Autumn of Nations

There is something quite irrational about trying to resolve a clearly domestic conflict with military force - the arsenal of state power surely can engage in other ways to control the situation without resorting to bombing everything in vicinity. This is not to deny, of course, neo-Babylon the freedom to act as they desire, but moreso a soft condemnation (Allison, 1991) of their methods. As you would know...

[...]

With al the above facts that we've presented, both in terms of state-social-political theory and historical precedent, we hope neo-Babylon will reconsider its approach.

Peer Reviewed by: Alexandre, J., Stefanie, K. Ask at your local consulate for a further bibliography!
 
The Union of States condemns the fascist forces of so-called Babylon in their declaration of war against the sovereign nation of Turkey.

We stand behind the working peoples of Turkey and their struggle against imperialism and hope that the invader is quickly crushed beneath the might of the proletariat!
 
The great nations and powers of the world are invited to Buenos Aires to discuss how exactly to deal with climate change as it faces every single nation, from Argentina to Zimbabwe. It is the belief of the Supreme Lodge that only international cooperation on transition, curbing emission of harmful gasses, new technologies of production & so on can truly resolve this.

[Peer Reviewed by Alyson, F., Germaine, S., Jose, A. & others, 2001. Ask for an extended summary at the nearest consulate.]

The Socialist Union of Plurinational States will be sending a delegation to Buenos Aires as well to discuss our own part to play in solving this global crisis.
 
Democracy Index
Year 2000​

Great Britain lost its top spot in The Economist's Democracy Index for the first time since the Mosley prime ministership during the Second World War. The Federal Republic of India ranks as the world’s best democracy at the dawn of the new millennium. Of the 59 sovereign states in the world, 14 received a score of 5 or higher out of a 10 point scale that rates respect for civil liberties, independence of the judiciary, independence of the press, history of peaceful transfers of power, and the freedom, fairness, competitiveness, and representativeness of multi-party elections. Here is the short-list of the world’s most democratic nations in the year 2000:
  1. India
  2. Great Britain
  3. Quebec
  4. Colombia
  5. Scandinavia
  6. East Africa
  7. Hawaii
  8. Texas
  9. Siberia
  10. Netherlands
  11. Baltofennia
  12. Mali Federation
  13. Turkey
  14. Buffalo-Caribou
 
*dabs*

Spoiler regional map :


Indian politics is shaped by the military rule of the 70s and 80s, known as either "The Centralist Period" or "The Dictatorship", which ended in the Saffron Revolution. It leaves a mixed and divisive legacy that continues to define modern democratic politics. The current political system can broadly be divided into two coalitions, one associated with the push for greater central control (National Progressive Bloc) and another for further federalization (United Democratic Front). “Left” and “Right” are improper descriptors for these two political groupings, as they’re roughly descended from those supporting or opposing the dictatorship. For example, the centralist NPB wishes to pursue stronger protectionist policies while also appealing to a conservative constituency on culture and immigration, while the UDF is in favor of economic, social, and political liberalization.

Of course, this is itself just gross simplification: both coalitions are composed of regional, language-based parties. While the exact alignment between the blocs is relatively static, individual parties will often have diverse political platforms reflecting regional concerns, and it is rare for a coalition to be 100% in unison on legislation. All politics is ultimately local and the coalitions are contradictory: even as the dictatorship centralized government, it established the first autonomous republic in Gujarat (later emulated to resolve a separatist movement in Ceylon). In addition to the ruling and opposition parties in each state, there are smaller parties representing independent movements, ethnic minorities, or castes that stand separately.

There are six states in the Federal Republic of India, split between 5 major languages, and an additional two autonomous republics within the larger body that all elect representatives to the national parliament. Currently India is ruled by the National Progressive Bloc under Prime Minister Mallikarjun Kharge. The NPB was propelled into government by anti-refugee sentiment in the 90s, displacing UDF rivals across northern states most affected.

Bombay State – The Marathi-speaking state in the north is governed by the Shiv Sena, a conservative party aligned with the NPB. Shiv Sena was part of the Saffron Revolution but soon differed with the broader democratic coalition over governance. It’s controlled the Mumbai-based state government since 1986. The main opposition is the Independent Labour Party, which maintains a presence in state offices through a combination of minority groups is closely aligned with the UDF.

Hyderabad and Andhra States – Two Telegu-speaking states, both are similarly governed by the Republican Labour Congress, a centrist party affiliated with the NPB. Hyderabad’s main opposition comes from the Muslim-dominated Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen, which has rapidly expanded in recent years (replacing the traditional alternative) and is loosely UDF-aligned. The agrarian Telegu Desam Party serves as the opposition in Andhra.

Mysore State – The Kannada speaking state has historically produced a large number of influential national politicians and is the last refuge of the Indian National Congress, which, while it contests seats in other states, only remains a major force in Mysore and a bastion of NPB control in the south. Its opposition is the Janata Dal, which is affiliated with the UDF.

Madras State – This Tamil speaking region is a center of finance and the wealthiest state in India. It is governed by the Justice Party and opposed by the People's Justice Party. Both groups used to be part of the same party until 1996, when they split, and continue to closely contest the same ideological space in the state. Both would prefer to align with the UDF.

Travancore State – Long a hotbed of socialist sentiment, this Malayalam speaking region was under direct military rule for a decade. The ruling Democratic Alliance has a deep resentment against the federal government and the Indian national project as a whole, though it continues to cooperate with the UDF. The NPB-sponsored Progressive Interest Party scrapes together remnants into an opposition.

Autonomous Republic of Gujarat – Ruled since liberation by the People’s Liberation Party, a right-wing nationalist group associated with the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Gujarat is a soft authoritarian state under Chief Minister Narendra Modi, linked to the NPB in national politics because of historical ties to the Centralist period.

Autonomous Republic of Ceylon – Much like Gujarat, Ceylon is ruled by the Sinhalese-speaking People’s Front, which waged a guerrilla war against the national government until the 1990s, when it gained the status of an autonomous republic as part of a broad peace deal. It’s affiliated with the UDF and opposed by the NPB-aligned Tamil minority’s Progressive Party.
 

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The Buenos Aires Nuclear Sciences & WMD Control Bureau would like to note that Turkey is in possession of several nuclear weapons, and that a military invasion by another nuclear-armed state represents a grave threat to the world and the environment. We strongly urge neo-Babylon to cease their invasion immediately.
 
World Oil Production (2000)

British Petroleum's annual energy review reveals that the 1990s crises is abetting, with increased production and geopolitical stablity bringing the price of oil down from a mid-1990s high of £74 per barrel to £45 per barrel as of the December 2000. As part of the energy review, British Petroleum has compiled its list of the world's top oil producers, measured in thousands of barrels of oil per day and their percentage share of the world oil market:​
  1. Babylon: 19,313 kbpd (26.2%)
  2. Eurasia: 5,925 kbpd (8.0%)
  3. Colombia: 4,202 kbpd (5.7%)
  4. Scandinavia: 3,694 kbpd (5%)
  5. Buffalo-Caribou: 3,619 kbpd (4.9%)
  6. Oman: 3,554 kbpd (4.8%)
  7. Great Britain: 3,207 kbpd (4.4%)
  8. America: 2,634 kbpd (3.6%)
  9. China: 2,443 kbpd (3.3%)
  10. East Asia: 2,373 kbpd (3.2%)
  11. Texas: 2,311 kbpd (3.1%)
  12. Arabia: 2,200 kbpd (3%)
  13. Nigeria: 2,174 kbpd (3%)
  14. Mexico: 3,456 kbpd (4.7%)
  15. Libya: 1,557 kbpd (2.1%)
  16. Maghreb: 1,549 kbpd (2.1%)
  17. Brazil: 1,276 kbpd (1.7%)
  18. Turkestan: 1,045 kbpd (1.4%)
  19. California: 954 kbpd (1.3%)
  20. Argentina: 848 kbpd (1.2%)
  21. Australia: 806 kbpd (1.1%)
  22. Angola: 746 kbpd (1%)
  23. Siberia: 658 kbpd (0.9%)
  24. Equatorial Africa: 541 kbpd (0.7%)
  25. India: 436 kbpd (0.6%)
 
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THE YEAR 2001

Fronts, Power Centres, Player Countries:
Year 2001 Stats



DEVELOPMENTS

Babylon-Turkey War (Regional Turkey Warfare Front):
New Actions:
  • Babylon: rolled 15, hard success. +1 FP for the invasion of Turkey representing Progress
  • Union of States: rolled 14, hard success. +1 FP for arms shipments representing Regress
In a decisive 24 hours, as Babylon’s Mediterranean Fleet reached the Bosporus, the Turkish neo-Ottoman officers attempted a coup in Ankara and Istanbul against the left-wing Kurdish-Armenian-led Democracy and Labour Party (DEP). The coup was supported by Babylonian missile strikes but met unexpected resistance from a large contingent of the republican-conservative Turkish military, which sided with the DEP due at least in-part to what was later discovered to have been secret signals of support from the Union of States in the days preceding the Babylonian move on the Bosporus. The illusion of a quick victory was dispelled within hours as Babylonian and Turkish forces squared off outside the Dardanelles and over Anatolian skies. Suddenly afraid the neo-Ottomans would fail to secure Turkey’s small nuclear arsenal, Babylon struck out with missiles all over the country in the desperate and barely successful effort to knockout Turkey’s nukes that came at the great cost of activating a vast patriotic upswell from the Turkish people in support of the DEP. Over the following week, the pro-Babylon neo-Ottoman officers secured Istanbul and its surroundings, saw a wave of defections from the Turkish military to their cause, and declared the recreation of the Sublime Ottoman State, which is being run as a military junta while they petition the childless Ertuğrul Osman, head of the Osmanoğlu dynasty, to return to Turkey from his quaint apartment in Manhattan. Backed by the anti-Babylon portion of the Turkish military as well as arms shipments from the Union of States via Yugoslavia and the Mediterranean, the DEP rallied Turks, Kurds, and Armenians alike with calls to defeat the invader and defend their multinational republic. Over the rest of the year, Babylon executed a full-scale war, routing the Turkish navy, securing the Bosporus, accepting the surrender of numerous defecting Turkish units, and making gains across south-central Turkey, but failing to achieve air supremacy against the veteran Turkish Air Force, and stalling on all fronts due to well supplied and armed enemy forces. The Babylonians also made zero headway past the mountains of eastern Turkey where Kurdish and Armenian guerrillas are preparing for yet another long insurgency should the west fall. The provision of American arms is tenuous, relying thus far on the difficulty of distinguishing between non-military and military vessels, and the occupation of the Babylonian navy in fighting the Turkish navy and supporting a complex invasion of the Bosporus. Moreover, the Rainbow Republic’s “Arsenal of Liberation” is finite and will eventually deplete to levels that would put them in jeopardy should another conflict arise. Neighbouring governments have issued a mix of responses. Ultranationalist Greece has been unusually muted given their oft-stated territorial demands against Turkey, perhaps waiting on a Great Power to promise them something, Yugoslavia is openly accepting a wave of Turkish refugees and letting American arms freely flow through its borders, while Great Britain has issued a strongly worded letter condemning the Babylonian invasion and reminding Babylon that they will defend the Commonwealth realms of Cyprus and Rhodes if provoked.
Changes:
  • defunct World Fact: Turkey has a few nuclear missiles
  • new World Fact: the Turkish people are hostile toward Babylonian invaders and are patriotically mobilized in support of the DEP
  • new World Fact: the armed forces of Turkey have splintered between neo-Ottomans and republicans who fight on opposite sides of the Babylon-Turkey War
  • new World Fact: Kurdish and Armenian guerrillas control eastern Turkey and are preparing to fight an asymmetric conflict
  • new World Fact: the Babylon-Turkey War has created a wave of Turkish refugees, which are largely leaving to Yugoslavia, where they are openly accepting them
  • new World Fact: the Union of States is provisioning the Turkish armed forces via tenuous supply routes over the Mediterranean and Yugoslavia
Trajectory: Babylon’s advance is stalled, with thousands of soldiers dying. Meanwhile the Rainbow Republic’s stockpile of arms is depleting. Since both sides are equally matched in Front Point generation (+1 for both sides), the trajectory of this Front is collapse. The Rainbow Republic will run out of war materiel (leaving it extremely vulnerable for a few years after that point) and Babylon’s will be understaffed from casualties and demoralized (leaving it extremely vulnerable for a few years as well) after less than a decade of fruitless conflict (2008). Babylon will keep what it currently has achieved (including a puppet government over the Bosporus), Turkey will be economically ruined, the Turkish Air Force Power Centre will remain independent, and the left-wing DEP will remain the government of Turkey. Both Babylon and the Union of States will gain 1 XP for mutually losing this contest to collapse when it does so.

Soviet Civil War (Super Western Europe Warfare Front):
New Actions:
  • Eurasia: rolled 10, failure. -1 FP for arms smuggling representing Progress
The colossal quagmire across Western Europe saw a serious escalation this year. Great Britain, having remained merrily neutral about a continental conflict in which no side threatened to become a hegemonic power, spotted increased activity among airliners and cargo ships originating from Eurasia. After months of quiet observation, the Royal Navy abruptly seized a Eurasian vessel in summer and claimed to the world they had discovered guns, munitions, as well as chemical and radiological weapons hidden among grain and other foodstuffs. With their majority in parliament, the Tories have approved an indefinite military blockade of European coastal regions controlled by the French ultranationalist faction of the Soviet Civil War.
Changes:
  • rules note: the negative Eurasian FPs do not benefit any particular faction, they merely hurt the French faction; i.e. the net negative points accumulated will not benefit another power taking up a different faction, they are just there as a reminder the French faction is dying, which I’ll keep track of somewhere else should another power step in before that actually occurs
  • new World Fact: Great Britain is enforcing a military blockade against ultranationalist France
Trajectory: The British blockade will choke the French ultranationalists of war materiel and ultimately grind them into dust over the course of a long painful decade (2010). Eurasia will gain 1 XP for losing the contest.

Spoiler 2000 :
Soviet Civil War (Super Western Europe Warfare Front): In August 1991, members of the Soviet Ministry of the Interior, secret service, and military came together and relieved their reformist leader of his position. The instantaneous and widespread public backlash was met with martial law and a breakdown of civil order across western Europe, where the hardliners still held substantial control of the military and organs of government. Since then, the Soviet Civil War has raged on across the three core territories of the former union: France, Germany, and Italy. The battle lines have hardened over the past decade of conflict and global economic turmoil, but with the return of Great Power competition, this increasingly stagnant conflict could restart should the status quo be disturbed. (see NPC description for West Europe for factions of this civil war)
Rules: best two rolling players will promote the military expansion of their chosen faction, eliminating other factions with no backer or worse rolls; if a hegemon emerges, a new player may be invited to the game to play them
Rewards: unification of West Europe under your preferred ideology


Military-Industrial Complex (North America Super Economy Front):
New Actions:
  • India: rolled 21, full success. +2 FP for integration efforts representing Progress
  • East Asia: rolled 16, soft success. +1 FP for poaching efforts representing Regress
Both India and East Asia this year attempted to save the old American arms industry from rusting away. Indian companies and economic elite rallied resources toward the re-integration of each constituent of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC). The Indian government and Indian arms manufacturers placed a flood of new orders to restart production in California, Utah, Texas, the Southern Republic, and New England, creating new business partnerships and bringing in investment. Initially skeptical, these ex-American states were relieved and impressed to see that the Indian strategy involved boosting their own economies, easing both anti-democratic and, in the Southern Republic’s case, racist attitudes toward the Indian overtures. The robust effort has put people back to work at Textron, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and many other firms. Indian businesses found some stiff competition from East Asian universities, the Nissan Group, and the most integral core of the East Asian state itself, the Socialist Association of Science and Technology, which seized on the weak pay, job insecurity, and general malaise in the American arms industry to poach engineers and scientists out of North America to noticeably more lucrative opportunities in East Asia. The academic poaching campaign faced a number of obstacles, from the lack of Japanese or any other East Asian language proficiency among potential targets, to the sizable ideological gulf between average MIC workers and the state ideology of East Asia. These were overcome, at least for the time being, firstly by promises of high salaries and interesting, cutting edge work. These salaries, it turns out, had to be well above the normal distribution for East Asia in-order to beat North American standards and to a lesser extent Indian offers. Moreover, interesting cutting-edge positions have put Americans in important and desired research jobs. These two policies have created resentment among domestic East Asian scientists and engineers who covet the higher pay and have had to watch Americans take spots on the next rung of the career ladder. These tensions are further exacerbated by the MIC workers and scientists stubbornly refusing to integrate, whether that be learning an East Asian language or respecting the socialist society’s norms (and sometimes laws) against bad-mouthing East Asian industrial standards and its form of government.

Changes:
  • new World Fact: American MIC workers are frustrating East Asia-born colleagues due to their comparatively high pay, prestigious placement, unwillingness to integrate, and anti-government speech
  • new World Fact: the economies of California, Utah, Texas, the Southern Republic, and New England are getting a growth boost from Indian arms orders and MIC integration
Trajectory: India will fully revitalize and integrate the Military-Industrial Complex of the former United States into its own arms industry in less than a decade (2008) creating a new Power Centre spread between India and the ex-American states, East Asia will have poached a notable cohort of aerospace and armaments engineers in that time (World Fact) and gain 1 XP for losing the contest.

Spoiler 2000 :
Military-Industrial Complex (North America Super Economy Front): The breakup of the United States left the military-industrial complex in shambles. Spread out over numerous states, the great American arms production supply chain was disconnected from each other throughout the 1990s, and being essentially right-wing in character, arms makers moved as much as possible out of the Rainbow Republic in that decade. Although a substantial portion of the human and physical capital ended up in Texas (Lockheed Martin, Textron, Boeing, General Dynamics), critical elements of the this system remain in California (where naval production is centred), the Southern Republic (where military software for jets and missiles was developed), and New England (where MIT pioneered new military technologies), not to mention supply chain components made in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. If left to waste away, these assets will be reconstituted into domestic supply chains much weaker than the sum of the system.
Rules: the top two rolling countries will be Progress and Regress in a contest to reconstitute the American Military-Industrial Complex as part of their own arms supply chain; collapse will either partition the system or create domestic supply chains that are weaker than the sum of the whole
Rewards: your very own Military-Industrial Complex as a Power Centre worth 0.8 Warfare and 0.8 Economy, and 0.2 AP


Second Dot Com Boom (Super Worldwide Science/Economy Front):
New Actions:
  • Argentina: 18, soft success. +1 FP for entrepreneur immigration efforts representing Progress
The internet has had a rough first decade, limited largely to academics and wealthier people in cities next to a tech hub. Moreover the greatest place of IT innovation, Silicon Valley, suffers from its erratic dictator, who swings wildly from pro-business free market fanaticism to authoritarian anti-communist paranoia and censorship, the latter of which puts a chilling effect on businesses that don’t know what will or won’t be banned. This year Argentina extended a hand to the beleaguered founders languishing in California, poaching them to labs, universities, and companies around Buenos Aires. Many of these Californians switched out of their initial job offers at established Argentine companies and universities a few months after arrival to make independent startups in Buenos Aires, often co-founding with locals. Already they have created burgeoning contenders for the world’s best browser, the Silver Lance, and search engine, Microscopio. The unorthodox west coast culture of these immigrants has imbued the dot com boom in Argentina with their penchant for aggressively exploiting legal loopholes or legal grey areas to “disrupt” stable industries, create internet monopolies, avoid taxes, avoid regulations, avoid unionization, avoid respecting intellectual property, and generally continue the steady rise of income inequality. Moreover, the success in software has not been replicated by Argentine firms in the expansion of broadband, with the Spanish company Telefónica dominating the broadband revolution across Argentina and in other parts of the Spanish speaking world.
Changes:
  • new World Fact: immigrant American tech entrepreneurs are creating legally grey internet businesses that promote inequality
  • new World Fact: Argentine broadband and internet infrastructure depends on the Spanish telecom company Telefónica
Trajectory: Argentina will develop a globally unparalleled tech hub with Silicon Valley cultural quirks over the course of the next half decade (2006) creating a new Power Centre in Buenos Aires

Spoiler 2000 :
Second Dot Com Boom (Super Worldwide Science/Economy Front): The internet began in 1982 but adoption was limited to academics until the advent of the World Wide Web between 1989 and 1993. Fallout from the collapse of both superpowers blunted mass adoption of the internet. Although academics, universities, and laboratories continued to develop browsers, servers, and HTML, the American businesses at the forefront of computer technology spent the 1990s relocating to New England, Texas, and California and scrounging for capital in a recessionary environment. A clunky but technically open internet is in desperate need of user-friendly browsers, search engines, faster replacement for dial-up internet, and all manner of software services. The race to replace Silicon Valley is on.
Rules: best roller is Progress, second best is Regress; another entrant replaces the Regress if they roll higher but lose any points accrued by that side
Rewards: winner receives wins a first round of internet startups (browsers, search, broadband) as a Power Centre worth 1.6 Science points and 0.1 AP


OLD NEWS

Spoiler War of Ideas :
War of Ideas (Special Front): As Francis Fukuyama wrote in his 1992 book, The Beginning of History and the First Man, the morally bankrupt platforms of the Cold War era United States and Soviet Union have been swept away, replaced by a host of more convincing alternative systems of governance. Between Argentine technocracy, the American new left, Indian liberal democracy, East Asian environmentalism, Eurasian pan-nationalism, and Babylonian neo-traditionalism, the war of ideas rages on. This ideological multipolarity is untenable in a globalizing world, and one belief system will emerge as a frontrunner for revolutionary change as each of these regimes is scored by the audience of the world in the coming decade.
Rules: this Front resolves by GM fiat when a) the entire world’s geopolitical situation appears to have clearly swung in the direction of one player’s ideology, and b) that player’s ideological activities have broadened its appeal of the ideology through visible deeds in such a way that it would inspire hundreds of millions of ordinary people
Rewards: a global wave of enthusiasm for your ideology that will last for a large part of the 2010s and will translate into a) at least one or two revolutions, b) one or two oppositions or governments converting to your ideology, and c) other logical narrative benefits from ideological momentum

Spoiler China's Warlords :
China’s Warlords (Super China Warfare Front): After the KMT took control of China half a century ago, the country returned to a state of decentralization and corruption over years of mismanagement. Today’s China is governed by numerous minor cliques and warlords that orbit four major factions, one in the east, north, south, and west of the country. Although there are no open clashes, since the 1990s the ideological splits have become so profound that a new conflict between the warlords could be sparked by any minor slight. If a truly unified and reinvigorated China were to emerge, it would rival the other Great Powers in the world. (see NPC description for China for factions of this decentralized society)
Rules: best two rolling players will promote the military expansion of their chosen faction, eliminating other factions with no backer or worse rolls; if a hegemon emerges, a new player may be invited to the game to play them
Rewards: unification of China under your preferred warlord

Spoiler Filibuster War :
Filibuster War (Regional Mexico Warfare Front): The United States military maintained a reactionary ideology in many of its divisions that was at odds with everything the Rainbow Republic stands for. This was true especially in American-occupied Mexico during the 1989-1991 collapse, when American forces defected from the United States and joined the local American puppet regime, bolstering it against a new wave of guerrilla activity in the north and south over the course of the 1990s. The conflict has been stale for a few years now, with no movement from any side, but interest from one of the Great Powers could push a final resolution to the conflict in a matter of years. (see NPC description for Mexico for factions of this civil war)
Rules: factions supported by the top two rolling players will be the sides that contest for victory, the other falling apart
Rewards: unification of Mexico under your preferred civil war faction

Spoiler Amazon Conflict :
Amazon Conflict (Super Brazil-Colombia-Peru Warfare Front): The war in the Amazon has gone on for decades. Once upon a time, communists were in-charge of Brazil, and then Peru, appearing to dominate the continent, until Argentina invaded and ousted the Brazilian communists and the Peruvians turned on themselves and forced their enemy leftists into the jungle where they began cultivating cocaine that they could sell for cash to buy guns. These formerly Guevarist communist have turned to Suzukianism as a unifying force across numerous groups, and as a means of cementing their ties to indigenous peoples of the Amazon river basin. The low-grade civil conflict stretches between Colombia, Brazil, and Peru, with no obvious end in sight.
Rules: Progress represents destruction of the guerrillas, Regress represents the guerrillas push out and takeover one of the three affected states, and entrench their position in the other two
Rewards: stabilization of the Colombia, Brazil, and Peru regimes, or the collapse of one of those regimes to Suzukian rebels
Related Fronts: The Drug Trade

Spoiler Merchants of Death :
Merchants of Death (Europe Regional Espionage Front): The demise of communism and the post–Soviet civil war in Western Europe have together created a black market of military hardware dealers, like “Sanctions Busters” Viktor Bout and Karlheinz Schreiber, who are nimble in moving arms over borders and disappearing state stockpiles. The situation promotes corruption in Eurasia and across Europe, and to a lesser extent in north India and the former United States, while providing a steady stream of arms to any regime or rebellion willing to pay, regardless of ideology.
Rules: Progress on this would make illicit arms trading much harder, Regress would harness this arms trade for the evil ends of whichever country rolls highest to do that
Rewards: if harnessed, your very own Merchants of Death cabal as a Power Centre worth 0.4 Warfare and 0.8 Espionage, and 0.1 AP

Spoiler Global Reserve Currency :
Global Reserve Currency (Worldwide Super Economy Front): The collapse of the American dollar and the instability in post-Soviet Europe contributed to the 1990s currency crises, particularly the European financial crisis of 1994 and the Latin American financial crisis of 1997. Although the Pound Sterling is the most used, central banks rarely hold more than 20% in that or any other currency, conferring only a minor economic and political benefit to Great Britain. Should a currency emerge as the primary tender in international trade and central bank reserves, the currency’s issuer would benefit mightily.
Rules: best roller is Progress, second best is Regress; another entrant replaces the Regress if they roll higher but lose any points accrued by that side; collapse is recurring
Rewards: winner establishes their national currency as the global reserve currency, giving them World Facts that allow them to more easily sanction entities, run higher trade deficits, and prevent currency crises

Spoiler Sahara Conflict :
Sahara Conflict (Regional Maghreb-Libya Warfare Front): Due to drought-induced famines of the 1980s throughout the Sahel and resentment against secular authorities, Tuareg and Islamist guerrillas started waging a low-grade conflict over the interior of northern Africa. Algerian and Libyan armed forces have had a hard time projecting power deep into their interiors, but the Tuareg and Islamist fighters have yet to receive support from an outside power that could shift this status quo.
Rules: Progress represents Islamist or Tuareg takeover of the entirety of the interior of Algeria and Libya in a new state, Regress represents efforts to crush their rebellion
Rewards: elimination of oppositions to Algeria and Libya as well as undermining of fanatic Islamism, or establishment of an entrenched new NPC in the interior of the Sahara
Related Fronts: Islamism & Jihadism

Spoiler Kongo-Sudan Conflict :
Kongo-Sudan Conflict (Regional Kongo-Sudan Warfare Front): The interior of Africa between Kongo, Uganda, and Sudan has suffered numerous social breakdowns due to post-colonial ethnic conflicts, exacerbated by its isolation and the lucrative mines that dot the interior. Hardened by these conflicts, a Dominionist Christian militia movement emerged around a charismatic and unusually erudite soldier who, taking Ivory Coast, Angola, and Argentina, as well as the Lord thy God, as his inspirations, has rallied thousands of rebels into a sprawling insurgency between southern Sudan and eastern Kongo. Religious extremist groups have fought low-grade conflicts since the late 1980s, but only in the latter half of the 1990s did disparate insurgencies organize into a more unified rebellion of Domionist technocrat worshipping rebels. The bizarre ideological mixture makes some suspect the leader of the rebellion could be swayed to a wildly different ideology, should it be politically expedient.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to displace either the Sudanian or Kongolese government with Domionist rebels, Regress represents the crushing of the Domionist rebels
Rewards: the toppling of one or the other afflicted regimes or the destruction of their oppositions

Spoiler Blockbusters :
Blockbusters (Super Worldwide Social Control Front): If there was one front of the Cold War the United States dominated, it was entertainment. The Hollywood studio system, from big budget films to Walt Disney’s pioneering animation, delivered American-made pro-American media with gusto and panache to the entire world. The breakup of the United States and the dislocation of Hollywood under ever more repressive Reaganite censorship has left a gap in the international film and television market, as well as the markets for music and other forms of entertainment. In large part, people have turned to local film and television with smaller budgets, weaker production values, and relatively stagnant cinematography and storytelling. This leaves the market ripe for a Great Power to restore the golden age of international pop culture.
Rules: top two best rollers are Progress and Regress, new entrants replacing Regress and starting from zero; a close finish will split the pot between the two sides
Rewards: the creation of a Power Centre representing a major cultural export of your country (e.g. K-Pop, superhero movies, manga, etc.)

Spoiler The Land of Opportunity :
The Land of Opportunity (Super Worldwide Administration/Economy Front): Once upon a time the Land of Opportunity for the toiling masses of Europe was America, where anyone could get land and be free. Nearly a century of racist immigration restrictions in America, which were copied to lesser or greater extent in Canada, Australia, and Great Britain, forced migrants seeking a better life to other ports of call, though never enough in any one nation for any place to become the world’s foremost nation of immigrants. For millions of migrants, there is no obvious choice of where to go to better one’s socio-economic chances, but should any of the Great Powers become a beacon of economic opportunity, they could benefit greatly from the intelligence and grit the world’s immigrants have to offer.
Rules: top two best rollers are Progress and Regress, new entrants replacing Regress and starting from zero; a close finish will split the pot between the two sides; collapse is recurring
Rewards: the establishment of a Nation of Immigrants/Land of Opportunity World Fact that represents a huge pull of immigration to the winning Great Power

Spoiler Islamism & Jihadism :
Islamism & Jihadism (Super Worldwide Social Control/Espionage Front): Despite decades of Babylonian and American suppression, most prominently with the smothering of the Islamic Republic of Iran in its cradle, political Islam continues to be a powerful undercurrent throughout the Islamic world. This undercurrent is fluid and in desperate need of a major role model to decide its fate in the early twenty-first century. The two current pulls across the Islamic world are those between the moderates of Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Islamic Congress of East Asian Indonesia, and the fanatics like al-Qaeda and the Bengali Islamic faction. Moreover a niche technocratic angle on Islam as a religion of science has taken hold among guerrillas in northern Nigeria. Should a decisively religious Islamic society emerge in world affairs, whether in Bengal, Egypt, Indonesia or elsewhere, it could serve as a role model to determine the future character of Islamic activities.
Rules: Regress represents efforts to eliminate moderate Islamic Republicanism and bolster/harness fanatical Islamism, Progress represents the bolstering of moderate Islamic Republicanism and crushing of fanatical Islamism; collapse is recurring
Rewards: consolidation of global Islamic politics around an ideologically preferred axis
Related Fronts: Indian Tensions

Spoiler The Drug Trade :
The Drug Trade (Super Worldwide Espionage/Social Control): The 1990s were a boom period for the international illicit drug trade centred on the world’s three big production hubs in Afghanistan-Persia, Southeast Asia, and inner Latin America. The vast majority of the world's opium is made by farmers in the Golden Crescent in Afghanistan, where the Khan government turns a blind eye to poppy cultivation. Heroin is largely produced with the tacit support of the Buddhist regime in Burma and corrupt KMT officers in lands saddling the rainforested borders of Thailand, Indochina, Burma, and southwest China. Meanwhile cocaine is cultivated by left-wing insurgents in the Amazon, Colombia, and Peru. The illicit drug trade promotes addiction in buyer countries and strengthens criminal networks along their supply routes, especially North America and Europe, though increasingly also to Argentina, India, and East Asia.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to clamp down on global drug trade operations, Regress represents harnessing these criminal forces to serve the interests of your state; collapse is recurring
Rewards: end of the drug trade (and resultant economic/political effects on other Fronts, regimes) or creation of a Drug Trafficking Power Centre worth 1.6 Espionage, 0.4 Social Control
Related Fronts: Amazon Conflict

Spoiler Indian Tensions :
Indian Tensions (Regional India-Hindustan-Bengal Espionage/Front): The breakup of North India has left furious unresolved problems on the subcontinent. The Hindustani People’s Republic based out of Delhi, with nuclear arms and the world’s largest army by soldier count, regularly taunts and threatens rhetoric about retaking Mumbai or invading Bengal. The Bengalis, for their part, do the same over their own territorial grievances. This makes the Indo-Bengali-Hindustani border one of the most militarized in the world, and a place where inevitably a miscalculated military decision will escalate the armed peace into a nuclear war. Such a crisis could emerge when the fractious and untenable coalition government of Islamists and ultra-nationalists in Bengal finally collapses into a dictatorship of one or the other, which is seen as a likely next event in the ongoing tense geopolitical situation.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to prevent war and reach a stable political settlement across India, while Regress represents efforts to stoke a conflict.
Rewards: peace or war on the subcontinent, also regime direction in Bengal

Spoiler Ethiopian Revanchism :
Ethiopian Revanchism (Regional Ethiopia Espionage Front): After a humiliating defeat at the hands of two liberal democracies in East Africa and India, the young king of Ethiopia is eager to prove his valour and reclaim lost glory. His propagandists make no effort to conceal their desire to ultimately invade East African Somalia, and a military build-up continues, though at a slow pace given Ethiopia’s rugged terrain, isolation from international markets, and lack of a domestic arms industry. Should a Great Power bridge these gaps between Ethiopia’s dreams and its present reality, the war path might be cleared for King Zera.
Rules: Progress represents a military-build up that would pose a serious threat to East Africa, Regress represents the frustration or prevention of war erupting over Somalia
Rewards: prevention or inauguration of a war led by Ethiopia against East African Somalia

Spoiler Greater Hungary :
Greater Hungary (Regional Hungary Espionage Front): In the state press of the Hungarian state, the lands of the Crown of St Stephen were wrongfully stripped from it in the aftermath of the Austro-Hungarian collapse, as well as the numerous border rectification treaties of the communist era. It is believed as well in the intelligence communities of most European countries that Hungarians are a major purchaser of illicit arms from dealers in Eurasia and Western Europe, which by themselves would put Hungary on a path to the military-buildup it would need to start a war, though slowly, and with which of its neighbours, it is unclear.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to build-up Hungary for a war with one of its neighbours (which is up to the player that causes the Progress to succeed), Regress represents efforts to prevent a war and establish a more lasting commitment to peace between Hungary and its neighbours
Rewards: war or stabilized peace with Hungary and its various claims, potentially also the alignment of Hungary’s military Power Centre
Related Fronts: Merchants of Death

Spoiler Arabian Nuclear Program :
Arabian Nuclear Program (Regional Arabia Espionage/Science Front): Ever since the Babylonian invasion of the Kingdom of Arabia, the Saudis have made it an open secret that they are looking for help to build the bomb. Tentative info sharing occurred between Arabia and North India in 1989, but this ceased as North India collapsed into two warring states. Arabia continues to put feelers out for assistance in building a nuclear program, but to date no Great Power has shown interest. The hermit king of Arabia rules absolutely, and could change the tune of his government perhaps a lot more easily than other regimes, should he get what he needs against the only thing he really cares about: protecting himself from Saddam Hussein.
Rules: Progress represents advances by Arabia to build a WMD arsenal, Regress represents efforts to permanently crush the possibility of such an arsenal forming
Rewards: the rapid ideological switch of Arabia to whoever helps them build a WMD program, or the elimination of a potentially threatening WMD program in Arabia

Spoiler Hawaiian Allegiance :
Hawaiian Allegiance (Regional Hawaii Administration/Espionage Front): Remaining inside the Rainbow Republic was never an option for the business-friendly Republicans governing Hawaii back in 1991, but independence for a small, strategically located nation like theirs is untenable without a patron among the Great Powers. Hawaii boasts one of the former United States’ best military ports and still harbours two of its aircraft carriers alongside a notable fleet and its experienced sailors and officers who defected to Hawaii. Although Australia has made diplomatic overtures to Hawaii, the local Republican Party sees them as a last resort and are hoping for another Great Power to guarantee their independence against interference in their affairs from either East Asian and Rainbow Republic, who’s sympathisers fill the ranks of opposition movements.
Rules: Progress represents swaying the Hawaiian regime into your sphere, Regress represents the advance of either Suzukian or Rainbow opposition groups, whichever rolls higher
Rewards: access to Hawaii as a naval port and the restitution of a Power Centre out of the Pacific Fleet worth 1.6 Warfare and 0.1 AP

Spoiler Untouchable Global Elite :
Untouchable Global Elite (Worldwide Super Social Control/Administration Front): In the shadows, moving from corporate board rooms to fancy estate to ski resorts, there have always been the Eloi, the haves, the untouchable elite whose wealth you don’t even see. They can enter countries without a passport, hide their true wealth behind numerous shell companies, and have powerful connections everywhere that matters. This globalized power class hails from every nationality and knows no borders, but should they see one of the Great Powers as serving their interests, they might be inclined to do them favours in-exchange.
Rules: best two rollers are sides Progress and Regress, replacing the losing side if they join in after two sides are established
Rewards: a geographically unlocated Power Centre representing the power elite and the wealthy 0.01% worth 0.1 AP, 0.8 Economy, 0.4 Espionage, 0.4 Social Control

Spoiler HIV/AIDS & Malaria :
HIV/AIDS & Malaria (Africa Super Science/Administration Front): Two diseases haunt Sub-Saharan Africa, one ancient and one modern. Malaria, spread by mosquitoes in equatorial climes, kills 800,000 people annually, while HIV/AIDS has pulled down societal life expectancy by 10-20 years in the most afflicted areas in East Africa, Azania, Mozambique, and Equatorial Africa. Although drugs have been developed to manage HIV/AIDS and cure malaria, they are not distributed widely in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and malaria
Rewards: none (it’s just a nice thing to do)

Spoiler Warming Trend :
Warming Trend (Special Front): Since the late 1970s scientists identified the threat posed to the biosphere and humanity from greenhouse gas emissions in the form of global warming. Average surface temperature relative to the 1800s has risen by the turn of the millennium to 0.75° Celsius, with climate models warning of rising sea levels, longer droughts, more intense hurricanes, and other natural disasters. The economies of the world, through modern agriculture, manufacturing, energy production, transportation and other sources, emit 35 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide and other gases annually. The impacts of global warming will manifest throughout the decades ahead, and the solutions to this global problem will be numerous given its scope.
Rules: this Front resolves by GM fiat when the entire player base has collectively satisfied the GM with numerous energy transition and climate mitigation Fronts of their own diverse choosing; when this Front collapses it’s collapse timer starts again; collapse is recurring
Rewards: none (avoiding bad things is the reward)

Spoiler Novel Pandemics :
Novel Pandemics (Special Front): Vaccination campaigns, improved sanitation, and improved healthcare systems helped eliminate smallpox and mitigate numerous other diseases in the developed and developing world. Nonetheless, novel diseases emerge routinely, whether from isolated endemic diseases spread to the globalized world, or new diseases mutating and jumping from animals to humans. The threat of pandemics is ever-present, but only are they sufficiently dangerous to warrant global concern.
Rules: is Front resolves by GM fiat when the entire player base has collectively developed medical technologies, systems of pandemic response and mass vaccination that the GM deems sufficient to end the curse of pandemics; time this Front escalates the GM will roll a 1d10 against a table of diseases; escalations will always be structured so that the turn the escalation is announced, players can react preemptively; the next turn, if the pandemic escalates out of control, that particular pandemic will take the place of the Novel Pandemics Front until resolved
Rewards: none (avoiding bad things is the reward)


World-Building Request: The Leader

For turn 2 my world-building request to players is to name and describe your highest level political official, or if that doesn’t correspond to the actual highest seat of power, go for whatever person occupies that instead. Describe the backstory and politics of this timeline’s Suzuki, Saddam, the Presidents of America, Eurasia, and India, and Argentina’s First Colleague (or whatever their title is).

GM Notes

There is a section on how competing rolls work that I realized doesn't work in the case of two players getting the same rolls (e.g. the Turkey situation) and upon reflection I don't even like it in the intended use case, so I'm not going to use it. I've highlighted it in yellow for those who are interested and will remove it by the next update from the rules.

Rules clarification for when we get to it: fractional APs accumulate until you have a full AP. So if you have 1.1 total AP, you have 1 AP for 10 turns and on the 10th turn you have 2 APs. So AP value less than 1 does bank, basically.

I'm adding a note to the Diplomacy capability that it should also provide the effect of allowing players to ask more detailed questions about the diplomatic situation of NPCs.

I'm also making a note that I do consider some actions to be "free" in that you don't need to spend an AP to do certain things. Role-play-esque actions like conferences or new bodies or agreements that are about principles are entirely free. More mechanically, withdrawing from a Front is free, so you can relieve yourself of whatever consequences might logically follow, but cede your Front Point generation. Player to Player promises (e.g. defensive pacts whatever) like treaties are also free actions, unless they actually do something in the world that would need to be enforced.

Also, I've decided to leave in various ideas I had for negative consequences for actions (soft success or hard success or failures) that I didn't end up opting for. They are listed at the end of the Actions tab. They aren't intended to be super well written (that's for the update itself) but it gives players an idea of the possibility space I was considering for mixed or failed outcomes.

Orders are due Thursday May 26th 9:00 AM PST.

Mobilization deadlines are therefore:
  • Friday May 20th 9:00 AM PST (for a +4 bonus)
  • Saturday May 21st 9:00 AM PST (for a +2 bonus)
  • Sunday May 22nd 9:00 AM PST (for a +1 bonus) - no mobilizations can be declared after this point (and therefore no wars can be engaged in)
 
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Treaty of the Bosporus and Dardanelles

1. The Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, being vital for international commerce, shall be jointly controlled and managed by the great states of Babylon and Eurasia with the permission of the Sublime Ottoman State. Both Babylon and Eurasia shall maintain military bases at multiple locations along the straits. Any decisions to limit trade must be mutual, with the United States and Yugoslavia (and any Pink allies) currently being forbidden under conditions of war.

2. The mighty states of Babylon and Eurasia will not interfere with the actions of the other, and will not intervene in the other state's sphere of influence, either through diplomatic, economic, covert, political, or military means. Any state directly bordering Babylon or Eurasia is within their mutual sphere of influence.

Signed,
Minister of State Tariq Aziz von Schroeter
President Saddam Hussein
 
Schools of Thought in Argentine Politics
by Augustus Riley
Harvard Journal of Political Science
VOL. 6, ISSUE 122, WINTER (1999)

Argentina’s 1993 Constitution proudly announces in its preamble, amongst other things, the following:

“With the power vested in the man’s mind, and in the prowess of their hands, we declare that all elections, all partisanship, all parties, all cliques, all power groups, all politics, indeed, are henceforth, abolished. Clarity of thought, not the narrow interests of ethnicity, class or race will be the guide of renewed Argentina.”

This is perhaps surprisingly idealistic, and there are likely people who believe that, even in the halls of high power. Reality, however, leaves one with a much more different view. For a nation that has abolished politics, in the university campuses, and of course, in the capital, intrigue – as anywhere – runs through the veins of the ‘apolitical’ Argentinians. De jure, within Argentina, there are no parties as we would understand them in a classically-preserved example of liberal democracy, such as India, the British Commonwealth or even the newcomer, Gran Colombia. But are there power groups and schools of thought? Most naturally. In fact, some of the more self-aware academics would willingly admit that in their treatises, such as New Politics (Gutierrez, 1997) and Desarrollo del Pensamiento Tecnocrático Argentino (1961-1998) (Alberto, 1998). This, however, should not be really seen as an explicit claim to any position – it is, simply, things as they are. The fact that, for an example, Gutierrez has openly said on public TV that, “until Argentina resolves the Brazilian question, the world is a closed oyster to her” (Gutierrez, 12/03/1999), and Alberto has numerously stated her fiery support for Third World Technocratic Revolution across several lectures in the Luanda State University and even before the Organisation for African Power (Alberto, 1999), makes that pretty clear.

Therefore, the purpose of this article is to elucidate, and hopefully, expand upon the understanding of our Argentine friends, by showing the various schools of thought that exist within Argentine politics and larger society. The thesis of the following article is simple: Argentina possesses a rather dizzying variation of ideological positions, while still staying within the sphere of liberal, capitalistic technocracy. There are, [several] divides that must be paid attention to in order to understand the schools of thought in Argentina.

Firstly, this is the one between internationalism and domestic affairs. Right off the bat, the reader must be cautioned that domestic affairs envelops the entirety of the South America – even the most conservative representatives believe that, at a very minimum, in the years to come, Brazil and the current Amazonas insurgency are Argentina’s problem alone, and no one else’s. (Carcano, 1995) Classic isolationism is seen with suspicion, and academics who dare to espouse it are derided as Eurasian order-worshippers. Internationalism here means the exportation of the Argentine Model abroad, whether peacefully or by military means, a line that has tradition stretching back to the Angolan War of Independence, and the infamous “¡No!” that was delivered to the local Portuguese authorities to the question whether the aid Argentina was offering would be for them. (Guillermo, 1988)

The next one is foreign investments versus domestic development. In other words: Should Argentina try to inernationalize its capital across the globe, becoming a player within the world market, and ergo, spread its ideology further by increasing its economic reach? While one may see overlap between the internationalism axe, it is important to note that this is rather inconsistent. For an example, Alissandra Alberto, after her lectures in Luanda State University was challenged to a public debate by the economics professor, Heinrich Anderson (Anderson-Alberto, ATV, 19/08/1999). But during the debate, Alberto defended the position of domestic development, while Anderson focused on foreign investment in various key Angolan infrastructure projects, without the need to engage in any subversive, or reason forbid, military actions. In the aftermath of all this, Argentine Diplomatic Service had to issue a public statement that the Hon. Alessandra Alberto was speaking as a private citizen, invited by a public institution to give a lecture, and not as a representative of the opinion of the Argentine government, owing to her ambassadorship. No doubt, however, that within the Diplomatic Services, many saw this with a perhaps impish, tongue-in-cheek attitude, as sympathies for Prof. Alberto aren’t lacking. Nor should domestic development necessarily means a lack of internationalist attitude. A quote may be useful here:

“To rule the world, you need an off-ramp, and Argentina is the finest off-ramp point that history has ever provided mankind since perhaps the English isles.” (Elisabeth, 1994)

Thirdly, that of the illuminationists and the reproductivists. The former states that scientific breakthroughs must be the focus of Argentina’s existence. Illuminating the path that the world will follow, but always one step behind. These are some of the brightest minds in Argentina today, and can be seen in the various research institutes. Reproductivists, on the other hand, astutely note that, no amount of scientific innovation would benefit a country wracked by revolution, invoking the spirit of the 70s communist insurgencies in the Argentine countryside; the only way to avoid that is by establishing a stable middle class that can resist any malignant right or left influence. Deans, lawyers and suchlike subscribe to this position.

Finally, centralism versus regionalism. An eternal part of South American politics since the Wars of Independence, not even the technocratic governance could break that canard. Legally speaking, centralism is the rule of the land, but it is such in the sense of a principle. Ideas do not, as the charming people in Buenos Aires University’s State-Political-Social institute would tell you, ever translate to a 1:1 execution; so sometimes it feels more accurate to speak of centralisms, each varying in their intensity. The centralists argue for a singular, straightforward direction with every constituent region of the Argentine state, one that is, rather chauvinistic in some respects, particularly when it comes to language enforcement in non-Hispanic parts of the country. Regionalism, on the contrary, is an inevitable development from that attitude, which is naturally prevalent amongst Chilean, Uruguayan, Brazilian and Bolivian scientists, who tend to agree with the technocratic mission of Argentina, but not in the siphoning of all resources towards it, stating that this is an irrational development.

These are a sample of the most hot-button issues amongst Argentine elites and masses these days, but perhaps, one simple way to understand the factions within Argentina is to ask the simple question of “What is technocracy?”. Now, there does exist a certain answer that you would get from majority of Argentinians, that echoes the preamble of the 1993 Constitution: “no elections, no classes, no parties, no communists, no politics.”, however, how exactly that goal is to be achieved is a different matter. One could very easily get into the weeds and write monograph upon monograph elaborating onto the varying schools of thought in Argentina. For the reader’s sake, in this opening part of this paper, we’ll first begin with the broad blocs, which can be generally identified. All names are somewhat informal and taken from the Argentine press.

  1. The Internal Stronghold: Should Argentina have developed otherwise, what we’d be dealing with would be similar to the British Conservatives or perhaps even the Indian National Progress Bloc; but, of course, that comparison would be resented by members of this group, particularly the one with the NPB. For starters, no one in the Internal Stronghold would’ve wanted an end to the Indian “Dictatorship” – liberal democracy, as a common truth amongst technocrats, is exactly why there is no end of problems in the world today. But these aren’t Argentina’s problems to solve, unless, of course, they’re in the domestic sphere of South America. A centralist, reproductivist and focused on domestic development faction, its members tend to remember the worst episodes of the Cold War – the insurgency, the several wars with Brazil, the Angolan Intercession. Some have even fought in it directly, and sometimes, it is faintly felt as if a lot of their statements come not from 1999, but 1974. Loyalty to the Argentine state & its continued existence are the last words. Deans of various universities, such as Alicia Carcano of the Applied Sociology University of Uruguay, or outspoken academics as Jeanne Gutierrez [whom we’ve quoted above briefly] and the fearsome peer review & plagiarism prosecutor, Jose Bilbao are among the luminaries of this faction. Many of these people tend to write exclusively in Spanish, despite likely knowing English very well, although, admittedly, the reader who wants to go into the depths of Argentine politics would be ill-served if he or she know only English.

  2. The Middle Spearpoint: No one likes the middle, whether you are on the “right” or on the “left” [which we must reiterate make fairly little sense in Argentina], but the fact is, apart from apocalyptic cults that sprang around the globe in the late 80s, and Al-Qaeda, no organisation nor state cannot function without these people. What unites them is mostly what they’re not. The heavy-handed desire for survival-at-any-cost from the Internal Stronghold is seen as undesirable. In this most blessed decade since the late 19th century trade and industrial boom, why should one limit themselves to merely surviving? This prosperity must be used to advance Argentina’s interests in the broadest sense, without, of course, losing track of the fact that Argentina is now a Great Power and must behave like it – and reap the benefits that come from that, naturally. The time has come to grow upwards, not to close off. This too has limitations. Consider the debate between the economist Gabrielle Larsson and historian Karl Pascual (Larsson-Pascual, ATV, 12/09/1999), where the latter’s statement that, “the great, golden basket of Shanghai is the future of Argentina and technocracy” led to something fairly unseen within the poker-faced Argentine intelligentsia: a momentary silence by Prof. Larsson as she tried to get her bearings back. Growth cannot come from fixee ideas. Economists, journalists working for ATV, a non-insignificant part of the Argentine intelligence services (allegedly, of course!), lower-ranking professors make some of the bulk, but this is a group that defies such precise definitions. People like Heinrich Anderson, moderate historians as Carlos Guillermo, and the current president of ATV, Hidalgo Moretti are in their statements, as close enough as one may get to a feel for what this faction believes.

  3. The Luminous Shockwave: There is a certain historical irony at play here. That one of the most far-sighted factions in Argentine politics would take its inspiration from the American neoliberalism, a fundamentally reactionary and preservative movement that sought to maintain U.S supremacy is quite something. But the so-called “shock doctrine” isn’t merely privatization or destruction of opposition to technocracy; it is a ‘cultural revolution’ of sorts, changing up the entirety of the social fabric. Very few nations, indeed, seem to pass the benchmarks that this faction sets for technocracy – if they’re to be believed, only Argentina and the Latin Union are real technocracies, while the rest of the technocratic states are merely oligarchies that don’t like elections and communists. One of their cause celebres were the outbursts by the diplomat, Pablo Lettiere, who said that the Omanian state was nothing but “a bunch of princes who are afraid to do what Arabia did”, which caused outrage, and no small amount of confusion – Arabia was in its current position due to Babylon, nothing more. Regardless, most members of the Luminous Shockwave push for further and further developments in science, quite rabid internationalism abroad, and capital expansion. They also tend to be rather egalitarian, in that special Argentine sense, that as long as you believe in true technocracy, aren’t a communist and want to advance towards its final goal, does it really matter if you are a Chilean, indigenous or non-white, a woman, or even – God forbid – homosexual or transsexual? Because, at the core of the Luminous Shockwave is a messianic idea that many internal critics have unfavorably compared with Marxism [and rumours abound that there are crypto-Marxists within their ranks – however, even if this is true, there are likely no Guevarists even within this alleged group] that Argentina is nothing but a vessel for something further and greater, a worldwide, peaceful revolution in every sphere of life. What it is tends to be vague. The current Chief Coordinating Officer of the Supreme Lodge, Laura Valdez is considered part of this faction, even if on the more moderate angle of it. Alessandra Alberto, mentioned above, is also counted in its membership, and so is Carlita Elisabeth. People working in research institutes, the more regional universities, and of course, those in the Patagonian centre, tend to make the bulk of this faction.
 
Treaty of Anatolian Recognition

1. The great state of Babylon offers the following settlement Turkish Assembly, with the Socialist Union of Plurinational States mediating until a deal is achieved:
i. Babylon recognizes the "Republic of Anatolia," lead by the Turkish Assembly;
ii. The Marmara and Aegean regions are recognized as the rightful territory of the Sublime Ottoman State, and the Union will not interfere with the Sultan returning from Manhattan;
iii. Bulgarian lands in the west are recognized as properly part of Yugoslavia;
iv. The Turkish Air Force, and its infrastructure, joins the Ottoman State;
v. Babylon and the Union will guarantee the independence of Anatolia, and allow them to construct extensive border defense structures.

2. Union will not provide covert or military aid to the Republic of Anatolia;

3. Should either Babylon or the Union violate any terms of this agreement, it is no longer binding.

Signed,
Minister of State Tariq Aziz von Schroeter
President Saddam Hussein
 
The Babylon-Turkey War and the above treaty deserve some public clarification for both this and future instances of PvP situations and negotiated settlements among the Great Powers over NPCs.

As I have discussed with @Belgarion95 and @Terran Empress, the way that a player-to-player deal over an NPC works is case by case and depends on the established fiction. As I have expressed to them, players can agree to anything they want with each other, but since Turkey is a staunchly independent NPC, Turkey will reject the treaty and continue fighting. Babylon can write in their orders that they are limiting the scope of their military operations to the terms of this treaty as a free action, and if the Rainbow Republic writes in their orders they are withdrawing from the Front (which is also a free action), then the effect of these two decisions will be to let Babylon accumulate Front Points and finish the Front in their favour, but the endstate will be narrowed down to the new terms that Babylon says they will enforce in their orders.
 
THE YEAR 2002

Fronts, Power Centres, Player Countries:
Year 2002 Stats



DEVELOPMENTS

An Assembly of Nations?
(Special Front): The threat of nuclear annihilation between the communist east and capitalist west was tempered during the Cold War through a small diplomatic club composed of the superpowers and their entourage: the Soviet-American Security Council (SASC). Although nowhere near as ambitious as proposals for a League of Nations or a World Court that were briefly in vogue during the 1920s and 1940s, the SASC had become the world’s best vehicle for military de-escalation before it disintegrated with the Autumn of Nations. In a world of escalating conflicts, institutional internationalism is fashionable again, with lawyers, diplomats, and academics across many countries promoting the idea of a global forum of nations that could vote on matters of war and peace and would be provisioned with the resources and authority necessary to enforce the will of the world’s sovereign states. Should the contemporary Great Powers participate and encourage the creation of some sort of assembly of nations, it might be capable of finally bending the arc of history toward peace and security.
Rules: Progress represents the creation of an effective international peace and security organization (i.e. a United Nations with teeth). The nature, makeup, focus, and authority of this organization are up to the founding players. The resources and strengths of this organization will be based on what Proficiencies players use to create it. For every Great Power that participates (i.e. spends 1 AP), the organization will possess 0.1 AP as part of a special Action pool. Players may put forward resolutions they wish to see enacted and if they pass (dependent on the players’ voting structure, e.g. one vote per country, one vote per Great Power, something else), the organization will pursue those goals, rolling against its own stats. Regress represents efforts to create an alternative global body or to frustrate and dispel the dreams of any global body of this nature. Only the winning side will get the bonus Action Point pool and resolution passing mechanics.
Rewards: The creation of an international peace and security organization with its own stat block that can accrue and spend Action Points on resolutions agreed to by its members.

Natural Disasters (Special Front): From earthquakes to hurricanes to volcanic eruptions, from the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs to the Dust Bowl, nature has exacted its capricious whims upon life on earth since time immemorial. Nonetheless, modernity has proved that some disasters are predictable, preventable, and manageable. Hurricanes once killed thousands as they flooded low-lying coastal settlements, but meteorologists can now provide advance warning so that people have time to evacuate, almost eliminating flooding deaths during hurricanes. Proper forest stewardship and firefighting can minimize fires and give people time to evacuate. Even more ambitiously, rocket scientists claim that with more investment they can detect life-threatening meteors and push them off their trajectory with earth, while academics in other fields are eager for funding of technological advances that might end the threat of numerous types of disasters. For now, many of these, from weather control to earthquake dispersion, remain in the realm of science fiction - but perhaps one day they will become reality.
Rules: This Front resolves by GM fiat when the entire player base has collectively developed technologies and worldwide disaster prevention/detection systems that the GM deems sufficient to end the curse of natural disasters; when this Front collapses the GM will roll a 1d20 against a table of natural disasters.
Rewards: None (avoiding bad things is the reward).

Global Reserve Currency (Super Worldwide Economy Front):
New Actions:
  • India: rolled 15, hard success. +1 FP for monetary efforts representing Progress
Global investors have taken note of a combination of fiscal and monetary policies in India this year that appear aimed at establishing the rupee as the world’s most stable and reliable currency for central banks and international trade. Indian oil imports from Babylon, Eurasia, and to a lesser extent East Asian Indonesia, already helped build up a central bank reserve of rupees in three of the world’s foremost economies. The Indian government further cemented this trend by constitutionally reinforcing the independence of their central bank, which has begun to lower interest rates, promised a 2% inflation target, and is helping make Indian securities easily accessible to foreign buyers. Buzz among economic elites is making India’s central bank the most prestigious in the world, attracting both India’s best economists, as well as some from the former United States and Great Britain. India's open long-term currency strategy has nonetheless created problems in the short-term. Firstly, politicians in oil rich countries whose central banks are India’s first currency foothold have started promoting the idea of a new OPEC that could give them bargaining power against oil dependent countries like India. Secondly, transnational criminals have already begun to ramp up rupee counterfeiting, especially in the illegal drug production hubs like the Amazon, Afghanistan, and the rainforest borders between Southeast Asian countries. Thirdly, a strong rupee will ultimately make the cost of labour and goods made in India more expensive, which some forward-looking Indian companies have taken as their cue to begin planning industrial investments abroad in markets where labour will remain cheap.
Changes:
  • new Front: Petropolitics (see below)
  • new World Fact: criminals in the world’s three drug production hubs are ramping up rupee counterfeiting
  • new World Fact: Indian companies are planning to shift industrial investments abroad to low-wage labour markets
  • new World Fact: the Indian central bank is constitutionally protected from political interference
Trajectory: Years of effective monetary policy and a good reputation will position India's rupee as the global reserve currency in less than a decade (2009).
Spoiler 2000 :
Global Reserve Currency (Worldwide Super Economy Front): The collapse of the American dollar and the instability in post-Soviet Europe contributed to the 1990s currency crises, particularly the European financial crisis of 1994 and the Latin American financial crisis of 1997. Although the Pound Sterling is the most used, central banks rarely hold more than 20% in that or any other currency, conferring only a minor economic and political benefit to Great Britain. Should a currency emerge as the primary tender in international trade and central bank reserves, the currency’s issuer would benefit mightily.
Rules: best roller is Progress, second best is Regress; another entrant replaces the Regress if they roll higher but lose any points accrued by that side; collapse is recurring
Rewards: winner establishes their national currency as the global reserve currency, giving them World Facts that allow them to more easily sanction entities, run higher trade deficits, and prevent currency crises

Petropolitics (Super Worldwide Economy Front): Born in Baghdad, OPEC died in Baghdad. The era of co-operation between oil producers that helped them control the price of oil and use it to threaten oil dependent countries ended dramatically when Saddam Hussein made the decision to simply annex the oil rich regions of OPEC’s Middle Eastern members. The oil cartel was abandoned in the 1980s but since the double-collapse and the stabilization of a multipolar world order, politicians in oil rich countries like Babylon and Eurasia have begun to promote the idea of a new OPEC for a new era. These politicians point out that if just the top six oil producing countries were to band together (Babylon, Eurasia, Colombia, Scandinavia, and Buffalo-Caribou), they would command more than half of the entire world’s oil output, allowing them to control the price of oil, or even threaten or actually enact oil embargoes to get their way against governments that depend on energy imports.
Rules: Progress represents the creation of an international oil cartel. The nature and makeup of this organization are up to the founding players. For every Great Power that participates (i.e. spends 1 AP), the organization will possess 0.1 AP as part of a special Action pool. Whenever the organization accrues 1 AP, it can enact a petroleum trade-related action that the participating players agree to by the organizations decision mechanisms (voting, rotating leadership, etc.). This can be used to allow players to carry out multi-state actions without each having to individually spend AP to carry it out (e.g. instead of 3 players spending 1 AP each to “hike the price of oil” or “enact an oil embargo against x country”, the oil cartel spends 1 AP and all the players’ relevant agents act on that 1 AP expenditure). Regress represents efforts to crush the creation of an international oil cartel and/or to create an international energy market that cannot be unduly influenced by any one state.
Rewards: The creation of an international oil cartel, or the frustration of such a cartel and the establishment of a global apolitical free market for oil.

Islamism & Jihadism (Super Worldwide Social Control/Espionage Front):
New Actions:
  • Argentina: rolled 5, failure. -1 FP for social science efforts representing Regress
The bizarre story of two Argentine academics arrested while visiting Babylonian Egypt helped journalists uncover a seemingly innocuous Argentine charm offensive carried out across the Islamic world this year. The pair were allegedly on sabbatical and visiting friends at Cairo University, but were arrested by police who rounded up a dozen other instructors and students, some with confirmed links to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Argentinians, it turns out, were indeed academics, but were also under orders from the Argentine state to persuade Islamic scholars of a synthetic Islamic-technocratic model of social theory. Although Babylonian intelligence was on high alert for Islamists this year in unrelated events, the academics were also just plainly untrained in the art of international intrigue. From the moment they landed at the airport the academics aroused suspicions with the Babylonian secret police who tapped their calls, followed them to their meeting, arrested them and their co-conspirators, and interrogated out the details of the wider plot. The academics were extradited back to Argentina, but only after a spate of arrests on campuses across Babylon, Libya, Kush, and Persia. Though barely denting the wider Islamist movement, the potential technocratic turn has been pretty well snuffed out. The ivory tower overtures are believed to have failed more or less anywhere they went even outside the neo-traditionalist regimes, with local professors showing disdain at Argentine Catholics and atheists bringing in ideas that were seen as too religious (Afghanistan), not religious enough (Bengal), or just antithetical to pre-existing ideological ethos of the academic and student bodies (Oman).
Changes:
  • new World Fact: the great majority of technocratic Islamic thinkers are imprisoned in Babylon, Libya, Kush, and Persia
Trajectory: Technocratic Islamist ideas will wither away while their believers rot in jails; other strains of moderate Islam takeover in their stead, making technocratic Islam a historic footnote in less than a decade (2009). Argentina will receive 1 XP for failing this Front.
Spoiler 2000 :
Islamism & Jihadism (Super Worldwide Social Control/Espionage Front): Despite decades of Babylonian and American suppression, most prominently with the smothering of the Islamic Republic of Iran in its cradle, political Islam continues to be a powerful undercurrent throughout the Islamic world. This undercurrent is fluid and in desperate need of a major role model to decide its fate in the early twenty-first century. The two current pulls across the Islamic world are those between the moderates of Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Islamic Congress of East Asian Indonesia, and the fanatics like al-Qaeda and the Bengali Islamic faction. Moreover a niche technocratic angle on Islam as a religion of science has taken hold among guerrillas in northern Nigeria. Should a decisively religious Islamic society emerge in world affairs, whether in Bengal, Egypt, Indonesia or elsewhere, it could serve as a role model to determine the future character of Islamic activities.
Rules: Regress represents efforts to eliminate moderate Islamic Republicanism and bolster/harness fanatical Islamism, Progress represents the bolstering of moderate Islamic Republicanism and crushing of fanatical Islamism; collapse is recurring
Rewards: consolidation of global Islamic politics around an ideologically preferred axis
Related Fronts: Indian Tensions

Merchants of Death (Super Europe Espionage Front):
New Actions:
  • Eurasia: rolled 18, soft success. +1 FP for anti-corruption activities
Corruption in Eurasian armouries and the Soviet Civil War helped make Eurasia the involuntary exporter of most of Europe’s black market guns by the end of the 1990s. These illegal armament flows create chaos at a time when the world desperately needs more order, or so say the various regional strongmen who have coordinated administrative resources towards a “war on guns.” The main vehicle for this push is an anti-corruption drive in the military, among the arms makers, and the national armouries, an effort which dramatically revealed the depths of corruption and links to the Russian mafia (Bratva) in these sectors of Eurasian society when state agents were found dead in their hotel rooms shortly after firing corrupt officials in one munitions depot in southwestern Ukraine. This was just the beginning of a criminal backlash against Eurasian agents, who nowadays wear body armour and travel with law enforcement, as the year was punctuated with random shootings, attempted assassinations, and even in one instance the sudden explosion of a munitions depot due to sabotage. Eurasian agents, apparently some of the most capable in Europe, are undeterred, and have even expanded the war on guns to co-operative anti-corruption and law enforcement in Babylonian occupied Marmara, Greece, and to a lesser extent, Zapadoslavia, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Although volatile, anti-arms trafficking efforts are expected to eliminate gun-running out of Eurasia and establish effective data tracking for other European states with an interest in stopping the flow of arms.
Changes:
  • new World Fact: criminal organizations are assassinating Eurasian anti-corruption agents
Trajectory: Eurasia will mostly eliminate the European illegal arms trade in a few years (2007), after which criminal violence against Eurasian state agents will subside. This will also balance the flow of arms favourably for the suffocating French ultranationalists, and negative Front Points will stop accruing to that Front at that time.
Spoiler 2000 :
Merchants of Death (Europe Regional Espionage Front): The demise of communism and the post–Soviet civil war in Western Europe have together created a black market of military hardware dealers, like “Sanctions Busters” Viktor Bout and Karlheinz Schreiber, who are nimble in moving arms over borders and disappearing state stockpiles. The situation promotes corruption in Eurasia and across Europe, and to a lesser extent in north India and the former United States, while providing a steady stream of arms to any regime or rebellion willing to pay, regardless of ideology.
Rules: Progress on this would make illicit arms trading much harder, Regress would harness this arms trade for the evil ends of whichever country rolls highest to do that
Rewards: if harnessed, your very own Merchants of Death cabal as a Power Centre worth 0.4 Warfare and 0.8 Espionage, and 0.1 AP

Soviet Civil War (Super Europe Espionage Front):
Trajectory: The British blockade will continue to indirectly help other factions of the Soviet Civil War grind out the French ultranationalists until 2007, when the flow of arms will dry up for everyone in the civil war due to Eurasian anti-arms trafficking efforts. The terminal point of the conflict will then be the collapse and balkanization of all factions and finally a recognition of the end of hostilities in the distant future (2020).
Spoiler 2001 :
Soviet Civil War (Super Western Europe Warfare Front):
New Actions:
  • Eurasia: rolled 10, failure. -1 FP for arms smuggling representing Progress
The colossal quagmire across Western Europe saw a serious escalation this year. Great Britain, having remained merrily neutral about a continental conflict in which no side threatened to become a hegemonic power, spotted increased activity among airliners and cargo ships originating from Eurasia. After months of quiet observation, the Royal Navy abruptly seized a Eurasian vessel in summer and claimed to the world they had discovered guns, munitions, as well as chemical and radiological weapons hidden among grain and other foodstuffs. With their majority in parliament, the Tories have approved an indefinite military blockade of European coastal regions controlled by the French ultranationalist faction of the Soviet Civil War.
Changes:
  • rules note: the negative Eurasian FPs do not benefit any particular faction, they merely hurt the French faction; i.e. the net negative points accumulated will not benefit another power taking up a different faction, they are just there as a reminder the French faction is dying, which I’ll keep track of somewhere else should another power step in before that actually occurs
  • new World Fact: Great Britain is enforcing a military blockade against ultranationalist France
Trajectory: The British blockade will choke the French ultranationalists of war materiel and ultimately grind them into dust over the course of a long painful decade (2010). Eurasia will gain 1 XP for losing the contest.
Spoiler 2000 :
Soviet Civil War (Super Western Europe Warfare Front): In August 1991, members of the Soviet Ministry of the Interior, secret service, and military came together and relieved their reformist leader of his position. The instantaneous and widespread public backlash was met with martial law and a breakdown of civil order across western Europe, where the hardliners still held substantial control of the military and organs of government. Since then, the Soviet Civil War has raged on across the three core territories of the former union: France, Germany, and Italy. The battle lines have hardened over the past decade of conflict and global economic turmoil, but with the return of Great Power competition, this increasingly stagnant conflict could restart should the status quo be disturbed. (see NPC description for West Europe for factions of this civil war)
Rules: best two rolling players will promote the military expansion of their chosen faction, eliminating other factions with no backer or worse rolls; if a hegemon emerges, a new player may be invited to the game to play them
Rewards: unification of West Europe under your preferred ideology

Wonder Drugs (Super Worldwide Science Front):
New Actions:
  • East Asia: rolled 13, hard success. +1 FP for pharmaceutical research
The East Asian economic miracle of the late 1980s and 1990s is often attributed to Takayoshi Suzuki’s National Champion system, a suite of market reforms that created several large and internationally competitive semi-private corporations. One of these National Champions is Takeda Pharmaceutical, which received an enormous investment from the government this year. The terms of the deal aren’t precisely known, but Takeda released information in its annual report promising an ambitious plan to establish itself as the world leader in pharmaceuticals. The report outlined several short-term drug projects with commercial potential, including an anti-arthritic injection exiting clinical trials, to new marketing techniques for painkillers and antidepressants, to an erectile dysfunction medicine whose research was bought with the help of New England immigrants attracted by East Asia’s scientific poaching policy. After satisfying investors, the report further went on to try to satisfy the government, declaring Takeda’s long-term intention to develop hitherto unheard-of vaccines for malaria and HIV/AIDS. The expanded vision of Takeda however was matched almost immediately a round of state and private investment in Takeda’s numerous rival firms in China, which have historically ignored East Asia’s patents and created their own counterfeit or reverse-engineered drugs, undercutting East Asia’s international pharmaceutical sales. Moreover, hardliners critical of the National Champion system are already accusing Takeda’s painkiller and antidepressant marketing as corrupting doctors, causing addiction, and driving society to medicate its problems rather than solve them naturally and socialistically.
Changes:
  • new World Fact: opioid and antidepressant sales in East Asia, especially Japan and Korea, are increasingly every year
  • new World Fact: Chinese pharmaceutical companies are undercutting East Asian sales by ignoring patents and counterfeiting and duplicating East Asian drugs
Trajectory: East Asia will establish its pharmaceutical industry as the best in the world by the end of this decade (2011), creating an economic Power Centre in Japan centred around Takeda Pharmaceutical. East Asia will also create World Facts related to the first vaccines for malaria and HIV/AIDS.

Sahara Conflict (Regional Maghreb-Libya Warfare Front):
New Actions:
  • Babylon: rolled 16, soft success. +1 FP for intrigue against Saharan rebels
The cold conflict spanning the southern regions of Maghreb and Libya restarted in fits this year, with the recognized governments running short, targeted offensives against individual Tuareg and fundamentalist groups. Although the details are clouded in the fog of war, analysts believe that the attacks were timed to coincide with the fracturing of the rebels under a Babylonian negotiation and assassination campaign. Although the Maghrebi Tuaregs were defiant, Babylon was able to break off some Toubou nationalists out of the Islamist fighters in southern Libya, creating room for Libyan forces to move in against the disfavoured fundamentalists such as Ansar al-Sharia. Though it is unclear what promises were made, the Toubou fighters have not put down their arms or surrendered to Gaddafi’s government, and have declared their wish to re-create the ancient Saharan civilization of the Garamantes. Meanwhile Maghrebi forces appear on a path to victory against their insurrection that Babylon boosted without itself gaining any allies among the Tuaregs.
Changes:
  • new World Fact: Toubou nationalists in Libya have struck ambiguous deals of support with Babylon that don’t involve surrender or cooperation with Gaddafi
  • this Front’s target number is lowered from 6 to 4
Trajectory: Libyan and Maghrebi forces will crush the Tuareg and Islamist rebels over the course of a slow but easy few years (2005). The new Libyan opposition will be Toubou neo-traditional nationalists.
Spoiler 2000 :
Sahara Conflict (Regional Maghreb-Libya Warfare Front): Due to drought-induced famines of the 1980s throughout the Sahel and resentment against secular authorities, Tuareg and Islamist guerrillas started waging a low-grade conflict over the interior of northern Africa. Algerian and Libyan armed forces have had a hard time projecting power deep into their interiors, but the Tuareg and Islamist fighters have yet to receive support from an outside power that could shift this status quo.
Rules: Progress represents Islamist or Tuareg takeover of the entirety of the interior of Algeria and Libya in a new state, Regress represents efforts to crush their rebellion
Rewards: elimination of oppositions to Algeria and Libya as well as undermining of fanatic Islamism, or establishment of an entrenched new NPC in the interior of the Sahara
Related Fronts: Islamism & Jihadism

Caribbean Resistance (Regional Caribbean Espionage Front):
New Actions:
  • Union of States: rolled 14, hard success. +1 FP for Caribbean resistance support
American apartheid never ended in the South, which incorporated the occupation forces of Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico in 1991. Movements for revolution and independence were regularly crushed by American invasions throughout the twentieth century which left behind only the toughest terrorists and the softest civil rights groups, the latter of which eschewed violence throughout 1990s. This strategy has made their cause massively popular, but totally failed to impress the white supremacist leadership of the Southern Republic, who continue a policy of brutal violence against dissidence in these three neo-colonies. This decades-old routine was upended this year when occupation forces, used to brutalizing peaceful demonstrators without incident, were surprised by gunmen in the crowd of a Havana protest. The ensuing massacre created a pile of at least one hundred bodies, some of which were later identified as members of the Black Panthers in the Union of States. The Havana massacre sparked a wave of armed protests across Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico, while hard-left terror organizations like the Los Macheteros have claimed bombing attacks against radio stations and other infrastructure. The mild demands for civil liberties have also been replaced by agitators with calls for full independence. The Southern Republic’s leadership has used the violence to fan the flames of racial animosity and paranoia against the Union of States, whom they immediately blamed for the unrest. The South further asserted, without evidence, that the Union of States was trying to sway poor whites to communism and had crossed the border into Appalachia to carry out terror attacks. Combined with jingoistic rallies opposing Caribbean independence and the Union of States, the widespread propaganda effort has blocked out alternative viewpoints from the white population of the South and anti-Union narratives have even energized white supremacist and evangelical groups in the Union of States itself. By the end of the year, the violent Southern response to the armed protests is already spiralling out of control, and should this continue for too long, a truly enormous wave of resistance like nothing the South has ever seen before may overwhelm their forces and compel them to withdraw.
Changes:
  • new World Fact: Southern whites (whether Appalachian or Dixie) are being whipped into an anti-Rainbow Republic jingoistic frenzy
  • the Union of States stress “forces of reaction” adds 4 Collapse Points
Trajectory: Mass protests will reach a crescendo so enormous that Southern occupation forces will have no choice but to withdraw in a matter of years (2005). This will create a loose federation of Caribbean states as a new NPC and a Power Centre out of veteran resistors influenced by the Union of States.

Babylon-Turkey War (Regional Turkey Warfare Front):
New Actions:
  • Union of States: voluntarily withdraws (free action)
  • Babylon: substantially narrows war goals (free action)
Saddam Hussein graciously delivered a much less ambitious peace package to the Turkish government this year, which was swiftly rejected with patriotic calls to continue to fight. The terms of the deal would see the Bosporus and Dardanelles region alongside most of Aegean Turkey ceded to a neo-Ottoman breakaway state, with Babylonian troops withdrawing from the rest of the country, and a minor cession to Yugoslavia. Although the Turks continue to fight, Rainbow Republic arms shipments quietly petered out over the course of spring, which has allowed Babylon to start making slow progress toward their war goals, which will put them in a position to simply declare “mission accomplished” by the end of next year.
Trajectory: Babylon will seize the Marmara and Aegean regions of Turkey and the Turkish-DEP government will accept the peace terms, creating a new NPC in neo-Ottoman western Turkey within a couple years (2003). The Turkish Air Force’s proficiencies will be divided in half and assigned to neo-Ottoman Turkey (under Babylonian influence), representing officer defections, equipment captures, and neo-Ottoman experience from war, while DEP Turkey will receive a World Fact related to their air force, and will also rename and restructure itself.
Spoiler 2001 :
Babylon-Turkey War (Regional Turkey Warfare Front):
New Actions:
  • Babylon: rolled 15, hard success. +1 FP for the invasion of Turkey representing Progress
  • Union of States: rolled 14, hard success. +1 FP for arms shipments representing Regress
In a decisive 24 hours, as Babylon’s Mediterranean Fleet reached the Bosporus, the Turkish neo-Ottoman officers attempted a coup in Ankara and Istanbul against the left-wing Kurdish-Armenian-led Democracy and Labour Party (DEP). The coup was supported by Babylonian missile strikes but met unexpected resistance from a large contingent of the republican-conservative Turkish military, which sided with the DEP due at least in-part to what was later discovered to have been secret signals of support from the Union of States in the days preceding the Babylonian move on the Bosporus. The illusion of a quick victory was dispelled within hours as Babylonian and Turkish forces squared off outside the Dardanelles and over Anatolian skies. Suddenly afraid the neo-Ottomans would fail to secure Turkey’s small nuclear arsenal, Babylon struck out with missiles all over the country in the desperate and barely successful effort to knockout Turkey’s nukes that came at the great cost of activating a vast patriotic upswell from the Turkish people in support of the DEP. Over the following week, the pro-Babylon neo-Ottoman officers secured Istanbul and its surroundings, saw a wave of defections from the Turkish military to their cause, and declared the recreation of the Sublime Ottoman State, which is being run as a military junta while they petition the childless Ertuğrul Osman, head of the Osmanoğlu dynasty, to return to Turkey from his quaint apartment in Manhattan. Backed by the anti-Babylon portion of the Turkish military as well as arms shipments from the Union of States via Yugoslavia and the Mediterranean, the DEP rallied Turks, Kurds, and Armenians alike with calls to defeat the invader and defend their multinational republic. Over the rest of the year, Babylon executed a full-scale war, routing the Turkish navy, securing the Bosporus, accepting the surrender of numerous defecting Turkish units, and making gains across south-central Turkey, but failing to achieve air supremacy against the veteran Turkish Air Force, and stalling on all fronts due to well supplied and armed enemy forces. The Babylonians also made zero headway past the mountains of eastern Turkey where Kurdish and Armenian guerrillas are preparing for yet another long insurgency should the west fall. The provision of American arms is tenuous, relying thus far on the difficulty of distinguishing between non-military and military vessels, and the occupation of the Babylonian navy in fighting the Turkish navy and supporting a complex invasion of the Bosporus. Moreover, the Rainbow Republic’s “Arsenal of Liberation” is finite and will eventually deplete to levels that would put them in jeopardy should another conflict arise. Neighbouring governments have issued a mix of responses. Ultranationalist Greece has been unusually muted given their oft-stated territorial demands against Turkey, perhaps waiting on a Great Power to promise them something, Yugoslavia is openly accepting a wave of Turkish refugees and letting American arms freely flow through its borders, while Great Britain has issued a strongly worded letter condemning the Babylonian invasion and reminding Babylon that they will defend the Commonwealth realms of Cyprus and Rhodes if provoked.
Changes:
  • defunct World Fact: Turkey has a few nuclear missiles
  • new World Fact: the Turkish people are hostile toward Babylonian invaders and are patriotically mobilized in support of the DEP
  • new World Fact: the armed forces of Turkey have splintered between neo-Ottomans and republicans who fight on opposite sides of the Babylon-Turkey War
  • new World Fact: Kurdish and Armenian guerrillas control eastern Turkey and are preparing to fight an asymmetric conflict
  • new World Fact: the Babylon-Turkey War has created a wave of Turkish refugees, which are largely leaving to Yugoslavia, where they are openly accepting them
  • new World Fact: the Union of States is provisioning the Turkish armed forces via tenuous supply routes over the Mediterranean and Yugoslavia
Trajectory: Babylon’s advance is stalled, with thousands of soldiers dying. Meanwhile the Rainbow Republic’s stockpile of arms is depleting. Since both sides are equally matched in Front Point generation (+1 for both sides), the trajectory of this Front is collapse. The Rainbow Republic will run out of war materiel (leaving it extremely vulnerable for a few years after that point) and Babylon’s will be understaffed from casualties and demoralized (leaving it extremely vulnerable for a few years as well) after less than a decade of fruitless conflict (2008). Babylon will keep what it currently has achieved (including a puppet government over the Bosporus), Turkey will be economically ruined, the Turkish Air Force Power Centre will remain independent, and the left-wing DEP will remain the government of Turkey. Both Babylon and the Union of States will gain 1 XP for mutually losing this contest to collapse when it does so.

OLD NEWS

Spoiler Military-Industrial Complex :
Spoiler 2001 :
Military-Industrial Complex (North America Super Economy Front):
New Actions:
  • India: rolled 21, full success. +2 FP for integration efforts representing Progress
  • East Asia: rolled 16, soft success. +1 FP for poaching efforts representing Regress
Both India and East Asia this year attempted to save the old American arms industry from rusting away. Indian companies and economic elite rallied resources toward the re-integration of each constituent of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC). The Indian government and Indian arms manufacturers placed a flood of new orders to restart production in California, Utah, Texas, the Southern Republic, and New England, creating new business partnerships and bringing in investment. Initially skeptical, these ex-American states were relieved and impressed to see that the Indian strategy involved boosting their own economies, easing both anti-democratic and, in the Southern Republic’s case, racist attitudes toward the Indian overtures. The robust effort has put people back to work at Textron, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and many other firms. Indian businesses found some stiff competition from East Asian universities, the Nissan Group, and the most integral core of the East Asian state itself, the Socialist Association of Science and Technology, which seized on the weak pay, job insecurity, and general malaise in the American arms industry to poach engineers and scientists out of North America to noticeably more lucrative opportunities in East Asia. The academic poaching campaign faced a number of obstacles, from the lack of Japanese or any other East Asian language proficiency among potential targets, to the sizable ideological gulf between average MIC workers and the state ideology of East Asia. These were overcome, at least for the time being, firstly by promises of high salaries and interesting, cutting edge work. These salaries, it turns out, had to be well above the normal distribution for East Asia in-order to beat North American standards and to a lesser extent Indian offers. Moreover, interesting cutting-edge positions have put Americans in important and desired research jobs. These two policies have created resentment among domestic East Asian scientists and engineers who covet the higher pay and have had to watch Americans take spots on the next rung of the career ladder. These tensions are further exacerbated by the MIC workers and scientists stubbornly refusing to integrate, whether that be learning an East Asian language or respecting the socialist society’s norms (and sometimes laws) against bad-mouthing East Asian industrial standards and its form of government.

Changes:
  • new World Fact: American MIC workers are frustrating East Asia-born colleagues due to their comparatively high pay, prestigious placement, unwillingness to integrate, and anti-government speech
  • new World Fact: the economies of California, Utah, Texas, the Southern Republic, and New England are getting a growth boost from Indian arms orders and MIC integration
Trajectory: India will fully revitalize and integrate the Military-Industrial Complex of the former United States into its own arms industry in less than a decade (2008) creating a new Power Centre spread between India and the ex-American states, East Asia will have poached a notable cohort of aerospace and armaments engineers in that time (World Fact) and gain 1 XP for losing the contest.

Spoiler 2000 :
Military-Industrial Complex (North America Super Economy Front): The breakup of the United States left the military-industrial complex in shambles. Spread out over numerous states, the great American arms production supply chain was disconnected from each other throughout the 1990s, and being essentially right-wing in character, arms makers moved as much as possible out of the Rainbow Republic in that decade. Although a substantial portion of the human and physical capital ended up in Texas (Lockheed Martin, Textron, Boeing, General Dynamics), critical elements of the this system remain in California (where naval production is centred), the Southern Republic (where military software for jets and missiles was developed), and New England (where MIT pioneered new military technologies), not to mention supply chain components made in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. If left to waste away, these assets will be reconstituted into domestic supply chains much weaker than the sum of the system.
Rules: the top two rolling countries will be Progress and Regress in a contest to reconstitute the American Military-Industrial Complex as part of their own arms supply chain; collapse will either partition the system or create domestic supply chains that are weaker than the sum of the whole
Rewards: your very own Military-Industrial Complex as a Power Centre worth 0.8 Warfare and 0.8 Economy, and 0.2 AP

Spoiler Second Dot Com Boom :
Spoiler 2001 :
Second Dot Com Boom (Super Worldwide Science/Economy Front):
New Actions:
  • Argentina: 18, soft success. +1 FP for entrepreneur immigration efforts representing Progress
The internet has had a rough first decade, limited largely to academics and wealthier people in cities next to a tech hub. Moreover the greatest place of IT innovation, Silicon Valley, suffers from its erratic dictator, who swings wildly from pro-business free market fanaticism to authoritarian anti-communist paranoia and censorship, the latter of which puts a chilling effect on businesses that don’t know what will or won’t be banned. This year Argentina extended a hand to the beleaguered founders languishing in California, poaching them to labs, universities, and companies around Buenos Aires. Many of these Californians switched out of their initial job offers at established Argentine companies and universities a few months after arrival to make independent startups in Buenos Aires, often co-founding with locals. Already they have created burgeoning contenders for the world’s best browser, the Silver Lance, and search engine, Microscopio. The unorthodox west coast culture of these immigrants has imbued the dot com boom in Argentina with their penchant for aggressively exploiting legal loopholes or legal grey areas to “disrupt” stable industries, create internet monopolies, avoid taxes, avoid regulations, avoid unionization, avoid respecting intellectual property, and generally continue the steady rise of income inequality. Moreover, the success in software has not been replicated by Argentine firms in the expansion of broadband, with the Spanish company Telefónica dominating the broadband revolution across Argentina and in other parts of the Spanish speaking world.
Changes:
  • new World Fact: immigrant American tech entrepreneurs are creating legally grey internet businesses that promote inequality
  • new World Fact: Argentine broadband and internet infrastructure depends on the Spanish telecom company Telefónica
Trajectory: Argentina will develop a globally unparalleled tech hub with Silicon Valley cultural quirks over the course of the next half decade (2006) creating a new Power Centre in Buenos Aires

Spoiler 2000 :
Second Dot Com Boom (Super Worldwide Science/Economy Front): The internet began in 1982 but adoption was limited to academics until the advent of the World Wide Web between 1989 and 1993. Fallout from the collapse of both superpowers blunted mass adoption of the internet. Although academics, universities, and laboratories continued to develop browsers, servers, and HTML, the American businesses at the forefront of computer technology spent the 1990s relocating to New England, Texas, and California and scrounging for capital in a recessionary environment. A clunky but technically open internet is in desperate need of user-friendly browsers, search engines, faster replacement for dial-up internet, and all manner of software services. The race to replace Silicon Valley is on.
Rules: best roller is Progress, second best is Regress; another entrant replaces the Regress if they roll higher but lose any points accrued by that side
Rewards: winner receives wins a first round of internet startups (browsers, search, broadband) as a Power Centre worth 1.6 Science points and 0.1 AP

Spoiler War of Ideas :
War of Ideas (Special Front): As Francis Fukuyama wrote in his 1992 book, The Beginning of History and the First Man, the morally bankrupt platforms of the Cold War era United States and Soviet Union have been swept away, replaced by a host of more convincing alternative systems of governance. Between Argentine technocracy, the American new left, Indian liberal democracy, East Asian environmentalism, Eurasian pan-nationalism, and Babylonian neo-traditionalism, the war of ideas rages on. This ideological multipolarity is untenable in a globalizing world, and one belief system will emerge as a frontrunner for revolutionary change as each of these regimes is scored by the audience of the world in the coming decade.
Rules: this Front resolves by GM fiat when a) the entire world’s geopolitical situation appears to have clearly swung in the direction of one player’s ideology, and b) that player’s ideological activities have broadened its appeal of the ideology through visible deeds in such a way that it would inspire hundreds of millions of ordinary people
Rewards: a global wave of enthusiasm for your ideology that will last for a large part of the 2010s and will translate into a) at least one or two revolutions, b) one or two oppositions or governments converting to your ideology, and c) other logical narrative benefits from ideological momentum

Spoiler China's Warlords :
China’s Warlords (Super China Warfare Front): After the KMT took control of China half a century ago, the country returned to a state of decentralization and corruption over years of mismanagement. Today’s China is governed by numerous minor cliques and warlords that orbit four major factions, one in the east, north, south, and west of the country. Although there are no open clashes, since the 1990s the ideological splits have become so profound that a new conflict between the warlords could be sparked by any minor slight. If a truly unified and reinvigorated China were to emerge, it would rival the other Great Powers in the world. (see NPC description for China for factions of this decentralized society)
Rules: best two rolling players will promote the military expansion of their chosen faction, eliminating other factions with no backer or worse rolls; if a hegemon emerges, a new player may be invited to the game to play them
Rewards: unification of China under your preferred warlord

Spoiler Filibuster War :
Filibuster War (Regional Mexico Warfare Front): The United States military maintained a reactionary ideology in many of its divisions that was at odds with everything the Rainbow Republic stands for. This was true especially in American-occupied Mexico during the 1989-1991 collapse, when American forces defected from the United States and joined the local American puppet regime, bolstering it against a new wave of guerrilla activity in the north and south over the course of the 1990s. The conflict has been stale for a few years now, with no movement from any side, but interest from one of the Great Powers could push a final resolution to the conflict in a matter of years. (see NPC description for Mexico for factions of this civil war)
Rules: factions supported by the top two rolling players will be the sides that contest for victory, the other falling apart
Rewards: unification of Mexico under your preferred civil war faction

Spoiler Amazon Conflict :
Amazon Conflict (Super Brazil-Colombia-Peru Warfare Front): The war in the Amazon has gone on for decades. Once upon a time, communists were in-charge of Brazil, and then Peru, appearing to dominate the continent, until Argentina invaded and ousted the Brazilian communists and the Peruvians turned on themselves and forced their enemy leftists into the jungle where they began cultivating cocaine that they could sell for cash to buy guns. These formerly Guevarist communist have turned to Suzukianism as a unifying force across numerous groups, and as a means of cementing their ties to indigenous peoples of the Amazon river basin. The low-grade civil conflict stretches between Colombia, Brazil, and Peru, with no obvious end in sight.
Rules: Progress represents destruction of the guerrillas, Regress represents the guerrillas push out and takeover one of the three affected states, and entrench their position in the other two
Rewards: stabilization of the Colombia, Brazil, and Peru regimes, or the collapse of one of those regimes to Suzukian rebels
Related Fronts: The Drug Trade

Spoiler Kongo-Sudan Conflict :
Kongo-Sudan Conflict (Regional Kongo-Sudan Warfare Front): The interior of Africa between Kongo, Uganda, and Sudan has suffered numerous social breakdowns due to post-colonial ethnic conflicts, exacerbated by its isolation and the lucrative mines that dot the interior. Hardened by these conflicts, a Dominionist Christian militia movement emerged around a charismatic and unusually erudite soldier who, taking Ivory Coast, Angola, and Argentina, as well as the Lord thy God, as his inspirations, has rallied thousands of rebels into a sprawling insurgency between southern Sudan and eastern Kongo. Religious extremist groups have fought low-grade conflicts since the late 1980s, but only in the latter half of the 1990s did disparate insurgencies organize into a more unified rebellion of Domionist technocrat worshipping rebels. The bizarre ideological mixture makes some suspect the leader of the rebellion could be swayed to a wildly different ideology, should it be politically expedient.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to displace either the Sudanian or Kongolese government with Domionist rebels, Regress represents the crushing of the Domionist rebels
Rewards: the toppling of one or the other afflicted regimes or the destruction of their oppositions

Spoiler Blockbusters :
Blockbusters (Super Worldwide Social Control Front): If there was one front of the Cold War the United States dominated, it was entertainment. The Hollywood studio system, from big budget films to Walt Disney’s pioneering animation, delivered American-made pro-American media with gusto and panache to the entire world. The breakup of the United States and the dislocation of Hollywood under ever more repressive Reaganite censorship has left a gap in the international film and television market, as well as the markets for music and other forms of entertainment. In large part, people have turned to local film and television with smaller budgets, weaker production values, and relatively stagnant cinematography and storytelling. This leaves the market ripe for a Great Power to restore the golden age of international pop culture.
Rules: top two best rollers are Progress and Regress, new entrants replacing Regress and starting from zero; a close finish will split the pot between the two sides
Rewards: the creation of a Power Centre representing a major cultural export of your country (e.g. K-Pop, superhero movies, manga, etc.)

Spoiler The Land of Opportunity :
The Land of Opportunity (Super Worldwide Administration/Economy Front): Once upon a time the Land of Opportunity for the toiling masses of Europe was America, where anyone could get land and be free. Nearly a century of racist immigration restrictions in America, which were copied to lesser or greater extent in Canada, Australia, and Great Britain, forced migrants seeking a better life to other ports of call, though never enough in any one nation for any place to become the world’s foremost nation of immigrants. For millions of migrants, there is no obvious choice of where to go to better one’s socio-economic chances, but should any of the Great Powers become a beacon of economic opportunity, they could benefit greatly from the intelligence and grit the world’s immigrants have to offer.
Rules: top two best rollers are Progress and Regress, new entrants replacing Regress and starting from zero; a close finish will split the pot between the two sides; collapse is recurring
Rewards: the establishment of a Nation of Immigrants/Land of Opportunity World Fact that represents a huge pull of immigration to the winning Great Power

Spoiler The Drug Trade :
The Drug Trade (Super Worldwide Espionage/Social Control): The 1990s were a boom period for the international illicit drug trade centred on the world’s three big production hubs in Afghanistan-Persia, Southeast Asia, and inner Latin America. The vast majority of the world's opium is made by farmers in the Golden Crescent in Afghanistan, where the Khan government turns a blind eye to poppy cultivation. Heroin is largely produced with the tacit support of the Buddhist regime in Burma and corrupt KMT officers in lands saddling the rainforested borders of Thailand, Indochina, Burma, and southwest China. Meanwhile cocaine is cultivated by left-wing insurgents in the Amazon, Colombia, and Peru. The illicit drug trade promotes addiction in buyer countries and strengthens criminal networks along their supply routes, especially North America and Europe, though increasingly also to Argentina, India, and East Asia.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to clamp down on global drug trade operations, Regress represents harnessing these criminal forces to serve the interests of your state; collapse is recurring
Rewards: end of the drug trade (and resultant economic/political effects on other Fronts, regimes) or creation of a Drug Trafficking Power Centre worth 1.6 Espionage, 0.4 Social Control
Related Fronts: Amazon Conflict

Spoiler Indian Tensions :
Indian Tensions (Regional India-Hindustan-Bengal Espionage/Front): The breakup of North India has left furious unresolved problems on the subcontinent. The Hindustani People’s Republic based out of Delhi, with nuclear arms and the world’s largest army by soldier count, regularly taunts and threatens rhetoric about retaking Mumbai or invading Bengal. The Bengalis, for their part, do the same over their own territorial grievances. This makes the Indo-Bengali-Hindustani border one of the most militarized in the world, and a place where inevitably a miscalculated military decision will escalate the armed peace into a nuclear war. Such a crisis could emerge when the fractious and untenable coalition government of Islamists and ultra-nationalists in Bengal finally collapses into a dictatorship of one or the other, which is seen as a likely next event in the ongoing tense geopolitical situation.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to prevent war and reach a stable political settlement across India, while Regress represents efforts to stoke a conflict.
Rewards: peace or war on the subcontinent, also regime direction in Bengal

Spoiler Ethiopian Revanchism :
Ethiopian Revanchism (Regional Ethiopia Espionage Front): After a humiliating defeat at the hands of two liberal democracies in East Africa and India, the young king of Ethiopia is eager to prove his valour and reclaim lost glory. His propagandists make no effort to conceal their desire to ultimately invade East African Somalia, and a military build-up continues, though at a slow pace given Ethiopia’s rugged terrain, isolation from international markets, and lack of a domestic arms industry. Should a Great Power bridge these gaps between Ethiopia’s dreams and its present reality, the war path might be cleared for King Zera.
Rules: Progress represents a military-build up that would pose a serious threat to East Africa, Regress represents the frustration or prevention of war erupting over Somalia
Rewards: prevention or inauguration of a war led by Ethiopia against East African Somalia

Spoiler Greater Hungary :
Greater Hungary (Regional Hungary Espionage Front): In the state press of the Hungarian state, the lands of the Crown of St Stephen were wrongfully stripped from it in the aftermath of the Austro-Hungarian collapse, as well as the numerous border rectification treaties of the communist era. It is believed as well in the intelligence communities of most European countries that Hungarians are a major purchaser of illicit arms from dealers in Eurasia and Western Europe, which by themselves would put Hungary on a path to the military-buildup it would need to start a war, though slowly, and with which of its neighbours, it is unclear.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to build-up Hungary for a war with one of its neighbours (which is up to the player that causes the Progress to succeed), Regress represents efforts to prevent a war and establish a more lasting commitment to peace between Hungary and its neighbours
Rewards: war or stabilized peace with Hungary and its various claims, potentially also the alignment of Hungary’s military Power Centre
Related Fronts: Merchants of Death

Spoiler Arabian Nuclear Program :
Arabian Nuclear Program (Regional Arabia Espionage/Science Front): Ever since the Babylonian invasion of the Kingdom of Arabia, the Saudis have made it an open secret that they are looking for help to build the bomb. Tentative info sharing occurred between Arabia and North India in 1989, but this ceased as North India collapsed into two warring states. Arabia continues to put feelers out for assistance in building a nuclear program, but to date no Great Power has shown interest. The hermit king of Arabia rules absolutely, and could change the tune of his government perhaps a lot more easily than other regimes, should he get what he needs against the only thing he really cares about: protecting himself from Saddam Hussein.
Rules: Progress represents advances by Arabia to build a WMD arsenal, Regress represents efforts to permanently crush the possibility of such an arsenal forming
Rewards: the rapid ideological switch of Arabia to whoever helps them build a WMD program, or the elimination of a potentially threatening WMD program in Arabia

Spoiler Hawaiian Allegiance :
Hawaiian Allegiance (Regional Hawaii Administration/Espionage Front): Remaining inside the Rainbow Republic was never an option for the business-friendly Republicans governing Hawaii back in 1991, but independence for a small, strategically located nation like theirs is untenable without a patron among the Great Powers. Hawaii boasts one of the former United States’ best military ports and still harbours two of its aircraft carriers alongside a notable fleet and its experienced sailors and officers who defected to Hawaii. Although Australia has made diplomatic overtures to Hawaii, the local Republican Party sees them as a last resort and are hoping for another Great Power to guarantee their independence against interference in their affairs from either East Asian and Rainbow Republic, who’s sympathisers fill the ranks of opposition movements.
Rules: Progress represents swaying the Hawaiian regime into your sphere, Regress represents the advance of either Suzukian or Rainbow opposition groups, whichever rolls higher
Rewards: access to Hawaii as a naval port and the restitution of a Power Centre out of the Pacific Fleet worth 1.6 Warfare and 0.1 AP

Spoiler Untouchable Global Elite :
Untouchable Global Elite (Worldwide Super Social Control/Administration Front): In the shadows, moving from corporate board rooms to fancy estate to ski resorts, there have always been the Eloi, the haves, the untouchable elite whose wealth you don’t even see. They can enter countries without a passport, hide their true wealth behind numerous shell companies, and have powerful connections everywhere that matters. This globalized power class hails from every nationality and knows no borders, but should they see one of the Great Powers as serving their interests, they might be inclined to do them favours in-exchange.
Rules: best two rollers are sides Progress and Regress, replacing the losing side if they join in after two sides are established
Rewards: a geographically unlocated Power Centre representing the power elite and the wealthy 0.01% worth 0.1 AP, 0.8 Economy, 0.4 Espionage, 0.4 Social Control

Spoiler HIV/AIDS & Malaria :
HIV/AIDS & Malaria (Africa Super Science/Administration Front): Two diseases haunt Sub-Saharan Africa, one ancient and one modern. Malaria, spread by mosquitoes in equatorial climes, kills 800,000 people annually, while HIV/AIDS has pulled down societal life expectancy by 10-20 years in the most afflicted areas in East Africa, Azania, Mozambique, and Equatorial Africa. Although drugs have been developed to manage HIV/AIDS and cure malaria, they are not distributed widely in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Rules: Progress represents efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and malaria
Rewards: none (it’s just a nice thing to do)

Spoiler Warming Trend :
Warming Trend (Special Front): Since the late 1970s scientists identified the threat posed to the biosphere and humanity from greenhouse gas emissions in the form of global warming. Average surface temperature relative to the 1800s has risen by the turn of the millennium to 0.75° Celsius, with climate models warning of rising sea levels, longer droughts, more intense hurricanes, and other natural disasters. The economies of the world, through modern agriculture, manufacturing, energy production, transportation and other sources, emit 35 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide and other gases annually. The impacts of global warming will manifest throughout the decades ahead, and the solutions to this global problem will be numerous given its scope.
Rules: this Front resolves by GM fiat when the entire player base has collectively satisfied the GM with numerous energy transition and climate mitigation Fronts of their own diverse choosing; when this Front collapses it’s collapse timer starts again; collapse is recurring
Rewards: none (avoiding bad things is the reward)

Spoiler Novel Pandemics :
Novel Pandemics (Special Front): Vaccination campaigns, improved sanitation, and improved healthcare systems helped eliminate smallpox and mitigate numerous other diseases in the developed and developing world. Nonetheless, novel diseases emerge routinely, whether from isolated endemic diseases spread to the globalized world, or new diseases mutating and jumping from animals to humans. The threat of pandemics is ever-present, but only are they sufficiently dangerous to warrant global concern.
Rules: is Front resolves by GM fiat when the entire player base has collectively developed medical technologies, systems of pandemic response and mass vaccination that the GM deems sufficient to end the curse of pandemics; time this Front escalates the GM will roll a 1d10 against a table of diseases; escalations will always be structured so that the turn the escalation is announced, players can react preemptively; the next turn, if the pandemic escalates out of control, that particular pandemic will take the place of the Novel Pandemics Front until resolved
Rewards: none (avoiding bad things is the reward)


World-Building Request: The Flag

Show me your best take on your country's flag!

GM Notes

Orders are due Sunday June 5th 9:00 AM PST.

Mobilization deadlines are therefore:
  • Monday May 30th 9:00 AM PST (for a +4 bonus)
  • Tuesday May 31st 9:00 AM PST (for a +2 bonus)
  • Wednesday June 1st 9:00 AM PST (for a +1 bonus) - no mobilizations can be declared after this point (and therefore no wars can be engaged in)
 
India continues to condemn the deplorable situation in Anatolia. The artificial and bloody division of a united nation into two parts, a single people under two opposing governments, is a painful fate that we do not wish on anyone. We call for all sides to work towards a united Anatolia.

We applaud Eurasia's selfless actions to control the global arms trade.
 
Babylon condemns the academic princes of the Argentine for their foolish efforts to manipulate Islamic peoples into becoming effete technocrats. The Cult of Marduk is the only viable alternative to Islam. The time for foreign interference in the affairs of the middle east is dying, and it is Babylon that shall stomp on its neck.

The Omani Government and Gulf Forum are the last remaining den of Argentinian snakes remaining in the region. Omani merchants and rulers descend from Mesopotamia; Oman is kin. The corruption of their royal house by technocratic influence is intolerable. To this end, Babylon issues the following ultimatum to the Sultan of Oman, who may yet save his government from destruction:

1) Expel all Argentinian advisors, including all Omani leaders who do not publicly condemn technocratic government, and appoint officials who have been correctly educated at an appropriate Babylonian university;

2) Cooperate with Babylonian security forces to detain and question Argentinian agents that lurk within Oman.

Should the Sultan fail to address Babylonian concerns, the security situation will become intolerable and Babylon will be forced to mobilize for war with Oman.
 
The desire to usurp Omani self-determination. both of its government and its peoples, should concern any nation, especially after the abhorrent and irrational invasion of Turkey, who at the time possessed nuclear weapons. That Babylon would stop at nothing to expand aggressively in the name of its ideology must not be ignored. But there is more - what's behind the ideology is nothing more but the perverse desire to expand the control of Babylonian oil companies over the world supply of oil, so as to dominate over the economies of the world. This kind of economic blackmail must be opposed here and now.

Laura Valdez, Chief Coordinator
Esteban Carlos, Lead Diplomatic Officer
 
The desire to usurp Omani self-determination. both of its government and its peoples, should concern any nation, especially after the abhorrent and irrational invasion of Turkey, who at the time possessed nuclear weapons. That Babylon would stop at nothing to expand aggressively in the name of its ideology must not be ignored. But there is more - what's behind the ideology is nothing more but the perverse desire to expand the control of Babylonian oil companies over the world supply of oil, so as to dominate over the economies of the world. This kind of economic blackmail must be opposed here and now.

Laura Valdez, Chief Coordinator
Esteban Carlos, Lead Diplomatic Officer

East Asia seconds the concerns raised by Argentina. We unequivocally condemn Babylon for its attempts to undermine the will of the Omani people and we will stand with Argentina and the global community in opposition to these actions.
 
Should the Sultan fail to address Babylonian concerns, the security situation will become intolerable and Babylon will be forced to mobilize for war with Oman.

Alrighty your mobilization is locked in, conferring +4 to an attack against Oman.

This is a reminder that Babylon can back down from invading should they wish (e.g. other Great Powers convince them to do so), but the AP is still spent.

Mobilization deadlines for the Babylon-Oman standoff:
  • Tuesday May 31st 6:10 AM PST (for a +4 bonus)
  • Wednesday June 1st 6:10 AM PST (for a +2 bonus)
  • Thursday June 2nd 6:10 AM PST (for a +1 bonus) - no mobilizations can be declared after this point against/in direct support of Oman or Babylon
 
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The desire to usurp Omani self-determination. both of its government and its peoples, should concern any nation, especially after the abhorrent and irrational invasion of Turkey, who at the time possessed nuclear weapons. That Babylon would stop at nothing to expand aggressively in the name of its ideology must not be ignored. But there is more - what's behind the ideology is nothing more but the perverse desire to expand the control of Babylonian oil companies over the world supply of oil, so as to dominate over the economies of the world. This kind of economic blackmail must be opposed here and now.

India continues to condemn Babylon's warmongering and it stands with the global community.
 
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