LazarusBoard

Leonism wrote:

That's actually the more realistic alternative but I don't like the way spaceships in particular have to look like to make that work. Also, it doesn't help you on the planet itself.

Of course it does, you just have to spin faster!

Free market buisnesses wrote:

Unfortunately not.
I'm not a huge laugher.

That's a shame.

Kaisenberg, Imperium of Leonism

Ina Junker and her brother Simon sat on the sofa in her living room. Simon had come over for tea from the capital via the Schnellbahn. After an uneventful journey with the maglev train, he had taken an automatic electric taxi to Inas flat. His tall, slender sister lived in a Passivhaus apartment building. The white-painted blocky structure, reminiscent of the classic Bauhaus style of architecture, was built to the Imperium's 2018 building standards which stipulated that a newly-built house must be able to be heated by sunlight and the warmth given off by its inhabitants alone, in case of power outages. While the latter were practically unheard of in Leonism for years, this saved a lot of energy, though the problem was a risk of moulding. This was usually countered by elaborate ventilation systems, making the air inside smell and taste as fresh as outside.

When Ina opened the door, she met Simon with a warm embrance. The siblings had always been close to each other and Simon had been disappointed when Ina moved away from home after graduation. But the direct Schnellbahn connection between their two cities made the distance feel insignificant, so they very often met each other in person, shunning the sophisticated communication equipment each household had available.

"So, what's new?" Simon asked energetically. His sister brushed a curl of brunette hair out of her face. "Oh nothing big. Today's day at work was uneventful. You know how I always keep telling you about what an idiot my new colleague Martin is. Well, today he royally messed up..." Ina kept chatting as she led her brother into the living room. On the way, the gave a quick command to the beverage dispenser in the kitchen "South Frisian Tea please, two cups". The machine filled two ceramic cups with the steaming hot dark-brown liquid. Ina liked her classic tea stainer and used it ocassionally, as she was interested in South Frisian Tea culture, but it was nevertheless very comfortable to just let the machine deal with making tea and use her time to talk to her brother instead.

They fetched their cups and sat down on the sofa. Simon, slightly clumsy as always, accidentally spilled a few drops of tea on the sofa. The sofa, made from synthetic Strapazan®, repelled the drops, giving Simon a chance to clean up his mistake with a paper towel, leaving no traces. When Ina had finished talking about her day at work, she told Simon about a newsfeed she had been watching today.

Apparently, the civil war in Cossack Peoples had led to many refugees making their way to New vedan. That country, once a doubtful partner-at-arms for Leonism during the South Sea War, was doing everything to disperse the stream of migrants away from its territory. Apparently, in a twist of fate, the Reichstag had even ratified a resolution to allow the resettlement of Cossack refugees into Leonism, the FRCP's major adversary during the South Sea War. How times had changed. So far, the Cossack expatriate population in the Imperium merely consisted of a few hundred former soldiers who were taking prisoner of war during the South Sea War and had decided to stay in the Imperium after the hostilities ended, as they felt well treated and economically much more secure than in their motherland.

Now, several aircraft from New Vedan were underway to deliver Cossack migrants to the Imperium, and more would certainly follow in due time, given the ongoing civil war in the FRCP. Ina had turned on the Plasma TV on the wall (she did not yet own one of the brand-new Holo TVs that were being sold by ImpTec's Entertainment division) and switched to the Imperiale Neueste Nachrichten, Leonism's old flagship news channel. Fittingly, a reporter was just interviewing one Denys Olsenko, who seemed to be one of the first Cossacks to leave a plane that had just landed in Blaumeisehaven International Airport. "Ich froh, zu sein hier!" exclaimed the man in his 20's, wearing slighlty ragged clothes, in broken Imperial language. The man on the TV raised his thumb in a universal sign of approval, then the channel cut to a presenter in the studio, who explained that the new immigrants would be sent to "integration school" first, where they would recieve intensive courses on Leonisms language, culture, customs and laws, so as to be quickly integrated into the society.

Immigration had only recently been allowed at all, and still in limited scope, but the government was determined to make it a success story, solving problems with immigrant communities before they even began. Nobody was sure yet how immigrants would fit into Leonism's militaristic society, that blurred the lines between civilians and soldiers in an extreme way and required universal military service, including yearly reservist retraining for all adult citizens under 65. While Leonism had been a multi-ethnic country before, with the Germanic population making up the majority while a significant Latin-speaking minority existed, it had been an isolated country for decades. Thus international migration was a new challenge for the country. Many feared that, once the possibility of migrating here became more widely known, wave of immigrants would overwhelm the country and endanger the success story that was Leonism's highly regulated yet advanced and progressive society.

EDIT: Made it more clear that there's still a civil war ongoing in the FRCP, which the Imperium does of course know.

Cossack Peoples wrote:

Refuge

”How much rope?”

“This-- this much!”

“Ack! Go find it yourself!”

“You ugly bastard-- hey! You! Over there! Come over here and help me!”

“Up yours!”

The cacophony of voices, in Ukrainian with heavy Cossack accents, rose up from the settlement. In the midst of the orderly brick and steel layout of Kholgon Khadol, the refugee camp seemed as if it were a lesion against the rigidity of the Vedanian city. The section the Cossacks inhabited, isolated from the rest of the city with rusted steel fences, bustled like a marketplace-- hundreds of Cossacks stood around, socializing, or went about the narrow passageways between temporary structures in their missions carrying low-quality government-distributed goods or others hauling all their belongings on rope slings across their backs.

“Petya! Petulant boy! Get over here!”

“I saw those kids down in the industrial section; give him a thrashing!”

“Ooh! Petya! You’re in trouble!”

Stepping out of the perimeter of the maze of tents and scrap shelters, Artem Belnyk turned and glanced at the madness of the camp from afar; he could not make sense of it within the system, nor at a distance. Hundreds of individuals stationed temporarily in the worst conditions one could get in New vedan, before finding jobs or new horizons to follow. Hundreds fell in line after them to take their place. He felt as if the FRCP were pricked by a needle, and now all its innards spouted from the pinhole, slowly draining its strength while its ichor fled its responsibility and pooled up here.

It did not peeve him to think of that; after all, he was a droplet of the spout of blood that announced the death of the old order of the FRCP. Artem was a spry, athletic man with thinly-trimmed brown hair in a military cut; over his back, he had a simple backpack that seemed packed to the brim, squeezing the straps over his shoulders. In contrast to the decadence of his homeland, he was young and a forward thinker-- at just the age of 20 and three months he had it in him to illegally void his obligations to the Cossack Army when the fighting started and make for the border after the CFOB offensives in the north dissolved what little flimsy border control the FRCP had. He did not feel like dying for Comrade Smirnov, nor risk dying by the hand of Comrade Smirnov.

He sighed and strode onward, turning down street after street, pausing only at street corners until the sound of the Vedanian city overwhelmed the sounds of the camp. Passerbys gave him strange looks; after all, what were they supposed to think? A lone Cossack straying from the camp without a work visa certainly spelled trouble. But Artem did not intend to stir up any-- he had signed up with the local government for relocation; specifically, he chose to emigrate even further away from the FRCP.

He had some locations in mind, but would go wherever he could with few exceptions; Mussoliniburg was a no-go. He would never end up there. Nor would he by any means immigrate to Dernel, Glorious society, or Snoodum-- they were either too involved with the FRCP or in the same situation as the FRCP was before the war.

He turned the corner of the sidewalk, the blazing sun, with its heat dulled by the spring, reflected off the street signs and lamp posts in a brilliant light that almost blinded him from his destination; just beyond the flashes of metal was the city hall of Kholgon Khadol. As part of the contract he signed up for, he was to wait there. There were dozens of Cossacks already doing so-- sitting on the curb, leaning on the wall, anxiously walking up and down the steps to the building. He took a place among those against the wall, quietly watching the others. There were old women, toddler boys, broad men in traditional Cossack dress, infant girls, and as he finished his scan across the wall, one man who looked his age.

“Where you aiming for?” The man asked, knocking Artem off-balance. The man had been apparently doing the same kind of idle search, and noticed Artem’s gaze cross his own.

“Me? Northern Rosary Isles.”

The man grunted in approval. “Heard good things about that place-- think you can get rich? I wouldn’t count on myself to work so hard. Myself, I’m shooting for Leonism. Hear it’s an easy ride over there,” The man said. “What’s your name?”

“Artem Belnyk.”

The man stuck out his hand. “Denys Olsenko. You wouldn’t happen to be ex-military, would you?”

Artem chuckled softly. “Technically, still active duty.”

Olsenko raised his eyebrows in either surprise or admiration. “A deserter!”

“Didn’t feel particularly enthused to watch my home turn to dust.”

“Well, I didn’t want to fight, period. You see, I’m an artist, not a shooter. Though I mostly say that because I’m more likely to make minimalist art on the wall than hit the target in front of it.”

They shared a hearty laugh at their shared origin-- then, a bus came around to pick them up. The Vedanians were not the warmest in their handling-- they herded the Cossacks into the bus, sometimes with pushing, then closed the doors and sent the driver on their way. A law enforcement officer stood in the back clutching a nearby railing and a nightstick in the other hand, eyeing the passengers coldly. Once they arrived, they were herded off the bus using the front and emergency rear exit by the law enforcement officer and lined up before the entrance to the airport. Then their papers were retrieved by airport personnel and they were divided based on their preferences and then those with their passports were sent on their way, under escort, while those without waited for a Vedanian one to be issued.

Belnyk waved his briefly-kept friend goodbye as they went their separate ways-- the Northern Rosary Isles awaited.

While for thousands of Cossacks, and the hundreds of thousands to come, their destinations would be diverse-- Cianlandia, Ashoy, Burikinia, Bongrovia, Delta Vega IV, The Sigometh Dynasty, Pettos, Arclandia, Axixic, The civitas islands, Debussy, and even former rival Leonism. The Great Cossack Exodus had begun.

No Cossacks came to Treadwellia? Sad, sad Tubbians. They would have had plenty of food to share.

Cossack Peoples wrote:

That's precisely the reason they didn't go-- they need to keep trim.

We are the sixth leaner in Lazarus and a high enough healthy populatio, so they can come here, even more, we have an open door policy for refugees albeit I am afraid that it comes with a heavy assimilationist policy, so perhaps the cultural differences could pose a big chasm.

However our VATs are always ready for fixing the bodies and minds of those who want.
-- Chancellor Adriano Arthur.

Leonism wrote:

Leestcheck, capital of the Imperium

The sun was shining in Leonism's glistering futuristic capital city, Leestcheck. The city of 1,5 million people within the city limits proper was buzzing with activity, while remaining pleasantly free from excessive noise. Legionär II. Klasse Simon Junker strolled through the Schinkenstraße ("ham street"), which in historical times used to house several butcher's shops (thus the name), but had become a shopping street in downtown Leestcheck nowadays. Only one butcher's shop remained, selling Bio-meat products from the rural areas of the capital province. The rest of the ancient buildings in the street - all renovated and updated to Leonism's extremly high standards on insulation and fire-safety - had turned into consumer electronics shops, hardware stores, coffee houses, bakeries and a variety of restaurants - including a famous one from a Cianlandian expat, named Unending Taste in reference to the Unending Empire.

Simon was 18 years old and freshly graduated from Gymnasium, Leonism's secondary school. He enjoyed the large amount of free time he now had, before his compulsory year of military service would begin in July. He was not overly keen on serving, but it was such a normal and universal part of life in the Imperium that he did not question it further. He hoped to meet some nice girls in the forces (service was mandatory for all genders) and hoped to get a boost for starting his career in fusion engineering, a sought-after profession in a country were Nuclear Fusion proliferated faster than fungus on a week old stale bread. Simon was done window shopping in the Schinkenstraße and turned for the nearest Schnellbahn station. A network of maglev trains ran through the city and into the countryside. His older sister Ina lived in Kaisenberg, 400 km away, and Simon wanted to visit her for the afternoon. One of the ubiquitous police officers doffed his cap as Simon walked past him and smiled. Polizei units were everywhere in Leonism, but usually very polite and friendly, as crime was basically nonexistant.

Simon entered the Schnellbahn station. A turbo lift moved him 100 metres below the surface, where the tunnels of the maglev train ran under the capital. The tunnels were kept as a vacuum to free the Schnellbahn from the braking effects of air resistance. Thus, together with their superconducting magnetic drive, they were very fast, up to 1600 km/h in some of the main lines and no less than 500 km/h even if the vacuum broke down, which was very rare. The journey to Kaisenberg would only take 15 minutes, as - luckily - a direct connection with no intermediate stops existed.

Simon got onto the train without buying a ticket. Public transport in the Imperium was generally free of charge. Simon had read in the news that the top tax rate had recently increased to 99,6%, but it didn't bother him much. Everything worked in Leonism, and that's what taxes were for, right?

Teach me how to develop a city like yours.

Treadwellia wrote:

No Cossacks came to Treadwellia? Sad, sad Tubbians. They would have had plenty of food to share.

The New Vedanians in charge of resettling the refugees were afraid the Tubbians would eat them.

I'm restarting from fresh.

Fellowship forces wrote:

Hi.

Welcome to Lazarus!

Fellowship forces wrote:

Hi.

Tubbius the Rotund of Treadwellia welcomed you with a jolly but wheezy mmph mmph!