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Maybe the gas station just ran out of gas and the refueling truck never showed up (because someone blew it up).
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Jun 18, 2022 07:34
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It's the "very not us" that gets me. I suspect that whilst sentient species may require communism to reach the stars, it might be that reaction can still creep in.
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Jun 18, 2022 08:49
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October 31, 1985 Press Release: Democratic People’s Republic of West Appalachia Today we mourn the death of a legend. Comrades, early this morning Chairman “Tough Tony” Boyle passed, after a months-long hospital stay. Chosen successor of Great President John Lewis, carrier of the torch of the most correct and proper Marxism, Chairman Boyle was the reason we are alive today. His exploits cannot be exaggerated. It was his vision to ally with the Black Liberation Army, our most honored Guard. It was he who knew to strike with relentless force, destroying the revisionist Yablonski and all his minions. It was Chairman Boyle who knew to continue the struggle against the revisionist Federation of Labor and their fascist leader Hoffa. For ten years we have struggled against wrecker influence. For, after the Second Battle of Blair Mountain, the decisive moment where the Liberation Army crushed the last elements of the bourgeois American National Guard, the true battle was with ourselves. The creeping elements of revisonism is always amongst us, comrades! We must be ever vigilant. Even now, the United Mine Workers Party is preparing their next move to protect us. For, with the passing of our greatest leader, we are at our most vulnerable. Our enemies will be preparing to strike. They have been watching us long! We must be ready.Do your utmost to support the Party in these trying times, comrades. In this times, the Party will protect you.
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Jun 18, 2022 09:12
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Internal memos, Cominterp Intelligence *What’s your take on the Tough Tony thing? That they need a shorter name. *Hah. Democratic People’s Republic of West Appalachia. It doesn’t make a good acronym. That’s what happens when you let a bunch of militant children right out of university try to run a revolution. *Is that their deal? I’ve been working the Nigeria department. Eh, kind of. That press release has some truth to it. John Lewis was a big union leader back in the day, United Mine Workers. He retired in ‘63, and he picked Tough Tony to replace him, who, get this, was an authoritarian strongarm. *No way. Yeah. So, by ‘69, the union is getting rowdy, wants to end top-down leadership, and he decides to make his move. Looks for some people of violence to take out his rival, Yablonski. *The BLA? Got it in one. One of their splinter groups had just killed Nixon, so Tough Tony was like hey, let’s make a deal. I’ve got the union pension fund, I need some friends. Hoffa had been in the news the last few years, labor and organized crime. So Tough Tony and the BLA, they decided to copy their success. *How’d it work out? Bloody. Very bloody. The unions in those areas had vicious infighting, usually about leftism or allowing black folk and women in. So Tough Tony leaned hard into it, got an army. Started taking out his rivals. Then the bombs dropped. *Not a true believer then. I think Tough Tony only believed in himself. Set up a personality cult, actually did carve up a chunk of Applachia in … his version of leftist ideas. *What happens now? I don’t think even they know for sure. Our surveillance says Tony died 6 months ago, back in May. The Central Committee has just been trying to figure out who succeeds him, if anyone. I think maybe they’ve decided who.
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Jun 18, 2022 09:46
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Dang, I can't believe we finally found the joint chiefs
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Jun 18, 2022 10:16
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Well this is... interesting. It turns out the Minervans AREN'T Roswells, quite emphatically so. Given that we don't know terribly much about their biology, it's entirely possible that the far outer Solar System is their preferred environment for colonization, their metabolism may work on some exotic cryogenic chemical processes. More relevant though, is their apparent fear of the Roswells and their outpost on Mars. Do they know something we don't, or do WE know something THEY don't? They seem pretty remote out here, and we've still yet to see them demonstrate any extant spaceflight capability, so they might not know the place is all ruins now. Or they DO know, and are wary that poking around in there might bring down some larger response from the wider Roswell presence in the universe that may exist but we're not aware of. Proposal: We should communicate that the Martian Outpost is, as far as we can tell, dead. "WE OBSERVE FOURTH PLANET STRUCTURES ZERO/NULL EM RADIATION, ZERO/NULL LIFEFORMS FOR LARGE TIMESPAN. ENQUIRE GOOD OR BAD MOVE TOWARDS?" or something like that. If they're still worried that it's too dangerous, as much as it pains me, we may have to reconsider the Face archaeological expedition. The Minervans have more first-hand experience with these things after all, it would be dumb to disregard their potentially useful input. Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jun 18, 2022 |
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Jun 18, 2022 13:19
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It might also be a good idea to prioritize the communication of the concept of a RUIN or ABANDONED FACILITY.
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Jun 18, 2022 14:09
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Gwyneth Palpate posted:It might also be a good idea to prioritize the communication of the concept of a RUIN or ABANDONED FACILITY. That, and words like "trap, outpost, survivors," really anything that would indicate that we're close to poking something we really shouldn't be.
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Jun 18, 2022 15:35
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If we have the periodic table and we have pictures, we can start building a chemistry dictionary, and you can start having conversations about how their biology works. Should eventually allow us to give them blueprints or other construction instructions for more specific communication hardware.
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Jun 18, 2022 15:53
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Mister Bates posted:Data on the alien structures ...you know, looking at their architecture from orbit, you know what it kinda reminds me of? ships found in the Face on Mars posted:The other ship, in the northern bay, is a collection of rectangular and cylindrical modules fore, a long, skeletal metal girder amidships, and a large vertical disc aft. The outer hull is dirty, faded white, with signs of rust and corrosion in places. It too has external markings, located on the largest module, though they're faded and somewhat difficult to make out - a single red circle surrounded by three concentric black rings, each ring with a solid black dot on it, like planets in orbits (that may indeed be what it's depicting, though that's pure speculation). Above that, another major discovery, our first known discovery of what is presumably alien writing - 15 characters of a sharp, angular script in faded black, with no spacing. This ship is the longest of the three, about 300 meters long (it barely fits in the bay, coming just a meter or two from scraping against both ends), over half of that length taken up by the girder section. There are a few small porthole windows on its modules, all of them covered by shutters or curtains or something on the inside. It's entirely possible that the large craft in drydock we found in the Face is a Minervan vessel the Roswells captured. We may get a chance to in-person study their technology a lot sooner than we thought. The bolded part is of particular importance. We might actually have a few letters of their written language and iconography. What we choose to DO with this information is an open question, since showing them any of their own letters would immediately prompt questions of where the gently caress we saw them in the first place, and that could lead to... awkwardness. They might not want us tinkering with their stuff, and unlike the dead Greys they're in a position to actually ask us not to.
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Jun 18, 2022 16:18
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Though i loathe to be cautious for any reason, I propose that we halt exploration of the Martian Ruins until we have established more robust communication with the Minervans. This halt should not be called off until we have both established better communications with the Minervans AND that we have delivered a military expedition to Mars to secure the security of the research team there. Though the base may be abandoned, the Roswells were no strangers to war. Further, they clearly had enemies, and would have been likely to set up defenses of their facilities to keep them from being used by their enemies. In effect, Mars may have its own Robotic Gladio, of a sorts, waiting for us. I would also propose that, though we are friendly, that we should avoid being drug into any sort of interstellar conflicts that may be raging. Fivemarks fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Jun 19, 2022 |
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Jun 19, 2022 02:11
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Josef bugman posted:It's the "very not us" that gets me. I suspect that whilst sentient species may require communism to reach the stars, it might be that reaction can still creep in. It could be a way of differentiating between "not our faction" and "not our species," I don't know how we get the concept of factionalism across without some potential for a sudden and permanent loss in communication. Speaking of which, Mister Bates posted:October 11, 1985 Colors are just different wavelengths of light. This shouldn't be too hard; we can express the concept that we perceive between 350nm and 750nm (or whatever the frequency in Hz for that is, I assume we've agreed on some concept of time). We use RGB encoding typically, but we can easily use whichever values they prefer or need, or something like CYMK, assuming that our visible spectrum overlaps with theirs. If it does not, we may have to stick with grayscale. We can also, potentially, express the frequencies which at can perceive by hearing, which we can describe as oscillation + matter / gas How are we communicating data right now? I assume we are still using only one channel, half duplex. When we transmit, how fast is the data rate? Have we introduced error correction codes yet? Manchester encoding? Are there concepts they've introduced to us that we just don't understand yet? I'll admit that the zero/null location bit is strange, are they saying that they're from Minerva, or are they saying that they're all that's left? I strongly suggest we prioritize finding how to explain the cryo storage we found and the people within. We should also send a picture of a Roswell and ask if they are from the fourth planet, and if they are the danger there, or if it is something else completely. I second chemistry as another topic to touch on, simple chemistry is actually pretty straightforward to explain and communicate, though I don't know how TN elements would be represented in it. Volmarias fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Jun 19, 2022 |
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Jun 19, 2022 04:01
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Zero/null strikes me as meaning "not from this solar system", though it could also easily mean "we are all that's left". If the Roswells were responsible for that then it would absolutely explain their reaction to Mars. The odds of complex life evolving natively anywhere on Minerva's moons barring under the ice on Minerva 10 is extremely low -- it'd fly in the face of just about any understanding we have. Life requires energy, and when you boil it down to the very end, all energy on Earth comes either from the planetary core, or from the Sun, and the vast majority is from the Sun (including most all fossil fuels -- sunlight becomes plants becomes coal / plants becomes plankton becomes oil, etc.). Minerva is so far out that there's basically no solar energy here. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Jun 19, 2022 |
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Jun 19, 2022 05:50
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We really should deploy some defensive troops to mars for the archeo team. Both in light of this stuff and also because archeology can go really bad when you are dealing with the potential for laser robots.
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Jun 19, 2022 05:59
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NewMars posted:We really should deploy some defensive troops to mars for the archeo team. Both in light of this stuff and also because archeology can go really bad when you are dealing with the potential for laser robots. Yep, also prep an evacuation plan in case we need it.
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Jun 19, 2022 06:12
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I hope the reveal is that the Martians are shapeshifters
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Jun 19, 2022 08:25
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Redeye Flight posted:Zero/null strikes me as meaning "not from this solar system", though it could also easily mean "we are all that's left". If the Roswells were responsible for that then it would absolutely explain their reaction to Mars. I mean, they are jellyfish-like, it's entirely possible they're mostly aquatic and are native to liquid water oceans under the surface of the moon and we're just seeing the upper terrestrial outposts of their civilization, essentially a "land station" analogous to a space station for us. Or they could be based on some exotic extreme low temperature chemistry that's poorly studied under Earth conditions. Their blood could be highly reactive compounds dissolved in liquid nitrogen instead of water and they'd sublimate/combust/explode under conditions we'd find comfortable. Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jun 19, 2022 |
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Jun 19, 2022 12:58
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Also even if there's relatively low solar energy there, if they're the first people to exploit Minerva there could still be a decent cache between TNO bullshit and whatevers accumulated over a billionish years
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Jun 19, 2022 14:57
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:Also even if there's relatively low solar energy there, if they're the first people to exploit Minerva there could still be a decent cache between TNO bullshit and whatevers accumulated over a billionish years Speaking of which, I wonder when it would be appropriate for our guys to get back to the sensor surveys of the Minervan system. I know it could potentially be seen as rude, but there is science to be done here during the hours long gaps in conversation. Knowing whether they have Sorium or other TNEs or not could tell us about why they're out here and whether they're stranded without fuel or not. Plus those suspicions about outposts on a couple of the other moons
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Jun 20, 2022 00:18
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Asterite34 posted:Speaking of which, I wonder when it would be appropriate for our guys to get back to the sensor surveys of the Minervan system. I know it could potentially be seen as rude, but there is science to be done here during the hours long gaps in conversation. Knowing whether they have Sorium or other TNEs or not could tell us about why they're out here and whether they're stranded without fuel or not. Plus those suspicions about outposts on a couple of the other moons if we can jimmy up a comms relay then we could continue the linguistic work while the survey is ongoing, staffing allowing.
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Jun 20, 2022 01:00
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Global Archive Union System Search: COMMRAIL > News >1982-1986 Auto-translate to English PRAVDA: COMMRAIL's Directorate Addresses Station Complaints Responding to widespread criticism in some areas of "rampant unproletarian" spending on stations for the new global rail network, a rare full meeting of the COMMRAIL directorate issues the following statement: "It is the opinion of this Directorate, reached in close consulatation with the People's Assemblies and top social scientists, that the places to be most beautified are those most used by the proletariate. Our best architectural efforts should not be directed to the halls of power but to the halls of the comman man and woman." The Directorate went on to note that it makes more sense for stations to be as "built out" and modern as possible, considering the heightened expense of trying to renovate an operating station. They further note that station construction is a one time upfront cost, and that the overall cost is miniscule in comparison to equally deserving programs like Socialist Aid. The first stations in the new network opened in Paris, Madrid, Berlin, and Moscow. Each was built to harmonize with local architectural styles and features the latest technology, including automated reporting to Cybersyn and even the ability to buy tickets via the internetwork. The latter feature drawing further criticism, with one sharp tongue Parisian union head, Michelle Montferrat, remarking that "It's an expense likely only to be of advantage to a few hundred university students and the men who designed it. I'll eat my hat if more than a thousand people use it next year." San Francisco People's Chronicle: Global Control System "Ready to Go" Says COMMRAIL In a recent interview, Hector Garcia, COMMRAIL's top man in PRCal, was excited to reveal that COMMRAIL is now almost ready to switch over from "outdated local signalling systems" to a new global system custom built for COMMRAIL itself. The new system promises to have "near zero error possibility", greatly enhancing both passenger and cargo safety, a major concern with the speed of the new trains. When asked when the new system would come online, Mr. Garcia became evasive. "It's all supposed to hook into the new global admin complex the Comintern is building, and we haven't yet received word on exactly where that will be yet. But I'm sure it'll be announced any day now!" Asahi Shimbun: Comintern's COMMRAIL Directorate Announces Global Design Competition Open to Japanese Firms In a surprising twist, the labyrinthine beuraucracy in charge of the new global socialist rail network announced that Japanese firms would be allowed to participate in several design competitions centered around the growing network's integration with ports around the world. Dozens of hopeful firms have already announced their intentions to submit designs. Competition is especially fierce around the system meant to unload cargo from ships and transfer them to trains. The sheer difficulty of the design requirements have been noted in overseas press, requiring "rapid and seamless and 100% accurate" transfers. Firms excelling in robotics have hinted at "revolutionary" industrial arms being worked on to solve the problem. Good luck, engineers! More Articles: Capetown Times: Phase I of Global Network "80% complete", Phase II to begin in '86_Cairo to Captown Line Expected to Complete in early '87 Parisian Tribune: Montferrat Eats Chocolate Cake "Hat" Gifted By Parisian Graduate Student's Union People's Daily: Central Committee Tours New Rail Lines, "Testament to Chinese Endurance and Workmanship, From Beijing to Hong Kong" Copenhagen Times: 3 Suspected Saboteurs "Exploded" By Newly Energized COMMRAIL Line
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Jun 20, 2022 01:05
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The march of the trains continues apace, to the delight of all mankind. Also ideally we'll have that complex voted on at the upcoming session.Chatlog, irc.fuber.net, #ChatAllNite (Eng. trans.) posted:RepeatingMyself: Okay, time for a stupid question Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Jun 21, 2022 |
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Jun 21, 2022 04:50
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Higher dimensional metamaterials are a bitch, yeah. Sometimes things have way less inertia than their size would suggest (like Duranium, for instance), since their apparent 3D mass is just a much smaller 5D mass reflected on itself multiple times in 3D space giving the illusion of greater bulk, and sometimes it has way WAY more momentum and kinetic energy than it should (ie Sorium reaction mass in rockets) because its 3D structure is just the tip of the iceberg of a much larger 5D structure it's still connected to with all its associated weight behind it we can't directly measure.
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Jun 22, 2022 19:06
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This document is prepared for the Office of the Vice-Minister of International Affairs of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (通商産業省) of the Government of Japan, published March 1985. Over the past nine months, we have observed, through local reportage and state media sources, a new and dramatic shift in Chinese domestic production policy. Although no official announcements have been made at the highest level, we can assume a broader shift towards investment in energy production, biotechnology, automation, and the aerospace sector. Documents intended for internal circulation that have been obtained by both the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, corroborated with reporting based out of Taiwan, indicate a massive shift in policy directions and intentions, with the intent of placing China as a major player in science and technology over the coming decade. While the presence of both complex bureaucratic procedures coexists with (sometimes arbitrary) political intervention by top leadership, organizations face pressures both from competing organizations and political leadership. However, at times signals have been directed from top leadership, and lower levels of the bureaucracy demonstrate responsiveness before the details are fleshed out. This analyst would venture so far as to say that we may be seeing a 'rationalization' of the bureaucratic process, at attempt to bring order out of and centralize what may have been previous competing fiefdoms and dominions. [...] Our understanding of the economy was first passed down from economists of the 19th century - the concept of diminishing returns, or in Marxist terminology, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in a capitalist economy. THe world of the 19th century was that of bulk production - iron, grains, dyes, ores, coal. Many sectors of the economy are still devoted in turns to bulk processing and so the paradigm of diminishing returns - where an expanding farm is forced to use less fertile land, or hiring more workers each increases output by less and less in a fixed process of inputs. Optimization is possible through streamlining, through the processes of scientific management, through 'efficiency'. But in the previous decades, and in particular with developments in high technology, economies move from the processes of resources through labor and capital to the integration of new technologies - in effect, with these technologies, we see increasing returns. In high technology, we have observed, and continue to observe, the prospect of increasing returns - of dealing with market instability, or of a sufficiently advanced agent or organization "lock in" a market - through dominating an industry, or controlling a sector in outer space development. Modern technology incorporates high up-front costs, which heavy investment in research and development preceding any further results, although unit costs fall as sales increase. Additionally, there are "network effects" - the more an organization or a country's industrial sector gains prevalence, the more likely it will become a standard or a hegemony - and even so, a hegemon may be overthrown should it fail to adapt to the next convulsion - the discovery of extraterrestrial life, for one. [...] In public appearances, top officials from the PRC have stressed the benefits of "indigenous innovation", but also to "catch up" in terms of not only production targets but also in scientific outputs. Recent visits by officials from the State Planning Commission, the State Commission for Science and Technology as well as the Chinese Academy of Sciences to various research parks, medical centers, and universities in the Soviet Union and Japan, only underscore a new interest in industrialization and scientific research. [...] Industrial policy has become like a multinational casino, where the player must choose the game as well as play them well. We imagine ourselves at MIIT, alongside Gosplan, and the expanded State Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China milling about in a great game. Some play at rocketry, others electronic communications, others multimedia. There are many tables. Pick one, says the croupier. How much to play? A trillion yen. What are the rules? We'll find out as the game goes along. What are the odds of success or penury? We can't say. Industrial policy, at this level, is not a game for the timid. Kangxi fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Jun 23, 2022 |
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Jun 23, 2022 00:18
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Humanitarian Crisis in the DPRA Zachary Williams, reporting When I first decided to visit our new partner in Appalachia, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The country has made little news compared to the other regional powers such as the Five Americas, and there has been minimal travel from the region. Indeed, compared to the massive infrastructure projects here in the East and in orbit, it was hard to remember they existed at all. The first and most dramatic thing as I landed in Boyle Airport (formerly Kanawa Airport) in the city of Boyle (formerly Charleston) was that the war has only recently ended. Bomb shelters are in half the buildings, and bunkers sit unnoticed at major intersections, on top of hills, at the entrance of government facilities. Nearly all of them have seen use. Trenches and cement barriers still limit traffic through parts of the city, and I saw similar impediments in the other cities (fortunately not named Boyle) I visited as well. Many of the buildings have unrepaired bullet holes, and there are still mountains rubble piles that have not been cleared. Strangely, actual war machines seemed rare – the people I asked said that most had been destroyed in the first year of the war. The number of children playing on them have to be seen to be understood. Boyle (Chairman Boyle, the locals were quick to insist) had decreed the population was to double under his regime, and the Appalachians had made a strong go of it. Most families I spoke with had at least three children, and many had five or more. The infrastructure was not there to support them, and packs of them simply played in the ruins. The ruins are incredibly dangerous, as it happens. Many hundreds of acres are active, labeled minefields, and the children were quick to tell me how to identify them. Anti-tank, anti-personnel, even chemical mines had been deployed during the war, and nearly every family had someone who had lost a limb or more to them. Even worse were the unlabeled mines, shifted minefields, or abandoned UXO. The air has a strange tang to it, and local food hard to find. Instead, Socialist Aid depots seem to be the primary source of both food and water. Even when I asked for local delicacies such as cornbread or biscuits with gravy, my questions only garnered laughter or confusion. Further research lead me to the Valley Watersheds. The tang is strongest there, and the plants are few and sickly. I think it was a large farm that I saw, or at least used to be. This area drew on water coming down from the mountains, and once supplied much of the region with food and water. Instead, it is a desolate landscape, emptier than the surface of the moon. The signs there still remain in my mind; ‘Agent Blue! Do not drink!!’ This is Zachary Williams, reporting for Worker News.
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Jun 23, 2022 03:21
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Socialist Aid Program – DRPA First Assessments District Supervisor Madeline: Honestly, it’s a mess. We’ve got multiple humanitarian disasters going at once, in various levels of crisis. Boyle never let any of our teams in, and the day the Committee reported his death, their Diplomatic Corps was begging us for help. Their public statements are all noise – internally, their Party is in full emergency. First and foremost, food and water. We’ve got about five million people spread out in Boyle’s little fief, formerly Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, and their food production is almost nil. The war put Agent Orange and Blue in the main aquifers, and we’d be looking at a severe famine if Boyle didn’t die when he did. Reclamation teams are working 24/7, but it’ll be a long while before they could stand on their own. Socially, they’ve pulled together pretty well. They view themselves as a cohesive state, the populace knows they are in crisis mode. They respond positively to Socialist Aid, and their internal structure is adapting the laws to fit in accordance with us. Their forced pregnancy law was the first to go, no loss there. Which brings us to the next crisis, they have a huge baby boom and not much support for it. Boyle built one of the most comprehensive bunker systems we’ve ever seen, but not nearly enough schools. Major Janssen: Which brings us to me. The general populace are low body weight, but not starving yet. Lot of birth defects in the younger generation, lot of amputations. We’ll need a dedicated mine sweeping brigade here. They’ve done a lot to mark terrain, but there’s still a lot of shift due to weather, or just unlabeled use. One of the common tactics during the war was roadside bombs, and not all of them went off. Politically, every worker is the Union. Call them the Moderate faction. Boyle’s old union, the United Mine Workers set up franchises in every business, and they are mandatory. I visited a few. Extremely rowdy, even up to fist fights. When a shop finally agrees to a policy, everyone is expected to adhere enthusiastically. They also vote on their Party members, who act as administrators of that shop. The Party members are expected to advise the Central Committee when requested, but I didn’t see that happen while I was there. Their Appalachian Liberation Army is still coming out of their insurgency phase. Call them the Radical faction. They don’t differentiate between war or peace, viewing themselves engaged in a generations long People’s War. Everything on the table, kidnapping, hostage taking, assassination. They mostly operate at the company level, small unit, and are embedded in their neighborhoods. Extremely determined, very familiar with the area, strong local support. They favor M-14s, MANPADs, and TOWs. No Airforce to speak of. In the last few years of Boyle’s regime, they were operating domestically, but that got cooled down in the last year. They were the ones doing the purges, but not to say it went all their way. The Union outnumbers them dozens of times over, and I did hear stories of soldiers being ‘corrected for an excess of class enthusiasm’ by a dozen Union guys in the alley way. If they had an unlimited budget they’d want to be an Air Cavalry / Air Assault brigade, but I don’t know if anyone would sign off on that. Locally, they view the two Americas to the South and East to be their biggest threats, and want liberating them to be a strategic priority. Abroad, they have incredible support for our operations in India, and want to be the center of training for their operations. They think that Revolution should be the primary export of the State. Finally, we have the Revolutionary Atomic Brigade. Call them the Conservative faction. They’ve acquired a good number of M114s and M115s howitzers and have fortified up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They think the country has enough to chew on already, and push against any expansion plans. Instead, they want to turtle up further. If we wanted to get on their side, various missile defense programs would make them our best friend. The Central Committee itself sets the high level policy, but allows a surprising amount of latitude in the factory shops and individual companies of troops. They are still evolving out of a cell-style way of doing things, and are far more used to acting in dispersed groups. As such, its hard to find out who is on the Central Committee, or what their future policies will be.
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Jun 23, 2022 06:30
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Central Committee – DRPA Comrades! We are elated to announce the ascension of our new Secretary Davis, on this, his 40th birthday! All of you are familiar with his legendary leadership, prowess in battle, and history of action for this, the great DRPA. Indeed, papers all over the world are shocked that it did not happen sooner, and celebrations are happening across the globe. Truly, he is one of the finest soldiers of his generation, and will easily lead us into a new era of greatness. Secretary Davis was a fighter and a citizen from birth, participating in many actions here in his home state of West Virginia. So strong was his prowess that the imperialist judges here sent him to fight in their war in Vietnam, but they did not know his strength of will. It was in Vietnam that he perfected the skills the ALA, under his leadership, still use today. Operating a combat engineer and tunnel rat, he set many traps for American forces, leading them into ambushes and assassinating officers. So blind were they to his subtleties, his genius, the imperialist forces granted him their strongest training and methods, making him a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant. When he returned to Vietnam, he engaged in an entirely new level of People’s Struggle, operating within their GAMMA Project to leak information to the proletariat forces and cause many casualties for the imperialist armies. His efforts were never revealed, and when he returned to West Virginia, he immediately began his war there. Under his leadership, the BLA found ten times as many victories, forcing the Governor out of his lair and liberating much of the territory that we live in today. His knowledge of the Special Forces tactics allowed for the final achievements in the north against Camp Dawson, and it was his expertise that created the victories at Fort Campbell and Blue Grass Army Depot. Welcome Secretary Davis, comrades, for it is a new day! A new time of greatness for us all! Addendum: tomorrow will be a day of mourning, after the unfortunate deaths of Union Vice President Akers and Secretary of Internal Affairs Morris in a fatal car accident. They will be missed.
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Jun 23, 2022 07:24
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Appalachia, a People’s History The following information was compiled by researchers and anthropologists from Institut d'études politiques de Paris using a partial grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. We collected information from over one hundred interviews over a period of six months. Open source information and historical documents were also used. Little of this was said explicitly – instead, much of it was alluded to and patched together. It’s the truth so far as we can determine at this time. When Union President Boyle approached the Black Liberation Army, he probably did not anticipate that he would end up the Stalinist dictator of what was formerly West Virginia, west Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. But then, it perhaps can not be too surprising, when he started out as dictator of United Mine Workers and begin murdering his rivals. The hit, as it were, went down well. Yablonski, his wife, and his adult daughter were killed in 1969, leaving Boyle unchallenged. The Department of Labor and FBI probably would have figured it out, given the motive involved, but they suddenly had their hands full. With the assassination of Nixon, the BLA had members. And with the United Mine Works, they had money. What begin with the Summer of Rage continued on for years, and got a whole lot worse. The Black Liberation Army had quite a number of Vietnam vets, and they immediately started a domestic Phoenix Program. Local leaders opposed to civil rights or union rights were identified and killed in drive-by shootings or break-ins. Police were ambushed and shot in their homes. To further fund their operations, the BLA engaged in bank robbery, kidnapping, ransom, up-to and including the Secretary of State, Jay Rockefeller. Boyle guided other targets, union rivals in the Congress of Industrial Organizations, scabs who crossed picket lines, internal members who questioned where all the money and bodies were coming from. When the West Virginia police escalated to SWAT teams, the BLA raided National Guard armories and deployed stolen mortars at police vehicles. The pivotal moment was when a National Guard artillery battery defected, and in 1972 artillery rounds were dropped on Vanderhorst and St Phillip; Charleston Police HQ. Among riots, fires, and shootings the Governor fled north, to Camp Dawson. As nuclear bombs were dropping on the Virginian sea board, the students of the Weather Underground began reinforcing the BLA. Using Maoist doctrine and attempting to continue a People’s War, the reinforced BLA began building full camps in the Blue Ridge Mountains and targeting enemy or rival power bases. In a particularly daring week long battle, the Radford Ammunition plant was raided and tens of thousands of artillery shells stolen. Camp Dawson was home of the 19th Special Forces Group, and Governor Moore gave them unlimited power to restore order. Appalachia was to become another Vietnam, with hundreds of thousands of gallons of Agent Blue deployed. Appalachia was to become another Cambodia, with hundreds of thousands of landmines buried. The BLA bunkered deep into the mountains, inching ever northward, moving limited artillery to enemy positions. Ammo was never an issue, but war machines were. Neither side had much airpower, and as the Revolutionary Army got closer, 19th SF began deploying Davy Crockett rounds. Entire acres of mountain forests were obliterated in atomic fire. Boyle then achieved total victory. That’s all that can be determined at this time. No one explained how Camp Dawson fell, or when. No one knows anyone who participated in the final attack. The Governor drops out of the histories, as due all of his staff we know the names of. At most, interviewees talked about ‘the Second Battle of Blair Mountain’, which as far as we can tell was entirely fabricated. It is a complete gap in the histories. The story continues from there: However, Boyle did not face a conventional foe – 19th SF was specifically built to fight behind enemy lines, and they knew that time was running out. As part of this, they had prepared many stay-behind forces in the territory they had lost, and supported by the Gladio program that the former Federal Government had began deploying, the fifth column in occupied territory was expansive. The next decade was, if anything, even worse. Now, instead of having the initiative and controlling the battlefield, Boyle had vulnerable cities, vulnerable armories and headquarters. Bombs and assassinations never stopped, and his measures grew increasingly oppressive. As his fanaticism grew, so did that of his followers, and purges against spies and wreckers became an almost daily event. Boyle had the high ground, had the weapons and the cities. Almost as an afterthought he scooped the cities to the east and west, trying to draw more population into his armies. However, they were equally infiltrated, or so he came to believe. In 1984 he began work on a new Purge, and it was almost a relief when he died before it could be enacted. The Central Committee, his most loyal followers, were almost at a loss to act. Food production had plummeted, even as forced population growth measures had been enacted. The average calorie intake was fast becoming severe. Between the radiation, chemical and herbicidal agents, and landmines, West Virginia had become one of the most dangerous places on earth. Although they would never admit it, Boyle dying when he did allowed them to request Socialist Aid, and perhaps survive at all.
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Jun 23, 2022 09:39
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November 3, 1985 The commitment the senior staff at Interkosmos Academy have displayed to the active defense of the revolution has not gone unnoticed. November 5, 1985 CSV Nomad departs on her maiden voyage to the asteroid belt, with her crew of over 1000. The outpost she establishes will be the most distant semi-permanent human settlement in history. November 7, 1985 "WE OBSERVE FOURTH PLANET STRUCTURES ZERO/NULL EM RADIATION, ZERO/NULL LIFEFORMS FOR LARGE TIMESPAN. ENQUIRE GOOD OR BAD MOVE TOWARDS?", we asked our friends yesterday. The reply took uncharacteristically long and was uncharacteristically short. "GOOD." We requested clarification. The response: "NEGATIVE CANNOT, NEED COMMUNICATE (UNTRANSLATABLE)." At this point, slow data transmission rates are becoming a major limiting factor in our communications efforts with the Minervans - we are currently transmitting on one channel, half-duplex, at a frustratingly slow rate of a few bits per second, with each bit represented by a pulse of noise over the channel for 'one' or silence for 'zero', with consistent spacing and a standardized sequence to indicate the start or end of a statement. A team is tasked with developing and presenting a method to transmit more information more quickly, which is a fairly simple ask, as we know how to do it already. Another team is given the more difficult task of figuring out how to communicate this system to our friends. November 12, 1985 A test was conducted yesterday of a higher-bitrate data connection to the Minervans, which involves running multiple channels to allow more than one message to be sent at once, dedicated channels for communications outbound (to the moon) and inbound (from the moon), and an increase in overall information density by the simple expedient of sending the data more quickly - we always could have, but we wanted to ensure that every single symbol was clearly understood and distinguished from the others. Technically, it will work fine, communicating with them to explain what we're doing will take a bit longer. November 15, 1985 Yesterday was a frustrating day in first contact news, involving both parties attempting to send messages that the other then indicated they did not understand. This inevitably happens a few times every day, but yesterday it seemed like every message was barely comprehensible, for both sides. At the moment, there are two priorities, one the higher-bandwidth connection, the other attempting to build a shared lexicon of chemistry - conventional chemistry at the moment; we're unsure how to even start talking about TN concepts. November 18, 1985  The last of the ten spacecraft mandated as part of Project FALX is complete. The Comintern now has a substantial fleet of armed spacecraft in orbit, organized into three three-ship squadrons and the single-ship Reserve Squadron. In addition, the sensor array on one of the FESTER surveillance stations orbiting Luna unexpectedly fails. Repairs are carried out using available spares, but the sensor is down for several hours. Accusations of sabotage are thrown around, although many in MOSA point to it as further evidence of chronic maintenance issues in the rapidly-growing space program. Still others in the Ministry call both camps ridiculous, and say that it is simply perfectly normal and expected for things to break occasionally on long-duration missions, and this is the whole reason the ships even have spares aboard. November 22, 1985 As part of our efforts to learn more about their relationship with the Roswell aliens, we send them an image of one and send a general inquiry about it. The response comes quickly. "NOT FROM ('from' having been recently introduced to our shared dictionary) CENTRAL STAR. LOCATED HERE SECOND. YOU FIRST. US THIRD. US HERE BECAUSE THEM. THEM DANGER, BUT ALSO (UNTRANSLATABLE)" A request to clarify the untranslatable word or sequence. "MULTIPLE THEM. THEM IS ALSO NOT-THEM. UNKNOWN IF NOT-THEM IS ALSO DANGER." How do you know this, we attempt to ask. "PREVIOUSLY LOCATED NOT-HERE, NOT CENTRAL STAR. US NOW HERE BECAUSE THEM. THEM COMMUNICATE (POSSIBLE MISTRANSLATION: GREATER/LARGER?). WE ACKNOWLEDGE AND CONCUR, GOOD. WE DO NOT CONCUR, BAD." December 3, 1985  The Nomad is on station. The ground teams set down on one side of the asteroid Ariadne, and build their 'colony' infrastructure - more like a space station adhered to the rock, really, although they intend to tunnel inside it eventually in order to test the viability of such projects. The 1,000 volunteers come from all over the Comintern, and those selected largely have backgrounds in science, engineering, or post-war environmental remediation efforts. There is also a small team of social scientists, a group of specialists in space medicine, and a five-person Psychonaut Corps team there to experiment with the effects of microgravity, TNE mining, and distance from the Earth on hypothesized Trans-Newtonian extrasensory perception. Two Cydonia survivors are part of the crew. On the other side of the rock, after the 'appleseed' test package is deployed, the Nomad unfolds her massive radiators, extends the mining module, and fires up the refining systems. A switch is thrown, and the mining instrument, extending from the belly of the ship down towards the planet on a great skeletal truss, glows brilliant blue for a moment. "I think we have something coming up the well!" Long silence, palpable anticipation. "...Confirmed! We have positive uptake! It's working!" As the asteroid's bounty is pulled into our reality, the ship's radiator panels begin to glow a dull red, and the waste heat generated by the process is gradually vented to space. December 5, 1985 We seem to have reached an agreement with our friends on some communications standards. We have defined the roles of specific communications channels, the rate at which data is intended to be communicated over them, a standardized information packet size, and a simple stop-and-wait style error correction system. They confirm that they received and decoded the test image we sent them using this system, a photograph of a cat. They send back one of their own, an image of something that looks like a big knobbly slug. December 6, 1985  Academician Helge Tarasov joins the highest ranks of the Comintern's academic faculty. Tarasov, like half of the Comintern's senior academicians, is a missile and rocketry specialist. She is given a single lab and immediately put to work researching improved missile warheads. December 12, 1985 Young up-and-coming director Anton Traverse's film '14 Days of Night', a survival drama about an antagonistic team of surveyors trapped deep in the Lunar wilderness in a broken-down scout rover and forced to work together to survive the two-week long dark period, becomes the first major motion picture filmed entirely on the Moon to open at number one at the Earth box offices. Reviewers praise the movie's minimalist style and its beautiful cinematography, but criticize the plot contrivance of having the radios broken and the expedition not properly logged. December 20, 1985 We believe we have successfully worked out a shared understanding of color with our alien friends. Work is beginning on trying to communicate more abstract concepts - relationships, feelings, beliefs. This will likely be slow and full of missteps and understandings, no matter how advanced our communications system becomes from a technical perspective. We're hoping to be able to ask questions about things like hierarchy, and conflict. What happened to the Roswells? What was our new friends' relationship to them? Why were they brought here? These are questions we are having difficulty asking. December 29, 1985  CSV Dorothy, the orbital component of the most advanced electronic surveillance and information gathering system ever built, clears her slipway and is commissioned into service. Her crew are MOSA personnel but are hand-selected by SPECTRE for trustworthiness and political reliability. Dorothy herself, though her systems are highly sophisticated, will accomplish little without the network of computers on Earth she is linked in to, and the teams of analysts and cryptographers already being assembled to work with her. She also cannot be everywhere all at once, and there will remain blind spots in your coverage. Still, whenever she is visible in the sky, SPECTRE shall have access to an absolute wealth of information. Procedures are already being developed for cross-referencing ELINT data collected by Dorothy with data from the more traditional FESTER surveillance systems. There will be nowhere on Earth that reaction can hope to hide. Publicly, Dorothy is a science vessel, of course, and as a concession to this cover, a fraction of her power will be directed outwards, to the stars. Jan 1, 1986  The Joint Committee on Artificial Gravity produce a design for an incredible new technology. The ship-to-ship tractor beam represents a revolution in the practical application of Trans-Newtonian pseudogravity. With it, two objects in space can be easily, securely adhered to each other, with nothing more than an expenditure of (very large amounts of) electricity, no physical linkage required, and this connection should be stable even when both objects are moving at relativistic speeds. JCAG believes that a prototype of a practical, human-usable artificial gravity device is only a few months away. In addition, this was the Comintern's half of the research and development obligations of VENUSPLAN. A design for a tug will be drawn up immediately. All that remains is for the Japanese to supply us with a habitat design, and we can begin colonizing Venus. The latest session of the People's Congress is called to order, in scenic Cape Town. WE HAVE REACHED THE END OF 1985. Tomorrow I will be posting a summary of the current state of the world, including the results of the year's scientific work, status of your industry, mineral resources, and research labs, the current status of the fleet, and reports of the activities of the various bureaus and departments. If you have anything you would like added to this report, please ask. The 1985 Session of the People's Congress is now open! Deliberations will remain open for at least four days. You're currently missing a lot of needed information for legislating, which will be forthcoming tomorrow.
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Jun 25, 2022 09:42
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Mister Bates posted:They send back one of their own, an image of something that looks like a big knobbly slug. Wanna pet it.
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Jun 25, 2022 09:51
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Note: apparently our fester ships have been looking at venus and finding absolutely nothing for six months straight. We should really redeploy them or something.
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Jun 25, 2022 09:52
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What are our options on maintenence facilities? Can we commission some sort of dedicated maintenence plant or something, because space faring maintenence is only going to increase as time goes by
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Jun 25, 2022 10:01
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The Lone Badger posted:Wanna pet it.
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Jun 25, 2022 10:12
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Veloxyll posted:What are our options on maintenence facilities? Can we commission some sort of dedicated maintenence plant or something, because space faring maintenence is only going to increase as time goes by You can build maintenance facilities and put them on colonies. Each facility can maintain a total of 1000 tons of ships in orbit at the base tech level. Individual maintenance facilities are fairly cheap, I think we should be able to afford a bunch to cover ships in earth orbit. Of course, ships over Mars and so on will still suffer maintenance failures sometimes, that's just expected. There's also a maintenance module you can put on ships to let them maintain other ships, but that's for later.
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Jun 25, 2022 10:31
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NewMars posted:Note: apparently our fester ships have been looking at venus and finding absolutely nothing for six months straight. We should really redeploy them or something. A wealth of conventional research data! Think of the geologists, the planetologists, the children! (And give these poor souls some shore leave, yeah)
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Jun 25, 2022 11:39
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Mister Bates posted:December 12, 1985 Hell yes, good to know Anton found his calling.
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Jun 25, 2022 13:22
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A proposal from the Tar Heel Confederation: The Appalachian Relief Act WHEREAS our fraternal comrades in the Democratic People’s Republic of West Appalachia currently suffer from the deplorable actions of reactionary forces, THEREFORE this act aims to establish aid above and beyond that currently being provided by the Socialist Aid Act. THEREFORE a taskforce is to be formed of environmental remediation and terraforming experts, to be deployed to Appalachia and contain and clean UXO, chemical weapon residue, radioactive contamination, and other forms of pollution currently adversely affecting the Democratic People’s Republic of West Appalachia.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:12
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Mycroft Holmes posted:A proposal from the Tar Heel Confederation: Seconded.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:19
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The People's Republic of California is already preparing food aid for immediate shipment to Appalachia, but the east-west corridor has long been unreliable at best. We cannot afford food convoys suffering from banditry, therefore PRCal proposes: The East-West Transportation Act A land-based transportation corridor between Los Angeles and Atlanta shall be established using a combination of diplomacy, armed convoys, road expansion, and road-building. The exact route shall be determined based on local conditions. Once opened, this corridor will be used to establish a route to Appalachia and other areas of interest.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:44
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In the interests of ensuring that the ministries don't become completely without oversight and to start moving the comintern towards being something of an actual federal body as opposed to uh.. whatever it is now, I propose: The Ministerial Integration Act. This act will allow comintern members greater jurisdiction over ministerial activities through the regional forums. They will be able to create plans for things such as continental infrastructure without having to do it through the people's congress directly as well as guide the creation of regional departments for the ministries taking such structure as is considered to be most applicable to the ground situation by mutual consent. The powers delegated by this act are to be considered as operating as a lower council for the establishment of comintern activities and therefore the people's congress and the acts it dictates are considered to supersede those of the forums in authority.
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Jun 25, 2022 20:22
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