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Someone's got to do the fighting sometimes, Fem. and us Blocktonians love to fight almost as much as those big burly Spartans ;)
Admiral: *pales* "S-SPARTANs? Who said anything about SPARTANs? We have never ran such a program! Nobody in Thalasus ever has!"
Ensign: "Sir, he meant Spartan as in the Greek city-state. Not as in the disbanded child soldier program."
Admiral: "...I need a drink..."
Oh. Hmm. Looking at his quote it reads 'A cubicle nowadays is about 75 feet square', which I misread as '75 square feet'. My bad!
Well, when you defend, you have to fight, unless you're going to use non-violent protests or something.
Perhaps reframe it as 'not fight a war of aggression'.
You disbanded your SPARTAN program? That's disappointing, the Ministry of Culture was so happy to have a cultural commonality between our two great nations.
Post self-deleted by Thalasus.
Massive popular disapproval and international sanctions forced the program to be disbanded. Now, rather than orphan children being selected and forced to train to become a better soldier, it's orphans who are thirteen years of age or older voluntarily signing up to serve in non-combat positions, such as simple vehicle maintenance and refueling. It's a much better system, with fewer opportunities for deadly error and increased military cohesion and productivity.
However, rumors are circulating that thirteen SPARTANs who have been reported killed in several very recent training mishaps are still alive and in advanced training, potentially to serve as an elite "black-ops" unit. The DRT has decried these claims "completely baseless" and "mere products of conspiracy theorists' imaginations, not anything based in reality". They also claim it is pure coincidence that those who have died were considered the most promising SPARTAN children for further development. In any case, there are absolutely no active-duty child soldiers in Thalasus anymore.
Every Blocktonian is trained, to painful perfection of their trade starting at age seven when they are taken from their mothers which is the custom.
"We, my fellow Thalasians, consider ourselves citizens of a civilized nation. This is true. It is the duty of all civilized nations to protect their children from death and trauma, and to allow and assist them in developing, in freedom and in peace, into great men and women. This is also true. Therefore, no war waged with us as a belligerent should cause us to willingly force any children at all into trauma and bloodshed by making them fight for the nation that should be keeping them safe instead. Isn't war destructive and horrible enough, without having us go out of our way to put our youngest treasures, the bright future and greatest hopes of our nation, into harms way and cut off their long and beautiful lives in the bud? This, however, was being done, all for the sake of simply having another loyal rifle on the battlefield, or another determined gunner on a battleship, or another darting eye on the radar screen. The military continuously sacrifices many things so that all Thalasians can sleep at night, safe from foreign annihilation, and for that we must be eternally grateful, and we must be always supportive of all their efforts in that regard. This program, however, is one sacrifice nobody must be permitted to make. It is simply too great a cost, for so little extra protection. There are other ways, and it is time for us to abandon the despicable barbarism of using our children for our defense." -President Ashton Mercer, before signing Executive Order 025, officially removing child soldiers instituted under the T-SPARTAN program from the Thalasian armed forces.
Post self-deleted by Escanthea.
Isaac is a man, thank god. Escantheans would rather die than have a woman on the throne, they'd waste all our treasury on shoes or something. Salic Law is the only Law over here!
REMOVE KEBAB! EXTERMINATING DIRTY TURKISH MONGOLOID HIPPIES NOW. *launches bottle rocket because of budget cuts*
Judas.
*sees bottle rocket on radar*
*wonders how I was even able to see a bottle rocket launched in Escanthea on radar*
*seriously reconsiders defense spending*
Seriously though, remove that kebab. Or else the Escanthean Intelligence Agency will destroy your country by making Muhammad cartoons and dropping them on your soil. It won;t be very fun though, because we'd prefer to blow up Thalasus ourselves.
I'm not just going to remove an entire religious group, about 1/4 of my nation, because you want me to. Besides, we only have sane Muslims who just shake their heads and sigh angrily when they see a depiction of Mohammed.
Down with dirty hippies!
You have ceased to amuse me. Prepare to be destroyed.
*gets out electric fly swatter*
Angrily sighing leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Did Yoda teach you nothing?
Wow, your way was way harsher.
The Pentagrian Armed Forces' 'Special weaPons (Arming, Recruitment, Training, And iNdoctrination)' program exclusively uses unwanted children.
(It is generally understood that 'Spartan' was backronymed to create the program name, because military people love their Greco-Roman references, thereby explaining the incredibly awkward acronym formation.)
The way the program works is that prior to any abortion being carried out, the clinic schedules an appointment with a recruitment officer, where a generous payment (entirely to mitigate the inconvenience of the pregnancy) is offered to instead bring the child to term and enlist him in the SPARTAN program. This was mostly done in order to serve as a 'humane' abortion source, such that individuals opposed to abortion for whatever reason could still, in essence, get one. It also keeps conservatives happy, since the recruitment officer is technically a 'counselor' to 'advise against' the abortion. It also helps keep healthcare costs low, and reduce future childbirth risk that may come about as a result of the abortion.
Some citizens protest this as tantamount to slavery, but lawyers have been very careful with the terms of the contracts, and it's legally indentured servitude, with salaries being paid into an investment account until their contract terminates at age 30, at which point they can re-up for a 10 or 20 year period, or find other employment. Our terms are clearly generous, since the 20-year re-up rate is 98%, with the remainder opting for the 10-year re-up. Only 3 people have left the service at their contract termination date. One of them currently heads up the Ministry of War, another is the head of BP State Arms, and a third is a renowned jazz singer.
Yeah, we're not really sure what was up with his indoctrination protocols.
Well, I may have oversimplified the program when I was explaining what changed. Promising candidates were selected from among abandoned or unwanted children and were started in military training. They could leave legally if they wanted to, nearly all of them did not. All but a few candidates were selected while they were very young (5-6 years of age) and began training and indoctrination immediately, so they viewed the military and their base as their family and saw everything about civilian life as something strange and other.
Needless to say, this is causing massive headaches for our pediatric psychiatrists right now as, since we have completely dissolved the program, they are not permitted to re-join combat roles in the military until they are 18.
So, really, it's not that much different. It's just more loosely institutionalized, and parents don't receive any benefits for giving their child to the military
Of course, that's all only relevant if you believe the program is over. The missing/supposedly dead SPARTANs, dubbed the NE-13 (ie the Non-Existant 13), are of considerable interest to many conspiracy theorist types.
I think I'm going to add an incident sub forum so we can get a NS RP going on the forums. Any ideas for an international incident to start with?
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