LazarusBoard

One last post before bed.

Leonism wrote:

"Grau 1, Gold 1. We've picked up some aircraft launches from a military airbase, but they are heading the wrong way. Keep calm, we think you might have slipped in undetected as planned. We have a squadron the new R44 heavy fighters on standby to bust you out if needed. But remember, we want these people to not even notice us and we mean them no harm!" "Gold 1, Grau 1. Understood. Let's just hope that their witch-queen stays on the Altenberg and doesn't suddenly teleport into my back-seat...Grau 1 out."

The pilots looked at the empty back seat in the cockpit, then at each other. Ever since the mission briefing everybody had been talking about Lady Zaharra and what she could allegedly do. She was the one factor in this mission that the Imperium seemed to have really no control about.

Lt. Jaspers of the Loftegen River Patrol stood on the bridge of the patrol craft Sunfish as it motored up the River Ohrn. The Ohrn wasn't as busy above Altenburg as it was below, but there were plenty of small craft visible in the pre-dawn twilight. Sport fishermen, mostly. But there were pleasure craft as well, and even a couple of inflatable boats carrying a dozen or so people each. River tour, no doubt. Lt. Jaspers was far more interested in the barge train coming down-river than he was in anything else. Colliding with it would be not only embarrassing, but career ending. He directed the helmsman to move the Sunfish to the edge of the dredged channel. The tour boats passed close by, headed down-river. Lt. Jaspers waved to the occupants as they went by, and they waved back.

Since the ranks of citizens of Leonism feature prominently in my RP posts, I wrote them up in a factbook for all to see, here

Did you know that all citizens of the Imperium have ranks? Read more about the system in the factbook.

PS: a pic with rank insignia for these also exists, but I don't know where to upload it for posting it on NS. Anyone have an idea?

Your imaginary friend wrote:

You can upload images from your computer to Discord! For example in #the-canteen on the LazCorp servers on the left of the message bar there's like a plus sign that you can click on to browse for stuff. :)

If you then click on the image and open it up in a new tab the link will be something you can share on any site.

Thanks for the hint!

Leonism wrote:

Johann Jaspers waved back at the patrol boat. The name on its hull read "Sunfish". He was totally oblivious to the fact that he shared the same last name with the officer he waved at, and was too far away to read the name patch on the officer's uniform. He of course did not wear his usual name patch. Präfekt-Commander Jaspers was the team leader of this intelligence operation and wore plain clothes. He was in the counter-intelligence business for 20 years now, but this was his first exciting mission for a long time. Due to Leonism's isolation until 7 months ago, not many foreign spies had travelled to the country, nor had there been any need for imperial agents to travel abroad. Thus Leonism's agents lacked experience, but they did not lack intelligence or training.

Jaspers had decided to split his team of 24 officers into six teams of four, to tackle multiple sources of information at once. So far all they had were news reports from AIN and other local and regional channels, as well as web articles. Fellow agents in Fortuna had scanned the internet, to which Leonism was not yet connected, but found mainly conspiracy theories and memes about the incident. Few people seemed to know anything of substance. Jaspers wanted to change this.

His latest information was that there would be another press conference on the attack by the justice ministry of Loftegen 2, and one team of his would simply go there, pose as journalists from Leonism (which was easy) and ask lots of questions.

Another team would go to the site of the attack, a third would trace the van with which the attackers arrived, a fourth team would try to find out more about the local Order of the Light if it even existed.

A fifth team would book hotel rooms for the entire squad, while he reserved the most daring task for himself and his team: they would go to the police station that investigated the attack, identify themselves using their imperial ID cards and ask for access to the confiscated army carbines. They needed the serial codes on the guns to find out which arsenal they were stolen from and thus trace the supporters of the Order back in Leonism.

Arguably, Jaspers was a bit naive about the business he was in, something he shared with many imperial citizens and their outlook on the world...

Stephyn Gram watched with bored indifference as two inflatable boats tied up at one of the many public docks that dotted Altenburg's riverfront. In theory he was supposed to greet them and inquire if they needed any services, such as fuel. In practice, he hated his minimum wage job and didn't give a rat's backside if these new arrivals needed anything or not. If they stopped and asked him, fine, sure, he'd help them; otherwise... The two dozen men and women who debarked from the boats walked right past him as he sat in the little kiosk at the shore end of the dock, focused on his phone. They didn't say anything, and Stephyn didn't even look up. Had he known that he'd just let two dozen foreign agents walk into the city, he still wouldn't have cared.

Seatlantis wrote:

i might as well go china and do something similar, or maybe not and just stay prohibiting people from doing certain things

I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean, but if you refer to China's "social score" then yes, the rank system in Leonism ultimately serves a somewhat similar function by publicly rewarding "good behaviour" (with promotions) and sanctioning "bad behaviour" (with demotions, though these typically occur only after crimes, and more commonly through simply not promoting the individual in question). Note that my idea is older than China's.

You will notice that our stats show high civil and political rights, and I try to be consistent with the RP here: Leonism is not a dictatorship, though it has an executive leader who is both HoG and HoS (but then so has the US or France in RL), it has fair and frequent elections, but certain freedoms are indeed limited, namely freedom of religion and freedom of conscience (conscientious objection to military service is not possible) and the state is heavily militarized by outright abandoning the distinction between civilians and soldiers. Certain morals are also enforced by the state, such as both alcohol and smoking, as well as all other drugs, being banned.

On the other hand sexuality can be freely expressed between consenting adults, abortion is available on the IHS, gun possession is allowed in the same way as in Switzerland (reservists take their army rifles home after service), highways have no speed limit (as in Germany) and no censorship takes place. Journalists, doctors and lawyers have special protection from snooping on their client relations, just like in German law. Demonstrations are allowed and regularly take place.

Not all is well in Leonism, but a lot is.

Custadia wrote:

He actually means the Grand Fleet, pride of all Custadia.

"Frau Tribun, we have radar contact 30 km out, bearing 275, moving east" "Change heading 290, prepare to intercept, we'll make an exercise in interception out of this".

Frauke Sievert commanded the Skylancer class frigate Seeadler, one the latest vessels of the Imperiale Kriegsmarine. The ship was on sea trials in the Blaumeisenbucht. Sievert was an ambitious captain, sometimes described as hot-headed, and had made an impressive career so far, reaching the rank of Tribun at 29 and already commanding her own vessel. And what a vessel it was. The Skylancer class frigates were a product of Leonism's recent technological breakthroughs in fusion power and laser technology. Its main weapons were three turrets of two dual 20 MW Laser cannons each, with an effective range of 15 km. With a whopping 52 additional 5 MW Lasers for point defense, the vessel could defend against practically any missile-based attack. Built mainly for air defense, the ship lacked long-range punch beyond visual range, especially since the two planned MRM-16 missile launchers had not yet been installed on the Seeadler. The fusion reactor also allowed for a powerful engine and reaching top speeds of up to 132 km/h for short times. Sievert was going to test this ability now: "full speed ahead". The ship accelerated with an audible deep hum, the unknown blip on the radar screens closing in at a faster rate.

Soon they had the vessel in sight on the horizon, flying the flag of Custadia's Grand Fleet, about the same length as the Skylancer's 132 m. Sievert opened a broadband radio channel "Custadian ship, this is captain Sievert from the imperial leonist frigate Seeadler. You are inside waters commonly used as proving grounds for the Imperial navy of Leonism, we kindly advice you to change to a northerly course."

Mmph mmph MMPH. MMPH mmph mmph mmph. Mmph mmph MMPH MMPH.

Mmph!

Loftegen 2 wrote:

Stephyn Gram watched with bored indifference as two inflatable boats tied up at one of the many public docks that dotted Altenburg's riverfront. In theory he was supposed to greet them and inquire if they needed any services, such as fuel. In practice, he hated his minimum wage job and didn't give a rat's backside if these new arrivals needed anything or not. If they stopped and asked him, fine, sure, he'd help them; otherwise... The two dozen men and women who debarked from the boats walked right past him as he sat in the little kiosk at the shore end of the dock, focused on his phone. They didn't say anything, and Stephyn didn't even look up. Had he known that he'd just let two dozen foreign agents walk into the city, he still wouldn't have cared.

[Noon in Altenburg, Loftegen 2 ]
Having made their way to the press conference in the Justice Ministry building of Altenburg, four imperial agents sat down in the last row of the press conference room. Judging by how full the room was, the terrorist attack in George Nicholas Square was no longer the prime interest of the local media. The room was nearly full but not packed, and the imperials got seats easily. The conference was supposed to begin at noon, but Minister Jarret Kale kept the press waiting. It was a quarter past noon when he finally arrived, and the buzz in the room got a lot louder, then subsided.

At almost exactly the same time, Johann Jaspers and his team of three other agents entered the Altenburg Police Headquarters, only a few hundred meters away from the Justice Ministry. Jaspers walked up to the counter, drew his ID card and held it to the glass wall so that the police officer on the other side could see it clearly.

"Hello sir. I am Präfekt-Commander Johann Jaspers of the Imperial Intelligence Agency of Leonism. My team and I are here to investigate the recent terrorist attack on your city, which was carried out using carbines from our country. We are here to prevent conflict between our nations. Could we have a look at the weapons to help us find out who stole them from our country?"

The police officer behind the glass counter was absolutely flummoxed and left speechless at this sudden revelation...

I think Scani and some other nations are above the endorsments cap

Ugh dear leader is wrapping up nearly 5 hours of paperwork. Stay in school kids.

Leonism wrote:

[Noon in Altenburg, Loftegen 2 ]
Having made their way to the press conference in the Justice Ministry building of Altenburg, four imperial agents sat down in the last row of the press conference room. Judging by how full the room was, the terrorist attack in George Nicholas Square was no longer the prime interest of the local media. The room was nearly full but not packed, and the imperials got seats easily. The conference was supposed to begin at noon, but Minister Jarret Kale kept the press waiting. It was a quarter past noon when he finally arrived, and the buzz in the room got a lot louder, then subsided.

At almost exactly the same time, Johann Jaspers and his team of three other agents entered the Altenburg Police Headquarters, only a few hundred meters away from the Justice Ministry. Jaspers walked up to the counter, drew his ID card and held it to the glass wall so that the police officer on the other side could see it clearly.

"Hello sir. I am Präfekt-Commander Johann Jaspers of the Imperial Intelligence Agency of Leonism. My team and I are here to investigate the recent terrorist attack on your city, which was carried out using carbines from our country. We are here to prevent conflict between our nations. Could we have a look at the weapons to help us find out who stole them from our country?"

The police officer behind the glass counter was absolutely flummoxed and left speechless at this sudden revelation...

Behind the glass of the duty desk (which he hated: it was always too hot since they closed it in) Sergeant Bill Rush stared back at the man on the other side. If Imperial agents were legit supposed to be here, the Department would have been notified, so a proper welcome could be arranged. But at the same time (Prefect, was it? Prefect Commander?) Jaspers didn't strike Rush as a typical wacko. Didn't really strike him as a wacko at all. Something about the way he and his companions carried themselves...

"You want to slide that ID through here so I can get a better look at it?" Rush asked, pointing to a slot put in the desktop for just that purpose. Jaspers complied. Rush studied the ID. He had no idea what real Imperial ID badges looked like, but he did have an eye for fakes, and this one was a bit too detailed and crisp looking to be fake. At least, that was his impression.

"This is a surprise, Prefect-Commander, we weren't expecting you," Rush said. "You understand that I'll have to clear this with my superiors?"

Prefect-Commander Jaspers suddenly looked uncomfortable, as if he'd realized that he'd overplayed his hand. He nodded, though.

Rush, for his part, picked up the telephone, punched in a number, and waited. "Captain," he said after a few seconds, "Sgt. Rush at the duty desk. I have four Imperium of Leonism Intelligence Angency people here who would like to examine the weapons used in the George Nicholas attack."

"Yes, I'm serious...They don't appear to be armed, but I'm guessing they are...I think they're for real...Yes, I'll wait." Rush looked at Prefect-Commander Jaspers. "The Captain is sending it up the chain of command," he explained. Jaspers looked even more uncomfortable, and his friends were exchanging nervous glances.

"Relax, son," Rush said. "Sure, the Foreign Ministry is going to be notified, and I'm sure they'll send someone over here to have a look at you, maybe invite you to the Ministry for a chat, but we're pretty laid back here in Loftegen 2. We also don't dawdle; I should know within a few minutes whether..." The telephone distracted him. "Yes? Of course, thank you." He looked at Jaspers again. "Good to go," he said.

Rush took them to the evidence storage area, to the drawer where the weapons were stored.

"You'll want to put these on," he suggested, offering a box of medical grade nitrile gloves. "We recovered four weapons," he went on, "and here they are." He pulled the drawer open.

Meanwhile, at the Ministry of Justice, Minister Kale was finishing up reading his prepared statement.

"To summarize, then, this cell of terrorists acted alone, because they were all of the members of their particular sect of the Order. Jessa Dareth of Zolarand was their spiritual as well as military leader, and she believed she had received a vision from her god, telling her to kill Lady Zaharra. She sought to achieve this by triggering a war between ourselves and a larger nation." He paused and looked up at the audience. "Miss Green will now hand out redacted copies of the transcripts of Jessa Dareth's...memories...to all who want them. I'll take questions when she's done."

The leader of the team of Imperial agents watched the woman called Green work her way through the room, handing out thumb drives. Memories? How was that even possible? And the box Miss Green was carrying didn't look big enough to hold fifty thumb drives, let alone the hundred or so she'd handed out by the time she got to them.

"Would all of you like a copy?" she asked. The four agents nodded. She reached into the box and produced the requested items.

"How could that little box hold so many of these?" the team leader asked.

Miss Green shrugged. "Because the Lady wants it to."

"Thank you, Miss Green," Minister Kale said from the podium. "I'll now open the floor to questions, and I think today I'll start with...you!" he said, and pointed straight at the team leader.

What's your favorite thing to go shopping for?

:P I like grocery shopping a ton personally because I'm into food and everything tends to look so good in the store. Also I rarely feel like I'm wasting money when buying food cuz ya just gotta eat!