DisNES II "A Twist of Fate"

[Harleqin]

OOC: Even if he wins he'll have angry, burning Buddhist monks burning down his Mosques! Oh noes, reverse suicide pyromania!

Yeah, and that "if" is a major if

To: Gujarat
From: Sinhala
We are sad to inform you that we have uncovered a plot against both of our nations. As you are no doubt aware we are locked in battle against the Ottoman Empire. Papers found in one of their command posts after a struggle has revealed their plans of securing a strong position on our subcontinent and then, using that as a base, eventually conquering all the lands here including yours. Whilst the threat to you might not materialise for a few years or ever if, or rather when, we are victorious, we do call upon you for aid. We would like to ask what you would need for an alliance against these foreign imperialists who threaten all of you. Together we can defeat them, but alone we will eventually all suffer if we leave them unopposed.
We call upon you to do what is right for both our nations and will, of course, compensate you for this. Should you be willing to fight without compensation we would be grateful and use the money for our forces instead.

 

[Harleqin]

"He did what?", Prince Vihay asked amazed.
"He killed our envoy and then related the words to the sultan... but changing them to make us sound like the aggressors. I have it from a reliable source at the Imperial Palace".
Prince Vihay shook his head sadly. "If only the Sultan knew of the betrayal, but how can we get to him? It does not bode well. If the Ottomans focus their full strenght on us we will be overrun. We need to get through to the Sultan somehow."
"Yes, my Prince, but I do not see how."
"Much as I abhor it, I see only one real way of doing it. We must despatch some pathfinders and see to it that this obstart advisor suffers an unfortunate accident."
"It will be difficult my lord. He is protected by guards at all times and security at the Imperial Palace is extremely high. Besides, they'll be expecting an assassination attempt."
Prince Vihay looked at his councillor with sadness in his eyes. "Aye, they will expect it, but we have to try anyway. Perhaps we could also get one pathfinder through to the Sultan bearing a personal message from me. We can't just let war engulf our lands like this. I will pen the note myself. "
"Very well, my Prince. Any news from the Maharaja of Gujarat yet?"
"None and truth be told I doubt they'll aid us. They should if they don't want to come under attack themselves in a few years, but the Maharaja might not see it that way. I hope for their aid, but I dare not count on it."
"Very good my Prince. If you'll excuse me I'll contact the captain of the pathfinders and tell them to ready their best men for this mission."
"You may go."

As the councillor left Prince Vihay alone his thoughts wandered to the task ahead. Sending in pathfinders were most likely a suicide mission, but still he had to try. It was clear to him that the Sultan had been misled and if things could get cleared up, then perhaps it was still not too late for peace. Even so, necessity called for preparations to be made. Preparations for the worst possible outcome. Reports from his commanders estimated roughly 25 Ottoman divisions in the area along with most of their fleet leaving his army seriously weakened. Further reports indicate massive recruitment done by the Ottomans which could leave them facing up to 40 enemy divisions or roughly four times their own number. The key, he knew, would be the sea. Whilst the Ottoman fleet also outnumbered his own, his sailors did have intimate knowledge of the waters here and he doubted the enemy would despatch their entire fleet as it would leave them vulnerable at home.
Pearing over the map he examined the sea between the Ottomans and Sinhala. A vast place. Looking over the map his finger hovered over Oman and then Zanzibar. Places where the enemy might be much weaker. Further north his gaze settled on Quqonid Khanate. Furrowing his brows in deep thought he looked up.

"Guard! Bring me the Quqonid emissary and be fast about it!"

Yes, things were bleak, but not black.

OOC: I feel like a mosquito trying to bring down an elephant. Any particular reason for desiring to fight me das other than the background distrust and annoyance with my nation?

 

[das]

I think someone is misinforming your leadership

You have got to be kidding me.

Any particular reason for desiring to fight me das other than the background distrust and annoyance with my nation?

Well these are enough, aren't they? Besides, we have increasingly-senile admirals and homicidal maniacs under their command to employ - best to have them kill you than raise havoc at home. And finally, its something to do, isn't it?

Reports from his commanders underestimated roughly 25 Ottoman divisions in the area along with most of their fleet leaving his army seriously weakened.

Then again, perhaps it should be "over". I'll just leave you grievously confused on the topic.

IC:

From: Ottoman Empire
To: Sultanate of Gujarat

We would like to invoke our recently-signed alliance at this point against the Sinhalese and their vile schemes.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Hey guys - orders due in 48 hours or so. Look I know your all caught up in Panda's fancy new NES, but if I get orders soon I can do the update on Monday again .

 

[~Darkening~]

I doubt I'd ever finish it, so I just went ahead and sent orders along with this story. Only around 2/5 of the way done.

OOC: As always, 5% truth and 95% BS.

Sapa Inca Cupayac ​

The Life of the Emperor

Early Life

Born Tupac Manco, Cupayac was born slightly northwest of Cuzco at the stronghold of Machu Picchu. He was the great-grandson of Atahualpa, and was son of Sapa Inca Tupac Amarú and his wife, Pachati.

The boy was brought up in a time where the empire was beginning to grow to large for its own good. The Incans of this period began to institute an educational system, at least for the higher classes.

By the age of fifteen, where he was allowed to succeed his father, he spoke five out of the two hundred languages in the empire. He showed a remarkable talent for mathematics at an early age, being able to comprehend the complex workings of the quipus.

Reformation of the Empire

Ever since the time of the War between Brothers [1], the Empire had been administered as a single entity. When Cupayac came into power, he realized that the Empire was much too unwieldy to be administered by one man. Subsequently he decided to harken back to the old traditions.

Yet he knew that, given an unobtrusive hold on power, no man could be trusted to obey his lord. He thought about for a while before acting, taking two years to make his decisions. He redefined the Incan Empire to be that of Tawantin Suyu once more and split the Empire back into its four distinct parts.

The four corners of the provinces met once more in Cuzco. Antisuyu lay along the eastern portion of the country and was made up mostly of deep, forest covered valleys. ****isuyu fell along the coastal west of the country and was the smallest of the Suyus. Collasuyu was the largest of the regions and fell across the entire south. Chincasuyu made up the last region and was made up of all of the lands to the north.

The New Division of Power

The Incan bureaucracy, at the beginning of Cupayac’s reign, was extremely large and too clustered for its own good. For instance, under each governor there was ten officials who looked after ten sections of that suyu . Under each one of these officials was another ten who looked after a portion of that man’s task- and so on till you reach the bottom where an official looked after only ten people- ridiculous to Cupayac. So Cupayac used the reestablishment of Tawantin Suyu to reorganize the Empire and eliminate much of the unneeded bulk.

He installed (in the typical tradition) his top four bothers into the positions of governors and allocated each one of them a suyu. Under them he set two officials, known as Cayas, and each one given the task of looking over half of the governor’s suyu. Under both of those men were thirteen men who were in charge of sections of land within the caya’s domain and reported their findings to their superiors. Those thirteen men might have someone under them, depending upon how large their section of land was. At the bottom of the society was a leader of a grouped community, or an alluyu. They would report their status to the man directly above him.

But every man was still under the jurisdiction of the Emperor- the Sapa Inca. That man, if he saw it fit, could have anyone in the nation killed at a moment’s fancy. Still the reforms helped to eliminate much of the bulk in the government- before the reforms there had been 1331 officials for every 10,000 people. After it was only around 500 per 10,000, freeing many more people to work.

The Mit’a

The Mit’a, or “work tax”, was fully expanded to the entire society under Cupayac. It required every man in the empire to “volunteer” to serve in the public works programs for at least three months out of every year. Before it had been restricted to the lower classes, but under Cupayac it was levied on every man.

Men from the lower classes, forming the bulk of the participants, carried the full weight of the program. They were conscripted to build the roads, construct the temples, and erect the monuments to the various emperors. While they were the most conscripted, they often served closer to home the upper classes.

The upper classes made up less than 1/20 of all men in the programs. Tasks were generally less backbreaking than the lower classes, but they often served longer times and at father distances. They often served as aid to a caya or to any other public official. Some, while younger, were recruited as servants for the Sapa Inca.

The Imperial Roads

Along with the other problems Cupayac saw in his kingdom, he realized that the lands were too large to exist as a kingdom without one crucial element: roads. Long before there had been a program of extensive road-building but it had abandoned not long after it was started.

Cupayac decided to bring it back and expand it. He declared that through the Mit’a, three roads would be built through the country. The three roads were to run along the western and eastern boarders- along with one in the middle. Smaller roads would branch off the main ones and run to every major city. From there the roads would become even smaller and run to the individual villages. Thus a “spider web” of roads could run through the entire country, and through connecting roads, travel could be facilitated.

 

[Insane_Panda]

I shall send orders tomorrow! Sorry for the lateness, I have been terribly busy with a number of things

 

[silver 2039]

@Disenfranchiesd did you get my pm? I'm not sure because the eletricty died shortly afterward. Typical....

 

[das]

Disenfrancised, just for clarity, you did get my orders right?

Nice story Darkening, the Tawantin Suyu system wasn't COMPLETELY abandoned, although virtually it was. Btw, you forgot a footnote.

 

[JosefStalinator]

Crap, Orders in like 10 hours. I probably won't do anything too important anyways.

 

[Harleqin]

Sinhalese Pathfinders​

The Sinhalese corps of Pathfinders is an extremely small elite force operating outside of the normal structures of the Sinhalese army. The Pathfinders rarely number more than a few hundred at most due to the extremely rigorous training that potential candidates are put through.

The roles of the Pathfinders are many and diverse. The most common use of them is as scouts for the regular army. Experts at moving stealthily around and finding their way through both wilderness and enemy lines they are extremely valuable for their ability to provide accurate recoinnaissance and information on enemy numbers, equipment and strenght. Apart from this information they are also often utilized in a supporting role by poisoning food and water supplies, blowing up ammunitions, destroying bridges and even assassinating enemy officers using their ritual Ara-knives.

For an army on either offense or defense their value is uncountable due to the information they gather and havoc they cause. Their ability to find little used trails also offers another tactical advantage as either small units or the entire army is sometimes able to utilise this to strike from an unexpected direction or set up in a strongly defensible position.

Apart from their value in open combat the pathfinders also perform other roles. One of the most important of these is the role of messenger running between different armies, divisions and even cities with messages from the army commanders.

Perhaps the least used role of them is as assassins of high profile targets. Whilst having the skills to move unseen such targets often enjoy such tight security that it would be a waste of valuable troops to employ them in this way.

The training of a pathfinder regularly takes close to 3 years. New recruits are placed in special scout units responsible for scouting out enemy positions and infiltrating enemy camps. The mortality rate of the new recruits are often rather high due to this, but it serves to weed out those not good enough. Even if the new scouts survive their missions they might be transferred to the regular army if they are not deemed good enough. All such patrols are under the command of an experienced pathfinder.

Once a scout recieves his pathfinder status he is then placed in a group consisting of up to 9 other pathfinders. These groups are responsible for the most dangerous missions as they are the best trained and have the highest chance of success.

The training includes many facets. Only a small part of this consists of fighting either with their Ara-knives or unarmed, though they are still a match for most regular troops even when outnumbered. The majority of the training focuses on training moving silently and unseen. Apart from the initial basic training where recruits are equipped with bells and have to learn to move without making them tingle, a much tougher exercise is the constant training with experienced pathfinders. The recruits are sent into a forest and given a 24-hour head start. Then they need to elude the regular army and experienced pathfinders for a week. Only once they can manage this are they allowed to move on in their training. This is harsh, but necessary in order to gain both skills and experience.
Lockpicking is another aspect that they must undergo, though not one much time is spent on. Use of explosives and poisons are, of course, also part of the training, but apart from the actual field practice the biggest chunk of time is spent learning languages. In a group of pathfinders there will regularly be several members who are fluent in one or more foreign languages to aid in their infiltration.

The Sinhalese pathfinders are the pride of the Sinhalese army. Unmatched by any in infiltration they are a valuable asset, tempered only by their extremely low numbers.

OOC: Sinhalese UU -> Sinhalese Pathfinders. Extremely talented infiltrators and scouts.

 

[Harleqin]

OOC: Orders sent.

IC:
To: Quqohid Khanate
From: Sinhala
Great Khan. As you undoubtedly know we are fighting an enemy that is well known to you, the Ottoman Empire. We know your relations with them have never been the best and that you have a long history of conflict.
Several Ottoman divisions are now occupied fighting us leaving their homelands weakened and ripe for the picking.
We would like to enquire to the possibility of an alliance against our common foe.

With our deepest respect
Prince Vihay of Sinhala

 

[das]

From: Ottoman Empire
To: Sultanate of Gujarat

We ofcourse expect you assist us in the event of a war with the Quqonids as well, as per our alliance.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Disenfrancised, just for clarity, you did get my orders right?

...No

 

[das]

Huh?

Ah, wait, I remember. I had internet problems when I wanted to send them and post the story; I must've forgotten the orders, but fortunately I have them in my .doc file.

 

[silver 2039]

I will send orders tonight.

 

[Wubba360]

npc my nation dis
i will be back

 

[Disenfrancised]

12 out of 23 order sets in wooo! and 3000 words of update; the mod needs more orders to continue writing! I'm looking at you; European and Indochinese powers!

 

[~Darkening~]

Nice story Darkening, the Tawantin Suyu system wasn't COMPLETELY abandoned, although virtually it was. Btw, you forgot a footnote.

Gah. My mind was no where near me when I was writing that. And I usually finish the footnots after I'm done with everything. Last night was such a haze. Did I actually send orders Dis?

 

[tommy_toon]

XD I'll send orders shortly.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Gah. My mind was no where near me when I was writing that. Last night was such a haze. Did I actually send orders Dis?

Yes

XD I'll send orders shortly.

Yey, now once I get stalins and BananaLee's I can do that part of the update. If anyone else is planning some interference better send you orders in too (though of course I will change the update for later orders...though I might be grumpy whilst doing so ).