Difference between revisions of "Bretton"

Revision as of 00:29, 16 February 2006

The Brettonian Armed Fortress State

Bretton

Flag of Bretton
Motto: We Kill For Peace
classified
Region
Capital	Brettonia
Official Language(s)	English, German, Russian
Leader	"Fearless Leader"; Chancellor Gerhard Donner
Population	6,000,000,000+
Currency	Jion
NS Sunset XML

Bretton (Full: \Tau\\eta\\epsilon\ \Beta\\rho\\epsilon\\tau\\tau\\omicron\\nu\\iota\\alpha\\nu\ \Alpha\\rho\\mu\\epsilon\\delta\ \Phi\\omicron\\rho\\tau\\rho\\epsilon\\sigma\\sigma\ \Sigma\\tau\\alpha\\tau\\epsilon\) is a frigid, ancient nation, born through strife and fire. Its pale, stone-faced people might see the sun for two months out of the calendar year. Its government has been described as a "loathesome, omniscient squid, whose tentacles of power have turned to stone. Yet, it wears a headbang with rabbit ears and is pleasant to the touch." While there is no democracy in any sense of the word, those who have power show remarkable restraint. Brettonian leaders see their people as assets which may be exploited, but should not be abused. The average Brettonian citizen enjoys great personal liberties and a fairly decent standard of life. Convsersely, criminals, especially pro-democracy supporters (referred to as 'antipartisans' by law enforcement) are variously interred in "re-education facilities" or sold as labor slaves to private companies.

Government

As a Fortress State, the government and military are nearly indistinguishable. While not quite homogenous, it is safe to assume that anyone in a governmental position is or was in the armed forces at some point. This section will refer to the civilian-equivalent aspects of the government, as well as those not directly considered to be armed forces.

Head of State

Since the Glorious Revolution 167 years ago, the name of the army officer most often credited with being the lynchpin in the operation has been lost to history. To the modern Brettonian, he is simply referred to as "Fearless Leader." In earlier years, Fearless Leader had turned out to observe the yearly anniversary of the Glorious Revolution, which in Brettonian tradition, involved a massive parade of military hardware of all shapes and sizes through Brettonia's main thoroughfare. As the years went on, Fearless Leader continued to issue public edicts and made appearances, but they became progressively fewer in number. Fearless Leader has not made an appearance in many decades, and most speculate he is no longer among the living.

Enter the Chancellor. Originally no more than a speaker for Fearless Leader, as he began disappearing into the veil of secrecy, the Chancellor continued to become a more powerful position. In addition to being the governmental leader, the Chancellor is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In the past, such dual-purpose leaderships have produced less-than-spectacular results. In the case of the Brettonian Chancellor, this has not yet come to pass, mostly on account of the fact that the Chancellor himself is a General first and a politician second. Indeed, the Chancellor simultaneously posesses a special O-11 rank, which may only be given in the case of a new Chancellor rising to the position. A new Chancellor is picked via a military council, based on both his service in the forces and his political skill. It is not required for him to already have been an O-10 in a given branch of the service, but all Chancellors have been thus far.

The current occupant of the position, Chancellor Gerhard Donner, enjoys a staunch backing of the military due to his highly successful war against Perganum, which has since ceased to exist. Donner has ruled firmly, but remains popular among the citizenry at large due to his stance on personal freedoms. Happy people are productive people.

Ministry of Information

Whenever something occurs that the public and international community must know of, the Ministry of Information puts out the brightly colored posters and public news releases. Effectively,the Ministry of Information acts as the entire nation's combined Public Relations office. It is responsible for everything from recruitment posters for the armed forces to the latest batch of propaganda sent to other world leaders about this crisis and that event. The Ministry of Information is widely criticized by most other branches of government as a bunch of pompous windbags and media moguls.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

A more refined branch that the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs deals with other national governments on a man-to-man, level-headed basis, and is mostly free of the blind nationalism of the Ministry of Information.

Ministry of Justice

Responsible for maintaining order within the homeland, the Ministry of Justice drafts, approves, and enforces law. Cases of civil matters and those unaffiliated with national security are handled by citizen juries, attorneys, and are carried out in a relatively western, modern fashion. Terrorists, antipartisans, spies, and military criminals, on the other hand, are prosecuted by the military directly; their trials are typically conducted in secret.

Capital punishment is mandated for all serious crimes committed against the government, and is also often metered out in an "eye for an eye" fashion. Public executions are quite popular, and are carried out via petitions from the local population. Common criminals are executed via the "seven cent solution" (the cost of one .45 Auto cartridge, delivered to the head), whereas high profile enemies of state, such as spies, traitors, mass murderers, etc, are done away with via a firing squad. A bullet (or several) to the head is considered to be the most humane way of dealing capital punishment.

Prisons, usually referred to as "reeducation facilities" tend to be operated by the private sector, though heavy security is provided by the government. Emphasis is placed on rehabilitating criminals to be returned to society as quickly as possible, and thus a wide variety of corrective procedures and policies are metered out rapidly. Criminals who do nothing but occupy space in a cell are a waste of funding. To this effect, convincts who are unresponsive to reeducation methods may be used as labor for both public and private sectors, or in the case of the criminally insane, executed.

Ministry of Transportation

While private transportation is heavily encouraged by the government (automobile manufacturers sometimes recieve government stipends to keep their prices within reach for the average citizen), Bretton's incredibly massive and intricate rail network also serves as a basis for public transportation. Though its origins come from the enormous need to reliably yet cheaply move industrial supplies and military hardware, public rail transit has become a significant factor in recent decades.

Ministry of Health

The good health of the Brettonian populace is essential to its continued growth as a military and industrial power. It's no understatement to say that pollution in the Brettonian homeland is prevalent around population centers; this, among the already harsh climate, is what has sent most of the population underground. However, people yearn for open space, and the artifical skies of even the finest underground agoras are still just that: artificial. The Ministry of Health is responsible for keeping the Brettonian people healthy, even as they go about their business in its unhealthy areas. It provides basic healthcare to Brettonian citizens (though the more well off can opt out of this coverage in exchange for a lower tax rate), while private firms handle the more specialized procedures, including cryonics, cloning, and gene therapy.

Military

The armed forces are first and foremost on the Brettonian government's priority. While all citizens are required to serve a two-year term in the reserves, the active duty military is volunteer. Due to good pay and the great emphasis on personel defense, recruiters rarely face a failure to meet their annual quotas of enlistees. High-ranking officers carry an almost nobility-like status in society, and constitute a fair portion of the wealthy upper class.

Army

By far the largest branch of the military, the Army recieves the most funding and deadliest weapons. All Brettonian citizens serving their term in the reserves do so in the Army. The Air Force is a subsidiary of the Army, as opposed to an independent branch as is practiced in many other nations.

Armor

All front-line ground combat units are classified as 'armor.' Infantry are provided with the four-meter-tall six ton AS-004H Stahlkörpe assault suit, giving the average soldier an excellent degree of protection, mobility, and firepower. While not quite as versatile as a run-of-the-mill leg infantry with a .223 assault rifle, the Brettonian soldier represents the combat capability of an entire platoon of typical troopers. Intermediate support is provided by the older A4G Partisan bipedal tank, which has been in service in some form or other for nearly thirty-six years. Finally, heavy firepower as well as sophisticated electronic warfare is given to the tramendous A7V Peacemaker multi-legged tank, which has recently become the preeminent symbol of Brettonian military power worldwide.

Homeland Defense

The Army is tasked with the upkeep of the Brettonian costal, border, and air defense service. This includes the enormous costal artillery and missile batteries, the multi-layered HSCDEADGR threat-detection arrays, the heavily-automated gun assemblies that protect the Brettonian border, and so forth.

Air Force

Though it is a subsidiary of the Army, Air Force members still tend to consider themselves "above" those on the ground. The Air Force employs the least number of personnell in its ranks, though its per-capita spending is probably the highest. The Air Force's pride and joy is the highly-sophisticated BA-104B Arbiter II multirole bomber.

Decorum

Even the average enlisted soldier is expected to adhere to a high standard of appearance and conduct. Fortunately, Bretton's frigid climate makes this an easily accomplished and even desireable task. The standard dress attire for both formal functions and non-crewmen (e.g. Stahlkörpe operators) varies slightly depending on the season. In winter, the soldier wears a long, thick wool greatcoat, bronzed leather boots (with thick two-layer wool/cotton socks), fleece-lined bronzed leather gloves, wool shirt and pants (breeches in the case of officers) and a polyesther-lined wool balaclava. All soldiers wear an outer belt over their greatcoat; officers' belts include a shoulder strap. The usage of helmets and other forms of cover varies from unit to unit. Typically, units expecting to see action in some form or another will wear helmets; otherwise, berets are quite popular. In the summers, which are milder (though temperature rarely rises above 55-60° Fahrenheit), the wool greatcoat, pants, and shirt are exchanged for thinner cotton varieties for breathability, the boots are worn with thin socks, and skin-tight unlined gloves replace the thicker fleece-lined winter models. The balaclava is usually deleted entirely.

The easiest way to determine a soldier's rank is via the color and arrangement of his coat. Enlisted personnell's coats are of a green color, as is their lining. They are also worn fully buttoned up to the collar. Officers wear their coats unbuttoned at the collar, as they wear ties, and folded in a double-breasted fashion. This serves the secondary purpose of displaying their coat's lining, which varies in color and material from rank to rank. O-1 through O-3's coats are still green, however, their linings are white. O-4 through O-6 have entirely white coats, both material and lining. O-7 through O-9 have white coats with a red lining. An O-10's coat is lined with fur, an implication as to their almost noblility-like status.

Navy

While it is an indepedent branch, the Navy's roles are rather few and far between. Due to Bretton's limited access to the ocean, and more importantly, its single deep water port, the Brettonian Navy is a much smaller force than the Army. Its primary task is to serve as something of an overglorified Coast Guard, protecting the Brettonian shores from less exotic threats. At the present, a massive overhaul of the Navy, both in ships, designation, and personnell, is underway.

Decorum

The Navy uses a similar system to the Army/Air Force, albiet its coats are of a deep blue color.

Military Intelligence

A famous General once said of the Brettonian Military Intelligence, "You couldn't find a bigger bunch of wackos, sadists, assassins, terrorists, drug addicts and maniacs if you tried." Indeed, the incredibly secretive, incredibly inclusive Military Intelligence is among the more feared organizations in Bretton as a whole. Their actions are almost fully autonomous. Since their conception, Military Intelligence has enjoyed complete freedom of movement and action from the Brettonian government, and information pertinent to their operations is classified at the lowest levels and completely nonexistent at the highest. Military Intelligence is rarely seen, and even more rarely heard. When they do appear, it is most often in numbers, and usually consists of little more than throwing a miscreant in the back of a truck and disappearing as fast as they had arrived.

Decorum

Owing to their exclusively down-to-business nature, Military Intelligence personnell follow a vaguely similar setup as the Army, albiet every element of their attire is black. Some have made derisive remarks about the colors of their uniforms and hearts are one in the same. Military Intelligence officers will carry all varieties of weapons, including burst-fire handguns, ballistic knives, garrotes, and so forth. It would not be uncommon to find such officials in posession of 'suicide pills' for use when situations become unfavorable.

Nonconventional Ordnance/Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Brettonian Army has a massive investment in nonconventional weapons. Deterrance, it is believed, is the best strategy to go about maintaining order.

Nuclear

The atomic components consist of over 90% of stockpiled WMDs. It has been estimated that the Brettonian military posesses over one hundred twenty thousand (120,000) warheads, ranging from sub-kiloton fission bombs to be deployed by assault suit units to sixty megaton "uberdevices" which have little tactical application.

Nuclear warheads are employed in various configurations, including:

• Air to air missiles
• Air-, land- and naval-launched cruise missiles
• Surface to air missiles
• Torpedoes
• Railgun slugs
• Stahlkörpe rifle grenades
• Ballistic missiles (MIRV and single warhead)
• Precision and gravity (parachuted), delivered via bomber

Chemical

While far smaller in comparison to the nuclear arm, the Brettonian military preserves a fair amount of chemical weapons for use in gas attacks. The ubiquitous VX nerve agent makes up a relatively high percentage of the total chemical arsenal, though older nerve agents such as sarin, and its successor, cyclosarin, are also preseved, along with more obscure products, such as the Soviet-designed Novichok binary agent.

Biological

At present the Brettonian military possesses no large stockpiles of biological warfare agents, though it is looking to expand its capabilities in this area.

Geography and Climate

Positioned in the extreme northern hemisphere, Bretton posesses an exceptionally frigid climate. Temperatures range from highs of 53-55° Fahrenheit in the summer to lows below -20° Fahrenheit in the winter. Most of Bretton enjoys snow from mid September until late March, mountainous regions recieving it often well into April. The majority of Brettonian citizens have extrordinarily pale complexions, both due to the substantial underground establishments and the near-constant cloud cover. Annual precipitation (including snow) tends to exceed 140 inches annually in most areas.

Agriculture

Produce

Owing to the frequently inclemate weather, produce that has not been genetically enhanced to function in such environments is grown via hydroponics in artifically humid underground bunkers. Some especially hardy plant species, such as the potato, have been further strengthened by gene therapy to grow even in the exceptional cold. Despite being virtually identical (indeed, the hydroponically-grown produce are superior in some aspects), produce grown on the surface has a bizarrely popular myth surrounding it, leading its prices to be significantly higher. The current size record for genetically-engineered, hydroponically-grown produce was a specie of tomato nearly the size of a pig.

Livestock

The Brettonian diet is exceedingly heavy in beef. Historically, both the public and private sectors have struggled to provide the resultant meat products to feed the steak-hungry citizens. While produce was fairly easy to cultivate underground, livestock was far more difficult, and the desperate attempts at pulling it off are best left forgotten. Imports made up the bulk of meat products consumed by Brettonian citizens for many years. Recently, a rather lucrative trade deal between Bretton and Axis Nova has solved this debacle. In exchange for a company of A7V Peacemaker multi-legged tanks, Axis Nova has ceded significant amounts of its Numonican territories, which posesses a mild climate year-long, for the purpose of growing livestock. This has finally given Brettonian beef manufacturers the space and climate to conduct large-scale animal cultivation, much to the joy of retailers and consumers alike. The massive, genetically-engineered cattle (now more closely resembling elephants) are known to be quite tempermental, and given their great brawn easily capable of flipping an APC, the Numonican plains have become a prime location for international big game hunters.