Yes, but we are expecting to have this growth in import populations in 3 years, not decades. Further in terms of mechanization there is no technology we can quickly introduce to solve the problem nor significant improvement in methods given that Arizona likly already implemented the low hanging fruit via their agronomist. Things become overwhelmingly a pure production problem and we cannot solve decades of progress in three years. Maybe in a decade, but we do not have a decade. We are also, more importantly looting it for personel consistently especially as we get mining going.
I'm not convinced about how much New Arizona would have improved considering their lack of industry and infrastructure. We already distributed some tools and that was an option so it clearly wasn't done already. I think we had confirmation there's also a lot of rural dams we can do. At best they got a better crop package and crop rotation practices and that's if the agronomist had access to all the uptime seeds they wanted. And even if they got that it probably got disrupted by the conflict so there's still gains in just getting things running properly again.
Regarding labour and immigration, I think it would be easier to aim for immigration for industrial labour than for agricultural labour as a way to reduce how much we have to pull people away from the land. It's true that the average downtimer won't hear of us enough to move on their own but we can probably send ships to conflict areas with displaced populations. I doubt it'll be more than a drop in the bucked but it's also humanitarian so may as well.
Realistically short of a famine out in central Europe moving people into our land our immigration will probably habe us heavily involved as the instigator. I suspect the biggest source will be offering to let other states send their trouble makers here. With Egyptian government continuing to be unpopular among the the actual Egyptians they might be a major source
Getting industrial immigrants would probably be an even harder sell than agricultural ones tbh. At least downtimers still value land and being able to have your own farm, offering some empty land for them to come colonize is something that intuitively makes sense (if you can actually get the message to them).
Asking people to come be landless wage laborers in our mines is going to be such a hard sell that I don't think it would actually get us anything noticeable. Like yeah I'm sure there's a handful of people desperate enough to get on the boat with nothing but a promise of getting to break their back in the mines because the other option is straight up dying wherever they are, but even your average desperate refugee is probably going to take their chances with an area and people they kinda know rather than getting on the boat to the faraway death mine that's quite possibly just going to end with you being sold into slavery as soon as you get on the boat anyways.
Unironically why would we do that? The whole point of people establishing the PRM was to bypass capitalism. (This is from the opening post). As our character is a Maoist I imagine what we will be doing to improve productivity/get more peasants will look something like this (Hopefully without the Lysenkoism)
Because it's better than putting people into Gulags for not using the agricultural methodology we want? As I understood it we want to be a democracy, so Stalins favourite methods may be a bit counter productive in that regard.
The issue is those options all take time we don't have and developed institutions we also don't have. Can we use a soft hand to encourage peasants to adopt new techniques while letting the kids learn actual scientific farming practices? Absolutely, but it's not gonna get us that 40% output boost in 3 years. Which has been the issue our government has been wrangling with since its foundation and as our uptimers are well versed in history enough to no that forcing peasants to do things can very quickly lead to famine we will probably continue struggling with it well into the 20s
If we want to "peacefully" phase out peasant smallholders in favor of industrial agriculture that's at least a 30 year process waiting for the pre-Event generation to retire, and even then it just disguises the violence and coercion under a layer of abstraction through "the market" or whatever. And we probably also don't want to do that anyways, because it would end up concentrating the land into the hands of the village nomeklatura and now we've got a bunch of totally-not-capitalist agri-barons who privately hold the country's food supply.
We're gonna have to do something vaguely resembling collectivization if we want our industrial agriculture to be state or cooperative run rather than relying on private accumulation amongst the most successful peasants and/or the favorites of the one literate Party member in the entire village who makes all the decisions. But this is definitely not the Plan to do it in, we need a lot more groundwork laid before we can try to do agriculture reform without causing a crippling famine (even a "successful" agricultural reform would probably cause a minor one without imports to cover the first couple growing seasons being disorganized messes).
If we want to "peacefully" phase out peasant smallholders in favor of industrial agriculture that's at least a 30 year process waiting for the pre-Event generation to retire, and even then it just disguises the violence and coercion under a layer of abstraction through "the market" or whatever. And we probably also don't want to do that anyways, because it would end up concentrating the land into the hands of the village nomeklatura and now we've got a bunch of totally-not-capitalist agri-barons who privately hold the country's food supply.
We're gonna have to do something vaguely resembling collectivization if we want our industrial agriculture to be state or cooperative run rather than relying on private accumulation amongst the most successful peasants and/or the favorites of the one literate Party member in the entire village who makes all the decisions. But this is definitely not the Plan to do it in, we need a lot more groundwork laid before we can try to do agriculture reform without causing a crippling famine (even a "successful" agricultural reform would probably cause a minor one without imports to cover the first couple growing seasons being disorganized messes).
I'm not sure how property brained our agriculture is, actually? I expect there's still a lot of commons and village centric labour organization we've tapped into to keep things running and none of the modern property norms for the peasantry to aspire to.
I also don't think agricultural capitalism can emerge if farmers can't employ others to work their land, which our economic system won't allow.
What we can do is steadily increase the collective nature of rural life by rolling out efficiency improvement through collective structures and leveraging our existing institutions we use organize labour during the off season. It doesn't really matter if peasants cling to nominal land ownership if they're entirely reliant on the local collective to coordinate labour and tools to produce in it. And this isn't like it's alien to them, labour intensive periods of peasant life like the harvest often saw communities going field to field as a group rather than individually harvesting their own fields. We only have to ensure all our improvements strengthen those trends rather than build up capital accumulation.
"From the moment we started the Republic, we knew we needed to attract more Americans, even if many of us weren't thrilled by the idea. Even the most uneducated Uptimer is a bureaucrat or schoolteacher with an education you just can't get anywhere else. The ones who were metalworkers, glassworkers, or hell, actual pre-event teachers? Priceless. I knew we'd need more immigrants to survive when I told people to try to attract as many as we could. I just didn't think we'd get so damn many of them so fast." -Consul Regina Leoz, Republic of Rome.
"Everyone with a grudge against Crete will constantly talk about how what happened to Sicily was awful, and it was. I've heard people argue that we're doing exactly what Kikera wanted us to do in Sicily, and… perhaps we are. But do all these Americans sneering at us really think that their nations wouldn't have done the same thing, or even worse? The Vanguards wouldn't have become so powerful if New Washington or Troy weren't led by people who would have happily starved Sicily themselves." -Crown Princess Kiya Wilson, Dual Kingdom of Crete and Sicily
"I've had four homes in my life. The first was an apartment in Tucson, don't much remember it, I was five when the Event happened. The next was the farmhouse outside of Limberlost. It was small, only a couple of rooms, and my parents were always complaining about it, about the roof leaking when it rained, about the smell, about missing things I didn't even understand. They hated farming most of all though; Thought it was beneath them. When I was fifteen we moved to the city, our home didn't get much bigger but my parents were happier, I was happier too, until I had to get a job. No one was hiring for anything but grunt work, said the education my parents gave me wasn't good enough. When the city fell I jumped on the nearest boat I could find, eventually ended up in Sicily. The Cretans didn't seem to care too much about my education and gave me a nice plot of land. Now I have a house of my own, with a stove and warm beds, surrounded by fields of corn and soy. Farming may have been too much for my parents, but it's given me the best life I can imagine." -Brendan Mays, Farmer, Dual Kingdom of Crete and Sicily
The exact starting date for the Third Wave, as the widespread emigration from First Wave-founded nations to Second Wave ones and beyond is called, is a topic of much debate. Some argue that it started the moment the Second Wave ended, others that it began during the Great West Anatolian War, while there are also those that argue that it began the first time a ship from a Second Wave nation offered jobs to Americans in First Wave Nations that would immigrate. Regardless of its exact origin, what is undeniable is that across the 2nd decade of the post-Event era, Americans from West Anatolia would begin to emigrate in the thousands every year, most of whom would end up in the various nations formed by the Second Wave.
Beginning of the Third Wave
While some level of emigration had always existed, as Uptimers sought to escape the difficult life of subsistence farming and 2nd Wave States desired educated American immigrants for bureaucratic work, the true start of the Third Wave was mixed with two major events in late 11 AE: the Smallpox Pandemic and the beginning of the West Anatolian Wars. Conflict across the First Wave nations of West Anatolia, particularly the Vanguardist War, provoked an immense refugee crisis, and over the next few years the number of migrants would rise to the low tens of thousands. Even as fear of Smallpox led many nations to initially shut their doors in quarantine, rapid vaccination efforts, the spread of the disease regardless of such efforts, and the sheer value of educated American immigrants meant that within a year, many of those who had previously been under quarantine were regularly accepting refugees.
Emigration from West Anatolia at first took place primarily through the Emergency Commission, as New Limberlost's policy of being an open port that took all comers regardless of origins and with few, if any, looks into their background made it the perfect place to leave from, particularly those from nations who might have otherwise tried to crack down on the emigration of valuable and irreplaceable American population.
This process was disrupted by the collapse of the Emergency Commission during the Vanguardist War and the annexation of New Limberlost by the United States of America(New Washington), which quickly began to place harsher restrictions on vessels who made port there (with painful consequences for the city's economy.) However, a new set of Free Ports quickly began to replace it, primarily consisting of former NAR coastal settlements that had negotiated wide-ranging autonomy as part of their integration into New Washington. Soon thousands of migrants were flooding into these rapidly growing coastal cities, contributing to their skyrocketing economies even as New Washington bled population to emigration across the rest of the Mediterranean. Though in its defense, the rest of West Anatolia was doing no better, as across the American Republic of Turkey, the Republic of Troy, and even (in some cases, especially) the territory conquered by Christ's Kingdom on Earth, Uptimers fled in droves for anywhere that was not in the middle of the largest conflict the region had ever seen with no end in sight.
Primary Destinations of the Third Wave
The earliest stages of the Third Wave would focus emigration westwards and southwards, as the post-Sanford Expedition states to the east were seen as too close to where smallpox had emerged. However, as the initial pandemic died down and the conflicts in West Anatolia continued and even escalated, thousands of new refugees would instead flock to the states of the New Tucson, the Hittite Empire, and the Republic of Rome, soon making them the largest beneficiaries of the Third Wave. This however, would prove to be a mixed blessing, as the influx of refugees by the thousands caused significant ethnic tensions and strained resources and space. The Republic of Rome's work towards inclusiveness when it came to Uptimer-Downtimer relations in particular sparked issues with American refugees fleeing what they viewed as primarily Downtimer insurrections, resulting in a race riot in Aleppo that saw over twenty people killed and significant property damage in November of 13 AE.
As incidents of smallpox died down, another category of Americans bound for the ports of Aleppo began to emerge in the later stages of the Third Wave, this one all-too-familiar to Second Wave veterans. With the collapse of Assyria as its royal family died to the disease, another wave of Expeditions began with ambitions of carving out their own slice of territory in the east. These Expeditions were typically far less successful than their Second Wave counterparts despite the ongoing civil war, owing to the shrinking tech gap between Uptimers and Downtimers, and the decreasing supply of pre-Event guns and ammunition. Nevertheless, there is still an ample supply of American micro-kingdoms that have already been established, and more would-be Expeditions forming, primarily from military deserters from defeated nations trying to rebuild themselves anew in Assyria.
The second largest recipient of American migrants would be Egypt. While much of Anatolia was ravaged by both war and Smallpox, Egypt was seen as having weathered the storm of the disease outbreak largely intact, much to the surprise of many spokesmen who predicted that the unpopular Hyksos would surely collapse in the face of an epidemic the local Egyptians would see as punishment from the Gods and naturally blame their foreign Pharaoh for. When this did not occur, many instead began to see Egypt as a haven in a world set aflame. To what degree Egypt actually weathered the smallpox pandemic without major incidents and to what degree sheer distance kept such things relatively quiet is hard to determine, but what is certain is that the land of the Nile saw thousands of migrants pleading for entry.
Ultimately, the amount of Americans who were allowed to settle in Egypt itself numbered at only a few hundred at most, primarily those with specific pre-Event skills and their families. Unlike many other nations who were greedily swallowing as many migrants as they could get onto their shores, Egypt had no incentive to use Americans as educators and bureaucrats. Quite the contrary in fact, as Pharaoh Khyan I was keenly aware of how jealously the priests guarded their control over those sections of Egyptian society. Most Americans were instead rerouted to their American vassal state of the Republic of Cyrenaica, which would grow from a coastal settlement of a few hundred into a proper nation with a population in the thousands, capable of power projection across Cyrenaica. Even as the situation in southern Anatolia stabilized and began to attract more American emigrants, the Republic's population would continue to swell with immigrants, driving or conquering some of the local Libu tribes and expanding its booming agricultural and lumber industries, with some even proposing launching expeditions deeper inland in hopes of finding oil. By this point, Cyrenaica had grown prosperous enough to attract immigrants by its own virtues, rather than simply absorbing those rejected from permanent settlement in Egypt.
Emigration westward of Anatolia had two primary destinations in mind: Mainland Greece and Sicily. Immigration to Greece was not a popular destination at the start of the Third Wave, as New Arizona was seen as dangerously unstable due to numerous Helot revolts, while the Popular Republic of Mycenae's Communist ideology made it unattractive to most Americans who had other options. Nevertheless, by late 12 AE, immigration to Greece began to spike due to the rapidly spreading and escalating Vanguardist War and active attempts by the PRM to promote immigration. In particular, the exile and revolt of large sections of the Labor Coalition in New Washington would see hundreds of former radicalized members immigrate to Mycenae, many of whom would find jobs working for either the Mycenaean bureaucracy or as teachers for the Republic's increasingly widespread education program, with the nation's American population growing from little more than a hundred in 10 AE to nearly 3,000 and still growing by the end of 13 AE.
The final primary destination, and perhaps the most grim in terms of the circumstances that allowed it to become one, was the island of Sicily. Following its conquest by Crete, the island had been ravaged by famine, widespread rebellion (which both was a result of the famine and worsened it), and smallpox. By the time the rebellions were officially put down in July of 13 AE, even optimistic analyses of Sicily's population estimated over a hundred thousand dead, roughly half of the island's pre-famine population. What remained of the local Sicilian population now despised their Cretan overlords with a burning passion, and partisan conflict would continue for years to come.
As such, settler colonization of Sicily was seen as vital if the Dual Kingdom was to have a loyal population and workforce on the island. This melded well with the recent American refugee crisis, particularly as many powerful figures within the Kingdom were leery of increased "Americanization" of Crete itself. By attracting immigrants to Sicily, the Kingdom could make use of their skills and create a loyal population on the island, all while avoiding the likely backlash that would come from settling them on Crete proper. Hundreds of Americans eagerly took the Anax's offer, flocking to the still rebuilding coastal cities of Syracuse and Atlas, while others (primarily the younger demographics) took advantage of generous land grants offered to both Cretan and American settlers, taking hold of farmland whose previous native occupants… no longer needed it.
Other Destinations
While the Sanford Expedition splinter-nations of Southern Anatolia, Egypt, Greece, and Sicily are considered the Big Four destinations for Third Wave immigration, there were many other, lesser known destinations that Third Wave emigrants ended up in.
One of the better known (and most hated) was the Neo-Nazi Brotherhood of Rhodes. Much of this "immigration" was involuntary, as the pirate and slave trade capital of the Mediterranean would often raid refugee vessels its ships happened across, and the desperation of many attempting to flee the West Anatolian Wars made them easily duped marks for would-be slave traders. More than one unscrupulous captain would offer to take refugees to any destination they wished, before hauling them to Rhodes for a tidy sum once they were onboard and their guards were lowered.
However, Rhodes also received many voluntary immigrants, primarily consisting of far-right militias from the New American Republic as it collapsed. Many of the nation's "Senators" had often hired Rhodes pirates as privateers, while coastal Senators continued to allow Rhodes to trade at their ports in flagrant violation of New Washington's laws. This would give Rhodes a vast influx of trustworthy manpower armed with pre-Event weapons, fuelling the nation's conquest of Andros and starting what would be Rhodes' bloodsoaked golden age.
Another notable destination for immigrants was Naxos. After learning of and fervently denouncing New Washington's deal with the remnants of the New American Republic, the Republic of Naxos had begun advertising itself as the last true remnant of American democracy, which was greatly appealing to many who had begun to lose faith in the New Washington government. Naxos was seen by many as the most "familiarly American" option to many would-be migrants, and thousands upon thousands made the journey to the island nation. However, only a fraction of those would remain there, owing to both fear of an attack by Rhodes like had happened to Andros, and the limited space of Naxos making it unappealing as overpopulation began to set in. Instead, the majority would use Naxos as a more temporary haven, eventually taking ships from it to Sicily, Mycenae, Cyrenaica, or Corfu.
Emigration to other destinations was more sparse. The various factions of the USAF Remnants were constantly trying to entice more American settlers to their sparsely populated lands, but the still-strong hatred of the Air Force for its perceived abandonment of Tucson (and news that most of the Remnants treated even civilian Americans as second-class citizens) quelled most interest. Nevertheless, as the conflicts of West Anatolia only escalated with the rise of the Lukka, desperation caused hundreds in the more northern parts of the Peninsula to take a gamble, primarily moving for the Emergency Government of New America, the only USAF Faction of the time to have something resembling civilian representation in their government. Others fled to the Federal Republic of America, viewing the high probability of their new home being involved in a war with New Monthan at some point or another still preferable to staying in their already war-torn former nations.
The final destinations for emigrants in the early stages of the Third Wave were more independent settlement attempts. Such newly formed Third Wave nations have tended towards being very small, with Trebizond in the Black Sea, formed by several dozen New Washington refugees, being the largest and most notable of them. These micro-nations lack any real political importance for now, but it would not be the first time a small, petty nation grew into a major power in the Age of Rust.
"The Americans say that they rule in the name of the workers - but now they have made it so that a potter like myself, who has worked hard his whole life at the craft his father practiced beforehand, has no choice but to go die in the mines if he wants to feed his family? Where is the justice in this?" - Tros son of Radamanqus
Oof, I feel for this quote. For all our red flags, we're building up a pretty nasty "alienating the workers from their labor" problem. Some of it is inherent to the transition to mass production, but perhaps some of it we can mitigate? Granting the workers more control over their workplace, maybe a different shift scheme than having them stand at the same assembly line for 8 hours straight....
But that coal mine. That damned coal mine. It's a shaft mine, and there's no way to mechanize that until at least mid 20th century tech. That burn rock is the lifeblood of our country, and quite possibly we'll be sending men to die underground for the rest of our quest. Is there anywhere other than crete that got something with open pit mining possibility? I wish we could conquer that and build a fuckhuge steampunk Bagger 288 to make our worker' lives less miserable.
Alternatively/additionally, once we get a navy going I would support a conquest (sorry, glorious liberation war of self defense) of oil deposits in Romania or North Africa and use that as much as possible for fuel instead of coal to reduce how many people we have to send into the death pit.
There's a coal mine in Aetolia (Palaiomanina to be exact IIRC) that can be made open pit, but only once we get Steam Shovels. And it's in one of the less populated parts of our Territory, so building it up and moving the coal from there will be a pain.
"Yeah, I was a mercenary. I know a lot of other people who joined up with Wilson don't like being called that, but let's face it. We signed a contract with her: We'd bring with us our guns and skills, fight in her armies, we'd take over Crete for us, and once we'd won she'd reward us for every bullet we gave and drop of sweat we did for her. Maybe there's fancier words for that, but as far as I'm concerned, we were mercenaries." -Bowen Wood, Dual Kingdom of Crete and Mycenae
"I can't say I like the Thracians that much. It's not that we don't need them - we do. There's just not enough of us to fight any sort of war without them. And it's not that they're bad soldiers. Hell, most of them are even damn good soldiers. I think a few have got it in their heads that the Thracians were some ancient enemy of ours and now they've got a reputation to live up to. But I just keep worrying that one of these days, they're gonna use everything we've taught them to put themselves in charge."
-Staff Sergeant Silvia Graham, USAF Western Command
"Mercenaries were supposed to be a stopgap measure, a temporary means to help long term ends. Loyalty was hard to build in the early days so it made sense to turn to those willing to fight for a price. But it was never supposed to be the norm, you can't depend on people like that long term. And for a time it seemed like we wouldn't have to; New Washington was building a new army of Citizen Soldiers. Then those Vanguard cults rose up and set half the country on fire, and I've spent the past year watching our proud army bleed out until it was nothing more than a shell of what we dreamed of. Now we're spending more than we ever have before on mercenaries. Mercs aren't stopgap in these barbaric times, they're a fact of life." -President Frederick Chard, United States of America (New Washington)
However narrowly or loosely defined one classifies them as, mercenaries have experienced a significant resurgence in large sections of the Mediterranean. The conflicts of the post-Event world have created both an incessant demand for soldiers, as well as a plentiful supply of the same, whether from the armed forces of the previous conflict's losers or from the thousands trapped in a poor quality of life and who see mercenary work as a way out. While a combination of the rapid pace of technological advancement and the incessant drain on pre-event ammunition has driven many mercenaries into rapid irrelevancy as fast as they have emerged, a large market of soldiers-for-hire persists across Anatolia and beyond.
Early American Mercenaries
In the immediate aftermath of the First Wave, the situation of most Uptimers was one that created the perfect circumstances for encouraging large numbers of people to become mercenaries. A low quality of life combined with most Americans having both weapons and experience using them meant thousands were willing to fight for anyone who could give them a chance of improved prosperity. While some parts of the Second Wave took on a more ideological bent, it was generally these mercenaries who formed the bulk of the Expeditions. Most famously, the American manpower of Rachel Wilson's takeover of Crete was composed primarily of mercenaries, as were large sections of the Sanford Expedition. Mercenary work proved so attractive in fact, that one of the largest problems that often confronted their employers was that so many joined up that it became difficult ensuring that they were all rewarded to their satisfaction, causing notable internal discord that had to be managed (something done more successfully in the former's case than the latter's.)
Even as the Second Wave died down and nations began to stabilize, mercenaries remained a common fixture of life for many across the Mediterranean, with many new hired guns being inspired by tales of how their predecessors now lived like kings. This generation of mercenaries were not part of any grand, sweeping expeditions to overthrow great kingdoms, but instead remained in Anatolia, employed by wealthy citizens of the First Wave nations, or on occasion the nations themselves. The Emergency Commission quickly became the largest employer of mercenaries, both to ward off potential annexation by either the American Republic of Turkey or the New American Republic, and as the manpower for its salvage expeditions into Tucson (which is in turn often hired out to the salvage expeditions of other nations). Port Limberlost became the unofficial mercenary capital of the first post-Event decade, and the single largest armed force within the Emergency Commission, Port Limberlost Guard Services (PLGS), was a mercenary company with an exclusive contract with the Limberlost Council for protecting the city and escorting Tucson expeditions, employing almost 200 combatants.
Other First Wave nations also had notable mercenary presence, sometimes with the support of the nation in question, other times in spite of their best efforts. In Troy, so-called "Cowboys", rich landowners who had taken advantage of Troy's generous land and slave grants in exchange for handing in their weapons, were quick to exploit loopholes to hire mercenaries to give them small, private armies. The American Republic of Turkey made regular use of mercenary groups to augment its overstretched armed forces in putting down its many Downtimer uprisings. In the New American Republic, the line between mercenary and private warlord militias was often blurry at best, but it is obvious that few of the NAR's "Senators" were opposed to using soldiers-for-hire to augment their forces. Only New Washington and the First State of New Arizona would escape a large mercenary presence within their borders, though both would still see many of their citizens leaving to become them elsewhere.
Downtimer Mercenaries
Downtimer mercenaries largely vanished from West Anatolia in the aftermath of the Event. Any who existed in the region were almost certainly hired to fight the starving but well-armed American hordes, with universally poor results. In the aftermath, few American powers were willing to trust Downtimers with any sort of weapon.
This does not mean mercenary work became an exclusively American profession however. On the contrary, Downtimer mercenaries soon recovered and became common across the conflicts of the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly outside of West Anatolia where educated Americans were few and too valuable to risk in combat. Across Anatolia, Luwians and other Downtimer mercenaries were often employed by the feuding kingdoms that survived the First Wave, many of whom were later recruited by Attititai during his unification campaign. Even a handful of Senators in the NAR found a use for employing Downtimer soldiers, who had no other means of political advancement and could even be considered more trustworthy than Americans provided they were well paid and treated.
Northwest of Anatolia, the feuding Air Force Remnants would also become significant mercenary employers. With advanced technology and manufacturing capabilities but hobbled by a chronic lack of manpower (and an even greater aversion to losing what American soldiers they had), some USAF factions began employing the neighboring Balkan-Danubian tribes to their north as soldiers, offering valuable tools and goods in exchange for their military service. While these mercenaries were rarely, if ever, trusted with pre-Event weapons, they were still well equipped with muskets and rifles. More importantly, they allowed the USAF remnants to fight without risking Americans with irreplaceable pre-Event knowledge and experience. Such mercenaries soon became known as "Thracians" by the Americans, which eventually became the regular name for any of the Downtimers serving as soldiers for the USAF factions, even those who were more janissaries raised from local populations rather than mercenaries.
By 6 A.E., the use of Thracians had become normalized across all factions of the USAF civil war (though less so by New Monthan than the others, as the former had a larger population of both Americans and local Downtimers to work with), to the point where they became the vast majority of combatants in the raids and counter-raids that had become the norm for conflict between the manpower-starved factions. By the 2nd post-Event decade, Thracian mercenaries were also being employed across the Black Sea coast, by the Mormon Republic of Crimea, their northern rivals in the Xsiraka confederacy, and even the Federal Republic of America and beyond.
Few other groups of Downtimer mercenaries have had the proliferation of the Thracians, but numerous incidents of their usage remain across the known world. In Egypt, large numbers of Nubian "Medjay" were hired by both the Hyksos and their Theban rivals, though primarily by the latter due to simple location, before the latter's fall, and many were employed by the Hyksos shortly afterwards (seen as more trustworthy than native Egyptians.) Further north, the Sanford Expedition and its splinters regularly hired the local Hittites to augment their forces, and after the Expedition's end, both the Republic of Rome and the Kingdom of Qatna began employing Habiru outlaws as scouts and hired brigands against each other's border settlements. Other Downtimer mercenaries are recruited by various Cretan merchants as guards, particularly to protect their ships from the persistent threat of Rhodes piracy.
Mercenaries in the Second Decade
Mercenaries continued to be employed by many powers as the post-Event world entered its second decade. The Second State of New Arizona hired dozens of American mercenaries to serve alongside its domestically trained "Spartans", with plans laid out to recruit more, rewarding them with land seized from the Popular Republic of Mycenae after its conquest.
Instead, it would be the fall of New Arizona that impacted the mercenary world. When it did so, large portions of its military and social elites (the two being effectively synonymous) were able to escape. While many fled to their nation's sole ally in the USAF Western Command, other former soldiers and settlers took their training, pre-Event guns, and relatively plentiful ammunition elsewhere, with squad and platoon-sized groups becoming new mercenary commands.
Such well-equipped soldiers were in higher demand than ever, as the Vanguardist War was still raging. By this point, the NAR had collapsed and the Emergency Commission had shattered in civil war, while the American Republic of Turkey's entrance into the conflict was marred by the nation's largest Downtimer uprising to date, and Troy was suffering from the opening shots of what would soon become a full-fledged Civil War.
Before the war, New Washington had a reputation of being the Anatolian power least reliant on mercenaries, instead being able to count on a relatively large and well-trained professional army, augmented by National Guard militias. By the start of 13 AE however, the professional army has been gutted by defeats before the Vanguardist war, heavy combat casualties, and even occasional mutinies. The New Washington government was left desperate for additional military manpower, especially as faith in the central government began to crumble, making it harder to raise troops domestically. As such, New Washington began hiring any mercenaries willing to serve, from most of the former Emergency Commission units like PLGS to deserters from Greece and the USAF. The Vanguards of Christ also hired mercenaries when they could, but New Washington generally had better availability due to its position on the coastlines, and greater wealth from years of seaborne trade. Even so, the CKE would frequently be able to attract warriors from nearby Downtimer states with offerings of weapons and promises of plunder.
The breadth of mercenary sources also greatly expanded in this period. The various bandit families on the outskirts of Tucson were frequently hired by both sides in roles from scouts and guides to raiders and auxiliaries, particularly during the major battles that occurred close to the city ruins. The newly annexed portions of the NAR that joined New Washington, equally interested in preventing a Vanguardist victory, went further, trading on prior connections to begin hiring Rhodes pirate crews to augment their militias. In fact, former NAR coastal towns have started to become the new mercenary hubs of West Anatolia, as Port Limberlost's annexation into New Washington has seen the end of its time as an Open Port, a gap the de-facto autonomous NAR has been eager to fill.
It is unlikely that either demand or supply for mercenaries will fade anytime in the foreseeable future. The conflicts of West Anatolia have worn the armies of the Vanguardists and the coalition against them ragged, leaving all sides desperate for reinforcements from any source they can find. Supply-wise, the example of the collapse of New Arizona leaves many expecting the likely fall of other nations to each spawn their own wave of well-armed and experienced ex-military personnel, men with little option for their livelihoods other than selling their services as soldiers to the highest bidder. But even without this influx of veterans, quality of life in West Anatolia has only dropped for the average American since the beginning of the Vanguardist War, and tales of how mercenary work has turned impoverished subsistence farmers of the First Wave into nobles who live like kings permeate across Anatolia, creating ample motivation for others to try and follow in their footsteps.
Alternatively/additionally, once we get a navy going I would support a conquest (sorry, glorious liberation war of self defense) of oil deposits in Romania or North Africa and use that as much as possible for fuel instead of coal to reduce how many people we have to send into the death pit.
Rather than going that far, Albania has oil deposits, so the current plan is to do settler colonialism there rather than somewhere as far-flung as Romania or the Libyan desert.
Rather than going that far, Albania has oil deposits, so the current plan is to do settler colonialism there rather than somewhere as far-flung as Romania or the Libyan desert.
And it's kinda vital for us to keep to land based supply lines, at least until the nazi menace is dealt with. Them raiding and stealing our oil would be a disaster.
Rather than going that far, Albania has oil deposits, so the current plan is to do settler colonialism there rather than somewhere as far-flung as Romania or the Libyan desert.
There's a coal mine in Aetolia (Palaiomanina to be exact IIRC) that can be made open pit, but only once we get Steam Shovels. And it's in one of the less populated parts of our Territory, so building it up and moving the coal from there will be a pain.
Thanks for the info. Steam Shovels seems achievable by this plan's end, so more humane open-pit mining is in sight! It will indeed require resources to build up that land, but as a state built for the people we are obligated to minimize reliance on that shaft mining nightmare ASAP!
[X] Plan Years of Agriculture, Learning, And Goods -[X]Continue the Course: Continuing taxes at the current levels will keep us with a sufficient resource base to continue industrialization, while keeping the standard of living of our population steadily increasing. (415 base resources per turn, 0 Political Support) -[X]200% increase in MFCE: Increased investments in heavy industry are critical for the continuing economic development of the Republic. It also happens to require far less skilled labor and complex machinery than some other areas of the economy, which is quite fortunate for us. (0 Political Support) -[X]130% increase in capital goods production: While mechanization of all areas of the economy is extremely important, the simple fact is that limits on the availability of trained personnel and raw materials limit what can be done to a certain extent. (-15 Political Support) -[X]150% increase in consumer goods production: With the coming ability to mass produce plastics in large quantities, many previously impossible or expensive goods can be provided to the citizenry in massive quantities. If we actually want to improve the lives of the workers, investing in the possibilities they provide should be a priority. (+5 Political Support) -[X]40% increase in agricultural production: While we may not yet have the ability to mass produce fertilizers, investments in pesticides and herbicides will still increase overall yields and reduce labor use by a considerable amount. When combined with other projects, a significant step forward in agricultural production can be made. (+5 Political Support) -[X]Partial Compulsory Education: The education of the population must be done as quickly as possible, and while it may not be possible to educate every single child in the Republic, the system is developed enough in the Peloponnese to make primary education for children compulsory within three years. Additionally, efforts can be made to create an institution for retraining American immigrants who had pre-Event education on certain subjects like medicine and engineering. (Stage 5 primary Peloponnese, stage 4 primary elsewhere, stage 2 secondary, stage 1 advanced education) (+5 Political Support) -[X]Moderate Expansion: Giving more and better equipment to our military is a necessary action, as a few thousand pipe guns aren't going to be enough against anyone who didn't enslave 95% of their population. Massively increasing the production of black powder rifles will do good enough to arm most of our troops for now, with the few more modern weapons produced being given to professional formations. Starting the mass issuance of mortars on the battalion level should also be enough to ensure that the Revolution is able to defend itself, at least for the near term. (cannon production (stage 5), rifle production (stage 5), bolt action rifle production (stage 3), submachine gun production (stage 3), monitor construction campaign) (-20 Political Support) -[X]Agricultural Modernization: The construction of more dams and irrigation systems are critical for increasing agricultural yields as well as their other benefits, and a combination of the mechanization of agricultural labor and the encouragement of immigration will enable more laborers to be assigned to industrial tasks. (Stage 5 dams, Stage 4 agricultural modernization, Downtimer immigrant recruitment) (+10 Political Support)
[X]A Partially Achievable Plan -[X]Continue the Course: Continuing taxes at the current levels will keep us with a sufficient resource base to continue industrialization, while keeping the standard of living of our population steadily increasing. (415 base resources per turn, 0 Political Support) -[X]150% increases in MFCE:The further construction of more mines, steel mills, cement plants, and a few scattered power plants is something that must be done, but it must be balanced with investments in other areas of the economy. (-15 Political Support) -[X]130% increase in capital goods production: While mechanization of all areas of the economy is extremely important, the simple fact is that limits on the availability of trained personnel and raw materials limit what can be done to a certain extent. (-15 Political Support) -[X]150% increase in consumer goods production: With the coming ability to mass produce plastics in large quantities, many previously impossible or expensive goods can be provided to the citizenry in massive quantities. If we actually want to improve the lives of the workers, investing in the possibilities they provide should be a priority. (+5 Political Support)
-[X]25% increase in agricultural production: With basic investments in irrigation, the mechanization of agriculture, and encouraging the spread of modern varieties of crops and simple agricultural techniques yet further, agricultural yields can be increased by a fairly large amount without taking away resources from other sectors of the economy. (-5 Political Support) -[X]Partial Compulsory Education: The education of the population must be done as quickly as possible, and while it may not be possible to educate every single child in the Republic, the system is developed enough in the Peloponnese to make primary education for children compulsory within three years. Additionally, efforts can be made to create an institution for retraining American immigrants who had pre-Event education on certain subjects like medicine and engineering. (Stage 5 primary Peloponnese, stage 4 primary elsewhere, stage 2 secondary, stage 1 advanced education) (+5 Political Support) -[X]Increased Expansion: Increasing the amount of artillery and more modern small arms in the People's Army while still relying on muskets for much of the troops will be both achievable in terms of resources and make the Revolution more defensible against better-armed threats. (cannon production (stage 6), rifle production (stage 5) bolt action rifle production (stage 4), submachine gun production (stage 4), monitor construction campaign, formalized officer training (stage 1)) (0 Political Support)
[X]Plan Simping For the Peasantry: A Maoist Agricultural Miracle. -[X]Decreased Resource Allocation: While current tax burdens may not be horrific to the level of causing famines, it still causes considerable hardship to many of our citizens. Giving them a break for some time will prove quite popular. (350 base resources per turn, +20 Political Support) -[X]150% increases in MFCE:The further construction of more mines, steel mills, cement plants, and a few scattered power plants is something that must be done, but it must be balanced with investments in other areas of the economy. (-15 Political Support) -[X]130% increase in capital goods production: While mechanization of all areas of the economy is extremely important, the simple fact is that limits on the availability of trained personnel and raw materials limit what can be done to a certain extent. (-15 Political Support) -[X]150% increase in consumer goods production: With the coming ability to mass produce plastics in large quantities, many previously impossible or expensive goods can be provided to the citizenry in massive quantities. If we actually want to improve the lives of the workers, investing in the possibilities they provide should be a priority. (+5 Political Support) -[X]55% increase in agricultural production: Heavy investments in agriculture and fishing, alongside attracting immigrants from other countries to increase our agricultural workforce yet further, will enable a great increase in agricultural production. (+20 Political Support) -[X]Nationwide Compulsory Education: Top priority must be given to all educational efforts, giving us the possibility of becoming the first nation on Earth to give compulsory and free education to all of its inhabitants within three years. Building up an educated population, even if subpar across the board for now, will give us a massive advantage on the world stage and bring us closer to the dream of fully advanced Communism. (stage 5 primary across country, stage 3 secondary, stage 1 advanced education, Nationwide Compulsory Education) (+30 Political Support) -[X]Moderate Expansion: Giving more and better equipment to our military is a necessary action, as a few thousand pipe guns aren't going to be enough against anyone who didn't enslave 95% of their population. Massively increasing the production of black powder rifles will do good enough to arm most of our troops for now, with the few more modern weapons produced being given to professional formations. Starting the mass issuance of mortars on the battalion level should also be enough to ensure that the Revolution is able to defend itself, at least for the near term. (cannon production (stage 5), rifle production (stage 5), bolt action rifle production (stage 3), submachine gun production (stage 3), monitor construction campaign) (-20 Political Support)
"Since we arrived in this world, we Americans have brought with us nothing but sin. We have murdered those who were our brothers and sisters before the Event just to survive, and we have slaughtered and enslaved those who were to be our new ones in blind greed and hatred. It is through the word of the Vanguards of Christ that we may redeem our souls, and build something new out of the ashes of our past actions." -Mary Wilson, Christ's Kingdom on Earth
"...No comment." -Anax Rachel Wilson, Dual Kingdom of Crete and Mycenae
"The New American Republic was a fresh start for me, and everyone else who signed up with Stone. A chance to make America as the Founding Fathers intended, where the corruption and Liberals that were destroying it back home couldn't touch us. Fuck, it was a chance to be a Founding Father. I made the farms, I kept the nation fed. And how did the damn mobs repay me? By signing up with a gang of fucking cultists to tear it all down! Whitefield should have put a bullet in that damn kid's brain the moment he met him." -Senator Charles "Chuck" Wise, New American Republic
"When I first heard of Abiel Wyse and the Vanguardist revolt, I found it absurd. A young teenage boy leading a religious revolt against one of the largest powers in Anatolia? Nonsense, it had to be some sort of farce. And the more I discovered about the Vanguardists, the more absurd it became. The Vanguards' understanding of the basics of Christian faith is fundamentally flawed at best and yet somehow thousands of Americans and locals alike were fighting for a boy who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus despite Jesus's birth being over a thousand years away. I thought there had to be more at play here, some puppet masters behind Wyse's throne pulling the strings, Senators who had planned to coup the NAR President, or Downtimers taking advantage of a traumatized boy. And it is true that many follow Wyse for pragmatic reasons or simple survival, but many also follow him out of sincere belief. I have traveled to Wyse's court and even spoken with the young prophet. While there are many who influence him, there is no puppet master. Wyse seems completely sincere in his beliefs, and that sincerity has led to thousands of traumatized people of every stripe flocking to his golden banners and burning Anatolia in his name. Christ's Kingdom on Earth is an absurdity, of that there can be no doubt, but is the same kind of absurdity that has marked all of our lives since the Event." -Elicia Baxter, "The Many Wars of West Anatolia" Published 17 A.E
Christ's Kingdom on Earth, often called the CKE for short, is the theocratic nation that is the center of the post-event religion of the Vanguards of Christ, Vanguard Christianity (or Vanguardism for short, or by other Christians who reject it as having any association with the rest of the faith.) Formerly just one of many esoteric cults that arose as people tried to make sense of the Event, the Dry Summer of 11 A.E. saw the Vanguards explode into a power capable of facing off against every nation of the First Wave at once and prevailing. Christ's Kingdom on Earth has left a mark on the world not seen since the Event itself, and few nations can claim with any accuracy to have been left unaffected by its emergence.
The New American Republic
The circumstances of the Vanguards of Christ and their rise cannot be properly explained without first describing those of the New American Republic. A rival and equal to New Washington (at least in territory and population), the NAR was nominally a libertarian republic, but in truth was little more than a feudal warlord state. The so-called "Senators" who made up the ruling class of the NAR were granted effectively unlimited control of their fiefdoms, so long as they pledged overall allegiance to the biggest warlord of them all: the leader of the city of Globe (formerly Sfard before its conquest by the late founder of the NAR.) These Senators were far from united, each with their own private army, many with different currencies and laws, and some would even come to blows over trade disputes and territories. Downtimers were enslaved throughout most of the Republic, and native unrest remained a constant issue.
Despite these deficiencies, the NAR was rightfully considered at least a nominal peer to even New Washington. Control of the Seha River Land gave it access to some of the best farmland of any First Wave Nation, and the allegiance of large numbers of pre-Event police officers since its founding meant it had a sizable supply of Uptime guns, ammunition, and even body armor (the last of which Globe made sure to keep a strict monopoly on.) Its proximity to Tucson allowed it easier access to scrap and other salvage without requiring the Emergency Commission as a middleman (though issues with bandits on the NAR's Tucson border meant the EC was often used regardless.) While New Washington had a more potent navy and better access to Mediterranean trade and fishing, the NAR was often considered to have a larger and more powerful (albeit less unified) army and superior agricultural potential.
The leader of the NAR in 9 A.E. was a former Border Patrol Agent by the name of Matias Whitefield, who had gained his position via ample promises and bribery following the coup that had deposed the previous leader, and the dealmaking that followed had created the NAR's current political system. A man with few firm political views outside of ensuring his own power and accumulating more thereof, Whitefield saw another opportunity to increase his standing when he heard of a young preacher traveling across the coast. While cults of various flavors were nothing new in the post-Event world, this one had amassed a much more sizable following than most, and was led by a boy who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ.
God's American Son
Abiel Wyse and his sister Sarah were travelers from Pennsylvania, visiting family with their parents when the Event occurred. Their parents were able to escape Tucson itself but died less than a year later due to illness. With their family dead, the Wyse siblings had only strangers for support. Many gave them food, a few even took them in for a time but the siblings had the misfortune to find themselves in an area particularly hard hit by both the Cold Summers and native raids. Many homes were forced by circumstance to turn them away and more than once the siblings found themselves forced to flee for their lives. The siblings would often find themselves forced to hunt and scavenge to survive, sometimes picking through trash piles out of desperation. The loss of their parents combined with years of struggling to survive had taken a serious toll on the siblings, particularly Abiel, who turned more and more to religion as a source of comfort.
The two would eventually be taken in by a downtimer couple, this was done both out of compassion and necessity, in exchange for food the siblings provided the native couple with some degree of protection, allowing them to pass themselves to uptimers off as foreigners visiting relatives who became stuck in Tucson during the Event. Despite this arrangement, living conditions were still hard. The couple only had a small farm with a tiny herd of goats. Most days everyone went to bed still hungry. This only further fueled Abiel's religious fervor and perilous mental state until one night he awoke suddenly, raving to his sister about the dream he had just had. He claimed in the dream that an Angel had come to him and revealed to him the truth, that Abiel was Jesus's younger brother, sent to ensure people kept the love of God in their hearts and free the world from wickedness until it was time for Jesus's sacrifice. Sarah thought little of this dream and told him to go back to sleep. Much to her frustration this wasn't the end of it, as her brother would spend the next day preaching in the streets of the local village. To her and their adopted parents' surprise though, Abiel's preaching had an audience, one that was willing to donate food and other goods. Sarah began to encourage her brother to preach, even taking him from village to village in hopes of attracting more attention and thus more donations, a decision she would soon regret.
Abiel's preaching was simplistic and heretical to any mainstream Christian faith (most notably, that Jesus was a separate and lesser being to God and furthermore that his sacrifice hadn't actually happened yet.) Nevertheless, aside from the fact that Abiel was blossoming into a genuinely persuasive speaker, his sermons proved extremely attractive simply because he gave his followers a reason for the Event. That God had a purpose in mind when He sent Tucson into the distant past, and furthermore, that they had a purpose in being here. To many Americans who found no fulfillment in the everyday struggle of backbreaking subsistence farming, this was exactly what they wanted to hear, and they flocked to him in droves, soon expanding into a cult numbering in the hundreds known as the Vanguards of Christ, many of whom were well armed and quickly became experienced in combat after encounters with communities that proved hostile to the Vanguards. The rest of Abiel's family meanwhile, could only watch in horror as the Vanguards fuelled Abiel's own fanaticism, which in turn encouraged him to preach more often and more fervently in a vicious cycle they were helpless to do anything more than follow in the wake of.
When word of the Vanguards reached President Whitefield and other powerful figures in the NAR, he was quickly urged to crush the cult before it could grow any further. Not only were many within the NAR highly religious themselves and viewed the Vanguards as heretics (with the successor to the Diocese of Tucson having taken residence not far from Globe), but the presence of any cult that was evangelist, highly militant, and well-armed was an alarming factor that could destabilize the nation if left unchecked. Whitefield however, saw things differently. To him, the Vanguards were an opportunity. If he could control Abiel Wyse, he could increase his own personal forces with hundreds of experienced zealots, and give him a useful tool in the political games with both his rivals within the NAR and New Washington.
As such, Whitefield invited Abiel and the Vanguards to Globe, who accepted despite the protests of the rest of Abiel's family. There, Whitefield made Abiel an offer, granting the Vanguards a home within Globe and the freedom to preach within it and elsewhere in the NAR (with warnings that they may not be welcome in the territory of some Senators.) All Whitefield asked in return was that the Vanguards not preach against him and that Abiel listen to his "concerns" over the sins and wickedness of others (others who, conveniently, always happened to be the president's enemies.)
For the better part of two years, life went on. The Vanguards were denounced by virtually every other church in the NAR, but still attracted a sizable following from the population of Globe and the nearby villages. Abiel's near-daily sermons always included the names Whitefield suggested, but were rarely limited to merely them, often denouncing others who made an enemy of the Vanguards. Some Senators even converted to the new religion - albeit more out of a desire to curry favor with the president than any genuine conviction - while others demanded that the President expel or destroy the cult or threatened to do so themselves. Such actions generally went nowhere however, as no one wanted to risk their forces fighting a fairly well-armed and zealous group of hundreds. All the while Whitefield remained confident in Abiel Wyse remaining his useful patsy.
This lasted until the later half of 11 A.E., when the harvest failed.
Hot and Dry
11 A.E would prove to be a miserable year, starting with the Dry Summer. Rainfall proved too scarce, crops withered in the heat, and harvests failed. Few nations were unaffected: New Arizona's helot revolts escalated with thousands of new starving men and women among their number. Crete saw only just-conquered Sicily rise up in rebellion, a bloody conflict plagued by famine and disease that would see half the island's population wiped out before its end. Even better off nations with well-stocked granaries had to tighten their belts and pray that the next year's harvest would be a good one.
Despite the fears of the return of the Cold Summers of the early post-Event years, the NAR was among the nations that could weather the dry spell without a major famine. The Seha River Land was bountiful, and though the NAR could be divided on many things, its granaries at least were well stocked. Rations would be shorter and food more expensive, the poor and the Downtimers might face some level of starvation, but it would, in theory at least, not be catastrophic.
But while the nation's response was overall functional, the NAR would prove to be its own worst enemy in the Dry Summer. Some Senators with extensive stockpiles hoarded what they had, refusing to help supply harder hit regions unless given concessions. The President technically had the power to force such matters, but this often proved easier said than done, particularly since many of the more agriculturally productive parts of the NAR also hosted the largest militias. While there was no nation-wide famine, several smaller scale ones emerged in some regions, and dissent against the NAR leadership began to rise. They had never been popular among the common people, but they could at least claim to have kept food on the table. Now it seemed they couldn't even do that.
As harvests failed, the wealthy of the NAR seized the opportunity to expand their powerbase, buying up land from thousands of subsistence families to turn into massive plantations, staffed by the indebted or Downtimers. While its neighbor New Washington had set up laws to prevent any one person from owning too much land and creating a system where all the land was owned by a handful of the ultra-rich, no such thing existed in the nominally libertarian New American Republic. Indeed, one of the main powerbrokers of the NAR, Charles "Chuck" Wise, had made his fortune on his dominating stranglehold on NAR agriculture, and the sizable militia it funded. Both of these increased during the Dry Summer, to the point where some estimated that Chuck owned at least a third of all farmland in the NAR, with a few even claiming that he owned a majority. The consolidation of land under the ownership of a handful of the ultra-rich had already been present within the NAR, but the Dry Summer both accelerated it and made it obvious to the average layman.
As Chuck and other Senators swallowed up the smaller family farms, their dispossessed owners flocked to the cities in search of employment. While some managed to find jobs in expanding urban factories, far more were left unemployed, destitute, resentful of their newfound situation.
It was into this gap that the Vanguards stepped in. Thousands upon thousands had flooded into Globe, and the daily sermons of Abiel Wyse were one of the key attractions to these newcomers. In particular, the younger demographic of Americans, those who had been children during the Event, had especially taken to the Vanguards. They had spent most of their lives on the farms, and pre-Event America was a distant, mostly forgotten memory for most. Having known no other life, they saw the similarly aged Abiel Wyse as kin, someone whose own personal experiences resonated with theirs. That is not to say they were the only new followers of Vanguard Christianity, many thousands of older Americans began to follow it as well, but these young ones would be of particular political importance in the future.
Whether young or old, the Vanguards offered purpose, a place of belonging after being thrust away from their old lives for a second time, aid in a time of great hardship, and targets to blame for their misfortune.
President Whitefield had at times struggled to wrangle the transfer of food from the personal stockpiles of some of the less cooperative of the NAR's Senators, and often enlisted the aid of the Vanguards to "encourage" their compliance. Bolstered by the newly dispossessed farmers, the Vanguards would storm such sites, then distribute the food to the people of Globe and beyond through preachers who had taken to roaming the surrounding countryside and nearby villages. While this did help avert the specter of famine for many, it had another effect. Vanguard numbers swelled, going from a group of hundreds to a congregation of thousands, and increasing by the day as the population of the NAR flocked to them, including local Downtimers who found that the Vanguards, unlike the other religious institutions of the NAR, embraced them as equals. (Abiel Wyse, despite the estrangement from the rest of his family as he became ever-more zealous, had not forgotten the Downtimer couple that were his adoptive parents.) It was Abiel Wyse and the Vanguards who were keeping them fed, they said, not so-called "President" Whitefield.
Whitefield increasingly began to realize that he had grabbed a tiger by the tail, but doing anything about it had also become extremely risky. The Vanguards now held sway over a vast proportion of Globe's newly inflated population, with their influence spreading across the rest of the NAR. Nor had they allowed themselves to rest on their laurels. In fact, squabbles between them and the militias of Senators more hostile to their presence were becoming an increasingly regular occurrence, and both the old guard and new converts were encouraged to regularly train, even as Abiel's sermons reached a new level of fervor, egged on by the thousands of fresh, eager faces who had embraced him as their prophet.
Globe, and a vast section of the NAR with it, had become an inferno in the making, and the spark that would ignite it was not long in coming.
—
A/N: Significant portions (though not the entirety) of the "God's American Son" section were taken from Age of Rust's New American Republic (Part II) Threadmark. The rest however, is original, though based off of the canon events of Age of Rust involving the NAR and the Vanguards of Christ, before being altered by the events of the Quest. Additional thanks to @Teen Spirit for making the final of the IC comments (and those of my previous recent omakes), this one from Elicia Baxter.
As indicated by this being "Part 1", I plan to make a couple follow-up omakes as well.
Turn 13 (14AE Trimester 1): Strike Off Your Chains, Sons And Daughters Of Labor
415+70 Trade+15 Precious Metals=500 Resources Per Turn, 0 In Storage 46 Political Support
Free Dice to Allocate: 4 Dice
Infrastructure (6 Dice):
[]Derveni-Zapantis Canal: A navigable canal to connect the Gulf of Corinth to the city of Mycenae and the Aegean as a whole will massively decrease the difficulty of transporting goods to our capital. Work has begun on a series of locks, reservoirs, and pumps to enable the movement of small barges between the Derveni and Zapantis rivers, but this requires a vertical climb of close to a hundred meters. However, even with its massive cost, it must be worth it for the Cretans to have built a similar canal. (10 Resources per dice (679/900)) (Makes most other projects cheaper) (+25 Political Support on completion) (Political Support loss if less than 50 progress per turn)
[]Lock Systems (Stage 3): While the area does not have any large cities or mines, the northern coast of the Peloponnese does contain many villages which are the source of much of the Republic's food, textiles, wood, and other important raw materials. The streams in the area are too small for much useful traffic, but relatively cheap lock systems can be built to allow for small barges to bring goods to and from the coast. (5 resources per dice (71/250). (Makes many other projects cheaper, +5 Political Support on completion) (Stage 4 locked behind Dams Stage 4)
[]Port Facilities (Stage 4): Building docks and shipyards in the Liberated Territories will enable them to be integrated into the rest of the Republic's economy, increasing the standard of living for our citizens there and increasing overall output. (10 Resources per dice (0/400))
[]Peloponnese City Modernization (Stage 1): While some work has been done on building more houses for new city dwellers and increasing the quality of life of those already here, the mass production of concrete has opened up many new possibilities. Nearly a thousand new apartments with running water, central heating, glazed windows, and gas lights and appliances can be built to replace old huts, along with straight, tarmac roads lit with gas lights at night, many new schools, parks, goods distribution points, theaters, and more. While this will not be enough to bring even those already living in the cities up to an acceptable standard of living, it will be a huge step forwards. (10 Resources per dice (126/150))
[]Experimental Railways: While our steam engines may be inefficient and our steel may be poor quality, we have a sufficient amount of both to seriously consider the construction of a few short rail lines. These would mainly serve to connect various mines to the nearest navigable waterway, with all of the Republic's major towns already having access to at least a small river. Horse- or oxen-drawn wagonways will also be constructed, to serve locations that are too small to merit a dedicated locomotive. (15 Resources per dice (0/100))
[]Telegraph Network (Stage 2): Now that the largest cities of the Republic are connected, it is time for wires to be laid towards smaller villages. While the gains will not be as large as from the initial push, this will still massively increase the capacity of the state, and installing the wires will not be too labor intensive. (10 Resources per dice (90/150))
[]Hydroelectric Power (Stage 1): While the lack of any kind of long-range power transmission infrastructure means that only rivers right next to cities can be used, that is still some amount of electricity generation that should not be put to waste. Small turbines and generators can be installed in pre-existing dams, letting the flow of water be used in a far more efficient and practical fashion than previously. (10 Resources per dice (0/50)) (Further stages locked for the foreseeable future)
Heavy Industry (5 Dice):
[]Kópos Coal Mine (Stage 3): With coal demand increasing constantly, more must be mined to keep the fires of industry burning. A better world shall be ripped from the heart of Gaia herself, one swing of the pick at a time. (10 Resources per dice (120/225))
[]Thríambos Ironworks (Stage 4): With the liberation of New Arizona set to increase our population by nearly two hundred percent, it is only natural for steel production to be increased by a similar amount to serve their needs. Half a dozen Bessemer converters will spill out over a hundred tons of molten steel every day, serving to feed the ever growing needs of the Revolution. (15 Resources per dice (107/450)) (+5 Political Support on completion)
[]Prometheus Heavy Machinery Plant (Stage 3): The small amounts of vanadium, molybdenum, and other elements present at Laurion are still sufficient for the production of decent amounts of tool steels, massively increasing our machining capabilities in almost every way. The production of wire, generators, and electric motors will also be expanded, even if quality is massively limited due to the lack of good wire enamels. A general expansion of the plant will also be conducted, increasing the quantity of capital goods produced as well as their quality. (20 Resources per dice (21/250)) (+5 Political Support and several new projects on completion)
[]Thermal Power Generation (Stage 1): While currently available steam engines and generators are extremely inefficient, they can be used to generate electricity for the most critical applications. (20 Resources per dice (32/50))
[]Laurion Mines (Stage 1): Now that some mining activity has resumed, the intensification of production beyond the levels being achieved under the New Arizonian government can begin. The introduction of explosives and the construction of more furnaces will acheive that, increasing the availability of more non-ferrous metals by a large degree without needing much more additional labor. (10 Resources per dice (0/125)) (Liberated Territories dice can be used)
[]Attica Coal Mines (Stage 1): The current undersized mines near Thebes and Lefkandi can be modernized and expanded, increasing the access to coal for the whole of Attica and Euboea for residential and industrial use. (10 Resources per dice (0/125)) (Liberated Territories dice can be used)
[]Larymna Ironworks (Stage 1): While little development of the area was done under the previous slaver regime, large amounts of iron and nickel ore can be produced with the development of open pit mines near the coast at Larymna. Nickel can be smelted on site, while the iron ore can be shipped to a new steel mill in Lefkandi for greater availability of local labor. (15 Resources per dice (0/100)) (Liberated Territories dice can be used)
[]Palaiomanina Coal Mines (Stage 1): While there is currently not any real settlement there, the deposits on the Achelous River are some of the most accessible in the entire Republic, and will allow for easier access to coal for Aetolia and the western portions of the Peloponnese that are harder to reach from our present coal mines. (10 Resources per dice (0/100)) (Liberated Territories dice can be used)
[]Semicoke Plants: By hot pressing lignite into briquettes before firing, lignite can be turned into solid coke or semicoke briquettes instead of just powder. This is not only useful for metallurgical work, but also to for more general use, as the semicoke is far more energy dense and does not have any risk of spontaneously igniting in storage. Tar, ammonia, and various light organics will also be produced in large quantities as useful byproducts, and produces far less harmful smoke when burned indoors. (10 Resources per dice (0/150))
Light Industry (4 Dice):
[]Textile Industry (Stage 4): Now that most cloth and clothing production in the Peloponnese has been mechanized, work must begin on bringing the Liberated Territories up to the same standard as the rest of the Republic. This stage will construct several large textile mills in Athens, Thebes, and Delphi, providing massive amounts of fabric and clothing for our new citizens. (10 Resources per dice (78/275)) (+5 Political Support on completion)
[]Mills (Stage 4): While the use of water power has not penetrated far into the Liberated Territories up til now, it is time for that to change. Villages that already have dams for irrigation can be fitted with mills for grinding, threshing, and other mechanical operations, increasing productivity and the popularity of our government. (5 Resources per dice (208/275)) (Stage 5 locked behind Dams Stage 4)
[]Consumer Goods Production Mechanization (Stage 2): The mass production of cosmetics, jewelry, and toys vastly superior in both quantity and quality to what the old artisans could achieve will significantly increase the availability of various goods to our citizens and increase general quality of life while allowing for yet more artisans to be reassigned to more productive tasks. The quantity of printed works such as books and board games will also be increased, hopefully leading to literate workers better maintaining their skills even without any more formal education. (10 Resources per dice (92/175))
Chemical Industry (3 Dice):
[]Glass Production (Stage 4): While many countries have established some kind of glass industry, none are anywhere close to reestablishing the production of float glass. This will enable the mass production of large, high-quality glass panes, making many projects such as the construction of large greenhouses for exotic crops more viable, give the Republic a worldwide monopoly on high-quality window glass, and prove the superiority of the socialist economic system. However, building a hundred-meter long hydrogen filled kiln, a vat of molten lead as long as an Olympic swimming pool, and other parts of the production line will be quite expensive. (15 Resources per dice (94/250))
[]Pharmaceutical Production (Stage 3): With the most critical antibiotics now being produced in sufficient quantities, other classes of medications can now be made. Finally, anti-parasitic drugs, beta blockers, propofol, gabapentin, albuterol, metformin, and omeprazole can begin mass production, giving an option to treat many common but previously untreatable chronic conditions. (20 Resources per dice (62/125))
[]Synthetic Flavorings and Scents: While not as vital as medications, synthetic compounds can be used to add new flavors and smells to daily life. While we may not be able to get actual vanilla or cinnamon anytime soon, vanillin and cinnamaldehyde accomplish the same goals and are relatively easy to produce in the necessary quantities. (20 Resources per dice (0/50))
[]Low-Pressure Hydrogenation Reactors: While the low quality of the chemical reactors we are able to produce renders many useful processes out of reach for now, hydrogenation reactions that only require an atmosphere or two of pressure still open up many doors. Most important will be the conversion of fish and olive oil to solid fats, increasing the options available for food in the Republic, and the production of furfuryl alcohol and cyclohexanone for use in plastic production. Gaining more experience with hydrogen before attempting processes that require hundreds of bars of pressure and high temperatures will also be good to increase efficiency and safety. (20 Resources per dice (0/60))
Agriculture (5 Dice):
[]Dams (Stage 3): Yet more small dams can be built in various villages, to provide water power for mills, a head for irrigation networks, and more. After this stage, focus will be shifted towards a similar campaign of construction in the Liberated Territories. (5 Resources per dice (231/250))
[]Agricultural Mechanization (Stage 2): While modest gains have been made thus far, at significant costs, agricultural mechanization will free both the peasant from hard labor and reduce the threat of starvation. Further production and distribution of agricultural machinery, as well as the importation of draft animals from abroad, will increase labor efficiency yet further. (10 Resources per dice (14/200))
Services (6 Dice):
[]Peloponnese Primary Schools (Stage 4): With one final push, the ability to at least theoretically give every child in the Peloponnese a basic four-year education will be in place, although mandatory education will likely have to wait a bit longer. This will be a great victory for the worker's state, and may let us start to work on increasing the quality and length of education, so that the people may know more than just the bare essentials of literacy and arithmetic. (5 Resources per dice (86/325)) (+5 Political Support on completion) (+6k primary student slots)
[]Liberated Territories Primary Schools (Stage 2): Some education now exists in at least the major urban centers of the Liberated Territories, but it is not entirely sufficient even for those areas, let alone the vast majority of the countryside. Building schoolhouses in and assigning teachers to the villages closest to major cities will help with this, even if the dream of giving every child at least a basic education is still a long ways away. (5 Resources per dice (73/200)) (+5 Political Support on completion) (Liberated Territories dice can be used) (+4k primary student slots)
[]Secondary Schools (Stage 2): While the supply of graduates from primary schools may not be huge yet, it will increase soon, and the secondary education system must be expanded as well to ensure that a decent amount of them can be further educated. (10 Resources per dice (32/250)) (+3k secondary student slots)
[]Adult Literacy Campaigns (Stage 5): While a decent percentage of the population of the Peloponnese now at least know how to write their own names, the Liberated Territories are even further behind, with essentially no one having any literacy at all. This must be rectified as quickly as possible, although expanding literacy campaigns to the level they are at in the Peloponnese will take several years. (5 Resources per dice (63/425)) (+5 Political Support upon completion)
Liberated Territories (9 Dice):
[]Liberated Territories Agricultural Education (Stage 1): Some efforts were made under the New Arizonan regime to introduce more modern farming methods and crops to the countryside, but this yielded limited results due to the peasantry being more interested in revolting against the slavers than listening to them talk about agriculture. Hopefully, our efforts yield more success. (5 Resources per dice (0/125)
[]City Reconstruction and Modernization (Stage 2): While people may no longer be freezing to death in the streets of Athens and Thebes, most of the population still lives in deeply subpar dwellings that need to be modernized in order to reduce disease, increase productivity, and win over the population. (10 Resources per dice (0/300))
[]Liberated Territories Address Assignment and Postal Integration (Stage 1): While the postal system in the Peloponnese is acceptable, it is essentially nonexistent in the Liberated Territories. Assigning addresses to every building in the cities and setting up at least an embryonic postal service will significantly increase administrative capacity in the region, as well as provide an additional incentive to people to learn how to read. (5 Resources per dice (0/75))
Military (4 Dice):
[]Simple Weapon Production (Stage 2): While they are nowhere near as effective as firearms, the availability of steel and heavy machinery means that pikes can be produced cheaply and in massive quantities, to supply to allied groups or trade with independent downtimers. (5 Resources per dice (52/75))
[]Cannon Production (Stage 5): While our nitrogen supplies may be limited, the use of poor quality but nitrogen-free Cheddite compositions for high explosive and white phosphorus for incendiary shells means that large amounts of shells more effective than solid shot can begin. Mass production of smaller mortars to take advantage of these shells can also begin, increasing our military capabilities yet further. (15 Resources per dice (19/200))
[]Rifle Production (Stage 3): Now that the production of the old pipe guns has stopped, a new weapon must fill their palce. Rifled muskets, while not as flashy as more advanced weapons, can still be the weapon of our mass levies of infantry for the next decade or so - if we start massively expanding their production now. (15 Resources per dice (0/150)) (~+500 rif/turn)
[]Bolt Action Rifle Production (Stage 2): Now that production of bolt-action rifles has begun at some quantity, the next task must be to expand it further so that they can be supplied to a significant portion of the People's Atmy before we all die of old age. (25 Resources per dice (17/125)) (~+200 bolt-action/turn)
[]Submachine Gun Production (Stage 1): While they may be massively inaccurate, unreliable, and generally shitty compared to any Uptime firearm, submachine guns enable far higher volumes of fire than anything else we can create right now and can be produced fairly cheaply. This first stage will focus on creating embryonic production lines for submachine guns, ammunition, and the new pistols, with production volumes being relatively low compared to future stages. (20 Resources per dice (0/75)) (~+100 submachine guns/turn)
[]Monitor Construction Campaign: The presence of a completed and operational Cretan ironclad and the continues threat of raids from Rhodes shows that we need the ability to defend the Republic on the high seas. While they are not expected to be very reliable or capable of traveling long distances, the construction of three Monitor-like vessels will enable us to destroy nearly any currently built ship with ease... as long as they don't sink before the battle. (20 Resources per dice (16/150)) (Finishes in approximately two years from start of construction, assuming steady funding)
[]Naval Gun Production: While our current breach-loading cannons are sufficient for giving trading and fishing vessels some protection, far larger guns are needed if we want the range and firepower to stand a chance against enemy ironclads. A dedicated foundry will be built to construct them, giving the Republic a greater ability to defend itself. (20 Resources per dice (0/30)) (Must be completed before progress on Monitor Construction Campaign can progress more than halfway)
Bureaucracy (3 Dice):
[]Recruit Americans To Ministry: Almost every single American adult is far more educated than nearly any downtimer, and many have actual experience in areas such as management and accounting. Hundreds of thousands of these people live on the coasts of Anatolia, and many would be more than happy to leave behind a life of subsistence farming to do paperwork. While this will be extremely unpopular, having more educated people in the Ministry can only be a good thing. (5 Resources and -2 Political Support per dice) (Larger effect the more dice are spent) (Increases dice allocation)
[]Recruit Downtimers To Ministry: Even if they don't have much of a formal education, there are thousands of intelligent, motivated, and literate downtimers in the Republic. These people are capable of doing lower-level administrative work, and will learn more with time. Having more of them in our government will also bring us closer to a true people's democracy. (5 Resources per dice) (Larger effect the more dice are spent) (Increases dice allocation)
[]Evaluate Replacements: It is apparent that some Ministers are too incompetent, reactionary, or both to serve the people well in their current positions. This would evaluate various people for a ministry position, followed by firing the current minister if they are judged to be more competent. (1 Dice, rolled) (Possible Political Support loss/gain) (Limited to 1 minister per turn)
Current Economic Issues:
Transportation: Many bottlenecks
Fuel: Slight deficit
Steel: Sufficient, demand rapidly increasing
Copper: Surplus
Wood: Sufficient
Construction Materials: Sufficient
Food: Sufficient for next year
Cloth: Sufficient production
Rural labor (varies by season): Mostly free until April
Urban labor: Sufficient in the Peloponnese, large surplus in the Liberated Territories
Literate workers: Sufficient
American educated workers: Slight surplus
total student slots: 15k primary, 2k secondary, 0k tertiary
Both plans are semi-balanced, the most significant change is the shift from schools that probably won't finish towards more mines and possibly completing the float glass plants, allowing us to secure more income next turn for a concentrated push into more HI and more expensive chemistry options.
IIRC, Secondary Schools don't actually open until sometime next turn, so would it be worthwhile reduce the dice spent there to 2-3 and use the rest elsewhere?
Also, aww. I was expecting some cool new Agri options to open up now that we can import livestock from Egypt instead of waiting for our own to finish growing. I mean, I suppose it keeps Agri Mechanization costs down, but still.
I am leaning more towards the schools, it feels to me like that'll be the better long term investment. Whatever advantage we get in the glass production won't be noticable after a decade or two, but more educated citizens will be felt for longer. Plus it leaves more resources to play with next turn.
The bigger the set of students we can make now, the larger the incoming university generation for tertiary ed, the second we set it up. Plus, a few months to prepare and get the curriculum ready for the piles of new teachers can't exactly hurt.
Mm, fair. I'm kinda leaning on Long Term Income despite myself, since next turn our HI is probably gonna be doing a lot of urban projects like ironworks which need more RpD.
Also, I have three omakes in the bank and I want to get Float Glass done so I can use one on its Quality Dice before I end up spending them on something else.
