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Victoria Falls: A Post-Collapse American Nation Quest [Down With Victoria!]

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LonelyWolf999 said:
Name: Evansville National Restoration Government (The Zygais Clique)
Government: Rubber-Stamp Parliament, Warlord State
Capitol: Evansville
Territory: The Southwestern tip of Indiana, dipping down to and encompassing much of western Kentucky, forming a 'triangle' with Evansville, Paducah, and Bowling Green the three points.
Leadership: Officially, President Eugene Heath. De Facto, Grand Marshall Mathew Zygais.
Commonwealth Relations: Tense, Revivalist Rivalries.
Objectives: Continue to assert regional hegemony, posture for Revivalist cred, check Commonwealth influence.

History: Like all Warlord Cliques, Evansville is built around and dominated by its strongman, for all that Zygais maintains a facade of civilian administration. In order to understand the ENRG, you need to understand it's creator and overlord.
Like so many of the other leaders dotting the splintered United States, Mathew Zygais began his story as a soldier. Much more uniquely, he bears the distinct honor of having actually fought the Victorians before. The Grand Marshall first made his name as a member of The Grand Army of the Republic, a Revivalist group based in the Appellations. They grew to prominence as a guerilla army, attacking local collaborators and isolated raiders, melting back into the mountains to avoid retribution. It took over two years and two armies to finally defeat the rebels into a pitched battle, something which Victoria found embarrassing enough to officially deny any existence of the bushfire war.

This would prove premature, however, as the GAR wasn't quite finished just yet. While the heart of the rebellion chose to go down shooting, unwilling to abandon their homes to inevitable Victorian retribution, a junior officer lead a breakout into the Midwest, pushing through enemy pursuit, starvation, running out of ammunition, and hostile terrain to emerge near Chattanooga with less than 20% of the original men left (the Victorians having crucified the few taken alive in the final battle). During this Long March, that junior officer - one Mathew Zygais - emerged as the most senior remaining officer, as officially took command of The Grand Army of the Republic, which he swore before his gathered remaining troops would never rest until their comrades and nation were avenged.

For a time the army dropped off the radar, laying low and recovering while waiting for Victorian attention to drift. The Grand Marshall's chance came three years ago when he seized the city of Evansville from a Victorian collaborator and proclaimed the Evansville National Restoration Government, with the GAR - now honed into a potent and veteran force - as it's military. However, all is not well within this new nation, as despite several successful campaigns having carved out a sizable realm in southern Indiana and western Kentucky, discontent with Zygais's continued military government grows especially after the predicted Victorian retaliation failed to materialize. The Grand Marshall, despite being a genius military tactician and administrator, is an ugly and uncharismatic person, ill-popular outside of the core of original GAR veterans which still constitute the base of his government and military. Zygais is ultimately unable to relinquish real power to the civilian rump state he has created, convinced that he needs total control in order to restore the old country.

***

I need to leave for a family thing, but I wanted to put up what I have. I'll edit in more detail about Zygais and the ENRG when I get back, but the theme - similarly to Armstrong - is his character is based off a sympathetic and 'Americanized' interpretation of Chiang Kai-Shek.
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Sara Goldblum:

"I wonder if I might have turned out like him, somewhere out there, if I didn't have a best friend sneakier than me..."
 
LonelyWolf999 said:
is his character is based off a sympathetic and 'Americanized' interpretation of Chiang Kai-Shek.
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...When can we recruit him into our "United Front" Because it is better to hang together in this day in age.

Because...why would we NOT get together these warlords.

Simon_Jester said:
Sara Goldblum:

"I wonder if I might have turned out like him, somewhere out there, if I didn't have a best friend sneakier than me..."
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Logan Mercier: "Boss if you turned out like that...I don't think you would have gotten very far. Ron would make sure of it."

Edit: Reread and edited.
 
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LonelyWolf999 said:
Name: Evansville National Restoration Government (The Zygais Clique)

I need to leave for a family thing, but I wanted to put up what I have. I'll edit in more detail about Zygais and the ENRG when I get back, but the theme - similarly to Armstrong - is his character is based off a sympathetic and 'Americanized' interpretation of Chiang Kai-Shek.
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I hope this gets picked! You might want to replace "Appellations" with "Appalachians" though. ;)
 
I saw that there was a town called Gaylord and I knew I had to do something with it.

After the collapse many different power structures would take on the burden of ruling, and like in several other places the church would do so in Gaylord. However the difficulty of communication with Rome has led to some... divergences. Over the course of several archbishops the local church teachings have become very socially liberal and have taken a lot from liberation theology. While other religions and nonbelief are relatively tolerated there is significant pressure to convert, especially in the town itself.
  1. Name: Archbishopric of Gaylord
  2. Government type: theocracy
  3. Capital: Gaylord
  4. Territorial extent: Directly controls most of Otsego County, significant soft power throughout much of northern Michigan
  5. Leadership: Archbishop Frederick
  6. State of relations with the Commonwealth: Thinks they have roughly the right idea, but is not a fan of the secularism. At least they are better than the oppressors in the Michigan Soviet Republic, not to mention Victoria.
  7. Broad, short-term objectives: Spread the faith, possibly join the Commonwealth depending on how much authority the church is allowed to keep.
 
Anyways it'd be cheaper to import locomotives via sea instead of cargo airship or just putting road vehicles on a track if funds are really scarce. We don't need a shinkansen equivalent yet. A shitty electric motor tugging around carts of coal on a narrow gauge track would do wonders for the utility of our industry.
 
Name: Iowa City Commune
Government: Direct Democracy
Capital: Iowa City
Territory: Controls a rough triangle, from Iowa City to Muscatine to Toolesboro, with its eastern and western borders on the Mississippi and Iowa Rivers, respectively.
Leadership: Executive Council; currently made up of seven elected members who are serving two-year terms. Most major decisions are still voted in via the Assembly of voting citizens that gathers in Iowa City on a monthly basis (more often, for emergencies). The Assembly itself is usually made of every voting citizen who can attend. Telegraph or telephone lines are used to allow outlying communities who may be unable to travel to participate as best they are able.

Defense is provided by militia; there is no standing army.
Commonwealth Relations: Positive, if wary. They're pleased to see a relatively leftist, organized government kicking the Victorian's teeth in. They're less pleased by what they see as a recreation of the pointless, top-heavy bureaucratic style of government and are unsure if they want to submit to that.
Objectives: Maintain what they see as their right to self-governance and protecting what they as a better form of democratic government; this is in part a backlash to the Victorians, as they tend to consider top-heavy government to be responsible for the disaster that unmade the old country. Open trade. Possibly form a defensive alliance to provide protection against bandits, etc.

History: The Iowa City Commune was born out of a melding of Iowa University and the old Iowa City government, with a heavy influence from surviving student activists and governmental positions (students made up a large minority of the surviving population and as such, were able to have their voice heard). They've maintained themselves in relative peace since the fall, but have been wary of being overrun by other states. They largely see the warlords as "failed states" and avoid dealing with them where they can. Until relatively recently, they viewed the Commonwealth as just another warlord state, until Burns actually stepped down and handed over the presidency. Even then, they were split on whether Burns had actually stepped down or was secretly running the show behind the scenes. The victory in the Detroit War has given the Commune enough of a push to see the Commonwealth as a well-intentioned government (if not one that runs along their preferred lines).
 
Some interesting facts about Grand Marshall Mathew Zygias, protector of the Evansville National Reclamation Government and Leader of the Grand Army of the Republic.

+ Zygias is visually unimpressive, a hard childhood and simple genetics denying his frame of muscle or height. He's barely nearsighted but wears glasses anyway in order to cultivate his reputation as the 'Chessmaster.' He does possess a surprisingly robust voice, honed from the time he led troops in the field, but also a thick southern accent that despite years of effort Zygias is totally unable to shake. Mathew is also surprisingly young.
+ His original first name wasn't actually Matthew, but he changed it when he converted to Christianity. Speaking of which, despite doing so as a purely pragmatic move, Zygias has turned into a genuine convert, and prays every morning before beginning his grueling sixteen-hour workday.
+ Politically speaking, he's like Sara Johnson - whatever works. In practice, this is a form of State Capitalism similar to that the People's Republic of China used, the government actively leaning in to make the economy as efficient as possible with social services being used as platitudes to keep the people content along with a healthy heaping of nationalism.
+ The Grand Marshall's opinions on the CFC are ... complex. On one hand, Ron Burns is more or less everything he's ever wanted to be. The man's long-standing defiance of Victoria and Russia is part of what sparked the original GAR revolt, and what gave Zygias the confidence to seize Evansville. He's gone over the Battle of Detroit and Operation Foil dozens of times, committing the strategies and tactics to memory with the same vigor he approached American history as a starving child.
+ The Commonwealth, on the other hand, is regarded much less sanguinely. From refusing to use or just edit the old Constitution, to the Farmer-Labourers attempting to sabotage Operation Foil, as well as a million other inefficiencies or mistakes that could've been avoided if Burns had just kept power until the job was done. The general confusion over whether they're the new USA or not is something that also aggravates him, and is something he also blames on the Commonwealth "hobbling itself."
+ At his core, Mathew Zygias is a 'New Patriot.' Someone who was raised on stories of the paradise his nation used to be, soaked with hate towards those that ruined it, and has suffered long and hard to make his dream a reality. There is precious little he won't do in order to once again see the Star-Spangled Banner wave upon flagpoles from sea to shining sea.
+ In OOC terms, his attitude towards us is highly dependant on the Commonwealth's Legitimacy.
 
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Cyberphilosipher said:
Logan Mercier: "Boss if you turned out like that...I don't think you would have gotten very far. Ron would make sure of it."

Edit: Reread and edited.
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[sighs]

Sara is referring to the approximately thirty years of her career after the end of the War on Nazis but before Ron Burns made his way into the territory surrounding Chicago.

So I don't even know what you're getting at here, except "make Simon regret saying anything."
 
How would he study the tactics/strategy already? The battle isn't even a year in the past and it's not like the Commonwealth publishes details of military plans in their newspapers, except maybe for broad strokes to keep the folks at home informed.
 
Artificial Girl said:
How would he study the tactics/strategy already? The battle isn't even a year in the past and it's not like the Commonwealth publishes details of military plans in their newspapers, except maybe for broad strokes to keep the folks at home informed.
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*shrug* I hadn't thought about it particularly hard, but I imagine it's him taking all the publically available information and putting the actual battle together in his mind. Like, it's less him trying to dissect the battle and more an effort to understand Burns himself.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Oooh, this is interesting. And it addresses a big question of "what is north of us" along with ideas about poking out through the northern route to Hudson Bay. Namely, someone else is already there, and they're a Russian client state, but one we'd have a hard time justifying a shaming stance towards.
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I dunnoh, I mean, they are directly benefitting from the Victoria economy, which is based on raiding and slave labor. And are actively working to undermine the few sources of actually high-tech decent-paying areas in America. It might not be direct, but I suspect that if they actually manage to pry away financial institutions that the FCNY economy relies upon people will starve. If I can condemn the current global chocolate companies, I think I can afford a little bit of shame towards them.

uju32 said:
I see what you did there.
Here's hoping California can keep their revenge boner under control, even though being exploited for the benefit of a wilfully oblivious few must be galling as fuck.
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Honestly, I kinda hope they can't. With California unwilling to trade, and Victoria, at best, perhaps a 6-months past civil war and without and access to the raided goods they once has, that leaves us the sole trading partner for cheap manufactured goods for them, and we can charge heavily for that. It would be a great way to bootstrap our economy. Sure, they shouldn't be invaded for starved, but I'm not going to be crying tears if they have to face some less-fat years to help us build up. Honestly, even if California can keep it under control, I think that a co-ordinated trade policy here is something we should bring up at talks. Preventing them from playing us against each other for cheaper goods has a two-fold advantage. First, it helps our economy and makes theirs more difficult, and they are actively trying to undermine other high-paying US industries, secondly, it sets up a framework of coordinated trade policy that can be built up into an EU and possibly US-like structure, while framing it in a way California will like.

(Let's trade together may or may not be liked. Let's make those assholes pay is likely to appeal to their anger. Might even be enough to get them to work with FCNY.)

Of course, this is all dependent on Russia not nixing any trade with us via their puppet, but with both Victoria and California out (cause if Russia is nixing our trade, they are sure as hell nixing California's), they have to be getting pretty desperate.

Edit: Like, I'm very serious that I see them as not nearly as harmless as people might think. My figuring is that Alexander's long-term goals for the US are a perminate resource extraction low-level industry, and The Arctic Environmentalist Republic working to undermine the few industries the former US has left is an actively working to further his plans, even if they are doing it without 'violence'. They could try to attract any number of industries that aren't the former US but chose those two. They arn't hostile to us because we can't compete in that yet, but they should be considered a hostile economic interest for any high-tech industry we try to create. They are too useful not to try to work with for now, but they are not our friends.
 
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clockworkchaos said:
Edit: Like, I'm very serious that I see them as not nearly as harmless as people might think. My figuring is that Alexander's long-term goals for the US are a perminate resource extraction low-level industry, and The Arctic Environmentalist Republic working to undermine the few industries the former US has left is an actively working to further his plans, even if they are doing it without 'violence'. They could try to attract any number of industries that aren't the former US but chose those two. They arn't hostile to us because we can't compete in that yet, but they should be considered a hostile economic interest for any high-tech industry we try to create. They are too useful not to try to work with for now, but they are not our friends.
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You have my complete agreement here. They're willing Russian puppets actively contributing to the misery of our people. While I can understand people not holding them in the same hate as Russia or Victoria themselves, they are the enemy and will need to be handled.
 
Yeah, they're far from harmless or blameless, and if they make themselves a problem? Morally, there's no difference between the lot of them and any other enthusiastic Victorian collaborator that happens to have some internal elements with functional consciences.

Practically, of course, their handling will need to be more tactful.

...Despite what certain less-than-fully-informed, rash domestic elements might potentially say or think.
 
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While we are probably going to get rid of the Armstrong/ Zhang Zongchang type warlords one way or another, there are other types of warlords to consider. What should we do with the Mathew Zygias/Chiang Kai-Shek/Li Zongren types who have established military cliques and governments who genuinely desire to reunite the country, have real ideological beliefs and have some degree of genuine military skill but also wish to maintain a degree of personal power in the new government? They could be more useful than the average regional warlord we might encounter. Li Zongren conquered his native Guangxi creating the New Guangxi clique in the name of Sun Yat-sen and the KMT. He became one of the most skilled of the KMT's generals during the Northern Expedition. Zhu De was a skilled but drug-addled warlord before becoming a convinced communist due to the influence of Zhou Enlai. Zhu De would became one of the principal founders and leaders of the Chinese Red Army and the People's Liberation Army as well as an elder stateman. They could be more dangerous than the average warlord. Li Zongren and the New Guangxi clique warred against Chiang's central government after a falling out. Chiang Kai-Shek himself, of course, became a brutal repressive dictator.

So what should we do with revivalist leaning warlords of real military skill and ambition? Do we treat them no differently than regional and bandit warlords? It would be safer but possibly wasteful. If they join us, do we thank them for patriotically contributing their forces to the cause and then retire them to a nice house or meaningless position while our officers take over the former warlord armies. Or do we give them military command positions in our military or perhaps even government positions to make use of their talents? Skilled military officers and administrators do not grow on trees after all. Ron Burns is our most famous and skilled former warlord officer who has ably served the Commonwealth. However, putting former warlords in military or government positions is risky. It is hard to judge how loyal and devoted to the cause that a particular former warlord would be. If the former warlords maintain their own independent cliques in our government, that would pose the risks of inefficiencies, corruption, and even coups. If we do chose to bring in more warlords onto our military staff, we should cut them off from their former independent power bases and made dependent on the Commonwealth's good will and supplies alone. They should be fired quickly if they show disobedience toward the civilian government. Civilian control of the military must be maintained.

And if the revivalist leaning warlords do not join us? As we are not Chinese with a deep need to try to smash the nearest rival national government for various political and cultural reasons, we do not have to fight them if we can. We should try to maintain cordial relations and continue negotiations for unification. It would weaken the revivalist cause as a whole if revivalist factions started to fight each other. That said, we would have to work to outshine the warlord revivalists. We want the CFC to be the place that people look up to and the place that the foreign powers drop aid off at. If people see a better revivalist faction elsewhere, the foreign aid and the people will go there instead.
 
BoredStudent1414 said:
While we are probably going to get rid of the Armstrong/ Zhang Zongchang type warlords one way or another, there are other types of warlords to consider. What should we do with the Mathew Zygias/Chiang Kai-Shek/Li Zongren types who have established military cliques and governments who genuinely desire to reunite the country, have real ideological beliefs and have some degree of genuine military skill but also wish to maintain a degree of personal power in the new government? They could be more useful than the average regional warlord we might encounter. Li Zongren conquered his native Guangxi creating the New Guangxi clique in the name of Sun Yat-sen and the KMT. He became one of the most skilled of the KMT's generals during the Northern Expedition. Zhu De was a skilled but drug-addled warlord before becoming a convinced communist due to the influence of Zhou Enlai. Zhu De would became one of the principal founders and leaders of the Chinese Red Army and the People's Liberation Army as well as an elder stateman. They could be more dangerous than the average warlord. Li Zongren and the New Guangxi clique warred against Chiang's central government after a falling out. Chiang Kai-Shek himself, of course, became a brutal repressive dictator.

So what should we do with revivalist leaning warlords of real military skill and ambition? Do we treat them no differently than regional and bandit warlords? It would be safer but possibly wasteful. If they join us, do we thank them for patriotically contributing their forces to the cause and then retire them to a nice house or meaningless position while our officers take over the former warlord armies. Or do we give them military command positions in our military or perhaps even government positions to make use of their talents? Skilled military officers and administrators do not grow on trees after all. Ron Burns is our most famous and skilled former warlord officer who has ably served the Commonwealth. However, putting former warlords in military or government positions is risky. It is hard to judge how loyal and devoted to the cause that a particular former warlord would be. If the former warlords maintain their own independent cliques in our government, that would pose the risks of inefficiencies, corruption, and even coups. If we do chose to bring in more warlords onto our military staff, we should cut them off from their former independent power bases and made dependent on the Commonwealth's good will and supplies alone. They should be fired quickly if they show disobedience toward the civilian government. Civilian control of the military must be maintained.

And if the revivalist leaning warlords do not join us? As we are not Chinese with a deep need to try to smash the nearest rival national government for various political and cultural reasons, we do not have to fight them if we can. We should try to maintain cordial relations and continue negotiations for unification. It would weaken the revivalist cause as a whole if revivalist factions started to fight each other. That said, we would have to work to outshine the warlord revivalists. We want the CFC to be the place that people look up to and the place that the foreign powers drop aid off at. If people see a better revivalist faction elsewhere, the foreign aid and the people will go there instead.
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Warlord governments either stop being warlords when given a fair chance or they have zero legitimacy.

That said, spin the wheel on "recruit", "stomp", "retire" for the others.
 
BoredStudent1414 said:
So what should we do with revivalist leaning warlords of real military skill and ambition? Do we treat them no differently than regional and bandit warlords? It would be safer but possibly wasteful. If they join us, do we thank them for patriotically contributing their forces to the cause and then retire them to a nice house or meaningless position while our officers take over the former warlord armies. Or do we give them military command positions in our military or perhaps even government positions to make use of their talents? Skilled military officers and administrators do not grow on trees after all. Ron Burns is our most famous and skilled former warlord officer who has ably served the Commonwealth.
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The foundation of the Commonwealth involved a very large number of warlords (and civilian strongmen who kept up at least a pretense of not being in charge purely because of their control of troops) agreeing to create a new federal constitution and civil government that would hold elections properly.

We have the precedent- and we've shown that we can replicate it with Toledo.

If former warlords want to run for re-election as part of the civilian government or apply for integration into our armed forces, we can handle that. We're territorially large enough that we can "blend" bodies of soldiery, and mix them up over time, to prevent any one large unit in any one place from being excessively loyal to any one man.

I think this is one area where the Commonwealth's leadership have a pretty good handle on what to do.
 
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