At the end of the latest five year plan, it is the change of an era.
Speeches in party chambers: Rolled: 10+20 = 30
The political push against the corruption of the system by the Greens started easily enough, using evidence gathered through the technically available notes on committee meetings and reaching out to several of the clerks responsible for handling drafts of the new system and ensuring they understand the grave threat it poses to the Communist system. Political maneuvering through the Party itself ran into frequent and early setbacks from those who have mastered the bureaucracy and all the ways it can befuddle and delay legitimate actions. Simply bringing up the negative consequences of these plans on the Party floor earned little more progress than some derisive statements that a if the current minister of the Economic Ministry could not understand long term policy, perhaps she should be replaced with a man who can think of the long term benefits.
Though some sectors of the Party supported pushback against the growing murmurs of enterprise restriction removal, overall the purely political route of circulating information within the state apparatuses clearly was not going to have a satisfactory result. Even bringing the reports to the Blues, Blacks, and Whites did not produce a rallying as expected, with discourse surrounding the economic changes being discussed as 'unfortunate necessities to ensure stable goods provisioning'. Presenting proposals for improved centrally managed consumer goods systems did nothing to convince people it could be realistically managed, as the systems necessary for accurate assessments of demand in a central location simply do not exist, no matter what theories of advanced mana computing promise.
Going public: Rolled 84
With internal shaming a failure, the only alternative was to drag attention to the brewing disaster of corruption and greed by force of public attention. After gathering a wealth of evidence and assembling it into several damning reports, the resulting pamphlets and papers were distributed through the recently expanded large scale printing systems, creating information accessible to the common people on the dangers of this new trend. Just as other parties have channels of distribution that can be trusted to act semi-secretly, arranging several believers in the cause to distribute the information and plan a small protest march was simple enough. Mostly composed of students and lower level recruits, they were fully concerned with the implications of introduction of capital accumulation and very enthusiastic about protests against such a thing.
The results of the distribution were greater than at first expected, with a vast number of people in crowded urban areas inflamed by the alarming threat of a slippery slope. In Harkon city, protestors gathered on the designated day at the start of a work week, with the resulting protest being considerably greater than anticipated. While hoping for perhaps a few thousand students incensed at the corruption, instead tens of thousands marched towards the government offices at the center of town. Garrison troops quickly shut down the subway system and began strategically blocking roads, allowing the protestors to spill out into parks and city squares while emergency meetings of the ministries were organized.
Number of deaths/injuries/arrests (higher is more): 1; 9; 52
Despite the tense situation, disaster was averted thanks to the quick thinking of one Colonel Winston, the very same man who had been with Kanna when she shot down a large portion of Glitterdawn Vale's midnight bomber raid. Having spent much of his career studying the potential of wide-area of effect spells and even collaborating with Kanna on spell design at times, he was able to quell the crowd with a slow-acting calming field, which dulled neural and muscular activity until the crowd essentially fell asleep on their feet. Aside from a few particularly paranoid magic academy students, few if any noticed the effect before it was well underway, and as a peaceful tactic for shutting down protests it has worked remarkably well, with not a single death directly caused by the demonstration reported, and only a few dozen injuries, mostly minor. Though sweeping arrests have been made, the lack of any deaths did much to reduce the panic among both legislators and the populace at large.
Holiday coalition stability: 22
Strength of the Red's response: 96 + 10 (public disorder and imminent war) = 106
In the days that followed the yelling and debates grew incredibly harsh, but with the cat out of the bag and pamphlets from the protest circulating openly, it was clear that the Greens had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Seized communications between prominent Green members were telling- The old battlewagon Carinna Sarshen has apparently left Chelska entirely a few years ago, but her last few years were marked with enmity and disgust for what the Greens had done, with her personal effects detailing bribery and corruption schemes where funds designated for the Ministry of Interior were used to pay inflated rates to enterprises that prominent Green members had control over, creating an ecosystem that converted state funding into private benefits at every level, with everyone from managers to foot-sloggers steadily finding bribes and other forms of corruption the norm. The regional devolution programs, too, were found to sometimes end up in the pockets of regional leaders instead of actually benefiting the citizens. This was somewhat expected, but not nearly to this extent. With most, if not all, of the uncovered records casting shade on prominent Greens and only occasionally implicating those of other big factions, this, more than anything else, is what triggered the Reds to break off entirely from the Greens.
Ongoing public stability: 29
While the Party was reorganizing its internal policies and investigating the corruption scandals, the public was not sitting idle waiting for the new line to be announced. Protests continued, if on a much smaller scale, with a number of publications, especially co-ops that had no direct state support, taking nearly openly critical stances on the government for allowing corruption to fester to such an extent. The impression painted of Kanna was that of a heroic crusader for the people, pushing back against corruption and shady dealings at every turn. With a history of similar public actions, it was not a difficult line to push, but it was one inconvenient for the ministry in the Party itself, as many began criticizing the economic ministry for inciting instability and public disorder, especially since smaller protests continued to break out in several regions across the Union- All acting out in dissatisfaction over one condition or another, ranging from housing quality, medical access, perceived corruption, stagnant wages, and in Cygnus and Visci several protests about the flailing and ineffectual light rail program.
Increasingly, the general state of instability was blamed squarely on Kanna Dipolous herself for taking the information public instead of working through the proper channels. In the culmination of this trend, Matiro Velkon commissioned a detailed investigation into the source of the protests, and was publicly disappointed in the so-called 'rabble rousing', criticizing the action of turning to the people when bureaucratic action failed as potentially lighting the nation on fire at a time when it needs to be prepared for war and deal with the trade disruptions.
In the end, it was declared that Kanna will be relieved of her post as head of the Economic Ministry. While murmurs of protest were lodged from several sides, none were quite as enthusiastic or insistent as hoped, with nobody really daring to go against Velkon's decision, even as he is less than a year before retirement. Replacing her would be Karoline Staver, having served as the deputy and run smaller sectors of the overall ministry for some time. Considering her to be somewhat more biddable and more likely to do the job without being an armed wand of fireball, as he put it, the replacement could technically be overturned by a sufficiently strong rebuttal, though this seems unlikely. In the end, dragging the public into Party politics has resulted in ostracization from the levers of power, which was not entirely unexpected.
What will Kanna do now?
[] Accept the transfer gracefully: A prominent researcher position as opposed to a top-level administrative one is both something that will rankle greatly, but also be somewhat of a relief. Life can return to something like simplicity, working away in laboratories and workshops to push the boundaries of what is possible in spellframes forward one step at a time. Chelska and the Economic Ministry can do what they like. This elf is done with leadership for now.
[] Campaign to retain the post: Surely a single moment of indiscretion should not end a ministerial career so easily? By accepting any number of oversights, restrictions, and favors owed, as well as more formal limits on authority and other types of checks and balances, the freedom to pilot the economy in a chosen direction will be much lesser than before, but still retained. Besides, as much as the job was detestable at times, Staver needs a few more years to really be prepared.
[] Make for Beseren to intervene: The revolutionary war in Beseren is in a delicate state, especially with strong Chelskan support now cut off due to the closing of ocean trade routes. In order to support the existence of international communism, assisting in Beseren in whatever manner is possible would be a potent action. The champion of Chelskan aid showing up in person to support magical development would be a powerful political symbol, even aside from organization or industrial skills.
[] Make for Halve to intervene: Alternately, the nation of Halve, full of animal-aspected elves, has much more recently launched a large scale uprising from their colonial overlords. While the situation in Beseren is now mostly stable and seems to be heading towards the partitioning of the nation, unless the tides of war turn again, the situation in Halve is likely much more precarious. They could certainly use a skilled administrator and wizard in many capacities, even if they seem more like Monarchists than Communists at this time.
[] Delve into the Glimurn caverns: The depths of this mysterious place hold many intriguing mysteries to be explored, and possibly just as many dangers. How do people live their full lives down here? What is the Wall of Flesh? How are materials 'grown' out of magic? What is the source of the titanic amount of mana that the place is producing and consuming? All of these questions have a dozen potentially fascinating answers, which only lead to more questions. Exploring and investigating it would be a thrill and a source of magical advancement.
[] Make for unexplored lands: Not all of the world is currently known to Chelska. There are rumors from adventurous captains of more continents, neither the Old World nor Tessaria, with many strange and concerning wonders and adventures to be had. A life on the frontier exploring new facets of Elvaria is certainly a heady idea, and would be a wonderful break from all the tangled, thorny issues of Chelska. Frontier adventures, perhaps with a few friends, could be a wonderful vacation and allow an eventual return to see how the world has developed with new eyes.
NOTE: This result was not guaranteed. It happened because Kanna rolled low initially, rolled high to go public, and then the public unrest continued on for a good amount of time. Certain parties decided she is just too volatile to work with, at this point.
So, questers. Unfortunately... I am somewhat
bored of central planning: fantasy edition.
I write when I am entertained to write, and stop writing when I'm not. I am probably going to place it on hiatus, or even mark it complete, and move on to writing... Something else.
Likely something related, set within the same world, the same Chelska. It's just that I'm finding it more and more difficult to keep going on the same pattern, so
something needs to change. I'm not going to be able to keep pumping out six-month turns of Chelska itself in the same economic-head format.
Ideas I've come up with:
- Longer time horizon turns for Chelskan economics. Essentially timeskip turns, like in Blackstar's space quest. Two year turns where you choose a number of priorities and roll for the quality of the results, rather than filling progress bars.
- Follow Kanna as she fucks off to Beseren or Halve and do the economic buildup thing in those countries.
- Follow Kanna to Beseren or Halve but focus on the political, diplomatic, magic R&D, or military situations, not economic development.
- Follow Kanna as she goes on an expedition into uncharted territory, exploring fantastical and probably dangerous lands.
- Take a look at a particular enterprise in Chelska and zoom in to manage that quarter by quarter- Perhaps the beleaguered theme parks and resorts trying to maintain something resembling a tourist industry, perhaps the local director of the trans-continental railroad project that Staver is NO QUESTION locking in, perhaps even a newspaper publisher trying to retain the interest of subscribers and also not offend the Party censors very much.
- Take a look at another country, like the turmoil in Gallica, the troubled island republics of Mathylko, etc.
- Take a look at the life of a stressed out Grenoble Empire naval Captain participating in the first Real Big Sea War in modern times.
- Possibly something else? If you have ideas, let me know.
24 hour moratorium, please.
