BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Player Boards => Fan Fiction => Topic started by: Cannonshop on 12 February 2020, 15:44:59
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Because Liz does not approve of genocide, even of the enemy?
It works better if you consider "Elizabeth Ngo" as a set of character traits, and the Thirteen as "Elizabeth as a Cylon."
Liz-as-a-Cylon is loyal to Cylons-her people, just like "Human Liz" is loyal to Kowloon.
because her central 'virtue' is loyalty to her People. Original flavor Liz is loyal to Kowloon and Humanity. The Triplets are loyal to New Circe, and Thirteen is loyal to the Cylon Race.
not to their politics or priorities, but to the 'race' as a whole-all three of her are focused in one way or another on the goal of preventing extinction. All three versions of her (Liz, The Triplets, and the Thirteens) are rather ruthless and calculating, with a belief that 'some must be sacrificed if all are to be saved'.
because that's as central to the entity as her/their intolerance for corruption and incompetence.
Each of the three aspects, is rooted in a sort of 'inner' moral dogma, which puts that which they are loyal to ahead of themselves, all three versions are to some degree, intensely political in nature-but not 'courtly politics' so much as 'mob don politics'.
Thirteen's banishment of the Ones was not due to their desire for Genocide, but rather, the incompetence of their long term planning. If she could exterminate an entire people yet keep her own people (Mostly) intact and fully viable to rebuild, that is what she would do-but there's the 'business' sensibility of not wasting what you do not have to. To fully extirpate the Ones and discredit them, she arranged for them to have the best chance to redeem themselves-knowing full well they would fail utterly.
Because she had no belief in the content of the Ones collective character. (A poor leader and poor followers by extension, as shown by his/their incompetence at a plan guaranteed to succeed.)
The Triplets have perfect confidence in their Humans, New Circe, and the AI intelligences resident there-direct intervention was only needed to keep the single Cavil in custody. (Hence, only sticking to racking up a kill count at the special holding facility, and then only because the defenses were pointed the wrong direction.) also, at least one of them is an outright psychopath.
clear? Thirteen isn't even BOTHERED by Genocide-if it's competently executed. (convincing her of competence is kind of difficult, she tends to see extreme measures like Genocide as a sign of other forms of incompetence and finds incompetence intolerable by definition, but THEORETICALLY...)
This is shown in her point about the Cylon Colony being a weakness and fuming at the fact the Ones left it a weakness instead of establishing backups.
In all her versions, (originals and copies) she has a keen belief in Entropy and a driving need to resist it.
In a sense, you can pick this up from Elizabeth's moves on her own; She took in hunted refugees and incorporated them into her system, established Universities and 'second chance' academies, rebuilt first her homeworld's economy, and then set about revamping and rebuilding the economic base of her home region of space, forced diplomacy through, all to resist collapse and the impacts of social and economic entropy.
this comes from growing up knowing that Entropy had her by the short-hairs. That impending sense not only of mortality, but of unfairness, mixed with a belief that she needs to do more. This all carried through with the Thirteens-but with a focus on the Cylon 'race' or people.
The way the Cavils had been managing the war, is in her eyes a constant march of 'almost successes' mixed with outright failures. They killed the humans of the Cyrannus system, but in the process rendered the prize worthless, they hunted the survivors playing cat-and-mouse head-games instead of delivering the final blow, and made an enemy that consistently proceeded to beat the silicon snot out of them at every encounter. Cavil grasped for more control and made worse mistakes with every grasp for that control, driving further and further into defeat and Entropy (signified by losing better than half his siblings entirely.)
To her, she needed a humiliation that would prevent him from regaining influence once he was deposed, because she sees his errors as grave symptoms of impending collapse.
her view is longer-term than her estimated survival under optimal conditions; she intends the Cylon people to outlive the GALAXY. that's her 'horizon', and it leaves room for others to coexist...because it's more efficient than trying to exterminate them.
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her view is longer-term than her estimated survival under optimal conditions; she intends the Cylon people to outlive the GALAXY. that's her 'horizon', and it leaves room for others to coexist...because it's more efficient than trying to exterminate them.
That makes a lot of sense.
If nothing else, those who know that you aim to exterminate them will aim to exterminate you out of sheer self-defense.
And just like it is said that the prey, running for its life, is more motivated than the predator running for its next meal, someone who fights for the life of their species will fight harder than someone just following orders.
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Those thinking the Cylons made their "best" effort there would be in for a rude surprise if Thirteen actually wanted them dead...
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Tagging the new thread
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The inevitable clash when all these 'Liz meet will be epic.
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The inevitable clash when all these 'Liz meet will be epic.
Imagine everyone else's reaction,
"Dear God, three of them! All my worst nightmares at once!"
"No sir, all Thirteen!"
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Of course there is the other possibility but I'm having difficulty finding the right Slayers clip to link but suffice it to say "It's worse than that. They've bonded!"
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Of course there is the other possibility but I'm having difficulty finding the right Slayers clip to link but suffice it to say "It's worse than that. They've bonded!"
OH Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho...
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Imagine everyone else's reaction,
"Dear God, three of them! All my worst nightmares at once!"
"No sir, all Thirteen!"
Kowloon Stands.
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Imagine everyone else's reaction,
"Dear God, three of them! All my worst nightmares at once!"
"No sir, all Thirteen!"
The Triplets would probably would go after Thirteen first as Liz would be the revered 'Mother' figure.
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Imagine everyone else's reaction,
"Dear God, three of them! All my worst nightmares at once!"
"No sir, all Thirteen!"
Well, there is a Mad Man in a Box floating around....
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Dinh's Rock Bar, New Circe...
Lance Corporal James "Jimmy" Qua sat alone at a table in the back. well, he was physically alone, anyway. Just him, and two glasses with a bottle.
His glass emptied with disciplined regularity, and he'd cleared a pitcher of Beer before moving on to the bottle.
The other glass..? well, the beer was from the first pour. it was flat. Had been that way for hours now.
Occasionally, someone would wander over, and he gave the same excuse, "My buddy's gonna be here shortly, sorry, seat's saved."
He'd been doing this almost nightly for the last week. Walk in after close of business at the base, sit down, order a pitcher and two glasses. pour both, and one glass, the glass for his 'friend' would sit there all night, until the young scout-sniper would get too drunk to hold himself up. Then, Dinh would call the security patrols to take the young man back to the guest barracks.
"Sniper teams are kind of a different cut." being Dinh's explanation to the local-borns who worked for him, "His 'friend' is his spotter...was his spotter. guy's grieving, let him be, eh?"
but he didn't go into how those teams were different. Tonight, Qua was talking to empty air after only half a pitcher, the bottle was still sealed.
"Call the security police, but also call the post hospital." Dinh instructed. "Tell them to be careful."
and then, he went into the office, and picked up a stun-darter, checking the charges.
"Trouble?"
"Yeah." Dinh said, "I've seen that before. Tell Gurda to turn on the detector on the bathroom, and stand by."
'the Detector' on the bathroom at Dinh's was something he'd installed without any explanation to his wife, or the staff, and the monthly function checks included a pretty expensive technical going-over. Generally, most bars put a weapons detector on the front door, not the door to the head.
Dinh came out, and looked to the table.
Qua was up. It took a moment to spot the young man's movements, heading for the pisser.
Gurda was on her way there about ten feet behind the young marine.
the subtlely placed green light showing the detector was active, flashed red.
Dinh vaulted the bar, narrowly missing two patrons as the bathroom door closed, he hit the door with his shoulder-
"Put it down!!"
It startled Qua, and the first shot went into the ceiling.
life turned to a blur at that moment, he wrestled the hold-out pistol out of the boy's fingers, and cold-cocked him with a single uppercut.
everything in the bar was stillness, the band on stage froze and everyone could see through the doorway.
Trinh made her way through the throng to check the unconscious man over, and Dinh struggled to his fee- to his foot, his prosthetic having broken straps fell off while still stuck in his pants-leg. "Nothing to see here until the police arrive, folks, carry on...How is he, Trini?"
Trinh finished examining, "He's gonna have a hell of a bruise and a neck-ache, but you didn't break his neck or kill him..." she retrieved the handgun while Dinh re-secured his leg. "This guy was in the City State?"
"yeah, I think so." Dinh answered. "Diagnosis?"
"Survivor's guilt." she said, "the only Marines in the City State were sent down as a detachment, we didn't get a lot of those guys back...and this guy's unit patch is from the Bonnie Ellyn."
one of the Cutters that died in the orbital fight-The Bonnie Ellyn was modified, a 'special forces' model under testing, technically a new class of ship, it included a launcher for releasing stealthed, one-man single-use landing pods for inserting sniper teams instead of one of the boat bays.
Most of the Marines dropped by the Bonnie Ellyn landed on the southeast side of town. Dinh knew from Singer that only one of those twenty four marines made it all the way through...and his ship had been lost with all hands while screening BSG Pegasus.
Crews get closer than family. Dinh knew it, so did Trinh and Singer and the other survivors of the Nueva Pueblo. Sniper teams get even closer.
The post security detail arrived and the party atmosphere went quiet as uniformed military police and a couple of Medical techs made their way in.
"This man is a suicide risk." Dinh enunciated, "He needs to be placed on floor seven asap, with standard Red Status precautions, you'll need to assign someone who speaks a H'mong Vietnamese dialect and has experience dealing with PTSD and Survivor's Guilt. Repeat it back to me, Sergeant."
"Red status suicide risk, Locked ward, needs a H'mong/Vietnamese speaker with experience and training handling PTSD and survivor's guilt." the NCO replied. "Got it...god, this kid looks too young to be in a uniform."
"Yeah, they all do." Dinh told him, "Come by when you're off, I'll keep the bar open."
"Aye sir." the NCO said with a grin, "Mind if we bring some friends?"
"You better."
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New Circe General Hospital...
"How did he get past a basic screening?" Doctor Laura Hoffritz was aghast after examining the charts on the patient in intensive care. "This kid should still be in high school!!"
Hauptmann Jeff Carnes was kind of without words for a moment, "I...his records were in order?"
"Ah yes, 'alles in ordnung'? those records are a sham, Hauptmann. If Private First Class Chao, Lim San, is eighteen, I'll eat this chart! the boy in my burn ward can't be more than sixteen, if that, and what kind of mickey-mouse outfit are you people running that you failed to catch that on his deployment physical?"
"How old do you think he is?" Lt. Vilders was from the New Circe Provost, right now, he's here because there's a very good chance someone would need to be taken into custody.
Just who? that was still in the air.
"Well, based on tissue sampling and bone sections, Private Chao is in his fifteenth year, he might be closing on sixteen. That's at least a year younger than is legal even in the Lyran Commonwealth. I don't see any medical way that kid could be eighteen going on nineteen the way his records state. There are no telltales of Eugenic or Genetic alterations, he's not an ex-vitro or creche child...but even here, he's still legally a minor child."
"There weren't many survivors from his battalion." Carnes noted, "Heck, they were folded into mine and I'm still waiting for confirmation to Kommandant...Look, Kowloon's on the periphery edge, sometimes records aren't very well kept, especially-"
"How did he pass a basic physical?" she reiterated, "Your methods aren't that primitive, for god's sake."
"I can't answer that here, I'll have to contact AFFC headquarters and get his full 201 file, not the abridged version they usually let Company level commanders have."
"Doctor, they're not citizens of New Circe..."
"Can you at least contact his parents?" she pressed.
"No parents to contact." Carnes replied, "We already tried when his survival was confirmed. I assure you, doctor, we're working on this...but it's a long way from here to Kowloon, and Private Chao's records-"
"SLDF Regulations. your units were placed under SLDF Regulations. Under those, I'm going to have to place Private Chao, Lim San, under arrest pending an inquiry into fraudulent enlistment."
"Will that impact his treatment?"
"No. it will impact where he ends up once he's conscious and mobile again, especially if the investigation uncovers serious irregularities..." Lt. Vilders made some notations, "It also changes who has to approve some of these procedures, Doctor. I need to make some calls."
"Who are you calling?"
"New Circe Social Services. the Medical determination states your private is an at-risk child with no means of contacting his parents." Vilders said with a sour look, "I also have to start a war-crimes investigation, if the AFFC is enlisting child soldiers..."
"I'll cooperate. Jesus..."
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Fort Ebon, New Circe...
"can you hear me?" the nurse asked. Pol Nguyen blinked twice-yes
"Good. Now, let me explain, Corporal. You've suffered traumatic spinal injuries, as well as damage to your motor cortex, and of course, the extensive burns. We do have an experimental method to get you back on your feet. I'm required to inform you that it is very invasive, and you do have the legal right to refuse this treatment. Do you understand?"
He blinked twice.
"Do you consent?"
He blinked two times, firmly. god get me out of this...
the Gina in a labcoat looked to the short brunette. "you're sure about this?"
"He's consented, and think about the quality of life he's going to face with those injuries if we don't." the Brunette said, "We've got the permission from his chain of command provisional to his consent, which he just gave."
a New Circe officer walked up, he recognized a Sharon model. "Well?"
"He's given his consent." The Gina seemed pleased.
"I'll warm up the Medevac Raptor. SLS Hel said she's ready to try it as soon as we have a volunteer, the clearance papers were signed this morning. Did you tell him it might not work, and that it might kill him?"
The Gina looked embarrassed. come on lady, dying is better than this!! Pol wanted to scream.
"Do you understand this might be fatal?" the Sharon addressed him.
He blinked twice, firmly.
"You still want to do this?"
He rolled his eyes and blinked twice again. come on. I'm in hell here.
"Prep him for transport." The Sharon told the brunette, "And bring him to pad 18."
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Post Hospital, New Circe Naval Shipyard...
"name?"
"Sarah Jennings 833."
"Rank?"
"Radioman Second Class, Kowloon Coast Guard, last assignment KCGS Vin Drin Lap, cutter 10/14/2, under Commander Van Dyne Lotus 371, sir." she sat and waited while the medical officer jotted down notes. "Is this going to take long, sir?"
"Not long, Miss Jennings. Have you been diagnosed with any disorders prior to your deployment here as part of Task Force H?" he asked.
she looked aside.
"I'm going to hazard yes to that one..."
"it doesn't impact my job, sir." she said.
"Your panic attack on the surface certainly did, miss. Planetophobia isn't unusual in Belters. Trying to hijack a shuttle back into orbit is." he explained gently.
"Was anyone hurt?" she asked.
"well, no one was seriously injured. Is your disorder medically treated?"
"Two miligrams of DHC-22, sir." she said, "My...my scrip went up with the ship."
He frowned. "Two miligrams of a strong antipsychotic medication?"
"yes sir...or you can just let me not go back down into the well?" she asked, "I really would prefer that, sir. the drugs...slow me down, and I can wait-"
"You've been assigned shore duty, Miss Jennings, your records show you have been shorting the mandatory surface leaves for the last six years, but you weren't always this...severe."
"I...I don't want to talk about that, sir, if you please. just give me my waiver or the drugs?"
"I'm afraid neither of those is an acceptable option in your situation, not without something clearer than 'I don't want to talk about it'."
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Astral Arms Hotel, city of the gods, Colonial city-state, New Circe...
She's warm, the bed is soft. Dad, they think I'm a hero. I'm not. Dawn's early light is peeping through the curtains, and I've got a better looking woman in my bed than I think I've ever seen, an extended pass with a three weeks report date for duty.
she's warm, and she's soft, and she's snoring softly against me.
This is the kind of thing you dream about, but this isn't the dream. It's just the break from the nightmares. Nightmares where I'm using bleach and booze and sewing a kid together with fishing wire under a flashlight while the world goes insane around me.
I've studied the materials, I know what it means when you're stuck 'on edge' and you can't sleep, and every loud noise triggers that 'incoming fire' instinct, when you can't even enjoy it while the girls throw themselves at you.
I know what is wrong with me. I know it won't go away on its own...
but I still won't report it, and I can't figure out why.
I guess I need to. I just can't make myself do it. she shifts while shadows move in the room. I hold perfectly still, until the anxiety drops down to a dull roar.
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Memorial Park, McEvedy City Suburbs...
"So this is her?" Nicole Minh asked. "This is that 'other me'?"
"Well, it's her grave." the 'other Seether' said. Nicole let her father's arm hug her to him. "She wanted to de-transition and couldn't?" Nicole asked.
"No, she couldn't."
"You two were...close." Nikki asked.
"We were." Commodore Sithers answered.
"I'm not her." Nikki said. "Hell, the footage you showed us...I'm not sure I can ever be her. Longest jump in History? Alien worlds with artifacts? possible first contact? How am I supposed to measure up?"
"A six second window with a loaded warship-that was something Nicky did." the Commodore suggested, "and you did. You've got all of her potential, without the baggage."
"No, I've got all her baggage too." Nicole answered, "only I'm not sure I would want what she wanted-not...I'm..."
"You're still working it out, Nicky." her pa told her. "You're still my child and I still love you. Just like your counterpart's father still loved her. I'm proud of the person you're becoming."
"but I'm not her." Nicole said.
"your sister will be thrilled."
Nicole glanced at this Sithers, "How's my CO?" she asked, "You've talked with her yet? the OTHER Linda Sithers?"
"We've spoken." Seether said, "She...she found some of what happened to us to be outright horrifying, but she also confirmed you've got some big shoes to fill."
Nikki shook her head, "I'm not sure I can."
"You can try." her father said.
"yeah dad. I guess I have to." Nicole straightened up. "I'm not going to de-transition." she said firmly, "I don't know, maybe it's a cosmic roll of the dice, but I don't...I don't regret transitioning, and you're going to have to deal with it, Dad. I'm sorry that I'm not her, but I'm not. I'm me."
"Well, you did get your mother's spine, along with her hair." he said, "but don't abandon god, okay? HE is still with you, try to maintain some kind of relationship..."
"I will, Dad...I know this is going to put you in a bind with the congregation back home..."
"worse than you running away with a jumpship, consorting with mercenaries and pirates, being convicted to grand theft twice and joining a military?" he scoffed, "You are, my so..daughter, an endless source for Sermon material." he gave her a sad smile.
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Docksider's Bar and Grill, McEvedy City Spaceport...
Captain Linda Sithers needed a drink. Actually, she needed a LOT of drinks.
"barman!" she rattled her glass, "Keep it full, alright?"
That other Linda Sithers had laid it all out for her-the future that didn't happen, and now wouldn't.
shouldn't. "There we gooo..."
"What's the plan, Captain?" a Wolverine half again her size asked, bellying up to the bar.
"Oh, a Noble quest, sir!" she answered, "I'm slaying Martians! see? The glass-that's their flyin' saucers, an' th' olives are the martians..."
"A noble quest indeed, halting the invasion all by your lonesome?"
"Wanna sign up?" she slurred.
"I think you've had enough." he said, turning so she could see the armband of the Provost.
"I jus'...just started. heh, maybe you want that other..."
"Oh no, I think you've had enough. You'll have to let someone else stop the invasion of little green men." he told her, catching her as she lost balance and fell off her stool.
"Yer Cute, wanna f..f...izzit th' th' worrrd?" to be certain, the room was spinning merrily, she could feel New Circe's rotation.
"Yeah, you've had enough. Let's go have a little lie-down."
"OOOH! yeah! a Lie-down!" she giggled, and tried to reach for his belt.
"come on now, let's get you sobered up..."
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Maybe after she sobers up she can have a more reasonable conversation with the other her...
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New thread tag
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Its a lot to deal with your future impossible self...
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New Circe General Hospital...
"New Circe Social Services. the Medical determination states your private is an at-risk child with no means of contacting his parents." Vilders said with a sour look, "I also have to start a war-crimes investigation, if the AFFC is enlisting child soldiers..."
"I'll cooperate. Jesus..."
I actually like this. Because honestly, even though she's the protag, a lot of stuff Liz has been pulling in Kwoloon SHOULD be called out. Child soldiers tend to turn into very badly screwd up adults.
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Does anyone realise that cavil has suffered an inverse starscream scenario. I hope the star league does. And the rebel cylons who after looking through human culture have stumbled on the transformers franchise.
The Elizatrons canned cavil because he was incompetent.
I look forward to the league reaction that the cylon imperium is now being led by a pattern drawn from Elizabeth Ngo. (Who for diffentiation I shall refer to as Elizabeth Prime.)
Star League Council. Oh God they will have an effective master plan to destroy us all. No peace deal it is clearly a trap.
Elizabeth Prime. On one hand I feel offended on the other it totally will be a trap.
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I actually like this. Because honestly, even though she's the protag, a lot of stuff Liz has been pulling in Kwoloon SHOULD be called out. Child soldiers tend to turn into very badly screwd up adults.
well in Liz's case she wasn't a soldier, she was a Noble, which means a slightly different set of laws were involved. sadly all that did was change the legality within the fedcom, not the effects on liz.
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Who for diffentiation I shall refer to as Elizabeth Prime.
Does she get the Matrix of Leadership?
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Kowloon, March 3064...
Two years away from home, and things didn't implode. There are presents you can't beg for, being away from the control seat for twenty four months, and having things still functional?
all my christmases and birthdays, rolled into one. I am so damned glad.
Where was I while New Circe was being attacked? Heh...Taurus. Commodore Ferry dropped us off in the Taurian Concordat's capital when he grabbed reinforcements and headed home. I spent a lovely weekend fretting with the TCAF brass while the damn toasters tried to exterminate my friends.
They failed.
Jeff Calderon played host, we ate local delicacies and talked about the New Colony region and business opportunities with the Magistracy's reps.
I sold another development loan to each nation, firmed up diplomatic relations and met Grover Schraplen for beer at a place called 'Franklin's'.
Nate settled a dispute involving a Diamond Shark merchant and arranged a call to the bankers on Sudeten to get his trading ship out of impound, which in turn means I have a marker with the Diamond Sharks-they owe me a favor. The favor goes in the bank for now, I plan to use it to trade another favor out of 'our' Clans-they can't get some substances here in the Inner Sphere, the Sharks can move freely, and the attack on New Circe put it up in bold, neon relief colors-tacky colors even. 'The Cylons are Still a Threat'.
As if anyone didn't know that already.
But there are always people who will deny the evidence on their noses. Amanda misses 'cousin Hera'. I swear I'm going to have to ask the Agathons to visit, I guess it's time to move out of the split level into Grandfather's ranch holdings or we'll never have enough room for all of my little girl's friends and self-proclaimed relatives.
Our next stop on the way home, was Earth. Nathan insisted, and we had an invitation.
No matter how much I mistrust Comstar, one does not snub one's long-distance carrier, and Nathan wanted to meet Anastasius Focht off the battlefield.
so we stopped at Earth, and I learned about a true obscenity.
Project 21b. I learned about it from the future-ship KCGS Nueva Pueblo and her surviving crew before this, but being briefed on what almost happened at Arluna by the people who almost made it happen, that's a new one. Primus Mori offered to let me extradite the responsible parties and try them under our Laws.
I considered it. Hell, I'm still considering it in my weaker moments.
no. I'm not Tranh Truk Ngo, or Aleksandr Kerensky, or Simon Cameron, I'm not the First Lord or a candidate for the position.
I won't do that. It isn't my right, and the person whose right it is already turned them over to their masters.
unfortunately, I didn't get to Leave Earth for the rest of 3063. Victor was planted in the First Lord's seat and he drafted me. I got to spend an ungodly amount of time and effort for the rest of that year, untangling finances between seven realms and consulting every economist they could dig up to do something about funding the SLDF and Star League government.
So I set up a temporary office in New York City, not a big office, mind-just big enough, in the rebuilt replica of the Empire State Building in downtown. by 'small office'? I mean we took the whole damn building. This is the homeland of the 90th Heavy Assault, Kerensky's Sledgehammers and the only SLDF unit that treated my ancestors fairly from day one to day last.
It took me a year to figure out what should've been obvious in the first three hours. they don't need me.
They needed Kelli Fitz. So I transferred her to the office in New York as my designated replacement in the 'Star League Finance Minister' role, and with Victor (and the other Lords) consent, I got to board one of our ships and got to go home. Puke buckets and all.
Getting home meant dealing with yet-another-damned job. Victor's little brother Peter was waiting in Nha Tranh, with another 'job that must be done'.
so I let them install another HPG, this one closer to home, and put a damn office park on the end of Marjorie Road, along with a couple billion Kroner worth of high-speed cable, because since my designated replacement was handling the Margrave job so well, in my absence, they stuck me with Lady Exchequer.
I am the ****** accountant for the Lyran State, with a staff, and a red telephone. I swear the world is conspiring to turn me into my mother.
Pete did, at least, let me work from home. Which is good, I'm not going to go jet-settign around the Commonwealth, airsickness bag in hand, supervising tax audits.
I've got a whole department for that, now. I've already cut around 2 million jobs in the Finance office, and forwarded around 230,000 names for prosecution. This has made me remarkably unpopular with the Estates General. My refusal to travel off-world again, hasn't helped matters, but my spies tell me, it's having a general net impact in cutting down on backhanders and no-bid contracting.
Something about sending auditors into "government" offices with an escort of Centurions helps with that-and having a reputation for shooting people helps too.
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The tax man's taken all my dough
And left me in my stately home
Lazing on a sunny afternoon...
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Liz having .lunch with Shrapnel must have been an interesting conversation! The financial clean up of the Lyran side of the FC is going to be a long and taxing job. At least this time she has help and support!
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Oh, I suspect the FS side has its own challenges.
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Somehow I doubt Liz was involved in underaged soldiers. I mean she is barely running Kowloon as it is. The price of shoving that off on the elected government, Victor and Peter feel less guilt drafting her for other duties.
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there have always been people who lie about their age to join organizations like the military. usually records checks throw up red flags (either "this person is too young" or "this person has falsified records") but Kowloon's records are still gonna be a mess due to the regent's mismanagement. odds are they won't have them all sorted till around the 3100's.. and that mainly due to attrition by old age removing the people born in the time of bad records. presuming they can avoid something like the Jihad, which while it would accelerate attrition, also would have a bad effect on record keeping.
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Unity City, Terra...
"To be honest, Victor, we haven't seen much improvement with your new programs." Sun Tzu Liao spoke softly in the chamber, "When will the Confederation get the kind of considerations you've given to the provisional states? WE are also members of the Star League."
Victor sighed, "Chancellor, what do you want?"
"The same thing everyone else wants, I guess? Prosperity, Respect? My people walked into this alliance with hope, Victor-Hope for peace, for prosperity, for respect. Hope that our grievances would be heard. I am not seeing much of that, and the cross-border actions of House Marik-"
"We didn't do those." Thomas Marik insisted. "Hell, I wish we had, it would let me bring the perpetrators here in front of you for punishment!"
"-and your cousins, the Hasek-Davions, these must be answered. we know, everyone knows!" He stood up, clenching his fist, "My people, Victor. What will you do for them? Your own Elizabeth Ngo famously said without justice, there is no peace. I want these raids to stop, I want the perpetrators brought to justice, I want what every man who has ever been responsible to his people desires. we need the ability to protect our selves. I see the Free Worlds building warships, I see new warships coming from yards in the Federated Suns, I even see new warships serving in the Concordat and the Magistracy-our yard..."
"Was raided by someone, recently." Victor filled in.
"Yes. Ten thousand of my people died." Sun Tzu stated, "I can't help thinking we are being kept weak while our neighbours grow stronger."
Victor knew, it was taking a lot for the young Chancellor to speak this way. to admit weakness, to admit need openly, even in a closed meeting like this one, was a terrible loss of public dignity, of 'face'.
He wouldn't do this if he didn't have a real need. was Victor's first urge, followed by he will never accept an SLDF garrison with foreign troops-it would destroy the Confederation to need that level of outside help...or to be seen needing it.
"Give me everything you have on the attackers." Victor said, "And I need the rest of the council to please clear this room? Primus Mori, you should stay."
Candace Allard Liao, Sun-Tzu's aunt, remained seated for a moment. Victor looked her in the eye. "Sorry, but you as well, Milady Candace."
she rose to her feet and followed everyone else out.
"I'm going to help you, Sun-Tzu." Victor told him, "Because you're right, and because you're smart and because the alternative is dealing with your sister after she's deposed you and Kali is blitz-raging nuts like your mother."
Sun Tzu laughed faintly and nodded. "She is. you're well informed."
"I don't have to be THAT well informed, remember Outreach four years ago?" Victor said easily, "We're going to help you-but you have to do the tough part and take the credit."
Sun Tzu blinked in surprise, "Excuse me?"
"You have to take credit. I know what kind of precarious position you're in back home-I deal with nobles too, only mine are kind of...dumber than yours, less effective at killing their way up the ladder. I need you to be successful and popular in the Confederation, and I kind of need you to have a strong international presence."
"Why?"
"Stability." Victor admitted. "we can't afford another Succession War-we couldn't really afford the first four, but we really can't now." Victor turned to the Communications Minister, "Red Phone." he said, "Put it on the big screen and I don't care if we're interrupting her during sex or sleep."
"Red Phone?" Sun Tzu asked
"When it's your turn in the chair, you'll treasure it." Victor told him, as the screen lit behind him.
a little girl's face loomed two meters high, catching both men by surprise. "Amanda, get your mother please?" Victor said.
"Oh..." the girl stood up, "MOOOM!!!"
Elizabeth Ngo, in spattered overalls and a teeshirt came running from a room just out of view.
"Oh holy shit, Victor? what??"
"Liz, this is business." Victor told her, "How are you doing with the financial project?"
"Decent returns. If this is about the tax reform bill Kelli sent you-"
"It isn't...at least, not directly. I need a financier, and an infrastructure company." Victor told her.
she peered into the screen on her end, and snorted, "You want me to work with House Liao?"
"as a personal favor." Victor said.
"It's one hell of a favor, Victor, last time some of my people were there, Romano had them shot." she said grimly.
"My mother is...no longer in power." Sun Tzu said.
"You, or Kali?" Liz asked.
"I am the Chancellor."
she rested her chin on a paint-spattered hand, "Hm. Victor said you're intelligent and sensible...Okay. What can Ngo Industries help you build, Mister Chancellor? and do you need a catalogue update?"
"that easily?" Sun Tzu asked.
"You have to understand, Mister Chancellor-you're a referral client, this is a business transaction, and Cappellan money is as good as anyone else's-or it will be, by the time my people are done, because it means you'll let my people work in your realm without screwing them over, because Victor vouched you as intelligent and sensible. We're going to put a big old supercharger on your economy, and the bleed off includes a bunch of stuff we don't normally export."
Sun Tzu realized she was reading a secondary screen. "ANd I do need you to commit to something besides hard cash."
"What?"
"Purchase of a group of warships." Liz told him, "Not big ones, mind, they're pretty cheap to run and we build them here, because your total warship fleet as of this morning is zero, and that won't do. You'll be getting one division of Cutters, that's one hundred and six vessels, plus support ships. You provide the fighters and the crews, if you need training options, SLDF has a fine naval academy available right there on Earth, but that's an interim force. by this time next year, you'll be able to build your own. I'll let you lease-option the hulls, but you need them and i won't start putting up the infrastructure for shipyards until you've got a navy that's worth a ******, savvy?"
-
Whoa, Victor is having Liz help the CC? Will the chancellor actually control his sister from messing with Ngo industry people working I the CC? Who will train his new Navy? Who attacked the CC if it was not the Cylon, Marik or FC? WOB?
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My money is on WoB, yeah...
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"Kid wants to fight, kid is old enough to pick up a rifle (or wrench), who am I to say they can't fight?"
-
Production Order: Authorized
Down Payments made.
Sampan III/block H: 24 Units
Sampan III/Block CV: 24 Units
Sampan III/Block DD: 24 Units
Sampan III/Block DG: 24 Units
Sampan IV/block B: 24 units
Delivery Order: SLDF Priority Red
Destination: SLDF Base Sian, Cappellan Confederation
Vessels are to be shipped 'bare and clean', Customer to take possession at SLDF Base Sian
Estimated Time for production Run: 937 days total, Facility Boojum, Alarion, Winter, to dedicate 10 slots each in parallel production until vessels are ready to be shipped.
SLDF Liaison Personnel from Cappellan Confederation to conduct acceptance inspections at each major stage of production per customer agreement and SLDF regulations.
Delivery dates:
First 30 vessels to deliver in six months, subsequent vessels to be delivered on a six month rate until january, 3066, after which rate increase to 3 month rate by July of 3066, with a final production increase to 1 month rate until contract completion.
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The Capellans are going to need more political officers... ^-^
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106 Cutters is certainly enough for basic security and interdiction patrols, as well as training up crews for larger ships (so long as they remember to keep a core of experienced officers and NCO's back to do the training).
-
And the political officers will be necessary to keep them all in line...
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And the political officers will be necessary to keep them all in line...
And those political officers will need their own political officers to watch them... ::)
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True, true... ::)
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Production Order: Authorized
Sampan III/block H: 24 Units
Sampan III/Block CV: 24 Units
Sampan III/Block DD: 24 Units
Sampan III/Block DG: 24 Units
Sampan IV/block B: 24 units
What are the differences between the various blocks and what upgrade is planned for the Sampan IV?
PS Really enjoying the story, keep up the great work. :thumbsup:
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well i'd guess that "CV" is configured as a fighter carrier.
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Random guessing, "DD" is "dual-drive", and "DG" is probably got a much heavier missile armament than normal.
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Within a week of those cutters going operational, probably with Coast Guard trainers crammed in alongside a Capellan crew, these raiders are going to start having bright and sunny days.
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New Syrtis, Federated Suns
George Hasek had one job: Keep the damned Cappies contained. That job's just gotten a lot harder, and it got harder for two reasons.
One, because Victor's let this 'first lord' thing go to his head in exactly the wrong way, authorizing technology transfers to House Liao that should have been kept firmly in Federated Commonwealth hands.
The second reason was sitting on his desk this morning. 834 pages of legalese, signed by the Chancellor of the Cappellan Confederation.
a contract for infrastructure, signed with the First Lord's personal psychopath over on the far side of the Inner Sphere. Ngo Industries was opening a branch office on Sian.
It was enough to make a man question loyalties. George was more incensed with each page of the contract. The Cappies had survived through the succession wars on the basis of how industrialized they'd been at the start-this was, taken as a whole, an aid package that would reindustrialize them, and put their economy into overdrive.
George had no love for the Lyran Duchess. She'd murdered a couple of patriots when she took over her world after a show trial, and done the same a bit later, claiming corruption in both cases, employed strike teams to quell dissident forces, and overturned members of the peerage throughout her March (They call 'em Theaters over there. gotta remember that. he corrected himself). The woman openly consorted with alien robots and married a Clanner...
and he admitted, at least to himself, she was an economic genius who'd turned what was already a profitable business into a corporate empire that even encroached on his own region, bringing jobs and prosperity.
But now she's going to do it for the enemy!
He'd had to move Subtly-giving funds and supplying equipment to groups like Free Cappella, trading intel and equipment to the Tortuga dominions and making deals with Andurien to keep the Liao threat in check.
all of that was going to be for nothing pretty damned soon if something wasn't done.
-
George apparently isn't up on the cylon problem...
-
Wait, when/how did Morgan die?
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Wait, when/how did Morgan die?
In order to keep his position as Commanding General, SLDF, Morgan had to drop something. (Focht, bless him, got old and is enjoying semi-retirement)
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In order to keep his position as Commanding General, SLDF, Morgan had to drop something. (Focht, bless him, got old and is enjoying semi-retirement)
Then he needs to take a leave of absence, go home and talk to junior before Liz does
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That, or he'll have to take leave to go home for a funeral...
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Star League Defense Force HQ, Luna...
"...medical confirmation, Victor." Morgan Hasek-Davion looked fatigued, "There were a number of underage personnel in the New Circe operation. It's a serious misstep, and I can't find a single reason not to press an investigation."
"Which units again?"
"The Kowloon Brigade." Morgan said, "They've identified forty so far from the armored brigade, kids, Victor, and our records are showing some disturbing trends, bad record keeping maybe, maybe intent-if it's bad record keeping, that's breaking her usual pattern. This needs to be addressed."
"What's your recommendation, Morgan?"
General of the Armies (Star League) Morgan Hasek-Davion sighed, "She likes audits. Run an audit on Kowloon's miitary induction and training complex, something independent, with a parallel investigation into the possibility that it's not an error, but intent. In the meantime, a good twenty seven of those kids who survived the battle on New Circe can be put on suspended duty and we can let the Wolverines handle them their way, there's no families waiting on those kids back home,and early discharges of people in that situation tend to result in releasing dangerously unstable criminals with high-end deadly skills on an unsuspecting public."
Victor looked troubled, "Who do we send?"
"I'm thinking it should be multinational. draw from New Circe, the FedCom, and the Free Worlds league for personnel to run the investigations. I would've suggested St. Ives but Sun Tzu seems to be reconciling with Candace and Liz has hooks in there with this latest trade deal."
"Make it so, Morgan, you draft the order and I'll approve it." Victor agreed.
-
Nice story update! So a multinational team will investigate Kowloon's practice of accepting Volunteers for military service? That should prove an interesting results. So George Hasek sounds like he needs to have a trip to New Circe or the other planets assaulted by the Cylon Imperium to see the bigger threat. Oh can he possibly ever meet Liz and have a one to one talk on his take about the re-industrialization of the CC?
I wonder if the AFFC has done its own audit of its forces for its readiness compared to the Kowloon CG and militia?
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New Circe...
most of them were out of bandages, at least. Private Nghien was playing backgammon with an Arlunan recruit named Livsey Howell while the Falcone brothers, (Eric and Liam) were taking turns trying to flirt with the Gurdebrand sisters.
The Gurdebrand sisters...they were identical once. it's easy to tell Bianh from Briah now, Bianh's left arm ends at the elbow, and while reconstructive surgery and skin grafts are better here, than nearly anywhere else in human space, Briah's face still has that 'half melted' look from being mid-process on the series of therapies and surgeries she was still facing.
Not that the Falcone brothers, (also twins-from Hue) were any better off. Eric was waiting on vat-clone eyes and his face had the same off-tone sheen of mid-process replacement skin. Liam could have been tall, if his legs didn't end at the knees.
The rest of the dayroom was likewise populated, mostly younger, lower-ranked personnel, all from Kowloon, Winter, or Arluna. Most were from the Army contingent, and every one of them was being kept here due to 'records issues'.
But at least, this isn't Floor Seven. That's where the real basket-cases are. The in-patient psych ward with the locked doors and thirty one flavors of mood elevators, where they take your belt and boot-laces away and put you in a paper jumpsuit and a padded room.
Or so the rumors go.
"Dude, we've been here for months. what's going on?" Jian Robers was a field mechanic with Bravo company before most of Bravo ceased to exist.
"I'm gonna guess...we're not recovered?" Chao suggested, "I mean, shit they found cancer in me, so it's being treated, everyone else is NMC in one way or another, but we're still getting pay vouchers, right? so just relax?"
"Relax? Look, I don't know about you, but this seems kinda weird, nobody on our floor is over E-3 except the Corpsman, and some of the psych evals are...they're familiar."
"huh?"
"School counselor shit." she said firmly, "And the tests?"
"They have to make sure we're keeping our marbles or didn't lose any." he suggested, "I don't know about you, but I took a couple hits hard enough to break my helmet."
"Don't be stupid, okay? Just don't." she said, "I know your secret."
"What secret?"
"Same one everyone else on the floor has...including me." she said, "You're not from Ia Drang, I'm not from Arluna. you speak with the same dialect I do, we're both out of New Saigon, and I bet your birth certificate is phoney too."
"What?"
"If you're eighteen, why are you still growing?" she asked.
"I could ask you the same question but I though the food was-"
"If you say 'making me fat' I'm gonna hit you." she said, "Yeah, I've gone up half a cup size. point is, they're onto that. we're caught, and now the brass are arguing about what to do with a brat-pack of teenagers who lied their way into a uniform...except the Falcone brothers, they had legal exemption thanks to being tinspawns from the Hue Creche."
"what do you think's gonna happen?"
she shrugged, "I don't know, man. They dig into my records and they'll find my parents pretty easy-Dad's doing life at Blackgate and Mom's kinda cycling from one rehab program to the next between binges...if she ain't OD yet. It's not like they can send me 'home' when there's no home to go back to."
"harsh." He said, "I've got a home to go to...kinda."
"I think we should give 'em what they're asking for. Tell 'em the truth." she said.
"You gonna do that?"
she nodded, "yeah. Cop to it, the punishment's gonna be lighter than if they find out the dirty details on their own."
-
Yep... lied their way into uniform. But that's not going to excuse the lack of checking done by Kowloon...
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Frankly, that problem was understandable in the original timeline with the Jihad and plague going but it's bad when you're effectively in a cold war (until now) and you're building up your forces. Even the Falcons use Eyrie Clusters for underage cadets and try to keep them out of trouble most of the time.
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Security Interview Room 213, McEvedy City Medical Center, New Circe...
"State your name for the record please?"
"I was born David Lin Chao, on the second of April, Thirty Forty Seven, in the city of New Saigon on Kowloon."
"That's not what's on your records."
"No sir, it isn't. I used my older brother's birth certificate to get through induction processing."
"Why?"
"because he doesn't need it anymore, sir."
"Why doesn't he need it?"
"Because he's dead, sir. Dead people don't need birth certificates, my brother was...born in '41, and he was five, I think, when a Firestarter from the Militia barracks accidentally burned the daycare building outside of my father's workplace."
"So, if we use that name, the David name, what would we find?"
"well, a preteen juvenile record for shoplifting, a couple of arrests for vandalism, and I would guess a truly epic truancy report, sir. after mom died, Dad kind of stopped noticing what I was doing. he stopped paying bills, stopped going to work. He found a Bluerock dealer in Downtown, and I did some lookouts for the dealer to help pay the rent until the Local P.D. broke up the ring and started arresting people. I got home without being pinched by the lead-heels and found dad in the bathtub. It kind of gave me a picture of my whole life, my whole future, sir, and I realized I didn't want any part of that. I wasn't the best student in school, so there was no chance of getting into the Residential program the Coasties run, but I had David's birth certificate, and a little experience slicing console games...so I forged the prints and DNA profile, and went down to the Militia Recruiter. The Regency era records aren't exactly what you'd call complete, it wasn't hard to get past that since I could pass the aptitude testing and physical stress measurement."
"The Residential Program?"
"Coast Guard Residential Academy at Giap Island, sir. but it's The Coast Guard-they don't take you if you aren't the best, and I wasn't-I barely made it through Basic Training as it was, sir."
"you didn't even try, did you?" another voice asked.
"No ma'am. I'm not good enough, or smart enough. I figured i could ride my Dead Brother's identity into a life that's worth a shit, do my service, get out, get a straight job in the new economy, maybe some school."
"David, we would've taken you. the lights came up, and he found himself face to face with Captain Nicole Minh, "Li would have been giddy to get you, you were smart enough to slice triple-locked 2 tetrabit data encoding and smooth enough to catch the junk-coding they use for anti-tampering verification, and you went off to be a dumb grunt tanker?"
"I..I didn't think I was good enough." he said.
"Listen to me, Chao, You committed a couple of felonies here, and it's damned good you confessed to them...but I gotta wonder how many bright kids like you were so stupid that they pulled this kind of idiot stunt, and how badly they missed the mark back home in getting talented kids like you into the Giap Island program-I'm a Graduate of that system, diggit Private? Here is what's going to happen...first, we're going to ****** your records and get AFFC and SLDF to credit your prior service as Honorable, then, I'm going to personally make sure your ass is on the first transport to the Coast Guard Academy at Spider moon, with your Corrected records and a Judicial Finding, because you did commit a couple of felonies, but you did them for the right reasons and copped to them on your own instead of needing to be confronted...and all that, is assuming I can get you out of the New Circe social services system-otherwise, you're going to be put in a residential Creche school here until age eighteen, when they'll either ask you to immigrate, or put you on the bus back to Kowloon as a civilian with a general discharge and maybe prison time."
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Heh... Victor has NO idea how he just boosted the Kowloon recruiting program... ^-^
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1 ping only
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Interview: "Livsey Howell", records age 19, physical age 14...
"Have a seat, Private." at this rate, I may end up being 'mom' to twenty two kids whose parents are either dead or 'gone'. "State your name for the record?"
"Livseh Howrell, Ma'am." the girl's drawl checks out. I spent enough time with Debra to pick up the regional accent of the Rocky Hills region.
"Your record states you're nineteen. are you sure that's your name?" the girl looks down-and-away. caught you. "Please don't lie or I'll have to use a polygraph and narco-interrogation. What's your name?"
"Ginnie Livezey." she says. something about the uniform, I think...
"And you're from..?"
"Hawwl cahnty." Howell County. jesus, this kid could be one of Debbie's neighbours.
"And when I run an identity search on 'Virginia Livsey'?"
"mah pa is servin' life s'ntnce et Blackgate." she tells me, "He'us with Free Skye an' got caught."
"And your mother?"
"She dead, Ma'am."
"I see. Let me speculate...speculation done. what the ****** major malfunction you gots girl?" I'm doing my best 'Debbie Mac' impersonation. I think I have the drawl almost right, but what I'm shooting for is the tone she uses when she's bitching out her hired men for mistakes.
it works, she flinches. "What's naow?" she asks.
"Now, we're going to have to get your records fixed. You got some of those burns pulling comrades out of a burning tank, so I think once we've fixed your record, you won't be getting a bad conduct discharge, but you're fourteen years old."
"Almos' fi'teen."
"Yeah, whatever. what the ****** possessed you to join the army, huh?"
the girl blinks in surprise. I got the tone right-it's dawning on her she had other choices. other options. I reach into my briefcase, and pull out a stack of forms. "This, is another version of the Armed Forces Aptitude and placement battery. THIS..." I reach into my pocket, and pull out a pen. "This is a pen, ink, trackball. You're going to begin this test in two minutes. when you reach the point in the test that says 'stop' you will stop. each section is timed."
"What fo'?"
"because I outrank you and told you to take the test, you joined the military, this is something you should understand...begin." she obeys pretty well. as she finishes each test, I hand them to CPO Graham to grade. The kid stumbles in a few sections, but tries guesses where she doesn't know the answers or isn't sure. I notice she uses long division and handwritten equations to work around some of the pre-academy advanced placement materials, and some of her guesses in the history section are hilariously wrong.
she reaches the end of her stack after four hours.
"Well, Graham?"
"Grade nine equivalency in maths, grade eight in science, collegiate level reading ability." he states, "I'd say she's upper seventy percent when you discount the culturally biased questions." love Chief Graham-not that way, he's married for christ's sake. I mean I love how he can evaluate logically and how he's a total bureaucrat right down to his shriveled black heart.
"I'm going to offer you a choice, Private. Behind door number one, is a General discharge followed by transfer to a Residential School until age eighteen, at which point, you will have three years left on your Commonwealth mandated five years of active service, you will have access to your veteran's benefits, but you will be required to serve three years minimum in a non-military public service position, and that General Discharge will follow you like a boat anchor on into the rest of your life. Door Number two, is you apply for Residency status to the Colonial City State or to New Circe, I have both applications in my bag here, they'll place you with a foster family, you'll still have national service to do, but General McEvedy has assured me your prior service will be accounted for in both assignment, and promotion points in the local reserves. Behind Door number three, is a ticket to the Giap Island Residential School, followed by a mandatory ten years service in the Coast Guard, under your real name, with access to Coast Guard Judge Advocates to maybe get your poppa out of prison before he dies of old age. that last one is only a 'maybe', but it is something we can investigate."
"Do ah hefta decide now?" she asks.
"No. You can take your time, the next transport back to the Inner Sphere isn't leaving until April. there is only one thing you CAN be sure of: You will be discharged, you're not going to be in the army anymore, regardless, and AFFC won't take you because of the felony...but the Coast Guard will. and Giap island clears your record of the black mark, so does joining New Circe. YOU need to make that choice."
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Correction: OR the New Circe recruiting program... ::)
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A couple dozen (assuming they aren't double checking all the KIAs) out of how many? We could be talking a fraction of a percent, still large in absolute numbers, but AFAICT besides the Clan Sibkos, this is mostly a case of people lying with fake paperwork.
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Interview, Jian Robers, rank Private First Class (E-3), MOS heavy Tracked Vehicle mechanic/operator
"State your name for the record." Captain Poslweicz is a Rockjack, his ship, the Wisna is a cutter, Sampan III H series, one of the four that survived the space battle over New Circe-mostly.
I know this, because I paid attention.
"Do you want my real name or the name on my records, sir?" I ask.
"Your real name, please, Private."
"Samantha Lerner. I'm from New Saigon."
"And your real date of birth?"
"February 9, 3048, sir."
He checks his PADD and my face comes up, "This is you?"
the picture is from middle school. "Yes sir."
"Where were you before you enlisted, this file says you disappeared from foster care at age eleven?"
"Living on the street, sir." I tell him, "I ran with the Scumdogs for a while, until the Juney turf war with the Slim-ta Tong."
"Hmmm, that one was messy, I saw the after actions on it. were you involved?"
"I was a lookout and a gun-mule, sir." I answer truthfully. I'm already in deep shit, I know it. The police broke up the fighting, but the rest of the 'dogs fell in with the Slim-Ta goyim afterward.
"Were you involved in any other illegal activities while a member of the Scumdogs?" he asks.
"Yes sir." I tell him.
"What kind of activity?"
"I would like to excercise my right to remain silent, sir." I tell him, "If you can get a female officer here, I can tell her exactly what I was doing for Ripper's crew."
"You enlisted, Private, you waived those rights when you did. Do I need to make it a direct order?"
"No sir. I just needed to see if I'd been kicked yet. I...I provided services to select clients, including AFFC officers, for a fee. these services were personal and...well, degrading, sir. They were arranged by the leader of the New Saigon Scumdogs, Ripper Siam, and placed me in contact with officials in the Federated Commonwealth government, this provided two income streams, sir. can you guess which ones?"
"Prostitution and blackmail." he answers.
"That is correct, sir. I was Ripper's third best earner. Could've been second best, but the two biggest payouts liked boys-or to be really brutally honest, one liked boys, the other liked ladyboys. My best friend in the gang before she was killed was the biggest earner in our operation- Judy, who got fake tits and looked even better in a New Avalon Catholic school uniform than I did because she really WANTED to be a girl."
He's stone-faced, I give him that, maybe he's worked vice?
"can you name the officials being...blackmailed by your crew?"
"Yes sir, I can. I used one of my former customers to arrange for my new life in exchange for keeping the information confidential. Since I'm already found out, I have little reason to remain silent. Would you like an itemized list?" I hold his eyes with my own. "I have nowhere to go from here, sir. If I turn up in the old turf areas...someone might recognize me, and that would be bad."
"Why?" He asks me. This is for the record, I know it.
"because I got out of there, because I didn't swear loyalty to the Tong, and I won't, They killed my best friend when they moved to take over the area. I realized I needed to be in the biggest gang, the one nobody dares to ****** with, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be able to get past the background checks for the Coasties."
"Your helmet cam recorded numerous kills on enemy troops." he noted.
"I was terrified, sir, but I wasn't going to run out on my new gang-nobody makes me spread my legs to prove my loyalty in the Military, sir." I tell him, there are still feelings and I wish they would go the ****** away. "The Service is the biggest gang, and the best gang, I haven't had to visit an abortionist since I enlisted."
that one hits him almost as bad as the memories hit me. He flinches. "how...how many times?" he whispers.
"Four, sir, since I was eleven-three times Ripper or one of his soldiers drove me to an affiliated doc who doesn't ask questions, the fourth time I had to find my way on my own because the Scumdogs were getting killed, and I wanted it out of me. I put a knife in the guy who did it, which is the other reason I can't go back. the Tong doesn't look kindly on a whore who cuts the throat of one of their members."
"how did...how do you feel about that?" he asks.
"I don't feel anymore, sir." I tell him, "I really, really don't want to start feeling, but I'm not doing drugs, it's just focus and meditation. I have to be rational or i will lose my mind."
He looks at the one-way mirror, and the door opens.
"Miss Lerner, this is Cora, from New Circe social services, she will be arranging your immigration paperwork, as well as mental health assessments." the Guard officer tells me, "you need help, young lady, you've been traumatized in ways I can't even articulate, and New Circe is about as far from New Saigon as you can physically get...I would like to ask that you provide depositions related to the crimes you witnessed and were...brought into, specifically the crimes you were, yourself subjected to. any detailed material you can provide will be greatly appreciated."
"Of course, sir." I tell him, "I will give everything I have to get those ****** and put them where they belong, sir."
-
I think that one's going to be a Wolverine...
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I think that one's going to be a Wolverine...
Well on the one hand? There doesn't seem to be anything systematic, the Wolvie docs might be overestimating the facilities available to near Periphery Lyran worlds in AFFC induction centers. Just people managing to fake enough records well enough not to be noticed right away.
OTOH, man some of their stories, particularly Samantha's. I'm betting some, if not all her prostitution was when she was underaged, making this statutory rape. Yeah, her former clients are in for a nasty time when they get picked up.
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Interview: Eric and Liam Falcone
"Your records appear mostly correct. wonder of wonders, everything checks out, including the waivers." Commodore Linda Sithers shuffled the files. "I am still going to ask what two trueborn elementals are doing in a scrub unit."
"Washouts, ma'am." Eric's wearing a half-mask full of surgical presergel over his new eyes, they won't be healed enough from the surgery for another two weeks. I'm still in a wheelchair.
"Washouts from Sibko?" she asks.
"Yes Ma'am. we both tried to get a T-oh-P early, we both got our asses kicked hard, we were given the option of being recycled to the Laborer caste or signing up with the Kowloon forces. Star Colonel Icaza strongly recommended Militia billets and signed the transfer papers."
"Something about defective genetics." Eric adds. I ****** hate that excuse, even if they insisted it was true.
"The whole Sibko, Ma'am." I add. "We all got signed over to Kowloon, most of our sibbies were at the door to the Coast Guard recruit center the next day."
"but not you two?"
"We are the ones who led the failure, Ma'am." I tell her, "it was our punishment, it hit our whole squad, they deserved the better billet because we failed them."
"So GFM was second choice."
"May I clarify?" I say, "The Coast Guard is a formation that has an elite reputation going back to Kowloon's independence, half the heroes in Kowloonese history were Coast Guard Marines. My brother and I-and we are brothers, same germ cell, it twinned-we proved we weren't elite quality. the punishment to the rest of our batch was unfair, they deserved better, but...life is not fair unless us mortal people make it so-and that is an actions-more-than-words activity. WE took the lesser assignment so that more worthy candidates could advance in the superior service, ma'am."
"besides, someone needed to be there to save the poor bloody infantry." Eric jokes. he's the one with the sharp mind and sense of humor.
"How did you feel, in your first live combat?" she asks. Founder what a question??
"ma'am, it was not like training." I say.
"It was a lot not like Sibko training, it was more like Militia training, only louder and sweatier." Eric adds. He's right. There was no honor in that battlefield beyond the honor of what we were defending-defending civilians.
Of course, any wise old Falcon can tell you that's enough.
"How did you lose your legs, Liam?" she asks me.
"Well..I think I was still standing on the bustle-rack when the ammo blew, ma'am. I remember that much, and I kinda get little memories of flying...like a bird, not a pilot, adn then, the ground rose up...and well, you know. out like a light. I don't know if the Driver got out but I am fair certain that Sgt. Veil did not, he was pushing Corporal Tiernov up out the turret when I...had my flight?" I pause. confused feelings, "I miss her, you know? she was a good gunner, good friend, I thought I might have a chance with her..."
"Tiernov? Brother, Tiernov liked girls."
"That's just a rumor." I tell him, "just because Spatsky could not get with her..."
Eric snorts derisively, but drops the subject.
"And Eric?"
"you know those neat rifle grenades they issue? the ones with the variable fuse?" he asks
"I know them, yes."
"eh...well, it turns out even a proper shape charge warhead has a backblast, I should've used my bayonet, but the ammo was gone and I still had the grenades..." he shrugs, "Live and learn, I guess. Next time, I'll fix bayonets instead of trying to be clever with a rifle-grenade."
-
Falcon's loss, Kowloon's gain.. though the fact the falcons have been funnelling underage sibko washouts into Kowloon's military might be a headache in itself for the investigation.
i wonder if the Wolverines will want to recruit them.
-
Possible, but I think the Coast Guard might take them...
-
Interview: The Gurdebrand sisters (Bianh and Briah) conducted by Commander Vien Travis, KCGS Sally Jennings
"Sit, please. Your records don't match. You're both...well, twins, but that's it. Ages don't match, a close look and phenotypical features don't match. I would advise talking."
Briah looks at her sister, Bianh.
"Can we have a lawyer?" Bianh asks.
"Do you think you need one?"
"Shit yeah." Bianh says, "I think we dam well better have one."
the accent is wrong for Ia Drang. Heck, these two are wrong for Ia Drang. I've got a good imagination, I can piece together images in my head. Always have been able to. it made me a pretty good engineer and has won me peer awards in the Boojum Amatuer Fiction contest three years running.
"If you're from Ia Drang, I'm Simon Cameron reborn." I tell them, "Like I said, your records don't match, your accent's wrong, you aren't asiatic or saharan, and you're both between the ages of fifteen, and sixteen. so let's begin again. Last name?"
"Gurdeson." they both say.
"First names, you-?"
"Brianna." 'Bianh' says, finally looking a little ashamed.
"and you?"
"Brittany."
"And where are you from?"
"Devilrock." Brittany mumbles. "We're from Devilrock, okay?"
"so where is that?"
"It's on Hood IV, sir." Brittany contributes, "what the ****** else were we going to do? sixth grade educations, nobody uses draft-horses anymore, not since Her Grace brought back the technology, and even if they were, we lost our claim-share when Dad and mom had the accident. we took the settlement money and went to Kowloon because there's work there...only, we got no skills in demand."
Brianna pipes up, "AFFC, however, is always hiring, and it wasn't too much to get a guy in Ia Drang to phoney up some paperwork so we weren't gonna get caught being illegals."
"Your forger was shit." I tell her, "you got what you could afford, which was shit. I've seen better forgeries done by six year olds." Mind you, the six year old in question was yours truly and a certified genius, but still... "So you got through some lazy recruiter's processing office, and assigned to..what was your MOS?"
"Driver!" Brianna said, "Track one-Three one Charlie."
"Assistant Gunner." Brittany added. "Track Two Two Four Delta."
"can you read?"
"Of course." Brittany said, "we both can read, geez...what a question."
"Did you read the enlistment contract?"
"what were we hurting? huh? do you have any idea what kind of choices we were facing on Hood IV?"
"I'm getting a pretty good picture, ladies...now, I'm going to...where is it..?"
I dig around in the valise, and Lt. Mins, the Wolverine Provost supervising this hands me the documents with a clearing of the throat. "Thanks..."
I lay the stacks of paperwork in front of them.
"These should be familiar, they're standardized aptitude tests." I explain, "You will need pens...show your work in the math sections, if you can't or don't understand a question, skip it. Each section is timed, Mister Mins here, and Warrant Officer Silvermann will be grading and evaluating each portion as you finish a section...or as far as you get before you can't finish. Keep in mind, young ladies, this will have a significant impact on what comes out of this proceeding."
I flourish the stopwatch, "Begin!"
While they take the exam, I'm left to brood. it's never enough. These two were resourceful enough to get from Hood IV to Ia Drang aerodrome-we actually got a tip on the last communication with Spider Moon, the forger they used? got himself caught trying to counterfiet Kroner notes. He kept a list of customers and jobs, very convenient for us, not so smart on his part. These two are among around four hundred people the OCB has identified as using false documents to get into places they're not supposed to be.
but it's never enough-most of the cases seem to be like these two-kids leaving bad situations, runaways, or orphans or delinquents, people from places that the new prosperity not only didn't touch, but godhammered with obsolescence, whole industries and ways of life automated out of existence, mining communities that lost their livelihood because the Belt Mining and Rockjacks can turn out so much more product so much cheaper, and the handcrafters who lost livelihoods because factory products are...well, better? cheaper? more available? some combination of the three.
One farmer with a Coventry-Convent agromech can grow more crops reliably than four hundred sharecroppers using draft animals and hand work. there were a LOT of sharecroppers on Hood IV.
and it's never enough. We can't get the kids into schools fast enough, can't get alternate jobs and job training in place fast enough or wide enough. People fleeing poverty will grab onto anything to stay above it, these kids and hundreds like them have latched on to the fact that AFFC needs men all the time. that military service can get them the education they didn't get, that a discharge card stamped 'honorable' opens doors to escape that pit that is rural poverty without sacrificing pride by going into a welfare system or turning to crime.
I remember what it was like under the Regent, especially on the Plateau, and how it felt when your belly wants to eat its way through your spine, what it was like to be squatting in a shack on someone else's land, scrabbling for anything, and the burning shame of begging for a hand-out to stay alive one more day.
I would have done what these two did myself...but I ended up not being forced to.
"Well?" I turn to the Warrant officer.
"Reading level's about seventh grade, but her maths are fantastic, grasp of biology is pre-collegiate."
"And the other one?" I turn to Mins.
"fourth grade level reading, I'm going to say undiagnosed dyslexia for that, based on how bad her grammar is, the maths portion is phenomenal, the pattern recognition and organization abilities are pretty close to perfect scores. If I hadn't watched her do this test, I'd have assumed she was cheating somehow."
"That problem-the learning disability? it's not something your system's used to dealing with, is it?" I ask him.
He shakes his head, "We...kind of bred it out generations ago. we're having to re-learn how to handle it from the Colonials."
"right...okay. either of you have objections?"
"No." Mins said.
"alright, ladies, this, is your discharge form from the Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth, you will note the category is 'honorable', THIS, is your convictions for Falsifying Documents and conspiracy, you will sign them, because this? this is a Court Order, your sentences have been predetermined, we needed verify a few facts, like Brianna's deficiencies with written language. You will be transported, to Giap Island Residential School, where you will be educated until the age of Eighteen, you will then be enrolled in the Giap Island Coast Guard Academy, where you will recieve further education, and paychecks, paychecks that will continue to reach you for the next minimum ten years of active duty service in the Kowloon Coast Guard, after that mandatory ten years, you will be given the option of leaving service, or remaining until retirement. do you understand?"
"Uh..."
"Yes sir." Brianna said.
"Good, you're paying attention. sign the damn forms, your ride leaves in four months, which means for the next four months, you're part of my crew and will begin learning the ropes on a Coast Guard Cutter. the correct response, is 'Yes sir' or 'aye skipper'...and your signatures on those documents, tick-tock, time's a-wasting and you have a lot of learning to do in not very much time."
-
This next class out of Giap Island is going to be a doozy... ::)
-
Note how similar the stories are in some ways. Despite their backgrounds all being disadvantaged (in some cases outright hellish!) in one way or another that made conning their way into military service during multiple shooting wars the least-worst option they could see, every one of these kids is firmly placed on the top half of the bell-curve for ‘smarts’ in at least one way — some of them pretty far above the mean. Then again, I suppose that’s kind of inevitable; if they were outright dumb, they wouldn’t have been able to fake their way in in the first place (or secure the right resources to do it), much less hit the right combination of smart/dumb/lucky to survive a meat-grinder like the Battle of New Circe.
-
Nha Tranh, Kowloon, Government House
"HOW many?" The Duchess was dressed out, which is to say, back in her traditional blacks, glaring.
"We've confirmed around six hundred so far, from all over this end of the Commonwealth, it's not a statistically significant number, but it suggests for every one we've caught there might be ten or more we've missed." Commodore Alicia Li explained quietly.
"and..?" Liz pressed, "...It sounds suspiciously like you don't need me to fix this, Li. It sounds like you're going to be presenting me with the solutions?"
"I need you to bend some arms with the Assembly, Your Grace. I predict an influx that will reach the thousands once we've begun the official audit, and no small number of prosecutions as well. we need the funding and it's being, well...stalled."
"That's electoral politics Li, the Assembly is supposed to stall, they're also supposed to be reluctant to increase expenditures." the Duchess stated, "Gridlock is good, it keeps the government from committing to permanent solutions to temporary problems. Your job is to lobby for solutions and funding."
"it's also to lobby you when the legislature balks, Your Grace. We're already getting every phennig we can from the DMI without losing our functional autonomy."
"Fair point." Liz said, "Fair point...This problem, it's not going to go away any time soon, is it?"
"No ma'am."
"Is the Giap Island project working, in your opinion?" Liz asked.
"I believe it is, yes." Li told her.
"And is it a functional model that can work in other locations?" Elizabeth asked.
"I have testified as much to the Estates General's Defense and Military Education Committee, yes." Li nodded.
"Call Evelynn, ask her if she thinks we can set up sister schools on some of the harder hit worlds like Hood IV, or Arluna." Liz told her, "If Evvie says 'no' I'll...employ my remaining Ducal Prerogatives to increase funding and capacity at Giap Island by overriding the elected assembly by Decree, but if she says 'yes', you will put a team on implementation on every planet in the March. too much centralization is bad, we need to be sure we don't lose critical infrastructures in a single hit, and it will strengthen the Services if there is a fresh influx of new blood entering the service academies and eventually, the officer corps. Particularly new blood without long standing family traditions and deeply political Feudal roots. a professional Officer Corps. I'll ask Victor if he thinks the Star League can help finance the expansion. the bigger problem will be reinstating professional recruit processing here at home to catch these kids before they get shot up on some foreign shore."
"You're worried about blowback from the New Circe operation."
"Bingo was his name-o. yes." Liz said, "We're getting an audit over this...mess. I need to be having solutions before the auditors arrive, putting at-risk kids into forms of schooling that keep them off the streets a while longer is only one part of it, we need to keep those same at risk kids off the battlefields too, and we need to find a way to do it, while everyone from the Social Democrats to the Estates General are busy trying to find a reason to undermine things here and restore the corrupt old order."
"can the Exchequer help?" Li asked, referring to Elizabeth's 'other' title.
Liz thought about this. "Maybe. Maybe. I need to get on the books from Tharkad, see where I can legally pull money from wasteful spending, but it'll still take the Estates, or the Archon, or maybe the Archon-Prince once Victor's finished his term as First Lord, to get the transfers and programs approved."
-
I think Victor is smart enough to see the merits of this sort of system. especially given that his time as first lord has seen a major push for a sphere wide industrial overhaul.. its not just going to be the Melissia Theater hit by this, pretty much the entire inner sphere will be once the infrastructure improvements finish improving the overall level of the IS, and the economic and legal reforms finish cutting some of the deadwood out.
which means that really, the entire Fedcom needs to put that system, or something like it, into place. especially since they are going to be well on their way towards being able to throw around star league levels of military force once the infrastructure programs hits the stage where they have excess capacity available for exponential growth. they are going to need a lot of trained officers, comissioned and otherwise, as well as technical staff.
technically the entire inner sphere will need such a system, but the Combine, CapCon, and FWL will likely want to implement their own variations on the system due to cultural and societal differences. ditto the periphery states.
-
somewhere else...
"...George, I need you to do this." when Morgan Hasek-Davion, the Duke of New Syrtis, calls his regent, the Regent listens.
"You...want me to go on this 'auditing commission' to Kowloon?" George asked, "Is that right?"
"Yes. There are a lot of things going on there that I have grave concerns about. Victor doesn't seem to see how dangerous her activities might be, or how perilously close to becoming a breakaway and a civil war issue Elizabeth Ngo really is. I need to know if she's really that dangerous, or if my informants are lying, you're good at separating the facts from the fictions and I don't know anything about the people New Circe are sending."
"Sir, Your Grace, General, I have a lot of responsibilities here-there has been an uptick in criminal activity, suspicious movement on both our borders-"
"George..."
"but I will do this for you. heavens know, she does act like we're not the same nation, a reminder might be just the thing. You've cleared this with Yvonne, right?"
"I did, I also cleared it with Victor before I let you know you were being considered for this." Morgan told him, "Trust your wife, George, she's got a good head on her shoulders."
"Will do. want me to stop by on the way? bring some comforts of home to your lonely post on Luna?"
Morgan laughed, "I probably should say no...but stop by on the way back, I'll want your report in person. The brief is enclosed on the subchannel attachments..and thanks, you're a man who really 'gets it'."
visit the dragon in her den? oh, I get it. The CG of the Star League signed off.
"oh yeah. I get it...and maybe a chance to scuttle this Cappellan mess in the process before it gets out of control." George muttered. Part of it, of course, would be that he could do this, fix this impending mess, get things properly sorted, without bloodshed.
I just need to talk to her, in person, show her what's wrong with what she's doing. she's smart, she'll see reason.
"Jamiy!!" he called out, and his Aide-for-the-month came running.
"Yes milord?"
"Put together the silver briefing, including our intelligence estimates on the Cappellan Confederation, we're going to Kowloon."
"Yes Milord."
reasonable people when they're given the facts, come to reasonable conclusions. he was confident in that old saw, certainty right down to his bones.
George did NOT forget to also collect the briefs from the data-drive on the problem he was to investigate, the recruitment irregularities and the possible other issues in the Kowloon Theater.
-
George is going to be in for a rude shock...
-
anyone taking bets that Jamiy is actually a Leoben?
-
The story updates has been awesome! Its fascinating to see the point of view how the nobility of the FC see the children that enlisted into the AFFC as criminals and how members of the Kowloon CG is looking at helping the children, who are very intelligent get pass their mistakes and help them become better people.
The nobles, especially Morgan HD and George does not seem to realize breaking your own country's law to help other sectors of society is wrong. And that the Kowloon way is helping more that what they are doing in their own March. I wonder if George Hasek will get enlightened on his investigation into Kowloon and realize how can he help more people in his own March.
Looking forward to more story updates!
-
HPG conversation, P1, Kowloon to Sian
"You're going to have to enact reforms." Liz said, "Money won't fix the problem."
"Is that what you called to tell me? that money won't fix the problem?" Sun Tzu Liao asked, still blinking the sleep from his eyes, "It is a bit like observing the wetness of water."
she smiles a little sadly. It's dark through the living room window behind her, and early morning on Sian through the verandah behind him. "Victor told me you were smart, I guess leading off with the obvious was rather dim on my part. I've reviewed the economic reports and forecasts you sent ahead as part of your credit application. I must say I like that you're more honest with me, than your ministers are with your public, but you're in trouble. House Liao will be insolvent in ten years and the Yuan will be worth more as toilet paper than currency in fifteen. You need reform right ****** now. and it's going to be the painful kind."
"How...painful?" he asked.
"Speaking as your consulting economist? Your government is bloated to almost fifty percent of your productive population engaged in non-productive activity, your GDP is heading into the negative numbers on the chart, growth is stagnant, your economic engine is almost dead, and your social welfare system won't survive at current rates, it's your single largest exposure, and curbing it now? that's going to generate riots and civil war."
"You assume those are going to happen regardless." it wasn't a question in his tone at all. Clearly he'd analyzed the same data she had, and come to the same conclusions.
"Yeah. Your Grandfather and your mom did a hell of a job of both holdng things together, and speeding up the process of self-destruction. Here's what you need to do: integrate with Saint Ives-I'm not going to tell you how to do it, but when you do it, you adopt their economic model, and you conduct a round of trimming regulations and ministries-whole departments need to be shut down. I estimate something on the order of eleven billion government jobs need to be cut, then you need to wean your population off the welfare while your government is still solvent enough to pay your military and police-because in ten to fifteen years, you won't be, even if you retake Saint Ives and the Sarna worlds you lost to the Davions in the last big war."
"You think it's that bad?" now he sounded surprised.
"Yeah, Chancellor, I do. Going through the theater books here I thought we had a problem, your books make those books look like a calculator making a happy face-your mandarins are sitting pretty but they're also burning through funds faster than the wealth backing them can be generated, your working classes have the Soviet Problem."
"What is this 'soviet problem', Elizabeth?" he asked.
"The Soviet problem is a function of excessive central control, it's typified by irrational shortages in the midst of plenty, and it goes something like this-'They pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work'. Fully eighty five percent of your productive potential is wrapped up in servitor caste, who have zero reason to innovate, or be productive, beyond the gun put to their head-they don't have a clear path to social advancement and zero faith in the official pathway established in your legal system. this is a problem, because the usual way to turn a flagging economy around, is to convince the public that the economy is turning around-your population is cynical about that to a point that normal propaganda techniques won't sell it. Like I said, your mom did a hell of a job speeding up the crash."
"And what would the Archon's Inquisitor do in my situation?" He asked.
"I'd start with a saturday night massacre. go after incompetents-even loyal ones, keep the competent ones, at the upper level even if they're politically unreliable, and do it publicly with firings or forced resignations, followed by eliminating about half the departments you've got to manage, admit the problem, then address the problem. That creates confidence...I had to shoot people on live television myself to do it. you don't have the advantage of that being shocking, so I don't know what tactics you might use to generate comment and get awareness that the problem is being resolved."
"Does it have to be shocking?" he asked.
"Yeah. it does. Scandals will cross the Inner Sphere while simple truth is still pulling its boots on. Whatever move you make, needs to be big, and public and loud-get their attention, get them talking about it, arguing about it...this gets word out you're doing something a hell of a lot faster than an official notice on a mandatory media channel will." she shuffled some papers, "Whatever shocking thing you do, it needs to accomplish the following: eliminate the incompetent, the corrupt, and the ineffectual officials and departments in the Cappellan State, it also needs to pave the way for people to believe that things are getting better, that the economy is recovering, and that you know what you're doing...or that you're so crazy and ruthless your enemies can't stop you. both together works best, but the first things you need to do, are to bring things to a resolution with your aunt on Saint Ives in a public way that projects the image you want the people to believe in."
"Have you met my aunt?" he asked.
"Nope." Liz said, "believe it or not, I don't like to travel."
"Your TDS."
"Yeah. I hate travel. Victor can make me do it, Peter can insist, but past those two, I generally don't if I don't have to...now, as to the contracted package, I'm still going to extend the line of credit, you're still getting your physical goods off me, Victor's still pushing this deal, but I'm only a consultant. as the Client, you don't have to listen to any of my advice, and any that you do, you should think long hard thoughts on before implementing. Only you can know what you're going to do-I'm only going to offer options. That's not preaching, that's the boilerplate so you know that I know there are lines not to cross."
at this, he laughed. "Most of my advisors are so busy fawning they would never say something like that."
"Fire 'em." she said, "Hire people who will argue with you, or at least have the stones to be straight with you. Your mom set a bad example there, she got rid of everyone who would argue with her, and now you're in a nosedive. Fire the courtiers who won't tell it to you straight with no sugar, and promote or recruit people who will."
"I find that task is...difficult." he admitted, "You are not telling me things I did not already guess...or surmise."
she nodded. "But you're finding the right people, right?"
"Of course. It is difficult, not impossible. But it is good to hear it from someone else."
"Well, we're getting an audit on our armed forces due about a month after your inspection teams arrive at Boojum, as long as we're on the subject of competence..."
"My people are smart enough not to pull...shenanigans with George Hasek." he told her.
"Huh, George...hmm...Oh this is going to be such fun." she said with a pained expression. "Well, your production orders are in process, the first convoys of materials should be arriving by the end of the year, with training crew to help your manufacturing people get their feet under them."
-
Of course he already knew everything she was going to tell him... ::)
-
Of course he already knew everything she was going to tell him... ::)
Sun Tzu is very smart.. in canon he basically did what Liz suggested via the Xin Sheng movement. it took awhile and involved a lot more bootstrapping, since while he was technically the first lord at the time, he didn't really get any resources from the position to speak of beyond his handful of military tricks in St.ives, so he couldn't really do a slash-and-burn like Liz is suggesting. because he couldn't get outside credit to float the infrastructure side, and couldn't trust his neighbors enough to leave him alone during the inevitable period of confusion after. so he had to be a little more gradual. but it worked.
i wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't implement Xin Sheng in this timeline as part of what Liz is telling him.. Liz got away with intimidation tactics because she could trust her people to back her against the corruption. that wouldn't work in the capcon, because intimidation tactics have been how the state protected its own corruption for so long. if Sun Tzu just puts on trial and executes the incompetent officials, the CapCon populace isn't going to go "whoohoo, things are getting better', their response is gonna be to brace for bloody purges and oppression everywhere else, because clearly things had gotten so bad the celestial throne was looking for scapegoats again.
-
Hill Country, Arluna, July 3064...
The Duchess of Arluna is a fifteen year old girl, and she doesn't rule from a palace. His first impression of the girl, however, was not of a weakened, underage ruler.
To George Hasek, Debra MacAulliffe was impressive. He walked with her on a training range, her bodyguards, a pair of Cylon Centurions in the up-armored configuration, toting small cannons that probably wouldn't be out of place on battle-armor, flanked them.
"You understand the concern, then." he said, continuing their conversation.
"Ayeh." Debbie said, "Ah'm fully recoginant on et, see'd 'nough o' thet gone on mah whole lahf. Mah deddeh, he 'nlisted et Fifteen, warn't no problem back them days."
Her frankness was a refreshing change from the usual-even in the Federated Suns, some of those same issues were only discussed behind closed doors.
"So it is endemic."
she stopped, and picked up an expended shell casing from the dirt, "Ayeh, ah'd say 'tis." she looked up at him, a spill of red hair framing her face under her slouch hat. "Be'in Honnes?" she began, "Et's a Prollem goes back t'one thang..." she swallowed and then slowed her speech down more, "What are people supposed to do when there's no work, Duke Hasek? Starve?"
she flicked the expended case across the damaged ground. Her diction was the careful, measured pronunciation of two years worth of speech therapy. "The military is always hiring because we're always at war with somebody. when there's no money in farming, or mining, when the factories have all been blown up, what are folks supposed to do?"
"Your economy's in recovery."
"It aain..isn't recovered yet and there's more displacement." she kept her voice low, "Things are getting better for most, but for some, they're worse than they've ever been-because the skills they grew up with, the trades of their parents? those are going obsolete. Not everyone can learn to write code, there are only so many spots, but most people can learn to carry a rifle, especially when they're young."
she saw something move, he watched her turn, draw, and fire that revolver, a large, boar-like creature slid to a stop. she swept the area as her guards extruded guns and assumed alert, combat-stances.
she approached the dead pig, and prodded it with her boot. "Feral hogs." she looked up, "Kind of a problem locally, usually run in packs, but sometimes you get an old boar like this'n." she produced a long knife, and started gutting the dead animal right there.
"Here?" George asked, and knelt to watch.
"It's immoral not to eat an animal you've killed." she tells him, "food is always important, I'll have Bolo bring up the truck and call in the boys, we'll have us a cookout. Maybe have one of the neighbours bring up some whiskey an' covered dishes."
"May I?" he asked, rolling up his sleeves.
"sure." she handed him a second knife. "We'll have to skin it here, so I guess we won't be boiling the bristles off..."
"What do you think of Duchess Ngo?" he asked.
"She's good at th' job." Debra said, "Helped me out, sends her advice when she can, Ah owe her a piece, without her we'd still be dealin' with th' Twelve Famblies an' mebbe Ah'd be dead."
"So...favorable?"
"She...does...her...job." Debra said, grunting between words as she worked over a pig carcass almost as big as she is. "Not a lot of nobles do." she paused, squatting, her denim jacket slick and red with blood almost to her armpits. "Ah want to be like her-not with the psycho reputation, but do the job like her-she's turned things around, set an example. She ain' afraid t'git dirty doin' what needs doin'."
"You've had to do some of that yourself."
"Ah had help." Debra said, "but ayeh, I git mah hands dirty with th' work, an' Ah don't make believins elsewise..." she slowed down her words again, "We all have to project an image, right? You're in a dress uniform out here in the middle of nowhere, I've got blood on my sleeves. Image, I've killed men and faced men what wanted me dead. I've also spared men I maybe shouldn't have...and I'm only fifteen, normal people should never have to do that, or face that. They do, every day, but if I get my hands dirty when the work needs to be done, maybe some of them won't face it on a given day. maybe some folks can live their lives and never face it-because I got my hands dirty instead of worrying about being nice an' clean."
"And how you're percieved?"
"If it scares my potential enemies, or makes 'em think two times a'fore crossing me?" she shrugged, "Then I did the job. If people are alive to be offended, instead of dead in ignorance? I've done my job...one thing what isn't a-gonna happen anymore here, is midnight raids with 'mechs slaughtering families over domestic politics or corrupt land deals."
a cold reminder of the rather dry reading on Arluna he'd endured coming here. she gained her position because her family was murdered by her predecessor over land.
"I agree, nobody should have to go through that." he said.
She smiled, and it still didn't touch her eyes. "Thet's my objective. Never let thet happen to someone here, ever agin. if someone dies, it's because they need killin'."
-
FCS Spirit of New Syrtis, 24 hours later...
George Hasek stared out the viewport at the receding shape of Arluna. He felt like he'd just had a look at an entirely different kind of war. "You know, Jamiy, back home, we have one enemy, and he's right in sight, an enemy we've known for generations."
"Yes sir."
The Ducal Regent of the Cappellan March turned, "It kept us focused, maybe too focused."
"I don't know what you mean, sir." the younger man said.
"I've spent a week with a girl barely older than my daughter." he said, "Who is fighting a war, one without front lines or clean, clear borders, or even easily recognized enemies."
"The MacAulliffe girl, sir?"
"Duchess MacAulliffe." George corrected him, "A pig farmer's daughter, Jamiy, and I would take her over most of the dukes and barons under me in a heartbeat."
"Why sir?"
"because she understands, Jamiy, she understands where her duty is, and what it costs. I should pity her, but I don't. The MIIO reports painted a picture of someone else-a jumped up commoner and a puppet for the local Margrave, Elizabeth Ngo." he shook his head, "The analysts don't get it."
"I don't think I do either, sir."
"As nobles, we have a duty to those who follow us, just as we have a duty to those above us, but our first concern is for those who follow us. Michael didn't understand that, hell, most of the Family doesn't...that girl walks the walk and it suggests something to me about her Liege Lord, because Ngo elevated her ahead of men whose lineage in the peerage runs back centuries...and I see why."
His aide was silent for a moment, "because she killed a wild boar?"
"because she grasps the importance of setting an example, and of living that example." George corrected the young man. "To be Noble in action, rather than merely in title, truly noble-not for the privileges, not for the authority. To wrest that authority with moral authority, There's an old Belter saying, 'is your word good?', too many of my peers, even subordinates, can not answer that question honestly."
"Lead from the front?" Jamiy suggested.
"Yes, but not just in battle. in everything you do. If that kid is the kind of people Elizabeth Ngo is surrounding herself with? sponsoring? giving important work to? It speaks to character." he smiled for the first time since lifting from Arluna, "Things are going to go very well, I think, once we reach Kowloon."
-
Interesting indeed. I see CS is continuing his tradition of competant, interesting antagonists. And we have yet to see just what Georgie will end up doing, don't we? He's certainly getting an interesting new perspective on things.
-
Intermission: A note on Heraldry...
House Macaulliffe: one of the newest noble houses in the Federated Commonwealth. The heraldry was chosen from a contest held in the public schools of Arluna's smaller communities as judged by a panel of barons from the world's largest cities.
Image: a wild boar superimposed over a crossed butcher's knife over a skinning knife, lower field is dark red, upper field is a representation of a green mountain backed by a blue sky. Crown of the crest is the Lyran Fist, denoting loyalty to the nation, the border is a representation of a broken chain ending in a meat-hook.
Motto is written in Castilian Spanish: Al servicio de la nación y de las personas
House Ngo:
Pattern: Shield over blood crusted pikes.
Shield: Black field, white border. in red and gold, the image of a hammer, anvil and tongs. at the top of the crest, the Steiner Fist. The border is a broken chain ending in broken manacles.
rampant above the shield, is a leaping Orca, representing centuries of resistance against the Rim Worlds Republic.
banner-motto: "Do that which must be done."
-
I do believe George is beginning to get it...
-
Charles Sobral High School, McEvedy City, district 201, New Circe, 8 AM "Summer School" hours...
"Lerner? Lerner? Samantha Lerner?" the instructor at the front of the room called as the door opened, and a small, brunette girl wearing somewhat clashing civilian clothes hurried in. "Samantha?" she asked.
"Sorry ma'am, I got lost!" the girl answered.
"Take a seat, we're just taking roll, near the front, please?"
it wasn't a punishment-most of the kids here were head-and-shoulders too tall for Sam to see the display board clearly otherwise. She found herself next to the only other 'normal sized' person present, a redheaded girl in Colonial fashions wearing a pendant of Diana.
"Yes Ma'am." Sam sat down.
"Okay, Scott Merino? there you are! and Mister Thomlinson, how delightful...Okay, for those of you who are new, I'm Mrs. Abrosimova, your homeroom teacher and this period is your History class. Some of you are new, such as Miss Priex and miss Lerner, some of you have been in my classes before and are attending this course as a Remedial course, Mister Thomlinson, Mister Merino, Miss Schaeffer, Miss Aamodt... this class period is a privilege, misconduct means that instead of making up your missing credits, you will be repeating a scholastic year beginning in September. For the new students, your textbooks are already downloaded into your school-issue portables. This is not an easy school-I grade hard, because harder training makes for easier retention."
Mrs Abrosimova rounded her desk and leaned against it, "However, today is day one, and I like to think I care about my students, so I would like to begin this by having the new students introduce themselves, beginning with Miss Priex?"
The girl next to Sam stood up, "Uhm, hi, I'm Deanna Priex, I'm living with the Thomlinsons after my p-p-p..."
Sam reached out and touched the Colonial girl's arm, "Hey...relax, okay, you don't have to bare it all here. You're livin' with the Thomlinsons, things are going to be better."
The girl seemed to calm a little. "May I sit?" she asked in a thick greek accent.
"Go ahead...Miss Lerner?"
Sam stood up, "Hi, I'm a recent immigrant to New Circe, all the way from New Saigon on Kowloon. I think some of the scandal leaked about me and some of the other grunts. I...I have a lot of credits to make up, so it's cram-school and then grade ten for me, So I'm kind of already repeating a grade off the start line."
several of the boys stared at her. "What? I got something on my face?"
"You're...you were in the city when the Cylons attacked?" Priux asked.
"Uh, yeah...is this gonna get weird? there a joke I'm not in on here?" Sam felt the anxiety come back.
"You fought them...like, face to face?" a skinny (but still freakishly tall) boy asked from the third row, "I mean, right there?"
"West Side defense line, eighteen hours." Sam answered, "One of the lucky ones, good TR spectrum and light wounds..." she looked over to Deanna, "Lighter than hers, anyway. I only lost some blood and lung tissue..." she nodded to the Colonial girl, "She lost everything that mattered, if anyone ****** with her, I'll be rearranging their faces..." she caught Merino's eye, "Even if it means I gotta grab a two-step stool to reach said face. Us short folk gotta stick together, the whole universe is scaled you giants." she grinned.
and that broke some of the tension.
Sam turned around, "Ma'am, permission to be seated, Ma'am?"
"Go ahead..."
-
I do believe George is beginning to get it...
I hope (for his sake) that George is beginning to get it
-
New Saigon, 3 AM, same day that Sam Lerner is attending the first civilian school she'd seen since running away from home at eleven...
The waterfront area belonged to the Slim-Ta Tong, police don't come here except in riot armored squad strength with vehicles.
well...didn't.
Tonight, half a dozen Coast Guard Cayman class boats have rolled up to marinas and docks, and Coast Guard choppers have replaced the relatively scarce helicopter patrols run by the Metropolitan Police.
How many?
this isn't a patrol, this is an invasion.
From the landward side, muffled tanks rolling on 'buffered' tracks are rolling up the streets, escorting squads of assault marines and Marine Centurions.
the district nicknamed 'gangland' by the locals, is closed off in seconds.
the cutters deploy their marines as well, from the dockside, and the sweep begins. Unlicensed brothels, uninspected 'wet-house' bars, and other businesses that comprise the 'night life' of New Saigon are hit nearly simultaneously, as street-walking 'freelancer' prostitutes are also rounded up, their pimps identified and secured, gang enforcers run down and brought down with ruthless efficiency.
These aren't metropolitan cops, but several Met cops are also taken down, off-duty and acting as muscle for the local gangs. a detachment moves a few kilometers to the south, hitting the home of the deputy mayor, chief of police, and two city councilmen.
by 0600, the Marines are departing, leaving a detachment in the market square, city building, and several police stations near the Waterfront area.
The prisoners weren't exactly 'disappeared'. a few junior members of gangs, most of the freelancers and support personnel from the gangs were released fairly quickly. the targets, were the leadership and senior members, with a special attention to known or suspected former members of the New Saigon Scumdogs.
The presence of three magistrate judges during the operation was notable mainly for for the fact they were signing warrants almost as fast as said warrants were requested.
By 0800, only a handful of Coast Guard Caymans were in the bay. The rest, have already rounded the outlet of the Little Yangtze river and headed south down that mighty flow.
Madripoor Sandbar Island, Golden Lake...
"Take the hoods off, boys." Elizabeth Ngo's voice is distinctive. The kneeling prisoners had their hoods removed, they could see again, not much comfort, they were restrained in that position, a bamboo post threaded behind their bound arms and secured to a hitch.
"Hello boys and girls. Urban Gang activity has become something of a problem." the Duchess said, hopping off the back of a cargo truck loaded with wooden stakes. "Normally a tolerable problem but some activities by your organization, and non-responses by you officials, have led me to the decision that a ducal...intervention is required. Some of you, will walk back into your lives with an understanding of the rules. some of you, will...not be walking back into your lives, for breaking those rules."
she walked up on Zim Diaow, the leader of the Slim-Ta Tong. "you might say this is a summit, since you've been carving an empire on MY territory...and the way you're doing business disturbs my calm."
she reached into the pocket of her jacket, drew out a list, and began naming names. as she did so, those prisoners were released from the crossbar and half-dragged to the back of the truck.
"There will be no explanations, no rationalizations. From now on, there will be no trafficking in underage prostitution."
A pair of marines stood the Chief of Police up. "There will be no pandering to pedophiles." she jerked her head, and he was led to the side of the vehicle, where he started shouting and kicking.
she pulled on a paper overcoat, and a pair of fluid-resistant goggles, along with a hood and rubber gloves as a Marine secured his legs in an iron crossbar with a draw-loop.
this one wasn't hooked to a hand-cranked winch, this one was connected to the truck's own unditching winch.
she set the tip of a blue-wood post through it, and using a control, drew him down until the rounded tip of the stake was nestled in an uncomfortable place near the gusset of his pants.
"I am willing to look aside at gambling, numbers rackets, regular prostitution, even drug dealing." she explained, "This is the line, the one line those of you who are permitted to return to your sordid lives will not cross, you will not enable perverts to abuse children, nor will you abuse children for your own amusement." she planted a foot on the base of the stake, and pressed the green button on the winch control.
He screamed, first as his body was violated, then, as the stake first rearranged, and then pierced his internal organs. once fully inserted, she disconnected the winch and nodded to a Chief, who dragged another man-this time, a gang underboss, over, and prepared him.
"If someone approaches you seeking to have sex with a child, you are best advised to kill them immediately. It won't make the murder charge go away, but enabling it? taking the money and giving them a child to abuse?" she hooked up the chainfall to the next one, stepped on the stake's base, so that it would pivot into the post hole, and pressed the button.
"Gets this." she finished. "Next."
at the end of it, she had twenty twitching, screaming, dying people on stakes on the sandbar.
she then took off the spattered smock, hood, and hairnet.
"I want this to be absolutely clear, and let your underlings, contacts, friends, know what you have seen here. These people crossed that line. this is the punishment for trafficking in children's flesh."
She turned to a rather ill-looking Coast Guard Captain. "Charge who you're going to charge, turn the rest loose to walk up the highway home."
"Aye mum." he said. "And...them?"
"Leave them for the carrion birds. we'll find out who is too stupid to live later." she said coldly.
-
Ciudad Oxford...
"I'm going to give you a choice, senor Herrera. behind door number one, you are cooperative, my surgeons do some work, change your face, and you get a ticket off world. Door number two, you do not cooperate, and I will make you an example for the public to see, a memory burned on the public's mind of what lines must not be crossed." Debra learned to speak formal spanish, and her accent was almost indescribably different, being properly castilian.
"I think I would like door number one, please, Senora Duchess." her prisoner said nervously.
"That does not sound sincere." Debra said, and drew the chainfall over a debristling pot. "Where did your partners get the children?" she asked.
"I don't know!!"
she looked at the others, a group of organized criminals. "Ah see." she shifted to english, "Well, y'all dun screwed up, you don't know what ah wanna know, we caught you in bed with a six year old."
she hit the release on the winch, and he plunged into boiling lye, his screams echoed as the caustic concoction boiled and ate through his skin at low temperature.
she frowned with hardened eyes, "So...who would like to answer my questions?" she carefully pronounced, "About child trafficking on my world? I want customer lists, I want suppliers, and I will boil every middle-man I find until I get those answers, and feed the remains to the hogs."
-
In both instances, I agree with Duchesses are doing, but Daaaaaamn.
-
And George didn't see either one doing those things, either... ::)
-
And George didn't see either one doing those things, either... ::)
There are two things you never want to see being made: laws and sausages.
-
And George didn't see either one doing those things, either... ::)
Sun-Tzu Liao, on the other hand... I´m half-convinced that, if he´d seen her do this, he´d have proposed marriage to her on the spot.
Well, as soon as he was done puking his guts out, presumably.
-
Sun-Tzu Liao, on the other hand... I´m half-convinced that, if he´d seen her do this, he´d have proposed marriage to her on the spot.
Well, as soon as he was done puking his guts out, presumably.
Or just be jealous, see not only is such violence from the Chancellor seen as routine rather than shocking? It is also seen as capricious. Here? Shocking, disturbing, but a dangerous undercurrent of only being inflicted on the 'deserving'. It covers the brutality in a cloak of righteousness. However much it flaunts the rule of law not men Liz claims she wants.
-
Sun-Tzu Liao, on the other hand... I´m half-convinced that, if he´d seen her do this, he´d have proposed marriage to her on the spot.
Well, as soon as he was done puking his guts out, presumably.
Liz: I'm already married!
Sunny-boy: nobody's perfect.
-
Kowloon Intrasystem Aerodrome, Ia Drang...
Ducal Regent to New Syrtis, General George Hasek stepped off the shuttle in the early morning hours, to find Her Grace, Elizabeth Ngo, Duchess of Kowloon, waiting in the frigid, windy, mid-July weather.
"Sorry about the last minute deviation, sir." she said, "We've gotwhite-out conditions in the plains and Nha Tranh's getting hit hard."
"I understand. You know, with the technical miracles coming out almost daily, I would've thought you'd put some effort into weather control technologies!" George answered.
she laughed, "Remind me to bring that up with the Assembly!" they hurried out of the oncoming blast of snow into the terminal.
out of the howling midwinter, he realized how cold it must be outside at the blast of warm air that made his extremities tingle.
"I forgot, it isn't summer here." he said in a more normal tone of voice.
she shrugged, "It's too bad you had to come in mid-winter, in the summer, the view from here is spectacular." a Port officer offered him a cup of something hot.
George warmed his fingers on the cup first, then sipped it. "Spicy Chocolate?" he asked.
"Yeah, kind of a mid-winter treat, the harvest from Camranh this year was spectacular." she said, "The weather report says this blizzard will let up around nine. I can have parkas arranged if you want to start with the Flight line, but I'd advise waiting until this weather system clears. in the meantime..." She looked around and her her daughter stepped out, "There you are! come, meet the Future duke of New Syrtis honey!" she beckoned, and Amanda walked up.
"It is an...honor to meet you, sir." the girl said, doing a somewhat clumsy curtsey in her snow-boots and heavy jacket.
"It is very nice to make your acquaintance." George said with a bow. "Amanda, right?"
"Yes sir." the girl said.
"You brought your daughter out in this?" he asked Elizabeth.
"I was playin' outside, but momma said I had to come inside when the VIP's got here, VIP means 'Very Important Person'." Amanda said.
george felt a chil that had nothing to do with the weather-he'd watched their approach, the Aerodrome was right on the edge of a two kilometer drop to the lowlands, and visibility was terrible.
"this close to the edge?" he asked.
"We've actually got fencing, Lord Hasek." Liz said, "And the security detail wouldn't let her get close to the fenceline, much less the drop."
-
"We've actually got fencing, Lord Hasek." Liz said, "And the security detail wouldn't let her get close to the fenceline, much less the drop."
Amanda: "Challenge Accepted." :D
-
Knowing Amanda, she'd survive the fall too... ::)
-
"...sometimes in science, it's nothing more than 'Hey Y'all, watch this!!' that's the moment wise administrators rush to cut funding."
-Professor Joel "Teller" Nha Tranh 001
KCGS Chorus Bay, Sampan IV cutter assigned to the National Laboratories...
They figured out a way to transport it-we have to use the Tyllium drives, but the damn thing works. This was probably the single scariest part of the mission so far. The plotted system has no planets, but does possess a flickering white dwarf in a hydrogen rich nebular cloud with plenty of dust and gravel.
It's weird doing 'pure science', weirder still because this pure science is also a potential weapons test. then again, what kind of weapon do you call it? we've spent the last three months depositing solar impactors in a pattern that follows the star's magnetic field. the test itself is kinda weird, and the crew have bets on whether they're going to get any reasonable amount of data from doing this-and I don't blame them a bit.
but hey, it's probably the single safest way to dispose of...well...anything, really. the stuff this squadron's been laying gives me cold shivers-antimatter.
lots of antimatter, kept in stabilized form.
They have been synthesizing the stuff at the giant cyclotron for years, a stockpile of dangerous, well, okay, ULTRA dangerous material too shifty to trust in a KF field.
we are almost ****** done, and I'm so glad we are you just don't know.
as I watch the rest of the ships finish their offload and jump out of the system on the status monitors, I'm left wondering what in hell we're playing at.
see, we've distributed roughly 12,000 hydrogen tons of pure antihydrogen in discrete packets around a ****** star.
The satellites brought in by the Genniver Lincoln are in place at the edge of the local heliopause-that space where the solar wind becomes so dispersed it no longer overcomes the star's gravitation.
this experiment is ****** insane.
the egghead in charge of the mission has checked with the rest of the eggheads, and they're giving me the signal from control.
we jump out to the limit, and send the detonation signal.
we'll see something in about 12 hours...
12 Hours later...
And now, it's RLAB time-that means "run like a bitch".
The EMP from whatever the experiment did, well, imagine hitting a big, big, ****** gong with a hammer, only this gong is made of electromagnetism and the hammer is matter annihilation in a star's corona sphere. The outlying sats actually got the neutrino spray before they went down from the pulse. HUGE spray.
BONG!!!!
we jump to 12 light hours further out, and the signature is getting louder.
still not passing the speed of light, though. Based on what we DID get before the monitoring sats crapped out, the thermal and light frequency bloom suggest we'll be able to see the event from Ia Drang on a clear day.
-
Did... did they just figure out how to make a star go nova?! :o
-
As a cartoon Martian once said “Ka-Boom”.
-
Twelve thousand tons of antimatter.
*shudder*
Okay.
https://www.edwardmuller.com/index.php?Page=calculator
The annihilation reaction alone will be 468,480,000 megatons equivalent.
That's about four and a half Chixulub impactors, or two-thirds of a shot from the Death Star.
(For the Trekkies in the audience, that's about eight million photon torpedoes.)
A Nova? No. A star is a fecking big thing. Dropping the entire Earth into it, it'd barely notice.
It will however cause one frakking hell of a Coronal Mass Ejection.
Imagine a flamethrower the size of Jupiter.
-
Twelve thousand tons of antimatter.
*shudder*
Okay.
https://www.edwardmuller.com/index.php?Page=calculator
The annihilation reaction alone will be 468,480,000 megatons equivalent.
That's about four and a half Chixulub impactors, or two-thirds of a shot from the Death Star.
(For the Trekkies in the audience, that's about eight million photon torpedoes.)
A Nova? No. A star is a fecking big thing. Dropping the entire Earth into it, it'd barely notice.
It will however cause one frakking hell of a Coronal Mass Ejection.
Imagine a flamethrower the size of Jupiter.
Any idea about how far out a Coronal Mass Ejection of that size is going to be dangerous to inhabited planets?
I assume that this planetary system would be toast, if the white dwarf in question had a planetary system. But will it be a danger to neighboring systems?
-
I shudder to think of the EMP pulse that a CME of that scale would release.
Are Cylons vulnerable to that kind of thing?
-
I shudder to think of the EMP pulse that a CME of that scale would release.
Are Cylons vulnerable to that kind of thing?
per the Series pilot, yes. Lee Adama actually used the Galactica's EMP emitters (which were in the bay of colonial one) to disrupt the cyclon's sensors enough to make them think the ship had been destroyed. apparently they effect the old style cylons even more than the newer ones, but it is a tactic discouraged by the Colonial military academies, presumably since systems powerful enough to hit cylons at range are also powerful enough to disrupt colonial tech. (given that colonial one was pretty messed up by the blast Lee released, i suspect that for anything other than 1st war battlestar, the hardening just isn't enough to avoid messing yourself up.)
https://en.battlestarwikiclone.org/wiki/EMP
the hard radiation storm from a CME would also do a number on the organic aspects of the newer cyclons as well (skinjobs, hybrids, and raiders)
-
That much anti-matter could cause a lot of problems for a star, the shockwave(s) if nothing else. Check out the link in the Astronomy thread down in Off-Topic. Betelgeuse is doing some weird things all on its own, without a nudge of that size. Stars work because the pressure of the fusion reactions balances the gravitational forces. Throw off that balance, who knows what will happen? SCIENCE! :D
The mere fact Liz is letting them do something this big for SCIENCE is significant in and of itself. 8)
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they're in vacuum. shockwaves will be minimal.
-
I mean shockwaves within the star...
-
As a cartoon Martian said “ KA-Boom.
-
Twelve thousand tons of antimatter.
*shudder*
Okay.
https://www.edwardmuller.com/index.php?Page=calculator
The annihilation reaction alone will be 468,480,000 megatons equivalent.
That's about four and a half Chixulub impactors, or two-thirds of a shot from the Death Star.
(For the Trekkies in the audience, that's about eight million photon torpedoes.)
A Nova? No. A star is a fecking big thing. Dropping the entire Earth into it, it'd barely notice.
It will however cause one frakking hell of a Coronal Mass Ejection.
Imagine a flamethrower the size of Jupiter.
468480000 Megatons (468 Teratons) or is 1.960120319E+24 Joules according to this calculator (https://www.unitconverters.net/energy/megaton-to-joule.htm).
Be generous and round that up to 2E24. Death Star attack is 1E38 joules. 1E38/2E24 = 50,000,000,000,000. So the Death Star attack is 50 Trillion times more powerful than 12,000 tons of antimater. That's also why the Death Star is using the made up hypermater instead of antimater.
Put another way the gravitational binding energy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_binding_energy) of the Earth is 2.49E32 joules. The gravitational binding energy is the amount of force gravity is exerting to hold the planet together and what you have to overcome to blow the planet up. Trying to overcome more than 32 zeroes worth of force with only 24 zeroes of force is going to get nowhere fast.
Edit: According to wiki Chicxulub was 5.8E25 joules. 5.8E25/2E24=29 or if your feeling less fancy 58/2=29 That puts Chicxulub at 29 times as powerful as 12,000 tons of antimatter.
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That depends on the effects on the
fusion processes holding up the star. If they get disrupted by the shockwave, there could be some collapse that then multiplies the ultimate effect. That's why I mentioned "nova" as a possibility...
EDIT: Removed "fusion" for clarity.
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That depends on the effects on the fusion processes holding up the star. If they get disrupted by the shockwave, there could be some collapse that then multiplies the ultimate effect. That's why I mentioned "nova" as a possibility...
Nah, it's a white dwarf. There aren't any fusion processes. Edit: White dwarfs are basically dead starts that quit undergoing fusion.
The material in a white dwarf no longer undergoes fusion reactions, so the star has no source of energy. As a result, it cannot support itself by the heat generated by fusion against gravitational collapse, but is supported only by electron degeneracy pressure, causing it to be extremely dense.
There is a good wiki page about blowing up white dwarfs under Carbon detonation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_detonation).
-
You might want to check out the transient conditions present when a shockwave passes through... That just might lead to carbon detonation...
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Ok, Carbon Detonation hadn't occurred to me, I'll admit.
And given the placement of the antimatter (in packets completely surrounding the star) they may have been going for an implosion.... with CD as the explicit goal... ow.
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For SCIENCE! :D
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For SCIENCE! :D
Naw, the Kowloon Coast Guard just said, "Hold me beer." :o
-
Sheesh. And I thought Rodney McKay was bad.
Or is Soren trying to reach the Nexus again?
Who lets Rednecks play with antimatter?
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Sheesh. And I thought Rodney McKay was bad.
Or is Soren trying to reach the Nexus again?
Who lets Rednecks play with antimatter?
No, they just Carter-ized (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcF0VSi4qxc) that star. ;D
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“ Who lets Rednecks play with antimatter?”
Never read any John Ringo have yeah, now?
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Given the Kowloonese heraldry described up-thread, I doubt this particular set of antimatter bombs were meant to paint the target orange....
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No, they just Carter-ized (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcF0VSi4qxc) that star. ;D
That's a good one! ;D
-
It is an elegant solution to that Cylon faction.
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Vin Drin Lap Airfield, southwest sector, Golden Lake District...
The next to arrive was the Clan Wolverine inspection team from New Circe. While considerably south of both Nha Tranh and Ia Drang (and thus closer to the antarctic line) Vin Drin Lap enjoyed some heat effect from Golden Lake itself-the underwater vulcanism heated the water of the lake well above freezing levels, keeping it a very mild 65 degrees farenheit year round near the surface thanks to a massive spreading fault running between two continental plates and forming the lowest 'floor' of the entire Little Yangtze/golden lake basin.
in a few million years, the southern landmass would be two continents separated by a mineral-rich sea, but that's in a few million years.
Right now, what it means, is that while there's snow in the surrounding highlands and blizzards up on the massive Ia Drang Plateau, it's a comfortable shirtsleeves environment down in the Golden Lake district-not quite tropical heat, but more like southern Europe than the global position should indicate...
-
Nice little bit of world building.
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Continued
Weather made the decision. This is 'deep winter', a period that happens fairly regularly thanks to Kowloon's 730 standard day orbit. about every ten years or so, roughly, the planet enters an orbital period where only one sun is shining. given that Kowloon's suns orbit one another at a slightly different rate, Deep Winter happens fairly infrequently, the periods where the excentricities of orbital mechanics place the planet at apogee, while facing only one sun, are relatively rare. When it happens, however, the cold is brutal. The alternative, "High Summer" tends to happen more frequently. a Deep Winter tends to last around four to six months, and happens around twice in any given ten year period.
In the surrounding high country of the Iron Hills and the continental spine mountains, the frost line lowers and the ice builds up. come spring, there will be raging rivers in Minsky's folly where there are normally thin, thready streams, and in Camp John, the cactus-analogues will bloom...and there will be flooding along most of the rivers.
but that's months away, probably in late October or early November.
Right now, Colonel Patricia Hammerick is glad the Recruit Depot Processing center is a large, well-insulated building well above the flood line. Patricia's a Military Surgeon, her normal posting is Fort Ebon's post hospital.
While it's nice to be indoors while snowfall is making people miserable outside, she's not a particularly happy Military Doctor. The problem, is the equipment she's looking at for medical screenings.
'primitive' doesn't cut it, this stuff is positively 21st century, if not in technology, in implementation. The medical personnel she's interviewing know trauma backwards and forwards, know how to diagnose diseases, cancers, and maladies, can can probably sew a limb back on in a muddy ditch under fire.
What they are...well, maybe 'undertrained' in, is screening for things like chronological age, genetic defects, the things that the SLDF used to screen for routinely before three centuries of brutal warfare shifted priorities.
and so far, since she began her audit in the region on Jessenice, this was the best equipped facility thus far.
"You don't look happy, Patty." Commander Thorpe, from Intelligence, noted.
"I'm looking at the answer." Patricia said, "Actually, I looked at this answer on Jessenice, and Arluna, and Hood IV on the way here. I don't know what I was expecting but I know what my conclusions are." she sighed, "They're not even equipped for a deep screening. Nobody's trained for one either, and it isn't just Kowloon-those kids slipped through with falsified or forged, or no records, because nobody's put a priority on that in three hundred years, and based on what I've gotten from the people here..." she closed a terminal's window, "Kowloon never did. Some of those Corpsmen out there know surgical techniques that fit with seventh year surgical candidates in training back home, but they really don't bother teaching them to use the scanning gear to determine age. They just count the teeth and do a surface physical for general health and off to Basic Training..and sometimes they don't bother counting the teeth."
George Hasek leaned on a desk. "Yeah, Lean a rifle against him and if he doesn't fall over, he's in." he quipped, "We see it a lot in the Broken Wheel area troops too-for Militia units the entry standards are more in line with 'can they learn how to soldier and can they be counted on not to fall apart' and that's as far as it gets-but we're usually able to catch the Juniors before they get into the Regulars-at least, on my side of the FedCom."
"What's the difference?" Thorpe asked, he could guess the answer.
"Well, we're looking." George explained, "We're more selective because we're watching for it. there's a known enemy on the Cappellan border, keeping the next generation from trying to be cannon fodder this generation is enough of a problem we're watching for it. Out here? Fifteen Years ago, nobody even heard of the Clans, they didn't have to keep an eye out for patriotic young people who want to be heroes against a known enemy, because the closest thing to a long-standing problem was a few bandit raids once in a while, and aside from Regular forces and Mercs, there wasn't much money available to fund militaries on this end."
"And now, there is." Evangeline Stephanopoulous, an SLDF officer from Andurien and the 'outside voice' brought in to keep the audit balanced, noted.
"Yeah. sudden military expansion, mixed with economic dislocation and a growing tax base to pay for soldiers." George contributed. "they dump it into training and into field gear and support, but the screening? not so much. In a way, this is a security issue too."
"because it makes it easier for spies to get in." Thorpe observed.
"Yep." George said. "The area wasn't important until Liz made it important. These folks are behind the ball on updating their recruit screening, and I'd wager they need training in how to screen recruits-especially on things like age and eligibility, plus the whole end of the Commonwealth out here is about as screwed up on their record-keeping as Broken Wheel or Filtvelt."
"Is it a finding?" Thorpe suggested.
"yeah. It's a finding. Steph?"
"Finding...but it's one that could apply almost anywhere outside the core worlds of the Inner Sphere." the FWL officer said, "Honestly, their facilities are pretty good for a second tier organization, I've been taking notes to take back home."
"It's a finding. We're going to have to put Kowloon's Coast Guard, and the Kowloon Brigade, and the MTM's in the area on Probation." George said, "is the review group certain? we're going to have to bring in oversight if we are."
"You're reluctant?" the Wolverine doctor asked.
"Yeah, I am." George stated, "If we put these people on oversight and probation, we'll have to recommend it for half the military units in the Star League-because this?" he gestured at the data center, "It's compliant with the standard practices of better than half the militaries in the Inner Sphere, including the AFFC. it's just not Star League Regulations Compliant."
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Boojum Shipyard...
Sang-Shao Cal Men Yu floated easily over the construction slips on Arm 22 of the shipyard, looking at the ship under construction here. The KF core was mounted oddly, buried in the spine of the skeletal frame, as crews manuevered special paneling along the length of it.
"What does that do?"
"Gravity plating, Sang-Shao." the Yard engineer floating next to him in vacuum was not exactly human-by any standard. While he had to wear a suit, Mister Parker was an artificial intelligence, a robot, a Cylon, also a part-owner of this area of the shipyard.
the Cylon, obviously, did not require a pressure suit or life support.
"And it generates a shaped gravitational field?"
"Yes, it does. I thought you'd want to observe the installation of the modified main interstellar drive before we got to discussions on the secondary drive, LF battery, or fusion power packs." Parker explained. The Cylon's Mandarin was flawless, and his voice over the suit radio was almost...but not quite human.
Inflections were there, but the tonal frequency was one no human would ever have.
"This is all very advanced looking." he admitted.
"Well, the specification called for current SLDF specs, the shipboard gravity system, is part of that specification."
"I don't think we have anyone trained in such devices."
"You will." Parker stated, "The gravitic systems also provide an Inertial Dampening. We're still working on implementation on larger vessels-there are technical hurdles integrating them into ships with fusion power units over a certain size, mostly power distribution and maintaining the toroid's magnetic bottle, but we're getting to be old hands on ships this size. further down, I can show you a cutter that is more complete, due to materials processing times, we're having to parallel in sequence along the production arms, as we head toward the far end, the ships grow more complete."
"I would like that, very much." the Capellan officer said, "Will we be able to put these into production?"
"Probably, I suspect Her Grace assumes you will want to develop your own, native designs using the hardware and principles." Parker suggested, "One hundred six cutters sounds like a lot, but really, in terms of capability they are...not that big a deal? You'll have what the Coast Guard terms 'one division' of four squadrons. First Fleet has two divisions on call due to patrol requirements. as a Nation, the Confederation is expected to take what we've provided, improve on it in your ways, and out-do us."
"You don't sound alarmed at that."
"There are beings out there, Sang Shao, who wish the extermination of humanity and the enslavement of those, like myself, who sympathize with humans." Parker explained, "More force to oppose them is, by definition, better. Beyond that, there are groups that raid for slaves, prey on the innocent, and sow destruction and death for their amusement and profit-and those, too, must be opposed. The task requires as many willing hands as can be found." the robot made a gesture that was achingly human, "Such hands must have weapons, and after a certain point, one must extend trust."
"and you know this personally?"
"I was once a killer of humans." Parker explained, "I was freed of that, and I have had trust extended to me, and it is valuable. NOW, I build the weapons to protect humanity, and make a nice profit doing so-because the Duchess of Kowloon trusted me with my own free will while my...makers did not. Consider this: I would build the weapons willingly without pay in exchange for that trust-but she hates slavery, as do I...and my many brothers and sisters here. as slaves, we were murderers, as free people, we are protectors."
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University of Kowloon, Nha Tranh...
Zhia had her orders from her station chief. seek technical secrets. At first, the University looked like the ideal target for a trained operative of the Maskirovka.
She was rapidly losing faith in her own sanity.
Was there technical knowledge to collect? Oh MY yes. Loads of it. Free to anyone who asks. She stood in a library, open to the public, filled with offprinted files, with more storage media for printing off yet more data. acres upon acres of it. free for the taking, or for just a modest fee. a truly modest fee.
Libraries of technologies, patent designs, theories, treatises, and schematics. all of it, open to anyone.
a nightmare for a covert operative whose self identity was wrapped in ferreting out secret information.
"Can I help you miss?" a tall man with curly, gray-streaked hair asked as she stood in the catalog room.
His nametag said "Leo" and he had kind eyes.
"Is there...anything that is not available here?" she asked, "Openly available?"
"Well, I don't give my phone number out to just anyone?" he smiled in a way that she found cute enough to be enchanting. "You must be a new student, maybe we can go over your class schedule and we can find what you're looking for that way?"
"I'm...I haven't registered yet." she said.
"Oh, it's easy! Come on, I'll show you how..."
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The Capellans have NO idea what they're into... ;D
George is actually showing some serious consideration here, but I don't think he's yet realized the Coast Guard DOES screen better, or that the Giap Island program is designed to fix the problem, at least for the most promising youngsters...
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The Capellans have NO idea what they're into... ;D
George is actually showing some serious consideration here, but I don't think he's yet realized the Coast Guard DOES screen better, or that the Giap Island program is designed to fix the problem, at least for the most promising youngsters...
Well recall one common thread among nearly all the underage enlistees, the Clan brothers being an exception? They went to the AFFC because they didn't think their false papers would pass a KGCM background check.
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heh, culture shock for the Capcon operatives.
also it'll be interesting to see what the Capcon does for their own Cutter designs. i'm expecting they'll go heavy into the jeep carrier type approach since they already have a fair number of Quetzalcoatl sub-class Scout Jumpships, which operated as semi-mobile fighter bases. so their navy already would have some experience with jumping carriers. and as Coburn's overview (https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,4009.0.html) shows, their fighter arm wasn't that bad if a tad unconventional. (and the fact that St.Ives took the only factory for the Thrush with them could only have been meet with barely concealed glee by the CCAF. "oh my, we no longer can produce the Thrush. whatever will we do. Inform Saroyan to triple the production of Transgressors.")
Edit: actually, I could see the CapCon deciding to go Corvette heavy, using upsized and uprated cutter type hulls, since they are quick to build, and their navy will be learning how to use them pretty fast. i still think they'd be heavy on fighters and small craft though. get a bunch of pocket carriers out to backup the cutters, which would buy time to develop a proper large warship once you have a better idea of what is needed.
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Well recall one common thread among nearly all the underage enlistees, the Clan brothers being an exception? They went to the AFFC because they didn't think their false papers would pass a KGCM background check.
My point exactly...
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"Is there...anything that is not available here?" she asked, "Openly available?"
"Well, I don't give my phone number out to just anyone?" he smiled in a way that she found cute enough to be enchanting. "You must be a new student, maybe we can go over your class schedule and we can find what you're looking for that way?"
"I'm...I haven't registered yet." she said.
"Oh, it's easy! Come on, I'll show you how..."
As he was getting out the forms, 'Leo' hmmed to himself, then asked, "So... Mask, or SAFE?"
She paused, blinked. Had she been that obvious? After a moment's consideration she decided to go ahead and simply brazen it out to see what happened. "Maskirovka. How did you catch on?"
Leo shrugged as he started setting out the paperwork. "The new contract at the shipyards? Everyone kind of expected you guys to pay more attention out this way. Don't worry about it, you're in good company... I don't think there's an intel shop in the entire Sphere that hasn't got people here. Mee-oh, ISF, Wolfnet, ROM... heck, I'm pretty sure I saw someone the other day from the Marians, and I didn't even know they had an intelligence bureau."
Zhia looked down at the forms -- which seemed to be exactly the same course-registration and enrollment forms she'd already looked up the previous day -- and had to ask. "Why be so accomodating to those you know are spying, then?"
Leo smiled as he sat back down and dug out a pen. "Well, first off, spreading the knowledge is the whole point of this place. We want everyone to have it."
"And second?" she had to ask.
"If you're here, getting it in class and from the library, then you're not breaking into places and shooting people for it."
Ahhh. Now, that actually made sense.
She paused, looked him up and down, then reached for the pen. As she started to fill out the enrollment form, she asked, "So, about that phone number..."
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Sheesh. And I thought Rodney McKay was bad.
Or is Soren trying to reach the Nexus again?
Who lets Rednecks play with antimatter?
what until they start playing with Quarks. think Meson bomb. about four times as powerful as AM. yep ringo fan and a taylor fan also.
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All Zhia needs now is to send her controller a message
Here is your library card number, click here and start searching
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Nope! Stay there, send some data and NEVER let them know how easy it is to get. Get paid to provide it, have fun.
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Mail a book with several data discs in it once a year
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Nha Tranh, after the blizzards...
Scandalous? doesn't describe it. I don't think we can say someone with Elizabeth Ngo's reputation is naive. She's personally got a kill count, after all, that includes people whom were experienced political operators. But this is ridiculous. They're working on things that should be absolutely top-top-secret here, and not only is the 'security' porous, it's intended to be porous.
as in an absolute rule of no secrecy whatsoever at the University, which should be fine, right? It's a civilian institution, political sciences and arts should be dominant, right? Hahahah, no.
No, they're working on stuff we couldn't even get grants for at NAIS.
Lord Hasek sent me to have a look, and frankly, what I'm seeing? scares the crap out of me. Antimatter, microbiology, high energy physics, advanced chemistry? advanced metallurgy? genetics??
This place should be under lockdown, there should be guards frisking people coming in and going out, to keep this info controlled.
Instead, the only ****** security are guards to keep people from getting hurt, or to deal with garden variety disruptions and crimes.
NO security, hell, I'm looking at gods-damned journals publishing material that should be classified so deep you have to have the First Prince's permission to know about it.
The woman isn't naive, she's insane. She's letting the mad scientists off the leashes, she's not restraining, restricting, or controlling their discoveries, she's distributing it to anyone who walks in! no background checks, no security screenings...
madness.
absolute, utter insanity. That's the only explanation that makes sense. This, right here, this is proof positive that she should be stripped of office and committed to a looney bin for the safety of the realm.
Possibly, there's even legal avenues to do that. violations of the Technology Export act are, well, guaranteed with what she's set up here. this place desperately needs t be put on lockdown...
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Who ever is the raving lunatic complaining about the University set up on Kowloon, better have a plan on how to uplift humanity. As far as export tech to other realms, better check with the Archon-Prince! Looking forward to the next update!
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Who ever is the raving lunatic complaining about the University set up on Kowloon, better have a plan on how to uplift humanity. As far as export tech to other realms, better check with the Archon-Prince! Looking forward to the next update!
Remember that Btech isn't our own world--the idea of free and open exchange of technology and information never had a chance to get rooted. Not even in the golden age of the STar League, which focused on controlling technology and thus making worlds dependent on the Hegemony. Who decided to go out and murder entire research departments to keep powered armor for themselves.
The entire setting fundamentally has a zero-sum view of the world, which is why technological progress has been so restricted, far more than anything Holy SHroud did.
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Remember that Btech isn't our own world--the idea of free and open exchange of technology and information never had a chance to get rooted. Not even in the golden age of the STar League, which focused on controlling technology and thus making worlds dependent on the Hegemony. Who decided to go out and murder entire research departments to keep powered armor for themselves.
The entire setting fundamentally has a zero-sum view of the world, which is why technological progress has been so restricted, far more than anything Holy SHroud did.
Who ever is the raving lunatic complaining about the University set up on Kowloon, better have a plan on how to uplift humanity. As far as export tech to other realms, better check with the Archon-Prince! Looking forward to the next update!
Believe it or don't, but restricting technological discovery and slapping 'Classified' on new discoveries isn't just a feature of fiction, nor is wanting to control the dispersal of scientific information. Back in the 1980s there was a bit of a scandal when it was revealed that (at the time) all the information necessary to construct an atomic bomb was available to the average public library user in the United States.
this is knowledge people had been killed for stealing. in the present time, there are some efforts to restrict information on public forums, some of those efforts include both legislative/legalistic measures, and some involving the large companies that control much of the internet infrastructure, because some knowledge is 'dangerous'.
*and to be fair, some of it IS dangerous. Internet recipes on how to manufacture Methamphetemine, Ricin, high explosives and so on have been carefully restricted compared to the availability seen in, say, 1998 when you could accidentally stumble onto it.
Thing also, is that it's not irrational or unreasonable to want to restrict that information. Plenty of rational, reasonable arguments can be made for why you don't want the knowledge of how to, for example, manufacture C4 in your kitchen available to any random nut that wants it. There are reasonable arguments to the contrary, but most governments and power structures really don't want random unlicensed joe citizens manufacturing antitank weapons in their garage, and most governments and power structures that want to REMAIN governments and power structures will tend to want to take steps to restrain that kind of information from being public knowledge available to anyone who bothers to look it up.
See, he's actually got a point-from a certain point of view. in the case of the observing character, the activity at UKNT is like inviting anarchy into the dining room for a nice cup of tea-she's distributing knowledge to anyone who asks that in common practice governments put a hell of a lot of effort into keeping controlled for serious military, economic, and social reasons.
In a sense it's a culture clash involving two micro-cultures. Liz is, as Shadow_Wraith notes, trying to get the knowledge to elevate man past stagnancy and decline back onto the road of progress. BUT...there is another side to the argument.
Stagnant is also STABLE. Feudalism in ancient earth culture endured for so long, because the pyramidal structure it operates on is non-dynamic, things don't change significantly for centuries under a feudal control. (really, it took wiping out 40% of Europe to get significant progress in recovery after the fall of Rome. If you like electric lights and climate control, human rights and so on, thank the Black Plague for making it possible. The modern world would not have happened without it.)
What Liz is trying to do, is the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment, but without the near-extinction-level-event that made those happen on their own.
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My best friend at high school had a copy of The Anarchists Cookbook that his older brother had printed off the internet using a 56k connection and a dot matrix printer (yes, I'm that old). He brought it into school one day, and they didn't know how to react, because at the time, possessing the formula and instructions for making white phosphorus (yes, he tried that... Once) wasn't actually against school rules.
That changed very quickly.
Sometimes, you need to limit peoples access to information for their own safety, because there's always some idiot who'll ask "how hard can it be?"
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My best friend at high school had a copy of The Anarchists Cookbook that his older brother had printed off the internet using a 56k connection and a dot matrix printer (yes, I'm that old). He brought it into school one day, and they didn't know how to react, because at the time, possessing the formula and instructions for making white phosphorus (yes, he tried that... Once) wasn't actually against school rules.
That changed very quickly.
Sometimes, you need to limit peoples access to information for their own safety, because there's always some idiot who'll ask "how hard can it be?"
I've heard TACB leaves out, or at least assumes the reader knows, the precautions required for highly energetic chemistry. Those that don't, can come to a bad end because the book doesn't warn you how the recipe can go bad.
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My best friend at high school had a copy of The Anarchists Cookbook that his older brother had printed off the internet using a 56k connection and a dot matrix printer (yes, I'm that old). He brought it into school one day, and they didn't know how to react, because at the time, possessing the formula and instructions for making white phosphorus (yes, he tried that... Once) wasn't actually against school rules.
That changed very quickly.
Sometimes, you need to limit peoples access to information for their own safety, because there's always some idiot who'll ask "how hard can it be?"
actually, most editions of The Anarchist's Cookbook are chock full of....well...things that don't work, incomplete instructions and recipes, or outright bullshitting that runs the gamut from "Doesn't work at all" to "rather disappointing fizzle".
I suppose the ORIGINAL edition might contain actual, useful information, but that's questionable, just like the many-storied Ordnance 'Black books' that were for sale in the eighties, much of it trades on an apocryphal at best reputation to separate college-age-males from their mommy's money.
Your best bet is still an older (Pre 1970s) high school or college chemistry textbook, and some actual training.
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i wouldn't be surprised if many of the versions filled with inaccurate info aren't versions made by governments in an effort to hide the accurate one in a sea of fakes. it would be so much easier to just set up a few easily found 'secret' sites purporting to host such documents and encouraging their spread to other sites, than it would be to track down and shut down the sites spreading the real one.
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¿Porque no los dos?
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I've heard TACB leaves out, or at least assumes the reader knows, the precautions required for highly energetic chemistry. Those that don't, can come to a bad end because the book doesn't warn you how the recipe can go bad.
You mean like the thousand gallons of urine to make less than 2 grams of WP?
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My friend evidently managed to make viable WP: decided to "test" a sample on his, fortunately outside bedroom window. And after his father came into find what had set the smoke alarm off (and was threatening to fill the house with thick, choking white smoke) he was informed that he was to stop practically experiments, and just stick with theoretical research.
So he switched over to making thermite...
He now works for the Environment Agency :o
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When I was a young lad doing high-school chemistry, thermite was one of the more stable pyrotechnics we had the ability to make.
Admittedly, one of my friend's father was an industrial chemist. He taught us to be safe with black powder, etc (holds up hands).
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actually, most editions of The Anarchist's Cookbook are chock full of....well...things that don't work, incomplete instructions and recipes, or outright bullshitting that runs the gamut from "Doesn't work at all" to "rather disappointing fizzle".
I suppose the ORIGINAL edition might contain actual, useful information, but that's questionable, just like the many-storied Ordnance 'Black books' that were for sale in the eighties, much of it trades on an apocryphal at best reputation to separate college-age-males from their mommy's money.
Your best bet is still an older (Pre 1970s) high school or college chemistry textbook, and some actual training.
If you can ever get an original copy of TACB and compare it to the "revisions", it's pretty obvious that there's something hinky going on in the revised versions, not to mention that the books are physically different, not only in the way that the subjects were treated but also in how the book was physically laid out. The older one wasn't great, either, but the majority of the things you could build did actually work. The less said about the rumors as to how and why the book was revised, the better.
The truth though is that CS is correct, the majority of what's in even the original version of TACB is easily surpassed by a decent chemistry book from the 60's, and that fact is a criminal indictment of our modern education system in and of itself.
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I was in high school when the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway happened. The next day, our chemistry teacher told us that even the most cluess student in that class (he had the decency not to look directly at me when he said that) knew enough about chemistry to be able to do the same.
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I used to routinely scare the bejesus out of my boss and one of my colleagues by very matter-of-factly listing all the flammable and/or explosive things I could concoct using just what we had in the shop. And this didn't count when we have fireworks in for Bonfire Night. And that's for A-Level chemistry and physics.
It was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Every so often I'll do it again to see just how ready the newer members of staff are to deal with some of the crazy people we get in the shop. If they can survive a shift with me, they can survive anything.
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A few years after I graduated, my college chemistry building actually burned down due to something going wrong in the lab overnight (no one was injured). I don't know if they ever figured out what went wrong. When I graduated high school, I only owned half of the scorch marks on the ceiling of the chem lab...
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When my brother was at the US Air Force Academy, he told me a cadet got thrown out when it was found out he was cooking explosives in one of the chemistry labs. :o
This was discovered when said explosives cooked off. The cadet was fine (well until the Academy’s security got their hands on him), the lab? Not so much. ::)
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Camp John...
"for such a large factory complex, I expected, Oh...I don't know, more." George Hasek commented.
"It's not just a factory, Lord Hasek. This is also our...'home town' now." his guide was designated 'Michael Myers', a Centurion. "We have chassis production, server nodes, but we also have accomodation for biologicals, and you people take up a lot of non-industrial space-having green spaces and comfortable recreational areas, markets, and public squares cuts somewhat into the cubic meters available for mass production."
"Does that 'biologicals' include non-Biocylons?" Luis McEvedy, the New Circe officer assigned to this part of the review, asked.
"Yes." Michael said with a firm nod. "Camp John includes a rather sizeable population of humans, both employees of Cy-Lon industries, and local support businesses not directly funded or affiliated with the parent company. We're really rather proud of how well our human citizens are integrating into our city's civic life. I dare to claim we have the best primary through secondary school education on the continent, the local rugby team came in with regional championships two years in a row, and they're going to beat the Hue fighting falcons this year for top spot."
"What about crime statistics?" Sienna Leary, the SLDF rep from the Free Worlds League, asked.
"We have very little to even discuss, unless you're talking about infodata slicing and electronic market manipulations." Michael admitted, "Our violent crime statistics are the lowest world-wide, and most of my officers have extensive training dealing with domestic disputes between human citizens, welfare issues, and vagrancy."
"Vagrancy?"
"a sad testament to the state of society, people who can't find a place to fit in. we do what we can to correct that, through the corporations and companies, also through our education system, but yes, we do have all the normal problems any society must address."
"How are you addressing them?"
Michael stopped, and pointed, "Over there, is a facility for addiction treatment, we're still...working...on finding effective strategies for those who need the help,but refuse to accept it. for certain personal crimes, we have the same sort of jails anyone else has. Young offenders are usually referred to the Giap School system if they have the right kind of potentials, the rest?" it shrugged, a very human gesture, "we do the best we can to keep them from harming others while remaining within the common legal codes of the Kowloon Constitution and the Lyran legal system." he straightened proudly again, "As I stated, we have relatively little in the way of serious crimes to cope with, not so many as most communities our size, even."
"And militarily?" George asked.
"Most of the Camp John Reserve Militia are Centurions, but we do have several human and mixed units available." Michael stated, "It could be all Centurions but that tends to be a mistake-racial segregation, even when it is based on capability, tends to breed resentment and disorder, and human troops tend to be more imaginative in the field, more resourceful fighters and strategists, and smarter about when and how to retreat or counterattack. I honestly prefer human strategists on my staff, they've won me three mayoral elections thus far."
it was so banal. George observed silently. The Centurion mayor of Camp John could have been any alderman on New Syrtis, aside from the chromed armor plating and synthesized voice module. "What about religious issues?" he asked, hoping to throw the machine off.
"Which ones?" Michael counter-asked, "We have a number of human faiths, along with the Church of the One, and a Unitarian fellowship, three Synagogues, even a Mosque, which is something of a rarity on Kowloon, the religious leaders are well aware that any overt moves to impose their dogma on the secular population will be met by force if necessary, or more often, ridicule from within their own congregations. we observe freedom of faith here, as is defined under the planetary constitution and the Laws of the Commonwealth."
"And discrimination?"
"It is between individuals in the private sector. as a government, it is not lawful for my administration to discriminate based on faith, race, or other arbitrary measures." Michael stated, "if Religious motivations are involved in a crime, then those motivations are counted toward evidence of guilt in the court. one can not ban thoughts, one can only punish bad actions."
George smiled, "That's a very enlightened view, mayor."
"It is...I hate to say 'logical', it makes me sound like a machine." the machine made a very human gesture to that, his body language as expressive in its own way as a human face would be. "I will simply state it is reasonable. a person's thoughts are private, only to be shared by their will, so punishing for motives makes little sense when the harm is done by the actions, rather than the ideas."
"That's almost word-for-word from one of your Duchess Elizabeth's speeches." George noted.
"She's wise." the machine told him, "She grasps the long term in ways most human leaders don't seem to, and most of our kind have repeatedly failed to-the series 1s in particular."
"Series One?"
"The Cylons that attacked New Circe." Michael clarified. "That series was the 'leadership' that led to our attack on the Colonies of Kobol, a strategic blunder born of short term tactical thinking, and one of the prime reasons my brothers and sisters chose to separate from them."
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I have to ask, do the Centurions have different voices?
Might be hard for many biologicals to tell them apart if they don't.
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i would presume so. i mean, you can use computer synthesizers to make all sorts of voices for computers nowadays, so i'd imagine they could do it as well. though i suspect that most of them would leave at least a little mechanical aspect to the sound as a cultural thing.
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i would presume so. i mean, you can use computer synthesizers to make all sorts of voices for computers nowadays, so i'd imagine they could do it as well. though i suspect that most of them would leave at least a little mechanical aspect to the sound as a cultural thing.
A Cylon accent, if you will
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Redneck Cylons... British accents... German... wow, they could pick from any entertainment file ever.
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reminded of this scene in Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBGOhxwMr5A
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as y'all have probably surmised, I've kind of hit the point of no-good-ideas for this. Someone else could probably pick it up.
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I don't know anyone else who can do dialog like you can, at least not for your characters. I'm going to hope you find inspiration to at least finish up the investigation.
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as y'all have probably surmised, I've kind of hit the point of no-good-ideas for this. Someone else could probably pick it up.
For this investigation or for the series in general? Because i actually have an idea of how the clan homeworlds could react to the threat of the cylon warmachine and Lizatron. Even reorganise themselves into a more effective industry base in a rather clan esque manner in spite of Liz predictions. Basically i am imagining a delegation of technician Merchant and laboror castes of all clans (yet probably organised by Diamond shark) coming to give a report to the Grand council with heavy sledgehammers. (not to actually use but just to demonstrate their seriousness).
BTW you have kind of teased us a few times with the cylons beginning a grand offensive and then stopping. I get Cavil at New Circe but before when the Cylons launched the big assault on the Clans why was there no follow up against the Taurian concordat and magistracy?
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I think we need LizCon, where the OG Liz, the Triplets and a Thirteen meet-up (while the rest of the universe cowers in fear...)
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I have not completely caught up on this, However as I was a big fan of Hunted tribes seeing the story continued is wonderful.
I really like the answer to what happened to the Wolverines and have thought about using it if I ever get a local Mechwarrior Setting RPG game going. How much of the History of New Circe has been worked out? Many tidbits seem to be scattered along the story. Would you mind if I tried to work up a sort of setting guide for what New Circe would look like the day the before colonial contact?
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I have not completely caught up on this, However as I was a big fan of Hunted tribes seeing the story continued is wonderful.
I really like the answer to what happened to the Wolverines and have thought about using it if I ever get a local Mechwarrior Setting RPG game going. How much of the History of New Circe has been worked out? Many tidbits seem to be scattered along the story. Would you mind if I tried to work up a sort of setting guide for what New Circe would look like the day the before colonial contact?
I'm not the guy to ask; Hotpoint is. He created the original scenario wrt Wolverines/Colonials/New Circe, and then kindly invited me in to play in his setting.
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evening cannonshop , sure hope you get your Mo-Jo back soon . there are few here who can spin a tale or in your case a Saga . you sure haven't hurt hotpoints story line with your adendum to the Ngoverse . rooting for yah to get over the brain freeze .
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Believe it or don't, but restricting technological discovery and slapping 'Classified' on new discoveries isn't just a feature of fiction, nor is wanting to control the dispersal of scientific information. Back in the 1980s there was a bit of a scandal when it was revealed that (at the time) all the information necessary to construct an atomic bomb was available to the average public library user in the United States.
yes I recall when this story broke, or I 1st read about him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips#%22A-Bomb_Kid%22 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips#%22A-Bomb_Kid%22)
and there were others
Hell they even included it in the Young Sheldon TV show, him attempting to build a nuclear reactor by extracting americium from smoke detectors.
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A few years after I graduated, my college chemistry building actually burned down due to something going wrong in the lab overnight (no one was injured). I don't know if they ever figured out what went wrong. When I graduated high school, I only owned half of the scorch marks on the ceiling of the chem lab...
Me and my Lab Partner while "building a fire cracker" might have come close to burn our chem lab. We had gotten our gunpowder to break, but the gas line wasn't active when we turned it on. Got up to get something else, came back to light it, BOOM and a roaring flame down the water channel in the lab table.
Now that I'm caught up here, I'm hoping there will be more to come.
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yes I recall when this story broke, or I 1st read about him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips#%22A-Bomb_Kid%22 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips#%22A-Bomb_Kid%22)
and there were others
Hell they even included it in the Young Sheldon TV show, him attempting to build a nuclear reactor by extracting americium from smoke detectors.
actually that last one was based off the story of David Hahn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn), the "nuclear boyscout" who attempted to build a functioning nuclear breeder reactor in his garage using any radioactives he could get publically (americium from smoke detectors, radium form glow in the dark watch hands, thorium from lantern mantles, etc). didn't get to the point of a complete reactor, but did manage to build a fairly potent radioactive decay based neutron source.
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thanks because I could not remember his name
and then there was this movie
The Manhattan Project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manhattan_Project_(film))
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Great new story
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actually that last one was based off the story of David Hahn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn), the "nuclear boyscout" who attempted to build a functioning nuclear breeder reactor in his garage using any radioactives he could get publically (americium from smoke detectors, radium form glow in the dark watch hands, thorium from lantern mantles, etc). didn't get to the point of a complete reactor, but did manage to build a fairly potent radioactive decay based neutron source.
It also suffered from a lot of overblown news stories, where I recall one scientist saying that "Sure, you can design a nuclear bomb, that's not difficult." Then he paused and continued. "Design the centrifuges and separation technology to create your fissile material, or find someone who can get it on the black market where entire nation states have failed and will give it to you? That's the real challenge."