NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Since there's no way anyone can know about all this, this is a closed RP. Tsaraine is stealthy and cunning like a dodo. :)

Domina's Offices, Deep Tsarai, Tsaraine

"Commandant tsaEiran. Do come in. You have a solution for me?"

Division One Commandant Linya tsaEiran entered the Domina's offices, datafiles in hand. She bowed politely to Rene, and sat.

"I have several options, Domina," she replied, "Although none of them are entirely satisfactory."

"Show me," Rene commanded. "This problem cannot be allowed to get out of hand, after all."

Linya nodded, and brought the first solution up on the Domina's screens.

"The first option is to simply continue as we are doing, Domina," she said. "However, the problem will continue, and avaliable biomass will fall short of population growth rapidly. You'd be looking at mass starvation in a few decades."

"That, of course, is not acceptable," Rene said. "And your other options?"

"The second option is to import biomass from outside the state. But none of our neighbours have a sufficient quantity of fertile land to warrant that, no matter how much ore we were to sell them, and the prices to import it from elsewhere are ludicrously high."

"So you don't think that's an option either. I trust you do have an acceptable solution?"

Linya sighed. "I'm not sure if it's acceptable, Domina, and if international attention comes upon it the Non-Democratic Alliance would likely disown us. I'm suggesting we annex the required fertile land."

She tapped the screen controls, bringing up a map.

"This, Domina, is the Katai Archipelago. It lies about four hundred kilometers south-east of the south-eastern end of the Sea of Storms, in temperate climes."

"And you propose we annex it."

Linya froze under Rene's stare like an opossum caught in the headlights of a surface car. "Yes, Domina. The inhabitants have a rather brutal stone age culture with some low-level agriculture. However, with proper cultivation, I believe that the Katai Archipelago could provide enough food to feed the entirety of the Tsarainese population, and then some."

"Unfortunately, tsaEiran, the world no longer approves of imperialism. No matter how good a cause it is, and no matter that several major nations engage in it; we are less powerful than they, and we have never been an imperial government. How do you propose to justify this?"

The Division One Commandant cringed slightly. "We can keep this under wraps for the most part, Domina. The Katai peoples are unable to contact the outside world. And we would be helping them, not just ourselves; Setnet surveillance suggests that the current lifespan is around fifty years. We can triple that."

"I hardly think that the natives would be willing to give up their sovreignity and come under the paws of Tsaraine, tsaEiran."

"Then we have to find some way to make them willing, Domina. If we don't, we'll be facing starvation soon."

Rene sighed. "All right. Talk with Divisions Seven and Eight, then; and Ten too. Give me a workable plan on how to ... annex the archipelago. The State must survive."

Nlabj-sfamb, E Anlabj (Katai Archipelago)

In E Anlabj, there were certain rabnaj that come out of the jungles and onto the beaches at dawn, to hunt the worms and crabs that lived in the sands.

Flakjaubj was one of the men who set traps for them every morning, and he was doing so when something rose up out of the water and flew low overhead.

Frightened, Flakjaubj abandoned his traps, and ran back to Ksafr-Abnatremb, following the ... thing, whatever it was.

"Eotr-mnabatj!" He cried, running through the sleeping village, "Eotr-mnabatj!"

Around him, sleepy men and women came out of their homes, to stare at the crazy man ... and then the "fish of the sky" which had stopped it's flight in the middle of the village commons.

It was as large - larger than - a whale, and shone in the reddish dawn light like obsidian. And it was floating unsupported in the air several feet above the dirt of the village commons.

From his house on the north side of the commons, the Abnatr-sfamb emerged, followed by his amanl; the tjasn came from the temple on the south side, and joined the Abnatr-sfamb.

"You!" the Abnatr-sfamb shouted, pointing to Flakjaubj, "What is this, au? What is this?"

The Abnatr-sfamb was a big man, and prone to shouting, unlike his father, who had been crippled, and listened closely to the atjasn.

Flakjaubj prostrated himself hurriedly, and spoke into the dirt, "I do not know, Abnatr-sfamb! I saw it come out of the water, Abnatr-sfamb, and it flew without wings to here!"

Thankfully, the Abnatr-sfamb seemed to find his explanation adequate, and dismissed Flakjaubj with an idle wave of his hand. Flakjaubj got to his feet and scurried back hastily, and the Abnatr-sfamb scowled at the thing floating in the middle of his village.

A mouth opened in the side of the thing, and a strange tongue extended down to the ground. It vomited forth three people - well, one of them might have been a person. The other two were wholly alien, though they used two legs and two arms like people.

One was tall - far taller even than the Abnatr-sfamb, who was the tallest man in the village - and had black hair like people. But it's skin was as white as coconut-milk, and it's eyes were black as night.

The second was not quite so tall, but looked stronger than the Abnatr-sfamb's aksabr, who were the strongest men in all E Anlabj. It had no hair at all, and it's skin was as black as the thing that had spat it out.

The third could almost have been a person; it's skin was nearly the rich brown of true people, and it's hair was brown like people's. It's eyes, however, were glittering green bulbous things, like the eyes of a fish.

"Anjast!" the tjasn shouted, "Anjast! Ancestors protect us from these anjast and their Eotr-mnabatj!"

"We are no demons," the green-eyed one said, "But true people, from far away."

Flakjaubj was suprised; the things spoke tlinjutr (although with a strange accent, more foreign than the out-islanders from Nlabj-Atsuekj).

"Impossible!" the Abnatr-sfamb shouted, slapping his chest for emphasis. "I rule over all E Anlabj!"

To the Amrasen, that was all the world, and the Abnatr-sfamb did indeed rule it.

"We come from further than the outermost island, from further than the horizon, beyond the sea," the green-eyed one replied.

Beside the Abnatr-sfamb, the tjasn stiffened in anger; those were words from the Tale of Beginning. These people from outside the world, from further than Nlabj-Atsuekj (who did not have the same Tale of Beginning) could somehow know the words of the Tale? It did not seem possible.

"Why have you come here, au?" the Abnatr-sfamb shouted. "I rule over all E Anlabj! I gave you no leave to come here!"

"But we are here," the speaker replied, "And we have things to say to you."

"Speak, then!" the Abnatr-sfamb said, angry. But then, the Abnatr-sfamb had always been quick to anger.

"We come from far away," the speaker said, "And we come to save you. For there are anjast, too, in the great islands of far away; creatures foul and terrible, with great weapons that could clean E Anlabj of all life with a single stroke."

The green-eyed person spun a grand tale, of things which tlinjutr had no words for; of gravships and sky furnaces and atmospheric bombers which could rain death from the skies, of spaceships and ortillery which could kill from above the sky, of Dark Foes and Star Queens and Emperors, all of whom could destroy the world on a whim, and of a Domina underneath a wasteland of obsidian who wanted to protect them from harm.

Finally he ended, with a simple question; would the Abnatr-sfamb continue in his isolation, and eventually be surely destroyed utterly, or would he accept the help and the rule of the Domina, who could protect E Anlabj from harm?

"Be not Abnatr-sfamb, for protection from things we do not see and have not heard of?" the Abnatr-sfamb shouted. "No! No! The aksabr e Abnatr-sfambemb will conquer your Domnean and all these anjast you speak of as they have conquered even distant Nlabj-Atsuekj!"

The pale-skinned person, who had remained silent so far, smiled at that; it was the sort of smile a parent gave a child who made some ridiculous statement, and the Abnatr-sfamb could tell that.

"Aksabr!" he shouted, "Sieze these people-from-beyond-the-world! We shall make of them an offering to the Ancestors!"

The aksabr moved forwards, spears in hand, to do the Abnatr-sfamb's bidding, and were suddenly collapsed, screaming, on the ground as if in terrible pain. The Abnatr-sfamb and tjasn too were on the ground.

Then they all got back to their feet, and the aksabr fled, heedless of the Abnatr-sfamb's shouting for them to return. Flakjaubj thought he could discern a note of fear in the Abnatr-sfamb's voice.

"Witchcraft!" the tjasn cried, rattling his staff. "Witchcraft and anjast!"

The pale-skinned one said something to the speaker in words that were not tlinjutr, a harsh and guttural tongue. The speaker turned back to the Abnatr-sfamb, ignoring the shrill cries of the tjasn.

"You cannot do such a thing, and you will not attempt it," he told the Abnatr-sfamb, who looked shocked. Nobody told the Abnatr-sfamb to do so bluntly.

"Why should I not, au? Au! I say I shall, and your Domna shall join my amanl!"

The black-skinned man looked almost as angry as the Abnatr-sfamb then, and might have attacked the Abnatr-sfamb himself, but the pale-skinned man laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. He said something further to the speaker in that harsh tongue.

"You should not and you will not, Abnatr-sfamb, for we know the name of your soul, and should you not cooperate we shall devour it!"

That shocked the Abnatr-sfamb to silence, and he looked visibly frightened now, looking back and forth between the people of the Domnean and the tjasn, who looked equally scared.

The speaker produced something like a tablet from a pocket, and offered it to the Abnatr-sfamb.

"This is the record that will protect your soul," he said, "You need only to make a mark on it, here" - the speaker's finger traced an X in the air - "And press your thumb to it, here.

"You shall do this," the speaker continued, "For the good of your soul, and for the good of your people."

The man paused a moment, and said, quieter, "For the good of the State."

<taggedy>

<approval stamp of bad-ass writing skillz> (or <tag>)

OOC: Some time later, I guess. This follows on from my research (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45994), namely the recent thingy about the artificial coral. I can't be bothered RPing the boring takeover bits, so this is an example of rubber time again. Scolopendra did a nice history of the Federated Segments relating to that, I think...

Tsarainese Auxilary Terraforming Core, Nlabj-Sfamb, Katai Archipelago

It was a mild, sunny morning on Nlabj-Sfamb, the air heavy with the salty tang of the sea. Utterly unlike the Wastes, or the sprawling cities beneath them.

Wearing thick rubber gumboots (OOC: AKA wellingtons, galoshes, Ruki and His Kash'ha alone know what else...) over her usual sober black garb, Rene Seingult stood in the surf, peering down at the genemod coral underfoot.

The stuff was an ugly tan colour, rather drab and utilitarian. But once it had reached the surface, and been drained off and fertilised - as was happening behind her at that moment, on the other side of the dike - it eventually made an acceptable substrate. The land area of the Katai Archipelago had increased twelve percent in a few short months.

"Such a short time ago, we would not have thought such things were possible."

The speaker was the Abnatremb Nlabj-Sfamb (that being, by Amrasen custom, his name and title both), coming up to stand beside her on the coral.

He'd been one of the Abnatr-Sfamb's amanl, before that individual had been executed when the Tsarainese took over; before that he'd been one of the sons of the Abnatremb Nlabj-Atsuekj. Now he was the Tsarainese liason to the Amrasen population on Nlabj-Sfamb, a great step upwards.

"And now!" he continued, shaking his head in wonder at it all. "Antimagcraft, spacecraft, a cure for the Laughing Sickness... this coral we stand upon. Truly an age of wonders, Abnatr A'abnatratj e Anlabjatj."

He used Rene's new title, in the Tlinjutr Amrasenatj; Chief of Chiefs of the Islands.

Rene nodded slowly.

"Indeed an age of wonders, Abnatremb Nlabj-Sfamb," she agreed. "Even for the Tsa. I think sometimes even for the Ea, too."

[Since it's closed, I won't tag.]

OOC: Oh, feel free to tag if you wish.