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The Lone Badger posted:To make nuclear warheads in any kind of quantity you need plutonium. Plutonium does not occur naturally. The best place to get it is from 'spent' fuel rods that have been used in a nuclear reactor. Oh, I thought you explicitly needed a breeder reactor 
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Sep 19, 2021 05:22
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Blood and Bullets Below the Magic Kingdom Part Two: Funicular Into Fear The tunnel smelled dank, and dark water stains grew on the walls. Despite being spacious, the fact that half of the lights were burned out made it feel cramped. A short distance inside, we came across another door, this time with a blue sign above it, white letters in a soft font declaring ‘Welcome, friends!’ Wolfman and Tape lined up on either side of the door, while Chat stood beside Rodeo, her Uzi raised. Reverend remained behind with me. With only a slight nod, Rodeo strode forward and planted her boot in the center of the double doors, flinging them open. Wolfman and Tape leaned around the doorframe, sweeping their weapons back and forth. It was a surprisingly well-rehearsed move for the squad and not the first time I’d seen it done. But usually it was followed up with a fusillade and a great deal of screaming. This time, there was only dull silence. I pulled my fingers out of my ears and peeked around the wide figure of Reverend, who had not moved at all. Dracula walked past Rodeo, saying nothing as he looked at the room beyond. It was large and open, broken up by several thick concrete columns. Unlike the bare concrete hallway the floor was plush seafoam carpet that turned to tile in areas where small tables had been set up. Stools surrounded the tables and the walls were lined with white couches and cushioned chairs. I blinked as I took in the odd lounge we had stumbled into, following Reverend and Chat as they entered behind everyone else. “What the gently caress is all this poo poo?” Wolfman asked as he swept his automatic rifle over the long room. Tape pushed his glasses back up on his face and shrugged. “Some kinda underground meeting room? A place for all the Hollywood types to get together and rub elbows?” “No one’s been here in a long time,” said Chat, holding up a fingertip covered in dust taken from one of the couches. “Definitely not since before the war.” “Yeah, but someone lives here,” Rodeo replied. “What makes you say that?” Chat asked. Next to her, Wolfman plopped down into the couch, sending up a plume of dust and she wrinkled her nose, stepping away. Rodeo pointed up to the ceiling, where most of the lights continued to shine. “The lights are still on.” “Wait, that’s actually a good question, how does this place have power?” Said Tape. “We’re in the middle of the loving swamp, not a thing for miles around. I didn’t see any power lines.” “The skeletons have their own fire,” Reverend murmured as he walked away from the entrance, heading towards the back of the room. Ignoring him, Rodeo pointed to the other set of doors on the wall opposite us. “Chat, Tape, go check those doors. Wolfman, get off your rear end and go follow Rev, make sure he doesn’t blow anything up.” Grumbling, Wolfman sneezed and lifted himself off the couch to trod after the mumbling holy man, his green uniform now thoroughly stained with dust. Chat leveled her gun at the indicated door and proceeded, Tape falling in beside her, but not bothering to raise his shotgun. Rodeo approached Dracula and the two of them began to speak quietly next to a filmy framed photograph of a tall man with an odd mustache sitting at a desk with a telephone pressed to his ear. With my coke high wearing off, I was becoming uncomfortably aware of being underground in the middle of the Florida swamp. So I drifted closer to the squad leader and her mysterious advisor. “-consistent with our intelligence.” I caught Dracula saying. Rodeo chewed her gum and just fixed those hidden eyes on him. “You know you never did tell me just what sort of ‘intelligence’ you have.” She maintained her monotone even now, but the twitch of her eyebrow betrayed her growing frustration. Dracula paused. “That is classified.” The answer didn’t satisfy Rodeo, who took a step towards him. If it bothered Dracula, even I couldn’t see it. “I’m getting real tired of your ‘it’s classified’ poo poo man.” He simply shrugged. “You have your orders, and I have mine. I suggest we follow them.” As Dracula turned to walk away, Rodeo placed one hand on the grip of a revolver. Then she noticed me and withdrew her hand and instead pulled her Stetson hat up, running her fingers through her brown hair. Her head had been shaved when we set out from their base in the Okefenokee, but over the course of several months it had grown out and was in dire need of either growing more or being shorn down again. It was a look common to many people in the militias that ended up operating away from home for weeks at a time, and no one wore it well. “Enjoying the show?” she asked. “I haven’t decided yet. It’s certainly not what I expected.” Wolfman’s voice rang out from the far end of the room. “Y’all are gonna want to see this.” He’d found a podium on top of a small raised platform. Inside it were a number of buttons which operated the lights and flipped through a number of banal songs played from speakers discreetly placed on the walls. One, however, was labeled ‘Orientation’ and when Wolfman eagerly pressed it a screen descended from the ceiling behind him. A click could be heard, and a projector lowered from the ceiling, but as light splashed across the screen all we could see were garbled images that flashed by incoherently. “I guess the film reel fell apart,” said Tape as he peered at the projector. “Welcome, friends and thank you for joining us,” a voice suddenly said through the speakers. It was eerily mirthful and obviously a recording. “We here at the Disney Company know that you had your pick of shelters across the continent and beyond, and we are pleased that you chose to spend the next several centuries here in our fine halls. This shelter is equipped with state-of-the-art technology, outfitted with the best in defensive capabilities and supplied with self-sustaining food and water operations. We also offer the best entertainment that you will find in our new, uncertain world. Only here at the Disney Lifestyle Preservation Vault will you be able to see productions starring your favorite movie stars and be treated to new cartoons weekly! None of our competitors offer anything like what we have here in terms of quality of life.” “Holy poo poo, is this some kinda apocalypse bunker?” Wolfman asked as he looked from the mess of broken images to the speakers. Dracula held up a finger, silencing the rifleman. “Once you have finished your refreshments, you will hear a word from our benevolent founder and then proceed through the doors to either side of the stage and the funicular will take you to the habitation block. If you have questions, please-” At that moment there was a loud click, followed by the buzz of microphone feedback. “Hello, visitors,” said a different voice, significantly less cheerful. “We were not expecting outsiders to find this location so soon, nor that you would be able to gain entry without setting off certain alarms that we had set up.” Rodeo adjusted her hat and glanced around. “Who are we talking to right now?” She asked. “Oh, that’s less important than who you are. Your clothing and weapons seem to indicate that you are military. Our projections did not foresee organized militaries surviving World War 3. Care to explain your affiliation?” “The war wasn’t that bad. Some nukes fell, a lot of people died, but we came out the other end alive.” Rodeo replied. “And just who is ‘we’ in this case? Your weapons and uniforms are inconsistent, to say the least.” Dracula opened his mouth, but Rodeo beat him to it. “We’re with the Okefenokee Revolutionary Vanguard, part of the Lower Georgia Worker’s Front and the Communist International.” Dracula sighed and shook his head. “It is the Communist Interplanetary now,” he said. After a long pause, the voice crackled back over the speakers. “I see, so we lost the war and godless foreigners have overrun our borders. In that case, you are not welcome to proceed any further, and we will not be coming out to meet you. The residents of the Vault have no interest in meeting with your sorts and we will take our chances waiting here for the liberation of the country from your hands. Leave, and do not return.” Moments passed as the squad looked between themselves, shifting uncomfortably as they began to realize exactly what lay under their feet. “You know, sergeant, you really should learn to lie,” said Dracula, his normally stoic expression turned into a mask of frustration with his lip curled and his eyes narrowed. “I believe this is a concept Americans are familiar with, yes?” Ignoring him, Rodeo nodded to the doors behind the stage. Wolfman and Chat checked both of them and shook their heads. Locked tight. She then pointed to the set on the right. “Rev, open this jar of pickles for me, would you?” Grinning, the gaunt man walked over to the door and pulled off his backpack. “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God,” he muttered as he rigged the dynamite sticks to the doorhandle. A few moments later, after we had retreated to what the holy man assured us was a safe distance, the room rocked and sound pounded against our ears as the doors were not so much blown open as taken completely off their hinges and mangled. We proceeded towards the smoking hole where the doorway had once been when the speaker crackled on again. “I see you are attempting to gain access to the facility. There is nothing for you here, I suggest you turn around and leave,” the voice said. “Go gently caress yourself," Wolfman replied, scratching at his unkempt beard. “Why are you so eager to throw your lives away? For some book written by a Russian lout who blamed others for his failures?” Chat snorted. “Marx was German, idiot. Shows what you know.” “Fine,” the voice said with an edge of frustration. “Come and meet your death.” Beyond the doors we found a spacious platform with a velvet rope creating a maze of rows that seemed to exist to just slow people down. Wolfman and Tape kicked them over as we walked, and the heavy brass posts thudding against the concrete floor echoed forward. There we proceeded onto a circular floor of metal with guard rails around the far edge. At the center was a raised control panel with a lever. The rest of the space was taken up by rows of metal-backed chairs with dusty, plush seats. Clearly this was meant to take a while, traveling in a modicum of luxury. Rodeo examined the lever and after everyone was aboard she threw it. Suddenly the platform jerked and screeched and then began to lower. I watched as the concrete walls began to move upwards as the funicular descended into the abyss beneath us. Light was scarce, mostly coming from the platform itself and our own flashlights. Progress was slow and steady, the grinding eventually dying away as whatever rust the machines had developed gave way. Chat lounged on one of the seats while Tape busied himself examining the control panel. Wolfman walked the perimeter restlessly and Rev said his quiet prayers. At the center of it all was Rodeo, staring daggers through her sunglasses at Dracula, who was quietly writing in his little notebook. I sidled up to the tall Romanian and he looked up, regarding me with that same expression of bemused dismissal that I got from most people in my life. “Give it to me straight, Drac, what the hell is going on here?” I asked, hoping that my straight-to-business demeanor would surprise him. “That is classified,” he replied, shutting me down. “Come on, we all saw you put in the door code to get us in here. You expected to find this place, right? What are we really here to do?” Dracula merely shrugged. “We are here to protect the interests of the Cominterp, as we always do.” I shook my head. “Listen man, I hate to tell you this, but Cominterp? It ain’t happening. Comintern sounded fine, but the ‘pee’ sound at the end just makes it sound wimpy, you know? I’d suggest sticking with the old name,” I replied, pulling out my coke again and tapping out a bump onto the side of my hand, between my thumb and index knuckle. I raised it up a bit, offering it to him, but he politely declined with a raised hand and I snorted it quickly. The lights flipped on in my head again and the entire room seemed to brighten as I stood up straight and really smelled that dank underground air. I could see the walls more clearly, the grooves behind us for the tracks and the intricate ductwork and electrical wires on the opposite wall. Panels opening and gleaming metal emerging from within. Gun barrels glinting in the darkness. The funicular suddenly ground to a halt and I screamed. “Get down!” as the bullets began to fly. I’d been in a few firefights in my life. Most of the time, bullets just make the one noise as they leave the barrel. Sometimes you’d hear them plough into the dirt or burst through wood. More often there was the soft plop of them entering flesh and the following scream. Maybe a noisy spurt of blood. But here on what was essentially a mobile metal cage bordered by stone, it was cacophony as the bullets slammed into steel and concrete and ricochets zinged by while plumes of concrete dust filled the air. Without ear protection my head felt like it was going to explode like the cushions of the seats I had dove behind, dragging Dracula down with me. I fumbled for the revolver and dropped it onto the metal floor, watching as it slid away from me, out into the open. Still more bullets poured down onto us. Risking a look over the top of the seat I watched Wolfman backing away from the walls, open panels within them now fully revealing the machine gun nests within. He had his rifle raised and fired wildly into the nearest open hole, screaming at the top of his lungs. Inside, something sparked and exploded and the gunfire dropped a bit as the weapon stopped firing. Wolfman turned to fire on the other positions when bullets raked across his body. I watched him twitch and shudder as plumes of red shot out of his back and his uniform was shredded. A round caught him in the eye and his head jerked back as he stumbled. I have no idea how he kept standing, a dead man on two feet, gurgling blood from between clenched teeth. He emptied his magazine into the floor at the same time as he emptied his bowels. The ricochets were almost as deadly as the stink. “Chat! Rev! Grenades!” Rodeo shouted. I could not see the two soldiers, but I could hear the metallic clicks of pins being pulled, followed by grunts of exertion and distant plopping sounds. A pair of explosions ripped through the chamber, echoing out and shattering what was left of my hearing. Amid the smoke and shell casings and the smell of Wolfman’s poo poo and piss I felt a strong hand grab my shoulder. Looking up, I could see Rodeo dragging me along, yelling something that I couldn’t hear as she pointed ahead of us. I stumbled after her, surprised to see us charging the machine gun nest that Wolfman had taken out. She shoved me into the open panel, past the inert gun. I stumbled into a cramped room within, bumping into Tape, who pulled me in deeper, and turned to see Rodeo followed by Reverend. With Dracula and Chat already here I realized that the entire remnant of the squad was within. Outside, the funicular started up again, sliding deeper into the darkness below and leaving us behind. I collapsed into a heap against the farthest wall I could find. My mind was a mess of adrenaline and cocaine, and I barely noticed it as Tape tossed Wolfman’s rifle into my lap. Chat was saying something and Rodeo shook her head as Reverend again made the sign of the cross. From below I could still smell Wolfman as he vanished into that dark hole, conveyed deeper by the bullet-scored platform of doom.
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Sep 19, 2021 06:03
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Kitfox88 posted:Oh, I thought you explicitly needed a breeder reactor A breeder reactor produces plutonium faster and more efficiently, but that's just a question of how long you need to let the rods age in the reactor before they're good to reprocess. There are thorium-based reactors that do not produce plutonium, but they're generally inferior to uranium ones for power production. Their main advantage is the fact that they can't be used in weapons production meaning they don't make other countries nervous.
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Sep 19, 2021 06:08
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I always knew that fallout-style evil lurked under disneyworld...
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Sep 19, 2021 07:50
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March 3, 1983 At Vandenberg, the summit, now more important than ever, continues. While the Ascension Accords you voted to present are not ready for final approval, being an early draft, an agreement is reached to at least discuss them, to be formally ratified in 1984 if an agreement can be reached. As a reminder, the draft you submitted is here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3943978&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=38#post513634019 The Chinese report a successful shootdown of a large piece of reentering space debris. Not to be outdone, the Germans follow with a second a few hours later. The third threatening piece splashes down in the Indian Ocean, causing brief, minor flooding on the coasts of various islands. Several dozen fragments of the chunks that were shot down make it to the surface intact, damaging structures, igniting fires, and causing a few power outages. In one of the thirty or so raids on suspected GLADIO network 'nodes' and safehouses in Europe, a team of Polish commandos is killed when their quarries deliberately collapse the abandoned mine they were holed up in on themselves. Six more find empty buildings and no sign of the occupants. One finds a false positive - a solar-powered automated radio navigation beacon left over from the war, still broadcasting on old US military frequencies. The rest are successful. One group, consisting of four ex-Austrian-Army soldiers, is captured after burning their safehouse to the ground and splitting up; FESTER thermal sensors were able to track them through the forests, and they are all quite surprised to be met and arrested. March 4, 1983  Junior Officer Ferrosol, Ministry of Outer Space Affairs, is killed aboard Interkosmos Station during rescue operations. They will be posthumously honored. At Baikonur, still under a strict security lockdown, the Proton of the Proton-Electron pair assigned to the Moon is completed. There is no time for any shakedown, diagnostic, or familiarization period. She is crewed and launched into orbit immediately.   In command of the team is Ship Commander i ride bikes all day, with Ship Commander Bindu as second-in-command. They are the same rank; the hierarchy is determined entirely by seniority. They form up and light off for the Moon within minutes of the Electron completing orbital insertion.  ...and arrive just a few minutes later. The enemy cannot have gone far. We will dig them out of their holes. March 5, 1983 The enemy operatives captured are mostly nobodies, an assortment of disaffected ex-soldiers and policemen and civilians with right-wing views; some of them were genuinely not even aware a larger organization existed outside of their own country, while others are ignorant as to its exact nature. They receive orders via dead-drop, encrypted radio, very rarely by in-person meeting, various other signals. They identify themselves as a hundred different groups, from the 'Queen's Guard' in England to the 'Ulster Volunteer Force' in Ireland to the 'Golden Dawn' in Greece and the 'Forest Brothers' in Latvia. Their superiors, too, are mostly nobodies - relatively more powerful nobodies, with networks of dozens of cells they communicate with, but still minor figures in the overall network, and still mostly ignorant of its true scale. They, too, receive orders from somewhere - via radio. You have their radios. You have their one-time pads. You know where and when they got those. And, in less than a month, you'll have proper Trans-Newtonian ELINT gear, too. The Japanese inform you that interrogations of captured American personnel indicate the Joint Chiefs had been quietly evacuating small numbers of personnel at a time for almost a year, eventually leaving behind just enough to maintain a facade of normalcy for their Japanese hosts. They left on routine ships to GiE-controlled holdings in the Americas. All North American polities present at the Vandenberg summit - which does not include the United States, the United States, or the United States, but does include the United States and, surprisingly, the United States - agree to participate in the North American Forum going forward. March 6, 1983 There are twenty-eight registered human settlements on the Moon. 1.59 million people officially live there. About 1.19 million of them are in the sprawling chaos of Lunagrad itself, located just south of Tycho crater - while the terrain of the southern highlands is difficult, the numerous lava tubes discovered on initial survey made it a prime location, and the extremely bright ejecta surrounding Tycho itself would also help offset the inevitable light pollution on Earth as the city grows. The remaining 400,000 or so are scattered around the Moon's southern hemisphere. Nearly 140,000 of those live in and around Shackleton, the Moon's second-largest city, which has existed for less than five months. The rest live in communities which range in size from the 80,000-strong Zvezda, a suburb of Lunagrad only a few kilometers away from the edge of the main city, to the 45 people living atop Mount Malapert. The FESTER sensor operators are, despite this, unsurprised when they detect a twenty-ninth heat source. It's diffuse and well-concealed - the base has to be underground, and the vents are small and hidden in dense terrain scatter. It is definitely there, though. There will be no ambushes this time. The site will be kept under constant orbital surveillance, while the LSDF prepares an assault. On Earth, Labour Leader Roy Jenkins, Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in Exile, announces on Japanese television that he has successfully formed a unity government, and will be overseeing the orderly dissolution of the United Kingdom's Government in Exile. There are probably not Japanese soldiers holding him at gunpoint just offscreen. March 7, 1983 The Vandenberg summit, which has lasted days longer than planned due to the interruption by what the satirical press is already calling 'World War 3.5', finally ends. At the final meeting, the Socialist World Exhibition is formally declared open. Interkosmos Station is stabilized and search and rescue operations are officially declared complete. The long, difficult task of repair can now begin. The first Cydonia survivors are repatriated to what remains of their homes, four sailors from California. A photograph of a stunned young man meeting his great-grandson, who is biologically a few years older than him, makes it onto the cover of a PRCal newspaper, and travels around the world from there. It is almost immediately displaced in the public consciousness by another photograph, of a somewhat older sailor, still in his dress uniform, walking into a Ministry cosmonaut recruiting office in Sacramento. His home, and the town in which it was located, are completely gone; not even ruins remain.  The Hawaiians launch another ship they've been building for the AAA, this one crewed almost entirely by North Africans. The new crew name the passenger liner Ibn Battuta. Amateur astronomers watch her cast off from the orbital slipway through the still-ongoing meteor showers from the Interkosmos Station debris cloud. Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Sep 19, 2021 |
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Sep 19, 2021 08:17
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RIP to ferrosol, you died with honor as the first goon death in space. He will be missed, unlike the british empire, to which can only be said good riddance. Also about the american forum: apparently the only ones not participating worth mentioning are.. the joint chiefs, the government in exile and the federal government. We've got texas and new england on board, as well as carter's lot and.. surprisingly, the true american coalition based around that one airbourne general in the rockies?
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Sep 19, 2021 08:35
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NewMars posted:RIP to ferrosol, you died with honor as the first goon death in space. Nobody wanted to be associated with the former-USA, and everyone was suddenly very eager to publicly demonstrate how not-associated-with-the-former-USA they were.
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Sep 19, 2021 10:28
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I wonder if it's too late to have Thatcher's ashes mixed into the concrete of a sewage plant in Yorkshire?
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Sep 19, 2021 13:01
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Z the IVth posted:I wonder if it's too late to have Thatcher's ashes mixed into the concrete of a sewage plant in Yorkshire? There's still time IRL, too.
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Sep 19, 2021 13:08
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Kitfox88 posted:Oh, I thought you explicitly needed a breeder reactor Well, this depends. If you are serious about building a professional nuclear arsenal consisting of hundreds of weapons, you will need breeder reactors, as the plutonium you can get from reprocessing spent fuel is usually contaminated by a large amount of Pu240, lowering the yield by what is essential the equivalent of pre-ignition in a petrol-engine. if you are a dictator bent on building a working nuke, not caring about achieving the most optimal yield, spent fuel is perfectly fine. Historically the Soviet Union accepted inefficient weapons, as they could supplement purposefully bred plutonium by low-grade plutonium reprocessed from spent fuel from cheap RBMKs.
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Sep 19, 2021 13:21
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Mister Bates posted:The Japanese inform you that interrogations of captured American personnel indicate the Joint Chiefs had been quietly evacuating small numbers of personnel at a time for almost a year, eventually leaving behind just enough to maintain a facade of normalcy for their Japanese hosts. They left on routine ships to GiE-controlled holdings in the Americas. Almost a year? Jesus. So basically, immediately after the Hawaiians made it known to Japan that we were coming to negotiate, they right off the bat wanted to rid themselves of the Joint Chiefs, and the Joint Chiefs knew about it, again, almost immediately. Man, relations between those two must have been incredibly distrustful and tense if Japan was that eager to fob off these war criminals at the first excuse, and the GiE were listening hard for the first sign of dissatisfaction to start planning their apocalyptic exit strategy. Christ, with a year's head start these jerks could be anywhere on earth by now. Or off Earth, for that matter. We need to burn out the GiE holdings in America, they are a rogue state and I doubt anyone wants to continue sharing a continent with them at this point.
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Sep 19, 2021 18:21
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quote:There are twenty-eight registered human settlements on the Moon. 1.59 million people officially live there. About 1.55 million of them are in the sprawling chaos of Lunagrad itself, located just south of Tycho crater That's a 40,000, not 400,000 difference. Is it supposed to be 1.19 in lunagrad?
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Sep 19, 2021 18:55
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I raised the question of conscription on the Discord, and figured I should bring it up in the thread as well. In short I think the current version of conscription should be scrapped universally, but some kind of CI-wide service year wouldn't be a bad idea. To head some concerns off at the pass, it'd be something everyone would have to do not just boys, and there'd be considerations for physical and mental issues up to full exemption if necessary. I'd then split this service into three separate branches and let people pick whichever one they preferred, from civilian, military and 'mixed'. Civilian would be basically ensuring your first job is something your community, or a nearby one, needs done. It'd be treated as a real job, though it's almost like an apprentice type situation except they're there to learn what's expected of doing a full-time job, their labor rights, unions and all that good poo poo rather than the practical aspects of the specific job. Of course if people have specific requests then an effort will be made to accommodate them, like someone planning on studying medicine would get a spot in f.ex. a doctor's office or a care facility. Military would be sorta like the conscription we have today, but they're explicitly not soldiers/military personnel, it's more like a year-long boot camp getting people interested in joining the military or becoming a cosmonaut physically and mentally in a good place for when their service year is over and they can go sign up. This military service year wouldn't be a pre-requisite for signing up, but I imagine it would give a leg up in f.ex. specialist or cosmonaut training selection. Mixed I'm imagining for those who want to try out a more military lifestyle (barracks living, orderly, regimented, discipline etc) but aren't interested in the shooty bang-bang bits. I imagine these ones would be used as a sort of highly mobile source of 'low'-skilled manpower, f.ex. natural disaster hits a city, before the end of the day we've put lots of boots on the ground for relief efforts. Another draw/focus of these would be travel, you pick this one and you will travel all over and you will meet folks from all over.
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Sep 19, 2021 20:27
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I do not see the need for conscription at this time. As technology progresses, smaller and more 'elite' forces become increasingly more useful over the massed armies of the world wars of the past. TNE technology will only accelerate this to a ridiculous degree, especially if we're sharply limited by how many TNE smallarms and vehicles we can produce and hand out. On top of that, we're still recovering from a nuclear near-apocalypse, introducing all the social turmoil of such a conscription scheme without an urgent need would do nothing to stabilize the situation or help striken communities recover. The only area where such a policy might make sense imo would be, for example, calling in skilled civilian spacer crews to space warships if we ever have an urgent need to crash-build a fleet.
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Sep 19, 2021 20:34
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Which is why I made sure to specify it's not a classic military conscription? It's up to the individual which branch to pick, and the 'military service' branch is just a taste of what military life will be like and a leg up when/if they eventually join. I imagine the majority will either choose to stay and work in/near their own community, or join the manpower brigades and go all over the CI to help out where needed.
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Sep 19, 2021 21:38
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TDS posted:I do not see the need for conscription at this time. As technology progresses, smaller and more 'elite' forces become increasingly more useful over the massed armies of the world wars of the past. TNE technology will only accelerate this to a ridiculous degree, especially if we're sharply limited by how many TNE smallarms and vehicles we can produce and hand out. Base line game this is hilariously, hilariously untrue from a certain perspective. You need an insane amount of units to conquer developed planets without massive nuking or orbital bombardment.
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Sep 19, 2021 23:58
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Okay so, of the guys who attended and consented to the north american forum, the big surprise was the True American Coalition. These guys were founded just after game start by a renegade general of the 82nd airborne in colerado and are basically a bandit army running a gigantic protection racket. So they're probably just doing this as a way to make sure the other american guys get targeted before them. Which, you know, fair. Carter's National Reconstruction Comittee, who are based around the idea of "keeping the lights on and the water running" in areas they control were the other ones. So with these guys, obviously we're not going to let them stand, but we may have some interesting ways of dealing with them: they're an army without a state, so what if we go with the offers of clemency and signing bonuses: incorporate those who'll go for it into comintern forces and start making them a real army again, see off those who'll return to civilian life instead of playing bandit king and smash the rest. As for carter I honestly can't get behind military action against him: he's a very tired man and it's kind of like kicking an old dog.
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Sep 20, 2021 01:18
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NewMars posted:As for carter I honestly can't get behind military action against him: he's a very tired man and it's kind of like kicking an old dog. I don't see why we would even need military action against him. If we can show we can provide people a good quality of life and a fair shake by joining us it seems like he would jump at the chance.
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Sep 20, 2021 01:31
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March 8th, 1983 Pravda Morning Edition DISAFFECTED OLD GUARD ELEMENTS ARRESTED IN SWEEPING KGB RAIDS At approximately 4 AM across the Union, brave men and women of the KGB arrested and detained 843 officers, bureaucrats, and former party officials in well executed raids. They are being held in suspicion of plotting the overthrow of the Communist Party, subverting the will of the proletariat, and corruption. Only light injuries are reported by the arresting officers. Some two dozen arrestees and their criminal accomplices attempted a futile violent resistance. Some 200 billion rubles in misappropriated funds and goods were recovered. Truly a great day for justice! PRESIDIUM TO ANNOUNCE CHANGES TO PARTY MEMBERSHIP REQUIREMENTS A visibly excited assistant to the Comrade Secretary General announced today that the Presidium will soon announce formal changes to be adopted by all Soviets regarding admittance of new members. The new membership requirements will be as follows: 1. A brief interview with your local soviet council, followed by a yea or nay vote. 2. The swearing of an oath to uphold the party and its rules and programs. 3. An application for membership to a broader party program. These new, much less stringent members, the assistant explained, are the herald the transition of the Union from its current vanguard model into "full socialism". Once the new rules have been fully implemented, all citizens who believe they are qualified are encouraged to apply. VANGUARD TO RETIRE, NEW 90% PROGRAM ANNOUNCED The central committees of the party have announced a new 5 year goal of 90% of adult citizens to hold party membership. This is the first step on the road out of vangaurdism, to welcome in a new age of socialism. Party leadership fully expects the party and the USSR itself to write new, ever more fitting constitutions for themselves by the close of this period. Long live socialism! Glory to the USSR!
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Sep 20, 2021 03:15
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The UAWR wishes to condemn such blatant corruption and sends it's regards to the Soviet Union on it's new, expanded party membership program.
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Sep 20, 2021 03:22
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Political cartoon from Die Tageszeitung, 8 January 1983 [Two Chinese men are brittlely smiling at each other as they sharpen knives, Spy vs. Spy style. One is clearly wearing a Mao suit, the other the uniform of the Red Guard. Behind them, a man in a Soviet general's uniform is smugly smiling at them; a cutaway in his stomach reveals an old man and a young man engaged in a full-on cartoon brawl.] IVAN: "I don't know how their society can function like that." Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Sep 20, 2021 |
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Sep 20, 2021 04:07
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Hey there, readers at home! Want to play, or want to read, but you're Confused by how the socialisms of the world look? Here's a primer. On the Tendencies of Socialism in the Comintern Professor Vila Biliirr, University of Meanjin In the post-revolutionary world, there has been a strong push against factionalism within the organization of the Communist Interplanetary. Despite this, the states which make up the alliance slash supranational organization or provisional government that is the Comintern are in no way prone to ideological orthodoxy. Even within a given nation there may be examples of everything from traditionalist Marx-Leninism to Syndicalism to experimental political Cyberneticism. Attempting to strictly sort the polities of the Comintern by their professed ideology would be at best exceedingly difficult, to say nothing of their actual practical tendencies. That being said, organizing them by the nature of their political structure is far more feasible, at least in general terms. Vanguardism Vanguardism is that method of political organization whereby power is concentrated in the hands of a small group of socialist party members within a state with the stated ideals of safeguarding the revolution from counterrevolutionary forces. While often professing democratic centralism, they tend to be filled with organizational rivalries that are contained within the upper echelons. Often unitary in nature, they tend towards orthodox planned economics, although this is being challenged by the upsurge in cyberneticist ideals. Probably the most common tendency in the world today, the success of the world revolution has, ironically, proven to be their greatest challenge: a completed revolution needs no vanguard to keep it safe. This can be seen by recent developments in the USSR, the foremost bastion of the tendency after the People's Republic of China. Incidentally, Vanguardism tends to adopt one of two ideological stances: Marx-Leninism or Maoism, the former being in ascendance at the time of the world revolution. Councilism Possibly the widest tendency, this encompasses many strains of thought, from Northwest American Anarchism to the Eastern European New Soviet Democracy. It's unifying principle is that political systems are organized as a series of ascending councils or committees, sometimes open, sometimes closed, but always deriving their members from delegations sent by the lower ranks in some manner. This distinguishes it from vanguardism where the political power and often the appointments of a council are derived from those above them. Socialist Democracy Called Democratic Socialism, Federal Socialism or New Luxemburgism, among other names, Socialist Democracies are multi-party democracies where the state is run according to socialist principles. Often this tendency emerges in non-revolutionary socialist countries, where the existing structure is instead changed to accommodate socialist principles, either from internal or external pressures. However, there are examples of revolutionary nations that have adopted one of these models, most prominently France, whose experimental socialism is guided by a multi-party coalition that has been dominated by the Communist Party in a supermajority since it's inception. Although below that, France exhibits every single possible tendency in a confusing mess which deserves it's own paper. Others Here fits those organizational structures adopted that are too heterodox to easily fit into the above categories. This includes union-based syndicalist democracies which allot by vocation instead of geography, sortition-based structures and direct, absolute consensus communes. As evidenced by their being placed here, these usually have only a single, if any polity in which they are adopted, usually being a characteristic of another one. Either that, or they are to be found in France, most likely temporarily.
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Sep 20, 2021 07:22
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The Scania Liberation Front like the idea of Värnplikt, the good thing about it is that it can be both military and civilian and with or without arms. Instill in the people that they have enormous rights as part of the commune! But also obligations to protect and care for it.
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Sep 20, 2021 07:24
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Note: despite the name, New Luxemburgism is not practiced in Luxemburg, which is a nominally capitalist microstate that is in actuality, a fully integrated comintern member by virtue of being surrounded by them and being a tiny city-state.
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Sep 20, 2021 07:35
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Affi posted:The Scania Liberation Front like the idea of Värnplikt, the good thing about it is that it can be both military and civilian and with or without arms. Ooh, another scandinavian? Nice. I knew leaving the Kalmar Union vaguely defined would pay off when/if another scandi joined up. If you join the discord we can nail down a little more fixed timeline/history.
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Sep 20, 2021 08:12
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NewMars posted:RIP to ferrosol, you died with honor as the first goon death in space. I died as I lived doing nothing of value! Come to think of it the same goes for the British empire
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Sep 20, 2021 08:27
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Antilles posted:Ooh, another scandinavian? Nice. I knew leaving the Kalmar Union vaguely defined would pay off when/if another scandi joined up. If you join the discord we can nail down a little more fixed timeline/history. I'll visit! Can't promise to be incredibly active though. Link in OP?
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Sep 20, 2021 09:01
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Affi posted:I'll visit! Can't promise to be incredibly active though. Here's the link https://discord.gg/zr6Um6mgUc
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Sep 20, 2021 09:03
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Ferrosol posted:I died as I lived doing nothing of value! Come to think of it the same goes for the British empire hey don't be too harsh! the british empire has inspired many liberation day holidays!
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Sep 20, 2021 09:38
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Mister Bates posted:All North American polities present at the Vandenberg summit - which does not include the United States, the United States, or the United States, but does include the United States and, surprisingly, the United States - agree... Just wanted to say, that is some Neal Stephenson - tier satire, right there. This thread has been excellent reading all around!
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Sep 26, 2021 18:40
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March 8, 1983 Announcements of major reforms in the USSR make world news, briefly displacing all the other stuff that's been happening. Responses are mixed, and debates are ignited worldwide. On the same day, a PBS public-access program broadcasting out of a basement in Detroit showcases a group of local amateur engineers. They demonstrate a prototype for a computer-controlled rapid prototyping device capable of fabricating three-dimensional objects. The prototype uses fairly simple thermoset plastics, just as other similar devices do, but, intriguingly, they demonstrate that their design should work just fine with sorium-based polymers, and even discuss the possibility of a future design (currently existing only on paper) capable of working with TN metal. They call the new device - a bulky, crude mess of tubes, wires, and servos connected to an obsolete microcomputer - a 'replicator'. March 9, 1983 It was assumed, when developing tactics and equipment for the Comintern's Lunar ground troops, that most fighting on the Moon would be done either inside, or outside and very near, inhabited structures. What ranged weapons the troops were armed with were mostly designed to minimize the possibility of hull breach or overpenetration; muzzle velocities were kept low, projectiles low-mass and highly frangible. However, the near-certainty of a secret GLADIO base necessitated the rapid development of a suite of heavier weapons, for when the gloves need to be taken off. A very small number of these bespoke Lunar firearms are available, and B Company, Lunar Self-Defense Force, are the first to actually take them out of their securely-locked storage containers and carry them in the field. B Company will serve as the vanguard of the assault on the buried moonbase, with C Company in reserve. D and the battered A Company will be held back just in case something else happens. While taking prisoners is seen as very important, a high priority, the heavy casualties suffered in the Battle of Lunagrad has convinced the company commander not to take any chances. They'll take captives if they can, but...well, he hopes some of them already have their suits on. The airlock door is well-concealed, dug into the side of a crater in perpetual shadow; it is likely the sun hasn't shone there for billions of years. Even knowing it is there, Sergeant Reyes can barely make out its outline through the telescopic sight on her gun, from her position atop a hill about a kilometer away. She will fire the first shot of the assault. Her shoulder-mounted, single-shot 20mm recoilless rifle is the closest thing the LSDF has to a heavy weapon. The 'Can Opener', as it is nicknamed (officially it is 'Breaching Rifle, Vacuum, Model 1982', B-82 for short), is designed to do one thing and one thing only - crack pressurized habitats from the outside. She knows what that means in theory; she's even done it in training a few times, blowing open pressurized shipping containers or simulated habitat domes. She's never fired it at people before. As she fires, the gasses vented out of the front and rear of the weapon kick up a huge, expanding cloud of moon dust, and the recoil jerks her entire body back and up. By the time she recovers and re-establishes her sight picture, the tiny shaped charge projectile has already punched right through the airlock. Fountaining outward in surreal slow motion are the remains of the airlock itself, a mess of assorted debris, and...bodies. Human bodies. As they arc through the void, Reyes can't stop herself from wondering, just for a moment, if they're conscious. She pushes the thought aside as the rest of the company receives the order to advance. March 10, 1983 Surprisingly, almost twenty of the seventy-three people in the subterranean base were either already wearing suits or managed to don them after sealing internal bulkheads. Of those, ten were captured alive. The KGB is very eager to speak to them. Efforts to identify them, and the bodies, are already underway. Seven soldiers of the Lunar Self-Defense Force lost their lives in the assault. March 11, 1983 Director Kuzmin enters Mission Control at Ascension Island, already dreading the next crisis, only to discover...nothing. For the first time in what feels like a million years, nothing has happened. On March 11, 1983, the only problems she has to worry about are the ones she already has. This is a noteworthy event in and of itself. She still has many of those to worry about, though, and gets to work immediately. She still has a report she wants - no, needs - to deliver, but it has to wait until a few of these fires are put out. March 13, 1983 Japan formally announces its deal with the Comintern - first in a press conference before the Diet, then hours later in a speech before the rump UN. The response from what's left of the UN is mostly quiet and deliberative, as everyone tries to figure out what to do next. Everyone pretends not to notice the vacant US and UK seats. The Japanese Socialist Party is overjoyed at the news. The Communist Party immediately calls an emergency party conference. March 15, 1983 The last piece of deorbiting Interkosmos debris large enough to survive as a meteorite reenters, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. Smaller pieces will be visible as occasional meteors for at least the next year. March 16, 1983   Academician Airconswitch joins the Comintern's scientific faculty. Like a plurality of your scientists, they are a rocketry specialist.  Your scientific faculty is arguably becoming overly specialized, in fact, and Airconswitch could be instructed to redirect their efforts to another specialization at your discretion. Until then, they are given one lab and set to work operationalizing the China Lake railgun prototype, for lack of anything better to do. March 19, 1983  A new, better Trans-Newtonian nuclear reactor design is completed. The new model is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary design, simply an improvement of what you're already using, but it's still capable of producing significantly more power for less cost. Laboratories are reshuffled to match current research priorities. March 20, 1983 An extraordinary congress of the Japanese Communist Party convenes to discuss the Comintern's new conciliatory policy towards Japan. Reaction ranges from cautious optimism to resignation to disappointment and outrage, and the arguments are heated. Some accuse the Comintern of abandoning them or even betraying the revolution. At the end of the day, the Communist Party is a democratic centralist organization, and though there is freedom of debate, they are united in action, and they are united under the direction of the international communist movement. That movement has declared that revolution is not the path forward for socialism in Japan, and the directive must be followed. When it becomes clear that the most intransigent members of the militant faction will not be swayed to this position, they are expelled, along with their most vocal supporters. Several hundred members of the party are purged; thousands more voluntarily resign. Those purged include several prominent leaders of the party's paramilitary wing. Though they are an insignificant minority in absolute numbers, it is still a serious blow to the morale of the organization. March 23, 1983 At a meeting in Nagoya, expelled or resigned Japanese Communist Party members convene with members of various other sundry radical left groups and establish the dissident 'Communist Party of Japan', denouncing the Japanese Communist Party as counterrrevolutionary traitors and vowing to continue the fight for socialism in Japan. Though there have been a few fringe anti-Comintern left voices scattered here and there around the world, they have never had such a prominent banner to rally around. March 31, 1983  current research status Weeks after the shooting has stopped, a long list of major questions still remain about the GLADIO attack that nearly plunged the world into another nuclear war. An ad-hoc committee of intelligence officers from several Comintern nations have worked together to compile reports from raids, interrogations, captured documents, surveillance data, and any other intel they could scrap together, and present it to the People's Congress as the rather vaguely-named 'Report on the Events of March 1983' (to be presented shortly in my next post) Sent in at the same time, as if its submitter is hoping it won't be noticed beneath the more prominent report (and also in my next post), is a paper titled 'On the Establishment of the Psychonaut Corps', by Fedya Kuzmin, Director, Ministry of Outer Space Affairs. Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Sep 29, 2021 |
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Sep 29, 2021 09:04
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Splitters!
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Sep 29, 2021 09:09
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To make an actual response. Statement of the General Congress of the UAWR to the Communist Party of Japan. Regarding recent diplomatic developments with the state of Japan, it is all too easy to see any level of détente with reactionary elements to be signalling the abandonment of the proletarian world revolution. However, neither us nor the Comintern have abandoned you. We have no intention of asking you to cease your furthering of the people's struggle. However, we do ask you to keep in mind that the world revolution must be furthered by any means necessary and "any means necessary" includes word and voice as much as it does bullet and blade. Just as many nations have been brought into the international brotherhood of workers by ballot as by force of arms and by the education and strengthening of the proletariat as by the leadership of the vanguard. Our current situation is only so: we are conciliatory towards them because they are conciliatory towards us. Be prepared, for not only failure and backslide that may signal the need for armed struggle, but also for success that may see a people's state established without it. Always remember that solidarity is the great strength of the proletariat, not to tear apart in defeat or victory. Ever remember that the comintern lives by the maxim: "If the opposition disarms, all is well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves."
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Sep 29, 2021 10:39
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Mister Bates posted:They call the new device - a bulky, crude mess of tubes, wires, and servos connected to an obsolete microcomputer - a 'replicator'. https://i.imgur.com/kkDjCOK.mp4
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Sep 30, 2021 06:38
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Fortunately we have plenty of ballistic weapons to deal with them.
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Sep 30, 2021 13:20
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REPORT ON THE EVENTS OF MARCH 1983 the document on your desk is at least 100 pages long and presented in a three-ring binder. It opens with a summary of the report. The terrorist attacks of March 1983 were an enormous, coordinated operation of interplanetary scale, involving tens of thousands of personnel and hundreds of moving parts all operating on a precise schedule. The enemy referred to this plan as ‘Operation Hastings’. Though the plan was disrupted, it was only just, and even then, significant damage was inflicted. Had the operation gone according to plan, the damage would have been catastrophic. We have interrogated captured terrorists from Vandenberg to the Moon, examined captured documents and other material, collated and analyzed years of FESTER scans and other ELINT, and conducted extensive searches of government records, news archives, and the like, in order to compile as accurate a timeline of the events as possible. A summary of our most important findings is as follows: - We are near-certain that the primary target of ‘Operation Hastings’ was in fact the Americas. No GLADIO assets on the continent were burned, and the Revenge attack, in addition to serving as a decapitation strike on most organized polities in North America, would have also temporarily crippled the Californian military. The relocation of several thousand troops loyal to the US Government-in-Exile in the leadup to the attack also supports this hypothesis. - At least some elements of this plan had to have been developed before the Vandenberg Summit was even considered; the timeline is simply too tight otherwise. The Summit was a critical element of the final plan, but it it likely that something similar was already in the works before it was announced. - The nuclear attacks in the Americas and Europe, and the conventional attacks in Europe, were intended to be simultaneous. The destruction of the summit was intended to have been the ‘go signal’. - The nuclear warhead which struck Interkosmos Station was intended for the Moon. - Total death toll worldwide, not including enemy casualties, is approximately nine thousand, of which approximately 4,900 were aboard Interkosmos Station. Most of these were killed by terror bombings; over 1,000 of them were killed during combat between GLADIO terrorists and our own security forces. Of these, the majority were civilians. At least 150 civilians were inadvertently killed by our own forces, likely more. - Total potential casualties had the attacks succeeded as planned are estimated in the multiple tens of millions. - The failure of the operation has caused serious damage to the integrity of the GLADIO network in Europe. Not only have several thousand participants and sympathizers died or been arrested, the remainder have been forced to go to ground in order to escape our crackdown. That having been said, we are certain they were not annihilated, and that at least a few active cells remain. - In addition to the nuclear arms deployed, a sizable arsenal of more conventional weapons were employed by our adversaries. The overwhelming majority of examples recovered were Great Revolutionary War surplus, or older, and we believe these arms were gathered and stockpiled either during or shortly after the conventional phase of the war. Thousands of MAS-49 rifles and MAT-49 submachine guns were recovered, for example, as well as thousands of M-16 and AKM assault rifles. Some small quantities of more modern munitions were recovered, and some of those have been successfully traced. Some of these had already been reported missing and were likely stolen. Others had never been reported missing. These weapons were likely either sold, or directly given, to reactionary cells by sympathizers in member-state military forces. - We estimate the probability that the central node of the GLADIO network was operated out of the offices of the Government-in-Exile of the United Kingdom at approximately 70%. We estimate the probability that this central node was in direct contact with the British exile government at 99% or greater. Regrettably, the Japanese report all relevant documents were destroyed in the fire. - Conspicuous in its absence is any direct evidence of the presence or activities of the GiE’s iteration of the Central Intelligence Agency. We have found no reference to the organization by name in any material recovered from the US Government-in-Exile, nor indeed any direct evidence of the body having a dedicated intelligence service at all, though they certainly must have had one. - Based on the information our enemies had access to, and when they had access to it, the probability that the enemy has at least one mole with a top-level security clearance in the government of a member nation of the Comintern is estimated at 99% or greater. - The terrorist base on the Moon was excavated largely with hand tools and constructed entirely out of material brought to the Moon by the Comintern, then stolen. It was the only such unregistered settlement on the Moon. Its life support capacity, and the supplies stored within, are not consistent with the number of terrorists encountered. In addition, several of the enemy bodies recovered after the Battle of Lunagrad were identified as individuals who had been living normal, active lives as citizens of the city of Lunagrad itself. The probability of there being further such sleepers on the Moon is high. If you have any further queries about things that might be in the report, ask and I will elaborate on it for you. ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PSYCHONAUT CORPS the first page of this several-dozen-page or so document is as follows: Aliens exist, comrades. They have technology far in advance of ours, and they have visited Earth in the past. They have abducted and preserved humans for unknown purposes, left physical evidence of their presence throughout the Solar System, and turned all of human science on its head. Their technology helped ignite the Trans-Newtonian Revolution, redefining the basic fundamental laws of physics and making possible feats that would be considered supernatural mere decades ago. Despite the extraordinary circumstances, our scientific faculty has, understandably, limited itself to fairly conventional definitions of science. They have done truly phenomenal work, and will continue to do so. That having been said, I have been forced to face the truth that conventional science is simply insufficient to truly understand the new world we have found ourselves in. I am, therefore, proposing we formally pursue more unconventional methods. I have contacted top researchers in the fields of psychoenergetics and psychotronics, and they have further directed me to other contacts involved in fringe or unusual studies that might be relevant. With their help, I have developed a framework for an organization dedicated to pursuing unorthodox lines of inquiry and directing their efforts towards understanding xenolife and Trans-Newtonian science. I believe it is vital to the future of humanity that we spin up this organization as soon as possible. Some of you will likely think me mad. I would not disagree with you. I have been driven quite mad over the last few years, by the madness of the world we live in. We must accept and embrace that madness. Our own Academician Vasilyev, whose research into cryogenic preservation techniques has revolutionized medical science and made large-scale space colonization a triviality, was dismissed as a crackpot lunatic before Trans-Newtonian technology made his visions a reality. It seems as if we are forced to redefine the boundaries of the possible every day – why not ignore them entirely? I urge all members of the People’s Congress to take this proposal under consideration. Following is an outline for a new division of the Ministry of Outer Space Affairs, specifically to be organized as a sub-branch of XCOM. It is to include such diverse characters as researchers specializing in the effects of hallucinogenic drugs, self-proclaimed psychics, specialists in cetacean intelligence and communication, ufologists, and other assorted weirdos. It is also to include many actually-respectable scientists, including archaeologists, social scientists of various stripes, linguists, and pioneers in the infant fields of xenobiology and xenoarchaeology. Buried in the list of contributors is a casual admission that Howard Hughes is still alive, that he is floating in a Hawaiian cryo-tube which keeps him frozen any time he is not actively working, that he is running the Hawaiian space agency under an assumed identity, and that he politely requests a pardon in exchange for his full cooperation in all endeavors. In game terms, adopting this policy will give you Xenoarchaeology Equipment immediately, as the new agency skips the process of slowly developing the scientific field of xenoarchaeology from scratch and instead assembles a motley crew of drugged-out lunatics and throws them at the problem. Whether or not you think this enormous tech skip is worth the potential consequences of sending Fox Mulder and a bunch of dolphins to go do LSD on Mars and trip balls at alien ruins in the hopes of understanding them better is up to you. Take some time to think about it, and ask any additional questions you might have; we won't vote on it just yet. Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Oct 2, 2021 |
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Oct 2, 2021 08:55
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This is not good. There may be no CIA left, they may not need it: one or more of our members intelligence service may be in direct collusion with Gladio. On the note of the psychonauts proposal though, the UAWR thinks it cautiously agreeable, not notes something about huges: Huges is neither a citizen of a comintern nation nor an enemy combatant. As a citizen of the kingdom of Hawaii, which is a comintern-recognized polity, he is subject to their laws. Since they are friendly to us, he is logically, not an enemy combatant nor an enemy VIP. This being the case he is not, in fact, a criminal under the recognition of the comintern. I mean, what are we going to charge him with, being an american citizen? Unlikable as he is.. he hasn't really done anything aside from aid the civilian spaceflight program of a nation we're neutral towards anyway. So, pardon, sure. Edit: Oh, question: what was the extent of gladio operations and counter-operations outside of europe and america?
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Oct 2, 2021 09:46
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NewMars posted:
Hughes was an anti-communist with a high level position in US media for decades. He took actions that critically delayed the development of revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat in America, and thus ensured the continuation of US imperialism and the grim necessity of the GRW. The Californians, at least, may have an interest in seeing him brought to justice. I defer to them. Questions Events of March Report What is the likelihood that GLADIO retains nuclear capability? Do we have any estimates of their remaining conventional assets? Have we identified any non-comintern controlled locations or polities that they are likely operating out of? What efforts have been made to track down GLADIO sources of arms and support within governments? Have they had any success? Do we have any indication of which government apparatus the suspected GLADIO high level mole is operating within? Or what type of position they may hold? Psychonaut Corps What sort of resources would such a group require? I realize this is probably impossible to answer, but any idea what further capabilities they would develop or at least set out to develop?
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Oct 2, 2021 17:09
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PRCal is a continuation of the pre-existing state of California, in the American tradition of government. As such it strongly opposes ex post facto laws. As much as Hughes is disliked (and rightfully so!), he broke no laws worth enforcing. Indeed the constitution at the time allowed his anti-communist media campaign. That language has been removed, but been replaced with language explicitly forbidding ex post facto laws. All of which to say, there's nothing to pardon. As for getting him involved with XCOM, that is a discussion for the Comintern as a whole.
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Oct 2, 2021 17:56
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NewMars posted:Edit: Oh, question: what was the extent of gladio operations and counter-operations outside of europe and america? While there are numerous suspected nodes of the organization scattered around the world, none of them outside of Europe and the Americas (and Japan, obviously) actually did anything. They may be being held in reserve for later, they may have been considered unnecessary for the plan, they may have ignored instructions, or they may have fallen out of communication with the central node of the network somehow. paragon1 posted:Questions - The sheer number of nuclear weapons lost when the United States collapsed, in the multiple thousands, more or less guarantees that the organization has access to at least some nuclear weapons (if King Fuckshit of the Duluth Minimall had a nuke, you can bet an organized terrorist group could get their hands on a few). However, if they had a large number of nuclear weapons in working order, it is curious that they would make this operation entirely dependent on the HMS Revenge's complement of warheads. Surely there would have been more-accessible warheads that were just as easily transportable. They may have been conserving nuclear arms in the former United States for some other future use, or they may have degraded to uselessness from over a decade without maintenance. - Any such estimate is hampered by the fact that it is still not 100% clear what exactly is and is not actually a part of the network; there may be cells that we have missed entirely in our surveillance, or false-positive right wing terror groups that are entirely independent of the GLADIO command structure. In terms of confirmed cells that actually participated in the March events, their remaining forces in Europe likely number no less than one thousand and no more than two thousand, scattered in groups of five to twenty operatives, and armed mostly with GRW-era hand weapons and improvised explosives. In the former US and Canada, the forces they could call on can reasonably be expected to include the entire remaining military of the US Government-in-Exile and a number of smaller local-level polities, numbering in the tens of thousands in total, with access to obsolete but functional military equipment and arms in large quantities. On the Moon, things get fuzzier - there was not really any kind of vetting process or access control for refugees, so the total number of potential sleepers is theoretically over one million. Realistically, though, from the scale of the forces we encountered, and our examination of the GLADIO moonbase, we suspect no more than twenty remain at large, armed with improvised weapons at best. - Prior to March the most likely candidate was Japan. India, with its large population and politically charged environment, is near-certain to host at least some operations. Haiti was likely a major base of operations for them at some point, though at this point, with revolutionary forces controlling most of the country and the fall of the Haitian dictatorship projected within the month, we have no reason to believe they still operate there. Brazil is a probable fallback position from there. Nigeria is almost guaranteed to be home to a major node of the network; the ship which took on the Revenge's warheads was based there. Far Northern Canada, Greenland, and Antarctica should also be considered likely sites for possible bases. The possibility of neutral Switzerland being used as a hideout in Europe has been considered, but is judged unlikely; the Swiss are frankly terrified of us. - Tracking of chain of custody of the missing arms has identified at least eleven senior NCOs in member-state militaries - two Polish, two French, one German, one Italian, one Irish, one Kalmar Union, one Soviet, one Hungarian, and two Yugoslavian - who are highly likely to have been the sources of most of them. All have been detained by their respective governments pending further investigation. - From the exact information they had access to, the most likely candidates are the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of California, the Republic of Lakotah, and South Africa, almost certainly at least two of these, possibly all of them. The mole would have had to have access to high-level diplomatic and military communications and full knowledge of confidential activities of the space program, including Mars. Our prime suspect is currently Mikhail Gorbachev. ____________________________________ - At the moment, the proposal requests access to one of the ground forces training camps you are constructing for several months, a new building to be constructed at Ascension, a newly constructed ship with troop transport and drop capability to be built at earliest convenience, and some allocations of funds to involved institutions. Overall the expenditure is minor, at least in this proposal. It's intended as a proof-of-concept, the initial proposal is deliberately limited in scale. - Exactly what they would learn is unknown; possibly nothing. The primary short-term goal is to determine the veracity of, and seek to understand, unexplained phenomena related to the Mars ruins and alien activity in general. Specifically cited targets of study include alien abduction, UFO sightings, the Martian 'airship' which was sighted by early explorers and not seen since, and the strange dreams reported by scientists studying Cydonia. In order to do this, the organization will seek to develop a highly adaptable and holistic approach to study, in which all ideas, no matter how outlandish, are considered at least once. If one were given to be charitable, one might say the long-term the goal of the proposed organization is to act as a sort of 'proving ground' for new ideas, where they can be tested, subjected to scientific scrutiny, and either substantiated or falsified. If one were given to be uncharitable, one might say the long-term goal is to act as a jobs program for cranks. Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Oct 2, 2021 |
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Oct 2, 2021 18:12
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