Difference between revisions of "Emporer Pudu"

Revision as of 15:25, 26 September 2006

Emporer Pudu

Flag of Emporer Pudu
Motto: Community, Conformity, Stability
[1]
Region	The Dark Lands
Capital	AC-0001
Official Language(s)	Russian, High Pudite (similar to Latin)
Leader	Emperor Pudu XLII [2]
Population	4,318,000,000 (as of 9/24/'06)
Currency	Gold Crown
NS Sunset XML

Introduction:

The Dominion of Emperor Pudu has existed in one way or another for many hundreds of thousands of years, from it’s early start as a Dynastical Monarchy based on succession and Divine Right, to the communist dictatorship, to a short-lived but popular capitalist democracy, and now, in it’s own system, beyond Dynastical, Monarchal, Dictatorial, or Democratic. The Dominion now exists under the rule of one man, Emperor Pudu XLII, a calm, emotionless man in a white suit ruling over three thousand compound-cities and roughly four-billion servants from his small office. This fact book is an account of that existence; it’s military, its politics, and why on earth anything like this could have come into being…

A Short History:

As previously mentioned, The Dominion began life as a Dynastical Monarchy. This monarchy was founded by the first Emperor, Emperor Pudu I. His family, Pudu, was not the only family to ever hold the office of Emperor, but for the interests of maintaining an apparently constant bloodline over the years every family that did succeed them took the surname Pudu.

This first Emperor forged his empire out of the small, warring states along the western shores of the frigid coast of a large, but uncivilized continent of the Dark Lands. Here he founded the first Empire, and quickly expanded the fledgling nations borders until such a time as he encountered the modern-day nations of New Gothland and The Eric. These borders have remained a constant through the least three hundred years, despite numerous small conflicts between The Dominion and their neighbor, The Eric.

The first Empire, as it is regarded in current archives, lasted the longest as of yet of any following government, over one-hundred and fifty years. Their final collapse was brought about by a small coup, lead by a man who, as the others before him, had taken the name Pudu. His revolution was one of the workers, he fought for government regulation of big business, stable prices and incomes, and free housing and medical care. You know, the good stuff. With the entire Farmer caste of workers behind him, he succeeded and established the first communist state on the continent. This state ruled constantly and fairly, avoiding the corruption and oppression that the communist dictatorship is notorious for, for a time at least.

In time, the government began to oppress the people and original revolutionary ideals were forgotten as the elderly who would have remembered were executed, for being unable to work and only seventy years after the first revolution, a second had begun. This one was lead by a man who, resisting tradition, had kept his given name. This name was not allowed to survive in the data banks after the third revolution, and it has been lost to time and cannot be re-printed here. This nameless man’s revolution caught the under-prepared military by surprise, and because of lax gun control laws, the revolutionaries were well armed.

This revolution was successful, killing most of their oppressors and driving the rest into the wilderness, which had been kept pristine and beautiful over the last many thousands of years and dominated, at that time, as it still does, most of the countryside.

This new democratic government managed to stabilize itself within a week, and was about to begin operations when it was hit with the third revolution in the last seventy years. This third and final revolution was lead by Emperor Pudu XLII, and was, in the tradition of its predecessors, successful. Now realizing the failures of his last governing attempts, as well as those of a democratic system, he established the Dominion as it is now.

And now, the Present:

The Dominion as it exists now is more rigid, more stable, and more controlled than it has ever been. The current government maintained the caste system put in place by the first Empire, with the Emperor on top, the Nobles below him, the Warriors below them, followed by the Artisans, then the Farmers, and finally, the Merchants, who, although they did still exist, have only a dozen or so actual members. These castes leave no room for succession, equality among levels, or freedom from that castes duty. Every Caste wears a different color if work clothes, with the Emperor wearing white, the Nobles in black, the Warriors in a dark green, the Artisans wearing grey, the Farmers in brown, while the Merchant's wear red.

The Emperor serves as the ruler, the head, and the final and only say in any matters of government, foreign and domestic. Nobodies authority can surpass, equal, or deny him. What he says goes. Below him is the bureaucracy required to run the large nation he does. He cannot obviously oversee every detail, and that is why the Noble caste exists. Their role will be explained further later. Below the Nobles are the Warriors, which are, in the Dominion, split into two groups. There are the Guardians, the normal foot soldiers of the Emperor, mostly unmodified, lightly armored, and although they are highly trained, they are the ‘grunts’ of any war. They crew the ships, fly the planes, and form up into massive combat divisions and charge the enemy lines. The second group are the Sanctus Schola, the elite 'super-soldiers' of the Emperor. They are genetically modified, heavily armored, and trained to an even fuller extent than the Guardians. They are the best of the best, and only one unit under the Emperor can surpass them. For a time in the past these soldiers were also known as 'Orthae'. Those men, their roles, ranks, and arms will be explained further later. Below them are the Artisans, the specialists, the craftsmen. They perform all the skilled labor and direct the efforts of advanced production. Below them are the Farmers, the laborers. Very few of this caste actually farms anything anymore, but the name has been withheld. Anything nobody else does, they do. Below them, are the Merchants. They are the lowest, the worst, and would be the most despised if the other castes had enough emotion to feel that they should be.

These people inhabit three-thousand compounds spread across the landscape of the Dominion, from the five Administration Compounds in the central forest region, to the many hundreds of Military Compounds along the western coastline, the Dominions only coast. Other Military Compounds are spread along the southern mountains, the northern dust plains, and the eastern wall. Located all though the rest of the central country-side were the last few thousand Civilian Compounds, populated by Farmers and Artisans who produce everything the Dominion needs, from bullets to pants, to chair legs, to Super Dreadnought armor plates.

The people of these compounds do not live as a normal person might. They are not born as a normal person is, and they do not thing like a normal person would. Every Pudite worker, soldier, and noble alike are born in large vats deep below the compounds they will live in, grown in smaller vats, and tended to by Artisan caste scientists. When they reach age fifteen they are considered ‘grown,’ and their growth hormones are shut down and they mature no further. Cell reproduction is slowed so that it may only grow to repair, not to expand, body mass. Then the workers begin the genetic modification process. This process for the Farmer and Artisan class is relatively simple, some vat grown high-strength muscle strands are inserted into the legs, arms, and back. The bones are re-enforced by high density plastics and metals, and that is it. They are then released to the workforce. The Noble caste does not receive modification, and the further modification of the Warrior caste will be explained later.

Once in the compound society, these new workers will inhabit their own, personal rest-pods. A coffin-sized capsule in which the citizen will sleep, receive their nutrient injections that serve as food, and then leave for their six-hour work schedule. They will do this all twice a day, for a total of twelve hour days of work, with twelve hours of sleep.

The compounds themselves are one-hundred and fifty kilometers square, a single steel-reinforced concrete structure with a large single tower rising over the otherwise perfectly plain, square building. In this tower the Commandant of that compound and his staff reside. Each of these compounds above ground levels stand only one story tall, with their Noble's tower rising a further two stories above that. These structures that are meant to be above ground are sometimes built into the hills and mountains that may fall within its one-hundred and fifty, and so not all of even this section are above ground. Below this lays the gigantic city-sized submerged element lays. Many levels of below-ground construction, stretching more than three kilometers down into the crust of the Earth.

These workers are not allowed thoughts of freedom, of disobedience, of revolution, or of change. They are the perfect workforce. To ensure that the propaganda they are flooded with when they are young, the entire nation is monitored constantly by one-way screens. To the observer they serve to display certain elements of propaganda, or sometimes act as a window, showing a video feed of the outside. On the other end, however, they are constantly monitored. Anyone showing even a remote interest in their own well being, through speaking, acting out of order, or acting on initiative, is removed immediately. This does not mean there is no dissent in the Dominion however. The vast, untamed, unoccupied land outside of the three-thousand compounds is home to a revolutionary movement of over ten-million dissenters. They are survivors of the second revolution and hermits who escaped the ‘cultural repair’ of the third revolution. They have been living in the deserted cities and towns of the old governments, and are fighting a constant battle against the current regime. These rebels are almost always under some sort of attack, be it a bombing campaign against a colony of them, or a company or two of Guardians dispatched as “fire patrols,” almost no one ever returns from these ground missions, and they are the primary source of new weapons and ammunition for the insurgents, but they also serve to keep their numbers down, and so they continue. None of them can flee, as the massive national wall along every inch of land border stops that, and they have no aircraft or fleet, and so they are trapped, until such a time as they can be finally routed out and eliminated. More on these rebels and the national wall will come later.

Government:

As earlier stated the Dominions government is absolute, with no room for advancement. Despite this total rule by the Emperor, a bureaucracy is still necessary to run the nation; this is the explanation of that bureaucracy. The Pudite system of government borrows its ideas heavily from Japanese, Chinese, and Russian ideas.

However, a full description of the Pudite government and its roles and ranks would be tiresome to both type and read, and so I will summarize it for you. At the top is the Emperor, and directly below him are his four officers. They are the Chancellor, the Grand Secretary, the Commander-in-Chief, and the High Commissar. Under the Chancellor are the men of the Chancellors office, and the 3,000 ministers, one drawn from each of the 3,000 Pudite compounds in the nation. Under the Grand Secretary serve the Inspecting Secretaries, the eyes of the Emperor. The Commander-in-Chief is the head of the military, and below him begins normal army, navy, air force, and Sanctus Schola ranks, to be explained later. The High Commissar commands the Prefecture, District, Commune, Compound, and Field Commissars. They are attached to the governing levels they name, while the Field Commissars are assigned to military leaders to ensure loyalty, which is now a nearly outdated necessity, as leaders are bred from birth for loyalty and intelligence, but it is retained anyway.

While one may assume that a national council formed of three-thousand perfectly identical people would be boring and repetitive, the Dominion has ensured that some decision making can actually occur by allowing each of the ministers a personality. These personalities are manipulated to be formed along the lines of a famous historical figure. For example, one minister may be only allowed to read the New Testament of the bible, and will be a Christ-like mind, while others can only read the ideas of Hobbes of old Europe, and will be formed along his lines. Nearly anyone that can be imagined can be reproduced. The current Chancellor of the People's Council of the Dominion is Otto von Bismarck, ironically a Chancellor in his real life as well...

Below these officers and their underlings serve the Local Governments of the Dominion. The nation is divided into six Prefectures, each of which has ten Districts, each District has ten Communes, and each Commune has five Compounds in it. Each level is commanded by a Commandant, and their attached Commissar. Each level also boasts its own Commandery. Six Prefecture Commanderys, sixty District Commanderys, etc. Each Commandery has its own foreign affairs officer, all of whom are called Mr. White, along the tradition of naming Pudite individuals likely to have outside contact after colors, and not using their serial numbers.

Society:

There are two basic divisions of society that I will review here, there are the rebel insurgents and the national populace. Both are of the same nationality, but one is a genetic copy of a single man re-printed as it were over four billion times, and the other is a loose organization of freedom fighters.

One fights a losing battle for the liberation of the nation and the rule by a benevolent dictator, a man currently being referred to as Mephistopheles. Very little is known about the insurgency, or its heretical leader. The Dominion cares very little, however, for the ravings of this madman and his volunteer army. As of yet he has never succeeded in any assault on any Pudite compound or facility of any sort, and all assumptions point to his continued failure. These rebels are armed from fallen Pudite patrols, and the few vehicles they do have are stolen from them, or are holdovers from previous Pudite military issue. These patrols, referred to as "Fire Teams" by the Dominion, are dispatched whenever the rebels seem to be gathering in any known place. None of these patrols ever return, usually numbering about 500 soldiers, they are in all cases entirely slaughtered while completing their mission. Despite their technological and numerical weaknesses, they know the Pudite forests like no other people ever have. They could disappear before you without moving, they can walk silently inches behind a genetically modified Pudite soldier. They are arguably the best light infantry force in the world, and have proved an elusive and bothersome foe.

Their tribes and clans very greatly in size and structure, but it is common belief they are all headed by the eldest fighting male and consists of immediate family and relations. Usually numbering around thirty people, every one is a crack shot and an expert woods person, they would have to be, or else they would be dead. These groups are only ever brought together when mutual defense is needed or an attack is being undertaken, and then the groups can number from two hundred to one reportedly as large as sixteen thousand. Most groups are easily frightened by the constant bombing served to them by the Dominion, and this works to dispel most groups before they get to large, but on the rare occasion one does gain enough momentum to strike a compound or section of wall, a battle ensues, with the never failing victory of the Pudite troops. These people are tough, however, and have hope for a free Dominion of the future still…

The other group of people, the ninety some percent of the population that has been successfully indoctrinated and introduced to Pudite government enforced culture, thrives. They are kept healthy and fit, all the better for working, and most are extremely bright, at least up to a level required by their assigned roles. All societal and private choices are made for them, first by the programmers dictating the operations required, and after that by the computers.

To create a new citizen of any caste, you will begin with an embryo. This embryo is a genetic copy of a single embryo cloned many decades ago. This tiny cell will bring into a being a person, a sexually neutral human being. These embryo's have had their DNA stripped of the ability to produce the sexual organs and will not produce hormones to initiate the sexual drive or the puberty event. Now, once the embryo is produced it is labeled, it's test tube has a single sticker applied to it with the serial number and caste of that it contains. After this happens the embryo is set into a conditioning chamber, where, for three months it is subjected to various stimuli, such as near freezing and intense heat which will force the embryo to divide, producing up to ninety-six humans from the single embryo. Once the pod of humans is ready to develop, they are sent into the next room along the trail, where they will, for the next three months, be subjected to various drugs and further stimuli to initiate genetic differences, such as brain capacity increases and decreases and body mass altering. Noble and Artisan castes are both extremely intelligent, but have weak physical bodies, while Farmer caste workers are giants, bred for hard labor, but have little to no capacity for thought. The Warrior caste is a mixture of the two extremes, producing a soldier that can think for himself, but will not question, and is an intimidating physical fighter, but not a behemoth. The Merchant caste, which has become more of a diplomatic class than a monetary one, is bred for intelligence, and is the most likely to question his surrounding, and thus they are kept in isolation and in few numbers until they are required. Once birth has occurred the children are further subjected to physical and mental containing through hypnopaedia and manipulation of the mind. Pudite young reach service age at twelve.

Following is the usual day in the life of a Farmer caste worker in the Dominion.

The morning routine of VK-1900432

The pressure gauge's needle swung as far as it could to the right, the valves opened and a think, heavy white gas poured out and green tinged glass lid hinged open and two white clad legs swung out. VK-1900432 stood straight up next to his storage pod, white clothes hanging off his body with a slight dampness from the misty sleep pod. He had been in stasis for eighteen hours now, and it was his groups turn in the bio-fields on the other side of the complex-city. He, and he other five-hundred ninety-nine also in his pod-group all stepped out to the left, away from their pods, which were now racing down towards the bottom of the underground stack where they were kept. Once clear they all began marching forward at the same instant. It was hard-wired into their brain, they knew no other routine.

As they turned the final corner in the bleached-white metal hallway, coming to the end of the four-mile trek from the pod-room to the bio-fields, the line came to a stop. Every person, for there was no gender, reached out with their white-sleeved arm and grabbed their farm tools off the left wall, without so much as turning their heads. After a second the line began its relentless march forward again, turning through the massive double-doors into the fields of the 1st sphere. As soon as they arrived, the current work-group stood up straight and marched out, every line from the rows in the field merging perfectly at the door and depositing their dirty tools on the other side of the hall, where the machines would have them cleaned for the next group.

VK-1900432 began his work in the first row, where he would fertilize, turn-over, and plant the earth for the next hour. Then his group would move to the next sphere, where they would again work for an hour, and move on as such. They would think of nothing but the work at hand, and nothing of that, but for what was hard-wired into their brain. Never would they think for themselves, try to solve problems, or wonder why it was that they did this. They were the perfect workforce, as long as they proceeded undisturbed.

After six hours of the steady farm work, they would return to their storage pods, where they would again, in perfect unison, climb back in, and be carried back down deep into the earth where they would sleep for the next eighteen hours, and then begin their work over again, perhaps they would be building an addition to the city-complex, or repairing some broken machinery that could not be repaired by any other machines. They knew not, and would not wonder about such things. VK-1900432 was the perfect worker…

Not numbering among either of these two groups is a small formation maintained by the Dominion's army. They are the 42nd "Emperors Mercy" Light Infantry Division. They were once a standard light infantry division of the Dominion, and served a standard year-long tour overseas during the 1st War of Expansion, fought against the Pananabian rebels in their home country. During this tour, however, the enemy general, a man called Stowes, had chosen to launch a major counter-offensive. In this assault almost all other Dominion formations set to garrison various villages and fortifications captured earlier in the campaign were overrun and killed, and those who were not were executed later by other Dominion soldiers upon re-capturing the villages for their failure in holding them. The exception to this rule is the 42nd Division. They held their tiny town, the name of which has been lost to history, against the Pananabians without taking a single casualty. Once recovered this force was immediately received and returned to the Dominion to undergo the new re-formation process, where they would be replaced by clones and integrated into the new compound system. They refused, and for a reason known only to the Emperor, they were allowed to, and lived. They now are the only other inhabitants of the great forests of the central Dominion, living in constant battle against the rebels on their home territory, and living. In addition to refusing to be absorbed and normalized, they refused to be upgraded. They still fight with AK-107 assault rifles, drive HMMWV Humvees and UAZ jeeps, and fly Mi-28 Havoc attack helicopters in the only still integrated air-ground formation in the country. They are the single most effective and deadly military unit in the Dominion.

Economy:

First, it is important to note that the Dominion does not have an economy as many people would see it. The government only uses money to track their own wealth against other nations based on the production power and resource value that their nation has as compared to, and valued by, fellow nations. There is no market at all, no pay, no GDP per capita. No money is ever even printed anymore. The value against the universal standard dollar is tracked by computers interpreting the data as it would be if the Dominion had such a market and economy. Value is almost entirely based on USD prices for natural resources, and how much it would have cost to extract them, extrapolated from old prices.

Having said this, the Dominion’s international monetary value is very little, and they could be out purchased by many a smaller nation, but their production power and manufacturing capacity is extremely powerful. Procuring the few natural resources not seen inside the Dominion is the only limiting factor, and they must be either bargained for, which is easy, or purchased, which would put a massive strain on the Dominions weak international economy. Power of production is high, value of money is small. Currency only used in international deals and to track Dominion wealth. Simple.

What follows is a list of Pudite Imports and Exports of natural resources and other commodities.

Produces:

Industrial Metals/Minerals:
Gold - 236%
Iron - 94%
Nickel - 99%
Zinc - 69%
Titanium - 82%
Platinum - 95%
Diamond - 52%
Silver - 128%
Steel - 130%
Aluminum - 89%
Lead - 56%
Tin - 130%
Graphite - 43%

Chemicals:
Nitrogen - 89%
Phosphate - 145%
Mercury - 92%

Energy Producers:
Oil - 658%
Natural Gas - 593%
Plutonium - 88%
Uranium - 74%
Coal - 121%

Natural Goods:
Timber - 345%
Coffee - 321%
Textiles - 66%
Foodstuffs - 380%
Water - 174%

Imports:

Industrial Metals/Minerals:
Iron - 6%
Nickel - 1%
Zinc - 31%
Titanium - 18%
Platinum - 5%
Diamond - 48%
Aluminum - 11%
Lead - 44%
Graphite - 57%

Chemicals:
Nitrogen - 11%
Mercury - 8%

Energy Producers:
Plutonium - 12%
Uranium - 26%

Natural Goods:
Textiles - 34%

Exports:

Industrial Metals/Minerals:
Gold - 110%
Silver - 25%
Steel - 10%
Tin - 30%

Chemicals:
Phosphate - 35%

Energy Producers:
Oil - 550%
Natural Gas - 450%
Coal - 20%

Trade Routes: Yearly frozen seaways

Climate and Geography:

The Dominion is a widely varied nation, stretching some seventeen million square miles all throughout. This land encompasses thick pine forests, vast barren wastes, frigid, nearly impenetrable mountains, and dense and dangerous swampland. A vast majority however, is indeed temperate forests and this is where some eighty-five percent of Pudite Compounds are located.

The forests are a majority dense pine, with some more humid areas populated by willow trees. These forests are to a large extent, pristine wilderness, as for all it’s existence the Dominion has regarded the environment well. Some areas are ruined by the crumbling wrecks of old Pudite cities, now inhabited by the few remaining rebels and plagued by near-constant bombing campaigns.

In the far north there exists, for some seven or eight hundred miles south of the wall in the north, a vast, desolate waste. Called the Grey Wastes, this desert is the result of a weather control experiment by the Emperor’s neighbor to the north, New Gothland. The experiment was designated “Shroud” and it involved the production of a large red-colored smog layer above his nation to protect from the sunlight, it succeeded, in that it blocked out sunlight, but it also, before most of it dissipated, affected large stretches of the northern Dominion forests, crippling them for ever. Now nothing grows there, nothing lives there, and indeed the only inhabitants would be the Pudite wall garrisons along that stretch of border.

In the south, there is a large chain of mountains, the largest in the nation that extends along most of the southern border. Once called the Dragon Peak Mountains, they are a natural wall, with temperatures regularly dropping to over one hundred and fifty below freezing on the Fahrenheit scale, they seem nearly impassable, especially in winter time when it gets even colder. The highest point here is the 9,066 meter high mountain designated M1990. It has never been scaled in recorded history, and remains the single coldest point, as well as the highest, on the entire continent.

Climate varies from fierce snowstorms in most northern and central areas, to massive downpours and hail storms rolling in off the Dragon Peak Mountains. Highest ever recorded temperature is one hundred and thirty four Fahrenheit, observed in the southern reaches of the Grey Wastes only three years ago.

Foreign Relations

The Dominion is not one for any sort of in-depth foreign relation with another nation. Usually, their experience with other countries and peoples comes directly from their experiences in war, which the Dominion engages in often. A foreign relations officer is assigned to each of the three-thousand compounds in the nation, all of which are called by their Rank Title of Mr. White. He handles all incoming and outgoing foreign communications, as for the actual ambassadorial duties, they are preformed by a men known as Mr. Grey. Following is a breakdown of the nations with which the Dominion has had extensive or frequent contact, grouped into three groups. The first, the Negative Relations, are nations who have aided enemies of the Dominion or actively engaged in warfare against the Emperor's armies. The neutral category consists of nations who the Dominion has had peaceful contact but have no true reason to maintain positive relations. Also included here are nations such as Green Sun, Pananab, and Liberated New Ireland who the Dominion has engaged in war, but who have made peace, suitable reparations, and/or another form of appeasement. They may be aided in war, militarily and economically. The Positive Relations category includes any nations who have either fought alongside the Dominion in war, made great contributions to the military strength of the Dominion through export sales, or have made great purchases of their own from the Dominions own military export sales division.

Negative Relations:
The Black Hand of Nod
Hurtful Thoughts
People's Republic of Chitzeland
Zanski
Wanderjar
Stella and Longview
Lingostan
Northern Colonies
Minnechusettsfornia
Karullia
The Remote Islands
The Lone Alliance
Roubus
Leafanistan
Londim
The World Soviet Party
Atruia
Holy Paradise
Independent Hitmen
Exponent
Madnestan
Siap

Neutral Relations:
Red Tide2
Liberated New Ireland
Errikland
Pananab
Green Sun
Jenrak
The Kraven Corporation
Cotland
Isselmere
Questers

Positive Relations:
The Parthians
Wilhelmsborough
Blasbergia
Xandabia
Soviet Bloc
Dephire
West Corinthia

Military:

The Dominions military has existed as an unbroken entity all through the nation’s modern existence, even during the revolutionary period. It is, and always has been a rigid system, but leaves more room for free-thinking and initiative than any other region of the nation. I will not here give any technical statistics, I will rather use this space to detail the command structure, mindset, strategy, and overall feel of my armed forces.

Guardian, Pudite Infantryman

To begin, my armed forces have five branches. There is the Army, who make up all of the forces on the ground, every single man with his boots on the ground, a rifle in his hands, and a squad at his back is one of the Guardians. There are no Army Air Corps, no Army seamen or anything, just as the Navy and Air Force maintain no ground forces. Everything in the Dominion is similarly segregated.

As mentioned, another branch of the military is the Air Force. Although the Pudite pilots are highly skilled and elite flyers, they are few in number. The planes they fly are also of highest quality, but they are, again, not numerous. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are surprisingly rare in the Dominion, save for Air Defense balloons floating above the country. Air force units are organized as follows, from smallest to largest. It starts with the ten-plane 'wings', which are grouped together into fifty-plane squadrons, these squadrons are joined into two-hundred plane 'groups', and five groups together create an Air Fleet. Ranks in command of such formations are Lieutenant, then Captain, then Major, with Colonels generally in charge of the Air Fleets of the Dominion. Air Force generals are rare.

The third, and most heavily funded, of all five branches is the navy. They are the pride of the Dominion and their ships are vast and numerous. There are over eight-thousand and eight hundred sailing combat ships and submarines, and many more thousands of logistical craft. Some may be the slightest bit outdated, but all are able to hold their ground against nearly all comers. Also numbering among the Pudite Imperial Navy is a single ship of the great Hood class battleship, the Emperor Pudu XLII. Their crews are the highest drilled and trained in the region. This is truly the pride of the nation, but for some reason the Pudite military doctrine casts them in a support role. Naval organization is slightly more random than other branches, with the Home Fleet as the largest organization, and then the various Ocean Patrol and Rapid Response fleets, and then anything in between is chosen based on the situation from the force pool.

The fourth arm of the Emperor is his most powerful, they are the elite shock troops of the Dominion. They are an exception to the earlier rule, and maintain their own army, air force, navy, and special operations units. The basic soldier is called the Sanctus Schola (or simply, SS), and their elite special operations men are referred to as the Custodiae Custodie Imperator (also referred to, unofficially, as Immortals. The Sanctus Schola are, in effect, simply a second military. One which has received far superior training, but a military none the less. Entire wars could be fought using only this special operations military. The only limitation of the Sanctus Schola is that they were only raised as a service arm of the Emperor, created as the super-heavy shock soldiers of a war of attrition. Their individual and in internal ranks only rise as high as the battalion level, after that they require external leadership. An individual 'Orthae' soldier is bred completely for service. They have no brain functions that do not contribute to the making of war. They are single-minded killing machines. They are the fist of the Emperor, but depend entirely upon his guidance...

The final arm of the military is the Wall Guard, who guards the massive wall that surrounds the Dominion on all sides, including coastline. They are not actually members of the Dominion, they are mercenaries that have been hired on for years from a close ally, to free up Dominion troops for more important tasks. This arm has here branches, the ten million Clanrats, who man the wall all the way from north, to south, and back again. The next branch are the Stormvermin, who maintain a vigil on the three access points to the wall, which are actually just heavily fortified subway entrances and the only airports open to the foreign community. These small two kilometer plots of land are outside of the wall, which dips in to allow their existence, guarded by small electric chain link fences and two steel guard towers, which resemble fire towers. The guards of these areas number thirty thousand soldiers to a station, most living in underground bunkers. The Dominion also keeps some Stormvermin in reserve behind the walls which nearly encircle it. The final group of soldiers in the Wall Guard is the Deathvermin. The best of the best of these mercenaries, they are to remain un-numbered for security regions. They are an elite reactionary force to reinforce any assaults and drive off attackers until Dominion allies arrive.

Not numbered as a branch are the hundreds of millions of logistics men, all of whom are trained to a limited extent, and along with the Farmer caste, who serve as a kind of national militia, should the nation be invaded. Although this would almost surly result in a Dominion military victory, as that would number over two point five billion soldiers, it would doom the Dominion's economy and production capacity for many, many years. It is a last ditch option.

Now explained will be the military organization and tactics of Dominion generals. At the top of the command chain, directly below the commander-in-chief, are the Field Marshals, commanders of the Army Groups of Pudite military might. An Army Group is a group of Legions formed together to fight in a single campaign, usually consisting of about two-million men. A Legion is commanded by a General, and will consist of twenty-five fighting divisions, or roughly five-hundred thousand men. Lieutenant Generals will command a Division, this will contain twenty-thousand men or ten thousand tanks, and is the smallest force usually deployed to a combat zone. Below the Generals are the Colonels. They command the Brigades of five-thousand men. One lower are the Majors, who command Battalions of one thousand men. Below the Majors are the Captains. They command a two-hundred man Company of soldiers. below the Major is the Lieutenant, who commands fifty man Platoons. Each platoon is made up of four ten man squads, commanded by Sergeants, a five man command structure, including the Lieutenant, and a five man special weapons team, which has access to the heavier weapons, such as 14.5mm machine guns and man-portable rocket launchers. Under them are the Guardians themselves, they are not officers, and command no special units.

The Dominion prefers the least subtle route possible to any victory, and will usually begin any sort of assault with a massed naval attack followed by the landing of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of troops. The landing will be done in, preferably, the most urban areas available. Once landed the forces will defeat the immediate enemy presence and begin expanding in slow, massive human wave attacks, supported by armored divisions and bombing campaigns. Mass bombings and shore bombardment are common, as it is seen in the Dominion that every military arm is there to aid the Army, and acts as such despite real tactical information available by situation.

Sanctus Schola trooper (also known as 'Orthae' or 'Grazskar')

Once control is assumed over an area, the territory and its populace begin the transformation process. All native citizens are killed, gassing is the favored technique, and are either cremated or put in mass graves, although the latter is only done when cremation is impossible or impractical. All buildings are flattened, and all roads are destroyed. Instead, Pudite Complexes begin to spring up, interconnected by massive subway networks. The process is slow but absolute. Once cleansed, a new population is grown to inhabit this new Foreign District.

This section will also serve to explain to you the great wall that encircles the Dominion, every inch of coastline, borderland, and even the skies are protected. Spanning 243,010 kilometers, the wall is fourteen feet think at its base, and tapers, by way of a slanted frontal face, to a thickness of eight feet at its top twenty five feet above the ground. Small, two foot think rectangular ridges extend from the top to the bottom of the wall every five feet, protruding an extra foot, serving to further break up the surface of the structure. There is one single guard compound every two kilometers, each building is a three story steel reinforced concrete building, reaching heights of forty-five feet off the ground. The wall, as stated, is one of steel-reinforced concrete, with nets of one-inch diameter rebar extending the length and breadth of the wall for every one foot of thickness. Behind the wall is a seven foot deep, six foot wide steel lined pit, meant to catch vehicles after breaking through the line. Fortified in steel reinforced concrete bunkers in a second low, four foot infantry wall behind the main structure are GA-8 155mm towed gun/howitzers and GA-10 280mm medium howitzers. Also supplementing the line are GA-7 128mm anti aircraft artillery units, as well as GMA-3 air defense missile and 88mm gun systems.

There are only three points of access into the nation, the three small enclaves of Pudite force outside the wall. These small areas, two kilometers square, are surrounded behind by a dip inwards by the wall and in front by an electric chain link fence, guarded by two simple guard towers. In this small stretch of land there is a large airport, the only three open to the international community, and a subway station. This subway network crisscrosses the entire nation, stopping at every compound and wall guard tower, ensuring a nearly untouchable network of mass transit. From here foreign dignitaries begin their long dark trip into the heart of the nation, and where they leave again, stepping out of the subway tunnel and for the first time since arrival, seeing daylight. Nowhere in the Dominion are true windows, save for one set that serves behind the Emperor, that he may survey his domain.

The Dominion uses some minor bio-engineered enhancements for their soldiers, most implanted during or immediately before release from their embryonic development tubes. Depending on their role, these augmentations can take a multitude of forms. Here are the most common surgeries, and who they are applied to Assume all surgeries preformed on Sanctus Schola also apply to the Custodiae Custodie Imperator. (The Wall Guard, being foreign mercenaries, receive no augmentation)

Muscle Augmentation: Specially-grown muscle fibers are woven into existing muscle tissue, improving strength. Also woven in are more elastic muscle fibers, increasing tension and flexibility. Given to Army, Air Force, and Sanctus Schola personnel.

Damage Resistor: The sections of the brain that deal with physical and mental damage and pain reactions are bypassed, granting a cool head and calm operation even as limbs fall loose. Given to all branches.

Bone Reinforcing: The bone structure of the subject is removed and replaced by either high-impact plastics or metals. This greatly improves his toughness, while also adding onto his weight. Given to Army and Sanctus Schola personnel.

Iron Skin: Implants thin energy-diffusing material below skin to improve toughness and durability. Very expensive, given to Sanctus Schola and Naval personnel.

Immune Boosters: Enhances T, B, and white blood cells and improves response and power of response of an immunological response. Given to all branches.

Improved Reflexes: Neural and adrenaline stimulators are added at important places in body to improve reflex time and improves rapid data processing. Given to all branches.

Augmented Sight: This operation allows the receiver to view his surroundings with sharper-than-normal vision, and even see low-light and near darkness conditions A sort of ‘zooming’ option is available as well, with magnification of up to 20x. After dark he can choose to view in the infrared spectrum. A relatively new technology, It appears to cause head trauma when remaining in infrared vision to long, and because pain responses have been bypassed, they no not of the damage they could do themselves. It is currently being worked around. Given to all branches.

Ultrasound: Consisting of a small implanted transmitter, it constantly emits ultrasonic pulses, which return after bouncing off of nearby objects and form a kind of map of physical features of the area. Can be viewed by choice through a wireless link with the HUD of the soldier. Given to all branches save the naval personnel.