Draka: The Fallout War European Alliance IC Thread

Gunman · Jul 25, 2017

Gideon020 said:
Herr Fritz arrives at your office with a sheaf of papers, "Ah, good to see you all. The Parliament wants to see how well you do and to help you stretch your legs so to speak, they've set down a series of objectives that they want fulfilled before February next year."

He distributes the papers, allowing you all to see what the Parliament wants done.

Ante walks in the conference room, grabbing the papers and crashing onto his chair with a small grunt. He shifts through the sheaf of papers, spending a few seconds to skim through each page. He had spent the entire time listening to his peers speak, all while stealing a glance up at the Black Hands. He heard they were janissaries but now he knew why they were really called the Black Hands.

Simpli said:
Semi-Automatic with magazines that hold between 12 to 20 bullets and for now simple a Main battle Rifle variant with Iron Sights.

Ante snorted at her suggestion. "You mean to take us back to using weapons the Draka used in the Great War? No! Before my band were chased out of the Balkans by a group supported by the Sovi-Peškirs, I had spent many years fighting men--" he pauses to look up at Colonel Venalis' bodyguards "even ones that looked like you--" his eyes then shift back to the seated Councillors. "and let me tell you this: no one but a marksman should be stuck with a semi-auto weapon. The T-9? That baby 4.5 round is too small. Even with all their Draka space magic, the 4.5 can only go so far. Even the 5.4x40mm used by the T-6 is too small. Yet the old European rifles used cartridges that are too big. I think that even 7.62x51mm is too big."

Ante inhales. "The size will limit not just the magazine capacity, but the amount of ammo carried for the same weight. We should test something in-between. A cartridge like the 6.5mm used by the Carcano. Maybe scale it down from 6.5x52mm to 6.5x39mm and see how it performs. The rifle must be automatic, and hold at least thirty rounds. "

Ante leans forward. "But there is more they want than just a new rifle. They want a new boat. I do not think we need something ambitious. Something bigger than a motorboat, big enough to mount some heavy guns would be enough to scare off any petty warlords in Northern Africa."

Pyro Hawk · Jul 25, 2017

"Unfortunately, whilst we would all like a new automatic rifle to be the standard, all the reports from the scientists and engineers constantly state that at this time they only feel safe designing a semi-automatic, bolt action rifle. That said, I never thought that the 7.62x51mm SEA round would stay our standard rifle round. I'm thinking it's something that we keep around, but once we rediscover how to invent automatic rifles, we leave the 7.62mm SEA for use in sniper rifles, machine guns and... I've got a note here mentioning things called 'battle rifles' and 'designated marksmen rifles' that I think it would be good for?

We'll develop a new small rifle when we can use it to develop an automatic rifle. Maybe make it a 6mm instead?

As for the ship... Doctor Vahlen (@Gideon020 ) at this time, do the engineers feel safe designing any form of waterborne vessel? Particularly one large enough to transport say, 4 cargo trucks at once whilst still carrying a decent armament?"

Simpli · Jul 25, 2017

Gunman said:
You mean to take us back to using weapons the Draka used in the Great War? No!

"Salute Mr. Tomich - I do share your wish for a fully automatic weapon, but please: can you point Mr at someone in the European alliance who even knows how to manufactur them on a grand industrial scale?"

Looking over to their science Advisor, she gives Dr. Vahlen a small nod and mused: "Wouldn't this be another example of knowledge lost? I'm quite sure your initial report said we are lacking the knowledge for anything but bolt action and semi automatic rifles. How long do you think would it take to atlear get a basic understanding of automatic rifles?

After all Mr Tomich, we would leave the EAs army without an standard rifle if we wait for the rediscovery of this weapon technology...

...a problem your wish for smaller ammunition also shares: our chemistry is basic, metalworking primitive in places and we need a calibre that has atleast a chance of perforating scavenged modern armour."

Tapping against the body armour she herself was comfortably wearing beneath the uniform, she continued:

"Maybe Ms. Summers calibre will even be too weak at this point - but we shouldn't send out our soldiers against roving marauders who might have access to their equipment; allowing them to just shrug off bullet fire to their armour if it's too weak."

Gideon020 · Jul 25, 2017

Pyro Hawk said:
As for the ship... Doctor Vahlen (@Gideon020 ) at this time, do the engineers feel safe designing any form of waterborne vessel? Particularly one large enough to transport say, 4 cargo trucks at once whilst still carrying a decent armament?"

Vahlen: Without a proper steel industry or at least working, non-radioactive shipyard, there would be little point trying to make even a wooden ship.

Pyro Hawk · Jul 26, 2017

"Okay, now that we seem to have a firmer idea on each others goals, I think I'll just put this up for discussion. It's a listing of what I believe we want to do, now that we've received revised timelines from the Parliament after making them aware just how problematic the previous timeline was..."

"I've added the question marks as an indicator of the questionability of the indicated course of action, or the fact that no one's claimed it as their task yet. The more question marks, the more unsure I am of one of us deciding to take that course of actions...

--- Season Desired Actions ---
Social:
1. (Pyro Hawk) Education Reform/Establishment
2-4. ??? (I don't think any of you have discussed what social projects you'd like started this season... Though maybe we'd like someone to do something like 'Survivor Outreach' to try and integrate some of the unaffiliated survivors in our territory? The one's not getting shot as marauders at least...)
Research:
1. Medical Restoration (Pyro Hawk)
2. Industrial Restoration (?)
3. Military Restoration (?)
4. Metallurgical Restoration (???) (So we can actually build the ship once we've designed it)
Design:
1. New Standard Ammunition (Pyro Hawk)
2. New Standard Rifle (Simpli) (Probably just going to be an intermediate replacement rifle, relegated to a support role once we're able to design an automatic rifle)
3-4. ??? No discussion yet on achievable task so far I believe...
Production:
1. Salvage Drakan Compound (Pyro Hawk)
2. Rebuild Powerplant (Germany) (Simpli or bryanfran36 expressed interest)
3. Salvage Drakan Compound OR Rebuild Powerplant (Italy) (Now that we aren't required to restore the electrical grid quite so fast, I would prefer it if we limited our rebuilding of powerplants to one region a season. Allows us to get a surplus of industrial capacity faster than otherwise, though it's entirely up to you to decide.)
4. Salvage Drakan Compound OR Industrial Stimulus (??) (I believe we're all in agreement that we need to get over our critical lack of industrial capacity as soon as possible? If so, I think we'd all appreciate one of us organising an Industrial Stimulus every season, as it will effectively double our industrial capacity, thus meaning larger projects can be achieved faster.)
Military:
1. Militia Training Standardisation (Pyro Hawk)
2. Marauder Suppression (Simpli)
3-4. ??? (Neither of you have discussed what you are aiming for here so far I believe? (Points at bryanfran36 and Gunman) I think we would all probably appreciate someone organising regular patrols of our controlled territory and borders. Either of you wish to carry that out? Anything else you may suggest?)
Covert:
1. Criminal Investigation (Pyro Hawk)
2. Counter-Intelligence (???) (Probably a good idea to ensure there's no spies in the European Alliance, though no one's expressed interest I believe?
3. Bosporus Generator Investigation (???) (Well, it is one of the demands placed on us...)
4. ??? (Perhaps something to do with training up our spies or something? No clue, and no one's expressed any thoughts either...)

"Well either way, I think I'm going to firm up my thoughts soon and actually write up my orders as something other than a draft... If the rest of you could also do so soon, or at the very least add in some drafts expressing your thoughts as well? We all need something to work with after all..."

(Aka, I'd really like it if the rest of you could at least put up things like my 'Drafts' of your actions this season. Even if you've only got a firm idea on 4 or 5 of the actions you'll be doing, it at least allows the rest of us to know what you are thinking and suggest things that could fill the missing action slots...)

(Also, @Gideon020 Was the United Kingdom ever conquered by the Draka, or were they part of the Alliance for Democracy (or whatever it was) right up until the Final Conflict occurred?
And the reason no one controls Finland. Is it because no one lives there due to the Draka, and no one's spent the effort and resources to colonise it again, or has it been rendered uninhabitable since the Draka depopulated it, and thus no one can live there any more?)

Gunman · Jul 26, 2017

Pyro Hawk said:
all the reports from the scientists and engineers constantly state that at this time they only feel safe designing a semi-automatic, bolt action rifle.

"Then they are fools. We can already make machine guns. It's the same action but down-sized for a smaller caliber weapon. If we have to find some older weapons even in a museum to reverse engineer, we can do that. Even the T-9 when disassembled could go a long way in understanding how one works.If we have to make a stock or even use a shoestring to make it easier to bumpfire a semi-auto gun, we can do it."

Simpli said:
but please: can you point Mr at someone in the European alliance who even knows how to manufactur them on a grand industrial scale

"If they can make any kind of firearm on a grand scale, they can be retooled to make an automatic rifle."

Pyro Hawk said:
(Also, @Gideon020 Was the United Kingdom ever conquered by the Draka, or were they part of the Alliance for Democracy (or whatever it was) right up until the Final Conflict occurred?

(Read up the changingthetimes index I linked in the OOC thread. They were part of the AFD.)

Simpli · Jul 26, 2017

Gunman said:
Then they are fools.

"If that is the only thing you want to talk about - pick it up with the design team or do it yourself.", with a shrug she gives Ms. Summer a nod shows her and their German colleague her own list:

Colonel Arletta Venali, Special Executive Councillor
First Orders
Social: The Council and You

The formation of the Special Executive Council - was a strange act by the Parliament, maybe appeasement, maybe utilization of otherwise dangerous talent: but in any case it has opened us the ability to take influence on the world around us, to create the kind of world we would be proud to life in and which we can leave to our children. It might be amusing that the Council represents a tool of democracy: introducing people who have the love or beliefs of movements and people behind them into the world of politics: allowing them to work themselves into the challenges faced by the EA and to come up with new and hopefully unique solutions that even our Government might not see right away.

Because this Council is a force of democracy and the way someone, even ones who haven't spend their whole life in politics, can make an impact. Because we have been given this chance, we want to give you one too: if you have ideas, wishes or information you want to bring to us and which your local representative is unable to deal with: send us a mail. Our staff will look through them tirelessly and we will see about what we can do.
(Raise popular opinion/awareness of the Council + Maybe some opportunities and projects in the future.)

Production: Salvage Drakan Compound | Germany

With our German colleague hopefully going to take care of bringing the Pre-Burning powerplants in his home region working once more, we might get enough of a semblance to what the older people describe as electrical networks that connect a whole country. This offers a potential for growth in any case, that might make it wise to begin salvaging the left over Draka compounds in the region, for the purpose of fuelling the industry of tomorrow with the remnants of the past. Maybe a bit more poetic than such scrap work deserves, but we do try, don't we?

Design: European Carbine Modell 1
Wood, scavenged plastic and just adequately forged steel: those are the resource available to us in arming the Armies of the European Alliance. While there are some armouries from the Pre-burning time left un-scavenged, we are looking at an ever-dwindling number of amour, weapons and vehicles from them, with new discoveries being either of inferior Janissary stock or being needed to replace the wear and tear on our own equipment. While one of my colleagues might be enflamed by the idea of arming our soldiers with weapons whose concept dates back to the Eurasian war, it is already reality in most EA Infantry Regiments, where soldiers are armed and trained with Drakan semi-automatic rifles that had been stockpiled in long forgotten depots and now pulled out. Even if the design and creation of a new semi-automatic rifle is a drawback compared to weapons like the Death Hand uses, the typical soldier of the EA isn't even going to notice.

Still: based on our Drakan designs we are going to look at a rugged and easily produced semi-automatic rifle, which is going to utilize a piston gas system that should allow for reliable service and easy maintenance by our troops in the field. They might not be intended for more than a stock gap measure till our full automatic rifles will be available in the future, but we shouldn't do a shoddy work out of this one anyway.

Using the "modern" weapons available to us, we should conserve as many of the ergonomic features we can, as well as opening the rifle up for later additions like scopes, grenades and other accessories that are going to increase our peoples firepower as well as giving them a better chance to come through the battles we want to throw them into.
Even so the priorities lie at efficiency, the ability to be mass-produced and of course a combability with Ms. Summers ammunition project.

Research: Military Restoration

Too much has been lost and nowadays you are more likely to find an ancient tactical manual from Vegetius than recounting of the Eurasian war or later conflicts between the Draka and the Alliance. If anything, the snakes were experts when it came to the control and destruction of information they wouldn't want anyone to get their hands on. In our case this means that this project, trying to piece together the doctrine and basic foundations of a modern military force from whatever manuals we could get from the Draka and other sources and what we can pick from the training of former Janissaries and what military personal that has survived the last Wars against the Draka or ended up stuck in Europe when the bombs fell. Not much to work with, but we will try.

Military: Marauders
While the total destruction of all marauding bands of ex-Janissaries might be our goal, we shouldn't forget that they still represent a valuable resource or are in the possession of at least partly working Pre-Burning equipment. Therefor they should be offered the possibility of redeeming themselves in service to the European Alliance if they sign up to the new Foreign Battalions. Those will be formed out of these bands under their own officers and under the watchful eyes of EA regulars (or the Death Hand and me ourselves), with the tasks of aiding in the stabilization of the country side. For a service with valour and success, they will be rewarded with a pardon and their battalions becoming regular units with steady pay, lodging and command through the Council – in return for their discipline, their obedience to lawful orders and with a pension in sight. Of course if they don't want to enter regular services, they are to give up their weapons and equipment (aside from memorial pieces that are no danger and not worth a fight) and will get a onetime payment, as well as the choice of in which region they want to settle. As most of them only know military life, we can except many of them to take the first option.

Of course not all of them are going to just lay down their arms – or should be offered the possibility of that option is too distasteful because of especially barbaric and gruesome behaviour. We will start with the smaller bands/tribes first, utilizing coordinated strikes by EA army units and local militias, with members of the Death hand serving as military advisors or strike teams against strong points and High Value Targets. Special care should be given to those tribes still able to field warmachines, be it helicopters or tanks. In those cases the equipment should be taken through Commando operations by the Death Hand, allowing local units to attack the tribes without having to worry about being blasted to pieces by the last remnants of a long dead foe. Foreign Battalions will be assigned depending on their availability (and our ability to monitor them) with those tribes too large to be realistically taken to be put under observation for the next clean-up operation to integrate or destroy them as fighting force.

Covert: Byzantine Power Game

To look at the actions of our geographically closest neighbours is only prudent, for a large project like the power plant spanning the Bosporus, this is undoubtedly so. Sending some agents for a nice and simply mission that involves keeping an eye on things and waiting for opportunities to present themselves, should be possible with our covert network and give us the needed warning of "something" being undertaken in that region. How we are going to react on it, is of course open for now: we might either sabotage, steal or even help with the project depending on what we might get out of it.

Pyro Hawk · Jul 26, 2017

"Okay, I think that it's best for us to break up the meeting for the moment, as we seem to have hit a block to further progress. Let us meet again in say, two days on the 3rd. This will, I believe, give all of us plenty of time to thoroughly familiarise ourselves with the information provided to us and ask our advisors any questions about what we desire to be worked on for the season so as to minimise strife in the Council Chambers. I do hope to see everyone else on this council presenting their own draft orders then as well. See you all in two days."

Kayla watches as the others start to get up from their chairs, before getting up herself and leaning over Colonel Venali's draft for her quarterly orders.

(whispering) (@Simpli ) "I believe the project is called 'Military Restoration Colonel, not Military Restauration."

Turning to exit the room, she leaves behind the Colonel's draft which has notable two alterations in pencil. The second L in Modell crossed out, as well as the word 'Restauration' replaced with the correct spelling.

--- 2 Days Later ---

Time: 9:30AM, March 3rd, 2011
Location: Special Executive Council Chambers, Downtown Paris.

Rushing in the door, Kayla looks around and sees that today she was the last member of the Council to arrive as the rest stopped the discussion that it appeared they had started whilst waiting for her. Placing the documents she'd been holding in her arms onto the table in front of her, she sat down in the chair to the right of Colonel Venali that had been left vacant for her. Which was also notably one of the two opposite the door into the room, the other taken by the Colonel.

Guess she decided to ensure that I wouldn't be surprised by anyone entering the council chambers again, huh...

"Okay everyone. Sorry for getting here late, but there were a few small delays and mix ups which meant I had to wait about ten minutes longer than anticipated before I left. And then the security checks held me up... I really need to start factoring in how long they are going to take if we don't figure out a way that lets all of us get through them faster..."

Pausing to take a sip of water from the glass that had been placed on the table by one of the ever present aides, she continued.

"Now, if everyone could take a one of the top documents from the pile in front of me, you'll see that I've had several copies of the introduction to my orders for the season made. Which yes, means that I've firmly established what I'll be ordering to be carried out throughout spring this year. The rest of this pile is the more extensive documentation on what exactly I'll be having people do, though there was only enough time to have a single presentation copy made. Now, it's by no means the complete documentation of the orders that will be carried out, as after all I've only been working on this for a day and a half after we broke up the meeting two days ago. But as no one had raised any significant concerns about the final draft I had drawn up, I decided it was a good time to get the bureaucratic machine to start churning it's gears."

Kayla Summer, Special Executive Councillor.
Quarterly Orders for Spring 2011.

Social: Education Reform/Establishment
- Education is very important to sustain a modern technological and industrial base. It is also something that promotes the creativity and independent thought which is what elevates Humanity above any other particularly intelligent animal. Which are both reasons why the Draka so strictly enforced their prohibition on education amongst their serfs and what has caused us so many issues rebuilding after the Final Conflict. Now many small scale education efforts have sprung up all over the place, though they are more apprenticeships than anything else, but we need it on a larger, country wide scale if we are to truly rebuild civilisation. Fortunately, we have three things which will greatly assist with that.

First, there are still a very few people from continental Europe and other recently conquered Drakan territories who either avoided being transported elsewhere or where transported to western Europe. These people still remember what they were taught before the Draka came in and shut down all education for non-Citizens.
Secondly, there are the hidden caches of books and the people who were taught by their parents and friends or self-educated via the caches. Unfortunately they are together barely more than the first group in total.
Third, and best of all, there are the survivors from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Those countries were never conquered by the Draka because they were a part of the Alliance for Democracy, and as such they still have considerable education materials that survived the Final Conflict and an abundance of people who received both basic education and higher levels of education. Whilst they have suffered just as many casualties due to the Stone Dogs virus and follow up Drakan nuclear bombardment as continental Europe did thanks to the Alliance for Democracy's orbital bombardment satellites, they will still serve admirably as a core to construct a new education program around.

Said program will consist of taking what assets we can from the British Isles survivors, fleshing them out with the educated people from the rest of the Alliance and what educational material they have, and creating a education system across the nation. This system will allow children to be taught in a standardised schooling system no matter where they are, and learn the same basic knowledge, such as reading, writing and maths. It will also be open to those people who grew up under the Draka or after the Final Conflict so they can learn that basic knowledge too. Complications will arise from the many different languages in the Alliance I'm sure, but we'll have to tackle those in the future. After all, this system is only a stepping stone to what we truly need to succeed in the future.

Research: Medical Restoration
- One of my most significant goals, and one of the two causes my grassroots political organisation championed, is the restoration of medical knowledge from before the Final Conflict. This is particularly important as that apocalypse didn't just revive a multitude of old diseases that the Draka had suppressed, no matter how barbaric their methods they sometimes used, but also introduced quite a few new ones.

So that's what I'm going to be having the research teams working on this season. Going through what intact Drakan and Alliance for Democracy records there are on the subject to rediscover as much as possible. Also going to have teams travelling around the nation investigating all the unofficial 'medics', 'nurses', 'doctors' and 'witch-doctors' that have sprung up over the last 15 years to cross-reference their practices with what the old records say. Some of it might be useful, though much is probably ineffectual at best. Hell, someone may actually have discovered something new, though I find that extremely unlikely.

Design: Design 7.62x51mm SEA Rifle Cartridge
- We need a new standard rifle, and if we want to be able to keep it supplied with ammunition, we need to design a round to go in said rifle. I figure a 7.62x51mm rounds good enough. Probably give it a designation of something like '7.62x51mm Standard, European Alliance Rifle Cartridge' to represent that it's going to be our new standard round for infantry weapons across the Alliance. Hmmm, yeah... THat sounds good. The 7.62mm SEA for short.

Either way, the design teams are going to be busy, and I've included instructions for them to co-operate as fully as possibly with the teams under fellow Councillor Colonel Arletta Venali which will be designing the new rifle which will be firing the 7.62mm SEA. After all, if the rifle and the cartridge can't be used together, there's a significant problem.

Production: Salvage Drakan Compound (France)
- Our industrial strength is extremely pitiful, which is a significant concern if we're to rebuild the European Alliance. Just getting the electrical grid restored across the nation alone will take years more than we've been given if we don't improve what industrial capacity we already have existing. So that's what I've ordered the work crews and factories under my command to fix.

They'll be working on salvaging another of the Drakan Compounds that they built in France, because it's the only region that has a reliable electrical grid right now. Which means more effort can be spend ensuring the industrial machinery is in working order, and less spent fixing up the broken generators throughout the compound. Whilst it'll only be a small increase in what industrial capacity we have, if everything goes well that still means we'll have double the industrial strength next season, which can be contributed to what will probably be salvaging another compound.

Military: Militia Training Standardisation
- The vast majority of the armed forces of the European Alliance right now are usually little more than the local hunters that share a beer at the nearest watering hole every night that attempt to protect the town or village whenever marauders show up. Or at the very least, giving everyone time to run and hide. Despite the actual armed forces being little better armed, they do carry actual armour, and have some training. With nothing that can be done about the armour at this exact moment for the militia, and efforts will already be underway to improve, or at least standardise, their armament, something can be done about their level of training.

Whilst we can't make the militia a full-time job across the nation, what we can do is organise a standardised training program, pulling from what little the actual infantry have managed to put together, and ensure that the militia spend at least one day a week carrying out the program. Perhaps just a weekend every fortnight or month as we can't take too much time away from the people's efforts to support their communities. I don't know exactly, that's one of the things that team that will be coming up with the standardised training routine will examine.

Covert: Criminal Investigation
- One of the most well known facts is that even when the Draka still controlled (most) of the European Alliance's territory, they couldn't entirely abolish the criminal element amongst their serfs. No matter how hard, comprehensive or brutal their efforts. It was even less effective amongst the citizens. Whilst the apocalypse that was the Final Conflict drastically reshaped the landscape and made everyone struggle to survive, it also created a lot of opportunities for those criminals. Some of the criminal element took advantage of those opportunities to become the legitimate government of their local area, which was then merged to create the European Alliance. Others being conquered by the nascent European Alliance. Yet more took those opportunities to become a significant, if not controlling, part of their local region.

Those aren't the people I've tasked Intelligence and what law enforcement is present to investigate. The people they'll be investigating are the criminals who took advantage of the collapse of civilisation to create entire criminal organisations, like the old Italian Mafia and others. If/Once they do find one of those organisations, they are to investigate it to see if it's something worth either officially recognising, or fostering unofficial ties with. If any organisation is identified which is suitable for neither, they are to arrest and otherwise forcefully dissolve said organisation. After all, most criminals are usually only out to benefit themselves, and the situation in the Alliance is delicate enough without any large-scale organisations leeching off what resources there are for their own benefit. Might also discover some corruption in the Alliance, though if the investigation is successful, that's going to be left for another time. Corruption's probably going to be a big enough problem on it's own...

Expecting Me · Jul 29, 2017

Unbeknownst to Kayla, she was not the last to arrive. Marcus walked in and took a look at the room and took a look at his fellow councilors before anything else. There was the short man, that would have to be Siegfried Schneider. Marcus recognized the name of the author but didn't notice anything particularly important about him. The same could be said for Kayla. The woman next to her, however, was a different story.

Colonel Arletta Venali. Marcus had a feeling that her and her Death Hands might be the reason that Parliament gave him a seat on the council. They likely has the assumption that, as a black man and more importantly a black activist, Marcus would find the use of the Janissary abhorrent. He certainly has some concerns about the battalion, but Marcus wasn't entirely sure what he felt about them because he didn't really know much about the circumstances. For now he was willing to wait and see when it came to the self appointed Colonel, so long as she realized she couldn't bark orders at him.

"Good, looks like you're all here now. I won't have to go through this multiple times. As you may have heard, or may have noticed, Ante Tomich is no longer a part of this council. I am Marcus Robeson and I have been selected as his replacement. Some of you may find me an unconventional choice. If you have a problem with my inclusion, take it up with the Alliance Parliament. Until then we have more important things to be working on. I have been briefed on the contents of the last meeting and I find your plans thus far to be well thought out. As nobody else has volunteered for the job, I will propose that I take the lead on our naval construction plans. If there are no objections to that I believe that I know what my priorities are for this season."

Marcus Robeson, Special Executive Councillor.
Spring, 2011

Social: Census
In order to better manage our people, we must first better know our people. Reach out to regional governments to get a better understanding of the population size and density.

Production: Industrial Stimulus
Currently the that is limiting our development of a more extensive electrical grid the most is our lack of industrial capacity. By granting incentives for more industrial labor we will be better able to repair powerplants across all of Europe.

Design: Assist Arletta Venali (@Simpli)
It is a bit too early for us to be able to make any satisfactory designs of boats, thus it only makes sense to aid in the design of our new service weapon.

Research: Metallurgical Restoration
Our lack of a steel industry makes any naval ambitions a non-starter. To fix this we obviously need to put time and research into relearning how to properly make the metal.

Military: Scheduling Patrols
To better protect our territories, and more importantly our people, we need to ensure that we find and eliminate threats as soon as possible. In pursuit of this, it is necessary to devise more efficient patrol routes, timed to reduce the chance of missing said threats to as low as possible.

Covert: Counter-Intelligence (Council)
The most important thing you can have over your opposition is information. Thus the most effective way to debilitate any potential enemies is to deny them access to information. Therefore, it is necessary that we ensure that there are no foreign agent that can relay information about our plans. While it is impossible to check the entire population of Europe, checking over the people related to this council seems to be within our current ability and will prevent any immediate leaks of information.

bryanfran36 · Jul 30, 2017

@Gideon020

After the....spirited debate between Venali and Pavlevic, where Kayla interceded and asked for two day's worth of breaks, Siegfried focused on making what was hopefully a coherent plan with the limited resources of the Alliance. Grand Dreams had to be shelved. For now.

Imagine to his surprise and consternation when news came back that their bellicose councilor had suffered a truck accident, yet no body was found. He quickly realized what might have really happened and contempt flowed through him.

That fool! Just a few disagreements why his ship couldn't be steered the course he wanted and he had abandoned everything because of that?! Siegfried had to consider him an enemy of the state from now on. He was sure that the rebel would be back to cause trouble.

Expecting Me said:
"Good, looks like you're all here now. I won't have to go through this multiple times. As you may have heard, or may have noticed, Ante Tomich is no longer a part of this council. I am Marcus Robeson and I have been selected as his replacement. Some of you may find me an unconventional choice. If you have a problem with my inclusion, take it up with the Alliance Parliament. Until then we have more important things to be working on. I have been briefed on the contents of the last meeting and I find your plans thus far to be well thought out. As nobody else has volunteered for the job, I will propose that I take the lead on our naval construction plans. If there are no objections to that I believe that I know what my priorities are for this season."

So this is the replacement, Siggy thought as he looked at the man. Not bad, as I can empathise with him and his cause. He had made approving noises when Marcus laid out his plans for the first quarter. Very reasonable and basic, yet far-reaching if it suceeded.

"Thank you Marcus for that plan." Siegfried shuffled his notes. "And now, here are my plans for the first quarter."

Siegfried Schneider's Solicitations.
Spring, March 2011

Social: Assist @Pyro Hawk
"I support Karla's proposal and will do my best to help combat illiteracy and ignorance that the Draka and current circumstances have perpetrated. I would also want to help make the people critically think and not be complacent with the Draka's silence. For now. And I would love to make Lost Victories one of the required reading textbooks that mistakes be hopefully not be repeated again."

Production: Battalions or Bust
"While I'd like to have loads of military units for us, I'd rather not deprive the EA of precious manpower that is sorely needed to keep order and take the fight to the still-problematic marauders and assholes that rampage throughout. So I propose to have one battalion of each unit (militia, infantry, armor, and artillery sans the nuke) made up of volunteers to be assigned to the Council. I shall designate them as the 1st Special Testing Group or STG-01 for short. The purpose of them aside from being our scalpel in the shadows is to serve as the testbed of our military innovations that get designed, approved, and produced. They shall be the ones that will test them and point out what can be improved from there on while thinking up of tactics to wield it to the fullest."

Orders:
1x Militia Company
1x Infantry Company
1x Armored Company
1x Artillery Company

Design: Better Infantry Equipment (Helmets, LBEs, Uniforms, Boots, etc.)
"While we are using salvaged Drakan equipment due to its somewhat superiority, or what ersatz design that gets made, this has to end now. We must start the foundations of creating native designs and equipment, made by Europeans for Europeans instead of this shit where we depend on this...this travesty. As the factories and power plants come online, this can hopefully create more paying jobs for the people and deny them from being unproductive and unhelpful to us and the EA as a whole. We can even use the soldiers assigned to us to ask them what would they have needed and wanted to use."

Research: Industrial Restoration
"While Marcus will oversee the probable construction of factories, I meanwhile shall oversee the researching on the "how-to" of repairs to be done on the still salvageable factories throughout Europe using salvaged information and our ingenuity, with particular focus on those located at Germany and Italy, as the former has a lot of industries that the Nazis made and the Draka used while the latter has excellent ports to project power in the Mediterranean and the coast of North Africa."

Military: Assist @Simpli
"While I would love in making our military in its state to be a bit better, I believe that finding some unaligned militia and eiother convincing them to fold or kill them like the mad dogs they are helpful in the long run. We do not need death of a thousand cuts and points of subversion by the enemy survivor states."

Siegfried smiles. It is not a nice one.

"After all, the new guns needs some real testing, don't you agree?"

Covert: Assist in Counter-Intelligence (Council)
"While I would love to fully focus on the Draka and their extermination with extreme prejudice, we live in a world where this cannot be, as we still face rivalry between the Russians and the Chinese much to my regret. And I am of the opinion that we still have enemies within with their own reasons to fuck the EA and us. Forewarned is forearmed so that we can deal with them early and focus on actually killing those Snakes!"

Gideon020 · Aug 4, 2017

bryanfran36 said:
Siegfried Schneider's Solicitations.
Spring, March 2011

Social: Assist @Pyro Hawk
"I support Karla's proposal and will do my best to help combat illiteracy and ignorance that the Draka and current circumstances have perpetrated. I would also want to help make the people critically think and not be complacent with the Draka's silence. For now. And I would love to make Lost Victories one of the required reading textbooks that mistakes be hopefully not be repeated again."

Auto-Success: You get to work with assisting your associate in their educational endeavors.

Production: Battalions or Bust
"While I'd like to have loads of military units for us, I'd rather not deprive the EA of precious manpower that is sorely needed to keep order and take the fight to the still-problematic marauders and assholes that rampage throughout. So I propose to have one battalion of each unit (militia, infantry, armor, and artillery sans the nuke) made up of volunteers to be assigned to the Council. I shall designate them as the 1st Special Testing Group or STG-01 for short. The purpose of them aside from being our scalpel in the shadows is to serve as the testbed of our military innovations that get designed, approved, and produced. They shall be the ones that will test them and point out what can be improved from there on while thinking up of tactics to wield it to the fullest."

Orders:
1x Militia Company
1x Infantry Battalion
1x Armored Company
1x Artillery Company

Result: 6 (Raw: 6) Severe Failure!

Faulty parts and ammunition, combined with a Janissary raid on a supply convoy prevent the recruitment effort from taking place.

Design: Better Infantry Equipment (Helmets, LBEs, Uniforms, Boots, etc.)
"While we are using salvaged Drakan equipment due to its somewhat superiority, or what ersatz design that gets made, this has to end now. We must start the foundations of creating native designs and equipment, made by Europeans for Europeans instead of this shit where we depend on this...this travesty. As the factories and power plants come online, this can hopefully create more paying jobs for the people and deny them from being unproductive and unhelpful to us and the EA as a whole. We can even use the soldiers assigned to us to ask them what would they have needed and wanted to use."

Result: 86 (Raw: 86) Great Success!

You recover what appear to be fashion and styling documents, badly faded but still legible, that were drawn by someone named 'Hugo Boss' that detail an entire array of uniform designs and variations for multiple climates. The large portfolio helps your design team immensely, and before long you have what is privately termed 'The Boss Collection' of uniforms.

(The Boss Collection Faction Trait created! Hugo Boss helps create fashionable troops from the grave. +1 to all Morale Dice.)

Research: Industrial Restoration
"While Marcus will oversee the probable construction of factories, I meanwhile shall oversee the researching on the "how-to" of repairs to be done on the still salvageable factories throughout Europe using salvaged information and our ingenuity, with particular focus on those located at Germany and Italy, as the former has a lot of industries that the Nazis made and the Draka used while the latter has excellent ports to project power in the Mediterranean and the coast of North Africa."

Result: 82 (Raw: 82...this better not be a sign...) Great Success!

On a roll from creating uniforms that apart from their functionality are also incredibly stylish, you turn your attentions and research teams towards kickstarting the Alliance's native industry efforts. Almost immediately the project bears fruit, mostly through analyzing and comparing Drakan and pre-Domination European industry based on recovered government documents.

Scale modelling helps in the recreation of what Europe used to have before the nukes fell, and the fact that the factories will need a great deal of manpower to operate means that the Alliance can start putting people to work once the project begins.

(Industrial Revitalisation Production Project Unlocked. Perform this project to convert Salvaged Drakan Compound to European Factory.)

Military: Assist @Simpli
"While I would love in making our military in its state to be a bit better, I believe that finding some unaligned militia and eiother convincing them to fold or kill them like the mad dogs they are helpful in the long run. We do not need death of a thousand cuts and points of subversion by the enemy survivor states."

Siegfried smiles. It is not a nice one.

"After all, the new guns needs some real testing, don't you agree?"

Auto-Success: You lend your aid in military matters to the commander of the Death Hand.

Covert: Assist in Counter-Intelligence (Council)
"While I would love to fully focus on the Draka and their extermination with extreme prejudice, we live in a world where this cannot be, as we still face rivalry between the Russians and the Chinese much to my regret. And I am of the opinion that we still have enemies within with their own reasons to fuck the EA and us. Forewarned is forearmed so that we can deal with them early and focus on actually killing those Snakes!"

Result: 44 (Raw: 44) Neutral

Your efforts dig out a few criminal gangs and forewarn of a large-scale Janissary raid, but in terms of catching spies the operations turn up nothing.

Gideon020 · Aug 4, 2017

Expecting Me said:
Social: Census
In order to better manage our people, we must first better know our people. Reach out to regional governments to get a better understanding of the population size and density.

Result: 63 (Raw: 63) Solid Success

Your Census-takers scour the countryside looking for populations who can be counted within the various regions of the Alliance, forming a picture of just how effortlessly the Draka uprooted entire ethnic groups and transplanted them across continents in order to rob them of familiarity in any form.

As it turns out, the Alliance is predominantly Germanic, with a very strong Asian and Arabic minority. The primary language is equally English (particularly that slurred Drakan mess), German, Burmese and Libyan Arabic.

On the one hand, it's a mess out there, and the total population Alliance-wide that hasn't been 'recruited' by Janissaries or used as 'stress relief' by the same is in the low millions.

On the other hand, it's brought a lot more people to the fortress-cities, which helps boost manpower a little.

(Census taken. +150 Manpower increase.)

Production: Industrial Stimulus
Currently the that is limiting our development of a more extensive electrical grid the most is our lack of industrial capacity. By granting incentives for more industrial labor we will be better able to repair powerplants across all of Europe.

Result: Auto-Success

The Stimulus incentives, mostly increased rations, are eagerly accepted. This helps motivate workers to increase productivity and the gains, while temporary, will be necessary.

(Industrial Stimulus: Receive double IC income next turn.)

Design: Assist Arletta Venali (@Simpli)
It is a bit too early for us to be able to make any satisfactory designs of boats, thus it only makes sense to aid in the design of our new service weapon.

Auto-Success: You lend your efforts to the design of a new service rifle.

Research: Metallurgical Restoration
Our lack of a steel industry makes any naval ambitions a non-starter. To fix this we obviously need to put time and research into relearning how to properly make the metal.

Result: 12 (Raw: 12) Severe Failure!

A great deal of information has been lost and what is still recoverable is often coded to ensure secrecy and business monopolies. This does not help your efforts at all.

(+10 Bonus to attempting this research again.)

Military: Scheduling Patrols
To better protect our territories, and more importantly our people, we need to ensure that we find and eliminate threats as soon as possible. In pursuit of this, it is necessary to devise more efficient patrol routes, timed to reduce the chance of missing said threats to as low as possible.

Result: 35 (Raw: 35) Failure

Alliance High Command refuses your requests, citing the need to protect the cities from Janissary raids are greater than risking men on active patrols.

(+10 Bonus to attempting this action again.)

Covert: Counter-Intelligence (Council)
The most important thing you can have over your opposition is information. Thus the most effective way to debilitate any potential enemies is to deny them access to information. Therefore, it is necessary that we ensure that there are no foreign agent that can relay information about our plans. While it is impossible to check the entire population of Europe, checking over the people related to this council seems to be within our current ability and will prevent any immediate leaks of information.

Result: 94 (Raw: 94) Critical Success!

Your spy hunters root out various informants feeding information back to the Janissaries in various levels of public office well-positioned to acquire sensitive information such as troop movements, which in turns hampers the effectiveness in raiding immensely! This allows Alliance Command to actually destroy one marauding horde of over 200,000 without any casualties to the Alliance Army forces while other forces manage to savagely maul other hordes, weakening the Janissary threat overall.

(Janissary threat reduced across the Alliance.)

Gideon020 · Aug 4, 2017

Pyro Hawk said:
Social: Education Reform/Establishment
- Education is very important to sustain a modern technological and industrial base. It is also something that promotes the creativity and independent thought which is what elevates Humanity above any other particularly intelligent animal. Which are both reasons why the Draka so strictly enforced their prohibition on education amongst their serfs and what has caused us so many issues rebuilding after the Final Conflict. Now many small scale education efforts have sprung up all over the place, though they are more apprenticeships than anything else, but we need it on a larger, country wide scale if we are to truly rebuild civilisation. Fortunately, we have three things which will greatly assist with that.

First, there are still a very few people from continental Europe and other recently conquered Drakan territories who either avoided being transported elsewhere or where transported to western Europe. These people still remember what they were taught before the Draka came in and shut down all education for non-Citizens.
Secondly, there are the hidden caches of books and the people who were taught by their parents and friends or self-educated via the caches. Unfortunately they are together barely more than the first group in total.
Third, and best of all, there are the survivors from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Those countries were never conquered by the Draka because they were a part of the Alliance for Democracy, and as such they still have considerable education materials that survived the Final Conflict and an abundance of people who received both basic education and higher levels of education. Whilst they have suffered just as many casualties due to the Stone Dogs virus and follow up Drakan nuclear bombardment as continental Europe did thanks to the Alliance for Democracy's orbital bombardment satellites, they will still serve admirably as a core to construct a new education program around.

Said program will consist of taking what assets we can from the British Isles survivors, fleshing them out with the educated people from the rest of the Alliance and what educational material they have, and creating a education system across the nation. This system will allow children to be taught in a standardised schooling system no matter where they are, and learn the same basic knowledge, such as reading, writing and maths. It will also be open to those people who grew up under the Draka or after the Final Conflict so they can learn that basic knowledge too. Complications will arise from the many different languages in the Alliance I'm sure, but we'll have to tackle those in the future. After all, this system is only a stepping stone to what we truly need to succeed in the future.

Result: 55 (Raw: 35 +20 Assist Bonus) Minor Success!

The British and Irish, traditional rivalries notwithstanding, do have access to surviving educational texts and other materials that are free of Drakan propaganda and bias, although the amount of Alliance bias in these texts is also significant.

A problem is presented however in the realm of measurements. The British use British Imperial measurements while the European Alliance at large uses Metric measurements.

Granted this is only a problem at the higher-education levels, but even so it presents a hassle converting it over and some want the British to adopt the Metric system while the British are throwing their weight in Parliament to have the Alliance at large adopt the Imperial system.

You do manage to enact a limited educational reform program across the Alliance that earns you a deal of public support and popularity but not much else.

(+10 Popularity Bonus to next Social Action.)
(Actual formalized education begins to spread across the Alliance.)

Research: Medical Restoration
- One of my most significant goals, and one of the two causes my grassroots political organization championed, is the restoration of medical knowledge from before the Final Conflict. This is particularly important as that apocalypse didn't just revive a multitude of old diseases that the Draka had suppressed, no matter how barbaric their methods they sometimes used, but also introduced quite a few new ones.

So that's what I'm going to be having the research teams working on this season. Going through what intact Drakan and Alliance for Democracy records there are on the subject to rediscover as much as possible. Also going to have teams travelling around the nation investigating all the unofficial 'medics', 'nurses', 'doctors' and 'witch-doctors' that have sprung up over the last 15 years to cross-reference their practices with what the old records say. Some of it might be useful, though much is probably ineffectual at best. Hell, someone may actually have discovered something new, though I find that extremely unlikely.

Result: 90 (Raw: 90) Critical Success!

Your research teams scour the countryside and any intact universities and colleges for every scrap of medical knowledge that can be found and they return with bags and bags full of texts, hand-written notes and one lucky crew managed to find filmed educational material for various surgical operations, while another located folders full of chemical information on various medicines and drugs.

With this much information to work with, the Alliance Standard Medical Practices paper is put into effect and law within a matter of weeks after it is written, helped by your comprehensive arguments on the dedication that the Alliance must show to its citizens in looking after their well-being.

With these practices ranging from civilian hygiene to the bedside manner of doctors and nurses, along with the standards that are put in place to ensure that the very best come out of training, the effects are soon felt as the first crop of newly-trained doctors and surgeons save hundreds of lives in their first days in service.

(Character Trait Bonus unlocked: Mother Of Medicine)
(+10 Bonus to any Medical-related research efforts)

Design: Design 7.62x51mm SEA Rifle Cartridge
- We need a new standard rifle, and if we want to be able to keep it supplied with ammunition, we need to design a round to go in said rifle. I figure a 7.62x51mm rounds good enough. Probably give it a designation of something like '7.62x51mm Standard, European Alliance Rifle Cartridge' to represent that it's going to be our new standard round for infantry weapons across the Alliance. Hmmm, yeah... That sounds good. The 7.62mm SEA for short.

Either way, the design teams are going to be busy, and I've included instructions for them to co-operate as fully as possibly with the teams under fellow Councillor Colonel Arletta Venali which will be designing the new rifle which will be firing the 7.62mm SEA. After all, if the rifle and the cartridge can't be used together, there's a significant problem.

Result: 51 (Raw: 51) Minor Success

Your efforts are nearly hampered by a mix-up resulting in someone making a 7.7mm bullet instead of a 7.62, but the new round is completed with deadlines.

If there are any problems, they will require test-firing alongside the new weapon to find them.

(The 7.62SEA round will automatically be prototyped and tested when the new service rifle is created.)

Production: Salvage Drakan Compound (France)
- Our industrial strength is extremely pitiful, which is a significant concern if we're to rebuild the European Alliance. Just getting the electrical grid restored across the nation alone will take years more than we've been given if we don't improve what industrial capacity we already have existing. So that's what I've ordered the work crews and factories under my command to fix.

They'll be working on salvaging another of the Drakan Compounds that they built in France, because it's the only region that has a reliable electrical grid right now. Which means more effort can be spend ensuring the industrial machinery is in working order, and less spent fixing up the broken generators throughout the compound. Whilst it'll only be a small increase in what industrial capacity we have, if everything goes well that still means we'll have double the industrial strength next season, which can be contributed to what will probably be salvaging another compound.

Result: Success (No Roll)

A Drakan Industrial Compound is repaired by teams of workers, who take the time to decorate the worker barracks and partition them to make actual rooms, while offices and quarters held by Drakan overseers are also made into quarters for workers and their supervisors.

Once the electricity is connected, the compound now thrums to life once more, now in the hands of the free rather than in the hands of monsters.

Even so, bad memories remain.

(Industrial Compound in France brought online.)

Military: Militia Training Standardization
- The vast majority of the armed forces of the European Alliance right now are usually little more than the local hunters that share a beer at the nearest watering hole every night that attempt to protect the town or village whenever marauders show up. Or at the very least, giving everyone time to run and hide. Despite the actual armed forces being little better armed, they do carry actual armour, and have some training. With nothing that can be done about the armour at this exact moment for the militia, and efforts will already be underway to improve, or at least standardise, their armament, something can be done about their level of training.

Whilst we can't make the militia a full-time job across the nation, what we can do is organise a standardised training program, pulling from what little the actual infantry have managed to put together, and ensure that the militia spend at least one day a week carrying out the program. Perhaps just a weekend every fortnight or month as we can't take too much time away from the people's efforts to support their communities. I don't know exactly, that's one of the things that team that will be coming up with the standardised training routine will examine.

Result: 9 (Raw: 9) Severe Failure!

Your efforts are blocked by Alliance Military Command who in a paranoiac fit believes that improving local militias may come back to haunt them should these militia betray the Alliance or seek to secede their areas of protection.

You return home feeling rather frustrated.

(-10 penalty to next Military action due to paranoid air.)

Covert: Criminal Investigation
- One of the most well known facts is that even when the Draka still controlled (most) of the European Alliance's territory, they couldn't entirely abolish the criminal element among their serfs. No matter how hard, comprehensive or brutal their efforts. It was even less effective among the citizens. Whilst the apocalypse that was the Final Conflict drastically reshaped the landscape and made everyone struggle to survive, it also created a lot of opportunities for those criminals. Some of the criminal element took advantage of those opportunities to become the legitimate government of their local area, which was then merged to create the European Alliance. Others being conquered by the nascent European Alliance. Yet more took those opportunities to become a significant, if not controlling, part of their local region.

Those aren't the people I've tasked Intelligence and what law enforcement is present to investigate. The people they'll be investigating are the criminals who took advantage of the collapse of civilisation to create entire criminal organisations, like the old Italian Mafia and others. If/Once they do find one of those organisations, they are to investigate it to see if it's something worth either officially recognising, or fostering unofficial ties with. If any organisation is identified which is suitable for neither, they are to arrest and otherwise forcefully dissolve said organisation. After all, most criminals are usually only out to benefit themselves, and the situation in the Alliance is delicate enough without any large-scale organisations leeching off what resources there are for their own benefit. Might also discover some corruption in the Alliance, though if the investigation is successful, that's going to be left for another time. Corruption's probably going to be a big enough problem on it's own...

Result: 90 (Raw: 90) Great Success!

When the first gang is burned alive in their hideout, the underworld takes notice. When three rival families make peace and start opening their smuggling routes to military convoys, some are concerned.

When you personally execute one leader for daring to try and kidnap you, the message is sent and soon several other large organisations fall in line as the Alliance tightens it's grip over organised crime via your efforts.

(Criminal activity across the Alliance greatly curtailed!)
(+10 bonus to next Covert action against the Criminal element.)

Gideon020 · Aug 4, 2017

Simpli said:
Colonel Arletta Venali, Special Executive Councillor
First Orders
Social: The Council and You

The formation of the Special Executive Council - was a strange act by the Parliament, maybe appeasement, maybe utilization of otherwise dangerous talent: but in any case it has opened us the ability to take influence on the world around us, to create the kind of world we would be proud to life in and which we can leave to our children. It might be amusing that the Council represents a tool of democracy: introducing people who have the love or beliefs of movements and people behind them into the world of politics: allowing them to work themselves into the challenges faced by the EA and to come up with new and hopefully unique solutions that even our Government might not see right away.

Because this Council is a force of democracy and the way someone, even ones who haven't spend their whole life in politics, can make an impact. Because we have been given this chance, we want to give you one too: if you have ideas, wishes or information you want to bring to us and which your local representative is unable to deal with: send us a mail. Our staff will look through them tirelessly and we will see about what we can do.
(Raise popular opinion/awareness of the Council + Maybe some opportunities and projects in the future.)

Result: 26 (Raw: 26) Moderate Failure

It's a good message, but it falls flat with a citizenry who are struggling to survive and so the call goes unanswered. Worse still, it results in some minor humiliation for you personally among the politicians, who quietly tut-tut your outreach.

(No bonus to try this again.)

Production: Salvage Drakan Compound | Germany

With our German colleague hopefully going to take care of bringing the Pre-Burning powerplants in his home region working once more, we might get enough of a semblance to what the older people describe as electrical networks that connect a whole country. This offers a potential for growth in any case, that might make it wise to begin salvaging the left over Draka compounds in the region, for the purpose of fuelling the industry of tomorrow with the remnants of the past. Maybe a bit more poetic than such scrap work deserves, but we do try, don't we?

Result: Success (Roll)

While the lack of power might be a problem, people in this day and age are nothing if not resourceful and this compound in the Ruhr is powered by waterwheels turning generators. It's not particularly powerful, but it gets the job done in keeping important machinery powered.

(Industrial Compound brought online in Germany.)

Design: European Carbine Model 1
Wood, scavenged plastic and just adequately forged steel: those are the resource available to us in arming the Armies of the European Alliance. While there are some armouries from the Pre-burning time left un-scavenged, we are looking at an ever-dwindling number of amour, weapons and vehicles from them, with new discoveries being either of inferior Janissary stock or being needed to replace the wear and tear on our own equipment. While one of my colleagues might be enflamed by the idea of arming our soldiers with weapons whose concept dates back to the Eurasian war, it is already reality in most EA Infantry Regiments, where soldiers are armed and trained with Drakan semi-automatic rifles that had been stockpiled in long forgotten depots and now pulled out. Even if the design and creation of a new semi-automatic rifle is a drawback compared to weapons like the Death Hand uses, the typical soldier of the EA isn't even going to notice.

Still: based on our Drakan designs we are going to look at a rugged and easily produced semi-automatic rifle, which is going to utilize a piston gas system that should allow for reliable service and easy maintenance by our troops in the field. They might not be intended for more than a stock gap measure till our full automatic rifles will be available in the future, but we shouldn't do a shoddy work out of this one anyway.

Using the "modern" weapons available to us, we should conserve as many of the ergonomic features we can, as well as opening the rifle up for later additions like scopes, grenades and other accessories that are going to increase our peoples firepower as well as giving them a better chance to come through the battles we want to throw them into.
Even so the priorities lie at efficiency, the ability to be mass-produced and of course a compatibility with Ms. Summers ammunition project.

Result: 61 (Raw: 51 +10 Assist Bonus) Solid Success

Your new comrade lends their assistance in designing the new European service rifle and they prove themselves to be highly knowledge in the field of arms design along with your own significant experience to fall back on as you lead your teams into creating the European Carbine Model 1, marked down in official records as the 'Defender' due to it's intended purpose in defending Europe from any and all aggressors.

Using a gas-piston recoil system recovered from a Eurasian War era collector's piece in a Drakan mansion, pared down to a more serviceable degree over the over-engineering of the Drakan weapon, the entire assembly is contained in wood and made of stamped steel, with a prominent barrel shroud to help dissipate heat on the weapon.

Ergonomics come in the form of a pistol-grip trigger area, along with a forward grip to help with controlling the potential recoil of the large 7.62mm round simultaneously being developed for the rifle. Metal framework is integrated into the design as future mounting space for attachments such as scopes, grenade launchers or a bayonet.

Ammunition supply is in the form of a 20-round detachable straight clip with an option for a squat 50-round drum for added firepower against large groups of enemies such as Janissaries.

Pleased with yourself, you put forward the paperwork to begin prototyping and field trials.

(XM-1 'Defender' Carbine Prototype developed. Follow up with Production and then Military for prototyping and field trials.)

Research: Military Restoration

Too much has been lost and nowadays you are more likely to find an ancient tactical manual from Vegetius than recounting of the Eurasian war or later conflicts between the Draka and the Alliance. If anything, the snakes were experts when it came to the control and destruction of information they wouldn't want anyone to get their hands on. In our case this means that this project, trying to piece together the doctrine and basic foundations of a modern military force from whatever manuals we could get from the Draka and other sources and what we can pick from the training of former Janissaries and what military personal that has survived the last Wars against the Draka or ended up stuck in Europe when the bombs fell. Not much to work with, but we will try.

Result: 43 (Raw: 43) Neutral

It's slow-going, picking over bits and pieces of military doctrine from the Pre-War era and even going as far back as hidden fragments of military information from the Eurasian War, which hampers the research efforts.

(+10 Bonus to attempting this research again.)

Military: Marauders
While the total destruction of all marauding bands of ex-Janissaries might be our goal, we shouldn't forget that they still represent a valuable resource or are in the possession of at least partly working Pre-Burning equipment. Therefor they should be offered the possibility of redeeming themselves in service to the European Alliance if they sign up to the new Foreign Battalions. Those will be formed out of these bands under their own officers and under the watchful eyes of EA regulars (or the Death Hand and me ourselves), with the tasks of aiding in the stabilization of the country side. For a service with valour and success, they will be rewarded with a pardon and their battalions becoming regular units with steady pay, lodging and command through the Council – in return for their discipline, their obedience to lawful orders and with a pension in sight. Of course if they don't want to enter regular services, they are to give up their weapons and equipment (aside from memorial pieces that are no danger and not worth a fight) and will get a onetime payment, as well as the choice of in which region they want to settle. As most of them only know military life, we can except many of them to take the first option.

Of course not all of them are going to just lay down their arms – or should be offered the possibility of that option is too distasteful because of especially barbaric and gruesome behavior. We will start with the smaller bands/tribes first, utilizing coordinated strikes by EA army units and local militias, with members of the Death hand serving as military advisors or strike teams against strong points and High Value Targets. Special care should be given to those tribes still able to field warmachines, be it helicopters or tanks. In those cases the equipment should be taken through Commando operations by the Death Hand, allowing local units to attack the tribes without having to worry about being blasted to pieces by the last remnants of a long dead foe. Foreign Battalions will be assigned depending on their availability (and our ability to monitor them) with those tribes too large to be realistically taken to be put under observation for the next clean-up operation to integrate or destroy them as fighting force.

Result: 95 (Raw: 85 +10 Assist Bonus) Critical Success!

There are no Janissaries that have not heard of The Death Hand, and in the neo-tribal structure of the half-feral Janissaries your forces are seen as something akin to gods who wield the touch of the Burnt Masters and this in turn affords you great respect and fear. This is followed by assistance from one of your comrades, who manages to direct several punitive attacks against the strongest and thusly most-respected of the Janissary chief-generals.

This winds up throwing entire power structures and complicated webs of honor-debts and ritualized servitude into chaos, leaving many of the hordes weakened, demoralized and confused.

So you take advantage of it: You sweep across the Alliance's territories in a tide of gunfire and violence, cowing chief-generals with displays of force and brutality before offering them something that not even the Burnt Masters offered. A choice.

Your efforts are almost a miracle, and only then because you didn't get all of the Janissaries since many fled to Africa or across the Neo-Soviet Border to escape you, but you've done enough and the newly-named 'Foreign Battalions' still whisper a title they have given you.

'The Bloody-Handed Witch'.

You feel some manner of amusement at hearing that title.

(Character Trait Bonus unlocked: Bloody-Handed Witch - Foreign Battalions gain +1 Morale Dice)
(New Unit Unlocked: Foreign Battalion)
(Death Hand can now be reconfigured into: Death Hand Airborne Cavalry thanks to confiscated 'Ranger' Helicopters)

Covert: Byzantine Power Game

To look at the actions of our geographically closest neighbors is only prudent, for a large project like the power plant spanning the Bosporus, this is undoubtedly so. Sending some agents for a nice and simply mission that involves keeping an eye on things and waiting for opportunities to present themselves, should be possible with our covert network and give us the needed warning of "something" being undertaken in that region. How we are going to react on it, is of course open for now: we might either sabotage, steal or even help with the project depending on what we might get out of it.

Result: 55 (Raw: 55) Minor Success

Your agents are not able to get close enough to find out any solid details, but they do report that the Neo-Soviet Federation is undertaking inspections of the Bosphorus Tidal Generator Complex and could be planning to restart the facility which would give the Neo-Soviet Federation access to incredible amounts of electricity.

Gideon020 · Aug 6, 2017

Internal News:

-A herd of cows was mutiliated by an unknown source that left behind high traces of radiation.

-A fishing boat washed up on the coast of France, loaded with fish, but with no crew aboard. The fish were found to have been contaminated by an unknown biological material of extra-terrestrial origin.

-Something strafed a town in Portugal.

Research Breakthrough!
-Dr. Vahlen has put forward a proposal to develop a military hospital system that would allow for troops to be rapidly sent back to field hospitals for primary surgery and then ship them back behind friendly lines to recuperate and potentially return to combat or be discharged if their injuries are too severe. (New Research Breakthrough: MASH Units)

Esoteric Operation Available:
-Alice has identified a site where unknown extraterrestrials are going to be landing. If a Military operation to attack and secure their craft is successful, it could provide some useful advantages in future research.

Simpli · Aug 6, 2017

"Before the Burning there had been millions of Citizien Soldiers, Draka man and woman for whom military service was another way of showing their dominance over those they saw as lesser beings. But even their number wouldn't have been enough to conquer and hold the majority of the known world before the burning: they were special operatives, Pilots, Tankers and Heavy Infantry – prestigious, able to wade through the battlefield and leave a trail of destruction on numerous infantryman with their machines and weapons, while being saver than the unlucky people have to fight by their side.

To fight by their side – not fitting way of describing the faceless mass of millions who had been torn from their homes, their cultures and turned into the dogs of war for their masters. Janissaries – for those living underneath the yoke they were the ever present horrors that could fall down on them at any moment, no matter if it was a black skinned, an Arabic or Asian face peering out from underneath the subpar helmets handed to them by their masters: they were the boots that pressed down on the subjugated people and the gloves that were used to smash aside all resistance under a wave of human bodies, serving as nothing more than stepping stones for their masters ascendance.
But it is wrong to think of them as that different from the serfs they were sent to kill or control, the Janissaries too carried the yoke with them: they were free to loot, to kill to destroy, but they were just as helpless before their masters as the serfs – even more. While a serf could hope to cling on to what made him or her a human, to convey traditions and languages when the masters weren't listening – a Janissary was stuck on the path of becoming even less. Their lives were controlled, shaped, broken and set together again by their masters. Even those who went into their armed services to be just a bit better were broken and turned into nothing more than animals. They lost their hopes, they lost their free wills and they obeyed and attack as if rabid.

The fate the Janissaries has been a terrible one even before the burning, spent like firewood to create the Pyres of our homes – but they did burn with us. Our hate should be on their masters and while pithy would be the wrong emotion to feel when fighting against man and woman trying to kill you, it should be something to keep in the back of your mind – even or especially if you keep in mind the times the Draka took draconian and cruel measures, even by their standards, when they as so much smelled the possibility of a Janissary uprising."

Citing nearly word for word from a small little book from her families own collection, the Colonel looked at the rest of the Council and the two guests she had brought with her today: the taller man could have belonged to the Death Hand by public perception thanks to his ivory skin and the salved Draka body armour he was wearing (only that he was disarmed), while the woman on his side was slender and had an olive skin tone and almond shaped eyes that showed her as a descendant from Janissaries that had once been raised in what was known as Turkey on really old maps. Unlike him she wore a helmet with integrated radio but not much else when it came for body armour, instead wearing the same rough spun fabric that was cut and sewn in a facsimile of a uniform that was common for all these tribes. Today they were here as represents of the larger tribes and hordes that had chosen to join the EA.

"After the fall, the Janissary units in Europe had been nearly completely destroyed: not many of them warranted a place in the Shelters and those that did often ended up with Snakes who did …unwise decisions in the aftermath of their worlds collapse. Still: many of them had been equipped with outdated vehicles, weapons and armours and send to secondary positions or out to patrol in the middle of nowhere – giving them a better survival chance than the Draka Elite Units, who were stationed at those central locations that are nowadays craters or become some of the first targets of local resistance movements after the Burning.

The tribal corps and hordes that had harassed the fortress cities of the Alliance over the past nearly two decades, are people who have been thrown together by circumstances, without culture, history or other things to back them up: aside from military service and values. Thus it shouldn't be surprising that the Hordes culture today is a weird mix between scrappers, soldiers and tribal, taking chunks of their former identity and trying to rebuilt something akin to a society without their masters breathing down on them but still in constant conflict with us former serfs – if only for food, water, parts and ammunition.

The tribes meanwhile are organized through complicated structures partly because of past debts when they helped each other, army belongings from before the burning and a nomadic structure with ritualized servitude between individuals and whole tribes. It therefore hasn't been unknown for the EA to cooperate with tribes against others in the past – or for large hordes to form if smaller tribes were threatened.

I could go on for longer, but I want to thank our latest member for his assistance in hampering the structures and throwing them into Chaos before our large scale military operation. As by now there are nearly no Janissary tribes remaining on European territory that haven't pledged their support to us after the operations of the last few months. Many of them have offered their military service or chosen integration into our society – I'm sure we are looking forward to many problems in the civil sector, but as of now the time of large scale Janissary raids and hordes in the hundreds of thousands should be over."

Looking over to the strange girl that had been given to them as Advisor, the Colonel inclined her head lightly:

"In light of information that has been given to this Council, I would propose that we get into contact with some Chief-Generals to draw up a Foreign Battalion for the use in the operation that Alice has proposed: I'm sure the Battalions superior equipment, moral and vehicles are going to serve us well instead of just local militias and scavenged infantry battalions. Their excellent moral and military discipline is going to be quite reliable in unforeseen circumstances."

Colonel Arletta Venali, Special Executive Councillor
Second Orders
Social: The Council and You

Social: Stadtluft macht Frei

With the hordes of the Janissary either part of the EA, broken or fleeing, there's only so much that stands between the fortress cities and their surroundings. It is time to use the newly established increase in security and defence, by expanding out reach into the smaller settlements and wandering groups of survivors outside of the city states that make up the EA. We should drum up our recent successes, not only military but also in education and medicine, to get more settlements to join the EA and more people to flow into the fortress cities that are going to need every able bodied man and woman in the future.

Production: XM-1 Prototype
The XM-1 Defender might not be an elegant weapon, but one quite exemplary fort he age and society we are living in. It stands at the crossroad between past and future with an interior that isn't too different from the way rifles looked over six decades ago and an exterior that is alluding to the state of the art weapons before the Burning. The ideas behind its production on the other hand are once more downright primitive compared to what had been available only two decades ago, with wood and stamped steel once more being the state of the art material for a rifle.
At least the Design was finished quite timely and seemed competent enough to serve as a stop gap measure till we were able to design a better full automatic rifle with new materials and better tools. For now it was time to build a prototype.

Design: EA- Rifle accessories

It would be a shame to design the rifle with the ability to accept further add-ons, but then not design any of them. Some of them like the bayonet are simple and nearly useless except for the most ill equipped marauders, but others like an underslung grenade launcher or different scopes show promise for future development at other weapons. We should look into what we can reconstruct.

Research: Military Restoration

While the projected ended up with just more papers littering the councils table in the last month, we ought to continue it anyway: if only because the influx oft he Tribal-Jannisaries gives us a new look at oddly twisted but once military structures, while we can also hope that they were able to loot and save more training manuals and military treaties than most other factions still around in the ruins. Aside from that we will still need to look through old bunkers, collections and just whatever the EA city militaries have accumulated through the last two decades. It might not be much, but we will only know when taking a look around, or?

Military: Welcome to the European Alliance

Alice has given us a location and a time window: guess it will take some more months till we get the time to have the Death Hand ready to start practicing with their new helicopters. We will marshal the forces surrounding the predicted landing side and after making sure of their capabilities, the Colonel will take personal command of them and lead an operation against the landing craft: being one of the first people to board a spaceship since the Burning is going to be interesting anyway.
If possible the Death Hands elite soldiers will scout the landing side to make sure if the target has already arrived or not – if it hasn't we are going to draw from the Death Hand and other Foreign Battalions in the surroundings to put up camouflaged defences that should hide them completely till the time is ready for the assault. Then the Death Hand with their Automatic Rifles will lead the charge, while other troops will cover them. The Aim should be to get the enemy to leave the craft first, before attacking it with its doors wide open. We will need to secure the landing craft, weapons, other pieces of technology and if possible living specimen.
Let's give them a warm welcome to the European Alliance~

Covert: Mixing In.

The recent events give us a lovely chance to follow two objectives the Parliament has given us: getting eyes and ears into the Soviet-Federation and finding out what is going on in North Africa. For this purpose we will have to work with our advisor Skullface and the new Foreign Battalions: we are going to form teams out of some of them, who will be given a quick training in spy craft (additional to what they might already have) and then send to infiltrate those Hordes that are fleeing our territory and heading towards North Africa and the Neo-Soviets. For now their tasks should be getting as many information as (safely) possible, sending them back and preparing for more concrete missions in the future.

Pyro Hawk · Aug 7, 2017

Time: 9:30AM, June 1st, 2011
Location: Special Executive Council Chambers, Downtown Paris.

"Well, that was ... Something. I think I'll be leaving the Janissaries to you Colonel Arletta from now on, seeing as you know so much abut them... and definitely have a way with them. More so than I was before at any rate..."

As for what I'll be doing this season, most of it's just follow up of some of our successes from last season. As such, I'll be trying to create actual higher education... and more drastically, attempting to solve the whole 'Which Measurement System? debate going on in favour of the Metric System... Which, errr... Well, I would greatly appreciate someone's assistance with that, because I would not be surprised if I miss a few things, and it's going to be a very touchy subject. I don't want to cause as big a disaster as what happened with me and military High Command a few months ago...

Speaking of that disaster... Because High Command's still giving me paranoid glances, I think I'll stick to supporting someone else on the council in military matters this season. Give them more time to cool off... Do note that I will be focusing my assistance to anyone who wishes to deal with ummm... Ah! Alice's operation...

Oh, and whilst we're speaking on your proposed operation Alice, (@Gideon020 ) can you answer a couple of questions for us?
First of all, how urgent is the mission? By which I mean, are we required to take the mission this season, or do your... sources... suggest that whatever it is will be staying there for a while?
And secondly, are we able to use the official military on this task, or is the Colonel going to have to lead her personal guard to attack it?"

--- (Gideon's Asnwers) ---

"Okay! With that answered, back to what I'll be undertaking I suppose... Let's see... Covered the social assignment, military matters... ah! Here we are!

I'll be assigning my research teams to try and rediscover geological survey methods. It's kind of important seeing as how a fair few of the old sites are either irradiated because the Draka were still using them when the bombs fell, or had been exhausted beforehand. And if we want to rebuild as a civilisation, there is a distinct limit to how much we can salvage from the ruins, before factoring in how much has been contaminated or irradiated... So working out how to discover new sources of material will be required, and soon.

The design teams will be following up the magnificent progress my research teams made last month on medicine by working on the proposal Dr Vahlen has put forward. The more of our troops survive with minimal harm, the better chances we have of surviving in this new world... Not to mention there's a distinct limit to how many people we can refill the military with due to the greatly decreased population that we have nowadays. And what people we do have are usually already occupied keeping society and civilisation alive and working, with very thing margins of safety so we can't pull that many more anyway... Either way, it means the fewer people needed to make up for casualties in the military, the better, and this is a good way of dealing with that.

Production wise, I'll be working on spreading what Councillor Siegfried rediscovered about 'modern' industry... Because the sooner we get an actual industry up and running, the better... Not to mention it'll mean we need to use Ex-Drakan facilities less, which is going to be excellent for morale... Because seriously, fuck the Draka with a rusty coil of razor wire. May they all suffer the personal attentions of every demon in every hell, past, present and future, for all of eternity."

'Cough, Cough'

"Eh hem, sorry about that, but I'm sure I'm not the only one in the room who utterly despises the Draka and will be extremely thankful when we can demolish the last reminder of their control. But uh, yes. Last of all, I think I'll be taking advantage of my wild success with suppressing the problematic criminal elements in European Alliance territory by going after those who are corrupt. Well, more accurately, I'll be going after those who are too corrupt. Sadly, corruption will always be a part of any human run system, but it can be contained and that's what I'll be doing... There unfortunately should be a fair amount of it, what with people taking advantage of the rebuilding efforts to gain a place of power allowing them to use their power for their own benefit. At least it's not going to go too far back, what with all the Draka who previously were corrupt being dead... Just hope that not too many of the higher levels of government aren't discovered to be excessively... that's a can of worms I'm not wanting to get involved with...

Fortunately, many of the particularly corrupt people would have connections to the criminals that were dealt with over the last three months, so we can use those leads to track them down. Won't be able to get all of them as I said, but we can at least make sure every knows not to get too greedy... Just like we've done with all the criminal organisations.

Oh, and here's the draft so you guys can remember what I'm hoping to manage for whenever you make your own plans. I'll hopefully have more comprehensive documentation soon."

Kayla Summer, Special Executive Councillor.
Quarterly Orders for Summer 2011 [DRAFT].
Social: Higher Education + universal use of Metric System (Assistance Requested)
Research: Geological Surveying
Design: MASH Units
Production: Industrial Revitalisation
Military: Assist (Assaulting Landed UFO)
Covert: Corruption Purge

Gideon020 · Aug 7, 2017

Pyro Hawk said:
Oh, and whilst we're speaking on your proposed operation Alice, (@Gideon020 ) can you answer a couple of questions for us?
First of all, how urgent is the mission? By which I mean, are we required to take the mission this season, or do your... sources... suggest that whatever it is will be staying there for a while?
And secondly, are we able to use the official military on this task, or is the Colonel going to have to lead her personal guard to attack it?"

Alice: They will leave within a month's time. Please work quickly.

Expecting Me · Aug 7, 2017

The council has done some good work these last few months, in Marcus's opinion. And this was in no small part due to the people sitting on it.

Siegfried Schneider, the stocky German fellow. Pretty nice guy, Marcus had no trouble with the man. He seemed to be a good team player, having spent much of his time assisting in other council members' projects. Not to mention he and his team had some good luck in his efforts with both his research and design. The opportunity to increase the Alliance's industry was a great boon. And Marcus had to admit that the Boss Collection is quite snazzy.

Then there was Kayla Summer. Marcus's first opinion of her was essentially 'she seems nice'. Then he saw her give rise to a medical revolution, give foundation to education reform and personally execute that gang leader who tried to kidnap her when she proved to be one of their biggest problems. That's not to say she isn't nice, just that opinions evolve.

And finally there was the woman speaking now, Colonel Arletta Venali. Many of Marcus's concerns about her remain. Hell some of them have been amplified by her military success. Dealing with the Janissary was necessary, and he was proud of his role in dealing with them. But now those same marauders are fanatically loyal to the Colonel.

Simpli said:
I could go on for longer, but I want to thank our latest member for his assistance in hampering the structures and throwing them into Chaos before our large scale military operation. As by now there are nearly no Janissary tribes remaining on European territory that haven't pledged their support to us after the operations of the last few months. Many of them have offered their military service or chosen integration into our society – I'm sure we are looking forward to many problems in the civil sector, but as of now the time of large scale Janissary raids and hordes in the hundreds of thousands should be over."

"And on that, we should go into detail on how we should react to our success. Now my attempts to organize military patrols were stalled over concerns of these raiders. To prevent this sort of problem these patrols are as necessary now as ever and I have every intention of bringing up this issue again. In addition, there is a task that I believe you were mentioning Colonel; integration of the people outside of our fortress cities. According to the census that I conducted, there are millions of people out there whom were living under the threat of marauders. We just put on an impressive show of force, which will likely go a long way in our discussion. If anyone else has any priorities regarding this matter, this is the time to discuss them."

Pyro Hawk said:
As for what I'll be doing this season, most of it's just follow up of some of our successes from last season. As such, I'll be trying to create actual higher education... and more drastically, attempting to solve the whole 'Which Measurement System? debate going on in favour of the Metric System... Which, errr... Well, I would greatly appreciate someone's assistance with that, because I would not be surprised if I miss a few things, and it's going to be a very touchy subject. I don't want to cause as big a disaster as what happened with me and military High Command a few months ago...

Turning to face Kayla, Marcus says, "Miss Summer, you're efforts in education reform are particularly interesting to me. This is a good focus for our mathematics and our science programs. I had plans to lead similar reforms to integrate multiple languages into our education programs. However, I would be willing to put those plans on hold for now in order to lend my assistance to your plans."

"Other than that there are several projects that should be priorities. Miss Summer, with your desire to upgrade our industry, I think it's best if I continue to provide stimulus. The Bosphorus Tide Generator is also something that we need to monitor. Colonel Venali, you led the mission that confirmed activity at the generator, do you wish to continue leading the operation?"

Simpli · Aug 7, 2017

Pyro Hawk said:
"Well, that was ... Something. I think I'll be leaving the Janissaries to you Colonel Arletta from now on, seeing as you know so much abut them... and definitely have a way with them. More so than I was before at any rate..."

Giving the compliment a small smile and inclining her head seemingly modestly, she shrugged and gestured towards the Death Hand soldiers guarding the room:

"Knowing the culture, society and rituals in them always comes in handy – be it peace or war. Many people make the mistake of thinking of the Hordes as either the Janissaries of the Draka, with all the atrocities and conditioning it includes – or the tribal nomadic marauders they have become. Both are only pieces of a larger whole – which allowed the last seasons operation to go off that splendidly. The risk might have been big if we would have gotten bogged down or ended up with a unified giant Horde – but as you can see it worked splendidly. I'm even thinking about adding a little badge with a bloody hand as award to those Tribal-Janissaries who fought under my command and excelled enough to catch my attention."

With a little grin she also threw in:

"I applaud your measures to get education back into the territory of the EA, marksmanship, officers and competent soldiers are really reliant on having a good backing with numbers and other forms of education. It forms a good basis for a professional army or so I have read."

Pyro Hawk said:
Well, more accurately, I'll be going after those who are too corrupt. Sadly, corruption will always be a part of any human run system, but it can be contained and that's what I'll be doing...

Tilting her head lightly, the Colonel considered the other woman for a moment before tapping against her cheek with one black gloved hand, grinning as she purred in delight:

"A lovely idea, but maybe you shouldn't be too earnest with your pruning my dear colleague? Maybe take some of the worst offenders to the side and show them the proves, their future verdict and turn them into agents of our own, limit them to modest bribes if you want. That should allow us to keep an ever watchful eye on our own administration as we expand the EA into the country side and other regions – as well as having them keep an eye on other players trying to bribe their way into our countries. Bad apples can at least attract the flies for us, while being unable to rot the rest of our basket, or?"

Expecting Me said:
If anyone else has any priorities regarding this matter, this is the time to discuss them.

"I think we should go for two Military operations this time, overseen by two of us each. The first by Ms. Summers and me will be the attack on the alien Craft by the Death hand under my command and with some of Ms. Summers experts on hand – the other will be lead by our male colleagues on the council and concentrate on organizing the patrols that were already proposed last season, now including the new Foreign Battalions at our side to finish off the last large marauder and Horde presences in our borders – as well as acting as a show of force towards the smaller settlements to show that we are on the rise again and we are their chance for security, medicine and more. It would work well with the idea I'm having in social matters. "

Expecting Me said:
Colonel Venali, you led the mission that confirmed activity at the generator, do you wish to continue leading the operation?

"I do – but I think I am seeing a chance we will have to grasp before she slips out of our hands: I'm talking of the fleeing Hordes that are either moving towards North Africa or the Neo-Soviets. I think we should use now friendly assets to infiltrate them and get agents in both regions – allowing us to get a better idea of what our neighbours are up to and organize actions. Especially for the later we might be able to worsen their unrest or -as we can expect them to soon begin organizing a way to fight against them akin to us- we can extend diplomatic ties to the hordes in the Neo Soviet Union and offer them the same we did to the ones in our territory: integration and citizenship for service or peaceful disarmament."

Expecting Me · Aug 8, 2017

Simpli said:
Tilting her head lightly, the Colonel considered the other woman for a moment before tapping against her cheek with one black gloved hand, grinning as she purred in delight:

"A lovely idea, but maybe you shouldn't be too earnest with your pruning my dear colleague? Maybe take some of the worst offenders to the side and show them the proves, their future verdict and turn them into agents of our own, limit them to modest bribes if you want. That should allow us to keep an ever watchful eye on our own administration as we expand the EA into the country side and other regions – as well as having them keep an eye on other players trying to bribe their way into our countries. Bad apples can at least attract the flies for us, while being unable to rot the rest of our basket, or?"

Marcus rubbed the bridge of his nose when he heard that. He felt that this comment was entirely representative of his opinions on her character: pragmatic, but with dubious morals. She wasn't necessarily wrong about this course of action, but Marcus felt the need to offer a counterpoint, "Colonel I can appreciate your goals in this, but it is not without significant risk. If it becomes known that we are turning a blind eye to any corruption, we risk losing much of our credibility with both Parliament and the public. And that's not even getting into the ethical concerns regarding it. But, as it is Miss Summer's project, it is her choice whether or not she follows your advice."

Simpli said:
"I think we should go for two Military operations this time, overseen by two of us each. The first by Ms. Summers and me will be the attack on the alien Craft by the Death hand under my command and with some of Ms. Summers experts on hand – the other will be lead by our male colleagues on the council and concentrate on organizing the patrols that were already proposed last season, now including the new Foreign Battalions at our side to finish off the last large marauder and Horde presences in our borders – as well as acting as a show of force towards the smaller settlements to show that we are on the rise again and we are their chance for security, medicine and more. It would work well with the idea I'm having in social matters. "

"Yes, as I mentioned earlier, I have every intention of revisiting plans for patrols and I have no objection to incorporating the Foreign Battalions into such endeavors. And while I would happily accept any assistance our resident fashionista, it is up to him if he wants to offer such help or if he believes there are any other military matters that need his attention. What do you say, Mister Schneider?"

Simpli said:
"I do – but I think I am seeing a chance we will have to grasp before she slips out of our hands: I'm talking of the fleeing Hordes that are either moving towards North Africa or the Neo-Soviets. I think we should use now friendly assets to infiltrate them and get agents in both regions – allowing us to get a better idea of what our neighbours are up to and organize actions. Especially for the later we might be able to worsen their unrest or -as we can expect them to soon begin organizing a way to fight against them akin to us- we can extend diplomatic ties to the hordes in the Neo Soviet Union and offer them the same we did to the ones in our territory: integration and citizenship for service or peaceful disarmament."

"A solid idea, but I do not like the thought of leaving the generator unmonitored. I would be happy to continue the operation while you focus on your efforts with the fleeing hordes."

Pyro Hawk · Aug 11, 2017

Simpli said:
"I applaud your measures to get education back into the territory of the EA, marksmanship, officers and competent soldiers are really reliant on having a good backing with numbers and other forms of education. It forms a good basis for a professional army or so I have read."

Expecting Me said:
Turning to face Kayla, Marcus says, "Miss Summer, you're efforts in education reform are particularly interesting to me. This is a good focus for our mathematics and our science programs. I had plans to lead similar reforms to integrate multiple languages into our education programs. However, I would be willing to put those plans on hold for now in order to lend my assistance to your plans."

Expecting Me said:
"Other than that there are several projects that should be priorities. Miss Summer, with your desire to upgrade our industry, I think it's best if I continue to provide stimulus. The Bosphorus Tide Generator is also something that we need to monitor. Colonel Venali, you led the mission that confirmed activity at the generator, do you wish to continue leading the operation?"

"Thank you Colonel for your words, but frankly, I did it because it's not just the military that will benefit from a firm educational foundation. All I've come across states that ensuring the population has a good education is something that has a multiplicative, if not exponential effect on basically everything a 'modern' society needs. Hell, even the Drakan material agrees, which is just one of the reasons, albeit one of the more important ones, for why they so harshly persecuted it amongst their 'serfs'."

"As for you Marcus... First, and quickest, yes, I do believe it would be beneficial if you ensured the industrial stimulus program you started last season kept operating. Whilst the revitalisation program promises to greatly increase our industrial capacity, the fact we have so little just means that we won't be entirely in the red from the upcoming seasons work. Once we've rebuilt enough industry capacity that we can reconstruct two regions electrical grids every season you can probably, stop, but that decision is really up to you."

"As for the other topic you raised... Yes, I would greatly appreciate any help you could provide dealing with the politics involved in ensuring the Metric System becomes the European Alliances universal measurements. It has significant potential to be nasty if we do something wrong. Once we've solved that part of the problem, setting up higher education should be easier...

And on the multi-lingual education idea you have... I've been thinking similar thoughts as well. Your census has stated that the predominant four languages in the Alliance are English, German, Burmese and Libyan Arabic. Whilst most of the English is the Drakan dialect, I think I won't be alone if I stated that we probably we probably want to push that to as close as we can get to British Isles English instead.. I think would probably be a good idea to make sure that everyone in the Alliance's territory spoke at least two of the main languages. Whichever is the local one, and then have one of the mandatory classes being one of the three other languages taught throughout the school years. But we should probably talk about this later, as it's going to beat least three months before we can do anything about it...

Simpli said:
Tilting her head lightly, the Colonel considered the other woman for a moment before tapping against her cheek with one black gloved hand, grinning as she purred in delight:

"A lovely idea, but maybe you shouldn't be too earnest with your pruning my dear colleague? Maybe take some of the worst offenders to the side and show them the proves, their future verdict and turn them into agents of our own, limit them to modest bribes if you want. That should allow us to keep an ever watchful eye on our own administration as we expand the EA into the country side and other regions – as well as having them keep an eye on other players trying to bribe their way into our countries. Bad apples can at least attract the flies for us, while being unable to rot the rest of our basket, or?"

Expecting Me said:
Marcus rubbed the bridge of his nose when he heard that. He felt that this comment was entirely representative of his opinions on her character: pragmatic, but with dubious morals. She wasn't necessarily wrong about this course of action, but Marcus felt the need to offer a counterpoint,
"Colonel I can appreciate your goals in this, but it is not without significant risk. If it becomes known that we are turning a blind eye to any corruption, we risk losing much of our credibility with both Parliament and the public. And that's not even getting into the ethical concerns regarding it. But, as it is Miss Summer's project, it is her choice whether or not she follows your advice."

"Frankly, I agree with both of you. We need to turn some of those who are heavily corrupt, but with something redeemable about them into our own agents, but we also need to make absolutely clear that if they even start looking like they'll fall back to their old tricks... They've had two chances. There is no third.

As for the fact it's risky ignoring any level of corruption Marcus... Let's be serious. Dealing with corruption in a human designed or led system will always be reactionary in nature. Just an innate property of the machine. What I will be doing is clearing out the elements that have whatever positive elements, if any, outweighed by their negative elements. And making sure that everyone else knows not to let it get to the level it needs to be cleared out again, whether because it's so widespread it's having a noticeable negative impact on the Alliance, or because individual parts are being too problematic."

Simpli said:
"I think we should go for two Military operations this time, overseen by two of us each. The first by Ms. Summers and me will be the attack on the alien Craft by the Death hand under my command and with some of Ms. Summers experts on hand – the other will be lead by our male colleagues on the council and concentrate on organizing the patrols that were already proposed last season, now including the new Foreign Battalions at our side to finish off the last large marauder and Horde presences in our borders – as well as acting as a show of force towards the smaller settlements to show that we are on the rise again and we are their chance for security, medicine and more. It would work well with the idea I'm having in social matters."

"Good, I'll definitively be assisting your efforts then.

Now onto other matters. I'm sure that everyone else at this table has already basically decided what they'll be doing over the next three months, with most of the discussion already having happened whilst we were working on everything else over the last month or two. And I've just finished making the alterations the last minute information and discussion has brought up about my activities. So here are my finalised plans for he next three months of effort from the people under my command.

Looks like that's us girls finalised... Now, boys, any idea on when you two will have finished with the adjustments needed? Will we have to break up the meeting for today and finish up tomorrow, or are you ready to show the rest of us?"

---------------------------------------------------------------

Kayla Summer, Special Executive Councillor.
Quarterly Orders for Summer 2011.

Social: Establishment of Higher Education and Universal Metric System
- Well, your education reform/establishment effort last season was effective, but it also ran into one of the problems you'd been anticipating would emerge, and not one of the one's you'd known would happen either. This has meant that whilst schooling will be happening at an even and equal level across the European Alliance now, it's... Well, rather bare-bones. After all, there's a limit on what you can teach when you aren't sure what measurements to use...

As higher education will be absolutely essential to the Alliance as it rebuilds, the measurement problem's going to have to be solved as soon as possible. Fortunately, a lot of people seemed to like your efforts to set up a formal education system, so you've decided to use that wave of support to attempt to see that the problem is resolved. Which means attempting to convince enough people in the parliament to support one method over the other, preferably without upsetting the supporters of the other measurement system.

As you quite like the Metric System, and find the Imperial System... basically obsolete, that's the one you'll be supporting. Basically, it's a return to your roots, with the political activism that ended up getting you chosen for the Council in the first place. So that's where the main thrust of your efforts will be over the next three months. Making sure that the European Alliance as a whole decides to go for universal usage of the Metric System, without pissing off the English, Scots, Welsh, Irish and all the other groups of people living on the British Isles.

And if you by some miracle manage to achieve all of that before the month is out? Well, that just means that you can work on actually getting the higher education rolled out not that everyone knows what system of measurement everyone else will be using.

Research: Geological Surveying
- Well... Last season's efforts into rediscovering medical research was successful... wildly successful in fact. So much so that, well... you've got a season sized hole in your expected research times as you were expecting to need to spend this season's efforts on restoring medical knowledge as well. But this isn't a bad thing at all! After all, it just means you can work on getting your other priority met that much sooner.

Which means we need to rediscover how to make steel-hulled, at the very least steam powered, ships. Now whilst we can't work on restoring actual shipbuilding knowledge right now, we can work on the whole 'how to metal?' dilemma. Which... has been taken by one of your other council members. Very good news! Less fortunately, their efforts last season were much less successful than yours. As their research teams ran into the problem of what surviving knowledge they could locate being either patchwork beyond usefulness... or written in various sorts of encryption that they hadn't been able to crack yet. Hopefully that'll change this season.

But as medical research is as developed as you can get it right now, metallurgical research is already underway... You decided to take the remaining task. Figuring out how to actually locate ore deposits and other sources of raw materials. After all, to be able to build the ships you'll need, you need to be able to make the metal. To make the metal you need to either salvage a lot of it from rapidly disappearing ruins, or dig up more ore to be smelted into the required metal. And this is where the problem occurs. Many of the pre-Draka known ore deposits were either depleted beyond usefulness by the Draka's own industrial efforts, or irradiated and otherwise rendered unusable during the Final Conflict. Not all, but it's still a problem.

Which means we need to find more! And yet again it's something we've lost all knowledge of, with the people knowing how to do it either being dead (from the Draka conquest, their purges, or just everyone dying during and after the Final Conflict), missing (due to Drakan relocation efforts or refugee movements after the Final Conflict) or just scattered too far apart to be of any use (and usually occupied doing another job as well)... So let's fix that by repeating what worked so well last season. Recover surviving records and books, locate survivors who had learned these tasks and put it all together to create an education effort able to teach people how to find new sources of raw materials.

Design: Design MASH Units
- One of the less expected benefits of my push to restore medical knowledge is the rediscovery of how to set up true military field hospitals, and the treatment of military casualties. And part of that knowledge has sparked an idea from the research teams, something of use by the design teams. Thoughts are it's a system by which wounded soldiers can be treated sooner, and more thoroughly. That will mean less dead or permanently affected soldiers, and faster recovery of temporary wounds as well. Which reduced need for new soldiers and less experience lost over time. Always a good thing, and worthy of development.

The fact it means that more soldiers return alive to their families would have sold you anyway, without all the other benefits it's foreseen to have. Which makes deciding what to task your design teams with rather easy this season. Here's hoping it's successful, because the sooner these 'MASH Units' can be deployed, the better.

Production: Industrial Revitalisation
- Well, your fellow Council Member came through with what you hoped when they worked on recovering lost industrial knowledge. And whilst it's a hideously expensive initiative, the sooner you spread their discoveries the better. Because what current large-scale industrial capacity the European Alliance has almost universally comes from salvaged Drakan Compounds which have two big problems. First of all, they aren't anywhere near as productive as they could be, because we're not the Draka so we can't run them the way they were meant to run to reach maximum effectiveness... and even after being repaired they aren't as good as they used to be anyway. Secondly, and more importantly, they're Drakan Compounds... Which means there's a lot of bad memories haunting them even fifteen years after the Draka fell.

And those memories aren't going to go away any time soon. So the faster we can replace them with new construction the better, for multiple reasons and not just the ways I've stated already. Here's hoping that people will actually be happy to work in the new facilities once we've rolled them out... And if all goes well, they should be much more productive, which means we can speed up the timetable on the restoration of the electrical grid Alliance-wide... And hopefully shortly followed by the road and rail networks.

Military: Assist (@Simpli ) Colonel Arletta's UFO Landing Site Assault
- Okay, so apparently the people you went to with your ideas of an Alliance-wide militia minimum standards training program were the most suspicious of military High Command. Not without reason mind you, but it didn't help. Especially when it took you a while to notice because of everything else going on. Which meant that by the time you tried to go around them and get something done, they'd blocked all your channels in High Command.

And then, so the goddamned cherry on the top, several members of the criminal gang that so amusingly tried to kidnap you were part of the local militia. Yeah. That didn't so much remove all hope of getting the initiative started, as set fire to it and have all the legions of hell dance in the ashes. And because they're paranoid, the original people you went to are keeping their eye on you this season, and are ready to stop anything I do that looks suspicious... which is basically everything in their eyes, I think?

Anyway, just means I won't be leading the effort this time. Instead I'll be supporting the efforts of whichever Council Member decides to lead the assault on this... UFO landing site? Hell, if it gives some insight into all the really weird shit going on, I'm all for it. I believe that you've stated you'll be leading the efforts Colonel?

Let's hope things don't go horribly wrong. Especially because if these really are extra-terrestrials, we have no idea what they could be armed with...

Covert: European Alliance Corruption Investigation and Purge
- Last season, your efforts to deal with large-scale and organised crime in the European Alliance were a resounding success. Whilst it hasn't completely abolished criminal activity, which you weren't going for because it's an impossibly goal anyway, it has significantly reduced all organised criminal activity that is actually damaging to the Alliance. This does mean that those organisations deemed to be relatively safe to keep around are still doing things like smuggling various illegal or taxed goods, running unlicensed gambling and prostitution rings, as well as other 'minor' criminal activities, but frankly?

I'm not really concerned about those things as long as we know who to keep an eye on. After all, as long as those organisations are around and sticking to activities that we don't deem perilous to the Alliance's wellbeing, then they're going to ensure that other organisations don't emerge to rival them that might do those actually dangerous activities. And it provides a release value for the more problematic members of society, one where we can keep an eye on them and deal with the problem if needed.

Speaking of problematic members of society, there's one thing that has become clear during the investigations. And that is that there is indeed corruption in the European Alliance. Whilst it's unknown how severe or widespread, and I'm hoping it's not particularly, this is still a problem. Fortunately the success of last season has also give many leads on where to start. So, we're going to basically repeat what happened last season for the criminal organisations, just aimed at corruption instead.

Namely? We're going to find as many corrupt people as we can, and then judge whether their level of corruption falls into the 'barely noticeable and might just be a mistake', 'actually there, but not anything problematic/redeemable' or 'problematic' categories. The first category will basically just require them being informed of what they may be doing wrong and double-checking later to see whether they need to go up a category or not, and the second category deserves a slap on the wrist and an eye kept on them to make sure it never rises to the point where it's actually a problem for the Alliance due to frequency of low-level corruption. Or if they'd normally fall into the third category, but are actually judged to be redeemable, in which case they'd be like the other people in second category, just the slap is harsher. Though we will need to make it clear to them that this is their second chance, and there won't be a third. And at only as long as it's judged better for the Alliance to redeem them than add them to the third category.

The third category? Intelligence will have orders to make sure that the problem 'goes away' and instructions to make sure everyone knows not to let it happen again. You'll not say how you want the problem to 'disappear' at this time, just that they continue what they were doing over the last three months as it worked. Don't want to micromanage if it's not needed after all. Corruption will also never be entirely absent from a human-designed and/or run system, but you can mange sure it's contained, and that it never reaches the scale that it starts to hurt on more than the local scale. And even then it shouldn't be more than s stubborn splinter level of hurt.

Expecting Me · Aug 16, 2017

(Once again, sorry I couldn't get this up sooner)

Marcus Robeson, Special Executive Councilor.
Summer, 2011

Social: Assist Kayla Summer (@Pyro Hawk)
It is important that we standardize the our mathematics and sciences across the Alliance as soon as possible. Miss Summer has a more knowledge of our current academic system than anyone else on the council, and is therefore the most qualified to lead such efforts. However, an effort to implement a singular system across the entire Alliance is a difficult undertaking, thus it is in our best to provide additional support in her efforts

Production: Industrial Stimulus
The improvement of our industry is an expensive undertaking, costing a not insignificant portion of our current resource stockpile, but it will be well worth it. However, it is important that we recoup our losses in this endeavor as soon as possible. With that in mind, a continuation of incentives is a priority at the current time.

Design: Heliograph
Without proper infrastructure, we lack the ability to have our troops reliably communicate over distances. While it may have some restrictions on when it can be used, a heliograph can be used to overcome this. It can convey messages over long distances. Provided the beam of light is kept narrow, it is also difficult to intercept messages, unless they know what to look for it before hand. A rather simple device, it is essentially just a mirror on a tripod. However, it does need to be able to be kept steady in a wide variety of terrain and be able to adjust its position to better catch light.

Research: Metallurgical Restoration
Our ability to design and create more advanced vehicles and weapons is severely limited by our lack of a steel industry. Unfortunately we have had difficulties in our research into this subject. Thus far, we have found very little information and much of what we found is encoded. But we must not let this deter us. We will need to do more in-depth searches and focus efforts on breaking the codes on the information we have.

Military: Organizing Patrols
In the last season a proposal to organize patrols across the region was rejected due to the Janissary raiders. Despite believing this to be the wrong course of action, I can understand their reasoning behind their decisions. However, the actions taken by this council has made these potential raids a far less significant threat. Therefore, I once again propose that we begin patrols across the European Alliance. Ideally we should set up these patrols to allow a quick response to a threat within the Alliance. The newly recruited Foreign Battalions have occupied the areas outside the fortress cities for some time now. Their knowledge of the area would be invaluable to making efficient patrols.

Covert: Eyes on the Bosphorus Tide Generator
We have confirmed activity at the Bosphorus Tide Generator. In all likelihood this means the Russians are trying to repair it. If they manage to restore it to working order, they will have a vast advantage in the production of electricity. However, we are uncertain of is how far along the project is. We need to get agents to keep eyes on the generator and attempt to obtain information on it.

bryanfran36 · Aug 18, 2017

Siegfried looked around the council, listless and a bit loopy today. The image was reinforced by the deep bags under his eyes and the haggard posture he had adopted on the way. The reason? Somehow, someway, his mother had found some long-lost members of her family and that had been a tearful reunion when both sides in shock discovered that they had done well amidst the grim and dark tidings of the land. Both sides had thought that they were the only one that lived amongst the ashes.

While Siggy was happy that the touching reunion would continue, it somehow went downhill with the dick (or should it be pussy?) waving contests that inevitably came. On one hand, his aunt were the city patricians that held a city and goodly chunk of the surrounding area near the German-Austrian border. But on the other hand, my son's the Councilor for all of Europe! And shit flowed downhill.

Lieber Gott du im Himmel!

"Esteemed Councilors, due to personal shenanigans that sapped my creativity and imagination I will just do my utmost best to help all of you finish the projects you have proposed. Sorry for that."

Siegfried Schneider, Special Executive Councillor.
Quarterly Orders for Summer 2011.

Social: Assist @Simpli
Production: Assist @Simpli
Design: Assist @Pyro Hawk
Military: Assist @Expecting Me
Research: Assist @Pyro Hawk
Covert: Assist @Expecting Me

"I know some guys that really know their stuff and can hopefully grease the wheels to make it a little smoother. Maybe next quarter I can get my batteries charged and raring to go." Siggy gave a wan smile to them.

Gideon020 · Aug 27, 2017

bryanfran36 said:
Siegfried Schneider, Special Executive Councillor.
Quarterly Orders for Summer 2011.

Social: Assist @Simpli
Production: Assist @Simpli
Design: Assist @Pyro Hawk
Military: Assist @Expecting Me
Research: Assist @Pyro Hawk
Covert: Assist @Expecting Me

"I know some guys that really know their stuff and can hopefully grease the wheels to make it a little smoother. Maybe next quarter I can get my batteries charged and raring to go." Siggy gave a wan smile to them.

Result: ...

"Hey Karen?"

"Hmm?"

"We seem to be helping out the other council members more than advancing our boss' agenda, huh?"

"I don't our boss really has an agenda other than helping out the other council members."

"Huh."

(New trait Gained: Mr. Charity - Permanent +20 Bonus when assisting other players)

Draka: The Fallout War European Alliance IC Thread

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