Episode Wu'an: The Return of the "Zi"sThe recent maneuvers had shown that the WU navy had need for some safe reconnaissance options for which the costly and easy to spot and bring down Bastille frigate was simple not suited. The Commodore's in charge would thus often misappropriate the Dessault Mirrage fighters as independent scout planes, a role for which they weren't intended.
So to tackle this obvious emerging need, another plane model was to be added to the roster of the carrier forces, and also to Europa and Chateu land bases: the pure blooded scouting plane Captor Albatross:
In comparison to the Mirage which was designed a Wing escort, the Albatross had both twice the range and twice the detection distance, while still being fast enough to escape any approaching Alp threat. Additionally, it could actually survive on its own for a month or more, making true intelligence and patient observation missions a possibility, and all this for cheap no less.
Three planes were ordered for each carrier, and their reported merits and design already made them a Captain's favorite in the lobby.
Although the WU and other Unions were doing reasonably well all things considered and slowly making progress in their resistance, there was another problem brewing up in their midst that had almost become forgotten again:
Just as after WWII, the Strauss Howe Generational Theory suggests it takes about 2-3 generations, or 60 to 90 years for the critical lessons to be forgotten once more. The current generations around the Sun were reminded daily of the consequences of socialist teaching through the historic documentation of pre-war splendor which contrasted so starkly with the harsher life they were living in the aftermath. These circumstances helped for now to not let the beast grab on to either decadence or class injustices that did almost not exist anymore here.
But if history taught anything, it is that the will to power arises naturally amongst some human individuals, and that those will search and find a way to reinvent the old recipes or twist the public perception to find a loophole in the new constitutional history-hardened fortress. The early 2000s evolution of the Marxist formula was one of such new inventive attack angles, as it shifted the trodden and long unmasked class warfare vector into a race and gender injustice narrative, -cultural Marxism-.
Through these observations it has come to be known that history doesn't actually repeat, but merely rhymes, for there was always a new trick to get the bowling ball rolling. Cultures that insisted too strongly to prevent the
exact same evil from the past (e.g. Germany with their "never again" slogan), actually left themselves open to ideological fanatical subversion by the same but slightly altered methods, for their antibodies were too specialized and failed to identify the actual common root tactics/outcomes of the attacker's actions.
Because even so the levers pulled to initiate the reaction might adapt to the times on every new instance, eventually history
did repeat after all, as total control could only be established by enacting the very same policies every time: Retracting individual freedoms, eliminating or subverting the free press, attacking the independence of the judicial, scrubbing the military to sort out the disloyal,
using the intelligence agencies and justice department to go after political rivals, and eventually canceling all separation of powers to cement the regime.
At some point of political conflict, in which two sides might still be accusing each other of being the true evil, the veil eventually lifts once one side openly goes down that road, so the actual autocrats could be clearly identified. Amongst other identifiers, no person educated in history and the evolution of modern political theory would ever push to
install state controlled censorship(one recent of uncountable examples..) or propose to centralize the powers beyond the absolutely necessary, if they hadn't the intention to build up an autocracy of some sort.
One more step in the devolving progress however was often overlooked: 'The disarmament of the public' needed to take place before any tyranny could truly and confidently stand.
The Amsterdam system was the furthest colony from Earth, and in fact the
only colony that was more than one cutting away. When the new mindslaved CCP begun their siege of both Sol and Alpha Centauri, Amsterdam became strongly isolated for years, which was especially damning for them, as they still relied on regular shipments to build up their subsistence.
..Lack of communication, social strain and fear of an enemy were a known constellation to divide cultures and be a seedbed for usurping powers to clip that distant branch. Yet, considering the stark cultural foundation of anti-socialism of the WU, it was still a surprise when in February 2101 word reached Europa that the acting interim governor of Amsterdam had ordered a buyback campaign on the public gun ownership, forcing -with some little public support- this highly endangered outlier to become even worse defended and dependent on its government no less. Reasons given were crisis rights due to the immediate danger that demanded more of the defensive supplies going to the armed guards, and also apparently a vague narrative of "not making yourself a target", although details on this could not be extracted, as censorship had already set in.
The WU executive body grew worried as the signs were clear. Here seemed to emerge just another greedy individual or group that saw its chance to rule their own kingdom come once their ties to the controlling instances became loose. When Amsterdam then began restraining all channels but the official ones, it was obvious that something had to be done.
What the governing group there hadn't factored in was that the Unions' combined navies would actually succeed in breaking their encirclement (for now), and regain so soon the option to send for investigation. Hence, even though it was still a very risky move to sail in this strongly contested space, WUN ordered one more freighter with supplies and this time also a full military garrison regiment to be sent down the perilous path to Amsterdam. These were republican soldiers, -volunteers schooled in the philosophy of public, self-arising resistance-, who had no notion of loyalty to any government body, but only to the communities at home and those who they eventually ended up serving and become part of.
The winds were fortunate, and the transit succeeded, uncovering what had really been going on.
[some skippable WU political history]The interim governor had indeed fallen to the very ideals he was elected to fight against. Taking the inability of the WUN to defend even Sol as evidence, a public narrative had been spun that claimed if even such advanced military couldn't win, then why should Amsterdam even attempt to resist? Thinly veiled were his real intentions though, when he cynically even quoted Fidel Castro directly, "
Guns for what?".
(*1)Of course, he also knew of another true quote:
From the ancient times of warlords, over the consolidation of power through kings and empires, one thing has always held true, although sometimes hidden: Those who have the biggest stick around, rule the land. Be it the Japanese Hideyoshi era restriction of weapon ownership to the Samurai caste, the disarming of all 'enemies of the state'
(curiously basically everyone) at the advent of the third reich
(OOC: still stands today), the cement of a fragile regime only ever dries if the opposition is held as weak as possible.
In a republic however, the founding idea was that the government arose bottom up out of the people who should hold onto control, which is why the ultimate power should lay with them, and thus also the right to be and stay armed. Often the necessity of this setup had been challenged in the previous pre-CCP western world, for most of their countries managed to stay free without any public gun ownership after all. What was often overlooked however, was that at that time, the former USA were in a strong hegemonic position towards the whole western sphere, meaning all their allies were strongly dependent on the US's good graces and thus the West's corresponding governments held in check by the standing liberty ideology there. ..Yet, even despite all the public defense options, the US security apparatus was still relentlessly scratching on the republic's doors and foundations, constantly infringing and experimenting with ways to tip the balance of power and fulfill their frantic need of total control.
(patriot act, operation mockingbird, stop and frisk, dishonestly framed crime statistics // 67% of the massive number "gun deaths" are suicides, and after all other factors, only ~10% remain as the 'crazy shooter' murders as framed - over 86% of those committed by minorities, most often driven to crime by the government's own policies. No word about how nearly all these shootings happen in blue cities who already have the strictest gun controls around, yet also happen to follow 'soft on crime' policies that release even gun crime offenders back onto the streets in no time. ...Only a crisis leads to yearning for "control")Surely, without resistance in the hands of the people, the fall of the West would have come much sooner under such motivated pressures, and eventually it
did succeed after some likely intentionally escalated mass shooting event during the midst of the Beijing regime consolidation phase was used as precedent to enact complete constitutional denial in form of a "somebody anonymously demands you are 'unsafe' -> you lose your gun" law. The same show incident was even used to
enable banning in the distant Chinada, even though its culture had nothing to do with it. Additionally the propped up massacre provided ammunition just in time to
go against the still not subverted judicial powers.
(OOC: also from official gov's side) A page out of the upstart autocrat's handbook.
Though it was too late to completely disarm everyone before the complete overtaking, it was enough to tip the odds so that the split of the former US into red states and OURS regime became a necessary tradeoff, for the blue side was subverted.
The lesson out of all of this was easy: If the state managed to erect a monopoly on violence, then there was no Republic anymore. The state rights exceeded the personal rights, meaning the ownership contract of the government to the people was void on this account already, and, -going back to the foundational politic theory Lord Acton quote, as well as Mao-, the one sided power balance would and always has ended in tyranny ultimately, for even initially well intentioned leadership could not forever resist to resolve public discontent 'the easy way'(=beatdowns) given the tempting, unopposed option. The denial of the checks and balances principle.
Therefore the reforming of the previous EU into the grander WU corpus saw some panicked action regarding the revival of personal protection rights. Although the WU wouldn't go as far as letting every citizen roam around openly carrying large armaments like in the former US, there was ingrained provision for everyone to be able to own weapons at home, and be allowed to take them out for training events or even potential protest, given that an organized crowd above a certain size was moving.(quite the opposite of previous carry philosophy) Larger and more dangerous weapons such as tanks and even small warships could be owned by groups of declared common share or organizations with shared ownership.
Add to that the separation of governing bodies into small city/metro state units across Europa since its founding (initially to preserve original cultures from countries in one dome city each), and it was evident that decentralization was at the core of WU governance. A union after all, not an empire, like the eventually misnamed US.
All the more affront was the Amsterdam reversal of these fundamentals. The soldiers of the republic swept in and arrested the governor, then conducted deep investigations into the whereabouts of his enabling supporters. To on one hand gain public trust, as well as re-establish the original order, shipped gun supplies were distributed to the people, and additional arms stacked in public accessible reserve bunkers.
One of the tactics that had gone unnoticed in Amsterdam so far was enacted very early already. Like it had been practice in the West before, the chapters about socialism in public schools and universities were strangely cut ("what is holodomor?"/"the great leap forward?") or framed as false dichotomy (="these people aren't what we are doing, they are 180° on the other side!"). As journalism, teaching professions and public service have been throughout history consistently some or
the lowest IQ subjects in universities everywhere, it was also here where the cult of weakness, the in napoleon-complex unified underachievers, the 'want without earning' philosophy always found a fertile seedbed to renew its foothold. From this institutional foundation, public opinion and the next generation were much easier to turn and propagandize, but not this time. A large program was started with agreement of the WU to re-introduce the history and consequences of communism as a compulsory information course into public schools, as well as guidance about the reasoning around the current founding principles. Additionally the WU decided not only for Amsterdam to make it part of this education to show what has become of the former CCP and the agony they now live in, ending with some great slogans, like
"The ice cream van's siren sounds promising, ...but you still don't get in", or this one next to military show:
Though this last part was a trick-question/presentation, for the teachers were instructed to scold all those that would cheer on it. Breathing in propaganda (even when it is true) was not the goal, but education and forming of an inquisitive mind that can resist it. The socialists only win when these virtues and lessons are forgotten or twisted.
Though not actually armed, the large city hall was rigged with show explosives, and a long fuse line went out to the streets towards a new admonishing monument that celebrated the rekindled republican spirits.
[/some skippable WU political history]The Window ClosesAs if the internal unrest wasn't enough, 9 months later other movements in Alpha Centauri indicated the Alp-CCP had reformed their forces and would soon attempt a return into Sol
...This time however, the Leninist AI had come up with a new frightening trick to add to its war tactic:
Maybe this was what all their gravity probing into Sol ultimately meant. By some unknown physics and wisdom that surely came from the null-void again, they actually succeeded at opening another cutting point into Sol, adding to the attack vectors that threatened humanity. WUN had so far followed a plan of moving fronts through the 2 planned carriers:
Eventually they wanted to encircle the abyssal system to gain time to think of a better plan and also free the routes to the colonies. Although this new breach was close to the Alpha Centauri cut, it still meant that to be safe while the carrier might be progressing, there had to be a "seal" applied, which might be too costly once more.
Something for WUN admiralty to think about, but also put back for this current predicament could only mean that the already intimidating Alp fleet in Alpha Centauri meant to unify with another one from a different location, and move in as one. ..At the Unions' current capacity, this could mean ultimate defeat.
One day later some precursor early scouts moved inwards and were greeted by a full wing of 50 Eurofighters.
To WU's great shame, the Goteborg survived despite not being particularly sturdy.
Not a good show for the fighters who would eventually have to go up against many warships at once.
Just a week later, the real attack fleet arrives. They seem to originate from the new cutting point.
The attack group halts and eerily awaits the WUN strike in stillness.
..Another failure ensues as their thick defensive fire eliminates enough munitions to leave the targeted Nyanga only wounded.
This means that even 50 fighters might still not be enough to reliable dispatch one enemy ship, although they were certainly crippled beyond usability. The admiralty will consider responses.
Left to further fall in as the wing rearms, it seems the AI has finally wised up on the WU's situation and targets their critical Uridium mine on Wolf.
..They destroy it soundly, leaving Europa no option but to move another mine over should the storm ever pass.
Asean left 2 beam defence bases at an Earth Lagrange point for experiments, which was targeted soon after some civilian ships.
The small post was destroyed, but not without critically damaging one of the large dreadnought Iah classes.
WUN seizes at this great opportunity and targets the wounded ship, but due to a synchronization error, -the first one so far-, salvos didn't align correctly.
Luckily the ship had no fire controls left and was dispatched even by a half salvo, incidentally adding useful intel to the guidebook of engagement procedures with the Alp.
Though they caused the WU infrastructure much harm already, it was surprising to see that this little encounter had already turned the AI to switch into a retreat behavioral schema.
WUN hoped for a much needed breather as the expensive missile reserve had run out already, but then, only another 2 days later, the second fleet arrived...
Without losing much time, they went after WU infrastructure once more, even going so far as to attempt to attack Mars directly it appeared. Luckily, there were ground batteries there of course.
...Yet the AI has been running
on cheats another new invention:
Their scrambling technology received an upgrade for which the defender were not prepared. While they usually only attempted to insert their propaganda into all transmission devices, this time they managed to hastily get hold of just one identified commanding officer which it subverted by a novel evolution of their methods into a focused brute force attempt. With WU having no defense against such determined infiltration, consequently the whole defensive line got shot down and didn't fire even though hell was raining down on the planet.
Over half a million civilians were killed in the attack and many defensive installation received critical damage. If this would be a problem of the future, then the beam defenses might as well not be there. It seemed only orbital missile batteries were reliable after all.
For now their overtaking was at least not permanent it seemed, causing them to leave the assault as an act of terror while aiming for their next target, ...another mine.
All of WU infrastructure was now at risk, and apparently couldn't even be fortified in the future with ground defenses anymore.
Another critical Uridium mining site, Mercury, fell in their eyes.
The civilian operation and the mercenaries defending it there were not simply dispatched in a slaughter of a battle. No, these poor souls awaited a much more dire destiny, as the attackers landed with the surprising intent to capture the base, and with it ...the colonists minds.
The mercenaries and corporate workers were integrated into the communist nightmare matrix, starting to chant the manifesto, or screaming as their brains began to grasp the horror of Lenin's work in its entirety, and there was nothing that the dried out WU navy could do about it at this point.
The times looked more dire than ever. Mercury was now a real base from which the Alp could harass the system, all the while Europa was under constant surveillance from another team of scout ships.
As if this threat wasn't already on the level that the years long previous occupation had presented, another 2 weeks later, ..there was a third fleet.
Even stronger than the last one, they assumed position at their Mercury post and merged with the 2nd fleet to launch incursions from this vantage point onto Earth directly.
In the first light of this renewed assault, many Asean beam bases fall quickly.
However the damage from the counter fire causes 4 Iah dreadnoughts to flee from the scene very early in the fight, while the rest of the fleet resumes station at conquered Mercury base.
Though it might seem like a little win, the fact stands that approaching Earth had previously resulted in obliteration of the Alp incursion, while it now left them wounded and thus with options to repair and regroup.
Things were going from bad to worse, but the truly worst was yet to come...
...Not just being satisfied with just defeating the free Union forces in open battle anymore, they continued with their ultimate plan that they already started at Mercury and Mars: Not murdering, not conquering, but overtaking the minds of the free.
..The process apparently took 2 days, but then the nightmare intelligence hungered again.
Although the cost were high, and even Britain lost one of its only bases, this time there were 3 loses on the side of the socialist locusts as well.
However, it was all within the scope of the Alp's plan it seemed. Shortly after the initial fire exchange, they once again deployed the upgraded scrambling technology. With the intelligence gathered from the mindjacked crews of the recently destroyed beam bases, they identified all the critical officer posts and took them over once more. In consequence, Earth's defenders stopped firing back for another whole minute, just like on Mars, leaving them to another slaughter.
Since the control relied on the mindscramble of some individuals however, at least it couldn't last forever as the chain of command could move to fire-at-will. Thus, before incurring unnecessary loses, the strike fleet moved out of the system, likely for repairs and to return even stronger... .
After the glimmer of hope from the recent advancement in Alp fighting tactics, the situation of the unions had now suddenly become more hopeless than it has ever been. WU's fighter fleet had three times in a row demonstrated lacking effectiveness, and despite grand 50% production expansion, it seemed the ammunition supplies could never become able to keep up with the sheer material the Alp was able to throw at them.
At the same time the at least mid-level defenses of ground based beam defenses seemed to have become mostly obsolete, for the enemy could always attempt hit-and-run tactics against them that must eventually tire them out to collapse without incurring any cost on the assailant.
The only defense left then were orbital missile bases, which were even more difficult to supply than the fighter fleet. In fact, prioritizing the fighter wing had caused that even the defenses of Europa had merely recovered 1000 of the 2400 missiles that would constitute just one full salvo, ...and it had taken years to get there.
All seemed to point that the historic win over the CCP, despite all the sacrifice, was in the end only a postponement of humanities ultimate destiny. The marvel incidence of the existence of US and their pioneer legacy one-of-a-kind freedom spirit had delayed it, ..until they still fell to it themselves, weakened by their riches. The emergence of the WU as its student had once more delayed it, ..but only at a cost that made them unable to fight its resurgence.
Maybe this was the answer to the Fermi Paradox. The Teeth empire had fallen under similar circumstances after all, and no further sign had been spotted that confirmed any advanced race had survived these inborn societal challenges. Perhaps the governor of Amsterdam was right after all, and there was no escaping for the lazy not-noble human mind but to fall into the think-traps of socialist autocracy.
(and then kill itself under it)[/Episode Wu'an: The Return of the "Zi"s]
//OOC:
(*1): Full talk with the Cuban resistance fighter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyw3EvMHlh8
Not sure what to do with this situation now. I was already demoralized when I had to realize the AI cheats at jump point transfers, which made most of my fleet setup unworkable. Now it seems it also cheats at avoiding ground-to-air defenses, so what beam defense is left, really? As I made sure to show in the screenshot, all the bases were on a firing policy, which had previously worked on Earth, but somehow not now.
Then consider that my AI allies also for some reason don't shoot back sometimes, and it seems pretty hopeless. I would take it if it was a fair game with a fair loss, but it isn't. The AI simply has some cheat like advantages due to problems with the mechanics. (perhaps the nature of player turn implementation has faulty consequences I would guess?)
..Well, I will try this some more now, but honestly, it would also be a good place to stop if the new version came out.
..Or I could counter the AI cheats with my own to re-establish fairness, though I don't know how. Suddenly appearing ammunition stockpiles, resources or ships, - they all seem dirty to me. Maybe a "server crash" on alien ships to gain time? That I could see I guess.
