NationStates Jolt Archive

[OOC: This is basically the backstory for my FT nation. The first couple points are going to be more of a story than an RP, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't post IC for a while, but if you have OOC comments or constructive crticism/suggestions]

USSC Commonwealth Supercarrier
Unknown Space
January 6th, 2554

Lance Corporal John Schuster stared blankly at the metallic floor as he sat in the front row of the makeshift courtroom aboard the USSC Commonwealth Supercarrier. Though he was dressed in the standard issue MARPAT battle dress uniform, Corporal Schuster was unarmed and, in fact, held in shackles around his wrists and ankles. He was seated next to a Navy officer in full dress blues, a Lieutenant Cavanaugh, his defense attorney.

"... Corporal Schuster to the stand."

Startled at hearing his name, Schuster poked his head up. "Wha?"

"I said, if it pleases the court, in an effort to determine that Lance Corporal John Schuster acted in a manner contrary to the Unified Code of Military Justice, specifically with regards to the charge of dereliction of duty, the prosecution would like to call that very same Lance Corporal John Schuster to the witness stand."

As the military judge nodded his assent, Schuster rose from his seat, stumbled over into the witness stand in his shackles and sat down. An MP approached him, made him raise his arm and asked,

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

"I do," responded Schuster.

"Corporal Schuster," began the military prosecutor, "to give us a better understanding of the situation, can you please describe the events occurring of morning of March 25th, 2553, that lead up to the event in question?"

Uber-flashback
Dallas-Fort Worth International Spaceport
Dallas, Texas
United States
Earth
March 25th, 2553

As the chaotic hordes of panicked civilians tried to shove its way past the barricades and through the entrance of the Phoenix Class Colony Ship, Lance Corporal John Schuster held his M90 Shotgun upwards and fired a warning shot into the sky.

"Get back!" He screamed,

"Get the fuck back!" He fired another warning shot before the crowd began to settle down slightly.
"Listen up," Schuster shouted, "Y'all need to line up real nice 'n' orderly now. As you reach this checkpoint, present your documentation. We are authorized only to permit American citizens to board this ship. Be aware, my men have authorization to fire on anyone who does not cooperate!" finished Schuster as he pointed to the nine other Marines making a feeble helping him man the checkpoint, against the torrents of thousands, possibly millions of civilians trying to escape the Earth before its predicted demise.

There were other Marines throughout the mass trying to help control the crowd, sure, but if something went down right this second, they wouldn't be able to be much help. Schuster and his men were essentially on their own for the time being. As the first civilians began to get into line, Schuster shouted:

"Passports, birth certificates, I need some I.D. to let you through. Good sir, yep, you can pass through."

"Yep ma'am, go on through"

"Sir, let's see some form of identification please. All right, sir, that'll do just fine,"

"Ma'am! Excuse me, ma'am, I'm gonna need to see some form of identification before I can let you through."

The woman in question, holding tightly onto the hand of her young child, spoke in broken english. "Sorry Meester, lost... passport. Here, you take... drive... ahh... driver license?"

If her lack of I.D. and imperfect english hadn't already made it obvious, Corporal Schuster could tell from the pleading look in her eyes that this woman was absolutely not an American citizen.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid that we're only allowed to let American citizens on the ship. If there's space aboard after all of the Americans are safe then we can get you on, but our first priority is American citizens."

"Please," she begged him, "take my boy," as she produced a wad of cash from a pocket and her eyes began to tear.

"I can't do that ma'am, I already told you, American citizens only. I can't take a bribe.

The woman broke got down on her knees, broke into tears, and began to beat the concrete ground with her bare fists. As two of the Marines came forward to drag her out of the line, she reached back into her pocket and grabbed a switchblade, swiftly turning around and wrapped her arm around the neck of the civilian man behind her. Bringing the blade up to his throat, she yelled, "Let my boy on or I will kill this man!"

"Ma'am," Schuster said, "You don't want to do this. I can't do what you're asking me to do. I will have to shoot you if you don't let that man go. Ma'am, I'll give you five seconds to let that man go before I shoot you.
1...
2...
3...
4...

Ma'am, please don't do this...

Ma'am...
5..."

In one rapid movement, Schuster reached for his M6 Pistol in its holster, brought it up to shoulder level, and shot squarely between the woman's two eyes. [i]Fuck, he thought. One Marine dragged the woman across the ground, out of the way of the rest of the line.

"Corporal," one of his men shouted, "What should we do with the kid?"

"I don't know, son," said the Corporal, "put him out with the other non-cits,"

"But corp, he's just a kid,"

"I know that boy, but orders is orders," Schuster masked his feelings

"Aye, corp,"

"Alright," announced Schuster gruffly, "Next!"

USSC Commonwealth Supercarrier
Unknown Space
January 6th, 2554

"Well then," the prosecutor started up again, after hearing Corporal Schuster's testimony, "We can certainly infer from your statement, that your orders were to only allow American citizens onboard the Colony ship. Can we not, Lance Corporal?"

"Aye, sir," replied Schuster, "Up until this particular point in time, my orders were to permit the entry of United States citizens only. Several hours later, my commanding officer informed me that the President authorized us to accept Japanese, Canadian, British, and Australian nationals aboard the ship."

"And, being a good soldier, you of course complied with this order?" questioned the prosecutor

"I'm sorry, sir," came Schuster's defiantly sarcastic response, "was that question addressed to me?"

"Well, who else would it be addressed to, Lance Corporal?"

"I don't know, sir, but I sure as hell know that I ain't a soldier," He smirked

"Okay, then Lance Corporal. Being a good Marine, you complied with the directive to allow Japanese, Canadians, Brits, and Australians to board the Colony Ship as well, no?" rephrased the prosecutor

"Yessir, I did, sir."

"But later in the day, did you order the men under your command start indiscriminately allowing people on the Colony Ship, regardless of their nationality?"

"Yes sir, I did,"

"And when were you ordered to do so?"

"I wasn't,"

"You were not, at any time, ordered to allow people who were not nationals of the aforementioned nations to board the ship?"

"No, Sir,"

"Would you say that it is a fair statement that you, in fact, directly disobeyed an order to not allow non-nationals of the aforementioned countries aboard this ship?"

"Yes, I would say that is a fair statement,"

"Approximately how many foreigners would you say that you permitted aboard the colony ship?"

"I don't know. Maybe a couple thousand," Schuster estimated

"Well according to the recently-taken census data on the fleet, there are a total of 35,427 unauthorized foreigners living aboard the colony ship. Meaning that you disobeyed your orders a grand total of thirty-five thousand, four-hundred and twenty-seven times, a series of actions that ultimately resulted in the drastic straining of the fleet's limited resources.

The suspect has admitted his own guilt and prosecution sees no reason to further the investigation or even the need to give a closing statement. We move for Corporal Schuster to be demoted and serve a life sentence aboard the USSC Leavenworth prison ship.

USSC Leavenworth Prison Cruiser
Unknown Space
January 6th, 2554

Schuster, now unwillingly sporting an orange jumpsuit, with both his arms and legs still shackled, hobbled towards the in-processing center, flanked by a fully armed Marine Corps MP on either side.

The USSC Leavenworth, Schuster recalled, was a Hulk-Prison Cruiser. The Hulk class were a series of prison ships, whose constructed had been contracted out by the government. Before the annihilation of the galactic colonies, their primary purpose had been to serve as prison ships, transporting convicts from Earth to American penal colonies on other worlds. Now, this was the only one left. Most had been destroyed, along with the colonial star empires of Earth. Most of the remaining ones, Schuster had heard hearsay, had been commandeered by their prisoners, who had overthrown their guards, taken control of their ships, and turned to piracy. A few, rumor had it, had even gotten away before the destruction of Earth, and were somehow safe. The Leavenworth, however, was the only one still in government hands. For the past several months, it had served as the fleet's only prison; full of common murderers, petty-thieves, and traitors.

Schuster walked up to the counter, reporting to the Non-Commissioned Officer On Duty. "Sir," he saluted, "Private First Class John Schuster, Service Number 311475, reporting, Sir," he grimaced as he said his new rank, to which he had recently been demoted. The NCO On Duty, a sergeant, PFC Schuster noticed by the tab on his shoulder, was a grumpy-looking, bland, and relatively old man for a sergeant. By his seemingly unenthusiastic approach to his job so far, and the fact that he had been posted to Leavenworth, Schuster guessed that this was a man who had been passed over for promotion several times.

The sergeant input his data into the computer at his desk, then nodded to the two guards. "Alright, put him in Cell 2, Block B." Schuster hobbled slowly towards B Block, reflecting on the bitterness of the situation that he was in. He was escorted towards his cell, where a guard typed a code into a panel and the heavy steel door slid backwards, behind the wall. Schuster was tossed into the cell, the door slid shut again, and Schuster could hear it locking. Looking around in his cell, Schuster noticed immediately how much of a resemblance it bore to military housing. Not one of those pussy Navy squids' luxury suites, perhaps, but it was almost identical to his former Marine Corps barracks. Next, he noticed a kid in his room.

Huh, He thought, I guess that's my new roomie.

Guessing that the kid was only sixteen or seventeen, Schuster was surprised that he could have already managed to get thrown into prison.

"Hey, kid, I guess we'll be spending a lot of time with each other. I'm John."

Noticing the Marine Corps logo on his arm, the kid asked "You military?"

"Yeah son, Marines, 45th FIST,"

"What are you in for then? Desertion? Treason?"

"Uh-uh, son. I'm here for something much worse. I'm here for saving human lives."

"Haha, yeah... right. Whatever you say old man,"

"I'm serious, boy.

I joined up '49. Right after the New Indiana Massacre. The bugs came 'n' devastated the colony; killed my Ma, my Pa, my sisters and little brother. I survived 'cause me and a couple kids were on a hunting trip down south. I got back, they were all gone, pretty much everyone we ever knew was dead. Me, my older brother, and my buddy, Trent. We spent months down there in the ruins, livin' off what we could. I was just a kid at the time, barely older than you. When the Feds finally sent a rescue ship, were was pretty much the only survivors on the whole colony.

They brought us back to Earth, and fed us with all that propaganda bullshit. Defend humanity, they said, Death to the Bug, Save Human Lives. I ate all that shit up. 'N I served, 'N I sacrificed. We all did. My brother was KIA in the Battle of Los Angeles; Trent joined Military Intelligence, then went MIA... we all know what that really means. Still I served, served America, served Humanity.

Then, the Bug retreated. The desk-jockeys told us that we won, that we was the best fightin' force in the universe. Just a few months later, they say 'We was wrong, the Bug wasn't gone. The bug planted a nuclear device at the core of the Earth.' Hahaha, can you believe it? Those slimy bastards got us there.

So then, they says 'Alright, we're preparing an evacuation fleet. But only let American citizens on board.'
'What happened to Save Human Lives,' says I, not just Americans. What about everyone else?
Well, they tell me 'don't worry, they'll be fine.' But I ain't stupid, I know that ain't the truth. So I let 'em on board, I save human lives, just like they tell me to do the first time. Then the fuckers get me thrown into this 'ere prison. Ironic, eh son?"