ShaVeK HaChaver 814
Proton
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STATUL REORGANIZAT BUCUREȘTI
BUCHAREST
______________________________________
Of the liberated cities in Europe, Bucharest is most dysfunctional.
A city suffering the worst excesses of CMB mandate, a hard-nosed, cynical, and pent-up citizenry finally unleashed a fervor that for too long had gone unquenched on their oppressors.
Quick and bloody, swift and pyrrhic, Bucharest had fallen to the people by the time the Combine could mount an effective counter-attack.
The day of the revolution, each lamppost was ornamented with a lynched loyalist.
Since then, Bucharest has been home to a complex web of political intrigue, an eternally vigilant populace the harbingers of an indefinite Reign of Terror.
Self-proclaimed revolutionaries and idealists clash with self-serving gangs, little warlords, and other rival 'vanguards of the people.'
Eight governments have been deposed since the beginning of the year.
Lambda wants nothing to do with this free city.
Those who flee the city find refuge in its outskirts, most prominently the merchant-haven of Agora, a town founded on Voluntaryist principles.
They aren't the only utopians pushed into exile.
Not far away lies the headquarters of the Emergent Society; radical futurists, CMB-tech fetishists, an order of master and voluntary slave, aspiring to build the perfect commune, cloaked in mystery.
Bucharest's internal strife forces it to set aside both, yet its ambitions invariably involve them, whether they like it or not.
The Reorganized State has always been open to outsiders, praetorians whose only allegiance is to the city, detached from political affairs.
These mercenaries guard the outer walls, keeping an ever-watchful eye on those settlements just beyond the border.
And from within, the cries grows louder and louder with each passing day.
"Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!"
I.
AGORA
Free markets, free people; the Agoran motto. Agora is a libertarian utopia project, founded by relocated American political dissidents with a penchant for Auberon Herbert. Described by their opponents as a lawless, degenerate, Randian twist on the life of the lowest substrata of Occupational Korea, the town is known for hosting a plethora of arms dealers, drug peddlers, snake oil salesmen, would-be casino proprietors, and xenpit antlion tamers. Essentially, their opponents' description is correct.
Agorans begrudgingly accept assistance from Bucharest, even as they criticize its government for having a 'monopoly on violence.' The Reorganized State is keen to influence the Voluntaryists, who sit on a stockpile of weapons and, even more importantly, are responsible for resource-rich mining operations. Inspired by Geneva and wanting to corner the Romanian market before anyone else could, the Agorans' mines provide them with a steady supply of merchandisable antlion product, amidst other produce. Lambda, which, thanks to Geneva, holds a monopoly on antlion-related commodities, refuses to trade with Bucharest, which it does not acknowledge as legitimate, forcing the city to look to Agora. For now, as an amicable partner, but in the future, as a territory with resources to be harvested.
Agoran life is indeed not far off from the lives of those living in the undercities of Korea when CMB mandate still reigned supreme. It also is not far off from the lives of frontiersmen, operating lawlessly on the expanding edges of the American empire. Yet, this characteristic Voluntaryist lawlessness is positive, it is a mutual agreement among town denizens, one that ensures that business between two people remains between them, that no contract or stipulation is forced upon anyone without their consent, it is an extreme conception of individualism, the final byproduct of Enlightenment rationalism.
In short, don't tread on the Agoran and he won't tread on you.
Agorans begrudgingly accept assistance from Bucharest, even as they criticize its government for having a 'monopoly on violence.' The Reorganized State is keen to influence the Voluntaryists, who sit on a stockpile of weapons and, even more importantly, are responsible for resource-rich mining operations. Inspired by Geneva and wanting to corner the Romanian market before anyone else could, the Agorans' mines provide them with a steady supply of merchandisable antlion product, amidst other produce. Lambda, which, thanks to Geneva, holds a monopoly on antlion-related commodities, refuses to trade with Bucharest, which it does not acknowledge as legitimate, forcing the city to look to Agora. For now, as an amicable partner, but in the future, as a territory with resources to be harvested.
Agoran life is indeed not far off from the lives of those living in the undercities of Korea when CMB mandate still reigned supreme. It also is not far off from the lives of frontiersmen, operating lawlessly on the expanding edges of the American empire. Yet, this characteristic Voluntaryist lawlessness is positive, it is a mutual agreement among town denizens, one that ensures that business between two people remains between them, that no contract or stipulation is forced upon anyone without their consent, it is an extreme conception of individualism, the final byproduct of Enlightenment rationalism.
In short, don't tread on the Agoran and he won't tread on you.
II.
THE EMERGENT SOCIETY
The Emergent Society, headed by 'The Invisible Party of the Instinctualist Path' espouses a 'National Collectivist' platform, decrying Agoran mercantilism as foreign and subversive to the Romanian way of life. Of the most grievous offenses, 'capitalist individuality,' enemy of the collective Romanian ethos. Besides this, little else is verifiable, as everything known about the Emergents are, at best, rumors. Highly secretive, their inner-workings are concealed even to other Instinctualist groupings in Europe. Supposedly, members go by pseudonyms, their true identities known only to the Invisible Party and themselves. Not a single defector has ever been reported.
A Civil Protection patrol in the area has recently gone missing. The Agorans point the finger to the Emergents. Trace amounts of blood, fragments of plastic faceplate, all that remain of this unfortunate PT's existence. "They need more experiments," says an old-timer. "I've seen them. They're pale, they all dress alike, they move alike, but they're human. I don't get how anyone would willingly do that to their individuality. Have you ever read A. James Gregor?"
Per the name, Invisible Party, their leadership is a mystery. Only they understand their inner-workings. Rumor has it that ex-loyalists are in charge, hosting a contingent of first generation transhumans. Some believe they're Ultraloyalists under the guise of Instinctualism. Their CMB tech-fetishism does, indeed, lend credence to these theories, but it also lends credence to the murmurs of their inheritorship, the Humanist-Futurist belief in adopting CMB technology. They guard these relics closely, singing a twisted canticle against the potential excesses of an unlearned humanity being too quick to reap the artifacts of an empire in retreat. Or, so some Agorans say.
Only a quasi-anthropologist, political science major, or an amateur historian with a death wish would come close enough to learn more.
A Civil Protection patrol in the area has recently gone missing. The Agorans point the finger to the Emergents. Trace amounts of blood, fragments of plastic faceplate, all that remain of this unfortunate PT's existence. "They need more experiments," says an old-timer. "I've seen them. They're pale, they all dress alike, they move alike, but they're human. I don't get how anyone would willingly do that to their individuality. Have you ever read A. James Gregor?"
Per the name, Invisible Party, their leadership is a mystery. Only they understand their inner-workings. Rumor has it that ex-loyalists are in charge, hosting a contingent of first generation transhumans. Some believe they're Ultraloyalists under the guise of Instinctualism. Their CMB tech-fetishism does, indeed, lend credence to these theories, but it also lends credence to the murmurs of their inheritorship, the Humanist-Futurist belief in adopting CMB technology. They guard these relics closely, singing a twisted canticle against the potential excesses of an unlearned humanity being too quick to reap the artifacts of an empire in retreat. Or, so some Agorans say.
Only a quasi-anthropologist, political science major, or an amateur historian with a death wish would come close enough to learn more.
III.
CONCLUSION
For every idealist in Lambda, there is an opportunist in Bucharest, a cynical reflection of what the Uprising could have been, what it might still become, if men embrace the excesses of revolution rather than seek to contain them.
Welcome to Romania.
Welcome to Romania.
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