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We'd need to repair some damaged civil engineering works to make the Mississippi River fully navigable to shipping again, probably. We'd need to deal with an uncertain number of city-states, warlords, and probably old-school robber baron types who I suspect hold territory along the Mississippi and are probably making it prohibitively difficult to trade along the river even in small boats, by charging excessive tolls and interfering with commerce they don't like.
It's going to be quite a complicated undertaking.
We'd need to restore a very long overland route across country that is remote, often quite forbidding and desolate, and where centralized authority broke down forty years ago. Depending on our choice of overland route the scale of civil engineering works required may be very large or merely moderate. But we'd have to guard the route, and local actors might not have much incentive to help us do so.
Yeah, not planning on it.
I think it would be grossly over-optimistic to expect any of these approaches to bear full fruit in less than 5-10 years of gameplay. We might be able to start making headway on the Mississippi thing a bit faster than that.
Victoria's entire gimmick has been to break the back of all potential competition. We only exist because they screwed up, and because the combination of Sara Johnson's information-gathering and Ron Burns' decisive action overpowered the Victorian intelligence networks.
The only state in North America left standing that is clearly and unambiguously more powerful than us is the New California Republic, which has a higher tech base and was allowed to keep it by the Russians. They will be rebelling against Russia soon. In the medium to long run they may not be our friends, but they do share an interest in destroying Russian power in North America, both to settle their own grudges and to ensure that no one directly threatens them.
Honestly I consider the NCR to be the polity most likely to resist full reunification of the old United States, but that's an issue we can address when it comes up, and I for one am willing to let them go their own way.
A lot of the food surplus we want is going to be problematic to acquire due to flooding destroying the old transport infrastructure.
Which actually rises an important point. Australia without heavy investment in nukes,renewable and desalination is going to face a huge problem keeping her population fed and watered. Assuming refugees , we might be looking at mass depopulation from starved Aussies, especially as the trade networks that would had kept Australia afloat got ripped apart in the collapse.
Australia had the space , it just doesn't has the farmland. That also explains why Indonesia is courted by the PNAZ since without Thailand, Indonesia is going to be the main agricultural basin of that alliance.
Frankly.... We need the EU. The EU will shortcut any bootstrap by decades.
Whichever party was in government, the second the world power decided coal fired power was a no-no, it's a safe bet the Australian states suddenly received a lot of Federal support for their various green initiatives. Australia has enough wind, sea, sun, and lithium for batteries that renewables could conceivably pull the country on their own, but with Russian prodding they may well have introduced nuclear as well.
Desalination isn't a huge problem, the facilities exist and we can make more, we just don't run them irl now because expensive and power hungry.
Word of Poptart is that Australia is doing okay anyway, though.
I'm not sure there are any magical girls left in Victoria itself. I would have said our enemies were instead its Twelve Dark Generals, but well, with most of them being gone now, and an enemy civil war, this seems like Season 2.
[X] Something isn't right here. Push across the river and into Buffalo before reestablishing defensive lines. Maybe that will bait out the response for which you've been looking -- and you won't exactly complain about the opportunity to deny Victoria the rail infrastructure within the city.
Unpleasant Echoes
Seizing the Niagara [Commonwealth vs. Loyalists]: 16 vs. 0. Success.
Calling your seizure of the Niagara River an assault would be perhaps the most generous phrasing anybody has used over the past year.
Under ten thousand militiamen, huddled miserably around the eastern end of the four bridges crossing the Niagara from your side. They have mismatched weapons, a handful of artillery pieces which you've already counter-batteried into scrap, and a few mortar tubes that their commanders could spare and the militia hardly know how to use. They are terrified, most of their commanders are dead, and they have received no training whatsoever. On the plus side, they have sandbag emplacements, in which they huddle.
On the other bank, over sixty thousand combat troops, plus tens of thousands more of support personnel. Twenty light or medium artillery pieces. Scores of mortars. Hundreds of up-armored technicals. Offshore, three warships of the Commonwealth Navy bring extra guns to the equation, the others having left. Ten F-16s fly overhead with bombs, while over thirty R-3 vultures cruise by at lower altitudes.
And, departing from the northern end of the Welland Canal under cover of darkness in smaller cargo ships loaded to the gunwales with landing boats, a brigade of soldiers from the Liberators division.
* * *
-Porter, New York, United States of America-
-Northern Confederation of Victoria-
-Monday, November 25, 2075, 6:02-
-Private James Roycewicz-
"One minute to the beach," whispers Sergeant Reyes.
"How are your arms doing, Roycewicz?" says Yates, the flash of white from her taunting grin visible in the moonlight.
James grunts quietly, continuing to work the oars. "Hey, Yates? Do me a favor, and shut your god damned mouth."
"Can it," hisses Xavier. "I don't wanna get shot because you morons need to jabber!"
They settle down, and James takes the opportunity to glance around, trying to pick out the other boats headed for the beach. It's both relieving and nerve-wracking that he can't see any of them. Hundreds of people, heading for a beach in pitch blackness, no cover to be found, and somewhere around ten thousand Victorians on the beach.
James is glad that the other boats are nearly invisible, but a part of him longs for the simple comfort of being able to glance back and forth and see friendlies.
Reyes peers out into the darkness and curses quietly. "Nope, I was wrong. We're at the beach now. Roycewicz, stop paddling."
James flinches, jerking the paddles out of the water, and winces at the splash that makes. Then he hears a hollow thud as the boat hits the shore.
Splashing sounds off to his left, and he nearly has a heart attack before he glances over and finally, finally sees another one of the boats, dark figures hopping out onto the sand.
"Move!" whispers Reyes.
The squad does as she says, getting out of the boat and hauling it up out of the water. James points his gun down the beach, eyes straining to make out anything that could be hostile.
"All right, get up the beach!" snaps Reyes. They all rise to their feet and just sprint, their appetite for hanging around on a dark, empty stretch of sand just about nonexistent. James follows along, and nearly slams full-tilt into a rock as it suddenly looms into his vision. As sand swiftly gives way to stones, the squad -- and their fellows, all around -- slow, carefully picking their way through. Eventually, they hit a sea wall and pause, coming together. Reyes and the sergeant from the next squad down the line hold a whispered conference for a moment-
-before, in the distance, a burst of automatic fire rings out.
Everybody freezes in the frozen moment after the shots, and then there's a five-second stretch where it sounds like a whole platoon is unloading at once. Then, silence again.
And then, there's the sound of a klaxon going off.
Said spits something in a language James doesn't speak, and Reyes sighs. "Well, somebody's made. Get going!" She raises her voice above a whisper, shouting out. "C'mon, we've gotta move! They're gonna be scrambling, let's go!"
Off to their right, Roycewicz hears the Lieutenant's voice, crying, "C'mon folks, over the wall! Get to the road! Move it!"
James stands, sets up his gun on the edge of the wall, and peers off at the lights in the windows of a house further ahead. "Covering!"
Reyes claps him on the shoulder. "All right, up and over! Go, go, go!"
From all around, the sound of hundreds of people's tension snapping loose all at once arises, and the 1st Brigade of the Liberators division charges forward into the side of the Loyalists' lines.
* * *
The Liberators' assault, haphazard as it is, catches the Loyalists entirely off guard. With the northern third of the Niagara completely unnavigable, they have comparatively few troops in that area, and the process of trying to shift more to contain the landing has exactly the hoped-for effect. Some militia shift away, hoping to be on the side of the line not presently under attack. Some follow orders and move north to launch a counter-attack on the expanding ring of territory held by Commonwealth forces. Some of them just panic and break entirely.
Whatever their reactions, it means that when your artillery opens up, it lands on light infantry in dense masses, out of cover on the roads.
And when the Big Red One sends their trucks tearing across the bridges, there is precious little left to stop them. The Inquisitors try to rally their troops to resist, punch back, and make you bleed as much as they physically can make you.
Good Faith Effort: 40.
They fail. The militia has Commonwealth troops rolling up their flank, seemingly walking straight out of the sea. Eerie whistles herald titanic blasts that rip through half a dozen men at once. The Devils themselves roar up on trucks covered in sheet metal -- hardly the heralds of the Old Country they are renowned as, but terrifying visions of the Country as it is. And planes. Not many, but bombs dropping out of the sky from barely-visible glints of metal on high is more terrifying than it should be.
En masse, the militia routs. And against the Big Red One, fully mechanized and more mildly inconvenienced by obstruction than substantively slowed, they swiftly find their escape cut off. Over the next three days, as you push into the city of Buffalo, you secure the surrender of 4,000 Victorian militiamen, and either kill the rest or put them to flight. And it would have been more...
Rachel looks around her, at the civilians lining the streets.
Her unit was one of many sent into Buffalo in the wake of the Big Red One's madcap rush into the city across the Peace Bridge. Ostensibly, they're here to close the noose on fleeing militia forces, although nobody really expects much of a fight from it. No, far more of a concern is the people.
Rachel just can't conceive of being invaded by a foreign army and showing up equipped for a parade.
The citizens of Buffalo line the streets. Some hold flowers, some hold baskets full of ticker tape. You see one old man holding a ratty old American flag with an air of profound uncertainty. They look scared. One young girl dumps a basket of ticker tape out a window before her mother appears and yanks her back inside. An old woman holds out a rose to one of the officers, further up ahead in the column. Her hands shake. The rose looks like it's dancing in her grip.
Nobody speaks.
The crowd is exclusively women, children, and the elderly. One can see where the Crusaders and Loyalists took a knife and carved out every man of sound body for muster. Rachel doubts there's a wisp of facial hair in the city that doesn't have grey in it.
For ten minutes, Rachel marches alongside her fellows, following the trucks up ahead. They round a corner in response to orders she never hears.
The crowd up hear is livelier, although not by much. Old men with grim faces lead the crowd in casting their showers of ticker tape and flowers across the column of soldiers, although they still hardly make a sound. Rachel finds herself looking up at the flowers flying through the air, in silence split only by the rustle of flying bits of debris, and the rhythmic rumbling of an army on the move. She follows one rose as it flies.
Then she blinks, as a large, black blur takes the rose out of the air.
She shoulders her rifle without thinking, and her squad spreads out slightly as they do the same, instinct calling for suspicion at the sudden movement. Rachel tracks the blur until it lands next to one of the trucks. Her eyes narrow. Is that...a backpa-
BOOM
Rachel's world dissolves into a blur, ringing, and the distant sounds of screams, explosions, and gunfire. Somebody steps on her; she thrashes out, and they stop. Unable to focus her eyes, she manages to force herself to her hands and knees. She shakes her head; that seems to go well with the crippling dizziness, so she does it some more. She doesn't know how long she sits there, quaking with shock and disorientation, but eventually, things clear.
She can't see her squad; wherever they've gone, they're not immediately visible. She can see some bodies, which she blessedly doesn't recognize. She sees the burning ruin of a truck. She sees tracers whipping past. She sees those grim-faced old men, surrounded by fleeing civilians, having produced assault rifles from somewhere, spraying down the convoy while shouting, "Victoria!" Nothing makes sense. A second ago she was in a parade.
But she has been trained on what to do when somebody shoots at her. Before she can consider doing otherwise, she lifts her rifle, aims at one of the men, and holds down the trigger until it stops kicking.
* * *
Ron Burns's radio squawks, and he answers. "Burns. Go," he says.
"General, sir," pants a voice over the line, the reports of gunfire in the distance. "There's...there's been an incident."
* * *
Thousands of old men. Thousands. Everything from grey old fathers to men who would have been alive for the Collapse. Some have scars. Some are missing hands.
All of them bear one of a set of twelve tattoos that every soldier in the Commonwealth Army has taken to using as tally marks on divisional insignias.
Burns swallows his outrage and sickening sense of deja vu. "There weren't any men of serving age left," he says, voice raspy. "So he went and found ones that would blend in." He looks across a row of bodies. "They must have known this was a suicide mission."
Schultz sighs. "If there's one thing the Victorian Army could always bring out of its soldiers, sir..."
Burns takes a deep breath. "Yes." He takes a long, slow blink to recenter himself. "What are the civilian casualties looking like?"
Schultz shifts uncomfortably. "...the bastards attacked after getting the citizens out to throw a parade. I got the Division turned around as fast as possible-"
"General Schultz."
"-we had to break off pursuit of the militia to do it, but we came around in order to take charge of things, but the delay-"
"Ed."
Schultz cuts himself off, grimacing. He inhales. "Current estimate is over two thousand."
Burns closes his eyes. "Two thousand in a day. In an hour."
"Sir..."
Burns turns away. "Find them. Blackwell wants to play games? We'll play. Find them."
Major General Schultz nods. "Yessir!"
Burns stalks away, fists clenched at his sides.
* * *
The Big Red One was due for a rest. Burns had intended to give them time off.
Burns isn't here, now. Hellfire's giving the orders, at this point.
The Devil Brigade leads their less experienced comrades into the City of Buffalo and rips the Loyalists' dare-to-die troops out by their roots. The Army retirees fight every step of the way. Time has dulled their fervor and their experience doesn't quite substitute for infirmity, but they are still old monsters with an edge of viciousness that no amount of age could ever break. Ancient grandfathers spend their last, sucking breaths wiring IEDs to blow. Men who look like they'd be better at home sending their children to universities pop out to empty rifle magazines of ammunition before they can be shot to death. They blend into the riddled population of Buffalo and dare the Devils to come and pry them out.
The Devils oblige.
Veterans of a decades-long retreat around the middle of America, the Devils know asymmetric warfare. They know what an ambush point looks like. They know how to hear the sounds of something being out of place. They know how to fight around civilians. They lead their compatriots into Buffalo and slam into these desperate martyrs.
Civilians die, shattered by bomb blasts or riddled with bullets, caught in the fighting between Devils and Loyalists, even as Commonwealth forces strive to evacuate those they can. Buffalo nearly burns as the last memory of the Victorian Army tries to drag it with them into death.
But the Devils prevail. The people of Buffalo have gone from terrified to furious, and while the deaths on the day you entered the city do you no favors, the citizenry recognize whom incited this, and the attackers find no allies within the city limits, even as well-suited as they are to blending in. Within two weeks, the city is secure, any man with a divisional tattoo is dead -- or a handful captured -- and the Big Red One can finally rest. It is not a cheerful victory.
But it is a victory.
Buffalo has fallen to your troops and the eastern bank of the Niagara is secure. Some three thousand militia escaped the fall of the city and fled. The Victorians' surprise has been revealed: mustered-out Army men, called back into service and left behind to blend in with Buffalo's gutted civilian population and make you bleed and choke on the city. They have been rooted out, with relatively low cost to your troops.
Gathering reliable data is difficult given the population's understandable reticence, but present estimates say that some 4,000 civilians died during the fall of Buffalo.
The Victorians have revealed their strategy. You must expect more ploys like this, if you advance deeper into Victorian territory. There simply won't be enough veterans to stock every town -- but then, every town hasn't been denuded of men of fighting age, the way Buffalo has been. Victoria's goal is to make you bleed for every step of land. Reconnaissance flights now show militia units starting to muster in Rochester. It seems that Blackwell intends to bleed you before landing a stronger strike.
In addition to being frustrating and demoralizing for many of your troops, the capture of Buffalo, and particularly news reports of the massive civilian casualties during the terror strikes on the first day, have prompted outrage back home. The Commonwealth Farmer-Laborer Party, in particular, is leading condemnations of Sara Johnson's government for embroiling the Commonwealth in a situation that would naturally lead to such civilian casualties when the chance for a negotiated settlement on favorable terms existed. While not overwhelming yet, the left-wing opposition is starting to call for peace.
How do you respond to this? You are voting what to do with the last few weeks before winter sets in and your operational tempo grinds to a halt. You are voting on a strategic objective, and not your treatment of Buffalo, which has already been determined by your play style.
[ ] This isn't worth it. Call for peace with the Loyalists and accept that they will be able to use this as a victory for leverage in negotiations. Victoria will present a peace plan. It will be significantly better for them than what you offered. You get to choose to accept or reject it.
[ ] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[ ] Blackwell has overplayed his hand; by calling a muster at Rochester, he's given you a concrete target. If you move out to the city with your motorized forces, you should be able cut it off and force a decisive battle with your superior forces.
-[ ] Blackwell is waiting to do enough damage to you that he can land a decisive blow. If you halt where you are and act like this hurt you more than it actually did, you may be able to bait him into attacking you right were you always wanted him to, giving you the chance to decisively shatter him that you've been waiting for.
-[ ] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms.
[ ] Especially now, write-in.
MANUAL MORATORIUM; APPROVAL VOTING.
Gah, this one fought me, but I hope you folks like it! Blackwell is starting to adopt better tactics; they're not working yet, but there for want of properly-trained troops go you.
As @Simon_Jester has been prophesying, this is one of my quests. Consider this an uncharacteristically gentle warning shot that your enemies are beginning to adapt to the realities of the situation.
A bit late to the game, and skipping forward to avoid what I suspect is a saltstorm (the two QM clarification posts to come do not fill be with hope). Someone might have said this already:
All of this makes sense in the most horrible of ways. 4G Warfare is all about demoralizing and destabilizing your opponent. Victoria fetishizes the USA's loss in Vietnam. Add to that the way that America thinks about the Minutemen and these sorts of strategies are right up the Vic's alley.
I wasn't expecting the army retirees angle, but it also makes sense from a worldbuilding perspective. They probably make up an important component of the Victorian informer state. I can imagine the veteran neighbor who occasionally invites themselves 'round for coffee in the afternoon, and the meaningful glances they might throw at things they disapprove of. I'm pretty sure that something like this has come up in the omakes, but the flavor feels different here. There its been things like an older officer taking advantage of the local young women. Awful with a veneer of respectability. Here it feels weathered and worn; it has stinking breath that no one dares to comment on.
Instead, I suggest talking about where the Commonwealth is going to focus, once this is over and done with. If you secure Seaway access, are you still planning to focus outreach efforts down the Mississippi? If you don't get access to the Seaway, you'll naturally work down the river, but how aggressively are you willing to push? What's the Commonwealth's methodology for restoring regular, physical contact to the outside world?
Fairly aggressively yes. A situation where the Vics sit on a vital artery is not tenable. And the St Lawrence Way freezes over in winter, so we'd want alternative routes anyway.
While Victoria is tied up litigating the terms of its continued existence between its armed factions, we should have the freedom to negotiate access down the Mississippi. And the halo of military success should help cow the odd warlord.
Though I don't think it'll be necessary. Yet.
Everyone on the river benefits from increased trade. Without Victoria mucking things up, self interest dictates it. And given our position in the breadbasket of the US, we do have stuff that people downriver will want.
Only when the size of the cake becomes apparent will the jackals come forth.
And need to be shot.
Do we have a national anthem? Because I would like to nominate Commonwealth of Toil
In the gloom of mighty cities
Mid the roar of whirling wheels
We are toiling on like chattel slaves of old,
And our masters hope to keep us
Ever thus beneath their heels,
And to coin our very life blood into gold.
CHORUS:
But we have a glowing dream
Of how fair the world will seem
When each man can live his life secure and free;
When the earth is owned by labor
And there's joy and peace for all
In the Commonwealth of Toil that is to be.
They would keep us cowed and beaten,
Cringing meekly at their feet.
They would stand between each worker and his bread.
Shall we yield our lives up to them
For the bitter crust we eat?
Shall we only hope for heaven when we're dead?
CHORUS
They have laid our lives out for us
To the utter end of time.
Shall we stagger on beneath their heavy load?
Shall we let them live forever In their gilded halls of crime,
With our children doomed to toil beneath their goad?
CHORUS
When our cause is all triumphant
And we claim our Mother Earth,
And the nightmare of the present fades away,
We shall live with love and laughter,
We who now are little worth,
And we'll not regret the price we have to pay.
Sure.
As important as getting a proper electric grid up and running.
I will note that in this universe, battery power storage is good enough that Toyota was allegedly selling mass production electric vehicles in the 2030s. Not just in stable areas but in fucking Victoria shortly after their secession. That implies major breakthroughs both in power storage density and in cost.
A build out of solar-battery generation and storage is well within reach if we can get our hands on solar panels.
OK, a few replies to things that happened DURING the debate, but that are not themselves intended to be a debate of the merits of peace versus war plans in our current military situation.
-Even military juntas have to care about the opinions of their constituents. They may not vote but they have opinions. And weapons. Take it from someone who still pays attention to internal politics in parts of Africa.
When a third of those constituents are from Buffalo, where a major massacre was just instigated by Blackwell's supporters.....
Which means that even if we get access to the St. Lawrence, we're still going to need another 'way out.' Which means the Mississippi. Naval expansion combined with the existing expertise of our small fleet gives us the means to project power in that direction, and the size of our economy makes it at least remotely feasible for us to repair the dilapidated or even sabotaged facilities of the Mississippi navigation channel.
Luckily, there are no dams or locks on the middle or lower Mississippi. There are a bunch of bridges that have probably dropped and will need clearing away, but that's nothing like the problems we'd have if we had a major dam along its route.
The late nineteenth century saw the use of thousand ton-plus coal powered paddle wheelers on the Mississippi between St Louis and New Orleans. Four days for 1210 river miles.
Okay. I hope that people who decided to switch to any given vote out of spite have had time to calm down and...not do that, please.
Vote's open, and here are the options. Rewritten in light of the most common complaints and questions for clarification, and including write-ins and new options.
[ ] This isn't worth it. Call for peace with the Loyalists and accept that they will be able to use this travesty as a victory for leverage in negotiations. Victoria will present a peace plan. It will be significantly better for them than what you offered. You get to choose to accept or reject it. Negotiations will keep you locked up long enough that snow will be on the ground and practical campaigning will be done with.
[ ] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[ ] Blackwell has overplayed his hand; by calling a muster at Rochester, he's given you a concrete target. If you move out to the city with your motorized forces, you should be able cut the forces there off from supply and communications, and force a decisive battle with your superior forces. The risk is that they get enough warning to simply, leaving you very overextended and vulnerable to attacks on your own supply lines.
-[ ] Blackwell is waiting to do enough damage to you that he can land a decisive blow. If you halt where you are and simply wait through the winter, you deny him that opportunity, and this momentary perception of victory starts to fade. Throughout, you'll send annoyance raids using your F-16s; this won't apply much pressure, but it'll at least make the point that you have in no way been beaten by this sanctioned terrorist attack. If he attacks in order to keep his symbolic victory, great, he'll suffer a massive defeat! If he doesn't attack, also fine. You'll withdraw with spring, your point made; that is your walk-away point. The risk is that this one plays really fast and loose with the risk of a regime change which, given the Farmers' stated stance that they'll peace out on first offer, will drastically undercut the message you're trying to convey.
-[ ] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements that you're planning to recognize Buffalo and surrounds -- including the Niagara Isthmus -- as an independent and free city, and are organizing elections to that effect. Blackwell absolutely could not ignore that, and would be politically required to launch an attack immediately, which would get him slaughtered. The downside is that you'd need to get the population out, because anybody remaining behind would have a death sentence on their heads. Something to demand in the peace treaty after you crush Blackwell's assault, in exchange for returning the physical location to him. Also...well, this looks fairly callous, and being used as bait for a trap won't really make the people of Buffalo grateful, much less being relocated from their homes under threat of death afterwards. And if you don't get peace, somehow, you're in the nasty position of having to evacuate a city under siege using your logistics...or leaving it.
-[ ] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms. The risk is that, when he responds, he managed to find a favorable engagement and bleed you enough that the victory you're seeking is denied.
AS EVER, APPROVAL VOTING.
I did not include the relatively popular War Plan White because the option to disperse into raiding parties is specifically targeting military infrastructure anyway.
Discord requested, and I provided:
PoptartProdigy said:
Left-Wing Opposition: This isn't worth it. This was a preventable situation and we're not convinced that something like this won't happen again. We get that people die in war, but we don't think the objective for which we're fighting right now is worth these costs. We will accept the costs when the death of Victoria is on the line, but not now.
Commonwealth Progressive Party and Popular Commonwealth Progressive Party (senior and one of the junior members of the ruling coalition): This was a military setback, but it ultimately damaged Victoria far more than it did us. We can still push through our losses and secure the favorable treaty for which we were hoping, immeasurably weakening Victoria and making Round Two much, much easier.
Christian Socialist Party (other junior member of the coalition): We are...uncomfortable with the lengths to which we are going for the sake of this objective. For now, we have faith in our coalition partners to take this lesson on board and seek either a swift resolution to the conflict to limit further casualties as much as possible, or to retreat once it becomes clear that we're not going to achieve our objective in a reasonable time frame.
Right-Wing Opposition: We support a continuation of the war and decry the left wing's defeatism, but we do have concerns for our soldiers' response to this cravenly attack. We have no specific complaints, but the scale of the civilian casualties is alarming, and we call for a full inquiry to determine what went wrong and how this can be preventing from happening again.
[X] This isn't worth it. Call for peace with the Loyalists and accept that they will be able to use this travesty as a victory for leverage in negotiations. Victoria will present a peace plan. It will be significantly better for them than what you offered. You get to choose to accept or reject it. Negotiations will keep you locked up long enough that snow will be on the ground and practical campaigning will be done with.
-[X] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms. The risk is that, when he responds, he managed to find a favorable engagement and bleed you enough that the victory you're seeking is denied.
My personal take is that I don't think we should just accept a Victoria-pushed peace deal -- even if it is an OK peace deal, it's a big blow to our diplomatic position, and I do think that matters -- and I'd prefer that we take action to drive them to the table, but I don't know what that action is so I'm going to trust someone else to be thoughtful about it.
-[X] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms. The risk is that, when he responds, he managed to find a favorable engagement and bleed you enough that the victory you're seeking is denied.
I suspect you need to vote for [ ] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure. as well, for it to be counted properly.
[X] This isn't worth it. Call for peace with the Loyalists and accept that they will be able to use this travesty as a victory for leverage in negotiations. Victoria will present a peace plan. It will be significantly better for them than what you offered. You get to choose to accept or reject it. Negotiations will keep you locked up long enough that snow will be on the ground and practical campaigning will be done with.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. We aren't going to achieve a civilian-casualty-free victory before internal unrest prevents us from continuing to prosecute the war, so let's peace out now while we still have some say in the matter.
-[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
[X] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms. The risk is that, when he responds, he managed to find a favorable engagement and bleed you enough that the victory you're seeking is denied.
[x] This isn't worth it. Call for peace with the Loyalists and accept that they will be able to use this travesty as a victory for leverage in negotiations. Victoria will present a peace plan. It will be significantly better for them than what you offered. You get to choose to accept or reject it. Negotiations will keep you locked up long enough that snow will be on the ground and practical campaigning will be done with.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell has overplayed his hand; by calling a muster at Rochester, he's given you a concrete target. If you move out to the city with your motorized forces, you should be able cut the forces there off from supply and communications, and force a decisive battle with your superior forces. The risk is that they get enough warning to simply, leaving you very overextended and vulnerable to attacks on your own supply lines.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell is waiting to do enough damage to you that he can land a decisive blow. If you halt where you are and simply wait through the winter, you deny him that opportunity, and this momentary perception of victory starts to fade. Throughout, you'll send annoyance raids using your F-16s; this won't apply much pressure, but it'll at least make the point that you have in no way been beaten by this sanctioned terrorist attack. If he attacks in order to keep his symbolic victory, great, he'll suffer a massive defeat! If he doesn't attack, also fine. You'll withdraw with spring, your point made; that is your walk-away point. The risk is that this one plays really fast and loose with the risk of a regime change which, given the Farmers' stated stance that they'll peace out on first offer, will drastically undercut the message you're trying to convey.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements that you're planning to recognize Buffalo and surrounds -- including the Niagara Isthmus -- as an independent and free city, and are organizing elections to that effect. Blackwell absolutely could not ignore that, and would be politically required to launch an attack immediately, which would get him slaughtered. The downside is that you'd need to get the population out, because anybody remaining behind would have a death sentence on their heads. Something to demand in the peace treaty after you crush Blackwell's assault, in exchange for returning the physical location to him. Also...well, this looks fairly callous, and being used as bait for a trap won't really make the people of Buffalo grateful, much less being relocated from their homes under threat of death afterwards. And if you don't get peace, somehow, you're in the nasty position of having to evacuate a city under siege using your logistics...or leaving it.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms. The risk is that, when he responds, he managed to find a favorable engagement and bleed you enough that the victory you're seeking is denied.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements of a Plebiscite of Independence for Buffalo. They hate Blackwell more than they hate you, and he knows it. Blackwell absolutely cannot ignore the threat this leaves, and has to to launch an attack immediately - which will end in a dismal failure.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell is waiting to do enough damage to you that he can land a decisive blow. If you halt where you are and simply wait through the winter, you deny him that opportunity, and this momentary perception of victory starts to fade. Throughout, you'll send annoyance raids using your F-16s; this won't apply much pressure, but it'll at least make the point that you have in no way been beaten by this sanctioned terrorist attack. If he attacks in order to keep his symbolic victory, great, he'll suffer a massive defeat! If he doesn't attack, also fine. You'll withdraw with spring, your point made; that is your walk-away point. The risk is that this one plays really fast and loose with the risk of a regime change which, given the Farmers' stated stance that they'll peace out on first offer, will drastically undercut the message you're trying to convey.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements that you're planning to recognize Buffalo and surrounds -- including the Niagara Isthmus -- as an independent and free city, and are organizing elections to that effect. Blackwell absolutely could not ignore that, and would be politically required to launch an attack immediately, which would get him slaughtered. The downside is that you'd need to get the population out, because anybody remaining behind would have a death sentence on their heads. Something to demand in the peace treaty after you crush Blackwell's assault, in exchange for returning the physical location to him. Also...well, this looks fairly callous, and being used as bait for a trap won't really make the people of Buffalo grateful, much less being relocated from their homes under threat of death afterwards. And if you don't get peace, somehow, you're in the nasty position of having to evacuate a city under siege using your logistics...or leaving it.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms. The risk is that, when he responds, he managed to find a favorable engagement and bleed you enough that the victory you're seeking is denied.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements of a Plebiscite of Independence for Buffalo. They hate Blackwell more than they hate you, and he knows it. Blackwell absolutely cannot ignore the threat this leaves, and has to to launch an attack immediately - which will end in a dismal failure.
[X] This isn't worth it. Call for peace with the Loyalists and accept that they will be able to use this travesty as a victory for leverage in negotiations. Victoria will present a peace plan. It will be significantly better for them than what you offered. You get to choose to accept or reject it. Negotiations will keep you locked up long enough that snow will be on the ground and practical campaigning will be done with.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell has overplayed his hand; by calling a muster at Rochester, he's given you a concrete target. If you move out to the city with your motorized forces, you should be able cut the forces there off from supply and communications, and force a decisive battle with your superior forces. The risk is that they get enough warning to simply, leaving you very overextended and vulnerable to attacks on your own supply lines.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell is waiting to do enough damage to you that he can land a decisive blow. If you halt where you are and simply wait through the winter, you deny him that opportunity, and this momentary perception of victory starts to fade. Throughout, you'll send annoyance raids using your F-16s; this won't apply much pressure, but it'll at least make the point that you have in no way been beaten by this sanctioned terrorist attack. If he attacks in order to keep his symbolic victory, great, he'll suffer a massive defeat! If he doesn't attack, also fine. You'll withdraw with spring, your point made; that is your walk-away point. The risk is that this one plays really fast and loose with the risk of a regime change which, given the Farmers' stated stance that they'll peace out on first offer, will drastically undercut the message you're trying to convey.
[] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements that you're planning to recognize Buffalo and surrounds -- including the Niagara Isthmus -- as an independent and free city, and are organizing elections to that effect. Blackwell absolutely could not ignore that, and would be politically required to launch an attack immediately, which would get him slaughtered. The downside is that you'd need to get the population out, because anybody remaining behind would have a death sentence on their heads. Something to demand in the peace treaty after you crush Blackwell's assault, in exchange for returning the physical location to him. Also...well, this looks fairly callous, and being used as bait for a trap won't really make the people of Buffalo grateful, much less being relocated from their homes under threat of death afterwards. And if you don't get peace, somehow, you're in the nasty position of having to evacuate a city under siege using your logistics...or leaving it.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms. The risk is that, when he responds, he managed to find a favorable engagement and bleed you enough that the victory you're seeking is denied.
At any rate, withdrawing now would be madness. However, I am not sure which of the "merely a setback" subplans I prefer. I'll go with the most straightforward one for now, but I can be persuaded to support another, and I'd probably support any of them over withdrawing.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell is waiting to do enough damage to you that he can land a decisive blow. If you halt where you are and simply wait through the winter, you deny him that opportunity, and this momentary perception of victory starts to fade. Throughout, you'll send annoyance raids using your F-16s; this won't apply much pressure, but it'll at least make the point that you have in no way been beaten by this sanctioned terrorist attack. If he attacks in order to keep his symbolic victory, great, he'll suffer a massive defeat! If he doesn't attack, also fine. You'll withdraw with spring, your point made; that is your walk-away point. The risk is that this one plays really fast and loose with the risk of a regime change which, given the Farmers' stated stance that they'll peace out on first offer, will drastically undercut the message you're trying to convey.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements that you're planning to recognize Buffalo and surrounds -- including the Niagara Isthmus -- as an independent and free city, and are organizing elections to that effect. Blackwell absolutely could not ignore that, and would be politically required to launch an attack immediately, which would get him slaughtered. The downside is that you'd need to get the population out, because anybody remaining behind would have a death sentence on their heads. Something to demand in the peace treaty after you crush Blackwell's assault, in exchange for returning the physical location to him. Also...well, this looks fairly callous, and being used as bait for a trap won't really make the people of Buffalo grateful, much less being relocated from their homes under threat of death afterwards. And if you don't get peace, somehow, you're in the nasty position of having to evacuate a city under siege using your logistics...or leaving it.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms. The risk is that, when he responds, he managed to find a favorable engagement and bleed you enough that the victory you're seeking is denied.
Either or these is what I'm interested in.
Edit:
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements of a Plebiscite of Independence for Buffalo. They hate Blackwell more than they hate you, and he knows it. Blackwell absolutely cannot ignore the threat this leaves, and has to to launch an attack immediately - which will end in a dismal failure.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements of a Plebiscite of Independence for Buffalo. They hate Blackwell more than they hate you, and he knows it. Blackwell absolutely cannot ignore the threat this leaves, and has to to launch an attack immediately - which will end in a dismal failure.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell is waiting to do enough damage to you that he can land a decisive blow. If you halt where you are and simply wait through the winter, you deny him that opportunity, and this momentary perception of victory starts to fade. Throughout, you'll send annoyance raids using your F-16s; this won't apply much pressure, but it'll at least make the point that you have in no way been beaten by this sanctioned terrorist attack. If he attacks in order to keep his symbolic victory, great, he'll suffer a massive defeat! If he doesn't attack, also fine. You'll withdraw with spring, your point made; that is your walk-away point. The risk is that this one plays really fast and loose with the risk of a regime change which, given the Farmers' stated stance that they'll peace out on first offer, will drastically undercut the message you're trying to convey.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] If you can make it unacceptable for Blackwell to keep waiting you out, he'll be forced to attack you, guaranteeing you a crushing, heavily symbolic victory. Put about on public broadcast announcements that you're planning to recognize Buffalo and surrounds -- including the Niagara Isthmus -- as an independent and free city, and are organizing elections to that effect. Blackwell absolutely could not ignore that, and would be politically required to launch an attack immediately, which would get him slaughtered. The downside is that you'd need to get the population out, because anybody remaining behind would have a death sentence on their heads. Something to demand in the peace treaty after you crush Blackwell's assault, in exchange for returning the physical location to him. Also...well, this looks fairly callous, and being used as bait for a trap won't really make the people of Buffalo grateful, much less being relocated from their homes under threat of death afterwards. And if you don't get peace, somehow, you're in the nasty position of having to evacuate a city under siege using your logistics...or leaving it.
[X] This was not a decisive blow, merely a painful setback. It wasn't even a defeat! You achieved your operational objectives and pushed out the forces responsible for this. Operations will continue. Continue the war, now racing internal dissent as well as Loyalist pressure.
-[X] Blackwell wants to avoid your main strength and strike where you are weak? Two can play at that game. Advance a couple of divisions as tripwires against an assault from Rochester and disperse the rest into upstate New York. Tear up the industrial infrastructure Blackwell needs to fight these wars, and he will be forced to respond, allowing you to draw him out to battle on your own terms. The risk is that, when he responds, he managed to find a favorable engagement and bleed you enough that the victory you're seeking is denied.
