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Again, the trouble is figuring out which capabilities an "offensive army" needs and a "defensive army" doesn't. Remember, modern warfare often involves a lot of mobility and counterattack, even on the defensive. Holding a purely static line without attempts to push the enemy back and throw them off balance often results in casualties.
Yes yes, it would likely be a ""defensive"" army group in that it looks the same to anyone that doesn't know their military stuff, in that it's mostly going to be different in what it's prioritizations are going to be and a lot more artillery in or connected to it.
Its a good idea, specializing our units could be a way to stretch the arms budget a bit farther than we otherwise could. A unit dedicated to holding down the home front probably doesn't need a large armored force. Just don't know how that would work mechanically or how Poptart is gonna handle re-armament.
As for rear area defense, thats why we have militias.
Resurrect a proper central command and they become the national guard reborn. But they probably get the same kit
Its going to be logistically simpler.
Hell, having something like a light infantry division with organic riverine transport as a rapid response force for any problems on the Mississippi might go a long way towards securing our interests in that direction. Of course that would also mean spending money on something not meant to fight Victoria, so there is that drawback.
Thats just a basic light infantry division with riverine transport you hire or mobilize as needed. No need for organic elements.
And it would be rather useful up the Ohio River during the war thats coming.
So would the Navy's Marines, for that matter.
I guess I'm not seeing the benefit of this over going for the knockout blow.Do you expect a finishing blow during the next war to be impossible? I suppose if that's the case fighting an attritional conflict does make a lot of sense. The benefits of draining Russian resources would be nice, but it would be a heavy cost to us. However, that's a pretty grim aim to have when, at least IMO, we have a good chance at making this one decisive.
Guess we'll see how the preparations fall out, it's not like our war plan is set in stone yet.
We are a ~20 million strong new successor state thats still expanding.
They are 20-40 million with Russian backing, and there are two alternative Russian bases on North America in Alaska and the Arctic which share northern land borders with northern Victoria for weapon supplies.
For comparison, Iraq was 27 million people and 438,000 sq km when the US occupied it with, at the maximum, an occupying force of ~170,000 US troops, not counting allies and military contractors. Similarly, Soviet occupation levels in Afghanistan were between 120,000 and 600k, of a country that had a 1990 population of 16 million and ~650,000 sq km.
You need to knock them down and stand with a foot on their neck. Defeat, Conquer and Occupy.
We have demonstrated the ability to do the first, but we decided as a consensus back during the peace treaty talks that we couldnt do the second even when they were distracted by the Civil War, and we certainly cant manage the third. Yet.
Nor can we rely on other people in FCNY and California to do it for us.
We would need more people, and a bigger economy.
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[X] Plan I Got 77 Problems
-[X] Department of Defense
--[X] Officer Academies
-[X] Department of State
--[X] Expand the Department
--[X] Source Foreign Arms x2
--[X] Expatriate Outreach x2
--[X] Establish Council Representation
-[X] Department of Domestic Affairs
--[X] Refugee Management x2
--[X] The Works x2
-[X] Department of Development
--[X] Industrial Assessments
--[X] Build Rail x2
-[X] Department of Security
--[X] Long Tail
--[X] Trouble in Minnesota
-[X] Department of Technological Recovery
--[X] Retraining Campaigns
-[X] Department of Education
--[X] School Survey x2 (locked)
Content Warning:
Implied
Murder (Medical)
Turn Seven
Spring 2077 Results
-Chicago, Illinois-
-Commonwealth of Free Cities-
-Friday, April 9th, 2077, 16:57-
-General Ronald Burns, Commonwealth Army-
Ronald Burns hefts the bag into the trunk of his car and slams the trunk shut. Wincing, he rolls his shoulder as it twinges in protest. Gotta be careful with that, he muses.
"Hey, General!"
He glances up and huffs out a laugh, waving. "Kids."
A group of children walk up. "Going on a trip?" asks the girl in front.
"Out towards Indiana, Rita," he says, nodding. "Visiting a friend. You all have weekend plans?"
"There's a carnival visiting the beach!" says one of the boys.
His lips twitch upwards. "Well, that sounds like a good time. You enjoy yourselves."
They start peeling away, the younger ones peering back at him with awed eyes and the older ones pretending that they're far too cool to. He chuckles, shaking his head, and slides into the car.
South, out of the city limits along the old I-90 and smoothly past the point where the State of Chicago becomes the State of Gary. Practically flying through on clear roads, all the way to the interchange with I-94. And, there, having to slam on the brakes as the traffic gets choked through a single lane for five miles of road construction.
Ron sighs, scowling. "World's ended and Indiana still has shit roads," he grumbles. He flicks the radio on, and as he slowly works through the traffic, waves to the people working on making the road right again. He turns up the volume and watches the scenery slowly crawl by.
He remembers driving down this stretch of road as a young man. It was wooded, then; now, the trees are gone. Replacing them is farmland, broken up into small plots, on the outskirts of clusters of suburban housing. The food production for Gary, crammed wherever it could fit as people fled the cities.
It's a landscape changing rapidly, as government funds roll in. He sees a tractor new enough to still shine a bit rolling through a field, and can't help but smile at the reminder of his agricultural efforts.
Slowly, traffic lets up as he reaches the end of the construction. The countryside begins to whip past, blurring at the edges. He vaguely sees the built-up landscape moving past, lost in thought.
He sees plumes of smoke from some factory Gary managed to keep, rising up from the Lake. He sees bustling construction crews clearing old and collapsed houses. He sees a cluster of militia playing a card game at the side of the highway, apparently making a side game out of the number of cars passing by.
He compares the image to the memories of his youth. He hasn't been this way in decades. It was never safe to get this close to an urban area, during the Collapse. The last time he was home was...2032. Visited his parents at home, between deployments. Told them he'd be back, soonest.
Five months later, the Maine Uprising kicked off. He'd never seen his parents again. They survived the Nazis, they survived the Collapse.
Couldn't survive age.
He blinks rapidly, paying mind to his surroundings again. Things have changed. There's more people, weirdly enough. People fleeing the cities came here, and now efforts at reconstruction and building up are focusing in areas like this. Farms packed into every available space, mixed with the ultra-modern look of new construction. A one-story shack squatting next to the road on a small plot whips by, and he notes a wind turbine towering over the field.
Eventually, he comes to the point where the built-up areas vanish, and areas that were farmland when the Collapse began and stayed farmland during come into view. For a moment, the desire to just keep driving and vanish into the endless rows of corn and wheat seizes him. He puts it down and takes his exit.
He drives north, towards the Lake, along a broad road degraded nearly to gravel by time and disuse. He passes a trio of signs, placed in front of another, each blocking those behind. The rearmost, he can only read, "Indiana Dunes," and the top of what looks like, "National Park." Then, on the next sign, a fragment of what looks like, "Private-" before being cut off. Finally, the one in front says, "Gary Dunes State Park."
He rolls through and turns off of the main road as he enters the park proper, navigating the trails surrounded by trees, cutting through the park turned warlord's private retreat turned state asset yet again. Up through the shallow hills, past old campgrounds turned into barracks. Finally, he reaches the end of the road.
A small mansion looms before him, with a simple sign marking the walkway leading there: "Aubrey."
Ron parks, and takes a moment to breathe. He feels a tension in his chest.
Opening his glove box, he pulls out his service sidearm and calms himself with the ritual of checking it, loading it, and making it ready for use. He looks up. A figure steps away from a second-story window. He takes a deep breath, holsters the gun, and steps outside.
His feet rap quietly on the concrete pavers leading to the home. The wind rustles quietly through the trees. Distantly, he can hear the whisper of waves against the shoreline.
He walks up to the front door and pushes it open without knocking. Quietly, he walks through the house. There's no sound. He pulls the pistol and racks it. Moving slow, he continues his search.
The first floor passes with nothing to be found save the signs of an old man living very messily with the assistance of limited help beyond the medical. Ashtrays in every room, oxygen cylinders aplenty, dishes left out after use. Ron moves upstairs and finds much the same, until, at the back of the house, opening onto the side facing away from the road, he finds the master bedroom.
Jack's nurse stands there. The young man meets Ron's gaze. Wordlessly, he glances down at the drawn pistol.
Ron jerks his head to the side, and the man steps aside. Ron passes through the bedroom, approaching the open sliding glass door to a balcony, overlooking the wooded dunes. He can see the back of Jack's wheelchair there. He approaches, feet thumping on the floorboards. He draws even with Jack, and steps around.
He stops, and stares.
Lifeless eyes stare out over the landscape. Jack's mouth gapes slightly. A fly lands on his forehead; he doesn't move.
Fingers trembling, Ron reaches out to Jack's neck, and finds no pulse.
He takes a step back.
He stares.
Then, he hears a rustle at the doorway, and turns.
The nurse stands there, leaning against the frame, fiddling with a needle. They meet each other's eyes, and stare for a moment.
"I don't understand," says Ron, head spinning. "I don't...why?"
The nurse's eyes flick down to Ron's gun. His lips twist in a spiteful grin; the first expression Ron has ever seen the man make.
Ron swallows, firming up his grip on the sidearm. "You've been with him for -- fuck, years," he says. "Why now?"
The nurse pushes away from the doorframe. He clears his throat. "I could ask you the same," he says, his voice high and clear. "But this isn't about you, sir."
Ron looks away.
The nurse steps around Ron, keeping a wide birth and walking up to Aubrey's side. He drops the needle on a table. "I've wanted to for years. I wasn't working for him willingly. He just made sure I didn't have options. But, if I did this earlier, in the middle of the desert, I'd have died running, one way or the other. I'm not a fighter." He reaches down and pulls a wallet out of Jack's pocket. "Why? What's your excuse?" He smirks, just barely visible at this angle.
Ron's gun comes up, shaking slightly. "I'm a general. I had orders!"
The nurse nods, unbothered. "Yeah. And I get that. You have bigger concerns. Everybody's looking out for their patch. Just so happens you've got a big patch. Means sometimes little pieces aren't as important." He looks up. "So why are you here now?"
Ron swallows. "I- I wasn't- I..." He looks down at Jack's corpse, lowering the gun. "...I hadn't decided, yet."
The nurse snorts. "Well, then, maybe you can spend a little more time deciding if you're gonna tell anybody it was me or not." He steps closer, getting in Ron's face. "Do you think that you can make up for letting him get away with everything by going out killing him once you got what you wanted?"
Ron flinches back, eyes wide.
The nurse shakes his head. "From me, killing the fucker means something. You snap your fingers and thousands of people march. Do something important if you feel guilty." He steps past, towards the door. "Next time, just don't. I don't think you'd be a very good General if you were in prison for murder." He walks into the house.
"Wait!" calls Ron, turning.
The nurse doesn't stop. "No, I'm done waiting. Goodbye, General Burns." He vanishes into the house, leaving Ron alone with Jack's corpse.
He turns to look at it, fingers trembling. Slowly, he holsters his sidearm. He sits down, eyes still locked on the body. He swallows. "I wanted..." he says, his voice thin and trailing off. His lips quiver.
Slowly, Ron curls in on himself, shuddering.
* * *
Officer Academies
Needed: 21. Rolled: 71. 1 Success (1/2). Not Complete.
The officers from the Devil Brigade sit down together and start brainstorming how to train the CFC's army officers. They can't just copy their training regime over and trust that it'll stick. There are significant differences between how they did it and how a state should. For instance, just about every officer in the Brigade who wasn't commissioned before the fall of the Pacific Republic is a mustang officer. That is not how that is done in most states.
The Devils have the skills. What they need to do now is figure out how they're going to communicate them.
So they sit down, and they get to work.
Work proceeds.
* * *
Expand the Department
Needed: 31. Rolled: 81. 1 Success (2/2). Complete.
Having previously hired on new personnel, Secretary Harris spends her time making sure those personnel can actually discharge their jobs. For months, experienced diplomats have new hires following them everywhere, learning as they go. She throws together classes to bring them up to date on skills, procedures, and field knowledge. She works on a new system of new hire orientation.
A part of this is an office specifically intended to brief staff on their areas of responsibility. In partnership with the Foreign Intelligence Office, they prepare a series of standard briefings on every conceivable duty posting that diplomatic personnel could be assigned to. It seems like such a small thing, but it's something you've never actually had before, and it's one of a dozen things that a functional state department normally does that yours is just starting to pick up. Another way to have limited personnel grapple with all the world's states.
And it tells.
Your new personnel are now up to scratch, and the Department's ability to manage its continually-expanding responsibilities has improved. +1 Department of State AP.
Your previous efforts at arms purchase were met with polite, but firm, requests that you wait while the world's arms producers geared up for what looked like the possibility of a Tsar insane enough to seek direct confrontation with his enemies.
Nikolai kindly stuck his dick into Victoria and proceeded to lose Central Vietnam because the reaction forces he would have used to save it were in Canada. The great powers of the world are now considering how to best support proxies to pressure the Russosphere. And in all the world, with its manifold opportunities, there is only one state going around asking for somebody to help them unmake the foundation of Russian influence for an entire continent.
Your requests have found an audience abruptly rapt with interest.
Interlude to follow. It's time to figure out who you would like to select to, in six years' time, have your army ready to rumble in a no-holds-barred war. Try not to lose too much sleep about the timeline.
-Captain Dara Grimes, CEO and Owner, Emancipation Logistics & Shipping-
Dara Grimes leans on the railing outside her great ship's bridge, peering through a pair of binoculars into the mist. Her grip on the railing is sure, her balance unflagging despite the pitching of the deck. Her hair matches the grey of metal under her fingers, itself only outstripped in hardness by the expression on her face.
She is the image of a legend in flesh. A stalwart freedom runner, as uncompromising in the face of miserable weather as she is in the face of Victoria slavers. The daring smuggler who has dared cheat Victoria of its victims time and again, releasing them in free ports across the world as free people. A shepherd, some would say, of a new Christianity. A hero.
All an act, of course, for the little Commonwealth birdy clutching to the rail next to her. In this fog, the binoculars might as well be blacked out with ink for all the good they do. But the spooked look the young man gives her is sweet enough to be worth the theater. New meat is always fun to toy with.
"Nearly there," she says, lowering the useless binoculars.
"You can't possibly see anything in this," says young Ravi, shivering in his coat.
Dara smirk, eyes flicking to the barest shadow of shoreline passing by to port. As it vanishes into the gloom, she grins. "Wanna bet?"
Ravi glares at her. "Y'know what, fine. Where are we, Captain?"
She nods into the expanse of fog. "We just passed Dover. We'll be turning north soon, then west, then onto London Gateway." She pulls out her phone and passes it to him after opening the map app.
He fumbled with the device for a bit, clearly unused to the technology, but gets it to work quickly enough. He blinks as her GPS confirms what she has to say. He looks up, eyes narrowed. "Okay, how?"
She nods into the gloom again, grinning. "The day I can't recognize the White Cliffs, Ravi, no matter the fog, is the day I need to find other work."
He laughs quietly, shaking his head. "Of course."
She grins. "So, fresh fish, what do you think of the operation?"
She watches the spy's face close off and his eyes flicker back and forth before he answers. "Smooth sailing," he says, in a perfectly normal tone of voice. "It's impressive, with how many people you have below decks. You've done this sort of thing a lot."
"Work as long as I have and you get the practice of this sort of thing down to a science," she says, glancing again off into the fog. Ravi notices, and she sees him holding something back. She tilts her head. "What?"
He nods off in the direction she glanced in. "You've been doing that today. Like, every minute, sometimes more."
Like a force is turning her head, she glances out again. She lets it happen, slowly peering through the dense mist. "Old habits, from the bad old days. Once the company was set up, I could operate more openly, but during the early days of doing freedom runs I was always dodging Victorian patrols. Had to keep your eyes open. Close into shore like this, heavy fog? Brings me right back." She sighs. "Nothing to worry about, but you still always check."
He nods, and the conversation lapses. After a few moments, they feel the ship turning north as they round the coast.
Dara speaks up again. "Ready for a whole bunch of talking once we get into port?"
He hums. "It feels strange. A year ago my job would have never taken me farther away from home than maybe Detroit. Now I'm going to Europe."
"Eh, it's Britain, hardly counts," she replies, grinning. "But yeah, I get it. Still, there's a lot of people for you to talk to. Your boss'll be happy about this. They'd better be, at least."
"I'm going to talk to executives at a major defense manufacturer about a massive contract," he says, voice dry. "If I fuck up, I think my boss would fire me. And that's just the biggest item. I'm supposed to talk to community leaders all over London for expatriate communities. This is important work. It needs to go right."
Dara chuckles. "Don't worry too much about that. I'll be sure to introduce you right. They'll at least hear you out."
"You're sure you can get me in the door?" he asks.
Dara hums, glancing out through the fog again. "...the thing about the Collapse is that everybody lost somebody. The thing about people on the East Coast who could flee the American Collapse to Britain is that they usually had other family in the States, who could only sometimes get away. Wealthy or not...most people lost somebody. And I've gotten a lot of people out, over the years." She pushes away from the railing and looks at Ravi again. "A lot of people owe me favors. I'll get you in the door."
He stares back at her for a moment. Then, he nods.
Through an initial contact with the freedom runner Dara Grimes, you've managed to secure several productive meetings with prominent members of the American Diaspora, with other agents following up on initial contact to get into Europe and continue the work. You've spread the word of your accomplishments and your interest in hiring talented, patriotic members of the Diaspora far and wide, and people are starting to answer. Skilled personnel will to an extent always be a matter of shortage, but this will significantly relieve the pressure. This option, being completed in the same turn as Source Foreign Arms, and each done in a single turn, has turned up an unexpected synergy that you'll see in that option's upcoming interlude.
The FCNY has raised concerns at the Revivalist Council about your encroachment into their traditional sphere of influence -- both in poaching people from the expatriate networks that give them so much influence in Europe, and in your direct approaches to the same defense manufacturers even now handling the FCNY's own rapid rearmament. This will escalate to the Revivalist Council...
* * *
Establish Council Representation
Needed: 36. Rolled: 43. 1 Success. Complete.
Given how annoyed FCNY is right now, you are extremely glad that you did this when you did. The personnel are out and settled into place. Not before time, too.
Support staff for your representative are in place to assist in handling the blowback from FCNY regarding your work in their traditional sphere of influence. Interlude incoming.
You have spun your wheels on this so damn much, but it's finally fucking done.
In general, the question of refugees has been a hard one for your administration. These are, as far as you see them, fellow Americans. Fellow citizens of a country you all share, if one currently in a state of severe dislocation. It's why you've gone to bat for them so many times.
It's why it's so frustrating that you face continued pushback in your efforts to advocate for them.
But this time, you overprepared. You put your all into this one.
You don't have nearly enough to show for the level of effort you put into it, but after a year of pushing, the Department of Domestic Affairs's Immigration And Settlement Office has finally been established.
Three tries later for an option requiring you to roll a 26 or higher one time, it's finally done. The Office is established and has already begun work moving people out of Detroit and Chicago, to ease some of the pressure. Tension is still at a high ebb, but you've taken the worst of the edge off, for now.
* * *
The Works x2
Needed: 31. Rolled: 64, 90. 2 Successes. Complete.
You wonder, sometimes, if you need to ask Congress to give Secretary Wilson a raise.
Her department has consistently been asked to tackle some of your thorniest problems, and as you gear up for total war, it's not looking like it's going to get better. Ninety percent of the time, when you ask her to handle something, it's something that has the potential to messily detonate in a way that has the potential to blow back on your citizens in a way that ruins or costs them their lives.
Anyway, this year you've asked her to defuse a colossal domestic feud over one of the largest industrial facilities left in North America, with four of your states at one another's throats. So, presumably, she feels just amazing about things.
The thing that has you intent on giving her a raise is that despite the challenges you give her, she consistently succeeds. Maybe not instantly, maybe not without troubles, but she buckles down and she finds a way. It's a crime that she's not actually from your party. You'd give anything to be able to not have to worry about losing her if the coalition breaks down.
Her success continues here.
Gary enters these talks hopped up on desperation and a nearly feral hunger from seeing the economic engine that built their city within reach once more. Detroit enters them with a rampant paranoia that the only facility that made Victoria tolerate their existence might be going away. Chicago and Indiana observe, and seethes that they aren't included given their interest in integrating with Gary. It is a situation that some people would call impossible.
And Christina comes back with a win.
"Gary's willing to wait, and Detroit's willing to let the Works go," she says, slumping in her chair. "But Detroit wants the new engine factories coming online as the Works is coming offline. They don't want a gap. They're not accusing us of trying to scam them, but they just don't trust on this one. Gary's willing to hold off for that with Detroit's word on it, but they want the Works coming over as soon as the engine factories are being built. No delays."
You pinch the bridge of your nose. "That's a really restrictive timeline for a project like this. Roberto's been trying to figure out how to manage it and largely coming up short."
Christina meets your gaze. "Then we're gonna have to hope we get enough industrial planners from reaching out to the Diaspora, because that's the only way Gary and Detroit are willing to settle this."
"As if we didn't have enough to coordinate," you grumble, mind racing. You need factories building new rolling stock, and you can't afford to hold off too long with how long lead times on this sort of construction are. That means putting pressure on your timeline for the Works, pressure that you really don't need for a project of this scope and complexity. You sigh. "I'm sorry. You've pulled off a remarkable win here, I don't mean to downplay it."
"No, I get it," she says, rubbing at her eyes and yawning. "I've been keeping Roberto up to date, I know it's not ideal. But this is what they're willing to take."
You groan. "Then we'll just have to work with it."
Christina has the involved parties deescalated enough to recognize that the problem before them is materially solvable. Unfortunately, tensions are still high enough that they're just going to be inflexible on the timeline. Work on relocating the Works to Gary must begin the turn after you break ground on new locomotive production in Detroit. No earlier, no later, or somebody will conclude that they're about to be screwed. If the timeline does not appeal, there is an option. The involved parties are no longer on the verge of doing something drastic in a fit of panic. With some wheeling and dealing in Congress, you might be able to get approval to revise the timeline to more closely fit the material reality these people are ignoring in their paranoia. You do, after all, intend to give them all what they want in the end, anyway...
You've already laid the groundwork for this with your surveys; now comes the work of brute-force planning.
Inescapably, much of the work of the Seven-Year Plan is the work of reindustrializing the Chicago-Gary area, but every major metropolitan area can gainfully contribute in some way. Everywhere needs work. Putting together local producers you can support, foreign investors willing to bet based on your victory in Detroit that you'll survive the next war so they can turn a profit, and state enterprises you intend to establish in sectors that absolutely can't be allowed to fail no matter what the market says, you draw up a picture of what the CFC looks like, on the eve of war with Victoria.
It looks nothing like what you have now, but that's all right.
Because now, you have everything lined up just right. The plans for where factories can go and what they need to do. Foreign suppliers for arms to coordinate imports and manufacturing with. Experts coming in. A solid lead on your plans for railroad expansion, to tie it all together. You're ready.
It's time to hit the button and start building.
You are lined up and ready to go. The Plan calls for a beginning to large-scale industrial expansion as your next course of action. It is now time to commit.
* * *
Build Rail x2
Needed: 26. Rolled: 28, 81. 2 Successes. Ahead of target by 1.
A part of this is probably motivated by Detroit attempting to demonstrate their value as the talks with Gary wind on, but their engineers legitimately do fantastic work. There's already a reasonably effective rail network in Detroit, and to open up their efforts, and continue their bizarre game of one-upmanship with Toledo over who can more enthusiastically integrate with the CFC, they work to extend that network to Toledo. The two cities, their relationship once marred by Victorian trickery, are bound once more by veins of steel and wood.
It is a network marred by a shortage of actual trains, mind, but the rail is there and sees regular if somewhat infrequent service. You are already feeling the pinch in terms of rolling stock. You'll need to procure some soon or the rails won't be of any use at all. You want your railroads to have experience operating by the time they're called upon to support military operations.
The greater part of Detroit's work, however, is in Chicago. Detroit will have pride of place in your rail network as the foremost builder of it, but Chicago is one of the most infrastructurally-significant places on the continent. It was always going to be the centerpiece. A team of engineers takes ship to your capital and enters Union Station. Survey work proceeds as they start hiring laborers, and before summer begins, there's a massive effort underway to clear and refurbish the building and the mass of switching yards and rail lines connected to it.
Every day, the single test locomotive Detroit sent over rolls down another line, and you get closer to your goals.
You are leading the SYP moving target for rail by 1 AP. Detroit and Toledo have a main rail line connecting them with regular service. Work is proceeding restoring Union Station and the massive rail interchange it sit on, with priority given to lines expected to be crucial to the Seven-Year Plan.
* * *
Long Tail
Needed: 31. Rolled: 41. 1 Success. Complete.
The new analysts cut their teeth on the word brought in from all over the Mississippi watershed.
It is a titanic deluge of information, in greater granularity than you've ever had to cope with before. It is a brutal crucible to hone the new hires. They take in a veritable sea of data and start trying to work to make it into intelligence. Slowly, as your intelligence agencies develop institutional structures to put these people to work, they begin to succeed, and make something worthwhile of these people. It's an inspiring effort. Security is not your priority for truly qualified personnel, and the new hires were suffering for the lack of that when they first came on. Security is having to do the job that the Department of Technological Recovery is trying to organize, but on their own and as they go, and it's working.
And, as it begins to produce results, those analysts increasingly turn their eyes north, towards Minnesota.
New analysts have greatly improved your ability to process information into useful intelligence.
* * *
Trouble In Minnesota
Needed: 26. Rolled: 73. 1 Success. Complete.
A year ago, you mediated between the rival claimants to the state Government of Minnesota; the quasi-military state in Minneapolis that ejected the legitimate state government, and that legitimate state government, now hosted at the city of Bemidji and a shadow of its former self. At Bemidji's invitation, with the support of several allies in foreign states, you mediated; over Minneapolis's objections, you found in favor of Bemidji.
Since then -- you now know, with the aid of your expanded intelligence network along the Mississippi -- the situation has developed. Dramatically.
You selected in favor of Bemidji in part because of their demonstrated ability to reach out and do the work of diplomacy, in gaining allies to support their claim. Since you lent them the legitimacy of your good opinion, they have not let the grass grow under their feet.
Bemidji has reached out to communities all throughout the state of Minnesota, with a message: the Commonwealth favors us. Join us, if it's safe. If it isn't, then do what you must; just give no aid to Minneapolis. In tandem with their actual military alliances and their somewhat overblown characterizations of your patronage, it has proven to be an attractive offer. Their territory has expanded dramatically as communities fold into them, assuring them that they were loyal all along.
Naturally.
Sincerity aside, it represent a dramatic flowering in influence and power -- a flowering that they demonstrated in decisive force once their territory touched borders with that of the State of Superior at Duluth. Competing representative from Duluth attended your mediation in Minnesota, each claiming legitimacy and each supporting a different candidate. Evidently, the city was a very chaotic direct democracy with a variety of ambitious power brokers jockeying for influence. With Bemidji suddenly on the borders, and Minneapolis far away, the situation swiftly resolved, with a Revivalist government friendly to Bemidji taking control and declaring formal alliance with Bemidji.
All of this is good, and more or less what you wanted.
Unfortunately, from what you can tell, Minneapolis's response to this has been to implement a draft and prepare to go to war.
Some of your contacts in communities along the Upper Mississippi are just gone now, conscripted to the army, and you've caught scraps of news of troop movements all over. It's clearly a significant effort, but by the looks of things, Minneapolis has decided that they need to put a maximum effort into violently resolving this situation before the balance can shift against them.
Presently, judging by the movements you're seeing, you believe that they intend to attack in fall, and hopefully take Bemidji itself -- if they can't annex the territory entirely -- by the time winter comes. With the conflict quite literally frozen, making it much harder for you to intervene, they would be able to renegotiate from a position of strength.
You've already informed Bemidji of this, of course. When you favored them, you staked your reputation on their success. It would be an act of active self-sabotage to let this go ahead unopposed. That said, Minneapolis still controls the greatest concentration of population and industry -- such as it is -- in Minnesota. They could still win.
The question, then, is if you plan to intervene here, with the warning you've earned.
Bemidji has done some Work with your support. Minneapolis is preparing to invade. You've passed warning along. What do? Options available next turn.
Your effort to establish campaigns to teach job skills to your adult population founders on a simple challenge: the best teachers and administrators are being snapped up by the actual Department of Education, and the people hired on for this job are struggling with the work. Initial efforts have proceeded...poorly.
They insist that they're learning valuable lessons from failure. Just once, you wish that somebody would come to you talking about how they're learning such valuable lessons from success.
Nope.
* * *
School Survey x2
Needed: 36. Rolled: 62, 60. 2 Successes (2/3). Not Complete.
The good thing about the Department of Education snapping up all of your qualified educators and administrators is that they're actually doing some good work on the survey.
First of all, depending on which state you look at, the state of education in the Commonwealth is sharply variable. Some states had centralized schooling. Some had no public schooling (looking at you, Indiana, you fuckers). Some maintained the pre-Collapse district model. Chicago might be the best off, which, to somebody like you, who experienced all the glories of a pre-Collapse Chicago Public Schools education, is simply hilarious, in a deeply depressing way. Indiana, as discussed, is worst.
The survey itself -- as in , the work of going around and collecting data -- is done. Now, all that's left is for the Department to collate the results and write up an action plan.
All. God, you didn't just jinx it, did you?
Work proceeds, with the Department getting a strong start on its work.
We're back, folks.
Busy turn, and damn if you didn't have some blessed rolls.
The Plan is about to hit a serious inflection point. The make-a-plan phase is ending; now it's time to execute the plan.
I'll start working on the interludes fairly soon; I want to keep this humming along if at all possible. Hope you've all enjoyed! See you around the thread.
I think there's nothing much to it but to sit up and have our army traipse on over there, given the givens of our economic stance. Tying down AP. Sigh.
Thinking back, it's a real pity we dispersed the Devil Brigrade into our officer academies—this is just the sort of thing they'd be great for, trading in an OWE charge for twoish AP and other costs of sending the army main would be an option well worth consideration, but what's done is done, and we couldn't have known the future.
The FCNY has raised concerns at the Revivalist Council about your encroachment into their traditional sphere of influence -- both in poaching people from the expatriate networks that give them so much influence in Europe, and in your direct approaches to the same defense manufacturers even now handling the FCNY's own rapid rearmament. This will escalate to the Revivalist Council...
Establish Council Representation
Needed: 36. Rolled: 43. 1 Success. Complete.
Given how annoyed FCNY is right now, you are extremely glad that you did this when you did. The personnel are out and settled into place. Not before time, too.
Support staff for your representative are in place to assist in handling the blowback from FCNY regarding your work in their traditional sphere of influence. Interlude incoming.
Skilled personnel will to an extent always be a matter of shortage, but this will significantly relieve the pressure. This option, being completed in the same turn as Source Foreign Arms, and each done in a single turn, has turned up an unexpected synergy that you'll see in that option's upcoming interlude
Oooooooooh. In the long run, things may very well be looking up militarily (at least by the standards of our current situation) (assuming the dice et cetera cooperate).
What a way to start! And it looks like that Commander of those fighters got killed honestly not surprised and I won't mourn his loss given he gave us what we wanted.
Ah not really surprised by this now, question as always is what can we send as aid that also won't interrupt our SYP and round 2 with the Vick's(because in the end that is far more important then this, and priority's matter)? Of course we have to send some form of support we backed them earlier and if they where to fail that'd be a major egg to our face we can't afford right now as the new power around the block.
Like should we send advisors to aid there military? Material support or intelligence support? I don't think we want/can send troops given we're literally restructuring our officer cadre with the academies and about to get new weapons for our armed forces. Perhaps as we get new weapons we send over our older gear to them? I honestly don't know and should probably wait till we see what options we have to work with.
I don't think we can go sending a division over there either since I doubt we have defensive treaty's in place with Bemidji as well at this moment.
I think there's nothing much to it but to sit up and have our best Division traipse on over there, given the givens of our economic stance. Tying down AP. Sigh.
That could be a solution give our Air Force some experience in Ground Support while hopefully not being a large enough commitment to require an AP. And I doubt Minneapolis has any serious air power of there own meaning any Air Craft we send will have to be careful of is SAM sites ideally.
In this particular case, they'd prefer you buy from China, the NCR, etc. The places and people you're approaching form critical parts of their diplomatic, economic, and -- increasingly -- military security, so as you take attention, some amount will turn from them.
In this particular case, they'd prefer you buy from China, the NCR, etc. The places and people you're approaching form critical parts of their diplomatic, economic, and -- increasingly -- military security, so as you take attention, some amount will turn from them.
Europe is the most fast and accessible for us to get weapons and other industry stuff ncr and China will likely require relying on expensive cargo planes, and it doesn't solve that we need to rebuild industry and need engineers and other specialists so unless they can somehow grow them in a few weeks for us they are being unrealistic in expecting us to somehow industrialize without them and fight Victoria which still would be much like to kill us and also kill them which it seems they have forgotten.
I mean, so are they. In fact, they're closer to Victoria than us. And with the current state of things in North America, it's unlikely that the old guarantees that kept Victoria away will remain.
The nurse snorts. "Well, then, maybe you can spend a little more time deciding if you're gonna tell anybody it was me or not." He steps closer, getting Ron's face. "Do you think that you can make up for letting him get away with everything by going out killing him once you got what you wanted?"
Ron flinches back, eyes wide.
The nurse shakes his head. "From me, killing the fucker means something. You snap your fingers and thousands of people march. Do something important if you feel guilty." He steps past, towards the door. "Next time, just don't. I don't think you'd be a very good General if you were in prison for murder." He walks into the house.
Yeaaah, it was kind of a shitty thing to do, but we needed those planes and instructors, our own survival was a bit more important than seeking justice.
And in all the world, with its manifold opportunities, there is only one state going around asking for somebody to help them unmake the foundation of Russian influence for an entire continent.
Your requests have found an audience abruptly rapt with interest.
There's already a reasonably effective rail network in Detroit, and to open up their efforts, and continue their bizarre game of one-upmanship with Toledo over who can more enthusiastically integrate with the CFC, they work to extend that network to Toledo.
In this particular case, they'd prefer you buy from China, the NCR, etc. The places and people you're approaching form critical parts of their diplomatic, economic, and -- increasingly -- military security, so as you take attention, some amount will turn from them.
Well, we can at least hear them out. I don't begrudge them the right to call dibs on certain suppliers, given that their security situation is if anything more urgent than ours.
I mean, so are they. In fact, they're closer to Victoria than us. And with the current state of things in North America, it's unlikely that the old guarantees that kept Victoria away will remain.
And they are in more danger since they are easily in a South Korea Seoul situation, were Victoria has a absolute ton of artillery pointed at them that can easily turn them into a parking lot and quite likely also has chemical artillery shells to use on them as well.
Because it means that to become a lieutenant you need to spend several years starting out as an infantry private getting yelled and made to do drills on personal weapons an officer shouldn't be bothering with because their job is to think, not to personally fire their weapon.
Because it means that to become a lieutenant you need to spend several years starting out as an infantry private getting yelled and made to do drills on personal weapons an officer shouldn't be bothering with because their job is to think, not to personally fire their weapon.
And a soldiers job is to think on the battlefield about how to successfully execute their mission and *not die*. One of these ways of doing it is better for executing a war.
Because it drains the pool of experienced, long-service NCOs that armies rely on, whether that be for initiative or particular job skills, and it also actually makes it much, much harder to build up an officer corps. If the way you become Lieutenant is five or more years in grade as a Sergeant Major, then your sergeants aren't actually very experienced at all. Your Lieutenants are fantastic, but you only ever have as many of them as you have people willing to serve over a decade in your military, and it gets worse as you go higher. In a western model, it means your low-level leadership gets dramatically worse, and your high-level leadership gets infeasibly small. In models that don't emphasize low-level initiative to the same degree, it means you don't have the body of experts that sergeants represent. Those experts, once they've been in long enough to get really good, become officers, and stop applying their expert skills. And given that those officers are much more critical in these models, the low throughput is a serious problem.
The Devils were a society as much as they were a military unit. It wasn't impossible to leave, but joining was, at least in the ideal, a commitment until either death or disability. You could have every officer 'stang up from the sergeants and that was fine, because everybody was in for life and so experienced that there was an embarrassment of choices for who moved up.
It doesn't work that way for you. Most of your people go home and become civilians again. You do it this way and you'll have maybe a thousand captains for your whole army.
And a soldiers job is to think on the battlefield about how to successfully execute their mission and *not die*. One of these ways of doing it is better for executing a war.
A machine gun team's job on the battlefield is to maintain their machine gun and service targets with it. Obviously, to do this, they must think. Soldiers, even the most freshly recruited privates, are not just trained monkeys. However, the nature of the thinking they must do is kept within certain boundaries. And there is good reason for this. The soldiers need to be physically alert and aware of dangers at all times; distraction could get them killed. They have a critically important job, and it is right there in front of them, and putting 100% of their judgment and intelligence into doing that job and hopefully avoiding danger while doing so is all they have time for.
A lieutenant's job is to position and instruct a large collection of soldiers banded into small units such as squads and fire teams, organizing them so that all the many soldiers in the unit's sub-components can engage the enemy effectively, while being kept as safe from harm as possible. The officer's job includes a much greater slice of keeping track of supplies and preparation and training, too. The lieutenant is very often going to be thinking about things he cannot see, or that are not even truly visible.
One of the key principles that makes an organized military successful is regimented division of labor, and particularly of intellectual labor. The things it is an officer's job to think about and prioritize are not the same as the things it's a random grunt's job to handle.
That doesn't mean the grunt is expected to be stupid or brainless. Just that they have priorities to consider. Conversely, if you see an infantry captain firing his personal weapon, something has gone wrong, because the captain is assumed to be able to do more damage to the enemy by directing his own men to fire better.
Presently, judging by the movements you're seeing, you believe that they intend to attack in fall, and hopefully take Bemidji itself -- if they can't annex the territory entirely -- by the time winter comes. With the conflict quite literally frozen, making it much harder for you to intervene, they would be able to renegotiate from a position of strength.
You've already informed Bemidji of this, of course. When you favored them, you staked your reputation on their success. It would be an act of active self-sabotage to let this go ahead unopposed. That said, Minneapolis still controls the greatest concentration of population and industry -- such as it is -- in Minnesota. They could still win.
The question, then, is if you plan to intervene here, with the warning you've earned.
*checks @EBR 's map and Wikipedia*
Rock Island Illinois, on the Commonwealth border and on the Missouri, to Minneapolis is 350 miles upriver.
Three weeks on foot, two days by motor vehicle or boat doing 30 miles/hour for 8 hours/day.
And the river is there for moving supplies and water.
Minneapolis to Bemidji is 210 miles overland. At 30 miles/hr, thats a day and half. No convenient river shipping.
Duluth to Minneapolis is 150 miles overland. At 30 miles/hr, thats an 8-hour day.
Duluth to Bemidji is ~150 miles. At 30 miles/hr, thats an 8-hour day.
Nope, they cant do it. Not successfully.
The Detroit Militia was 15,000 or so full up, from a bigger city (Detroit-Windsor is ~900,000 people IRL), and that was with the war coming to them, on their home ground, and them not needing to manage logistics for an expeditionary force.
Minneapolis is roughly half of Detroit-Windsor in RL population, and would have proportionately fewer people.
Say 7,000 people all told.
Combine that with the need to supply those troops over a couple hundred miles, and that autumn is supposed to be harvest time for farmers so when Minneapolis can least afford labor shortages, while Bemidji's new friendship with Duluth means they can receive food shipped in.
Furthermore, first snowfall in Minnesota can be as early as mid-October, and Bemidji specifically can start seeing snow in September.....yeah, that doesnt work.
And even if it did, then what?
They would have the bulk of their military stuck 200 miles away from home, occupying a hostile territory, with their heartland unprotected, after pissing off ALL their neighbors worse than they did earlier.
They are risking a lot of lives here for....ego, as far as I can tell.
Bemidji cant starve them. Cant stop them trading downriver.
If they simply chose to secede as a city, noone would stop them. Political dead end, but it would stretch things out more.
Instead they are attempting something...stupid.
Bemidji would probably win even without our intervention. Of course, we could probably nudge things along.
Maybe send a F-16 or two to Minneapolis to escort a passenger plane with diplomats/negotiators, and do a flyover of the city. Even cue up a shipment of weapons on a DC-3 for Bemidji via Duluth, just to make a point.
If things continue to go south, we cut public orders for a division to perform field exercises at Rock Island and help with construction work there for a couple weeks, along with elements of the Navy, along Chicago's northern border until winter falls and large-scale movement of troops becomes non-feasible.
But preferably we can get the Minneapolis junta to back down with diplomacy without having to go that far.
I mean, so are they. In fact, they're closer to Victoria than us. And with the current state of things in North America, it's unlikely that the old guarantees that kept Victoria away will remain.
That said, we arent really in competition for the same military supplies. Chicago doesnt need any frigates anytime soon, and Europe has the heavy industry to build any of the stuff we both need.
Its the skilled people and money we're in competition for, and frankly, given a population of 50 million, FCNY have both.
Frankly, we're going to be recruiting from them as well.
What they are tetchy about is the diplomatic standing, because this is the first time they have had competition in that space.
Cali hasnt really been a candidate since the end of the Pacific War, and is on the Pacific Coast.
Your new personnel are now up to scratch, and the Department's ability to manage its continually-expanding responsibilities has improved. +1 Department of Defense AP.
[ ] Expand the Department: You have several demands on your government going into the future, and among them is affairs of state. Your position requires massive diplomatic effort to maintain, a state of affairs which you seem only to heighten with every act you undertake, and you must maintain it in order to avoid a catastrophic weakening of your position. Yet, you cannot continue to dump resources into State when Defense and Development are so much more pressing. Invest in an expansion of the Department so that it can manage its duties without needing help from the rest of the government so often. DC: 30. Successes Required: 2 (1 of 2 complete). AP Limit: 2. Effect: Gain 1 additional Department of State AP per turn.
*checks @EBR 's map and Wikipedia*
Rock Island Illinois, on the Commonwealth border and on the Missouri, to Minneapolis is 350 miles upriver.
Three weeks on foot, two days by motor vehicle or boat doing 30 miles/hour for 8 hours/day.
And the river is there for moving supplies and water.
Minneapolis to Bemidji is 210 miles overland. At 30 miles/hr, thats a day and half. No convenient river shipping.
Duluth to Minneapolis is 150 miles overland. At 30 miles/hr, thats an 8-hour day.
Duluth to Bemidji is ~150 miles. At 30 miles/hr, thats an 8-hour day.
Nope, they cant do it. Not successfully.
The Detroit Militia was 15,000 or so full up, from a bigger city (Detroit-Windsor is ~900,000 people IRL), and that was with the war coming to them, on their home ground, and them not needing to manage logistics for an expeditionary force.
Minneapolis is roughly half of Detroit-Windsor in RL population, and would have proportionately fewer people.
Say 7,000 people all told.
Combine that with the need to supply those troops over a couple hundred miles, and that autumn is supposed to be harvest time for farmers so when Minneapolis can least afford labor shortages, while Bemidji's new friendship with Duluth means they can receive food shipped in.
Furthermore, first snowfall in Minnesota can be as early as mid-October, and Bemidji specifically can start seeing snow in September.....yeah, that doesnt work.
And even if it did, then what?
They would have the bulk of their military stuck 200 miles away from home, occupying a hostile territory, with their heartland unprotected, after pissing off ALL their neighbors worse than they did earlier.
They are risking a lot of lives here for....ego, as far as I can tell.
Bemidji cant starve them. Cant stop them trading downriver.
If they simply chose to secede as a city, noone would stop them. Political dead end, but it would stretch things out more.
Instead they are attempting something...stupid.
Bemidji would probably win even without our intervention. Of course, we could probably nudge things along.
Maybe send a F-16 or two to Minneapolis to escort a passenger plane with diplomats/negotiators, and do a flyover of the city. Even cue up a shipment of weapons on a DC-3 for Bemidji via Duluth, just to make a point.
If things continue to go south, we cut public orders for a division to perform field exercises at Rock Island and help with construction work there for a couple weeks, along with elements of the Navy, along Chicago's northern border until winter falls and large-scale movement of troops becomes non-feasible.
But preferably we can get the Minneapolis junta to back down with diplomacy without having to go that far.
To clarify: you absolutely have a sufficient quantity of force to beat Minneapolis. Almost trivially. They're not a single city — they control much of the south of the state and especially its most urban areas, which is why the option characterizes the balance of force as being possibly in their favor even with Bemidji's explosive growth and prior warning — but they're a flea next to you. However, you did not take the option to get a part of your army configured for standing service. You will need to succeed in a mobilization action to get troops mustered and deployed in time to preempt this plan, if you intend to do so with military force. The plan was doubtless that you wouldn't rumble their preparations — and if you hadn't taken the option, or beaten the DC, you wouldn't have — and thus wouldn't be able to react in time. And then, well, preventing an ally from falling is one thing, but does Chicago really want to invade for a memory?
Don't picture Russia making a bet that they can beat America in a fight; picture Russia making a bet that if Crimea falls before anybody knows what's going on, then America won't honor its security guarantees to Ukraine because it's already done and they're not willing to send Americans to die for it.
