Pre-StockNES

orderz r in

Sent orders!

Dropping this. Not in the mood.

Late orders are closed, expect an update at least before the 28th of this month (after which I'm out of the country).

Unfortunately the most recent weekend was the make or break weekend to finish the update, and I will not be able to get an update out before I am out of the country for about 10 days. In general, I've not had the free time anyway to finish the update as the term comes to a close - so the update is postponed until my classes end and I'm back in Canada.

However! to assure you the update is coming, I will release two short editorials that will be featured in the update. They try to capture one aspect of the changing times in a far more literary and cultured writing style than the Daily Standard. Both writers come from a deep realization of the ideological diversity of the multi-polar order the world is coming to by the end of the century. One tries to reinterpret what glory and the good are in the face of various historical universalist belief systems, while the other is an excerpt from a manifesto intended to describe what a pluralist world order might look like - where various modernist projects can coexist.

They will be included in the update along with at least one other article in what I'm currently calling Modernist Monthly, a pro-modern magazine. (alternate name suggestions are always welcome)

RESCUED FROM OBSCURITY
Glory, in a forgotten and now ancient past, had an effervescence which engrossed the virtuous and strong peoples of the earth, and inspired heroism in the darkness. Nowhere does darkness not studious try to swamp – it is a swamp in our own industrial backyards as well as the jungle of unexplored climes; the advocates of civilization decried the savagery of other peoples, and so disproved themselves in their own barbaric adventurism, indeed ironically, when they undertook their lavish, global, colonial project. The genetic fad, a most tragic and destructive phase of human conceptions of the darkness, was yet another vainglorious and inconsistent project; for what happy people is content to infanticide of the weak, and worship Thrasymachus’ strength, so enthusiastically and murderously against the interests of the vulnerable. The Soviet project is needless of explanation, its mutated descendants persist into our second modern era. These projects meant to lionize an idea, to their boring, vainglorious and uniform conclusion. Whether it would be a world run by the civilized, the master race, the proletariat, the free market, religion, or anything else, these projects ceaselessly fought one-another for their prized End, the final state of world being. I propose, as I have proposed elsewhere, that precisely because of their mutual incompatibility they were star-bound to failure and sadness; but I insist that the personal and external glory of an individual’s actions, for their own sense of right or the sense which they subscribe to from their community, has intrinsic value which transcends which project they are working for. There should be a plurality of projects, which mutually recognize their necessary interdependence to attain individual glory when compared with one another; no echo chamber of similar states, but a plethora of ones which can better ascertain the darkness of meaningless obscurity. For one cannot be more obscure but when immersed in a wholly corporate world of one project, without question, comparison, or competition.

PLURALIST MANIFESTO
The prerequisites for a world to survive with so many ideologies, separated by canyons of difference, are several and strenuous. Firstly the free movement of people and labour should be near absolute, and the possessive habit of nationalism over such people should be eliminated among the family of projects. International organizations should be erected to support cooperative construction of speedy, inexpensive and universal transit systems. If ideological projects fail to impress their citizens or cause an outright desire to emigrate, such people need access to it. Further, under normal conditions, people whom simply do not agree with the premise of the country they live in need to be allowed to, as is so often said more vulgarly, get out. Secondly, a new international legal system should be setup and agreed to by as many parties as possible, outlining the rules of engagement but as well as the rules of revolt, rebellion, secession, and so forth, so that just adjudication of the rightness of separation can be ascertained, and thereafter, violating parties can be punished by the unanimous agreement of the remaining countries. Thirdly, an international charter of rights and freedoms should be drawn up to the satisfaction of as many countries as possible, so that the most obviously incompatible ideological beliefs are reconciled – otherwise bitter cold and hot wars will inevitably ensue because of the lack of clarity in relations. Freedom of movement should of course be the strongest point in the charter.

Both writers seem to have a "pro- post-national clades federation' outlook.

So, now that you're back in Canada...

... I'm continuing my work on the update

Update on the update, I made substantial progress this weekend, and with an essay and multiple finals coming up this week alone, I am projecting to complete the update in seven days, so by Sunday night. I apologize for the incredibly long delay, I certainly haven't run out of steam or enjoyment updating or anything, I am just actually behind in school and need to pace myself.

BT Update 5 - 2180-2200​

The Daily Standard​

GLOBAL NEWS​

CENTURY ENDS WITH REBELLION, REVOLUTION, AND CIVIL WAR
The fin de siècle has been globally tumultuous, whether in stable civil societies, newly established regimes or sprawling industrial empires, revolt, protest and calls to revolution have become commonplace. The great corporate state of Pakistan has totally collapsed under the weight of Afghan and Maoist civil war, as well as the intervention into the country by a coalition of liberal Indian states. China has reunited under its revolutionary communist regime, while Japan has made its northern neighbour a puppet state after their own civil war, which has resulted in aimless unrest. Labour unions have organized and petitioned for their rights in every industrial country on the planet, and the most industrialized have developed overgrown proletariat which want more than equal rights – they want revolution. In Sao Paulo a dictatorship of the proletariat has emerged from the ruin of the Great War of South America. Social movements in favour of peace have risen in as far off places as Sweden, South Africa, Vietnam and Indonesia, while ethnic, religious or ideological minorities have mobilized for the protection of their own identities. Quebec nationalism, which for almost a hundred years was put on hold due to perceived political parity in Canada between the French and English speaking blocs, has resurged, and student organizations are now lobbying for a new nation. In the United Commons, grassroots members of the liberal and western factions have felt intense alienation from the industrial core, and an alliance of clads is now also feeling this alienation from the central regime – which has manifested itself in talk of secession among not just students, but community and clad militias. Without a clear system, Texan Americans have found themselves being encroached by central Mexican immigrants, and have returned to their own identity of the cowboy, perhaps influenced by the distant Gaucho Republic’s liberalism – legally battling the central government over real estate. Meanwhile Venezuela’s growing empire has come under domestic criticism by a new caste of scholars, whom are critical of the country’s iron grip over the Caribbean – where island states have also seen occasional protests about their lack of representation. In Peru the government is cracking down to speed up the process of adopting a clad system, while in La Plata illegal unionism and liberal and republican revolutionaries, and now also Sao Paulo inspired communists, are organizing on the local level, sabotaging government projects and helping their respective role-model states. Terrorism has also been a new feature of the end of this century, as Nigeria’s minorities attack the new religious core, while Ethiopia has created a permanent enemy out of the Muslims in its country, whom throw bombs in the capital frequently. In Turkey a counter-culture flourishes to revive democracy, while technocrats have overtaken Lombardy, and Hungary experiences the next wave of pangs from moving towards a market economy – with new radicals on either side calling on either the adoption of a full free market or the return to state socialism. In Russia the old Dobryninist banter has been replaced by a new dialogue, with secularist pamphlets and underground organizations forming there as in other Orthodox republics. Nationalists in Korea have formed a militant terror organization, which also has ties to the East China Sea illicit goods trade, while Indonesia’s various ethnic minorities have also formed patriotic fronts to combat their authoritarian state. Our world is in revolution; challenges to the modernist order have been issued the world-over, but with still strong modernist bases in many of the world’s populations, the future may see an immediate anti-revolutionary reaction from the old order. Some states may fail, others succeed, but many more people will die for what they believe.

EUROPEAN NEWS​

TECHNOCRATS END FASCISM IN LOMBARDY
After multiple defeats and a general consensus that fascism was a failed project for Lombardy, the country’s leaders have looked to technocracy as the future of their society. The leadership of the various corporate republics have shifted to inclusion of the academia in their governing system, which has run up against hard nationalists, whom only believe past failures require redoubling efforts to militarize and secure the region. Over the past twenty years, after an initial several years of remilitarization and military preparedness to prevent another attack from a foreign power, Lombardy found itself without any aggressive enemies, and was able to enact peacefully its gradual move towards technocracy – and though it is has not converted entirely away from state nationalism and corporatism, a new generation of academics and military strategists now populate the government, which is officially no longer fascist.

ANGLO-ALGERIAN WAR
There was substantial surprise to the general public of England and the conservative lords of inner Algeria when news of each other’s hostilities were revealed in an at-first naval and then ground war between the two countries. The tensions over trade were largely felt in England by an aristocratic and imperialistic few, and only by the coastal cities of Algeria, pitting each country against its internal divisions as workers and Saharan tribesmen respectively voiced outrage at the war. The English landed an amphibious landing on Algeria’s barely colonized Canary Islands, taking them without much difficulty, while their navy attempted to drop a large army in Gibraltar. The Algerians, whose navy was decent for their purposes, immediately halted the large English convoy, and engaged them in the Battle of the Gulf of Cadiz. The English prevailed, with a larger force, more experience, and ample naval supplies, and despite losses, were able to land in their newly colonized Portuguese and south-eastern Spanish protectorate. This was the backup plan instead of landing in Gibraltar, which was easily taken in the time since the landing in the Canaries and battle at sea. Retreating to the Straight itself, the Barbary navy, with the help of ground artillery, sunk several English destroyers before they retreated to the Azores for refuelling and repairs. The English army, opposed by only colonial divisions, made great headway towards recapturing Gibraltar, and by the end of the first year, were mere weeks away from the port. With reluctance, eventually Algerian cavalry from the inner lords came to Tangiers, prepared to cross over and join the fighting, with the English navy refuelled and speeding to stop any reinforcement of Algerian Granada. They were not fast enough to prevent multiple divisions from crossing, whom engaged the English outside Gibraltar, as just kilometres away the English and Algerian navies fought a tense battle. The English sustained occasional losses from artillery, but eventually defeated a large portion of the Algerian navy. Though costly, the English prevailed on both fronts, and extended the blockade to the western Mediterranean. A peace was eventually signed, giving the English their war aims, though by the end of the war in 2188, both navies were in need of repair, and both nations faced intense criticism at home from disaffected factions.

RIOTING IN FRANCE AFTER BASQUE ANNEXATION
After an uncontested invasion of the Basque Republic, France has found its usual propaganda machine failing in the face of growing national unrest about the state of the nation. At first public dissent was harshly punished, however years of abuse generated an oppositional terrorist group, known as “the Underground,” which has carried out several infamous bombings of government checkpoints or offices. The militarist government chose to pump up a war fever over Belgium, when technocrats from Bavaria met them at a diplomatic summit which most observers thought was indicating support for the integration of Belgium into Bavaria. The Bavarians avoided any such commitment, and France turned its war fever towards the Basques in traditional French territory to the south. After a contested local election in the Basque Republic, French-backed separatist “self-defence groups” organized in Basque Aquitaine, which France used as a justification to intervene on behalf of its citizens – overwhelming the tiny country’s army and annexing the whole nation. However few in France were persuaded that this was a just war – there have been many expressions of rebellion, from new underground musical styles, to rebellious underground papers, eventually culminated in an open riot in Paris, where anti-government protestors setup barricades in the capital’s rebuilt poorer areas. Other cities soon joined, and only after a violent response was the country returned to order – but signs of radical pro-technocratic, pro-socialist and pro-communist support in the Underground may keep the country’s government on edge into the new century.

HUNGARIANS DEFEAT SWEDES IN SCUFFLE OVER POLAND
Two nations, technocratic Sweden and socialist Hungary were competing for the affection of the corporate elite of the rump Polish state on the Baltic coast the past couple decades. Poland played off each power effectively, gaining concession from each to bolster its own somewhat unpopular regime domestically, however these overtures only pulled more attention towards the growing competition between Sweden and Hungary over the country. When mutual military exercises were openly announced between Sweden and Poland, a small crisis emerged as Hungary escalated its military presence along the border, to emphasize that a pro-Swedish Poland was not a tolerable option. Meanwhile Polish socialists in Hungary crossed the border, some as the typical merchants, but others as civilians of their own choosing hoping to stir pro-Hungarian sentiments in the country. When the government agreed to conduct mutual exercises with Hungary as well a few months later, the Swedish troops stationed there refused to leave, and the Poles entered pre-emptively – leading to a brief land scuffle. The Swedish contingent was outgunned and surrendered, as they defended a military compound in Polish territory, and the country from then on was easily en route to integration with Hungary, which bought out the shares of the corporate leadership and made the territory a state property, before 2192.

RUSSIANS DEFEND DANUBE DURING SERB OFFENSIVE
Claiming their right to the leadership of all Slavs, Serbia declared war on the Lower Danube to the concern of all regional powers. The young but fierce fascist dictatorship had put fear into Turkey, and bested the Lombards in a war, and with each country’s other concerns, only Russia voiced any issue with the invasion. Serb troops made easy inroads, occupying half the country before a full Russian counter-attack pushed the Serb forces to just past the Danubian border. The Russians mobilized far from Sweden or White Russia, and moved quickly through allied Kiev, taking the Serbs and many other European countries by surprise. They demanded status quo ante bellum and the war concluded before any serious damage or casualties were incurred.

NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICAN NEWS​

ARCTIC CIRCLE TERRITORIES MUTUALLY RECOGNIZED
Canada, Cascadia and the Prairies have mutually recognized each other’s claims in the Arctic circle, letting each other freely build scientific and mining bases in their respective territories as the slow march north brings nationhood to lands that have for over a century been the holdings of the Inuit. Oil resources have tepidly begun trickling into Cascadia from Alaska, while other rigs and extractions are occurring all across the region, with each state using the new resources to bolster their industry in the increasingly competitive and diversified North American market. With much of the North Pole’s ice caps gone from the last century’s global rise in temperature, the idea has been floated in all three countries that trans-Arctic trade might be a possibility in the near future, if ports and shipping lanes can be established with countries like Norway, Russia or the Far Eastern Republic. Until now Canada and Cascadia have the best opportunity to begin exploring deep into the Arctic circle, though a project of that sort would be costly in the short-run.

MARITIMES REGISTER AS NEW CLADE IN UNITED COMMONS
The corporate board of the Maritimes, seeing enormous possibilities for local growth and outside expansion, chose to accept the UC offer to join as a full clad member of the federation, after preparing themselves for the merger for over a decade, and waiting out the Cuban War. The new clad, IntraGlobe, has quickly made friends and enemies among the UC’s other clads – making deals with Smith, Koch and Ares, while also coming to dominate the infant UC shipping industry, which had hitherto been up against stiff competition in the Caribbean between Mexico and Venezuela, and now England. However the backlash has been harsh in the west, where agribusinesses lobbied against their inclusion in the UC, arguing that they would damage the federation’s domestic political balance. Madison-Hamilton-Jay has found itself also a moderate opponent of including a new group that would make an obvious ally of the eastern heartland area from Chicago to New York and Washington. Criminal activity and inter-clad conflicts have persisted since the last war with Dixieland, and since the new acquisition, Chicago and Richmond have become dens of east-west and east-south rivalry. Some have claimed that Mormons, Baptists, Canadians, and exiled Dixies have been deliberately undermining the UC, provoking attacks to further alienate the south and west from east-central – but UC officials have been entirely unable to determine the validity of these assertions.

MULTI-LATERAL AND BI-LATERAL TARIFF AGREEMENTS MADE
Though no continent-wide agreement was found, as Mexican diplomats had suggested in 2190, several regional or bi-lateral tariff treaties have been signed. The UC has secured such an arrangement for reduced export/import tariffs between itself Mexico, the Prairies, and the Maritimes, which subsequently joined the UC in their entirety. Mexico has also succeeded in gaining a more moderate tariff reduction with California and Cascadia, while the Mormons and Baptists have remained fairly steadfast in not signing any such deals except with one another, as tariffs make a substantial portion of their income. The effect has been a slow movement of continental trading to cheaper coastal routes, which Mexico and California exploited for the earlier years, until the Maritimes joined the UC and brought their naval supplies and merchant marine to the market.

CUBAN WAR BETWEEN UNITED COMMONS AND VENEZUELA
Venezuela formally declared themselves head of a “Caribbean Community” in 2180, with the socialist republic making numerous domestic statements to the effect that they would be the protector and guarantor of trade and progress in the region. Noticing this exertive attitude towards the region’s islands, Cuba called upon UC military assistance, which they provided in full, helping establish modern airfields on the island over several years, which were in stark contrast with the rest of the island’s less technologically developed installations and infrastructure. Cuba also began making propaganda statements in favour of revolutionary liberalism to counter propaganda emanating from Caracas; Cuba arguing that Venezuela had become basically an empire like those of old. Without much warning, after one rather normal saber-rattling invocation to various Caribbean islands to free themselves from socialist tyranny, Venezuela issued an ultimatum to the Cuban government to cease all partnership with the UC or face invasion. The Venezuelan navy, whose only remote rival is that of the Mexicans, then moved into position to initiate a blockade. As the deadline passed and the Venezuelan navy seized any vessels still travelling, the Americans scrambled their jets into action, while the Cubans prepared to fight a landing force. In the first year of the war UC fighters focused on sinking Venezuelan ships, succeeding partially, though never at such a pace that the blockade’s effectiveness was ever jeopardized. The Americans suffered very few casualties in the air, the Venezuelans being so far behind in anti-aircraft technology. Supplies to Cuba had to be flown in due to the effective blockade, an extremely costly job which American clades were loath to fund much, and thus largely the Cubans were left with diminishing supplies and morale as the island-siege went into its second year. By summer of the second year the Venezuelans landed troops at three different beaches, defending transport convoys by concentrations of their navy, which gave the UC one brief week to ship supplies to the island while their bombers and fighters devastated the Venezuelan fleets, which were easier targets when concentrated. Two of the three major landings were successful, on the two extreme most parts of the island, and with the beachheads secure, Cuba’s occupation became a matter of time. UC bombers could never attack anything more than the Caribbean islands, their range only barely scratching South America, and not within range of any industrial centre. The Cuban army surrendered by the beginning of the next year, and Cuban Florida petitioned to join the UC as a new clade, functionally ending the war, as UC jets rebased to Florida before capture. A truce was signed, though not a peace treaty, and the UC has yet to recognize the annexation.

ENGLAND ENTERS CARIBBEAN MARKET WITH DIXIELAND ANNEXATION
England has now brought European wares into the Caribbean and UC markets, using Bermuda and the newly annexed Dixie Bahamas as trading outposts. Mexico made a bid to take the islands, but were outdone by the Anglophonic and capitalist English appeal, whose navy now commands all trade from Europe to the Americas. Market penetration has been slow, especially with the Cuban War, which stopped trade into Cuba and stymied Anglo-American trade in the region generally. The Dixie population there was small to start with, but glad that it is now under formal protection, as they continue to cultivate underground connections in the UC mainland from their outpost in the Bahamas.

PERU MIMICS AMERICAN CLAD SYSTEM
The dictator of Peru, an admirer of the United Commons clad system, has spent the past couple decades attempting to restructure his own country along similar lines, proclaiming the United Southern American Republic. So far little has changed; a purge of the military staff took place to quell probable opposition to this deliberate corporatization of the country, and the dictator’s brutal tactics have hardly inspired confidence that after his death a stable corporate board like that in the UC will take over. The military in particular took offence to alienating Venezuela to their north, which engaged in a war with the UC and won, and would probably view Peru as an ideological adversary. Friends and family of the country’s president have been the only individuals to register for clads, along with a few brave small labour organizations that are under constant surveillance by the country’s new intelligence service.

MAJOR SOUTH AMERICAN WAR ENDS IN MASSIVE BLOODSHED AND REVOLUTION
To many Gaucho citizens, La Plata appeared to be making a genuine attempt at détente, opening up restrictions to their companies, allowing families to continue to do business across the border, and occasionally even to emigrate. As the last decade of the century dawned, La Plata’s national corporations also began buying up Gaucho companies, which the Gaucho Republic didn’t entirely trust, but let happen with moderation. It was when a small strike on a mostly La Platan company mine took place that La Platan companies began to argue with the Gaucho government, which protected the workers and fined the company. The La Platan disputants rose the issue to the military, whom made muscular gestures around the Gaucho border, and tightened Gaucho freedom on their side. The incident itself spawned very little, until sustained protests began later, eventually turning into anti-La Platan mobs, whom stormed the La Platan embassy – starting the real incident which began the Great War of South America. La Plata, by whatever means necessary, was determined to finish off the Gaucho Republic. Having failed to buy out their major industries, they resolved to create a pro-La Platan government, and began military mobilization, which the Gaucho Republic did likewise, raising the tensions until the La Platans made a decisive air strike on a Gaucho border base. Several months of fighting began along the borders, with La Plata hoping to weaken the Gauchos through air raids before making a full invasion. They had learnt the lessons of the previous war, and were unwilling to take too much territory before potential partisans had been squashed. La Platans took town by town, systematically deporting all potential partisans to Patagonia, while the Gauchos were being pushed back – until Sao Paulo entered the war on the Gaucho side. Quite to La Plata’s surprise, Gaucho intelligence had kept hidden a secret alliance, and only half a year into the war, Sao Paulo’s armies poured into the east of the country. The Gauchos basically became a sideshow as La Plata pulled together a defensive force, which struck several decisive blows to the incoming Sao Paulo armies with the help of total control of the skies. Sao Paulo expected high casualties, and hundreds of thousands had died by the second year of fighting, in which the Gauchos recovered some of their occupied territory, while the La Platans moved into Sao Paulo’s borders to push them out of the war. Sao Paulo’s monarch, known as a tyrant among the country’s very large working and lower class for his favouring of an aristocratic elite, personally led the war, to his own detriment as La Platan troops made slow but definite progress to the capital – where in 2196 underground labour unions started a general strike for a new interim government. The monarch, after pressure from his advisors, family, and a couple months of almost complete shutdown in Sao Paulo, abdicated to a collection of labour leaders. The government was shortly taken over by a socialist sympathetic aristocrat, whom asserted a new authoritarian rule over the country, pushing back La Plata before signing with them and the Gauchos a peace treaty. The regime was left to fight rebel groups after granting independence to Rio du Sul, as various rebel groups opposed to what they saw as effectively another monarch but with a socialist flare taking over, as the Gauchos and La Plata returned to normal hostility (the latest point of contention being the captured Gauchos in Patagonian concentration camps), with hundreds of thousands dead on all sides from bombings, raids, occupation and disease and only one newly independent country. The revolution in Sao Paulo and the stalemate of a war has spurred workers to band together against the corporations in La Plata too, a paranoia for the country into the future.

AFRICAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN NEWS​

TURKISH PUBLIC WEARY WITHOUT CHANGE
Little has changed in Turkey since the painful war in Egypt, and hallow calls to the former glory of the Ottomans have done little to instill confidence among Turkey’s middle class or its minority constituents in Turkish Europe. This general sense of decay has caused even stronger social movements and a counter-culture that sees their democracy as broken and unrepresentative of the people’s interests. Elections feel like they are run by a small group of wealthy Turkish men, and calls are being made in the form of pamphlets and peaceful protest for a new era of pluralism. Even among Macedonians and Bulgarians, with the alternative pro-Slav fascists in Serbia, and their Russian theocratic adversaries, there is still optimism that Turkey can return to a more democratic era – or else the forces of labour and a socially conscious middle class may force such a change.

IRAQ AND ARAB SULTANATES AGREE TO TRUSTEESHIP OF ARAB SOIL
Iraq and the Arab Sultanates have agreed to participate in a system of mutual trusteeship, in which companies from either country may participate in the extraction of oil from inner Arabia without import/export restrictions or nationally discriminatory regulation. The agreement has been seen as a huge loss of prestige to the Arab Sultanates, which has a commanding trading position, but a weak army – many believe the Arabs threatened to invade had the Arabs not conceded this, and perhaps they decided it was preferable to have some companies in the region rather than none at all and a military defeat. Whatever motivated the agreement of the Arabs, many businessmen have lobbied the government angrily, because the country’s growing oil industry has led to a boom in plastic production, which the country has greatly benefited from selling in the form of various consumer goods. The Iranians have been said to back the Arab Sultanates’ “ultimate sovereignty” over the area, even if under mutual trusteeship, and local sheiks currently run daily affairs outside of the oil rigs.

SAHARAN TRIBAL FEDERATION DISINTEGRATES BETWEEN ALGERIA AND MALI
The loose federation of various Saharan tribes, whom survived the past century with surprisingly large populations, has been torn asunder by competing overtures from Algeria and Mali for the federation to join their growing empires. The diplomatic and political competition was centred typically on tribal chiefs, and it became clear by 2190 that the country would be divided based on which local leaders preferred Mali or Algeria. The next ten years eventually resulted in the peaceful end of the federation, as Mali, Algeria and the various chiefs loyal to one or the other agreed to the new territorial divisions. Algeria inland lords were especially inclined to expand their influence, so as to prevent the kind of government response the Anglo-Algerian War caused – in which the lords were displeased that peace talks weren’t begun immediately, and Algeria was forced to undergo an embargo and humiliating military defeat. Mali on the other hand attracted fewer chiefs due to their highly left-wing communist government’s lack of appeal to tribal nomads; though with the promise that they would be given the local autonomy, many were still interested in protection from Algeria or England, recognizing that the Saharan Federation was at an end.

SUDANESE MUSLIMS FACE SYSTEMATIC EXCLUSION IN ETHIOPIA
A horrific twenty year campaign of apartheid and genocide has been committed in Ethiopia without action from the regional community, where Sudanese Muslims have face systematic imprisonment, encroachment, and finally extermination by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians in search of new lands, particularly the oil rich parts of Sudan which have served as an economic boon to Ethiopia’s project of industrialization. All three of the country’s major social and corporate organizations have been complicit in the violence, which has taken two decades to eventually succeed in ethnically pushing away Muslims from the most valuable parts of the land – though this has ended up concentrating Sudanese Muslims in the frontiers of the country, where further encroachment has been met by violence, and hasn’t appealed to the central government, which is more concerned about the oil. The three major organizations that have defined Ethiopian life of the past couple decades that were complicit in part or whole with this movement into Sudan include the Adasa DERG for Emancipation, a hard-edged social movement taking its cues from an ideologically eclectic thought mix including Marx, Stalin, Tupac, Gramsci, Lincoln, Garvey, Elvis, John Lennon, Toto, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Kim Il Sung, Mao, etc. They have tremendous organizational power, the loyalty of much of the poor (though their loyalties also lie with the Emperor), and even possible plants in the army; the Lord’s Revelations Church, a loose alliance of a group of cults and splinters from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, taking their inspirations from as far afield as Buddhism, Scientology, and the flowering of millennialist doctrines and proselytization in the years leading up to and decades following the "False Apocalypse" (the real one is when Jesus comes riding a lion). There are disagreements on the Emperor, ranging from "antichrist" to "Jesus' brother;" AfroCornCorp, a monopoly agribusiness with its tentacles firmly implanted into the oil industry, government, and organized crime. Not too much of a threat to usurp power and often the co-target of groups like Adasa DERG. Some believe they basically are hopelessly intertwined with the government by this point, and the close relationship of CEO Zuri Adhiambo (female) with the Emperor has raised eyebrows. The development of Ethiopia’s western territories and setting up of a somewhat stable civil society under the fascistic emperor has had the fiercest resistance from Islamic terrorists, organizing in their newly concentrated settlements on the frontier and outside Ethiopia’s borders in central Africa.

NIGERIA COUP BY RELIGIOUS LEADER
The Nigerian military began the 2190s with the systematic destruction of the Arewa Republic and its state, first with a formal occupation by a vastly superior armed forces, then with reconstruction and restructuring policies meant to permanently seal the region within the country’s grasp – and had their leftist leadership stayed in power, perhaps the ideological glue of socialism could gloss over the religious and ethnic gaps between the regions. Instead unrest in the south over the expensive restructuring and improvement effort encouraged a religious figurehead, whom had been thought unpopular and not worth the government’s suppression, to start and lead a national religious political party based on Christian (though actually mixed local and Christian) beliefs into politics. Eventually agents of the Lord’s Impression on Earth – the name of the organization – had secretly assumed leadership roles in the local leftist leadership, and a coup was instigated in the national congress. The leadership was taken hostage, and anyone whom didn’t convert to the faith of the new leadership was executed on the spot in the middle of the legislature. The president organized the military behind him, but public protests began outside his residence when he tried to retake the legislature forcefully, and he abdicated. The new leader has sworn to convert all to Christianity, and rebuild the state as a religiously moral and economically free market nation, to the benefit of the coastal communities and sorrow of inner Nigeria.

MOZAMBIQUE PARTITIONED
Under the leadership of the reformer President Morany, a position under South Africa as an autonomous and safe region was offered to Mozambique, for its defence and prosperity. Close economic ties sped up the deal, as the monarchy there accepted the deal, fearful of the Tanzanians to the north – and for good reason, as the Tanzanians were prepared to fight South Africa to stop the deal. Tanzanian troops moved across the border, with intent to take land this time, however the conflict did not escalate from there, as South Africa threatened both a trade war and a ground war unless they stopped where they were. The Tanzanians, having taken a portion of the country, conceded this, and the country was partitioned, to the disappointment of the monarch of Mozambique – but the overjoyed relief of the economic elites of all three countries, whom lobbied forcefully to prevent a conflict.

ASIAN AND PACIFIC NEWS​

FAR EASTERN REPUBLIC AND RUSSIA MEET FOR FIRST TIME
After one hundred years of separation by the vast wilderness of Siberia, the Far Eastern Republic and Russia have finally met each other, their respective railroads reuniting near Lake Baikal. Though leaders from both countries through long-distant Mongolian or Kasgharian merchants knew of each other, no actual direct communications have ever taken place between the two nations – however that hasn’t stopped either of them from considering their mutual future into the next century. The divinely sanctioned Orthodox republic of Russia and the liberals of the Far East have found they have little in common; not only are their governments and foreign policies somewhat contrary, Far Eastern Russians have developed a linguistically distinct accent that makes communication in Russian somewhat difficult. Dashing hopes of ethnic brotherhood as well, a majority of Far Easterners are also, if not native Chinese or Mongolian, some mix between white Russian and Pacific Asian. In any case, both countries seem to accept each other’s existence, and both also have opportunities to exploit in the Arctic, where untapped oil resources and a potential new trade passage may exist for both of them – whether they compete for it or cooperate is up to their governments.

INDIAN COALITION ENTERS PAKISTANI CIVIL WAR
The Pakistani corporate project has ended, beginning with Afghan warlords and Ganges Maoists seizing government buildings during ongoing riots for the country’s board to resign or be dismantled. The government responded in the only way it saw feasible, without taking away the board’s power, by clamping down with the army – galvanizing people across the country to action either in favour or against the existing regime, which, despite its flaws, did bring economic prosperity to Pakistanis from the industrial core and middle class cities. Afghans took over mountain passes and then Kabul itself, while sporadic fighting across the east left the Maoists with various villages under their total or partial control. Waging guerrilla warfare, the Maoists have resorted often to terror cells in Pakistan proper and control of government held territories at nighttime in the east, supported by their use of terror. Urban labour in the core has also been restless, and when labour unions took this as an opportunity to campaign for a raise, they too were stopped by the government, putting many of them which escaped raids on their headquarters or capture of their leaders into the opposition camp. It was no secret Iran had been supporting the Afghan rebels, which Pakistan’s central government realized they could not regain without much effort, and refocused their attention on the east. This general chaos completely wrecked Indian trade by land up the modern Silk Road, and for the liberal leadership in Maharashtra and Hyderabad the humanitarian crisis also constituted a just cause for intervention against the regime. Supported again by Iranian arms, and their probable entry into the war if the government turned the tide against the Indian coalition, Maharashtra, Hyderabad and Kashmir joined as a coalition for the total surrender of the Pakistani regime. Their collective armies routed most of the conventional Pakistani forces in the south, while Kashmir made a slow advance into Punjab. The Maoists, relieved from their guerrilla fighting, banded into conventional divisions and were able to make huge territorial headway, pushing all the way to the ancient border of India and Pakistan, where they met the rest of the coalition forces, having conquered the country. A harsh peace was enforced, with Kashmir, Maharashtra, and the newly revived Ganges taking the majority of Pakistan’s former territory. The country was also forced to hold elections, inviting an easy liberal-labour party victory. The Maoists, for their part, kept good relations with the other liberal states, mostly because of the total devastation of the Ganges economy, which the liberal states have been more than happy to help refinance the reconstruction of, with the allowance that their companies and government investments to be secured by the interim Ganges government.

CHINESE UNIFICATION
After the death of millions of soldiers and civilians over multiple successive wars, the last War of Chinese Unification has succeeded in communist victory over the warlords of the north. This final installment of the conflict began when the Kingdom of China seized the capital of Mongolia by force, after a successful coup initiated by northern operatives in the country. The communists, whom would later fail to attempt a similar coup in Kashgaria after the war, called this an intolerable aggression against a peaceful people, and mobilized for war. As planned, anchoring their flank to the western mountains, hundreds of thousands of soldiers attempted rapid surprise attacks, using their competent air force for reconnaissance and cover. The northerners, quickly restoring order to their new Mongolian possessions, with even larger armies than the south and intelligence agents providing them occasional strategic information, covered so much of the frontier that southern rapid attacks no longer took them off guard, and multiple such attacks by the south were encircled before the tactic was abandoned for sustained trench and urban combat. Defenceless to bombing raids, the first communist bombers took their shots at production centres behind the lines, while the regular jet fighter force provided cover on the main line, keeping the less experienced and less numerous southern forces comparable. Warlords, if they were ever captured or their armies forced to surrender, found communist amnesty for their participation on the enemy side of the war surprising, the policy producing mixed results. While some armies joined the People’s Republic, knowing their defeat would mean their permanent exile from the Kingdom, other warlords refused, and at least on one occasion a warlord joined only to provide critical intelligence to northern spies. It was by the end of the second year of fighting that Kashgaria declared war on the north, stating the Kingdom’s persistent oppression of Muslims, and the fear that if the communists lost, Kashgaria would be a target for domination. Redirected northern troops smashed their advances in the mountain-ranges, while the communists made slow but definite gains, rolling out their first tanks from their advanced and unhindered industry. Each region slowly fell, with urban centres holding out to partisans, as the massive northern armies became more distraught and in poorer communication due to raids and bombing, eventually falling back to Beijing. When the emperor-king died of a munitions accident, the kingdom went into full retreat, as the communists and Kashgarians found only highly disorganized feudal resistance remaining.

SECOND AND THIRD JAPANESE CIVIL WARS
Primed by combat in Korea and with a larger industrial and economic base backing up their new-found enthusiasm to reignite war on Honshu, the southern Japanese state launched an attack on Tohoku, with pretenses to reuniting the island. Two piercing attacks were launched on Tohoku Chubu and East Tokyo, in which both dealt devastating blows to the regular infantry of the northern state. However urban and Chubu combat led to several retaliatory ambushes and near-suicide missions which resulted in the total decimation of the southern army’s artillery divisions. The final year of combat saw the north strategically retreat, laying waste to their most valuable holdings in the major cities as they left, and taking substantial shots at the southern armies as they occupied into East Tokyo and Kanto, before casualties and war exhaustion pressured them to accept peace at a new border. Determined to finish off Tohoku before the century ended, however, and still having a strong youthful reserve of fresh troops, the south launched a second war on the same rationale as the last, with much more artillery than before. In the interim the north had invested in a small air force, and improved the technical calibre of its military equipment, which helped prevent a repeat of the general retreat of the last war. Prepared for southern advances, when the first enemy troops crossed the border, the north sent its entire air force to harass the advancing armies and scout their locations. This was instrumental in providing their artillery with advanced warning, letting them target armies rather than infrastructure, however southern technical advances had provided their soldiers with anti-aircraft weapons, which kept the effect of the manoeuvre limited. After several very tight struggles, the south was pushed back into Tokyo urban combat. The southern navy meanwhile busied itself blockading Hokkaido, keeping that island from helping the fight. The northern air force helped very little in fighting in Tokyo, and the north decided yet again to strategically retreat, obliterate the barely recovered industries present in the city, before returning to the original border for a second wave. Highly diminished and demoralized, the northern armies fell after another bloody battle, and surrendered. The following peace treaty stripped the north of much of its land and made it a puppet of the south.

The Tribune​

LABOUR INTERNATIONALISM ON THE RISE WORLD-OVER
From England to La Plata to the United Commons, workers are unionizing and class consciousness is on a global rise. Industrialization and urbanization has brought together millions of labourers into similarly poor and cramped areas to work at the behest of a growing international trading system. Meanwhile, outposts of socialism and communism abound in faraway parts of the planet, from newly triumphant red China to revolutionaries in Sao Paulo or longstanding socialists or communists in Mali or Hungary-Poland. For the time being, the new internationalization of commerce has also facilitated the meeting of leftist leaders from distinct cultures and areas; it is the Tribune’s hope that this may reinvigorate international organizations, and prevent the reoccurrence of global imperialism.

PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION IN SAO PAULO
The tyranny of the late monarch of Sao Paulo has ended, and a truly proletarian revolution has brought South America a voice of the worker – another step in the internationalization of the communist movement and the liberation of workers world-wide. The country’s ruling dynasty had spent the past century creating an army of unemployed proletarians, alternating between building a poor and ill-equipped but massive army, and investing in the industrialization and urbanization of the imperial capital of Sao Paulo. A great slums existed there, where labour unions, whether illegal or registered, worked to give the country’s poor a fair share – but the government committed itself to a disastrous war at the expense of the worker, and class struggle through labour solidarity combined with a general strike in Sao Paulo brought down the government. Workers united cannot be stopped, however there are worrisome signs in the new revolutionary government. It appears to have been usurped by a member of the old aristocracy, whom has ruthlessly silenced most aristocratic or capitalist opposition within the major cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, while asserting his control over the labour movement too. Meanwhile Gaucho liberals, former allies of monarchy, have created a Republican front to try and replace the monarch under their own militant variation of liberal capitalism. A civil war has already started, and it is unlikely that the natural processes of revolution will be allowed to flourish and ultimately overcome their current leader, as regional powers are unlikely to avoid intervention, the Gauchos already doing so.

Journal of Public Policy​

INTERNATIONAL AND TRANS-OCEANIC TRADE
Not less than forty years ago the world’s oceans were the near exclusive zone of ambitious fishing trawlers, however the reconstitution of manufacturing in naval supplies and ships, combined with state policies expanding regional markets – whether through expanded merchant marines or the acquisition of island outposts for commerce – has led to a rebirth of trans-oceanic and international trade. There have been several noticeable effects of this more prominently internationalized trade. Countries with strong domestic industries in particular goods have found themselves able to dominate newly emerging regional markets. Countries like the Arab Sultanates, Venezuela or Bavaria have found themselves still quite safe from increasing trans-oceanic competitors, but sea-based trade has made more noticeable impacts on peripheral markets. English trade into the Caribbean has been difficult against stiff Venezuelan competition for example – while South Africa and the Arab Sultanates have made inroads into West African and South-East Asian markets (respectively) otherwise too distant to export to without naval protection. Competition has been heightening as a result of growing navies protecting trade from piracy and increasing investor confidence in sea-based trade with the guarantee of security from naval states. Countries such as Indonesia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, the Arab Sultanates and Venezuela have been busily brokering new relationships – facilitated by their merchant marines. Countries with both regional monopolies and international control of trade have become extremely dominant, and the end of the century has also seen right-wing groups push back against perceived foreign economic invasion in the local politics of less developed or less merchant-oriented countries. The actual shipping in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean however is still carried out only by the most advanced economies, and even then, only by the most wealthy individuals or collectives within said economies.

Modernist Monthly​

EDITORIALS​

EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM
We the undersigned petition the leading governments of Europe to endeavour the creation of a continental consortium of nations to adjudicate disputes, realize optimal trade relations, and form a stable European order, based on the belief that efficient governments and expedient relations are what foster prosperous societies. From Scandinavia to Italy, technocrats and technocracy are heralded as a great political and economic success, providing the continent with more unity than any other contemporaneous region in the world, despite the upheavals of the past century. There was once an institution, known as the European Union, which tried to prevent war and maintain economic prosperity in past centuries, but it failed in the face of nationalism and resource scarcity. Fundamentally, the projects of the past never extinguished chauvinism in politics, in fact parliamentary democracies positively exacerbated these conflicts by consigning legitimacy to vulgar nationalists whose digressive ethnic and cultural policies could be ignored because they occupied an economic position earlier leftists failed to capitalize on. This era is gone, and truly objective and efficient economic and social planning has taken place since the beginning of the past century which has allowed Europe unprecedented order and peace. It is our duty to spread this project to the rest of the continent, by creating a transnational legal court and legislature for the creation of pan-European law, and a pan-European technocratic council for issuing protocols as a collective group. United, the technocratic powers cannot be stopped, for no matter how backward or inefficient a place starts, the principles of modern political-economy and social engineering can always be applied by a scientific academia to maximize the output of anyplace anywhere.

RESCUED FROM OBSCURITY
Glory, in a forgotten and now ancient past, had an effervescence which engrossed the virtuous and strong peoples of the earth, and inspired heroism in the darkness. Nowhere does darkness not studious try to swamp – it is a swamp in our own industrial backyards as well as the jungle of unexplored climes; the advocates of civilization decried the savagery of other peoples, and so disproved themselves in their own barbaric adventurism, indeed ironically, when they undertook their lavish, global, colonial project. The genetic fad, a most tragic and destructive phase of human conceptions of the darkness, was yet another vainglorious and inconsistent project; for what happy people is content to infanticide of the weak, and worship Thrasymachus’ strength, so enthusiastically and murderously against the interests of the vulnerable. The Soviet project is needless of explanation, its mutated descendants persist into our second modern era. These projects meant to lionize an idea, to their boring, vainglorious and uniform conclusion. Whether it would be a world run by the civilized, the master race, the proletariat, the free market, religion, or anything else, these projects ceaselessly fought one-another for their prized End, the final state of world being. I propose, as I have proposed elsewhere, that precisely because of their mutual incompatibility they were star-bound to failure and sadness; but I insist that the personal and external glory of an individual’s actions, for their own sense of right or the sense which they subscribe to from their community, has intrinsic value which transcends which project they are working for. There should be a plurality of projects, which mutually recognize their necessary interdependence to attain individual glory when compared with one another; no echo chamber of similar states, but a plethora of ones which can better ascertain the darkness of meaningless obscurity. For one cannot be more obscure but when immersed in a wholly corporate world of one project, without question, comparison, or competition.

PLURALIST MANIFESTO
The prerequisites for a world to survive with so many ideologies, separated by canyons of difference, are several and strenuous. Firstly the free movement of people and labour should be near absolute, and the possessive habit of nationalism over such people should be eliminated among the family of projects. International organizations should be erected to support cooperative construction of speedy, inexpensive and universal transit systems. If ideological projects fail to impress their citizens or cause an outright desire to emigrate, such people need access to it. Further, under normal conditions, people whom simply do not agree with the premise of the country they live in need to be allowed to, as is so often said more vulgarly, get out. Secondly, a new international legal system should be setup and agreed to by as many parties as possible, outlining the rules of engagement but as well as the rules of revolt, rebellion, secession, and so forth, so that just adjudication of the rightness of separation can be ascertained, and thereafter, violating parties can be punished by the unanimous agreement of the remaining countries. Thirdly, an international charter of rights and freedoms should be drawn up to the satisfaction of as many countries as possible, so that the most obviously incompatible ideological beliefs are reconciled – otherwise bitter cold and hot wars will inevitably ensue because of the lack of clarity in relations. Freedom of movement should of course be the strongest point in the charter.

World Map:



OOC:

Alright, so the BTs are over, and after my exams, I'll begin posting teasers of the full game's orderset on this thread, which will be open to commentary and ideas. I don't know when I'll post the full thread, probably mid or late May.

I will not be uploading new stats until the new thread, which will have the up till now secret stats listed instead of the bare-bones ones we've worked with so far.

I will accept any minor border revisions players would prefer for aesthetic improvement; I readjusted most borders minorly myself this turn (I also intend to readjust a few north American borders a little further, particularly Canada-Prairies).

It would also be helpful if players could tell me where their capital should be, and if they would like to change their country's colour or their country's name.

Hooray! Five updates and a century of history!

Beautiful update, Stockholme. Can't wait for the full NES!

Very nice update, I've been looking for this for awhile.

As for the Far Eastern Republic and it's capital, I was thinking somewhere around Vladivostok or Vladivostok itself as the capital of the Republic.

Excellent update.
Nation color is fine. capital is washington DC.

Quite the impressive update. I must say that I'm looking forwards to the full NES.

Color is fine, unless a slightly darker version of Russia's can be procured. Capital is Baghdad.

Returning as La Plata. Capital is still Buenos Aires, but personally I'd prefer a darker, greener-ish color, something like China or the middle Indian state has, but this is pending a PM conversation I'd like to have with you about La Plata's future and all that jazz.

Canada, here. Capital has been moved to Quebec City, as ottowa is too close to the American Border.

Returning as the Prairies. Capital is Saskatoon.