The Bed We Made (Arluna)

[Cannonshop]

Every escalation...

...provokes the next one.  The problem is that the Hills have approximately 50 million people, a minority of a minority on a world over over 2.5 billion.

It's very, very, very, easy to shift the blame onto an already despised minority.  So very, very, easy.

By November, armored columns are moving into the hill country, protected by attack helos and battlemechs in support.

is it any wonder that the main roads into those remote areas have grown minefields and been jammed with fallen, old-growth trees?

Not hardly.

This doesn't mean there is no-one on either side trying to de-escalate, to call for peace, or at least, for sanity.

Elaine MacAulliffe tried her best, but it's out of control now-there's no peace to be made just yet, nobody is sick of the violence yet.

On november 11, 3055, Elaine MacAulliffe was gunned down by Baron Luis's men.  It wasn't supposed to happen, their orders were an arrest, not an assassination, but when part time soldiers are called on to play policeman, with battlemechs?  Things get...confused, and so, the voice of peace from the hillfolk side was cut down by accident.

and for a moment, thanks to the Media, it was declared a victory that would bring peace, the urban areas felt vindication, 'the head of the  snake is cut off'.

If only it were true.

[Blade4]

Ok this is getting a bit absurd. How did he turn people he suppressed with machine guns and firestarters against the hill people who have mostly stayed out of all this? Why is he checking of the stupid evil list? The lady was advocating for peace and he wanted her arrested and they sent militia and battlemechs. And then broadcast it as victory? Does he want a war to the knife until one side is dead? Because this is how you start such a fight.

[croaker]

Ok this is getting a bit absurd. How did he turn people he suppressed with machine guns and firestarters against the hill people who have mostly stayed out of all this? Why is he checking of the stupid evil list? The lady was advocating for peace and he wanted her arrested and they sent militia and battlemechs. And then broadcast it as victory? Does he want a war to the knife until one side is dead? Because this is how you start such a fight.

Most worlds like Arluna don't differentiate between Militia and Police, and might not even have them as separate organizations with separate chains of command, different training, etc.

The mlitia and police of such worlds is not there to keep the peace, arrest criminals, investigate crimes, etc. It's there to keep the current government in power. What MilSF writers often call a "regime protection force".

So, they're sending militia into a region where there have been attacks with high explosives and heavy weapons against previous visits to the area. Sending mechs and 'insisting politely' (IE, 'come with us or we'll shoot you, and if you're lucky all we'll do to your family is shoot them and burn down your house') is exactly what a regime protection force would do under these circumstances.

[Cannonshop]

"Duke Diego...

...I'm eighteen, not stupid."  Duchess Elizabeth Ngo stared out the window at the surface of Spider Moon as her guest stiffened in offense.

"Excuse me?"

the young duchess turned to face him. "Luis Mining owes me money.  SO do Ortega Metal Fabricators, Sandusky and Sohn of New Madrid, and you...and I maybe didn't get to finish my education in a formal sense, but I know how to do the damned math on a bad loan risk, and you qualify as one.  You wouldn't even be here if Tharkad hadn't rejected your request for debt forgiveness, what in the thousand hells makes you think I'm going to if the Steiners won't?"

"I'm desperate, it is true!" he pled, "I have tax riots, there is a civil war-"

"YES, you do, and it's your fault." she stated.  "You knew Melissa was taking advice from the Feds, you dumped your productive capacity-which has cost me money-to embrace a luxury service model in the middle of a national invasion, and you didn't bother to read the billboard in front of you-The Federated Commonwealth is losing to the Clans.  My own taxes have gone up one hundred twenty percent system wide.  Those taxes have to be paid, to pay them, means I have to squeeze every drop of productivity I can even imagine out of every sector, and I've been doing it for the last three years, because the taxes aren't going to ever go down...part of that, is paid for by payments from clients, including clients on your world, adn they can't pay their vig to me, because you shut them down for tourism!"

she reached out to the table, and fondled his proposal.  "Do you understand? you have rioting, because you have unemployed people, you have tax riots because you strangled them and then got hit with a levy you can't pay...why should I save you, when I can barely save my own??"  she straightened, "What's in it for me, Duke Diego?"

"is that rhetorical, or are you serious?"

"Sir, it's money, I'm a teenager, and a Ngo, so yes, I'm serious."  she folded her arms, "Make your pitch. What are you going to give me for collateral?"

"My son-"

"NO, no dynastic marriage." she snapped, "I want hard ****** assets."

He looked astonished.  "Everything is already leveraged..."

"Not everything." she said. "Arluna's duchy includes everything in the star system, including the planet. I understand the land and resources of your main planet are tied up, and I would not dream of interfering in the property rights of your subjects-I consider such things to be offensive...so how much of your outer system will you give me? along with the non-Terra-style uninhabitable real-estate and mineral rights of your inner planetary bodies?"

"Would you even want those?"

"We're in my favorite home-away-from-home and you're asking that?" she gave him a cocked eyebrow.  "You had to wear a pressure suit from the pad to my door.  You tell me...how much of your non-terrestrial territory are you willing to cede in exchange for a combination of reduced interest charges and a bump to your credit score with my banks?"

"What will you do with it?"

"That's not your concern, your concern is how much of it you're going to give me to get your ass out of receivership, float you funding and relief, and maybe buy enough time to end your civil war before someone sets off a bathtub nuclear warhead or rediscovers how easy it is to brew Sarin gas in a settler's rig...and you better make sure it's worth the money, because I don't do anything for free, I'm not old enough for that."

"What do you want? all of it?"

"That's a nice starting position." she said, "now make it sweet."

"I-what, What do you WANT??"

"How about this, you cede me your undeveloped outer system, the gas giants, moons, asteroid belts, and cometary halo, I'll let you keep the inner planets, but I want a Lien on your title-that'll be the first thing you pay off if you're smart, but it's solid collateral on a loan of this magnitude...and we'll be generous, the Central bank of the Commonwealth charges two percent, I'll give you three point five for interest, which is one point five percent over prime, and we'll call it...twenty five years?? to pay up? Quarterly payments? sound fair? I'm pretty sure LaRue will charge you twice that without blinking, maybe even more, and she's the loosest lender I personally know of, so it's a good deal, you should take it."

"A...Lien...on my title?"

"Yeah. It's an asset, and it's got a fixed valuation that isn't damaged so long as the Commonwealth stands, so it's got some kind of solid backing. If I take over, I end up dealing with the mess you've created anyway, but this way you get a chance to dig yourself to daylight, and a hedge against the Archon Prince sending in the brute squad to replace you with a Regent from the other end of the Commonwealth."

"Archon prince?"

"Melissa died, very sad, big explosion, Victor's in charge." She said, "So...hey, what do you say?  shall we bring in Ms. Whyte and your lawyer and start processing a loan, or do I pro-rate your tickets and send you to go try and get a better deal from Tanadi LaRue?"

[Blade4]

And that has so helped them by pushing the rebels farther into we are dead either way might as well rise mode.

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Why do I get the feeling Liz is channeling Ray Kroc.  Who said if one of his competitors were drowning he'd either thrown them an anchor or stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water.

Deigo might still pull something stable and sustainable with this loan...  but then the horse might also learn to sing.

My money is on "forfeiture of the lien for damages to it valuation."  Or more plainly?  "You are so ****** up the situation that the title will soon be a fancy way to wipe my ass if I don't step in."

[nocarename]

How many planetary dukedoms do you need liens on before you count as Grand Duke? Archonette?

[mikecj]

When Liz plays shark tank, Diego's dangling over the chummed water...

[DOC_Agren]

On november 11, 3055, Elaine MacAulliffe was gunned down by Baron Luis's men.  It wasn't supposed to happen, their orders were an arrest, not an assassination, but when part time soldiers are called on to play policeman, with battlemechs?  Things get...confused, and so, the voice of peace from the hillfolk side was cut down by accident.

and for a moment, thanks to the Media, it was declared a victory that would bring peace, the urban areas felt vindication, 'the head of the  snake is cut off'.

If only it were true.

So in your best laid plans were to take out/arrest the 1 voice of reason that the Hill Clans respect??

Gods may they have mercy on your souls, because the militia, who not from the hills, are going into to into "Hell", yep you can keep using Firestarters for "crowd control" but sooner or later you need to get out of it..  that old hunting rifle might not do anything to the mech, but that pilot you know when you can drop a deer at 200 yards without breaking a sweat, that same round might cause him/her an issue or too.  And those member of the hills who are militia have they just "gone AWOL"?
And you said Gunships are we talking Warriors or are we talking converted Ferrets with Rocket Pods?
And what the population of combat vets in the Hills?  vrs the urbanized militia?

Hopefully before that goes totally sidewises Heimdall with send aid.

And Diego, you walked in to Liz playground and thought she be a pushover with the PR about her?

[Blade4]

Wow you can just feel her love for Melissa. Girl your liege lord got blown up you should be a bit more concerned. And the Duke is totally losing that title. He cant even prevent himself from sliding into a civil war and ruined his economy so he will probably keep ****** up losing everything. Though from there things get interesting. Will Victor, or who ever he has watching this area of space, let her be duke of two systems? Are they even within 30 lightyears of each other? I find it more likely she is forced to sell the dukedom of at least the habitable world to someone else. Dount they will care about the rest of the system though but now things get interesting because I assume her explorers checking out her new prizes are going to stumble onto something. Something big.

And given Victor is still in his dumbass phase Elizabeth has a few years to do something before he ****** up enough Katherine pulls her coup. The question becomes will she be ready to do something by then or will she have to hide a lot of stuff from the mad archon?

[Cannonshop]

"...in the spirit of unity, and because...

...the revised tax policy is unfair, as duke, I have taken it upon myself to offer tax relief to all districts here on Arluna, to enable you, my loyal subjects, to better prepare for the burdens we have been given!"  Diego's announcement was intended to at least 'pause' the insanity building.  A roll-back for this fiscal year to what the rates were last year, incentives to investors, and it might have even worked...

six months ago.

"...I have opened a new office, to look into boosting our economic development while still preserving Arluna's natural beauty and fortifying the planetary Ecology against rampant and uncontrolled climate change!"  he was on a roll, and to be fair, he really did do that.

"...further, there will be a period of reconciliation, and a truth-finding commission to seek out the foreign influences that have caused so much civil strife."

and there we go.

"Loyal citizens, you have nothing to fear, only the guilty have any cause for concern."

It likely sounded better when he was rehearsing in front of the mirror.  "I have also appointed a board to seek out disinformation and false narratives and reveal the treasonous actors behind that!!"

[glitterboy2098]

sounds like the reason he was going after the hillfolk was to turn them into a scapegoat to stop the cityfolk from rioting. probably has been usign the hillfolk and their resistance to his schemes about how to grow the planets economy as a scapegoat for awhile. "those ignorant savages want to destroy our beautiful hills with mining, so they're the reason no one wants to come and play tourist here" etc. which also allows him to push for seizures of land, closure of mines, and so on.

thus when riots in the streets start over the taxes, he pushes the narrative the riots must be backed by the hillfolk, that no 'true' arlunan would be in them, etc.. allowing him to send troops to deal with the hillfolk protests, which while smaller tend to involve actions that cause more cbills in damages and be much more dramatic when put on the news. riots in a city aren't exactly new, but someone blowing up a bridge?

and now he's doubling down because his Title is on the line, because he doesn't realize that what he needs to be doing is cut the tourism BS and focus on getting those mines reopened.

[kioras]

Yeah.  The only way to seriously contribute to stopping the Clans is through heavy industry, nothing else.

If you can't produce either the finished weapons, parts, raw materials, or the knowledge to do so you are a tax sponge to squeeze blood from.

[Cannonshop]

The problem when fighting for a rule of law...

...is that sometimes it has been suborned by rule of man.  Tommy MacAulliffe filed a wrongful death suit.  To push it forward, requires going to town.  It requires showing up at the courthouse.

The space between MacAulliffe farm and the courthouse in Folsum, is the problem.  Once inside the Commonwealth Courthouse, he's technically on Commonwealth land, not Baronial or Ducal land.  Getting there, requires crossing property owned by Baron Luis, staffed by the Baron's retainers, and inhabited largely by the Baron's supporters.

To put this into perspective, Folsum is a city with a population of slightly over 250,000 souls, it's big enough there are high-rise buildings and even 'skyscraper' office and residential blocks, multilane "stroads" (Streets laid out like Roads), overpasses, and a fair fraction of police.
 
In 21st century terms, "Folsum" on Arluna is roughly the size of Memphis in the Tennessee sector of North America.

As part of the "Truth and Reconciliation" effort, Tommy MacAulliffe's military record with the LCAF and AFFC has been flagged as a potential terrorist suspect.  Why?  Because Tommy MacAulliffe served in a Loki team on the Combine front in 3039, and he was on a Loki team going into Clan held territory until he refused to re-enlist and went home after Tamar.

His training included demolitions, small unit operations, infiltration, assassination, and 'black bag' missions abducting enemy command personnel, and his last mission was an attempted prisoner rescue behind Clan Wolf lines that went sour.

He is one of the 'naughty boys', and per the psychographic profile, his refusal to swear himself into the Militia makes him a high probability for domestic terrorism-not helped by being the son of the late leader of the MacAulliffe Sept.

There was an arrest warrant out for him, and the local militia and police were on the lookout for him when he entered Folsum's city limits.

Notably to his credit, he didn't resist arrest.  Whether this will help him with the Treason charges is yet to be seen.

"Get home, your mom's going to need you, Debbie."

"Yes daddy."  Debra shook off the hands of the Miliz Sergeant, "Ah kin drive mahself, sarn't." she glared. 

She watched them load her father into the wheeled armored carrier that had blocked the intersection to make the arrest, but they let her take the carryall (six wheeled open-bed civilian truck) home.

After all, cameras were watching, and Baron Luis was not about to make a martyr on planetwide broadcast.

In areas closer to the core, or more industrially and socially developed worlds, the idea of a fifteen year old girl driving a one-and-a-half ton carryall pickup by herself on just a learner's permit would be a bit of a cause for concern to the police, but not here, not when the Duke has put his foot down and threatened his vassals with excruciating levels of humiliation if they embarrassed him in his effort to quell the violence in a manner that doesn't 'encourage' the Black Duchess of Kowloon to come in with sharpened stakes and the Archon Prince's sanction for a ruler who's pushed their population to revolt.

Let's put this into further perspective, Duke Diego didn't come back with the same impression he left to gather funds.  When he left, he'd 'heard of' Elizabeth Ngo, even seen the footage of how she dealt with a crooked and corrupt regent...but it didn't sink in, until he'd been in her presence.

Annoying his banker is a more terrible outcome than he's willing to face, at least, until he's gotten a measure of Melissa's Heir, and maybe curried some favor on Tharkad-enough at least, to get out of the deal with that asiatic devil on Kowloon.

In short, until the Central Government cracks down on the psychopath who is currently underwriting his credit lines, Diego wants to make a good impression of making a sober and sincere effort to clean things up.

Thus, Luis directly ordered his men to let MacAulliffe's daughter go free with property, at least until a properly public confession could be broadcast as part of the Tribunal's media coverage.

[Cannonshop]

Meanwhile, at a Rowe-McClaren facility in McClaren County...

...2000 kilometers to the northeast, they're taking part in a bit of salvage engineering.  The missile was recovered from a transport jumpship found stranded two jumps coreward of Kowloon in the 3020s, it's a White Shark frame with unusual markings and what appear to be a series of enhanced sensor ports, additional guidance jets, and other factors that add up to nothing so much as a resemblance to some sort of advanced guidance system.

The Clans have warships, they've used them, and while they claim to be unwilling to use them again?

well, history in the Inner Sphere says that if a side that was winning starts losing, they tend to forget their agreements not to use certain weapons.

It's too bad they were looking at the wrong manuals.  It really is.

What happened when they dismantled the outer casing, what was released, can't be put back.

and the crew that released it, doesn't even know they're sick...yet.  They just headed into town to get a drink.

[mikecj]

Oh, no.  Here we go again.

[Blade4]

Ah so arrest a guy on trump up charges and I assume torture him until he admits to crimes he never committed but it is all irrelevant because the Uber plague is free...

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Ah so arrest a guy on trump up charges and I assume torture him until he admits to crimes he never committed but it is all irrelevant because the Uber plague is free...

I'm reminded of "The Cardinal of the Kremlin."  And how a GRU agent laughed in his KGB counterpart's face at the suggestion similar 'persuasion' of a high level aide who was nearly caught passing classified info to the CIA.  Said aide was basically the Russian Audie Murphy, and the GRU agent said "He killed Facists as his tank burned around him!  What are you going to do?"

[Cannonshop]

McClaren County...

is on the coast, and it's also in the foothills.  There are some fantastic beaches and lovely forests, and it's one of the wealthiest middle-class areas on Arluna, featuring homes well into the half-million Kroner range.  Baronessa Jasmine Ornelaz keeps it exclusive for her friends in the Tech sector and Finance, with a service economy mostly revolving around the High-Technology research and development companies she's brought in.

Among those, is Rowe-McClaren Enterprises' high technology department.

Imagine a 31st century Microsoft with a slice of Bell Labs, focused on developing compact sensors, communications relays, and data networking hardware and software.

The kind of place that doesn't look at your Resume' unless you've got a couple of doctorates in a related field, or you've already secured patents for solid, real-world innovations.

Rowe McClaren is an Interstellar corporation much like Ngo Industries.  Like the Ngos, the Rowes and McClarens started from a solid political and economic base, then capitalized on the technology slide of the succession wars.  The difference was origin.  Ngo Industries started as a salvage and resale outfit, whereas Rowe began with a Banking partnership.

Their primary business is still merchant banking, and it was Rowe McClaren that told Duke Diego his loan request was too risky, then spread the wealth of knowledge to the Commonwealth's other bankers.

There are undercurrents that can only be described as crooked as hell.  Stephen Rowe didn't do it out of malice, he was honestly appraising Duke Diego's personnel and habits, and could not find a way to make a plan the man could (or would) actually follow through on that would work.

Elizabeth Ngo's decision wasn't wholly based on reasonable risk assessments. It was largely informed by a personal hostility to Rowe-McClaren's heiress apparent, Hauptmann Daphne Rowe, and the roots of the feud go back to the two girls spending time in juvenile rehab for drug use in the late 3040s, and a friendship severed by a tragedy.

In other words, Lizzie gave him the loans because she wanted to sting a former friend currently serving in an AFFC line unit on the Clan front.

But that's an aside, leading to a lot of interpersonal hooh-haws that is more of an entertaining side issue for the brewing disaster that has just gone from seven patient Zeroes, to forty nine patients who don't know they're sick in the last forty minutes.

The time it took to spread from off-duty researcher, to the wait staff and fellow customers at Chez Louis, a mid-tier restaraunt that serves the finest Mock-Crablegs and Connaught Draft on tap.

Nobody here knows they're sick yet.  They don't know they're contagious, either.

Not so much as a sniffle...yet.

in the next few hours, the virus will spread geometrically throughout this high-tech enclave on Arluna, and from there, to middle managers and minor nobility and their retainers, and from there, down the chain.

We're still at a point where a quarantine might work, but it's getting a lot less likely with every minute, every hour, as people who have no reason to fear going about their business, spread cash and virus around with equal enthusiasm this weekend.

[mikecj]

Can we make this?  Not should we make this.  Star League hubris... it was the Pax.

[georgiaboy]

Before you can make an anti-dote or a medical treatment for something new, you have to have the poison or the disease..

[Blade4]

I was expecting a memory core or some installation but a plague? Damn why would the league play with plague in or near a important resource center? But there is opportunity here. Oh yeah there is going to be giga death and entire worlds die but when all is said and done Kowloon might well be free. That plague is gonna spread to a number of worlds before it is stopped and most of them are going to die violently and the greater FedCom will quarantine the mess. Even the clans will go along after the first cluster or 3 that try stupid shit die really horrible deaths. And deep in that zone will be Kowloon assumed dead from the plague but actually growing fast without the FedCom or clan boot on their necks. The rockjacks will help them as ever and Elizabeth and her people will find a way to survive.

Hell the hill people of Arluna ironically are well positioned to survive. The are already in bunker mentality and loosely organized. As the city folk and duke die choking on their blood they will simply simply quarantine themselves and shoot anyone unknown trying to approach and then eventually Kowloon shows up... But yeah it will be very hard and they will stumble but being cut off from the rest of sphere could end up one of the best things to ever happen to them and in a few decades Kowloon could reemerge as the center of a pocket empire that can out fight its neighbors who really dont want to approach them anyway for fear of the plague.

[wolfgar]

The League may not have, it could have been Amaris as this is Amaris's old territory

[glitterboy2098]

the arluna plague is an older plot thread that cannonshop hasn't revisited in awhile. most of the time though the timing is fedcom civil war era, not shortly after the invasion. so things ought to be interesting this time around.

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/fan-fiction/indexed-the-ngo-saga-(central-directory-of-reposted-cannonshop-stories)
check out ngoverse 4.0, "the watery silence" and onwards.

[Trace Coburn]

I was expecting a memory core or some installation but a plague? Damn why would the league play with plague in or near a important resource center?

  In previous iterations, it was an SLDF experiment meant to develop a non-lethal biological crowd-control agent, a way to suppress rebellions by firing a capital missile with a ‘special warhead’ into a target world’s atmosphere, debilitating basically the entire planet by leaving them too crook to move, and letting the SLDF walk in to round up the troublemakers at leisure, while also generating goodwill by providing relief for a mystery pandemic that they actually created.  Now, it might not necessarily be an SLDF experiment this time around — notice how this missile was discovered on Arluna, a world that used to belong to the Rim Worlds Republic?
  But ‘who actually made it in this version?’ isn’t the problem.  The problem is that whoever made it, they were trying to whip up a fast-spreading, hard-hitting case of the flu... and what they got was the White Horseman in an aerosol can.

[glitterboy2098]

not at arluna itself, it looks like. another variation.

Meanwhile, at a Rowe-McClaren facility in McClaren County...
...2000 kilometers to the northeast, they're taking part in a bit of salvage engineering.  The missile was recovered from a transport jumpship found stranded two jumps coreward of Kowloon in the 3020s, it's a White Shark frame with unusual markings and what appear to be a series of enhanced sensor ports, additional guidance jets, and other factors that add up to nothing so much as a resemblance to some sort of advanced guidance system.

it was a reload aboard a logistics ship it sounds like. two jumps coreward of Kowloon would be about three jumps coreward from arluna, and looking at the map 60ly coreward of kowloon would put it outside the borders of the Commonwealth, and inside former RWR space.

originally i thought that it being a white shark suggests a non-RWR origin.. but while their home grown designs used killer whales and barracuda's, they had a bunch of handmedowns from the TH like the carson, vigilant, Naga, and monsoon classes that use White Sharks, so them having some would make sense.

[monbvol]

One of my thoughts for why FASAnomics actually makes more sense than one would first think is that local diseases cropping up then getting spread and mutating in their new environment must be a much more common problem than has really been made in the fluff but because it is such a common event it only gets called out when it is something really dangerous like the Curse of Galedon, or in this case the Arluna Flu.  If massive amounts of budget and productivity is being diverted to stuff like this on the regular then it actually explains a bit.

[Daryk]

Whew!  Finally caught up!  Good story telling as always! 

[Blade4]

Non lethal bio agent? What the hell were literally everyone involved smoking to think that could possible be a good idea? And if they knew they had a life eater plague why the hell was it in a missile instead of destroyed or sealed on some desolate rock in a brown dwarf system? Even if they some how got what they were looking for they could only maybe use it once or people and house lords would have got damn suspicious. The shear stupidity of this is mind boggling.

[glitterboy2098]

untested bio-agent. the testing got derailed by the Amaris Coup, the hegemony civil war, etc.

and let Cannonshop write, i'm sure he'll explain.