The Human Nations

 

The Republican Union of Terranova

 

“Nothing but death and eternal damnation for the Rude Union.”

 

—Commonwealth Prime Minister Lilith Angelique Gault, in a speech before the Commonwealth Legislature immediately following the attack on Bearclaw Station, 15 January, 2206

 

General Information

 

 

The Rights of Women

 

 

 

 

“Bitches got too goddamn many fucking rights, if you ask me.”

 

 

—Then-Terranova Prime Minister Guy Thomas Zellner, in an interview with Straight Talk host Gregory Delgado, 19 January,2202

 

 

 

 

Women have no rights in the Rude Union, Guy Zellner’s lies to the contrary...they are forbidden to be anything other than beasts of burden, domestic drudges and rape slaves, with even the slightest glimmer of ability in anything immediately being punished with brutal rape and sadistic humiliation, with those women refusing to break being shipped off to prisons, mental hospitals, brothels, “adult” entertainment clubs and whatnot throughout Terranovan space.

 

 

 

 

Terranovan Child Labor Laws: As per Article 112 of the Official Code of Terranova, girls can legally be put to work—in a variety of crap work—at the age of ten, while boys aren’t allowed to work until the age of twelve...the rationale for these low minimumages being that Terranova, at the time of the Enosis nearly two centuries ago, needed a way to exapnd the native workforce without recruiting offworlders.

 

 

 

 

It only outwardly appears discriminatory towards boys...outward appearances being more than sufficent for them to cry about being victimized, at the same time they beat and rape their girlfriends, wives, sisters and daughters out of the pittances they are allowed to have once the men in the Yanker government get through deducting health insurance, retirement, Union and county income taxes and a seven and three-quarters percent “gender penalty” imposed on all female workers in Terranovan soil simply because they get such preferential treatment over those poor, poor boys to begin with....

 

Minority Male Rights

 

 

“The law don’t mean shit, if you got the big dick.

That’s how every country’s run.

My well-hung hammer’s the only friend I’ll ever need.

I helped the Man, and the Man won.

I helped the Man, and the Man won....”

—The Horses, “I Helped The Man(And The Man Won),” released 2214

 

 

 

Terranovan men, regardless of race, color, pointed ears or whatever, have never been persecuted, despite the best propaganda the Vargas Movie Board can spew...men are the jailers of the real inmates of Terranova’s ghettos...women, incarcerated there to be worked to death in the mines, factories and fields in Yanker soil, dehumanised beasts of burden stripped naked, made to do the most dangerous, demeaning, degrading, exhausting, back-breaking shitwork in existence, while the “downtrodden” minority males sit on their fat, lazy overprivileged male asses and have whatever they want handed to them.

 

 

 

 

The Rights of Homosexual Men

 

 

 

 

“I am the Man!

That’s why I won....”

—Ibid

 

 

Those men born homosexual are brutally, mercilessly persecuted by the Terranovan government...at least that is what the Movie Board tells the average Yanker male and HV never lies, now does it....

 

 

Homosexual men have always been considered the acme of rapist masculinity ever since the beginning of civilisation.

 

The Terranovan Government

 

The Governor of the Union

 

 

“For Christ’s sake, you’re supposed to shoot mad dogs, not sit in judgement over them!”

 

 

—Commonwealth Broadcasting CEO and Firestar Legislator Irma DeLong, M.CL, KC.C., OEH, on the floor of the Commonwealth Legislature, 20.November, 2214, in regards to Terranova Governor Guy Zellner

 

 

The Governor of the Union is an absolute dictator—in fact, if not by law—willingly installed in office by his male citizen co-conspirators(from the Union’s 159 counties), women’s votes being deleted from the Secretary of the Union’s AIs in New Whitehorse just before the final results are tallied, just after the Movie Board’s mediacorps start gassing off about how the newly-installed Governor successfully managed to bridge the gender gap...just so women can be whipped for his misdeeds after he takes office....

 

 

The sole caveat is that he must please his fellow men, else they will combine and depose him—as happened with Jackson Varnadore, deposed and executed by his lover, then-Prime Minister Guy Thomas Zellner, in 2204, Zellner being elected to a term of his own that same year by his citizen co-conspirators.

 

 

In addition to his duties as chief executive officer of the Union, the Governor of the Union is also the head of the General Assembly(q.v.)and commander-in-chief of the military and the National Police.

 

 

The Governor of the Union stands for election every four years.

 

 

The Cabinet

 

Consisting of the heads of government agencies the Cabinet ministers are, in current order of succession(as per the Union Succession Act of 2057, amended 2217): the Prime Minister Of the Union—also head of the TSID(q.v.)—the Attorney-General of the Union, the Chairman Of the Union Security Council, the Foreign Minister, the Minister of Prisons, the Minister of Family and Children’s Services, the Minister of Health and Human Capital, the Minister of Labor, the Minister of Technology and Telecommunications, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister of Public Services, the Union Fire and Insurance Comissioner, the Minister of Natural Resources, the Minister of Transportation, the Minister of Colonial Affairs, the CEO of Excelsior Mining, the Chancellor of the University System of Terranova, the Minister of Corporate Relations, the Minister of Agriculture, the Secretary of State and the Minister of Education.

 

 

Cabinet officers serve at the whim of the Governor...and, he at theirs.

 

 

The Common Legislature

The Common Legislature is a bicameral body, consisting of the lower house, or General Assembly, and the upper house, known as the House of Commons.

 

 

The General Assembly: Headed by the Governor of the Union, the General Assembly comprises ten members from each of Terranova’s 159 counties and plus non-voting Delegates from the Terranovan Homesteads and all the offworld Terranovan colonies except Witch's Tit.

 

 

Voting members of the General Assembly—referred to as Assemblymen—stand for election every two years, while Delegates are appointed to their posts by the Governor of the Union.

 

 

The House Of Commons: The upper house and the actual seat of power in the Common Legislature. The Prime Minister presides over the House of Commons and is selected from amongst their number by majority decision of the members of Commons(referred to as Legislators).

 

 

Each county elects an at-large Legislator to Commons, with the county’s Chief Administrator serving as the statutory represenative to the House of Commons. Also, the Governor and the other Cabinet ministers serve as ex officio members of the House of Commons.

 

 

Legislators stand for election once every six years.

 

 

The Supreme Court

 

 

Twenty-three men who serve at the Governor’s whim. Their job is to interpret the Articles of Union to benefit the government and their agenda.

 

 

They serve for life and convene every three months in Atlanta Three.

 

 

County Government

 

 

Each of Terranova’s 159 counties is governed by a board of comissioners, elected every four years by their male co-conspirators, the comissoners, in turn, appointing a chief administrator to oversee the day-to-day running of the county, vesting in him supreme executive and legislative authority within that county.

 

 

Colonial Government

 

Terranova's offworld colonies are governed either as Special Military Colonies—absolute military dictatorships under the authority of a Commanding General(who holds the title Special Provost Marshal) answerable only to the Governor and the Union Security Council—as satrapies(offworld facilities) of Excelsior Mining(q.v.), run by Chief Administrators appointed by the Governor of the Union on the advice of the CEO of Execelsior Mining, as joint fiefdoms of both Excelsior and the Terranovan Armed Forces, or, in the case of Witch's Tit, penal colonies under the direct authority of the Ministry of Prisons.

 

 

No matter who runs them, their purpose is the same: Slave labor death camps for the women and girls condemned to them.

 

 

Military

 

The Terranovan Republican Army

 

 

The Terranovan Republican Army is the ground fighting force of the Yanker armed forces, with four hundred five million men in its ranks, organized into 45 “shock armies,” integrating both heavy infantry and mechanized forces at the regimental level; the heavy suits wearing TL12 powered combat armor equipped with four 127mm railguns and ten chest-mounted Gatling railguns in addition to AG shielding, while its mechanized elements ride into battle in TL 12 AG-driven AFVs and APCs, the regular(or standard) infantry wearing TL12 cybersuits with AG shielding, armed with TL12 assault railers and laser lances.

 

 

The head of the Army is the Commanding General of the Army, an officer of five-star rank who sits on the Union Security Council.

 

 

The Terranovan Republican Aerospace Force

 

 

The TRAF is the elite service amongst the Terranovan armed forces, consisting of 60 divisions of 36,000 Governor-class battleships and 144,000 Freeman Lang-class frigates, amongst its Galactic South(20 divisions, based at King Henry’s World), Galactic North(13 divisions, based at Terranova) and Pleiades(27 divisions, based at Viejo Mundo, in the Alcyone system) Commands.

 

 

The TRAF also maintains a Pathfinder Command, consisting of some 120,000 Ranger-class long-range scoutcraft(called pathfinders). Pathfinder Command’s mission is that of exploration, though, by some strange coincidence, the systems Pathfinder Command’s scouts are assigned to explore just happen to be the ones colonized by either the Commonwealth and her allies….or by the Rude Union’s fellow League members.

 

 

The TRAF dress uniform is blue, with either a beret for its enlisted men or a peaked cap for its officers. Standard duty uniform is an olive-drab green TL12 cybersuit and AG shielding, with a rail pistol and a laser lance for armament(security police also use assault railers).

 

 

The TRAF’s commanding officer is the Commanding General of the Aerospace Force, who sits on the Union Security Council.

 

 

The Special Forces Command

 

More ruthless than even the RTA’s infamous commandos(q.v.), the Terranovan Republican Special Forces Command is the only special operations force in the human worlds to be constituted as a separate branch of service.

 

 

Its purpose: To serve as muscle for the TSID, the National Police and the Ministry of Prisons, in addition to standard commando duties in wartime and police duties in the Terranovan colonies not otherwise under the authority of Excelsior Mining(q.v.). Special Forces Command members wear blood-red berets and tiger-striped TL12 cybersuits with AG shielding, their dress uniform being hunter green.

 

 

They are armed with TL 12 assault railers, rail pistols and laser lances.

 

The head of the Special Forces Command is the Commanding General of the Special Forces, who sits on the Union Security Council.

 

 

The Terranovan Security and Intelligence Directorate

 

 

The Terranovan Security and Intelligence Directorate is the secret police force par excellence, with unlimited power to spy on people, arrest anyone on general prinicples, shoot to kill with impunity, enter homes without a warrant, interrogate anyone any way they feel appropriate—without regard to civil rights, health or continued existence of the subject.

 

 

The TSID have infiltrators everywhere in Terranovan soil, with a network of electronic surveillance devices built into every house, every lamppost, every traffic light, every garbage can, every ladies’ restroom, every Moot House backroom....their undercover operatives are responsible for the smooth running of all criminial activity within the Union.

 

 

The TSID is further charged with external intelligence gathering as well. Its titular head is the Prime Minister of the Union, with the day-to-day operations overseen by a commanding general who sits on the Union Security Council.

 

 

The National Police

 

 

The National Police is the Union’s sole police force, organized into 159 commands at the county level, each headed by a full coloniel; they are singularlly ruthless in the execution of their job.

 

 

They are equipped with Hong-Kong manufactured TL12 Humber War Pig wheeled APCs, each armed with a 127 mm railgun, as well as ACAG-137U Spectre IV gunships, each armed with a 127mm railgun, five 25 mm Gatling railguns on either side of the fuselage, AG shielding and a plutonium oxide gas discharger; National Policemen themselves are armed with TL12 rail pistols, TL12 assault railers and a Type II neurolash(what they call stun batons), wearing TL12 CID and AG shielding as their sole armor.

 

 

National Policemen patrol in two-man teams, driving General Motors of Terranova Magnum police crusiers.

 

 

Needless to say, the National Police do not stop crime, nor is it their real purpose; the Gnats use the fear of crime as an excuse to perpetrate the most horrific atrocites upon the innocent(women), and everyone else as well, and are invariably the first response any Governor has to any form of dissent, his next being to send in the Special Forces Command, backed up by the tanks and heavy suits of one of the shock armies....

 

 

The Adjutant General of the National Police is a general of five-star rank overseeing the day-to-day operations of the National Police and is a sitting member of the Union Security Council.

 

 

The Terranovan Republican Coast Guard

 

 

The Terranovan Republican Coast Guard is the only naval patrol force in the human worlds still organized as a separate branch of service; its members patrol Terranovan waters in TL12 submarine cutters, patrol hydrofoils, inboard motorboats and swifts. Coast Guardsmen wear TL12 CID armor and AG shielding, and, generally are armed with laser lances, rail pistols and assault railers.

 

The head of the TRCG is the Commandant of the Coast Guard, a five-star rank officer who sits on the Union Security Council.

 

Miscellanious Organizations

 

 

The Boy Scouts

 

 

“A Scout is a treacherous, disloyal, lecherous, hateful, dirty, filthy, buttfucking, no-good, miserable excuse for a sad sack of shit.”

 

 

—Spray-painted onto the walls of the Scout hut in Freeman Lang, on Terranova, following the civilian rape-murder trial and conviction of Terranova Republican Special Forces Command Lieutenant Coloniel Eli Feldmann, a Cadet Corps commander and chairman of the Terranovan Fall Line Boy Scout Council, 22 September, 2217.

 

 

A Scout is untrustworthy, loyal when conveneint, helpful when there’s something in it for him, friendly to his fellow men when convenient and not at all to women, sadistic and cruel while pretending to be kind, unquestionlly obedient, an asskisser to those above him, wasteful, greedy and wantonly destructive, brave only when the odds are stacked in his favour, disdainful of the dirt and sweat of hard work and of any compassionate, sympathetic emotions, especially towards women, and reverent to the institutions which allow him to be the spineless, raping, murdering monster that he is.

 

 

In short, the Boy Scouts have not changed at all from the concept of them advanced by that murdering animal Sir Robert Baden-Powell, when he first formed them over three hundred years ago.

 

 

Every male in Terranovan soil must be in a Scout troop, starting with the Cub Scouts in primary school, the Boy Scouts in middle school, and, the Cadet Corps for those in high school and college.

 

 

The most basic organization in the Boy Scouts is the patrol(squad in the Cadet Corps, pack in the Cub Scouts), consisting of eight scouts, led by the most senior and politically-connected of the eight.

 

 

They are further organized into troops, and the troops, in turn form councils.

 

 

The uniforms of all Scouts are khaki or navy blue(for Cub Scouts and Coast Guard Cadets). Their troops are led by Scoutmasters(Commanders in the Cadet Corps, den fathers in the Cub Scouts), who are required to serve at least ten years in either the NCO, warrant or officer grades of any of the Terranovan armed services.

 

 

 

 

 

In keeping with their fine tradition of misogyny, male homosexuality is actively and overtly encouraged in the Boy Scouts, with Scouts being taught that only men can love, be friends, have normal sexual relationships and have children without women.

 

 

Starting in the Cub Scouts, a boy recieves basic military training, including the use of railguns and is required to, in order to earn his Feminine Behavior merit badge, hunt down, rape and murder at least one woman before he turns ten(referred to as a beaver hunt....)or otherwise be considered homosexual(read lesbian)and drummed out of the Scouts(which does not go well when job hunting in later life) , plus three induvidual rapes per level of Scout rank, up to Eagle Scout/Cadet Coloniel.

 

 

In all human nations, except the Commonwealth and her allies, where they are either banned by law or banned by the popular will, the Boy Scouts and the Cadet Corps are an offically-sanctioned arm of the government...differing very little from their Yanker counterparts....

 

 

Other Information

 

Population: 22,123,285,726,400persons(PR13).

 

Control Rating: 6

 

Technological Level: General TL 12; medical TL 9(10).

 

Capital City(Legislative): New Whitehorse, on Terranova.

 

Captial City(Judicial): Atlanta Three, on Terranova.

 

Monetary Unit: Terranovan Standard Currency($TSC), equal to ST0.143 and CMD 0.069, subdivided into 100 pennies, 20 nickels, 10 dimes and four quarters; there are no half-dollar or three-quarter dollar pieces in Terranovan Standard Currency.

 

National Motto: Sapentia, Justitio et Moderato(Latin: Wisdom, Justice and Moderation).

 

National Anthem: “Glory To the Union,” lyrics Charles Earl Ray, 2035, music based on “John Brown’s Body,” by Julia Ward Beecher, 1856.

 

 

 

Flag:

 

 

 

 

The People’s Democratic Republic Of Hong Kong

 

 

“The People Democratic Republic of the Wrong Dong Phooies...where the very worst of East and West have joined together in unholy matrimony.”

 

 

—Then-FedNewsNet reporter Jay Todman, OEH, KC.C., during cermemonies marking Hong Kong’s 200^th anniversary as an independent nation, 23 January, 2219

 

 

General Information

 

 

 

The Rights of Women

 

 

 

What rights?

 

 

Barred from holding government office and from holding any position with the Wrong Dong government or military, Hong Kong’s women are forced to be domestic drudges, beasts of burden and rape slaves to the men in and out of power, with any attempt they make to protest their state being drowned in lying media propaganda about castrating feminist bitches, bull-dyke women, and lies of how the feminists have caused crime, economic upheaval, violence, the nonexistent upsurge in lesbian rape, the Nova Victoria Warriors’ ten-year winless streak, and, so on....and, punished with murder, prostitution, prison or deportation to the Wrong Dong colonies to serve as rape-slave labor.

 

 

The Wrong Dongs actively persecute lesbiannism, using every excuse they can think of to spy upon, harass, arrest, abuse and otherwise persecute lesbians or suspected lesbians within Hong Kong’s municipal corporations and colonies.

 

 

The Wrong Dong Economy

 

 

Is, and has pretty much always had been, a shambles.

 

 

Its claim of being the trade and economic centre of human space has been, for the most part, a clever lie, reinforced by nearly two centuries of Movie Board propaganda and tacit agreement on the part of various human governments to move all goods and services through Nova Victoria’s starport...in truth, the starports at Sheridan, Heart’s Content, Amandasborough, New Toronto, Timmonsport and Heller have been the real centres of human trade and commerce, amongst those nations not playing nicely with theAmerican successor states.

 

 

The Wrong Dong sterling is losing its value throughout the human worlds, and unemployment is rising above 50% for the first time in seventy years.

 

 

The Wrong Dong government naturally sees all this as an opportunity to cut corners even more than they had in regards to the general welfare of its male citizens, recently discontinuing its National Health programme, which was worthless to begin with, jacking up the rate of inflation and, either cutting the wages of its female shit-labour force to almost nothing...or throwing them out onto the cold streets altogether...while giving its overprivileged men ample excuse to sing,“she got the gold mine, I got the shaft....”

 

 

The Government

 

The Legislative Council

 

Consisting of four men from each of the municipal corporations—one from each corporation’s legislative wards—the Legislative Council is the Republic’s parliment, with full legislative and judicial powers.

 

 

The majority party’s leader is Prime Minister, who serves as head of state, head of government, commander in chief of the military and the Republic’s chief judicial officer.

 

 

The Hong Kong Republican Constabulary

 

 

The Republican Constabulary is Hong Kong’s police force, known for its ruthless, merciless enforcement of policy(as opposed to the law), especially against the women who are the Constabulary’s primary targets...they are empowered to shoot on sight, to harass, to infiltrate, and to conduct surveillance on women in Wrong Dong territory, even stooping to bugging women’s public bathrooms.

 

 

The Constabulary are armed with gauss pistols and assault railers; patrol constables wear TL12 CID and AG shielding as standard uniforms.

 

 

The commissioner of the Constabulary is directly answerable to the Home Secretary.

 

 

The Military Intelligence Directorate

 

 

The MID, attached to the Ministry of Homeland Security Affairs(or, simply the Home Office), is three-quarters of the way to acquiring as infamous a reputation in the twenty-third century, as the Mountaindove ISB and the Yanker TSID had in the twenty-second.

 

 

The MID have two well-publicised functions: external security and information gathering.

 

 

It has unlimited powers to spy on its own citizens and shares law-enforcement duties with the Constabulary.

 

 

In matters of external security, it exhibits a adroitness in assassinations, puppet governments, civil wars, organised crime, and double agents which rivals even that of the TSID’s.

 

 

Finally, it has a database of information on virtually any subject, kept under the tightest possible security seal, of course; it is said that the MID can look up the name of even the most obscure human living now and tell him what he’ll be having for tea, before he can even make up his mind.

 

 

The MID has seven departments:

 

1) Department One—MID1 has the task of external security and information gathering, by whatever means necesary. It employs assassins, puppet governments, moles within all other nations’ politcal machinery, double agents, the organised crime networks of at least ten human nations, guerilla armies and the like.

 

 

MID1’s operatives consider themselves superior to their bretheren in the other six departments and are almost always the most likely to end up being “C.”

 

 

Despite nearly two centuries’ worth of romantic fiction, the men of MID1 are personally the most loathsome induviduals in human space, thinking they are entitled to women’s bodies, raping and humiliating women in their areas of assignment at will(and, like all men, they reserve their most henious treatment for those they know to be lesbian); in fact, many MID stations make it an unlovely habit to actively recruit and turn women and girls out for their own private brothels—a practice which makes them especially unwelcome in countries such as Japan, Nova Australia, the Federation of Midnight Sun and the Commonwealth. Moreover, MID1’s operatives are as cold-blooded in their disregard for human life as the TSID itself.

 

 

2) Department Two—MID2 is concerned with spying on its own citizens, for any signs of dissent—quaintly referred to by the ancient and ironic phrase “political correctness”—having unlimited powers to conduct electronic surveillance, to assassinate certain dissenters, to detain, for any length of time, anyone they think is being politically correct, and to infiltrate any organisation in the Republic in order to turn its aims for the government’s ends—in fact, several male officers of the Movement to Promote Women’s Equal Rights(M-POWER)are rumoured to be MID2 infiltrators, including its male executive vice-president and the husband of its powerless female president. MID2’s agents are just as effeicently ruthless in their jobs as MID1’s agents are, and find themselves at odds with the MID3 concerning the overlapping areas of responsibility of both departments.

 

 

3)Department Three—The most dire form of punishment, according to most MID agents, is assignment to MID3, assigned to police the Wrong Dong colonies in concert with RTA commandos, ensuring its largely female populations remain in subject, by whatever means necessary.

 

 

To Hong Kong’s oppressed female citizens, MID3 is a secret police, monsters who make Thomas Ridge and J. Edgar Hoover both look like Mother Teresa, engaging in whatever form of sadism they think will keep women down.

 

 

They control the brothels on the colonies with the help of the RTA commandos, using the Security Laws to conduct mass arrests of women they want to be prostitutes and ship them off to the colonial brothels —euphemistically referred to as alternative, or A, schools—to be exploited....

 

 

Amongst their peers, the agents of MID3 are still considered the lowest form of life in all the worlds, believing(too often correctly)that they are in MID3 because they neither had the abilities nor the connections to do the real work of the MID...simply, because they are doing the real work of the MID.

 

 

As is prevalent amongst male-staffed organisations, the men in the other six departments loudly question the manhood of any MID3 agent, which, in turn, results in MID3’s agents taking their perceived inadeqaucies out on their charges.

 

 

4) Department Four—MID4 is the department of the MID which takes the information gathered by the above three departments, compiling them into reasoned guesses about certain situations. These intelligence analyses are then given to the “C” for his persual. Generally, MID4’s agents are dispargingly referred to as “bleedin’ file clerks,” by other MID agents.

 

 

5) Department Five—As with any large government organisation, the MID has people dedicated to spying on their own people and reporting any act which is potentially treasonous. MID5’s agents are typically male—insidous, sneaky and fanatically loyal to the Home Secretary, when it suits their needs, insinuating themselves into the confidences of their fellow agents, then betraying them shamelessly. MID5 reports directly to the Home Secretary, bypassing even “C,” who, himself, is answerable to MID5.

 

 

6)Department Q—MIDQ is the research division of the MID. Whether it is a new bioplague behind which their masters can carry out persecutions of women, or a new type of assassination weapon for their chums in MID1, MIDQ is behind all the MID’s dubious inventions.

 

 

7)Special Operations Department—The SOD is the most secret of the MID’s seven departments; it is so secret, in fact, that few “C”s have even learned of its existence, and, no MID operative, outside the SOD’s own, even know it exists, the same, of course, which could be said for any average Hong Kong citizen, or, for that matter, many members of the Legislative Council(and many PMs).

 

 

And, with good(or bad)reason. The SOD’s job is simply to provide the government with an excuse to exist and to oppress the people....in particular, to oppress women.

 

 

It accomplishes its purposes with its total control of criminal activity in the Republic, employing men to rape women into submission, employing serial killers and mass murderers to commit the occasional domestic atrocity to justify more repressive laws, overdosing induviduals with purposely adulterated drugs, to further justify repression, synthesising bioplagues, such as AIDS, to create an atmosphere ripe for misogyny, employing men to be housebreakers, muggers, swindlers, bank robbers, pickpockets, drug pushers, killers, and the like, to further scare the ignorantly and cynically manipulated male populace into accepting the brutal oppression of women and the continued empowerment of their fellow men.

 

 

They go so far as to commit the most henious or most easily publicised crimes and find women to frame for these acts, using them as scapegoats to fan the flames of bigotry.

 

 

From time to time, the SOD’s ops allow themselves to be arrested...so they can be given well-deserved vacations in country-club resorts men call prisons, where they are given the best of everything...and, where they rape, abuse, torture and murder female political prisoners framed for the crimes the SOD commit or on trumped-up charges...unlike their female victims, the SOD’s ops rarely spend more than a year in nick....

 

 

So clandestine are the SOD’s activites, most of its operatives—recruited from the poorest neighbourhoods—have no idea who they really work for, as they are organised somewhat like cells in a resistance movement, with each criminal knowing only the name of his most immediate contact.

 

 

This also means the SOD have no regard for the welfare of the lower-level ops in its employ, cavalierily allowing them to be killed in the line of duty...and executed without mercy should any of them ever let on who their employers are....

 

 

SOD reports directly to the Home Secretary.

 

 

The MID’s operatives are exclusively male and extremely antilesbian.

 

 

They are recruited from the military, the Constabulary, or from civilian personnel.

 

 

Their rank system is based on both RTA and RAG ranks(civilians and former Constabulary personnel being given RTA ranks)with the highest possible rank being head of the MID, or “C,” who is, in turn, subordinate to the Home Secretary....some of the time, at least....

 

 

The Wrong Dong Court System

 

 

Organised much like the ancient British court system, the legal system consists of the Court of Chancery at its apex, six corporate courts and a special roving magistrate for the colonies, the latter drawn directly from the military.

 

 

The Court of Chancery is run by the High Chancellor, second-highest judicial official in the Republic(next to the Prime Minister)with the power to try capital offences—murder, high treason, malfaesance in office and sodomy—defined as it’s really always been, men-as-victims lies to the contrary, as clitoral stimulation of the clitoris—suspicion of sodomy and sexual deviancy—lesbiannism or suspected lesbiannism.

 

 

Moreover, the High Chancellor has the authority to review any decision of the Legislative Council and determine its compliance with the Security Laws.

 

 

The High Chancellor selects the justice for the corporate courts, which have judicial responsibility over the municipal corporations, hearing every criminal case short of capital offences.

 

 

The Special Colonial Magistrate excercises powers similar to both the High Chancellor and an ordinary corporate court justice—over the colonies only. Appointed by and answerable directly to the Prime Minister, the Special Colonial Magistate adjudicates disputes in the colonies—and makes sure his decisions favour the will of the government in Nova Victoria.

 

 

Moreover, the Colonial Magistrate holds the rank of Aerospace Marshal in the R.A.G., with an aerospace division and, effectively, a brigade of commandos permanently at his disposal, with the authority to use “extreme force” in order to enforce his decisions.

 

 

Corporate Government

 

The municipal corporations of Nova Victoria, New Kowloon, Dunstan Island, New Harbin, New Aberdeen and New Canton are technically governed by their legislators and the various ministry offices at the corporate level.

 

 

In practice, however, the bureaucrats at this level make much of the decisions, as the legislators are all too bloody busy raping female pages, raping and degrading prostitutes and jockeying for power to trouble themselves with local affairs.

 

 

As anyone can plainly see, this method of local government is frightfully inefficent in getting any real work—other than increased police harassment—done locally; a consistent complaint of Nova Victorians is the inadequate drainage for the City’s perpetually flooded streets and the inertia of their legislators and bureaucrats in remedying that situation.

 

 

Colonial Government

 

Each Wrong Dong colony is run by a governor-general, a military officer with full dictatorial powers over the fate of his charges.

 

 

In essence, and in spite of lies that colonial men are being persecuted, the colonies have pretty much always been slave-labour/concentration camps for female political prisoners, just as American colonies(known as the rest of Earth’s nations, prior to the Wars of Assimilation) always have been gulags and extermination camps for lesbian political prisoners, trained historians’ lies to the contrary .

 

 

As a consequence, anyone from the colonies in the territory of the corporations is either treated as lowlife by the men of the corporations...and alternately, if male, as victims of bigotry at the hands of women.

 

 

The governor-general is backed by a strong RTA garrison and a sufficent force of RAG warbirds, as well as by the prescence of the local MID station.

 

 

Female colonists have no rights whatsoever, save to slave for the bastard in the colonial Government House and for the bastards who are over and under him.

 

 

Local technology is deliberately kept lower than would be readily available in the corporations, so as to impede any attempt by the colony’s female inmates to rebel.

 

 

This, however, has failed to prevent one colony, Liao, from breaking away and making its independence stick, in the mid-2000s.

 

 

 

The Military

 

The Republican Territorial Army

 

The RTA consists of 157.5 million men, subdivided into 45 field commands, each consisting of 27 mobile corps, twenty-seven Ghurka brigades and one thousand independent commando companies, with a total strength of 200,000 commandos.

 

 

Each RTA soldier is equipped with a TL 12 assault railer and a laser lance .

 

 

For protection, he wears a TL12 cybersuit with AG shielding and chamelon features.

 

 

The 25mm Gatling railgun is the standard squad-level support weapon, with infantry being transported into battle in AG-driven APCs supported by AG-driven tanks armed with railguns and Gatling railers.

 

 

Heavy infantry wear powered combat armour with integral 127mm railguns mounted on the arms and shoulder and Gatling railers mounted in the head and chest.

 

 

The RTA employs 1,215 Ghurka brigades, each brigade being half heavy infantry, half regular infantry, with one brigade attached to each mobile corps.

 

 

In addition to all other armament, Ghurkas use monocarbon vibroblade kukris, a modern version of their traditional blade weapon, with larger kukuris being used by the the heavy suits...next to the commandos and the sabras, the Ghurkas are the most elite and therefore most bloodthirsty soldiers in the RTA.

 

 

The RTA also has one special heavy infantry brigade attached to II Corps—the infamous Ariel Sharon Brigade, the descendants of the Israeli mecenaries who helped the power-hungry plutocrats of Hong Kong secure their independence from the Chinese in the early 2000s.

 

 

The Ariel Sharon Brigade(simply and disparagingly referred to as “the sabras” by the Commonwealth Forces) are utterly ruthless, sometimes more so than the commandos, showing no mercy, no remorse, no sense of humane behaviour towards their enemies...and, specialise in brutality towards women...they were detailled to the extermination of the surviving lesbian POWs at Black Mountain during the Nine Years’ War, an atrocity not quite prevented by the arrival of Commonwealth Forces units...on the battlefield, their deadliest enemies are the Loyal Volunteers, the Summer Rain Volunteer Heavy Infantry Brigade.

 

The Brigade, and its current commander, Brigadier Yitzhak Ben Solomon, were later exonerated by the Executive Council for the war crimes of which they were guilty...and the names of every one of them appear on the Commonwealth High Court’s arrest order issused eleven years ago.

 

 

The Brigade’s membership is exclusively male and exclusively Orthodox Jewish...applicants to the brigade must show proof of circumcision and bar mitzvah, along with a letter of recommendation from an Orthodox rabbi, and have to demonstrate competnecy in Jewish holy law, custom and literacy in the Talmud.

 

The Brigade’s officers must further prove unsullied genetic descent from the tribe of Levi.

 

RTA commandos are trained for utter ruthlessness and are employed as shock troops, as infiltrators, disrupting enemies from the rear by destroying supplies, weaponry and opposing generals(this tactic has not worked at all against Commonwealth Forces, who are just better at fighting armed opponents than the commandos ) and as internal-security and riot-control forces, crushing dissent by any violent and sadistic means necessary.

 

Armored as standard infantry, commandos use TL12 assault railers, laser lances and nerve pistols for “quelling internal troubles.”

 

The commando service has always been a men’s only club under the Victoria Charter, with psuedo-scientific lies corraborating the RTA’s assertion that women are too delicate and weak to handle the difficult tasks assigned to it.

 

The truth is, of course, that the commandos have invariably been used against women, with Commonwealth Forces personnel being their favourite targets...and the commandos being amongst the favourite targets of the Commonwealth Forces Intelligence Arm’s field recon teams.

 

Officially, the commandos are supposed to come from the corporations...but, that’s offically...in reality, the commandos are men from all walks of life, with membership being determined through a series of brutally homoerotic hazing rituals exceptional even for a military force...with the final test of eligibility being what the Defence Ministry refers to quaintly as “Jack’s Night Out,” where potential commando candidates are turned loose in the streets of Nova Victoria’s Smegville, and given eight hours to rape and murder as many women as they can, with points being awarded for exceptional acts of sadism, humiliation and brutality inflicted upon their victims.

 

The Republican Aerospace Guard

 

The R.A.G. has a proud(if one is a Wrong Dong, that is)nearly two-century-old tradition of defending the Republic...it is the elite service of the Wrong Dong armed forces,.

 

The R.A.G. has, as of 1 January, 2225, 300,000 Wu-Lung class frigate starcraft in the 100 starcraft divisions of its Frigate Command and another and 150,000 Christopher Patten-class battleships in the 50 divisions of its Battleship Command, and the Phooies are building more, more, more, all of them manned by the best and most ruthlessly ambitous men in the Guard.

 

Frigate and Battleship Command starcraft are also known to be equipped with plutonium oxide gas dischargers, devices similar to magnetic gas spitters(q.v.)—illegal under the 2056 Geneva Convention—leading to the disparging reference to them by Commonwealth Forces as “(fucking)crop duster planes,” especially in the light of the charming Wrong Dong tendency to use deadly dust against planetary populations, as it first did during the Liaonese Rebellion nearly two hundred years ago.

 

Frigate and Battleship Commands are each commanded by an Aerospace Marshal, as are(in order of size and importance) Strategic Operations, Internal Intelligence, Security, Air Defence, Orbital Defence, Aerospace Medicine, Military Spacelift, Base Support and External Intelligence Commands, with each of the combat starcraft divisions under the command of an Aerospace Vice-Marshal, each group commanded by a Group Captain and so on.

 

The supreme commander of the R.A.G. holds the rank of Sky Marshal.

 

R.A.G. spacers wear TL12 cybersuits and are armed with rail pistols and laser lances; spacers with Security Command are also armed with assault railers.

 

Their dress uniforms are dark blue and their vaccarmour is a dull greenish-grey.

 

Other Information

 

Population: 30,000,000,000,001persons(PR13).

Control Rating: 6

Technological Level: General TL 12; medical TL 9(10).

Capital City: Municipal Corporation of Nova Victoria, on Heyerdahl.

Monetary Unit: Hong Kong sterling(ST), equal to $TSC 7.00 and CMD 0.1, subdivided into 100 pence, 20 shillings, 10 dimes, four quarter-sterlings, two half-sterlings and 1.25 three-quarter sterlings.

 

National Motto: Democracy, Security, Strength.

National Anthem: “All Hail the Dragon And Stars,” lyrics John Kipper, 2028, music based on “To Anaceron In Heaven,” a traditional English drinking song.

 

Flag:

 

 

The Commonwealth Of Cor Leonis

“If I had a penny for every time the hardened politicans of the worlds said the Commonwealth was bound to fall, I’d probably be richer than King Solomon and have come by the money more honestly...and, if I had a penny for every time they’ve come through, not just for themselves, but for everyone...damn, they couldn’t write the code for that much silver....”

 

—FedNewsNet reporter and then-Midnight Sun Senate President Jay Todman, OEH, KC.C., himself being interviewed by the AustraliaHyperNews show Get To The Point, 11 October, 2213

 

General

 

The Commonwealth Of Cor Leonis—known simply as the Commonwealth—is a confederation of 4 republics: The Commonwealth Federated Republics of Summer Rain, Firestar and Recherche and the Commonwealth Dominion of Cor Leonis. It is, in equal measure, both a parlimentary and a popular democracy, with the people gaining more and more power over the course of its 199-year history.

 

Government

 

The Fundamental Articles

“The Articles are the heart and soul of our people, that which tells us we are better than we think we are...that we must be better than we think we are, or it is the end of everything.”

 

Then-Prime Minister Regan Marler, M.CL., OEH, DSM, KC.C., three days before she was killed in action during Nasty Hank’s War, 1 May. 2078

 

The law of the land—the only law of the land—is the Fundamental Articles of Commonwealth(known simply as the Articles amongst the citizens of the Commonwealth), consisting of three hundred eighteen titles and sixty-five million very plainly-written words, including the most important and sole non-repealable words of all—Title 1, outlining the inalienable civil rights and responsibilities of the people of the Commonwealth, consisting of (so far) one hundred sections detailling rights and responsibilites.

 

Title 1, Section 19, prohibits any form of discrimination against anyone, for any reason, and embodies the feminist, pro-lesbian vision of the Commonwealth’s people. Moreover, Title 1, Section 21, forbids the punishment of women raped and beaten into prostitution, while punishing any form of slavery, especially the myriad forms of rape slavery raping men in other nations have always inflicted upon women against their will, with the death penalty.

 

Title 1, paragraph 20, forbids any infliction of sadomasochistic perversion upon women and girls by men(also known as hetereosexuality)...the lies of the gyneopsychologists that women are both masochists and sadists hold no water with the citizens of the Commonwealth, and infliction of sadomasochistic perversion is punished by the death penalty(In fact, Title 17, Section 8, paragraph 12, declares the practice of gyneopsychology a fraud to be punished by a $15,000 CMD fine(which can be paid in three annual installments of $5,000 CMD each) and three years’ banishment, or death, if said fraud contributes to the comission of a felony).

 

Title 1, Section 17, paragraph 1, says: “No one, not even the government of this Commonwealth Of Cor Leonis, or the government of any of its constituent republics, has the right to: a) define what constitutes true love. b) sit in judgement of the validity of any relationship where consenting adults have pledged their love to one another. c) determine that one type of mutually consenual love relationship, as defined in b) above , has any more legitimacy than another type of mutually consenual love relationship, for love is love. or d) define what constitutes a family or familial relationships, provided, of course, such family ties are based on mutual consent and understanding between its members.”

 

Paragraph 2, of that same section adds this commentary: “This is not a legislated definition of the word love, but a restatement of the basic concepts which each and every one of us have concluded in the course of living his or her life, independent of any religious or government mandate, does not constitute love...in other words, common sense: Love is not based on sadism or other deliberate infliction of pain, abuse, brutality, humiliation, coercion, dominance, force or threats. We wish we did not have to add this paragraph, but future jurists are going to need a guide for the inevitable case where some bastard gets it in his head to use the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law , in order to try to get away with treating the one he’s supposed to love, honour and cherish like shit.”

 

Title 1, Section 1, paragraphs 1-4, requires Commonwealth citizens—within or outside Commonwealth soil—to act in self-defence if the life, liberty or well-being of either herself or another is threatened in any way, using whatever means necessary, up to and including deadly force. Failure to do so is punishable by banishment from Commonwealth soil for life for ordinary citizens or by death for Commonwealth government officials.

 

Any decision of the Legislature and the people, or any popular referendum amends the Fundamental Articles, with one important exception.

 

Title 1 may be added to, but no part of it may be repealed, nor may any proposed addition to Title 1 contradict any existing part of Title 1 in any way. Additions to Title 1 must have a ninety percent majority from the people of the Commonwealth in order to pass.

 

Commonwealth law is extremely liberal, emphasising individual rights, and crimes violating individual rights, such as assault, rape, murder, malfeasance in office, violation of public trust and harassment, carrying the penalty of either death by hanging or death by vaccuum(spacing), with midemeanour crimes such as bribery, robbery and burglary being punished by either fines or up to ten years’ banishment.

 

The people of the Commonwealth are hard on their public officials, which they define as anyone working for either the Commonwealth government or one of the republican governments in any capacity. Should any Commonwealth public official commit any crime whatsoever, he will be charged with violation of public trust, malfeasance in office, willful contempt of due process and high treason, all of which carry the death penalty.

 

Should a Commonwealth official issue orders which violate the Fundamental Articles, or obey orders violating the Fundamental Articles, the respective charges(which are in addition to the ones above) are issuing illegal orders and willful obedience of illegal orders, both punishable by either hanging or spacing.

 

Treason:There are four separate instances of high treason defined under Title 1, Section 13 of the Fundamental Articles, all of them punishable by death:

 

1. High treason against comrades in arms: This is any act of treachery committed by any member of the Commonwealth Forces(or allied military forces)against fellow members of the Commonwealth Forces, to whom he swore an oath of loyalty. This also covers any violation of the oath a member of the CF swears upon enlistment.

2. High treason against one’s command: This is any act of treachery committed by someone in a command position within the CF(or allied military forces)against those within that command., to whom he swore an oath to serve and lead with honour.

3. High treason against a constituent population: This is any act of treachery committed by any Commonwealth official against the constituentcy which put him in office and which he swore an oath to serve.

4. High treason against the people of the Commonwealth: This is any act of treachery committed by any Commonwealth citizen against the people of the Commonwealth as a body. This also includes any violation of the Articles by any Commonwealth public official.

Title 1, Section 13, paragraphs 5-21 define all instances of treachery, as it pertains to the above four paragraphs, in exhaustive detail.

 

However, the people of the Commonwealth do not treat lending aid and comfort to the enemy as a punishable offence, if and only if such aid and comfort is of a humanitarian nature.

 

Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Devices of Torture and Controlled Substances:Title 1, Section 86, paragraph 7 explicitly forbids, and has always forbidden, the use of, manufacture of, importation of, exportation of or possession by anyone, including the Commonwealth Forces, of weapons of mass destruction or devices of torture within Commonwealth soil, with any violation carrying the death penalty.

 

Drug use and sale have both been decriminalized for over a century and a half, but the embrace of feminist, pro-lesbian truth amongst the people of the Commonwealth has led to almost zero drug use amongst the populace.

 

The Power Of the People

“’ You people let the motherufucking rabble dictate policy.’

 

‘ And, that is why we will win...that is why we will always win.’ ”

 

Exchange between Terranovan Governor Guy Thomas Zellner and Commonwealth Prime Minister Lilith Angelique Gault, M.CL., OEH, DSM, KC.C., on the steps of the Executive Council Building, 11 October, 2221

 

 

First and foremost, the people of the Commonwealth are in charge of their own affairs.

 

All laws proposed in and passed by the Legislature must be approved(confirmed) by a two-thirds majority of the people of the Commonwealth.

 

Alternatively, any Commonwealth citizen may draft a referrendum, submitting it to the prime minister, who must immediately submit it to the people of the Commonwealth for a vote or be automatically removed from office. Passage of a referendum into law requires a two-thirds majority of all Commonwealth citizens.

 

All actions taken by the Legislature must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the people of the Commonwealth...any declaration of war by either the Legislature or the prime minister, or any other intevention by the CF must have the approval of seventy-five percent of the people of the Commonwealth.

 

All dominion and Commonwealth budgets must orginate as referendums,and each cabinet officer is required to post his department’s annual financial report on the Net for all to see....and to allow anyone coming in off the street to examine the books to make sure he or she isn’t being lied to.

 

The people of the Commonwealth reserve the right to recall any public official from office at any time. A recall motion is started by one person drafting a petition, which automatically calls for the official in question to appear before an assembly of his constituents to give a full accounting of his actions before them...after a full accounting, the recall petition is circulated, and if 51% of his constituency sign it, he is recalled from office.

 

As per Title 1, Section 1, paragraph 6, failure of any Commonwealth public official to appear before a recall assembly is grounds for automatic removal from office and for trial on charges of violation of public trust, malfeasance in office, willful contempt of due process and high treason against a constituent population and/or the people of the Commonwealth.

 

As per Title 1, Section 15, paragraph 9, anyone recalled from office may not present himself as a candidate for any election within Commonwealth soil for a period of seventy-five years, nor may he hold any position within the Commonwealth government for that same period of time.

 

The Order Of Commonwealth: The people of the Commonwealth have also taken on many of the duties formerlly assigned to the Governor-General(the office having been formally abolished in 2041), including the investment of the Order of Commonwealth, the Commonwealth’s order of knighthood and its highest military and civilian honour. Investment is handled via the election process(q.v.) and is accomplished by a ninety-percent majority of the people of the Commonwealth.

 

Those awarded the Order of Commonwealth may attach the letters O.C.(Order of Commonwealth) or KC.C.(Knight Commander of the Commonwealth) after their names and, socially(and very formally, meaning very rarely)addressed as Sir or Dame.

 

The Electorial Process

“Political parties are not even allowed in the Communist State Of Cor Leonis. How can you possibly call yourself a democracy when you don’t even allow political parties?!”

 

John Jimson to his third-period Flynt County High School Interstellar Politics and Geography class, 28 February, 2217

 

The people of the Commonwealth have a great deal to say about who holds public office.

 

The electorial laws(Title 1, Section 3 of the Fundamental Articles) call for the following process to be carried out for all elections, plebiscites, referendums, confirmations and recalls:

 

1) The Delcaration Phase. On the day of the election, the people of the constituency in question gather together in assembly. Those wishing to run for the office under consideration either announce themselves or are nominated by others at that time and not before(this means no campaign ads, no fund-raisers, no kissing babies and giving them scabies, no fucking politics as usual), with the stipulation that prospective republican and Commonwealth cabinet officers be from amongst the most senior and/or most qualified of the members of their respective departments.

 

2) The Interrogation Phase. After the last candidate has announced himself, all the candidates go offstage or into a separate room, and, one by one, each of the candidates is called out to face a grueling question-and-answer session by the people he wishes to represent/serve...this part of the electorial process is the lengthiest part of the process, taking , on average, anywhere from three to eighteen hours to complete....with Angelique Gault holding the record of having been grilled for the longest time by her constituents, who, in 2195, was quizzed exhaustively by all 32.4 billion of her fellow citizens for a period of 193 hours and 57 minutes, going home utterly exhausted...and being confirmed in office as Prime Minister of the Commonwealth the following morning.

 

The questions allowed in this process are questions pertaining to qualifications and character.

 

3) The Election Phase. After the last candidate has been questioned, the people of the constituency in question vote, with the candidate receiving the most votes winning the election...usually, Commonwealth elections tend to be unanimous.

 

Title 1, Section 3, paragraph 5 calls for mandatory elections every seven years.

 

The declaration phase in plebiscites and referendums consists of the topic of either one being announced, with the people debating the resolution itself during the interrogation phase. In recalls and votes of confirmation, the person being subjected to either confirmation or recall is quizzed by the people she serves during the interrogation phase.

 

Elections and recalls are decided by a 51% majority, with confirmations, plebiscites and referendums generally being decided by a two-thirds majority.

 

The Commonwealth Legislature

 

“You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we were to become extinct a couple of years down the road. We have a good prime minister, a competent Cabinet, and the people pretty much know what’s best for them; they don’t really need us.

 

That’s a good thing, by the way.”

 

Commonwealth Forces Group Captain Jacqueline Lacey, OEH, DSM, M.CL. from the Commonwealth Dominion of Cor Leonis, to Lyle Hammond on Mid-Morning Mountaindove, on the 5^th anniversary of the Tau Ceti Accords, 25 September. 2220

 

 

The Commonwealth Legislature is the last vestige of the original parlimentary system, consisting of 12 women and men elected for an unlimited number of seven-year terms, sixteen cabinet officers and the prime minister, also elected for the same duration....however, any member of the Legislature can be recalled from office at any time if 51% of the dominion he represents sign a recall petition.

 

Unlike traditional parlimentary systems, there are no political parties in the Commonwealth...anyone can run for the at-large seats, and often, there are up to thirty people vying for one at-large seat when it comes time for elections.

 

Each of the four republics has three seats in the Legislature, one of which is statutory and held by the dominion’s premier(q.v.), while the other two are at-large post filled by direct election.

 

A member of the Legislature is entitled to either referring to herself by the title "Legislator" or to add the initials M.CL.(Member of the Commonwealth Legislature)as a suffix to her name.

 

The Cabinet

The sixteen cabinet officers are elected at large by all the people of the Commonwealth, with the exception of the Chief Justice of the Commonwealth, whose position is a statutory one. The sole difference between these positions and the normal electorial process is that candidates for each cabinet post must be amongst the most senior and/or the most qualified of the members of their respective departments.

 

The Commonwealth Forces Chief of Staff and the Solicitor-General of the Commonwealth are both members of the Cabinet, elected at-large by the people of the Commonwealth.

 

The Cabinet, as chief administrators of their respective departments, oversee the operations of their departments.

 

 

The Courts

 

The Commonwealth court system consists of one supreme court for each republic and the High Court of the Commonwealth Of Cor Leonis(known simply as the Commonwealth High Court or the High Court).

 

Each republic’s supreme court is the court of original jurisdiction for all non-capital criminal cases, military and civilian, within its jurisdiction(civil disputes being handled exclusivelly by the Ministry of Civil Arbitration ).

 

The republic supreme court consists of a single justice elected at large by the citizens of her dominion of residence, plus a jury of twelve women and men drawn from that republic to determine guilt or innocence based on the preponderance of the evidence and testimony presented to them in court and on their own investigations outside of the evidence and testimony presented to them in court.

 

The republican justice—not the advocates on either side—is responsible for gathering all witnesses whose testimony bears relevance to the case being heard; she also passes sentence specified by the Articles for the offence(s) for which the accused has been convicted of.

 

Above the dominion courts is the High Court of the Commonwealth Of Cor Leonis, with original jurisdiction in all felony(capital)cases and appealate jurisdiction in all other criminal manners. The people of the Commonwealth elect two justices at large, those justices in turn electing the Chief Justice of the Commonwealth, who is also a sitting cabinet officer and must be confirmed in office by the people of the Commonwealth. Assisting them in criminal matters is a grand jury of twenty-three citizens drawn from throughout the Commonwealth; it is they who decide guilt or innocence based on the preponderance of the evidence

 

The highest judicial body in the land, the High Court’s decisions are both final and enforceable under the terms of the Fundamental Articles...noncompliance with a decision of the High Court is punishable by either five years’ banishment for ordinary citizens, to the death penalty for any Commonwealth military or government official...no exceptions.

 

Both the supreme courts and the High Court have the added function of reviewing any law proposed by the Legislature/republican legislature or any referendum to determine if it contradicts any of the civil rights outlined under Title 1 of the Fundamental Articles...should the proposed law or referendum fail to comply with Title 1 in any way, it is automatically withdrawn from consideration.

 

The Prime Minister

“There’s no need wasting your time trying to persuade me in any case, Mister Chairman...I’m only my people’s prime minister, not the one in charge; I do only what they ask of me, and what the law expects—demands—of all of us, especially ofits first citizen.”

 

Commonwealth Prime Minister Lilith Angelique Gault, PM.C., M.CL., OEH, DSM, KC.C., to Hong Kong Prime Minister Roger Tarrant during a session of the Executive Council, 15 July.2218

 

The prime minister is chief administrator of the Commonwealth government, commander in chief of the Commonwealth Forces, first citizen of her nation, the voice of her people and the duly-bound executor and servant of their will, as expressed through the Fundamental Articles.

 

She is elected by a 51% majority of the Legislature(and does not have to be a sitting member of the Legislature, though , as per protocol, she suffixes the initials M.CL to her name in any case) and confirmed in office by a two-thirds majority of the people of the Commonwealth, serving for an unlimited number of seven-year terms. As de facto head of the Legislature, she is responsible for calling it into session and for recessing it.

 

As chief administrator of the Commonwealth government, she is responsible for its day-to-day running, with full authority to fire any government official, including any cabinet officer, with removal in this fashion being automatically confirmed if no plebiscite is called by either the prime minister or the affected government official within thirty days of termination.

 

As commander-in-chief of the Commonwealth military, she may order the CF to intervene in any situation calling for intervention under the Articles. In wartime, she is also obligated to command the Commonwealth Forces and lead her people from the front lines.

 

As the duly-authorised voice of her people and first citizen of her nation, she may act unilaterially for the good of her people, up to and including declaration of war. She may not, however, take any action which contravenes the Articles in any way.

 

Most importantly, as the duly-bound executor and servant of the popular will, she must do as they ask and what the law demands, no exceptions allowed.

 

This also means any decision she takes unilaterially is subject to a plebiscite, called either by the prime minister or any Commonwealth citizen, to confirm her decision. A two-thirds majority is required to confirm her decision, and it is automatically confirmed if no plebiscite is called within thirty days of her decision.

 

A prime minister who acts contrary to the will of her people, as expressed through plebiscite or referendum, is automatically removed from office, tried before the Supreme Court, and, if found guilty, ejected into space, as called for by the Articles.

 

Fortunately, this has yet to happen in the Commonwealth’s nearly two hundred year history.

 

As per protocol, the Prime Minister suffixes the initials PM.C.(Prime Minister of the Commonwealth)to her name.

 

Removal From Office

The prime minister and any of the cabinet officers may always be removed from office in one of three ways, barring conviction on criminal charges or direct contravention of the Articles:

 

1) By simple majority(50% plus one vote) vote of no confidence by both the Legislature and the people of the Commonwealth.

 

2) Defeat in any election.

 

3) By a recall petition signed by 51% of the people of the Commonwealth.

 

 

Commonwealth Bonds and the Aggregate Commonwealth Profit

 

“ They don’t have a Gross National Product....my God, man,they don’t even collect taxes...how can you run a country without collecting taxes?!”

 

Then-Terranovan Attorney General Micheal Bauer, in his 6 March, 2219 interview with Lyle Hammond on Mid-Morning Mountaindove

 

As per Title 1, section 6, paragraph 20 of the Articles, each Commonwealth citizen can elect to have up to 25% of her paycheck automatically invested in Commonwealth bonds(or C- notes), essentially investing in the Commonwealth government.

 

Every fifth of April, a holiday in Commonwealth soil, the people of the Commonwealth gather in assembly to draw up the republican and Commonwealth budget referendums; at that time, the money invested in C-notes(held in escrow by the Chancellory of the Exchequer’s AIs by means of hard-logic imperatives until the Financial Holiday) is allocated, the people deciding what should be funded and what should not be funded, the Chancellory of the Exchequer’s AIs automatically(and subconsciously, again, through hard-logic imperatives)allocating the revenue generated over the previous financial year as directed by referendum.

 

All monies left over after the people of the Commonwealth have finished funding the republican and Commonwealth governments for the new financial year is referred to as the Aggregate Commonwealth Profit, or ACP, which is a more realistic indicator of economic health than the Gross National Product indicator used by the various human nations, as the GNP figure is invariably a political fiction used to justify misogynistic agendas, and the ACP is tied directly to personal and corporate earnings.

 

The ACP is then divided equitably amongst the people...most of whom choose to put their share of it back into C-notes.

 

Under the Articles(1.6.20.iii), any Commonwealth citizen has the right to review the Chancellory of the Exchequer’s books, at any time, to ensure everything is as the Articles specify.

 

The Commonwealth Constabulary

The Commonwealth Constabulary, or CCs, as they are called, is the sole republican and Commonwealth police force. Organised much like the old Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the CCs’ enforcement of the law is very much low key, with CCs preferring to look for the reasonable alternative first and resorting to force only when everything else has failed.

 

The CCs are subdivided into four republican commands, plus eight special starport security detachments(assigned to the starports at Sheridan, Heart’s Content, New Québec, New Utopia, New Tornoto, Timmonsport, Heller and Amandasborugh)and a parlimentary security detachment, responsible for the protection of the members of the Legislature, including the prime minister and the deputy minister(assuming either one actually wants a CC escort...which hasn’t been the case for the past five decades and previous two PMs). Each of the republican commands is headed by the republican solicitor, and organised into separate constabulary, wildlife, criminal investigations, judicial security, emergency services and tactical divisions, each headed by a coloniel(or detective superintendent), and the eleven special detachments are each headed by a coloniel/detective superintendent.

 

Uniformed CC personnel wear TL 13 cybersuits with AG shielding and are armed with stun batons and rail pistols, with assault railers available as needed. Tactical units carry assault railers at all times, in addition to their sidearms. The CC dress uniform is a white long-sleeved dress shirt, black pants with white stripes along the pants legs and a dark brown beret.

 

The CC are headed by the current Solicitor-General of the Commonwealth, Grey Starling.

 

The CC badge is a gold shield with the Commonwealth coat of arms engraved in the centre, and the words “FOR RULE OF LAW AND FOR THE PEOPLE ,” engraved along the bottom, just above the badge number, and is worn on the left breast of all CC uniforms.

 

The Ministry Of Civil Arbitration

“The smallest ministry, yet one of the most useful...by keeping civil squabbles out of the courts, the Ministry of Civil Arbitration frees them to deal with far more serious criminal matters...and, by forcing the parties involved to face each other directly and make them talk to each other instead of through lawyers, the Ministry cuts out all the nonsense lawsuits and succeeds in permanently settling the genuine civil disagreements which occur.”

 

Doctor Celeste Brimmer, The International Encyclopaedia of Political Science, 2223 edition

 

Those who have availed themselves of the MoCA’s services say it is an idea whose time has come...arbitration has kept the relatively trivial civil squabbles out of the Commonwealth courts and has led to more reasonable and equitable settlements than any court of law could ever grant.

 

Civil complaints are handled in the following manner:

 

1) One of the parties involved makes a formal request for a Commonwealth Arbitrator to settle their complaint. Alternatively, the parties involved in the squabble can be ordered to appear before a Commonwealth Arbitrator, if the CA receives a petition signed by fifteen people associated with or affected by the parties in question and their squabbling... a drastic measure which has become known as the Impact Law(Title 1, Section 73, paragraph 11), this proceedure has only been used once in the history of the Commonwealth, during the 2134 IHL players’ strike, when the player-owners of the Cor Leonis Blues, the Firestar Flames, the New Toronto Maple Leafs, the Timmonsport Shooting Stars, the New Polaris Silver Knights, concessions and sports-memorbilia owners and outraged fans forced both the owners and the IHL Players’ Association to settle up before Arbitrator-General Michelle Slaybaugh, after the IHL Board of Governors refused to take action...and, after Slaybaugh threatened to slap a two-thousand year embargo on the IHL inside Commonwealth soil if necessary...it seems just having it on the books is incentive enough for feuding parties to seek a settlement on their own.

 

2) The CA informs the other party or parties that binding arbitration has been requested, requesting their presence in the CA’s office to settle the matter once and for all. Should any of the parties in the dispute be a corporate or givernmental entity, the head of that entity is the only one who will be allowed to attend the arbitration session...under Commonwealth law, attorneys may not even advise in civil matters, nor may any other Commonwealth Arbitrator give advice concerning any civil matter he is not handling personally(all arbitration sessions are confidential)...any violation of the rules concerning civil arbitration(Title 2, Section 83, paragraphs 1-14, as well as the aforementioned Title 1, Section 73, paragraphs 1-12) is punishable as willful contempt of due process.

 

3)All the parties in the dispute talk things out and arrive at a settlement, at which point the CA again informs them that any decision reached here is final, with no appeal allowed.

 

The Ministry is the smallest in the Commonwealth government, with one CA for each republic and a small staff of seven assisting the Arbitrator-General of the Commonwealth in Sheridan...and, it has proven itself worth the small expenditure the people of the Commonwealth put into it every year.

 

The ministry is headed by the Arbitrator-General of the Commonwealth—Doctor Gabrielle Zimmer—a cabinet officer, and its seal is two hands shaking superimposed upon the Commonwealth Tricolor, with the MoCA motto Lassiez Non Vené Entre Nous(Fr: Let nothingcome between us)scrolled along the bottom.

 

The Commonwealth Forces

 

“...we are all citizens, not just of our Commonwealth Of Cor Leonis, but all humanity...that, and that alone, is what obligates us to fight for all those others, Mister Chairman, why we will—why we must—go to war for the sake of even one person, not the need to play policeman...unless, of course, you mean as in the desire to see justice and rule of law prevail, but that is also the obligation of every man, woman and child...why you can’t see that simple truth escapes me.”

 

Then-Commonwealth Prime Minister Annelise Gault, to Sir Stephen Cameron-Maitland, then-Chairman of the League’s Executive Council, 23 September. 2068, two days before she was killed in action in the Battle of the Finn MacCumhail Corridor

 

“That whut I talkin’ a-bout, blood brother...anyone who underestimates dem dam’ Commies gonna take it up dey butthole every time. Every muthafuckin’ time.”

 

Overheard between two Terranovan men in the streets of New Whitehorse, the day after the signing of the Tau Ceti Accords, 26 September, 2215

 

 

“The Commonwealth Forces are our best represenatives and the living embodiment of our ideas...they believe that the right thing is the only thing to do, and they believe in the good fight...men in other military forces only pretend patriotism and pay lip service to all those noble ideas such as freedom and human rights, just so they don’t have to admit they’re a pack of murdering animals, and they scoff at our CF, mock their passion, dismissing it as fanaticism, point out the fact most CF are women as a reason why our people shall fall...well, maybe we will fall one day...but, I know, that as long as our Commonwealth Forces are there at the end, we will go down believing, and we will go down fighting.”

 

Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation CEO Irma De Long, M.CL, KC.C., during her weekly news broadcast, on 2 November, 2215

 

“If there were more like those ‘damn Commies’ in the worlds, Herr Zellner, there would be a hell of a lot less like you in the worlds...and, I speak truthfully, when I say less of you would not hurt the rest of us in the least.”

 

Gerhard Kaufmann, President of the Swiss Federal Council, addressing a joint session of the Terranovan Common Legislature, 11 June, 2216

 

 

General Information

 

“I am a soldier of the Commonwealth.

I will defend and honor my people and the Fundamental Articles.

I will speak for the silenced.

I will fight for the defenseless.

I will protect the innocent and the good.

I will free the oppressed.

I will destroy evil.

If I must, I will lay down my life in the service of this oath, for betrayal is worse than death.

This I swear in the presence of my comrades.

NO SURRENDER! COMMONWEALTH FOREVER!”

Oath Of the Commonwealth Forces

 

The Commonwealth Forces is that rarity in military history, a true integrated and unified armed force, numbering precisely 101,324,472 women and men in seven regular service arms, 120,000 Dauntless-class frigates in its Aerospace Arm’s forty aerospace divisions and twelve field commands in its Field Arm with a total of 1,160 combat divisions, 600 divisions of which are heavy infantry.

 

The CF are exceptional in one of five other respects as well...97.8% of its current total force are women, all of whom distinguished themselves in battle during the bloody fighting of the Nine Years’ War.

 

The Commonwealth Forces are absolutely committed to fighting in self-defence or in defence of another, going out of their way to avoid killing.

 

The second respect from which it differs from most human military forces is the almost complete lack of bueraucratic “fat” within the CF...what Logistics and Medical Services Arms do not provide in the way of support services is either outsourced to civilian corporations, or is provided by the members of the CF on their own.

 

For example, the CF allows civilians to establish businesses on their base and Headquarters reservations, charging only a modest rental fee(usually 10% of quarterly profits)—even the famous(or infamous....)canteen at Commonwealth Forces Headquarters is civilian-owned and operated.

 

This serves to keep the Commonwealth Forces out of the retail business and allow it to devote its energies to the job it was created to do—“...defend our Commonwealth and our ideas, as embodied by the Fundamental Articles and the popular will, against those who would seek their destruction, and to uphold and practice those ideas at all times, even at the risk of life and limb.[10.1.1]”

 

Also, the Commonwealth Forces have eliminated the need for mess hall facilities simply by resorting to the radical idea of teaching its people how to cook for themselves, applying the commonsense notion that buying and cooking your own dinner is a hell of a lot cheaper than eating out...especially when it’s on the taxpayers’ dime.

 

In short, where raping-male military forces have 200,000,000 chair-warming, butt-scratching, do-nothing, lazy men “supporting” 100,000,000 “fighting” personnel, all 101,324,472 of the Commonwealth Forces’s women and men, even the Logistics and Medical Services Arms, pull their own weight...there are no easy, sit-down jobs here....and no safe ones, either....

 

Thirdly, unlike most human military forces, who simply take what they want when on foreign soil, Commonwealth Forces units pay their way. Each Commonwealth Forces unit, from squad-level on up, has a requisition fund with which they can buy food, provisions and, if necessary, munitions from whatever populace they happen to be amongst; moreover, Commonwealth Forces personnel are required and actually do treat others, even the assholes of the worlds(some of the time), with the utmost respect, in accordance with the 2056 Geneva Convention, the Fundamental Articles, and the oath they swore on enlistment.

 

Fourthly, the Commonwealth Forces believes the right thing to do is far more important than the political or convenient thing to do...even if doing right means disobeying direct orders. The women and men of the Commonwealth Forces have been known to risk their lives and their careers to rescue emprisoned comrades, aid female victims of raping-male persecution in the various nations however they can, come to the aid of those in distress, bring the bodies of either their own, or perfect strangers home for proper burial, tend to the wounded, again either their own, perfect strangers or even the soldiers of whatever nation has decided to use the people of the Commonwealth and their allies for target practice.

 

Though this code of honour( a 15-pt Code in GURPS)has been a source of great annoyance and exasperation to both the Defence Staff, who don’t like seeing their people risk their necks in the defence of Commonwealth ideas, even if that was in the job description, and to the Legislature, for much the same reasons, neither the people, the women and men of the Commonwealth Forces...nor the Defence Staff and the Legislature...would have their Commonwealth Forces any other way.

 

Or, as Gabriela de la Vega said, in a speech before the Executive Council in November of 2095,“If we learn nothing else from our past sins, let us learn this: Any nation which trains its army with brutality is a nation of brutes, and any people who defend their way of life in an evil and dishonourable fashion, or allow the evil and dishonourable to defend their way of life for them, are an evil and dishonourable people.”

 

Finally, the Commonwealth Forces has a radically different philosophy concerning their leaders...in time of war, the place for a general officer in the Commonwealth Forces, especially for any member of the Defence Staff, is on the front lines with the rest of his people and not sitting on his fat ass back in some rear-area HQ sipping a tall cool one and forcing himself on both his secretary in particular and the local female population in general.

 

Or, in the words of CF Chief Field Marshal Mariah Treadwell: “Those who are willing to give orders and believe in those orders must therefore be the first ones willing to obey those orders.”

 

The day to day running of the Commonwealth Forces is carried out by the Defence Staff, consisting of the heads of all the regular service arms, and the Chief of Staff, elected at large by the people of the Commonwealth from amongst the most senior and the most qualified of all the Commonwealth Forces officers, with the current Chief of Staff being Rebekah Lee Tilghmann, the great-great granddaughter of Rebekah Blair Tilghmann, the Commonwealth Forces’ very first Chief of Staff(and, later, the Commonwealth’s second Prime Minister).

 

Commonwealth Forces Arms Of Service

“There are no safe jobs in the Commonwealth Forces.”

Common Commonwealth Forces saying

 

“Goddamn,in how many armies do you see combat engineers, medics and supply clerks fighting right alongside the front-line soldiers...and, especially, how many times are you going to see generals right out in front fighting with their troops...God help us, if we ever get on the wrong side of the Commie Forces...and, God help the Phooies, ‘cause nothing else will....”

 

Overheard between two Mountaindove Republican Army soldiers on manoeveres in 2055, the same year the Commonwealth Forces were fighting in the Liaonese Rebellion

 

 

The Commonwealth Forces is comprised of seven regular service arms, as follows:

 

1) Aerospace Arm: Responsible for all military starcraft operations, this arm comprises 120,000 thousand Dauntless-class frigates in forty aerospace divisions.

 

Each Mod. 3 Dauntless-classfrigate masses 5,000 metric tonnes...a third the size and mass of other human nations’ frigates, packing the same amount of firepower...making them faster and more manuevereable in normal space as well as in hyperspace.

 

Dauntless-class warbirds have served the Commonwealth Forces well for its entire 199-year history, especially during the recent Nine Years’ War.

 

The current specs, as of 31 December, 2225, are as follows:

 

Ten 457mm railguns in two waist-section blisters, each railgun firing ten 31.5 tonne hyperdense monomolecular carbon shells per second at c times one, 48 Gatling 90 point-defense weapons in four banks of twelve turrets, 50 hyperspace tactical missiles, 36 Raptor Mark III unmanned aerospace vehicles, 12 Mod.4Osprey-class fightercraft, AG shielding, an AG force beam capable of firing pulses to deflect incoming fire, a TL13 AG drive system, a TL13 Rittermark generator capable of an analogous hyperspatial veolocity of 65 parsecs per hour and a flight crew of 69 women and men.

 

Aerospace Arm spacers wear slate-grey TL13 cybersuits with AG shielding(called greys or Commonwealth greys), and are armed with rail pistols and laser lances, with access to assault railers and carbines as well.

 

Their arm insignia is a winged sword.

 

Aerospace Arm frigates are painted slate grey, with nose and stabilizer stripes usually being the colour or colours of their dominion of residence, the dominion’s symbol or seal being painted on the stabilizer just below the registry number, and the Commonwealth Forces seal and the frigate’s kill board being painted along both sides of the habitat section between the stabilizers and the noseward inter-section connector.

 

Frigates hold the rank of Commander in the Commonwealth Forces, are paid as Commanders, are promoted as their commanding officers are promoted(or hold the highest rank any of their previous commanders may have held) and reserve the right to override their commanders, should they feel they are not acting in the best interests of their flight crews or their vehicles.

 

2) Field Arm: Responsible for all ground force operations, the Field Arm consists of twelve field commands, with a total of 1,160 divisions and 33,408,000 women and men.

 

Six hundred of those 1,160 divisions are heavy infantry, with each heavy infantry division comprised of three brigades, with each brigade consisting of three regimental combat teams of five battalions.

 

The heavy infantry units are exclusively heavy infantry, with no supporting arms and are highly mobile and powerful.

 

Each heavy infantryman wears a Mark VA1 Heavy Infantry Combat Suit (TL13 battlesuits)into battle. Standing over ten metres tall, and massing fifteen and half a metric tons, the HICS is armed with four 127mm railguns, two on each arm, four shoulder-mounted 127mm railguns, eight chest-mounted Gatling railers(supplemented by eight chest-mounted 90 millimeter railguns in the Mark VB model), four head-mounted Gatling railers(the head-mounted Gatlings are replaced by four 90 millimeter railguns in the Mark VA2 model, supplemented by them in the -B model) and a large laser lance for close combat, and is equipped with advanced chamelon and intruder systems, powerful radar and multiscanners, AG shielding and integral AG drivers.

 

More recently, the Commonwealth Forces has begun distributing the much improved Mark VI HICS to its heavy suits; this improved mark of the HICS is armed with four arm-mounted 203-millimeter railguns, four shoulder-mounted 127s, one dual 127/Gatling 90 quad turret in each shoulder joint, four chest-mounted 127s, eight chest-mounted Gatling 90s, twelve chest-mounted Gatling 25s, six head-mounted Gatling 90s, six head-mounted Gatling 25s and a large laser lance for close combat. Standing at 13.5 meters tall, the Mark VI boasts improved electronics, ECM, shielding, drivers and an AG pulse-deflection system.

 

Outside their suits, heavy infantry personnel wear greys and are armed with rail pistols and laser lances.

 

The Commonwealth Forces’s AFVs, artillery,and standard infantry are in the Field Arm’s 560 combined arms divisions and two independent combined-arms brigades, with each division consisting of three combined arms brigades, each combined arms brigade comprised of three combined arms regiments, each consisting of four combined arms battalions.

 

Each combined arms battalion consists of a field artillery company and three infantry companies, with each infantry company consisting of twenty AG-driven Lynx Mark VII AFVs, each of which transports a standard infantry squad of eight women and men.

 

The Lynxes carry a two person crew and are armed with a simple-computer controlled turret with a 203mm railgun, two co-axial 127mm railguns, four corner-mounted 127mm railguns, four 90-millimeter railguns in a quad turret atop the troop bay and eight Gatling 25s in turrets all along the outside of the vehicle; the standard infantry squad deploys from the Lynx using the AG harnesses integral to all suits of Commonwealth grey to propel them through the battlefield.

 

The more recent Mark VIII Lynx upgrades the troop bay quad’s weapons to Gatling 90s, upgrades the 127s in the secondary turrets to dual mounts, supplements the main turret armament with an additional 203, two more co-axial 127s(the four railguns installed as ball-mounted duals on the side of the primary turret) and a quartet of co-axial Gatling 90s while increasing the number of Gatling 25s to four per peripherial turret; the Mark VIII also boasts improved shielding, AG drivers and an AG pulse-deflection system.

 

Combined-arms personnel wear suits of Commonwealth grey, and are armed with rail pistols and assault railers as well as with laser lances, with every fourth person in a standard infantry squad carrying a Gatling 25 in an articulated harness; every fifth platoon of a combined-arms company is a heavy-weapons platoon, whose personnel wear a version of greys referred to as “artillery suits,” augmenting strength and dexterity and equipped with a pair of shoulder-mounted (Gatling) 90mm Man-Portable Artillery Systems or MPARs. Heavy weaps troopers carry standard armament in addition to their MPARs.

 

Their arm insignia is a crossed rifle and sabre.

 

3) Planetary Defence Arm: The Planetary Defence Arm provide all orbital and ground antiaircraft defences, all antiaircraft fighter defence and naval patrols.

 

Planetary Defence Arm personnel wear greys and are equipped with rail pistols and laser lances.

 

Their arm insignia are the planets Cor Leonis, Firestar, Recherche and Summer Rain eclipsing one another.

 

4) Medical Services Arm: The Commonwealth Forces’s medical corps, assigned as needed to other Commonwealth Forces units and bases.

 

Medical Services personnel wear greys and are equipped with field medical kits, rail pistols and laser lances.

 

Their arm insignia is Asecphilus superimposed onto a white cross superimposed onto the Commonwealth Forces seal.

 

5) Logistics Arm: The Commonwealth Forces’s quartermaster, construction, transportation, technical support and combat engineering arm. Logistics Arm personnel build the Commonwealth Forces’s bases, fly the Commonwealth Forces’s assault transports, keep the other Commonwealth Forces arms supplied and fed, carry out much of the Commonwealth Forces’s R&D, repair the Commonwealth Forces’s equipment, and act as the Commonwealth Forces’s combat engineers, either repairing or destroying enemy fortifictions, equipment, et al, in wartime, or building bridges and repairing dams in peacetime.

 

Logistics Arm personnel wear greys, are equipped with rail pistols and laser lances, and have other equipment relevant to their mission. Combat engineers are also equipped with assault railers.

 

Their arm insignia is an inverted triangle with the words “CAN DO” inside it.

 

6) Intelligence Arm: Responsbile for all external intelligence gathering(and only external intelligence gathering)by overt means, as well as for field reconnaisance and commando work in wartime. Intelligence Arm missions are attached to all Commonwealth embassies and to all Commonwealth Forces Field, and Aerospace Arm combat commands, gathering and analysing information on a twenty-four hour a day basis, forwarding whatever intelligence they receive to other Intelligence Arm missions and to Commonwealth Forces Headquarters on the same twenty-four hour a day basis.

 

Also, Intelligence Arm operates the field reconnaisance teams, small ten-person units who perform scouting, sabotage, rear-area harassment, rescue and counterinsurgency operations in wartime.

 

Intelligence Arm has had the honourable distinction of being the only intelligence agency in the human worlds who has never had to resort to black or covert ops to do its job. By law, Intelligence Arm is expressly forbidden from engaging in any covert or black operation, especially assassinations, acts of terror or any kind of undercover operations.

 

Intelligence Arm personnel wear greys and are equipped with rail pistols and laser lances. Field recon personnel are further armed with assault railers, assault carbines and tribarrels.

 

Their arm insignia is a silhouetted man in a trenchcoat and hat(known as the White Spy, after a cartoon from the twentieth).

 

7) Security Forces Arm—Carries out security, ground support & search and rescue ops for Aerospace Arm units and provides garrison defense for the entire Commonwealth Forces.

 

Security Forces Arm personnel wear greys , are armed with rail pistols, assault railers, Gatling railers and laser lances.

 

Their arm insignia is a flaming sword superimposed onto a shield.

 

Commonwealth Forces Dress Uniform, Headquarters and Rank Structure

 

The Commonwealth Forces dress uniform(or dress reds) is a long-sleeved crimson serge jacket extending slightly below the waist, dark blue serge trousers with a grey stripe along the pants leg and a slate-grey beret, worn with both greys and dress reds.

 

Rank insginia is worn on the beret and on the dress uniform cuff, as well as on the cuff and/or helmet of standard and heavy-infantry combat suits, the arm insignia being directly above/inside the chevrons/stripes indicating rank.

 

The Commonwealth Forces pin is a flaming sword superimposed onto the Commonwealth Tricolor(itself a representation of the Commonwealth's national flower, the coeur de feux), with the motto NO SURRENDER! COMMONWEALTH FOREVER! scrolled along the bottom.

 

The Commonwealth Forces headquarters reservation is in the centre of Sheridan International Starport; the reservation also houses the Commonwealth Forces Officer’s Academy. Both Commonwealth Forces Headquarters and the Academy are staffed by veteran officers and soldiers from all the seven regular service arms on a rotating basis, and by officers and soldiers who have either voluntarily or involuntarily(i.e., due to medical reasons) retired from the field but still wish to continue serving active-duty with the Commonwealth Forces.

 

Rank Structure: The Commonwealth Forces employ the following rank structure:

 

Enlisted Ranks

 

Aerospace Arm	All Other CF Arms Of Service	Base Monthly Pay (in $CMD)
Aerospaceman	Private	450
Aerospaceman 1C	Lance Corporal	600
Leading Aerospaceman	Corporal	850
Flight Sergeant	Sergeant	1,100
Master Flight Sergeant	Master Sergeant	1,350
Flight Sergeant Major	Sergeant Major	1,500

 

Officer Ranks

Aerospace Arm	All Other CF Arms Of Service	Base Monthly Pay (in $CMD)
Cadet	Cadet	1,750
Astrogation Officer	2d Lieutenant	2,000
Astrogation Lieutenant 2C	1st Lieutenant	2,250
Astrogation Lieutenant 1C	Captain	2,500
Senior Astrogator	Major	2,750
Commander**	Lieutenant Coloniel	3,000
Squadron Leader	Coloniel	3,250
Wing Commander	Brigadier	3,500
Group Captain	General	3,750
Aerospace Marshal	Field Marshal	4,000
Chief Aerospace Marshal(“CAM”)	Member of Defence Staff*	4,250
Chief of the Defence Staff of the Commonwealth Forces(“Chief”)		4,500

 

Bonuses to monthly pay include: +$250 CMD/month non-combat distinguished service bonus,+300 CMD/month “guinea pig” bonus(for testing new equipment), +$500 CMD/month hazard bonus, +$1,000 CMD/month per Distinguished Service Medal, +$5,000 CMD/month per Black Star and +$10,000 CMD/month for the Order of Commonwealth.

 

* The heads of the other service arms of the Commonwealth Forces hold the following grades:

Field Arm: Chief Field Marshal(“CFM”)

Planetary Defence Arm: Chief Planetary Marshal(“CPLM,” pronounced “c-plum.”)

Intelligence Arm: Director-General(“DG”)

Medical Services Arm: Surgeon General of the Commonwealth Forces(“SGCF”)

Logistics Arm: Quartermaster General of the Commonwealth Forces(“QMG”)

Security Forces Arm: Chief Security Forces Marshal(“CSM”)

 

**The rank was originally Command Astrogator; however, it became common amongst flight crews to simply shorten the title to “Commander,” and over time, that common practice has become an officially-established convention. The old title is often used, in lower case, in both journalistic and fiction writing, more rarely in the vernacular.

 

 Prounounced “kam.”

 

Miscellanous Organizations

 

The Interstellar Civil Liberties Union

 

“No...I don’t consider the Commonwealth Forces to be our people’s first line of defence...the ICLU prove, more than any words can make clear, that we are, and always shall be, our first line of defense against the enemy.”

 

Recherche prémier John Jackson Hope, in an interview with FedNewsNet’s Jay Todman,11.October.2224

 

 

The ICLU was orignally a group of lawyers formed over three centuries ago, in America, to fight for each induvidual’s civil rights. Corrupted by the reactionary forces of the rapist male patriarchy in its last forty years as the ACLU, the organization was banned by American World State President Jesse Ventura during the Wars of Assimilation, with many of its members executed in a Beowulf Guard raid on its Atlanta offices, the survivors fleeing underground, and ultimately, offworld, the organization itself undergoing a radical shift in mission.

 

No longer is the organization interested in fighting the typical inhumanity of rapist man through his court systems. Instead, the organization employs operatives in every human nation to gather information on human rights abuses, to spirit those threatened by those in power out of a particular nation and to someplace where they will be free and safe, and to take action against the organs of the worst offending governments.

 

Moreover, the ICLU’s operatives aim to destroy the partriarchy by going directly to its ignorantly manipulated masses and teach them(more by example than anything else)how things should be. They operate shelters and safehouses for female victims of hetereosexual perversity, operate abortion clinics where women can make informed decsions about whether or not to keep the unwanted children forcibly inseminated into them, and maintain on-, near and off-line databases on the human rights records of the various human nations.

 

In most human nations, the ICLU is outlawed and forbidden to operate openly.

 

The nations where the ICLU is allowed to operate—Nova Australia, Fianna, Liao, the Federation of Midnight Sun, the Confederation of Horizon, Hidalgo, the Federation of Uhuru, the Russian Economic Community, the Indo-Pakistani Confederation, the Caribbean Coalition, Japan, the Federation of Sadat, the Planetary Confederation of Avalon and the other rebel nations—are those nations which have no need for their services in the first place; in the others—such as Hong Kong, Terranova, Mountaindove and the N.C.O.—the human rights record is abyssmal, and those in power take great pains to try and uproot the ICLU’s clandestine facilites.

 

The ICLU’s workers themselves don’t give a damn about the dangers they face in the countries in which they are banned —they know that trying to change nearly five centuries of status quo is a hazardous business and accept the risks gladly. The average ICLU field worker is a dedicated anarchist and feminist, devoted to the cause she has chosen and far removed form the lawyers in double-breasted suits who had orignally formed the organization.

 

The ICLU consists of well over four thousand field offices, with a small staff at its central headquarters on Papillion d.Nuits30468New Utopia to handle administrative matters.

 

Its symbol is a heart encompassed by a broken fetter, with the organization’s motto “AND TO THAT LAND, I STILL BELONG,” scrolled along the bottom.

 

The Reciprocal Trade Organization

 

“Under their so-called laws, the lunatic fringe are actually allowed to make people pay for things with wolf pelts and livestock.”

 

John Jimson to his sixth-period Flynt County High School Interstellar Politics and Geography class, 19 December, 2220

 

“Have any change for a herd of cattle?”

 

Asked in jest by a customer at Star City Furniture in Heart’s Content, a member business of the Reciprocal Trade Organization, 11 August.2221

 

 

This group of over ten million women and men are dedicated to replacing the unnatural abomination of money with the more natural system of barter. The RTO’s members accept only goods and services rendered for goods and services rendered, and the Articles mandate and protect an individual’s right to pay with barter rather than with money. Under the Articles(1.3.28.iv.), anyone frequenting a business displaying the three linked orbs of the RTO must pay for goods or services rendered with the same—money, even Commonwealth dollars, will not be accepted.

 

The RTO’s structure is informal, with a small staff of volunteers at the Heart’s Content office, who prepare and upload the RTO newsletter into the Net. Its members are not activist, knowing most people are still a bit uncomforatble with abandoning money and that they will come around in time.

 

RTO’s sole office is in Heart’s Content, on Firestar.

 

CommonwealthGravRail

“Their g-rails all run on time...what does that tell you?!”

 

Talk-net host Carl Hamilton, making a comparison between CommonwealthGravRail and Fascist Italy on his syndicated show The Black Avenger, 11 August, 2212

 

“It tells me we must be doing a pretty damn good job.”

 

CommonwealthGravRail dispatcher Wanda Lursen, commenting on Hamilton’s comments that same day.

 

CommonwealthGravRail is a cooperatively-owned and run concern which manages all of the Commonwealth’s public mass transit, including the ubiquitous AG bullet trains(known as g-rails) connecting the various parts of Commonwealth soil together—its best-known and most-widely used service.

 

CommonwealthGravRail also operates passenger VTOL, telegate and spaceplane services, as well as a starline service which competes with other major Commonwealth starline firms and a commuter bus and boat service.

 

In business since 2031, CommonwealthGravRail prides itself on courteous, efficent and reliable service, going out of its way to make those who use CommonwealthGravRail enjoy their expirienece with them. CommonwealthGravRail’s terminals are known throughout the human worlds for their cleaniness, their lack of hassles, their safety and comfort and, rare for such places, their excellent food services and spic-and-span restrooms.

 

Moreover, CommonwealthGravRail has a well-deserved reputation for punctuality—if the next g-rail from Timmonsport to Rebecca is supposed to arrive at 20:30, it will arrive at 20:30, no sooner or later.

 

There is a CommonwealthGravRail main terminal in each city, supported by satellite stations throughout each republic. All fares are $0.75 CMD for any distance.

 

CommonwealthGravRail’s main office is at Sheridan International Starport, on Cor Leonis.

 

Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation

“The truth is our faith...one I’m more than willing to die for. What part of that do you not fucking understand?!”

 

Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation reporter Michelle Krebs, replying to a cynical remark made by California Broadcasting Service reporter Juan Rivera, 15.November.2222

 

By no means the sole Commonwealth mediacorp, Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation(Commonwealth Broadcasting or CBC) it is the most famous and for good reason.

 

Its Entertainment Division—responsible for all non-children’s live-action entertainment programming—is known for its quality programming, shows with believable characters, realistic plots and originial stories—in particular, the long-running series Wanderer, set in the near future(2327), featuring a Commonwealth Pathfinder Corps scoutcraft exploring the Lesser Magellanic Cloud.

 

Its News Division set the standard in journalistic integrity, hard-hitting investigative reporting, going where the story is—and knowing when to duck...CBC’s current CEO, Irma DeLong, former prémier of Firestar, former Prime Minister of the Commonwealth and a sitting member of the Legislature, as well as—at the age of 190—the Commonwealth’s oldest living citizen, began her career as a News Division reporter over seventeen decades ago, and continues to serve as chief anchor and correspondent.

 

Its Documentary and Special Projects Division(SPD) produce CBC’s worlds-famous documentaries, its three news magazines Simply Ridiculous, the less acerbic CBC In Depth, and the science and technology-oriented TechWatch, as well as the children’s shows Imagination and Learning Space andthenature series Flora And Fauna.

 

SPD also co-produces the long-running animé series Homunculus in concert with Japan’s Second Sunrise Visual Agency(founded by Gundam creator Tomino-sama Yoshiyukiin the early twenty-first century); the two have cooperated in the past to co-produce the two widely-acclaimed Mobile Suit Gundam “bridge” series Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam BC79 and Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam Dark Apocolypse, both of which are considered part of the official canon, in spite of the best efforts of Viacomm(who acquired and subsequently dismantled Sunrise and BanDai both in the early 2000s), the rest of the Vargas Movie Board and the leadership of White Base, the official Mobile Suit Gundam fan club.

 

Its Children’s Division produces all live-action children’s programming, including the series Hooray For Madeline, based on the protagonists from a series of children’s books written in the twentieth century.

 

Finally, its Animation Division, subdivided into Juvenile, Young Adult and Adult Animation departments, produces most of CBC’s animated programmes and specials.

 

Being commercial-free, CBC is a private-stock company, funded exclusively by stock purchases from shareholders, all of whom must either be Commonwealth citizens and/or CBC employees; all monies remaining after payroll has been met and all other operations have been funded is returned to the shareholders in the form of a dividend, which they may re-invest in CBC. CBC employees can elect to invest as much as 50% of their weekly pay in company stock; CBC stock currently costs $CMD 15.75 a share, with average returns on investment running as high as 85%.

 

The shareholders elect a board of directors, who in turn, elect a chief executive officer, elections taking place every three years, the sole stipulation being that board members and the CEO must be currently employed by Commonwealth Broadcasting for three years in their respective divisions, or for seven years in any of the broadcasting divisions for any CEO candidate.

 

CBC’s motto, Le Vraiment Est Notre Fé(French: The truth is our faith)sums up its ethic in its news reporting, entertainment programming, documentaries and children’s shows.

 

Its headquarters is in Sheridan, on Cor Leonis, with studios in Heart’s Content, Amandasborough and New Toronto.

 

Other Information

 

Population: 32,419,285,400persons(PR10).

Control Rating: 1/0

Technological Level: General TL 13; medical and terraforming TL 14.

Capital City: Sheridan, Commonwealth Dominion of Cor Leonis, on Cor Leonis.

Monetary Unit: Commonwealth dollar(CMD), equal to ST10 and $14.5 TSC, subdivided into 200 half pence, 100 pence, 50 tuppence(two pence), 20 shillings, 10 dimes, 4 quarters, 2 half dollars and 1.25 three-quarter pieces

National Motto: Unbroken, Proud And Free.

National Anthem:“Commonwealth Forever,” lyrics and music by Gayle Sheridan, 2030

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