Its back!
COMMENTARY
-Denver sounds strategic.
Denver-Omaha-DesMoines-Chicago corridor for western trade. If we can get them to more proactively patrol their end of that route, we might be able to improve continental trade really quickly.
-Delegate Hicks behavior makes it pretty obvious that the NCR didnt send their best.
Makes sense that at a time like this theyd send their best diplomats to major powers like China and the EU, and financial centers like NYC. Still a little disappointing they're not even trying to put their best foot forward here.
Consider the difference with when Stella was here, who might have been blunt, but had a personal connection that gave her the leeway to be brusque, had the juice to back it up, and didnt blow that juice nitpicking petty bullshit.
One gets the impression we're dealing with different factions of the NCR natsec apparatus, with different opinions.
-Neither of the named reservations here represents more than 10,000 people IRL.
Even assuming they are combined an order of magnitude larger inquest than they are irl, they'd still represent only around 0.25% of California's real life population, let alone the NCR's population after 40 years of immigration and population growth from the interior.
Delegate Hicks therefore comes off very badly. Especially since other delegations from the NCR occasioned no comment.
-On the other hand?
The fact that a group as small as some of the Native American tribes of the NCR felt free to openly attend a revivalist conference in defiance of the NCR govt implies promising things about the relative freedom and political traditions of the NCR.
-Worth remembering that the NCR do have their own historic grievances. The enemy forces during the Pacific War were Vic-led and -supplied but not primarily of Vic origins, and based out of their neighboring states. Those complaining about California doing Russia's bidding at gunpoint to survive did the bidding of Victoria and its Russian masters at gunpoint to survive.
Everyone has legitimate grievances.
-The Mexican Mutual Assistance League?
While they did not get their shit trashed like much of Middle America? Are not peers of the NCR, hobbled or nah.
Multiple decades of being formally disconnected citystates does not result in the economic strength to make such claims. Just the fact that the NCR remained capable of instituting universal education puts them well ahead of a league of citystates. Never mind the industry; pre-Collapse Cali had an economy 2.5x the size of pre-Collapse united Mexico.
There's a reason Russia wasnt wielding them against the US border states.
And they started from a lower industrial and economic base than the NCR in the first place.
Nor would they have the power projection to pose a military threat anyway. At best they can act as conduits for foreign actors.
They're just bluffing, and hoping we wont take the risk of calling their bluff.
Just goes to show Sara isnt up to date with foreign policy assessments.
But I'll note that we suffered the Shawnee Kingdom. And Princess Katherine.
We can suffer them until and unless they cross our red lines.
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"I-!" You stop, physically snapping your head away to break line of sight and make yourself settle. "...I know," you seethe. "And I know that I can't judge them, but...Sara, their neighbors hate them. We've had meeting after meeting with groups living within their borders making the point that they see the Californians as conquerors! We can't take the risk of leaving the Country to them! Sure, maybe they could make it happen, but this is the wrong way for it and even if it were the right way for the country California has become, they still probably have to fight the Russians and the Japanese before they get the chance!" You rise to your feet during this, matching your friend's stance.
Its worth noting that you'd hear from the people who have beef with them first.
Those who are content, grudgingly or not, dont talk.
Their neighbors are all low population states or Japanese colonies.
I guess this is where Second Sarah reminds First Sarah about the War of Independence and all the Loyalists.
Or the American Civil War.
Violence was always baked into the Country's foundational DNA.
You take a long second to just breathe, hands clenching. "...yes," you hiss, trying to breathe out the tension in your shoulders. "I remember. But the fact remains: California is a state whose primary tool of foreign outreach for the past few decades has been an invading army or the threat of one. If they were going to be the state that brought the Country back together...well, frankly, we needed to die to Victoria. California needed a chance to be the hero. There's too much bad blood for people to ignore, otherwise. But we killed Victoria. Whether anybody likes it or not, now everybody's eyes are on us. Nobody's going to look to California now to save them. You agreed with me, Sara; we still have to outplay them."
This doesnt really seem to match up with the facts.
The NCR risked their own rebellion and their international arms trade reputation in order to sabotage the Vics and give the Commonwealth a chance at making a go of things, in exchange for a nebulous promise of future diplomatic concessions.
If that was true, if they wanted the CFC dead as a sacrifice, all they would have had to do was sit on their hands and do nothing.
At worst, pass on some intelligence information so the Commonwealth could bleed the Vics. And they certainly wouldnt have gone to the trouble of telling the Commonwealth when they were planning on kicking off their own rebellion, if only for security reasons.
The fact that we got advance warning of Cali kicking off, instead of being told after things popped off, or hearing it on the news, is in and of itself a major gesture of trust.
Sarah's conclusions here are questionable.
Its fine to disagree about how to put the country back and in what order.
But the handwringing about California's motives or the illegitimacy of violence dont ring true. Not from someone whose foreign policy has Victoria delenda est as a foundational principle.
Especially since we're hoping them to care enough that we shelter under their nuclear umbrella.
-There's no way Aubrey actually built this base in the late 2040s/ early 2050s, after the Pacific War.
Closest airport to Goblin is Moab. You dont land Raptors or Falcons or Eagles in the Utah desert without the benefit of a pre-existing airstrip or the handling equipment.
And you dont design under-rock supervillain bases without a dedicated engineering corps who can design it properly so it does not collapse on you at some point in the last three decades. Just think of all the concrete and steel necessary.
Or the power generation.
Ten to one the work was mostly done pre-Collapse by the US Air Force when there was fuel and an army engineering corps.
And Aubrey only added some finishing touches and moved in.
-Major Aubrey sounds very much like an argument for why AF officers need more command experience.
Probably a good pilot and leader of pilots, but very much lacks the aptitude or attention to detail for managing ground forces.
If I have to bet, at least part of the grievances of the locals will be due to a lack of discipline of his ground troops among the civilian population; old people should not be terrified at the sound of rotors.
Still his responsibility for the mess.
OTOH, dying man. Either emphysema or lung cancer, if I had to make a guess.
We're not going to have to put up with him for long.
And frankly, I think its more than a little skeevy to use the Big Red One as effectively executioners.
-If I had to guess, between pilots, ground crew, maintenance and other support personnel, ground forces and their families, we're looking at several thousand people here minimum. Plus planes and support equipment. Thats a lot to move overland. I hope there are working C130s in those revetments so we can at least fly out the more portable stuff before moving the rest overland.
I wonder if Aubry has a nuke somewhere in those supplies of his.
Looking at the voting options
[]Retirement and a Paycheck
[]Revivalist Leadership OR Federal Coordination
[]New States OR Larger Union
[]Reveal The Declaration
We attempted to flip the dude who assassinated Jameson. One of our allies is the MSR. We gave Toledo Joe a pension. We are currently in the process of dealing with people who price gouged us in the middle of a food shortage. We did a deal with Imperial Princess Catherine. We just backed Bemidji against Minneapolis but we did not demand that the govt of Minneapolis had to pay for their years of banditry. Just that they stop.
Part of our founding policy was a tacit recognition that we cant afford to ding everyone for stuff done during the Collapse.
We can hold our nose this time as well.
Those Raptors are 60 year old planes at this point; the last one was built in 2011/2012. Fighter planes are not generally supposed to last that long. Still valuable bargaining chips but Im rather doubtful about how many months or years of flight time they still have on their airframes. More important are the crews and the cargo aircraft. They had to have C130s/ C17s/V280s to move their support crews when they left Cali.
We're at war. The more collegiate the decisionmaking process, the more feasible it is for foreign entities or domestic ones to stall or influence decisionmaking by feeding inducements to one of the parties involved in adjudicating disputes or setting up institutions. Or just by assassinating key members at critical junctures. The lessons of Confederacy in US history loom large.
Which is why I'd prefer Revivalist Leadership, with Federal Coordination as a distant runnerup.
Dunno if we can convince others of this though.
Reveal the Declaration.
Easy choice. Third Centennial. The thematic resonance is irresistible, and if we announce it we can get professional care for it and use the publicity as protection for it. Especially useful if we're going down the Mandate of Heaven route.
