NationStates Jolt Archive

Several reports from the Empire of Crimmond seem to indicate a military backed project in the center of Europe. Not necessarily surprising, considering that Crimmond has long been a military power in Europe, but the nature of the project is of note. Images of convoys of equipment and people rolling through checkpoints, past giant shower stations that would normally only be used for some nuclear or biological disaster.

The location is a mystery at first, until one of the videos shows a road sign marking Chernobyl as being the nearest city along the road.

It would be a week before those convoys exited, all getting a wash and all the trucks labeled with radiation warning signs. According to the sources the media is using, the trucks are heavily shielded with lead and water jackets and are heading North, towards a nuclear waste management facility in what was once Belarus. On the same day, the Empress released a statement that it was 'time that the biggest blight on the history of nuclear power be dealt with. For too long, the world has ignored the Exclusion Zone. We rectify that now.'

Why there is a sudden interest in Chernobyl by the Imperial government is unknown. While it was within the ability of the Empire to do something about the plant before now, there has never been a push to do so. With the Empress' plans for more domestic improvements over ever increasing military spending, though... this could be simply one of the projects she has been planning for some time. And with her support, it is unlikely the project would be halted until completion.

News from several civilian contracting companies that are assisting in the effort state that, while much of the project's details are not to be discussed, the project will testbed several technologies and, providing those tests are successful, will provide the Empire with the ability to assist other nations with similar problems.

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It would be several months before any word would come out about the project again, leading some to wonder if there was any progress at all. Then, a statement on the progress was said to be forthcoming within days.

On the third day of waiting, the Imperial International Newslink begins to broadcast a live speech from the Empress. It lists her location simply as 'Chernobyl'.

Empress Sonya Volsung is standing in front of a giant Quonset hut style structure. The immense 'sarcophagus' was built several years beforehand containing the power-plant and the two other 'sarcophagus' structures built to contain the radioactive material inside the plant. The first of the three was built hastily by the Soviets and was never meant to be permanent, while the second was built in the early twenty-first century as a semi-permanent solution and the third as another semi-permanent solution.

The Empress wastes little time. "People of the world, I have come here to this place at this time to reveal to you the meeting of the past and future. For almost two-hundred and eighty years, this place has been associated with disaster. That ends now. No more shall someone be able to use Chernobyl's name as a synonym for doom. No more shall there be a black eye on the world of nuclear power." She pauses. "No more... shall there be a trace of that night in 1986." She nods offscreen.

On cue, explosives tear through the structure behind her. For almost a second, the structure valiantly defies gravity and remains upright, but the middle buckles without support and the sides collapse in behind it, kicking up a massive dust cloud. It takes nearly a minute for it to clear, during which time Sonya remains facing the camera, but once it does clear... there is only the twisted rubble of the outermost 'sarcophagus'. The other two structures and the power station itself are gone.

Sonya's smile is wide as she continues. "Power Station Chernobyl has been totally dismantled. All radioactive material is now gone from this site, including the reactor core of Unit 4 and the hardened ceramic 'lava' that was created during the accident. The basement of the plant has been torn apart and filled in. This, coupled with the natural lowering of radiation over the centuries and the removal of all other radioactive sources in the region, has returned this area to it's previous state, radioactively. As a result of this, I can now announce the following... The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is officially defunct. There shall be no more checkpoints at it's borders. No more showers to go through as you leave. This area of the planet now has the same amount of ambient radiation as any other location on the planet. And it shall stay that way. Even when my next project is operational." She motions in front of her and the camera pans out and down to a scale model of the area, where an as yet non-existent building sits. "This is Fusion Station Chernobyl. It will revitalize this area of the Empire and will be built on the exact site of the original Chernobyl plant. More over, the surrounding cities of Pripyat and Chernobyl will be leveled and new, modern versions will be built in the place of those crumbling relics. This area will become what the Soviets could only dream of. A shining star of what a nation can do, with the proper tools. Construction will begin as soon as the rubble behind me is cleared. It will take about six years to get the new plant to operational status, which is more than enough time to clear and rebuild the two cities."

She pauses for a few seconds, for effect. "Now that this cleanup project is completed and we are moving to rebuilding, I can now offer Imperial technology and expertise to the people of the world. To hoard our knowledge would be not only immoral, but a political misstep. In the coming years, Crimmond will be able to assist any nation with nuclear or nuclear related cleanup. Either through advisers, or through direct contracting of Imperial workers."

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Sonya Volsung
Empress of Crimmond

Bump.

A Gothic internal architecture was represented by the archways and pillars inside the windowless hall, hidden in the secrecy of an unknown building. Gargoyles were built amidst the four central pillars, each facing the center of the room, with their ruby eyes staring at the ground. In the center of the room, an inverted pentagram was drawn in a crimson paint, which could be human blood, with a bleached human skull in the center of the unholy symbol. A circle of individuals in dark robes stood with holding their hands around the pentagram, chanting in occult languages praises for forbidden gods. Chains hinged from the walls, with the bones of unknown victims attached, with screams of torment almost being heard amidst the cracking flames of black candles and a dark, looming sense permeated such hallowed room.

Shadows flickered like demons walking in the walls, and a large ebony door was the only way out of such godforsaken ground, used by unmeasurable acts of deviltry, right in the heart of the Holy Republic, hidden amidst the facade of light, for the fallen angels can deceive the brethren and pose themselves as holy angels, where only the most faithful can truly realize the difference. The city of Destiny's Hold, facing the darkness like all others, has been infiltrated by the darkness, an insidious force capable of leading even the most trustworthy to be corrupted.

Suddenly, amidst the unknown individuals, a man has whispered in Russian, as he took a cell phone from his robe with a memo, although sometimes it seemed like the man was merely a puppet in the hands of an invisible puppeteer, and that it was not truly him who spoke:

"I finally found something that will benefit greatly our objectives. Soon Prazinia will be ours, but we must gather some reinforcements to bear the light into this place of sinful ignorance."

The other individuals simply looked at the man, with faint red glints coming from their darkened faces, and in acceptance allowed for the man to leave. The man began to retreat from the room, and soon he left the black robes into a table, and adjusted his undergarment: an elegant suit, and a spiritually desecrated white wooden cross with seven black and white stars hanging on his neck... the presidential seal of Prazinia.

The man soon took, in the end of a corridor of shady individuals and lost souls leading to the meeting rooms of many cabals, an elevator which ascended him to the facade of his existence, using a secret code into the elevator, which constructors knowledge has been buried with them in their graves. The new presidential house, in a movement justified by the movements of the Inquisition which ironically he has pitted many of the people against by accusing them of satanism. In the floor he arrived, he soon came to the central room of the corridor, where his office was located. A spacious office, with a map of Oceania displayed behind his desk, and several displays showing satellite images to the other side. Unlike the room of the former presidential house, the office was devoid of any Christian symbol, and hid other things beneath the view.

Stepping on the red and brown, cryptically decorated carpet of the room, and observing the wooden panels that instilled a classic feeling to the same, the president sat on his luxurious red chair and looked at his computer. Checking for the reason of the call, which they already knew, he soon would realize the possibilities. And thus, preparing to craft an official message, which seemed to be the work of something using his hands to type rather than of his own will. The room was lit by the light of a wall lamp, even though it was mid-day, for an unnatural darkness has befallen into the Holy Republic.

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Holy Republic of Prazinia

To Empress Sonya Volsung of the Empire of Crimmond

The Holy Republic of Prazinia, due to its fast industrial development and geographically disadvantageous location for conventional energy solutions, has since the beginning of its existence relied almost exclusively in fission power. Due to the nature of our landscape, the terrains viable for the creation of radioactive waste dumps are slowly depleting, while our energy necessities are continually increasing, and as we have focused our advancement into other areas, and as we have never suffered any nuclear disaster thanks to our strict safety protocols, radiation cleaning is not one of our expertises. Therefore, we would like to contract the service of your advisers to design a solution for our radioactive waste issues, with the exception of depleted uranium and radium isototopes, to which we have found practical utilities that make them usable byproducts rather than only waste.

As for anything you might hear about Prazinia, do not believe in the rumors of fringe conspiracy theorists and traitorous Christian Orders. We can assure the complete safety of your personell in the city of Destiny's Hold and in most of the economically relevant regions of the Republic, and will provide all the security necessary against the heretics of the now fallen Inquisition. Also, as I am not sure if you have experience with such phenomena, there is no harm the eternal darkness that the betrayal of the Inquisition and their satanic rituals have brought other than its psychological effect. Our Holy are strong and shall endure the psychological warfare of the Fallen, and also ensure the total safety of your entire staff.

Boris Mikanovich O' Brien
President of Prazinia

(OOC: I hope that this way I made this request ICly tie with the ongoing events of Prazinia isn't a bad plot tie)

Mister President,

The options of nuclear management are many. Breeder reactors are an obvious solution, but direct disposal of the current waste would be an option as well. Currently, there are seven nuclear management facilities in the Empire and their facilities can put some of the material to use in breeders... while the rest should be directly disposed of along the plate boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates, which is quite literally on your doorstep. This would require implanting the waste deep in the crust, then allowing the crust to be naturally consumed by the mantle. An extremely slow process, but one that is assured to dispose of the waste permanently.

It is unlikely that your own experts have all the required knowledge and/or equipment to undertake such a solution at this time, while the Empire of Crimmond has both. We would be willing to send our own experts to confirm your abilities in these areas and offer assistance where it is needed.

As for your other concerns...

I hold no fear no fear for the safety of my people. For it is few that would be foolish enough to cross my empire so blatantly. Whatever your politics are, they are. The Crimm have a long history of respecting sovereignty, even when there are fundamental conflicts in beliefs. Namely the fact that the Crimm are almost totally atheistic and find all religions to be a complete waste of time and energy. Anyone sent to your nation would ignore your society's differences and simply get the job done. So long as normal satellite communication is unaffected by this 'Darkness', there is no issue.

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The office of the president was no longer inhabited by only himself, and among its pompous decorations and furniture, among the hidden symbols of occultism that lied in places nobody would search for, another man sat across the seat of the president, a bald old man, with wrinkles in his face and signs of someone who had a life of hard work, dressed in an elegant black suit, listening to what Boris had to say about their recent foreign relations events. A first contact with a great power from the distant yet infamous Gholgoth, a potential venue of opportunity that could not be lost from squabbling. Laughing, Boris noticed how his guise has been perfect. He, in secrecy, agreed about the point of the empress regarding religions, since the time of the great revelation regarding the primordial source of all religious beliefs, and about the being he thought that was a god before, but had an image to be preserved beyond his circle of close allies, like such man who sat upon an armchair of his room.

"Gholgoth!" the president exclaimed, in his Russian pronounce, with a thundering voice of nearly insanity and exacerbated ambition flaming from his very eyes, the eyes of a man driven by greed seeing a pot of gold ahead, as he continued with what he wished to explain.

"Gholgoth is a vital location for the greater plans, and an important source of new allies. What for now is only a very convenient utilitarian service could become the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship, and perhaps the first of many steps into our consolidation against the ignorant masses. Any support would ascertain the defeat of the medieval Inquisition, but we must work for such. As for the fact they are skeptic, perhaps they have little experience with the spirit world, or wishfully ignore it, but that's no problem."

The man looked at Boris inquisitively, and then pointed his hand to a map of Gholgoth among the many maps of many worlds that lied across the walls. Boris knew what he would ask, and already knew the answer, which came before his ally could speak:

"Alexei Lvov, the geographical distances are no problem. Imagine a container suspended by a crane, on the very limit of weight such crane could support. Even if a pen fell over the container, the crane would collapse. That, Alexei, is the exact situation of the Inquisition. One more division, one more front, and they won't be able to stand, they shall fall. I don't expect any help in the next twelve months however, as They are too occupied with other global concerns to the grand plan, but we will be able to keep our ground and make some minor advances until then. As you already know, there are more than weapons of matter involved in this war, and we have an edge on this factor."

The old bald man simply nodded and answered back, with a small disagreement on the suggestion of the president, rapidly realizing how the situation was mostly favorable for them. Their enemies were however strong, and unwilling to give up, even against the odds struck over them, and had most of the best soldiers of the Holy Republic.

"Should we not look for more geographically close potential allies than in the distant Gholgoth? It doesn't make much sense for me, considering the amount of anti-religious partners we could find from the nearing regions if we went for it. Why the fixation in such place?"

"Oh Alexei, don't you see?" the president inquisitively pointed with a voice partly amused, "Gholgoth is a very important place, with more than only military powers which delight into the art of war and conquest or economical powerhouses. Even here, in this countless thousands of miles away, I can feel what lies in that land, for somewhere in Gholgoth could be the very nexus between the realms of life and death!" he exclaimed with a raised tone of voice, with a claim that seemed to be very important, even if questionable affirmation, as he pointed again to the window, where the most complete darkness has befallen, besides the artificial lights of lampposts and house, like if it was already night, and yet, the clock marked midday:

"The barriers between the live and the dead have waned in our nation, and yet, it is not truly a nexus, for there still are barriers that can only be bypassed for a fleeting second. Imagine what we could witness if my senses are well guided, Imagine the future of our people in a nexus like Gholgoth! If the dead could meet and speak to the live, how ignorance would at last be vanquished!" he exclaimed again, with a nearly demonic flame burning in his eyes, verging the very state of insanity that befell the most fanatical worshipers of any religion or cult, augmented by the complete black of the sky. No stars, no moon, no sun, only a cover of nothingness that extended as far as the eye could see. It was a strange place indeed, and soon, the discussion would be over, although one last question had to be asked.

"What? Mikanovich, do you really have intentions to secure a new future for us in such far away region of the worlds? Are we really going to leave this place in the future?" Alexei asked immediately, wondering about the strange idea of the president. Billions of people and much of their industrial infrastructure could not simply move away through massive distances with any known technology by man, and the idea seemed on the verge of preposterousness and absurdity.

"These lands have no future! They are old, depleted jungles, with poor mineral wealth and too many barriers for our people to flourish! It's no wonder that for centuries, this has been a backwater region of the world, inhabited only by the poor souls, who bereft of technology, were conquered by the stronger. Just like when we first came here, misguided, and gave in the final solution to the native population in our delusional fanaticism and ignorance, using the excuse they were pagans to justify a genocide, while we said "thou shalt not kill" in sermons, like fools lying to ourselves. Guinea is a worthless land, the geographical set for a Banana's Republic, not for a glorious nation like ours! And we have the devices to achieve such shift, for no longer the laws of nature can enforce themselves completely over us!" Boris then affirmed with an unseen pride of what they have achieved for Prazinia. However they simply could no longer advance in a place like that, and like savage animals, only two choices remained: to relocate, or to conquer new lands under a pretext that was consciously admitted.

"Very well Boris, I hope that this shall not end as a waste of funds. I have to go now, in another sermon for the sheeple and fools, who let their arrogance and bigotry blind them to the true perception of the otherworld. I wish you good luck with Crimmond, and it's good to see we won't have to stockpile so much useless depleted uranium for our... experiments." Alexei then said, prior to standing and turning his back to Boris, as he left the room. Security would be provided for the staff from that nation once they came, and it was convenient to have already arranged a security pre-plan that could be molded to any international airport or seaport under their control that could be used. Likewise, it was convenient to already have written his answer to Empress Volsung.

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Holy Republic of Prazinia

To Empress Sonya Volsung of the Empire of Crimmond

The Holy Republic of Prazinia is deeply interested in the procurement of breeder reactors, and in the definite solution encountered from the disposal of waste through the nearby plates to our lands, and thus, we have already cleared up and established security perimeters in the main international airports and seaports of First Seal in Borneo, Watchers in Celebes, Manatown in the Moluccas and Petergrad in Pulau Ligdan to be used by your technicians and specialists for the services we have the necessity of. As for the competence of our specialists in nuclear power, we have no doubts about, for we never had a meltdown incident in our entire history, although their knowledge of breeder reactors is primarily theoretical due to the lack of opportunities to study working commercial models. The exchange of some technical and scientific information would be very productive, and we have already designated some areas with potential for being sites for the construction of Breeder reactors in the regions mentioned. in this letter. We find it more economical to avoid shipping our waste to your national processing plants, primarily because of the geographical distances involved, and thus that option was discarded by our technicians.

As for the issues I have previously mentioned, first, I am likewise tolerant of different paradigms regarding the nature of existence, and there will be no influence in our relationships, commercial or not, from the fact your Empire has chosen the path of secularism while our Republic has chosen the path of conciliating governance with faith, and although I do not agree with them, I respect completely your beliefs regarding the origin of the world. As for the darkness I have mentioned, it brings no effect or interference over electromagnetic signals, and won't be a hindrance to any form of communications. Working beyond daylight is something our people has been used to, but I trust completely the competence of your professionals to handle the services we have requested.

As for payment, we believe that a traditional shipment of gold could perhaps suffice, because we find the act of merely wiring the value through electronic means or through officially written papers lacking regarding the worth of the transaction from a symbolic standpoint. It's a traditional practice in Prazinia to pay in gold rather than money or electronic currency for large-scale purchases and businesses of international scale.

May our nations can find more mutually beneficial opportunities in the future, for Prazinia will definitively be interested in other specialist services that Crimmond could provide to our growing nation.

Boris Mikanovich O' Brien
President of Prazinia


(OOC: I'm really sorry for the too long time I've taken to post an answer. Writer's block is a serious issue for me)