Statelet bits: The Body Diplomatic
The long period of leftist rule from 1991 known as Rose Italy was not simple domination by the PCI, but included leadership from the Socialists, Labour Democrats, Pink-Greens, and fellow travellers, punctuated by the reactionary interregnum of the
Populares in the early 2040s. Elevated by fervid people’s will assemblies calling for undoing the last half century, the Grassotoni government masked growing economic doldrums with bellicose irredentism. Soft shoe in the west, wooing restive Corsica to the ire of the equally-nationalist French. Revanchism in the east, seeking return of ancient patrimony from socialist-communists, rolling back decades of cordial relations with Yugoslavia.
The Cisalpine War followed a flurry of noisy and contradictory missives from embassies across the seas. Grassotoni trumpeted to his assemblies and to parliament the
Popularis intention to rejoin NATO as an integral bulwark against communism. In his mind, and perhaps the reality conjured up by his advisors, “bleached” Italy was already as good as a core member. In actuality, no member believed re-admission could take place for a decade. America, distracted at home by outbreaks of the Red Flu and growing hypersurvivalist troubles, bade its envoys smile and nod at the ridiculous rabble-rouser. So that April, the Italians walked away, self-assured that there would be no external opposition to their return to rightful Italian territories, and perhaps even support by
fratelli.
Belgrade was little better, confounded by the exaggerated, larger-than-life asks and impossible ultimatums presented by the Populares. Requests for clarification, attempts to assuage, efforts to ignore, all broke down in the face of unrelenting demands by a populist jingoism that had seemingly materialized like an angry imp. Unwilling to take the Italians seriously, Yugoslav ambassadors adopted a dangerously cavalier “go ahead, see if we care” attitude.
With each sign of indifference or disbelief, the Populares grew emboldened. After a fateful people’s will assembly rally referendum, Grassotoni declared that history had spoken. And now it shall move. The very next morning, Italian Army units crossed the border into the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, intent on annexing everything to the Greek border.
Arditi Popularis
heavy shock troopers at the opening tank push on the Isonzo
The seventy-five day campaign would see some of the most frenzied conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Its failure to develop into a larger conflagration- indeed many historians name it the mere Istrian Operation- was a testament to the geopolitical isolation and the internal difficulties of both combatants. The U.N. Military Staff Committee had clamored to deploy U.N. Marines to disarm both, then followed up with peacekeepers to keep them apart. It was overruled by the Security Council’s respective member governments, as none could make heads or tails of the situation, and were mostly distracted. Eurosocialist Italy and Socialist Yugoslavia were ambivalent foe and untrustworthy friend to NATO, vice versa to WARPAC. Sudden leadership reversals did not change this position. For one hot summer, the Adriatic coast was blanketed by battle as others struggled to cohere a policy to stem the bloodshed while furthering strategic interests.
The fighting was remarkably constrained, revealing a relatively even match, and the fragility of each state. Much of the Italian armed forces had not so quickly forgotten Rosa Italia, digging in their heels against Rome’s folly. Grassotoni, not wishing to provoke the hoary hierarchy until a proper purge could be instituted, elevated entire armed formations of the Populare assemblies as modern legionaries and
Arditi, gifting military arms and rushing them to the front. As these were often veterans disaffected under the old regime, their fault was not in lack of training, so much as a surfeit of zeal.
Meanwhile, the first open challenge to the post-post-Titoist regime failed to create as much of a rally ‘round the flag effect as Belgrade hoped, with ethnic balkanization in the Yugoslav People’s Army and in the populace leading to individual mutinies, war protests, and a general breakdown in national cohesion. And so, the Italians prevailed over demoralized Yugoslav defenders, advancing deep into the peninsula while Dalmatia lay in sight, until supply line shocks stranded the would-be legionaries far from military HQ.
YPA commando watches naval special warfare jet ski units destroy an Italian occupation fishing boat at Pula
Ignoring Soviet pleas for neutrality and calm, covert agents of the Hungarian Soviet Republic smuggled shipments of Gepárd anti-materiel rifles and Škoda Works arms to its non-aligned socialist neighbor against the reactionary imperialists. Czechoslovakian shredders were just as effective on counterrevolutionary particularists in Vojvodina, Kosovo, and Montenegro as they were on Italian irregulars. Thirty-five days into the conflict, this first act of international aid leaked to the public, swarming the nets with opposing calls for ceasefire and for supporting the defenders. Public opinion faultlines solidified and advocacy groups of global citizens galvanized into action.
Consort of Nations entered into the fray, pooling its surprisingly deep reserves into lobbying for long overdue acknowledgment and rapid response. Going around U.N. gridlock, the Monte Carlo-based NGO’s freelance diplomats paged regional governments, playing dealmaker, cat herder, and confessor alike. Having brokered peace between Morocco and the PAU-affiliated Polisario Front and convinced Tupamaros fighters in Costa Rica to lay down their arms- at least for a time- the international peace facilitation nonprofit wove regional consensus that elected or otherwise entrenched governments could not.
France, aligned with none but itself, eyed events to the east warily. Furious at provocation towards Corsica but not yet willing to put guns on the line, its own Foreign Legionnaires were not yet tested in the Sahara Burst Wars. Consort of Nations analysts brought forth OSINT treasures unearthed by mass recon trawls, teasing together paper trails between
Fronte di liberazione naziunale di a Corsica cells and prominent Populares, tying Ajaccio to Rome. Carte blanche granted, the French placed troops at Nice and issued its own ultimatums after the fall of Rijeka.
The Swiss, then posturing as sentinels of Novus Helvetia, were the easiest to nudge. Consort of Nations international human rights lawyers presented Bern with an ironclad argument justifying armed action in defense of the European Common Market. Dressed up in language designed to appeal to Vitalist bluster, R2P appeals enticed the once-neutrals of the continent to flex their muscles as the latest global policemen.
Even neutral Austria was finagled into participating. Adrift between East and West for nearly a century, Vienna played host to countless emissaries and intrigues. Consort of Nations ambassador-advisors met HNA army intelligence officers in the back of a coffee house down the street from UNO city. Classified minutes and audiotapes of comms with NATO and WARPAC representatives were brandished, indicating neither hegemon’s interest in interfering. A public affairs consultant sold the military officers a narrative of Austria’s commitment to neutrality, necessitating a ‘special security mission’ to uphold it. Additional dossiers of uncertain origin told of volatile stability adjacent to Austrian borders. Finally, the NGO even provided the results of a game theory sim run on a Philips DS991 mainframe, highlighting potential national security advantages in the post-conflict world.
Carabinieri gendarmes suppress Piedmontese monarchists flying Savoy blue banners in Turin
The terminal stage of the conflict became popularly known as Italy Against the World, or the Italian War Against All. The amassed forces of Consort of Nations’ coalition scheduled opportune military exercises at respective borders before invading simultaneously, citing humanitarian justifications. Meanwhile, the NGO rallied relief groups from Oxfam to Doctors Without Borders, ambulances chasing war.
In the face of this northern assault, Italian homeland units simply… disappeared. Commanders with qualms towards the Populares stood down, forces melting away. As Helvetian airships and accompanying aircraft swooped over, formations in flight stopped, in mid-air. Faced with overwhelming outside force, only the most fanatical of Grassotoni believers kept up the tragicomedy. Like young boys caught playing pirate, they sheepishly slinked home. Left in the wake was turmoil and revolution. But the NGO had drafted plans for the postwar. Even as Consort of Nations ambassadors advocated in Geneva, Vienna, and New York for U.N. action on behalf of these brave independent hero-countries, they worked with the same to optimally redraw the map.
Accusing the Grassotoni government of state-sponsored terrorism, France launched a naval invasion of Sardinia under Admiral Maurice Guillaume, one-time mentor of Raoul André St. Germaine. Adopting preemptive counterinsurgency tactics honed in Françafrique, the intervention swiftly handed power to local separatist leaders. Meanwhile, apparently spontaneous demonstrations broke out across Piedmont, calling for the abolition of the republic twice-failed (by both the left and the right) and the restoration of the Savoyard line. These occurred, Paris noted, in cities far from French military control. It turned out that the monarchists were mainly members of the
Optimates, the junior partner of the Populares against the eurosocialists. Insisting that Popularis faith in mass movements had doomed Italy, they sought to tear off a piece to revert to an earlier state, inviting the Savoy heir back to his rightful throne. Thus would Piedmont-Sardinia be restored at the end of the conflict. As a French protectorate, naturally.
Eastwards, a similar drama played out on the slopes of South Tyrol. The local population had long bristled against Rosa Rome, and benefited little better under Populare rule. The Army of Andreas Hofer and the newly-revived South Tyrolean Liberation Committee expanded in the vacuum left behind by Italian authorities fleeing
Gebirgsjäger and Steyr-Daimler-Puch mountain hods. But while Austria provided the South Tyrolean nationalists with humanitarian and moral support, they declined to set up their own client state. Fearing that to be a breach in objective neutrality, Austrians trusted that a referendum would certainly be held after the war. Both the subsequent Italian government, and the U.N. for that matter, rejected the legitimacy of such an act. Unlike the Swiss, Vienna was unwilling to be satiated for simply having done a good and mighty job. From thence on the Abwehramt drowned the region in arms and support, the South Tyrolean cause festering into an insurgency. As
Freistaat bombs exploded in Tretino museums, the picturesque countryside would become a wild and dangerous disputed zone between Italy and Austria, with Switzerland requesting to be let in to clean house. Some would call it Kashmir on the Alps.
Even more humiliations were to follow. As coalition forces raced down the Autostrada A12, President Grassotoni and his closest intimates had long fled Rome. In the absence, a veritable Roman candle’s worth of armed groups exploded onto the scene, wresting for control of the city against the sapped local people’s will assembly. As they clashed, His Holiness Pope Zachary II swung open the gates of Vatican City, declaring that Rome was under the protection of the Holy See, sending forth the Swiss Guard and the
Corpus Gendarmeriae Urbis Vaticanae to secure the districts adjacent to the papacy. From throughout Italy and even abroad, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta rushed to the Eternal City aboard converted bomber transport planes, bringing in medical convoys with their logistical might. While Madrid Catholic hardliners set the datalinks ablaze praying for a new Papal State, they were met with nothing but footage of Order knights distributing aid and the Holy Father performing Latin Mass. Christian soldiers marched onwards only to guard another refugee camp, to bathe and clothe another migrant. By war’s end, the pope had handed it all over to arriving U.N. peacekeepers.
The Canal Grande of Trieste
Vanquished Italy disavowed its leaders, meekly waving the PCI and its comrades back into power. The restored Roses condemned capitalist-imperialism for the territorial loss and blamed the country’s turn towards aggression on deep-cover Gladio agents, but otherwise played ball with the United Nations. Coming onto the scene only after the nonaligned or rogue neighbors had cleaned house, the U.N. bureaucracy was frustrated at great power intransigence and sought to capture peace on its own terms. To prevent a formerly-reliable good citizen from falling again to irredentist nationalism, the U.N. pursued no heavy penalties beyond the individual aggressors that had started the war, whose enterprises and estates were confiscated as reparations to the aggrieved. Instead, they called for Italy’s readmittance into the European Community, and even Yugoslavia as well. In Geneva’s reckoning, bringing together the left-liberal/soft-socialist First World and the non-aligned Third in such institutions would bolster the pro-internationalist Fifth Force.
But not even Yugoslavia went unscathed in the peace. The conflict sharpened the contradictions of the socialist experiment, especially near where the invasion had begun. The oblast of Trst stood near the Italian state and next to the Slovenian and Croatian socialist republics. Once the main seaport of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Trieste became Yugoslavian territory during the Cold War while still home to a large Italian minority. As Trst, it had enjoyed a prosperous, yet precarious existence as a free port. Taking pains to reap in the commercial benefits of the entrepôt, Tito guaranteed the existence of its Italian community under Allied pressure, and the city became the destination of many fleeing Istria and Dalmatia. Yet this protection was not ironclad. After the Second World War, there was the occasional semi-state-condoned ethnic bloodletting. More recently, many locals felt that despite being its own oblast, the economic and ecological needs of Trst were neglected by the federal system that permitted outsiders to mistreat the city.
During the war, Trst was captured by Paracadutisti paratroopers and Lagunari regiment marines, who renamed it to Trieste. As the foreign troops paraded past its neoclassical architecture and partook in the local coffee culture, locals watched warily. Contrary to the assumptions of the invaders, the local Italian population were not so quick to join them; having lived under Yugoslav rule for a century, they had found an accommodating existence; many were themselves ardent communists. Frustrated, the Populares sponsored the extremist ethno-nationalists and pro-irredentists among them, attempting to set up a puppet municipal regime. It often they were perplexed to discover that the locals did not even speak their language, but instead Triestine, the regional dialect descended from Venetian.
Yugoslav attempts to retake the city were stymied by the massive Karst rock plateau that surrounded it. The UDBA sent its agents to foment rebellion. But here the problems affecting the nation as a whole bled into the resistance. Slovene nationalists, Croat nationalists, even Austro-Hungarian nostalgics (neutral Vienna would again reject the suggestion that they had a hand in such an absurdity) were loosely armed and turned against the occupiers. And they often ended up shooting at each other as they did at anyone else, especially at Yugoslav Italians. This lackadaisical approach at liberation was made worse when the YPA let loose an artillery barrage that missed the occupier base and flattened several of the port warehouses.
Italophone members of the Triesto movement demonstrate against the Italian occupation with signage aimed at international support
Before the war, the Triesto cause was as much for civic pride as it was for cavilling at the central government. Named for the Esperanto name of the city as compromise, the Triestanoj desired to upgrade the uneasy cosmopolitanism between its many communities into a coherent identity that could improve their lives. The usual urban celebration and beautification campaigns were practiced. Attempts to form a democratic political organization were made in vain. But they did have grievances. The Italians of Trieste believed that the country had neither adequately protected their linguistic identity, nor their very lives against discrimination and violent recrimination. The Slovenes of Trst felt that the free port’s potential went untapped, stymied by an increasingly apathetic regime. The Croats of Трст felt squeezed between the historical rulers and the new order. The German speakers of Triest simply wanted their legacy not be erased by Yugoslavization.
And all of the city, more or less, echoed the billions around the world who saw inaction in the face of mass pollution. In the dead of night, unmarked lorries drove onto the Karst, piping tankers worth of hydrocarbons, naphtha, and industrial sludge into its crevasses on a weekly basis. Even the famed Trebiciano abyss, once believed to be the deepest cave on Earth, could not escape the contamination of the surface. The locals made efforts to limit their waste. But from throughout the federation, others arrived to leave another tragedy of the commons. As in Bulgaria, in Trst the concept of
Ecoglasnost would be a green safety valve for the frustrated. After the war, INTEGR would find Triesto a stronghold of Transmodernist environmentalism. Before it, local eco-activists stacked political complaints into the cloak of environmental concerns.
The People of the Port plot resistance against the occupation and nationalist hyper-partisans
Triesto citizens associations largely confined their activities to polite petitions, Samizdat ‘zines and immersive cybersites, letter-writing campaigns. Even that rankled the authorities, who occasionally sent bored secret policemen to Trst in half-hearted search of phantom Italian ethno-nationalist deviationists. During the war, Triesto rose up in civil defense. Triestanoj served as neighborhood watchers surreptitiously tracking the Populare legionaries, sending warnings of which streets at what times to make oneself scarce. They provided mutual aid when the occupiers kept the spoils of inbound shipments to themselves. They found little ways to throw sand into the gears of the occupation, from using linguistic differences to misunderstand occupier orders, to producing substandard goods for their army. They identified sectarian troublemakers and leaked them to the occupation, while sending legionary movements to the same hyper-partisans. And mostly, they hoarded weapons.
Through defensive resistance, the associations steered clear of the violence that broke out as the occupation broke down after news of interventionist victories beyond the oblast. Certainly, some such as the Rosso Trieste (Marxist-Leninist, Triestine), the Beli TIGR (anti-Fascist, Slovene), or the New Partisans (Titoist, Serb) took the fight to the enemy as the vanguard of direct action. More civilian groups quietly wrested control away from occupation-installed puppets. In a final act of sabotage, pro-Triesto longshoremen absconded with supplies sent in from a last ditch relief mission by the Italian transport
Venetum, which they then sank with explosives concealed in laurel wreath flag-draped coffins. By the time the intervention arrived, they found the gates flung wide open by the city’s new authorities.
As the Triestanoj were the only functioning group in the area, having fought off the occupation through sheer pluck, cleverness, and perhaps outside sympathizers, they were recognized as the transitional leaders of the oblast. But at the San Marino peace talks, all were surprised that they insisted on advancing their ideology, rejecting a return to antebellum status or even greater autonomy, but calling for the reestablishment of the Free Territory of Trieste.
The hornet’s nest stirred up by the invasion would not be easily quelled. As armed groups proliferated in the void left by the retreating occupation, fears spread that an uncultivated peace would lead to an inevitable restart of hostilities. Consort of Nations, managing to get itself promoted to peace process observer-advisor, made one of its typical Solomonic suggestions: Yugoslavia must let go of a part of itself in order to save itself. Thus they proposed that Trst be the center of a demilitarized zone between the two nations. As it was already a free port, it would be open for trade to both. The territory surrounding the city- whether mapped to Zones A and B of the original postwar territory or not, it mattered little- would be held in trust by the United Nations. The regional neighbors had done their part. Now the rest of the world must do theirs.
N.D. Itala Palomino was a child when her parents, Venetian minor nobility, led the Consort of Nations diplomatic offensive at San Marino. A naturalized citizen of the FACT, she would become its lead representative in the U.N. Mission to Alpha Centauri
The audacious plan was codified. Both nations were assured that the buffer would provide adequate protection of their national interests and their co-linguists living in the area. Italy was gratified that they were not the only ones losing territory. Yugoslavia was given promises of swift U.N. stabilization support by a young Apsara Mongkut himself; after all, no one wanted a replay of the post-Titoist Troubles. Behind the scenes, Consort of Nations facilitated further deals and payoffs- Rome was granted economic concessions to the port and had some charges against certain Populares dropped, Belgrade was gifted dossiers on those same individuals to do as they wilt, and both were (re)invited into the European Community.
And so the new Free Adriatic City of Triesto was declared, roughly matching the Free Territory of Trieste. As outrageous as it was to lop off part of the invaded party, the city had spoken; its ruling parties rejected return to the federal government that had bombed its own. The U.N. transitional authority that policed the DMZ were headed by the interventionist heroes of France, Switzerland, and Austria. But French misadventures abroad in the Sahara Burst Wars would see them soon replaced by
Tercios from the Third Spanish Republic, and criticisms of Austrian loss of neutrality would see the
Bundesheer substituted by the Hungarian Red Army (seemingly in another show of defiance against WARPAC, but with the covert blessing of Moscow to re-extend influence through other means). Further reshufflings would cycle through peacekeepers from outside the continent, but throughout it all, the Novus Helvetians would remain, leading some to dub Triesto the first foothold of Swiss Occupied Europe. They kept the warring nations at bay, the restive ultra-nationalists under wraps, and their purview included the stark beauty of the Karst, where Swiss draftees kept out illegal dumpers on behalf of a grateful FACT.
For its role in establishing peace and stability when governments, including the U.N., could not, Consort of Nations won a Nobel Peace Prize. The “Triesto precedence,” a misnomer as it was but one of several breakaway states that were negotiated into existence in the mid-21st century, would later pave the way for the likes of Annobón and Morgan Peru. The multilateral ‘peace from above’ of the San Marino Accords would break down in the face of the Slovenian Crisis, but the DMZ held steady. Consort of Nations would in fact relocate to the FACT not long after its independence, replacing Liechtenstein as the NGO’s main European headquarters.
Shortly after the launch of the UNS
Unity, the Palermo Papers revealed that Consort of Nations was an umbrella org, a shell consisting of 108 front NGOs. Many were dummy fronts plugged into the international system of advocacy and patronage. The leak also published long lists of politicians, lobbyists, and intelligence operatives implicated under the pay of CoN. Subsequent riots rocked the numerous enclaves in which the NGO had made its home, but Triesto- and other regimes that owed its independence to the Consort- stood firm.
Meanwhile at U.N. Equality Village on Chiron, Itala Palomino, Triestanoj national and ranking member of CoN, redeclared the organization the Ambassador Suite with herself as its first Consul. In this new world of blood truces and vendettas, ideologies and factions, she vowed to maintain the ancient relevance of their cabal. At her side, both in that half-built assembly hall and over the ‘links, stood innumerable veterans of the warlike art of diplomacy and an undefined roster of political spies. Having traded in too many secrets and lives to hold any loyalty but to the great game itself, they now pledged themselves to Consul Itala Palomino, a handler who promised to keep the game going for as long as they lived.
NSK passports were distributed to fleeing refugees by the art collective during the Cisalpine War
Another popular name for the conflict is the “First War of the Three Crosses” for its three unexpected participants. First, the Swiss under the Vitalist regime of Novus Helvetia, in one of its first explosive reentrances onto the global stage as an active combatant and world policeman. Next, the International Red Cross, fulfilling its humanitarian medical duties as usual, though with a more proactive- or perhaps preemptive role. Following the lead of private sector actors in recent conflict zones, the local delegates hired private security contractors to protect their aid convoys, even in partnership with the Order of Malta in Italy. Noting the often conventions-breaking misbehavior of the PMCs, the ICRC developed its own paramilitarized trauma teams and armored ambulance formations.
Last was the black cross of the NSK. The Neue Slowenische Kunst was formed in Ljubljana in 1984 during the tumult following the passing of Josip Broz Tito. Made up of a wide variety of artistic groups, NSK subverted the authoritarian and nationalistic currents amidst the civil disorder of the post-Tito Troubles, dubbing itself the “first global state of the universe” or the “State in Time,” for short. As violence broke out, the band’s musical wing Laibach would behind Sarajevo’s siege lines and perform martial-industrial rock shows while issuing NSK passports to all. Many of those who fled the country clutched the black-jacketed books as citizens of the State in Time. So it was the same sixty years later; slipping past the front, members of the art collective put on plays next to newly-emptied battlefields and sold art to wealthy collectors to aid the war-afflicted, all the while passing out more NSK passports. In the last weeks of the conflict, Laibach would appear across enemy lines, claiming neutrality under the State in Time while performing in
Populare Lombardy, monarchist Piedmont,
rossa Emilia-Romagna, and emergency papal Rome.
Casting
Itala Palomino is portrayed by Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone on
The Penguin
Design Notes
I first heard of the Free Territory of Trieste in passing when I saw some of the
1950 Marshall Plan poster contest entries, in particular the windmill above. The flag is actually in the wrong color here, perhaps mistaking its
provincial blue for the city.
Then recently I watched
MORE Unrecognized Embassies! by Fredo Rockwell, who showed the embassy of
Triest NGO, one of two(!) modern groups to bring back the Free Territory next to a Tesco car park and a McDonald's in London. Turns out that they want independence from Italy mostly for economic reasons, with lots of
issues about the free port.
The other group appears to be the
Movimento Trieste Libera/ Free Trieste Movement, who in addition to economic and political grievances, covers many of the
environmental issues affecting the region (and not just in the Karst).
This speech from a member of the Free Trieste Movement does a good job of explaining their grievances.
The Ambassador Suite is an adaptation of
the Ambassadors led by Secretary Itala Palomino from Pandora: First Contact, specifically expansion Pandora: Eclipse of Nashira.
Pandora’s factions are all copies (not quite carbon- let’s say BCC) versions of the original SMAC seven, run through the goofy lens of that game’s setting. As the only expansion faction, the Ambassadors are clearly meant to be a Peacekeeping Forces analogue, but with spies. It sadly does not have an accompanying short story like the six in the base game do, nor do we have any idea about who Itala Palomino is other than she is vaguely Italian. (I was tempted to cast Ariana Grande, given both’s respective inexplicable complexions.) I originally had a notion of making her based in a revived Republic of Venice, but after discovering that there are still modern attempts to bring back Trieste, I went with that; it seems like a less played-out idea than northern supremacism / Veneto chauvinism.
I rather like the faction description of the Ambassadors, as stylized as it is. It’s somewhat similar to the
Noxium Corporation, in that it describes an entrenched class seeking to continue their self-enriching ways on another world. The Ambassadors’ concept is even more outlandish than industry plutocrats; the concept is diplomats, the “ambassadorial class,” have become an internationalist aristocracy, rich and well-connected and mercenary in mindset. The faction would also include spies, another high-level occupation granted wealth and power by the states that employed them. So when things fall apart in the dystopian sci-fi future, embassies began operating for their own benefit, independent of their own failing nations. The diplomats started working for themselves, regardless of national origin, forming a consortium. They wrote treaties for their own benefit or used espionage to gain control of “little but wealthy city-state enclaves and troublesome lands that no one else could claim, initially as peacekeepers then as de-facto rulers. Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Lesotho, Kaliningrad, Hong Kong, Monaco, Cyprus, Sierra Leone, Jerusalem, Kashmir- where there was war, they saw an opportunity.”
It’s a bit simplistic in analysis- why should diplomats be less patriotic to their nations just because they live apart from them? Their work still necessitates furthering their interests. Are outside salespeople likewise less loyal to their companies, holding greater allegiance for the profession instead? On the other hand, politicians in general are often accused of being detached from their constituencies, self-interested only in office-holding. And the inclusion of spies is certainly true to the Cold War spy genre- from Smiley and Karla in John le Carré novels to the Spycraft tabletop RPG’s World on Fire setting to Hideo Kojima games, there is a notion that the great game of constant deception and betrayal produces in its players solidarity, rendering the teams meaningless. (In the latter’s work, the same might hold true for soldiers, too.) So it’s definitely a trope that one can hang a faction around.
In practical RtD terms, the Ambassador Suite would join the ranks of the various Probe factions- Data Angels (themed tech/Discover-Probe), the Lord’s Conclave (religious/Fundamentalist-Probe), and ARC, despite being an integral part within the New 2,000, is corporate/Economy-Probe as per Beyond Earth. The Ambassadors would be diplomatic-Probe in theming, naturally. I envision them not as a full-sized faction, so much as yet another rogue sub-faction running around, offering secrets and sabotage-as-a-service for a price. Sort of like a politics-focused, independent version of Morgan Industries’ Green Team or Memory of Earth’s Dark Glass or whatever exactly Nine Eyes is. Perhaps, to continue the themes of my ruminations on post-national sovereignties, they might be a decentralized, non-territorial faction (which the Data Angels probably should’ve been originally) that exists between the factions, over the datalinks, in the shadows.
Here, I have the original face of the Ambassador Suite be an NGO as it seems like the sort of amorphous dark money-sloshing/nepo baby-staffed/hidden in red tape and interchangeable bureaucracies sort of entity that could provide cover for renegade diplomats and rogue spies to become players of their own. I had considered making them some sort of paid consulting group for designing peace / statecraft but idk if such a business could actually exist. (Negotiators of fortune?) I do like the idea of Consort of Nations getting into corruption scandals on the side for insider trading arms company stocks or crafting insubstantial peace deals that could be leveraged later, causing detractors to label them “Peace, Inc.,” “Pay for Peace”, “Peace at what cost?”
The name is a play on
Concert of Nations, which I am still tempted to use instead. I rather like using “Concert” for an alliance. Feels classy.
In terms of scale, the conflict lasts only a day longer than the Falkland War. Its muddled start is meant to mirror muddled diplomatic messes like the Iran-Iraq War, and with a generous nod to April Glaspie.
It’s less inspired by modern day events in our democracies, though they certainly heighten the hyperrealism in this piece. After all, there’s certainly a rather
postmodern, almost farcical, feeling to modern war since 2014- or since 2003? Also, Italy gave us D’Annunzio, Mussolini, and Berlusconi, which sounds about right.
Grassotoni means “Fat Tony.”
Though it wasn’t an inspiration for this war, the
Helvetian War from
Earth by David Brin is a teensy bit similar, what with a single Central European country fighting nearly everyone. Though in that one, it
truly was
everyone.
N.D. stands for
Nobilis Domina.
Notes
Yugoslavian Trieste was previously mentioned in
the post about the
Queegqueg, so I decided to continue forward with that divergence. Let’s say with the addition of Trieste and the necessity to keep the major port running without disruptions, Tito has to take somewhat more pains to prevent the
Istrian–Dalmatian exodus by genuinely guaranteeing the rights and protection of Italians in Yugoslav territory, or at least those living in the city and its environs. At least, for some of the time.
Trieste: Where the Cold War Almost Went Hot by The Cold War captures the real-world historical tensions of the time period.
Contemporary coverage: “
Trieste: The Italian city that wants a divorce” by Tara Isabella Burton for the BBC (2014), with the unforgettable line- ‘Another man was more blunt: "The only government I trust is the Austro-Hungarian Empire."’ Burton wrote a
follow-up article for her blog Roads & Kingdoms in 2016.
A short Marshall Plan-era documentary movie about the Free Territory of Trieste. Documents from the same era, including more contest posters, on
this Trieste website.
Calling the resulting independent statelet FACT is inspired by the
Daniel Shays' Rebellion alternate history where the north splits off as the Federal Union of America and builds a capital at “Warwick, Federal American Capital Territory.” But also from the convoluted former title of North Macedonia.
Populares and Optimates are from the late Roman Republic. SMAC occasionally invokes premodern historical anachronisms reappearing- or maybe the Crusader Wars is the only example? Oh, and China returning to the imperial system. The second Michael Ely novel
Dragon Sun has the Believers fielding Templar knights, which is pretty stock video game naming for religious units.
The
Tupamaros were Marxist urban guerrillas in Uruguay in the 1960s, defeated by the government. They feature quite prominently in
The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner, as they fare more successfully, becoming an international movement- as they do here.
The Corsican
FLNC are sort of the preeminent postwar European national independence struggle after the IRA and the ETA.
Maurice Guillaume is a reference to
Maurice Challe and
Pierre Guillaume of the OAS, following the example of other RTD characters.
A
previous post had mentioned Piedmontese, so- let’s say it gets recreated, why not. So now between Piedmont-Sardinia and Wallonia, the French have really taken a bite out of their neighbors. No wonder the Swiss are so bellicose.
The
South Tyrolean independence movement is another overlooked liberation struggle that got surprisingly violent right after WWII, though it mostly cooled off after Italy granted the area autonomy in 1972.
Andreas Hofer was the leader of the Tyrolean rebellion against the Napoleonic campaigns. Actually, his campaign in the Bergisel was actually east of South Tyrol, towards Innsbruck. But he was also a proto-nationalist figure and his martyrdom achieved near-messianic undertones. See: “
Resistance in the ‘holy land’ of Tyrol: a Tyrolean Taliban?” from The World of the Habsburgs.
I was considering calling the pan-Trieste movement Tergeste after the ancient Veneti, pre-Latin name for the city. Then I realized it wouldn’t do well when they were against an invading force that also used an atavistic name for themselves. Also, it just doesn’t sound as good.
TIGR was a Slovene anti-fascist movement (perhaps one of the first in the world) active in the Julian March, including Trieste, in the 1920s.
Beli is Slovene for white.
For reference, here’s a list of
Nobel Peace Prize-awarded NGOs in real life.
“Swiss Occupied Europe” is a phrase I will never forget, from the old but not forgotten
Blast Doors shareware turn-based artillery game
coded by Fred Haslam, co-designer of SimCity 2000 alongside Will Wright.
Gameplay footage here.
Neue Slowenische Kunst deserves its own post, but “
A passport from a country that doesn’t exist” by Benjamin Ramm for the BBC (2017) is a good place to start, and so is the
Official Pages of the NSK State Passport Office.
While researching for this piece, I learned about
fantasy passports and camouflage passports, the former issued by non-official, non-country, non-governmental entities (only sometimes fictitious, it just might include entities that have no authority to do so), the latter from former nations and used as protective cover by travellers. Besides the NSK, one group that issues the former is the
International Parliament for Safety and Peace, which is an Italy-based NGO for the promotion of security and peace, whose founder and former leader sounds like a huge micronations scam artist, claiming to be the leader of many fictitious states. Amazing.
Image Credits
All combat footage is from Arma 3
In one of those ineffable divine serendipities I’ve experienced while writing for this project, I picked the photo of riot police suppressing protesters flying unmarked blue banners at an apartment building before deciding to associate it with the Savoy supporters, let alone before discovering that
Savoy blue is the official color of the house. The picture is by
Comrade Polaroid and is one of the Screenshot (Bonus) category winners of the Arma 3 Art of War contest.
Trieste demonstration is from a September 15, 2014 protest as covered in “
15 settembre 2014: la manifestazione di Trieste Libera by Movimento Trieste Libera
Underground plotters is from
Andor
