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| The Crimean Freestate: Reds, Royalists and Rand | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 19 2016, 10:46 PM (369 Views) | |
| flashman63 | Mar 19 2016, 10:46 PM Post #1 |
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The Herr From Terre
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The Crimean Freestate: Reds, Royalists and Rand Spoiler: click to toggle "Ah, the Crimean Freestate. No where else will you find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" -Dag Hammerskjold Chaos in the Ukraine! The White Army has held out longer than anyone expected, thanks to a more succesful Winter March and aid from some Western capitalists, and pushed back against the Reds. While the Bolsheviks still conquer the rest of the country, forcing Admiral Kolvak to re-locate into Ukraine, Ukraine remains a center of war and chaos. Not only do the Whites and Reds fight, but also several other anti-Red socialist movements that were put down in the rest of Russia, Fascists, and Anarchists. Ukraine quickly transforms into a hellscape. Marauding, scorched earth and planned famines culminated into Holodomor come a decade early. The Bolsheviks cut off food into the region, the Whites were resupplied via Crimea, and everyone else was forced to starve. Gangs of cannibals roamed the hinterlands outside of zones of Military control. Cannibalism became a way of life in the Ukraine- hunger-induced madness, desperation, a need to cope with their horrid, and a prion disease drove many Ukranians to a physical addiction to cannibalism. Entire towns formed, where some forward-thinking warlords began farming people. Cults were formed, and Holy Communion took on an entirely different meaning. In 1923, this abominable practice finally took its toll on the people of Crimea: the Turkish Flu. Originally unique to those who partook of rotten human meat, it morphed into something resembling a cross between ebola and kuru, and was just as easily spread as the former. The death toll climbed ever higher. The final straw came when a cosmic impactor detonated over Western Ukraine, with an explosion comparable in magnitude to the Tunguska Event. Hundreds of thousadns died across Eastern Europe. As if that wasn't bad enough, it caused radioactive fallout across the country. At this point, the world community got together, and decided this whole thing was getting a bit ridiculous. A different League of Nations, which was authorized to use military force, convened, and agreed to quarantine mainland Ukraine from the rest of the world. A massive campaign of wall-building, firebombing and evacuation was conducted by a multinational force of gas-masked blue helms. As many people as possible, Red, Black and White alike, were evacuated into the Crimean Peninsula, and the Ukranian Quarantine Zone was sealed. The League of Nations proved itself capable, and the world patted itself on the back. This would lay the groundwork for UN Intervention into the Ottoman Turkic Republic, Weimar Germany and Jerusalem. However, while the fun-showy-military bit was all well and good, there was a further problem: What to do with all of these refugees? Many of the Bolsheviks could be sent back to the Soviet Union, but what about all of the other Leftist groups? What about the Whites, or the Ethnic Ukranians who were now left stateless? Reds, Whites and Blacks set in their respective refugee camps, plotting to kill one another. For the League Bureacrats, it was an organizational nightmare. So, they basically just phoned the whole thing in. The Crimean Peninsula become a UN Mandate but, outside of a UN Blockade, the "locals" were free to resolve their own disputes. If things ever got beyond the level of street brawls and low-level conflict, the Bluehelms would step in. Thus was born the Freestate of Crimea. Different towns subscribed to different ideology, with fights breaking out commonly between them. Sevastopol was something of a neutral meeting ground. The state would be quite impoverished- without axis to the once rich farmlands of mainland Ukraine, they had few industries. Things would not change radically until the end of the Second World War. The League of Nations managed to defeat the Axis Powers, further cementing their world power. Several new Mandates were carved out across the world. After learning from the third-world state that was Crimea, the UN adopted a program of federal control for all of their mandates, in the ultimate pursuit of a one-world state. As the Nazi regime collapsed, high-ranking officials tried to flee the country via the paramilitary organization "Die Spinne". Many headed for Brazil and Argentina, where there was a sizeable German expat community. However, at some point, an important realization was made- in the lawless land of the Crimea, anyone could come, so long as they made it past the blockade. The League was furious, but unable to prosecute the Nazis. Thus, thousands of Nazi officers and Scientists fled League, American and Soviet capture. At this point, it became clear to the world that the lawless nature of the Freestate came with certain advantages. Everytime the League toppled some tinpot dictator, you could be guaranteed that they'd have a safehouse in the Freestate. Banks popped up over night. Any vice imaginable could be purchased in the streets of Sevastopol. Suddenly, Crimea became a wealthy epicenter for criminal and business enterprises across the world. And the League wasn't complaining either- tarrifs and kickbacks were getting them rick off of the Freestate. Here was Crimea- a land without laws, born of the worst of circumstances, flourishing because of its lack of accomadation for the the laws of the World State that was teh League of Nations. This appealed to many across the world- including philosopher, Ayn Rand. While most other people saw a geopolitical loophole, Rand saw the stage for a new age of mankind, where selfishness is a virtue, where freedom is paramount. With the help of dozens of rich financiers, Rand began Atlas Industries, building a shining art-deco skyscraper in the heart of the still largely medieval Sevastopol. Initially, it was a large banking conglomerate. However, Rand set out on a search for various "Great Men" to make a breakthrough- most of which happened ot be Nazis. But say what you will about the tenents of National Socialism- the men were talented. Soon, Atlas Industries was pumping out innovation after innovation, putting many Statist corporations to shame, however, it would be Coronium that truly put Atlas Industries on the map, so to speak. In the mainland Ukraine, the "Cannibal Culture" persits. Bands of hunter-cannibals roam the countryside, riflign through the husks of towns, living in fear of angry gods and clouds of radiation. Nazis, Soviets and Nationalists still try to recruit and radicalize these bands by getting past the League blockade, but everyone knows that the coronium trade is the real reason for contact. For guns, foods and medicine, the Savages provide coronium. When the impactor blew up over the Ukraine, it dispersed a strange, radioactive element with a number of curious properties across the land. Since '24, the Whites and Reds had been employign the things to build crude "Radium Bombs". The League quarantined the substance for later study, but it would just end up sitting in a storage locker in League Headquarters. The first real science would come when the Nazis made an ill fated attempt to go round Soviet defenses by way of Ukraine. While this invasion was an utter disaster, they did acquire coronium, which was sent to Berlin and Peensmunde to be experimented on. High energy potency, mutagenic properties, vaguely antigravitaic: a wonder substance. This, when many of these Nazis feld to the Freestate in the wake of the Second Great War, they were extremely interested in acquiring and studying coronium. Under Atlas Industries, this seedy underground trade and research blossomed. Deals were cut with the League to allow a very small-scale trade into mainland Ukraine, which of course opened the gate for ever greater and greater trade. Atlas Industries became one of the greatest corporations in the world with it's new-found wonder technologies- cheap and plentiful fission energy, ray guns, bizarre mutagenic biotechnology. The power of Atlas grew to such a point that everyone else was forced to toe the Objectivist line in Sevastopol and major population centers, or be forced underground. Skyscrapers rose across the Objectivist regions of Crimea- both Atlas-affiliated, and by corporations come to this Libertarian paradise. Workers from across the world were imported to work assembly lines and the Coronium mines. With the lack of zoning laws or affordable housing, massive shanty towns sprung up. Think Kowloon Walled City, except that's what the entire city consisted of. Crimea became the most densely populated region in the world, seemingly overnight. Massive tinderboxes lay in the shadow of glass and steel ivory towers and brutalist concrete factories. These wretched, polluted and crime-ridden dens were ripe breeding grounds for the Reds. Rand had hoped to crush all Socialist sentiment in her Laissez Faire paradise, but achieved the exact opposite. The 2nd-generation Red Army hid in the warrens, radicalized migrants. But it wasn't only in the slums that Communism would be found- the Comintern and Politburo had taken an intense interest in bringing liberation to the Freestate, and getting their hands on some of that sweet, sweet coronium. Massive brutalist edifices were erected- research centers, embassies, cheap public housing to ease the suffering of the poor. Atlas could only make life hell, but thanks ot the abolition of the State, was unable to push them out completely. The year is 1988, and peace is uneasy across the Crimea. A cloud city of art deco towers and monorails lay above an endless, smoky slums. Nazism and Objectivism have melded, and Brownshirts stalk te streets, bashing heads of all the brown folks that they suspect to be Collectivists. They clash with Communist revolutionaries, and crime rates are at an all time high. People addicted to drugs, and stranger coronium-infused mutagenic "Splicers". Rayguns and AI proliferate in the black market, and it's just going to take one Coronium reactor failure to send the whole damn rotten edifice into an inferno. At the center of it all is the League Tower, carefully maintaining the blockade, managing it's holdings, all while ignoring the horror going on just under its nose. |
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7:53 PM Jul 10