Congratulations, comrade! For whatever reason, the Central Labor Office has decided to accept your application for the position of the Regional Economic Directorate of a small, struggling rural Amberrish community. You will be responsible for managing the social, cultural, and economic development of this community, as well as working closely with the community's leaders and pillars of stability. Oh, but don't feel too pressured. Your posting is a relatively relaxed, calm one, far away from the stresses and labors of the city.
And so long as the unprecedented era of peace continues, absolutely none of that has to change.
So kick back! Fraternize with the townsfolk. Learn more about their needs and wants. Maybe even involve yourself in some romance? Hey, Central Labor doesn't care. Enjoy the fruits of proletarian liberation! Really, unless something absolutely insane like a global war kicks off, we won't have much reason to keep you under any kind of oversight at all. Just don't abuse your position (And we do have a whole Committee dedicated to making sure that doesn't happen) and everything will be right as rain - and perfectly normal.
"I'M FROM THE GOVERNMENT, AND I'M HERE TO HELP!" A Perfectly Normal Bureaucrat Quest
Um, hi!
The name's LuciDreamer, and if you already know who I am, then it's probably through my other quest, PNHS. If you don't, then welcome! I hope you can find it in your heart to tolerate my eccentricities and my bad record for meeting deadlines!
So. A quick primer, before we get started. This Quest takes place in the world of PNHS (A Perfectly Normal High School Quest), a somewhat internally consistent facsimile of the modern world centered around Mihoku, a slightly futurized and very idealized version of contemporary Japan. It was a vision of a modern world at relative peace, aside from the occasional (threat of) international economic crisis or lovecraftian dream-eating nightmare girl.
50 Years before Silas Yamigawa stepped off that bullet train to start his junior year at Yamaha High School, the world wasn't nearly so calm.
To the Far East, the restless, sprightly, democratic peoples of the Amberrish continent have banded together under the Union of Sovereign Amberrish Republics, after a series of revolutions that utterly toppled the feudal states and merchant-republics that had dominated the continent only a century ago. The revolutionary, bureaucratic government provides generously for its people, taking advantage of the miraculous clockwork machines and techniques wrought by their ancestors to fuel its over-growing social services bureau. It continually makes lofty promises of more social revolution and larger international brotherhood. And the more its people look, despairingly, at the oppression wrought by the Eternal Throne onto their brothers and sisters, the more and more their calls for international revolution ring out, ever louder. The wheel of history is turning, these revolutionaries cry; the time has come to strike down the tyrants abroad, just as they were struck down at home.
To the West lies the Country of the First Symphony - The Celestial Empire of Mihoku. She is a grand, old, traditional nation that traces its roots to ancient and mystifying peoples of Nippon. It prides itself on its stability, its flowering culture, and its natural beauty. But with the success of Ambernia and its strange, foreign ideology, something wicked has spread throughout the realm. The people whisper of rebellion! The Chujin, long loyal vassals of the Eternal Throne, now speak openly of "reclaiming the nation stolen from them"; the Nansen'in, for the longest time the Empire's best sailors and traders, are arming themselves with Ambernian guns, and powering their cities on Ambernian machinery! Something must be done, or the Eternal Harmony sung by her millions of subjects may be broken - forever. And the Empress will not suffer her nation to be taken over by neither clockwork nor communist.
Under this backdrop of escalating tensions, a young, well-educated worker decides to take a very non-coveted position as the Economic Development Directorate to some random town out in the boonies of Ambernia.
And so we begin our quest. Hope it'll be a fun ride!
The Central Labor Office was, ironically, rarely ever truly busy anymore. Apparently the UAA-FAS coalition government took great issue with the over-centralization of the bureaucracy on political grounds. Thus, over the past year, many of its functions had been sliced like pie and delegated to subcommittees and subdivisions all across the byzantine labyrinth that was the central bureaucracy, or otherwise deferred to local governments: the unions, the agro-communes, the navy syndicates, etcetera. And yet, the Central Labor Office had been allowed to keep all of the staff and machinery it had needed at the height of its power. Thanks to this, much to the merriment of its workers, Central Labor typically found itself massively over-equipped and overstaffed for any job it happened to take.
This was not one of those days.
Today, this small army of bureaucrats, armed with its typewriters, ink-pens, speakwrites and pneumatic presses, was hard at work hacking at a monstrous beast of a task. Apparently, there had been an initiative, passed down from on high, to draw more young, highly-educated people into the ranks of the bureaucracy in order to fill some non-critical labor shortages. The initiative planners had apparently severely underestimated how many young, highly-educated job-searchers there were in the city, and so a giant mess of cross-referencing and notarizing ensued.
The resulting chaos was compounded when a number of unemployed "ex post facto citizens" (In other words, refugees and asylum-seekers who were given new identities to protect them from the Mihoku authorities) suddenly appeared on the labor rolls. The government being as it were, it was the law that all unemployed citizens be accounted for and allocated some basic necessities, including housing and dining credits. Which meant a mountain of forms that had to be filled out on incomplete, probably inaccurate information.
Suffice to say, irrespective of the very noble end-goal of their work, all involved in cleaning up the mess were feeling a bit pissed off at the moment.
Fwoosh. As if with a purpose, a single sealed tube completed its journey through the pneumatic distribution system, clattering onto the collection plate.
"New ticket. Busy cross-referencing this list of work visas, can somebody else check on that?!" the slightly irate voice of a senior bureaucrat sounded throughout the room.
"On it!" Asprightly intern quickly hobbled over to the pneumatic machine. After a few deft movements of the wrist, she fumbled with the machine and unclipped the contents of the tube. "Looks like we've got a, uh… Request-of-Work form. Err, I mean, an RoW."
"Another one? Throw it on the pile, we'll get to it after we're done processing these worker visas - "
"Are you sure? This one's got the, uh, the red stamp on it. The red priority stamp, was it?"
"Eh?" The rhythmic clatter-clatter from the bureaucrat's typewriter slowed to a halt. "Priority? Why in the Founder's name would - let me see that."
The man deftly grabbed the form from the intern, and looked it over, mumbling to himself. "Request-of-work… A-110… Regional Economic who-now?"
The intern pointed towards the top of the form. "It's marked priority, see? I ain't a liar."
"Yes yes, you've said that already," the bureaucrat snapped. "Hmm. Agh. This idiot filed everything correctly, but they used the wrong form. The RoW A-110 was fazed out weeks ago, for crying out loud! Hey, I'm going to need you to do me a favor, comrade."
"Y-Yes, sir, comrade, sir, whatever you need."
"Take this form," he handed it back to her, "and go and find a copy of the RoW A-1053. Transcribe all the relevant information from this form into that form, and then chuck it into the pneumatic. Don't forget to put a Records'n Labor Stamp on it."
"Transcribe everything from the A-110 into the A-1053. Got it."
The young intern hurried into a different section of the department, dodging through a set of typewriters and office desks on her way. Inquisitively, she rifled through a set of filing cabinets before she finally found what she was looking for. She read the title aloud:
"UASR Official Correspondence, Committee for Rural and Frontier Development, Request-Of-Work Form A-dash-one-zero-five-three. Application for the position of Regional Economic Development Director of an Independent Township on the Amberrish Eastern Frontier."
She paused.
"Well, shucks, we've got a form for everything, don't we?" She pulled a pen from her breast pocket and clicked it open.
"Let's see what we've got here…"
= UASR OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE = Committee for Rural and Frontier Development
REQUEST-OF-WORK Form A-1053: Application for the position of REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR of an INDEPENDENT TOWNSHIP on the Amberrish Eastern Frontier Please submit all queries in PLAN-FORMAT. Thank you for your cooperation.
Nationality/National Identity
[] Amberrish or American Tribal "Born and raised in Amber waves of grain."
[] Centroamberrish, Nuespanol, or Amazones "One of our southerner comrades, I presume?"
[] Pravic or Miho-Pravic "Must have travelled a long way. Most of the Pravic tundra is inhospitable, ain't it?"
[] Chukan-kai/Imperial Origin (Incl. Mihokujin, Chujin/Zhongian, Nansen'in/Manipinoian, Taihei Islander, other national identities) "Just hope the applicant's not a Mick or something. Can never be too careful around them, shifty-eyed bastards…"
[] Non-Applicable/Other "Well, that could mean anything. Must've come from some city-state way far out in who-knows-where."
Were you born in the Union of Sovereign Amberrish Republics?
[] Yes, I and at least one of my immediate parents were born in Ambernia.
[] Yes, I am a first-generation immigrant.
[] No, I am a naturalized citizen.
[] No, I am a recent immigrant or an asylum-seeker, or the child of a recent immigrant or asylum-seeker.
Previous Occupation (Please specify place of work)
[] Records Intern, Committee of InterSecurity. "Huh. Didn't know CominSec had a Records Branch, too. The hell do they do all day?"
[] Administrative Aide, Worker's Assembly Building "I wonder if this person is just as stuffy and clerical as all the people who work there."
[] Botanical Engineer, Purpleberry Collective "...the uniooon makes us strooooong! Hey!"
[] Newspaper Columnist, Akai Shakai Shimbun "A journalist, huh? It's not like I can judge, but… strange change of profession, to be sure."
[] Jr. Logistics Officer, Union Liberation Navy "A soldier! Brave soul, this person. Out there, fighting the good fight 'gainst the counter-revolutionaries of the world..."
[] Vitromeat Culturist, Committee of Necessities "...I think my mouth's watering… ahhh, I haven't had a proper vitrosteak or tumorporc in ages, have I?"
[] Aeronautics Engineer, The Persephone "Always wanted to fly in one of those dirigibles. Must be nice. I wonder if the air is clearer up there?"
[] Sr. Meteorologist, The Persephone "I guess they need one to help keep track of the weather?"
[] Pit Musician, Wundernacht Company "Ugh. Stage plays are so… Liberal. Guess I can commend the creative spirit, but… ugh."
[] Conceptual Architect, Independent "Wonder if they were part of the Stackers Project. Masterpiece of Amberrish engineering and ingenuity, that was."
[] Clockwork Machinist, Independent "Never could stand being in one of those infernal clockwork engines. Make me feel all woozy. And small."
[] Animation Student, Independent "I hear some folk up north were working on some photorealistic motion picture. Bright minds, these animator types. Pushing boundaries and whatnot."
Please check the region you are applying to become the Regional Economic Development Director-General for.
[] Hooversdam City "The Jewel of the Great Amberrish Desert, a lively scrapper town that's become the hub for the frontier coalition government. I guess this applicant is wracked by some sort of adventurous spirit?"
[] Paslow Hamlet "A small, proud farming community south of Hooversdam and the primary network hub for a loose alliance of independent agricultural communes that form the Breadbasket of Ambernia. I guess if you like the smell of dirt and the eccentricities of Hick folk traditions…"
[] Heidistown "Oh, I think I heard about 'em in the Press. Former company town waaaay out in the Desert that stopped being one after the original corporate owners fled overseas for safer mines. One of the only exporters of natural coal on the continent."
Welcome to the Committee of InterSecurity Info Terminal (GUI v.1.17) Please input your login information before proceeding.
> login adm1 | password_!2
...
...
Welcome, Committee Chair Alfonze Gossamer. It has been 2 days since your last login.
Full access to the CominSec general archives has been granted for this session. All security restrictions have been lifted. This login attempt will be archived for review by the RecIntel.
You have one (1) Important message pending response:
Goddamnit Alfie, change your fucking password. Just because the rest of the world hasn't invented transistors yet doesn't mean you get to be sloppy with infosec.
- Your Favorite Sister Ever, Eva
You may proceed as normal.
adm1@securehost06 in ~ > send BBCHECK
returns: BLUE 17 OSCAR 44
adm1@securehost98 in ~ > return ALL CLEAR
adm1@securehost39 in ~ > ent GEN_INFO/HVD/POI_curr
adm1@securehost17 in ~/GEN_INFO/HVD/POI_curr > bprint *.prof
buffering. . .
Personality: Disgraced Muckraker
Or "investigative journalist," if you rather like fancy titles. Clarissa spent her early adult career using a network of informants, whistleblowers, and insiders to pen articles regarding the political topics of the day. On occasion, she's even broken into the occasional secure government bureaucracy building herself. Her experiences have taught her to be sly, witty, and inquisitive, but the humiliating (and infuriating) circumstances that led to her retirement have damaged her resolve.
Add CHA modifier to all INT rolls
Intuition increases quickly
Passive courage reduction (-2 a week)
???
Clarissa does not yet fully understand how her talents can be of use in Hooversdam. More abilities will be revealed in time.
Traits: Miho-Prav - Clarissa is Miho-Pravic, hailing from the coastal trade port of Primorrye, which used to be an Imperial colony. Thanks to her unusually pale skin and abnormal hair colour, Clarissa sticks out like a sore thumb. Due to that and a certain cultural stigma regarding Westerners, people tend to be more guarded around her. (-10 to CHA rolls. Knowledge of Western Culture. Knowledge of Seamanship.)
Compassionate - Clarissa tries to do right by people. Not only is it good for business - a journalist without contacts is a sad, lonely, unsuccessful journalist - but something about the infinite possibility of a human connection is particularly alluring. (+15 to all social actions, +5 to influence actions.)
Intellectual - Clarissa's education has been pretty comprehensive. Back in Primorrye, she had babushka Nobuhide to teach her letters, history, and arithmetic, and in the universities of the Metropole her fields of study expanded to natural science, calculus, social theory, and literature as art. If you squint, you might even mistake her for a liberal, for how many university classes she's taken! Don't, though, if you value your eyeballs. (+10 to INT rolls. Knowledge of Philosophy. Knowledge of Mathematics.)
You may now - ! Oh, wait. Erm... oh dear, I've forgotten something important.
Heya! I don't... particularly like my name for personal reasons, so just call me Intern. I consider myself to be a reasonably-knowledged individual on matters of the world and politics and what-have-you, so if y'all have any questions, shoot off. Just preface yer post with somethin' like, "Hey, Intern!" or something like that. I'll get to ya in a timely manner. Might even jump in, unannounced, if I feels like I have somethin' to say.
Which is often. So get used to it. What can I say? I'm a Union girl. It's what we do. Heh.
Now I'll go ahead and announce it for ya:
YOU MAY NOW POST!! Now it's all official-like. *snort*
[x] Pictureshow!
-[x] Rolt Dismay
-[x] Male
-[x] Amberrish or American Tribal
-[x] Yes, I and at least one of my immediate parents were born in Ambernia.
-[x] Animation Student, Independent
-[x] Hooversdam City
[X] Plan: Former Imperial Machinist
-[X] Yori Feng
-[X] Male
-[X] Chukan-kai/Imperial Origin (Incl. Mihokujin, Chujin/Zhongian, Nansen'in/Manipinoian, Taihei Islander, other national identities) "Just hope the applicant's not a Mick or something. Can never be too careful around them, shifty-eyed bastards…"
-[X] Yes, I am a first-generation immigrant.
-[X] Clockwork Machinist, Independent "Never could stand being in one of those infernal clockwork engines. Make me feel all woozy. And small."
-[X] Hooversdam City "The Jewel of the Great Amberrish Desert, a lively scrapper town that's become the hub for the frontier coalition government. I guess this applicant is wracked by some sort of adventurous spirit?"
Don't mind me. I have no idea what I am doing. Or what this means. Nods.
[X] Plan Sightseeing Journalist
-[X] Clarissa Fisher
-[X] Female
-[X] Pravic or Miho-Pravic
-[X] No, I am a naturalized citizen.
-[X] Newspaper Columnist, Akai Shakai Shimbun
-[X] Hooversdam City
Hello there. I am a beta reader for the quest and probably possibly maybe will be helping our esteemed QM in the background. Hopefully it won't get in the way of me voting so long as I don't know everything that's going on!
For the character, let's see... I want to play someone who is close enough to the Empire to know them - perhaps not from the entirely positive side but still from a personal experience rather than from the media portrayal, - without being involved so closely that it would complicate our job. In other words, not an asylum seeker or a former citizen, but someone from within the Imperial sphere of influence. So far that means having a Miho-Pravic origin.
The choice of a former profession is a difficult proposition. So many good ones. I think I will submit to my inner Shinkai fan and go with something that has to do with skies. Or airships. The Persephone is implied to be a dirigible, is it not?
Let's give people something to dream about!
[x] Plan: When's the last time you saw the sky?
-[x] Zimin, Eduard
-[x] Male
-[x] Pravic or Miho-Pravic
-[x] No, I am a naturalized citizen.
-[x] Sr. Meteorologist, The Persephone
-[x] Heidistown
[x] Plan: Better Living - Through Logistics!
-[x] Markovic, Takeru
-[x] Male
-[x] Pravic or Miho-Pravic
-[x] No, I am a naturalized citizen.
-[x] Jr. Logistics Officer, Union Liberation Navy
-[x] Heidistown
I kind of want to play a half-Mihokujin immigrant logistics-wizard who may have averted several life-threatening toilet-paper shortages, and is now intent on bringing their specific brand of spreadsheets and drayage to the Amberrish frontier.
"Proper logistics is the lifeblood of our nation! Why, to lack necessary products in order to carry out our duties is just like bleeding out in field of battle!"
"Unpredictability and inequality of our supply chains fester rot within our communities. Why, there was once a queue committee, that camped out in front of general stores, buying out all toilet paper that became available. Soon after, those filthy pigs decided to resell it, threatening the sanitary existence of our people for capitalistprofits!"
Not particularly, though I might have let the aesthetic of that game sink into my writing a teensy bit. Heh. :<
Seems like there's a pretty interesting tie! Not to worry, though. My schedule is absolutely borked from now until basically the weekend, so there's no way I'll be able to close the vote until Saturday morning. So, let's put a hard lock on the voting on 12:00 noon, Saturday, Eastern Standard Time. I hope that sounds good?
