If we could sneak over to the helicopter, we could take it up river and see if the natives could help."
"That sounds good."
Just then, the distinctive sound of helicopter blades spining peirced the air. Looking over, they saw that only a couple dozen soldiers remained, and they were all fighting over the helicopter. It took off, with one man in the cockpit, and he proceded to slice the others with the blades.
"Ouch. Well, thats obviously out of the question. How about the boat?" Harry said.
"Lets do it." Barry said.
"Then pack your shit, were going up river."