New Deal Coalition Retained III: A New World

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Developments in Science and Technology
The 1990s brought many technological advances to the world stage, especially as innovations in the military field found their way into civilian markets.
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Air Travel made massive advancements during the early 90s into the beginning of the century. This became clear with the development of planes which achieved what was assumed to be the holy grail of air travel: Quiet Supersonic Transport (QST). As the Bundy Doctrine of foreign policy distanced Americans from Mainland Europe, America’s new dominant trading partners, including Australia and Japan, were beckoning from across the Pacific Ocean. The frequency of Trans-Pacific flights saw noticeable increases, while flights across the Atlantic to destinations in continental Europe and Africa simultaneously decreased. Because trans-Pacific flights on regular planes were particularly long, with flights from Melbourne to any destination on the West Coast taking a minimum of 14 hours, most passengers on such flights opted for supersonic airlines, despite the disadvantages of using them. Supersonic aircraft, despite their speed, were considered expensive to operate, and the great noise generated when their engines were operating, as well as cramped spaces, deterred many passengers from using them. This was a hurdle travel providers needed to surpass. Fortunately, innovations coming from Europe began to change the state of the industry.

Thanks to scientific investment led by President Cousteau in France during the 80s, France was the world leader in civilian supersonic aviation. The Concorde airplane, developed in the late 60s and heavily upgraded during the 80s, was the primary choice of those flying supersonic, at least up to World War III.
By the time that the war ended, many assets of the Soviet government, including the aircraft companies Antonov and Tupolev, were left without a customer and saw their resources spread across several newly independent countries. Their assets across the former Soviet Union were sold by its successor republics, who were more interested in covering state debts than military advancement, (though the Treaty of Geneva limited any Soviet successor state from building a large military anyways). Tupolev's factories and assets in Yakutia, Ukraine, and Samara, in particular, were sold to Boeing, who quickly used the old Soviet plans to build a clone of the Tupolev’s supersonic Tu-144 model. Since the transfer of ownership of the company in 1994, Boeing engineers, in conjunction with its counterparts in Mitsubishi, poached much of the company’s highly-skilled workforce, both to improve the aircraft’s engines, and to alter its wing-shape to reduce the impacts of the sonic booms. Much of the work was already done years before, as the American government began releasing into the public domain data acquired from then-classified research projects testing the feasibility of stealth aircraft that could exceed twice the speed of sound. (They were planned for a new bomber-class aimed at targeting Russian cities east of the Urals, through development halted after the Soviet Union surrendered.) Just as Operation Paperclip had supported American innovation post-WWII, plundered Soviet research now reached both American military and civilian markets.

By 1999, a few days before the dawn of the new millennium, Boeing HQ in Seattle announced that its new model, named Boeing 807 SuperCharger, was finally ready for widespread use. As of 2010, roughly 1,000 units are in operation, mainly used mostly by American, Japanese, Australian and British corporations. European nations soon followed, with a joint effort by the Concordat nations, via Aérospatiale [A/N: TTL it has taken the Airbus path and merged with several other European companies, though not including the German DASA], ending with their own model of supersonic planes. Called the A365, it was released in 2003. Most European firms today use the model, and its successor, the A365-Neo, remains popular among Southern African airlines. The newly-created U-04 plane, built by the German-dominated EuroLuft Company, added another model to the market of supersonic aircraft. Using the lion’s share of Tupolev’s skilled manpower and assets, along with the entirety of the Sukhoi, Yakovlev, Mikoyan, and Ilyushin companies, (all of whom had been privatized and sold to Central European firms under the watchful eye of the Free Russian Republic), the plane was a unique interpretation of the Tupolev Tu-144. Although the CECU nations had a much lower need for supersonic civilian aircraft, as they didn’t have allies in distant corners of the world, the plane was considered a quality product and is still in use by many non-CECU carriers worldwide.

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Many still debate the immediate causes behind the sudden boom in carriers offering extremely fast flights, though a couple of factors are most obvious to many looking back. After the end of the Third World War, new advancements in military tech began leaking into the civilian field, which with expertise freed up by the sale of Soviet-owned planes and companies, made the engineering aspect of cheaper, less disruptive planes, possible. This was combined with an economic boom that left businesses and businessmen flush with cash to spend both on investing in new technologies and on overseas expansion (which necessitated fast trips), as well as an affluent American public willing to sacrifice comfort for fast and convenient flights to increasingly far-off, and increasingly accessible, destinations abroad. Additionally, while global communication had improved, it was neither advanced nor widely distributed enough to replace the experience of meeting colleagues or family in-person. Moreover, as technology improved, older supersonic aircraft would steadily become available at lower and lower prices, with even one-day shipping being done across the Pacific at supersonic speeds by the mid 00's.
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The rise in transportation that an increasingly interconnected world brought had gone hand in hand with advancements in materials science and industrial efficiency, led by the United States, France, and Japan. New techniques and increased mechanization of the smelting and casting processes reduced the cost of steel, aluminum, and copper. Meanwhile, Carbon Fibre technology, originally developed as low-weight material for mobile warfare in WWIII (E.G. gun casing, body armor, airplane parts) hit the consumer market. Consumer goods such as suitcases, electronic hardware, and prosthetics for amputees all saw increasing quality as new materials ensured that they were stronger, more lightweight, and cheaper than ever before.
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Automobiles also began to employ new materials, as the race to develop faster and more fuel-efficient cars to ride the new Germany-style “Ameribahns” (highways without speed limits) hit the US market. Many of the SST transport used them to reduce fuel usage. Even construction firms began incorporating these new materials into the buildings that replaced those destroyed by the war. The very materials that made up the things that surrounded the Average American, Japanese, Zairean, etc. were rapidly changing.

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Even though Americans were beginning to use faster cars more regularly, this was not to say that Americans were not wary of wastefulness. The war had led to the rationing of certain goods due to Soviet activities and the Atlantic and the need to divert efforts towards the war effort. Top among ration supplies was gasoline. Appreciative of America’s dependence on foreign sources, especially fossil fuels, and want to decrease dependence on energy sources in far-off locations, people began looking towards alternative fuels. Environmentalism was a growing movement in America, helped along by the rise of the Global Green movement. The power of the American industrial sector and their influence on Capitol Hill meant that unlike Germany, the leaders of the environmentalist movement would not easily be able to blame manufacturers for problems like this. America would not be hit much by deindustrialization, though this meant that issues such as ensuring cleaner air and water would be left on the backburner.
The main alternatives to coal, oil, and natural gas, were various types of renewable energy and nuclear power. Chief among the former was solar power. Advances in photovoltaics and subsidies for their usage in states like Florida meant that solar panels became increasingly cheaper to produce and buy, as well as more efficient.

Because of the abundance of solar power and the falling prices of solar panels, many people believed the future of America’s power grid would be focused entirely on solar and wind power. However one of the biggest factors holding back solar power was the simple fact that they did not operate when the sun was hidden, meaning that clouds or day-night cycles could limit the amount of power available in the grid. Peak demand did not correlate with the supply provided throughout the day, and energy consumption was at its highest after sunset. The resulting sudden swing in demand often taxed local power grids, sometimes leading to sudden failures.

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The infamous “Duck Curve” of Florida.

Contrary to popular belief, however, this was not the cause of California’s infamous rolling blackouts, which became national news after the end of the Bundy Administration, despite the promotion of this myth by then-Commerce Secretary and former-Enron CEO, Jeffrey Skilling. (Enron had also coincidentally expanded its scope in California’s power grid, lobbying against any and all adoption of alternative fuel sources, and shutting down existing nuclear power plants due to “radiation hazards”.) Use of photovoltaics, despite being in a prime area to use them, was limited for these reasons.

A potential solution to this problem would have been to rely on interstate connections between local power grids to account for times of surplus demand, though this would have limited sovereignty over local energy production to the federal government, which was unpopular. Moreover, although battery technology enabling solar+storage (solar systems with attached batteries that would store energy gathered during the day for use at night) was advancing, the resulting increase in costs and poor regulatory structure, made solar+storage systems unpopular, especially at the utility level. It was more common in rural areas with faulty grids and more off-grid type systems. In addition, much of the initial solar infrastructure had been installed during reconstruction when batteries were too poor and expensive to make sense, and retrofitting entire infrastructures was prohibitively expensive. Only Idaho would invest heavily in promoting solar with storage, in part thanks to lobbying from Native American tribes, but with no copycats. Instead, several states decided to capitalize on something which already contributed to energy production in states across the country, nuclear power.

Prompted by increased safety mechanisms that helped decrease the stigma surrounding nuclear power, as well as a corresponding decrease in regulations in the building of new power plants, many states saw a boom in production. This was ironically sparked by an initiative by Energy Secretary Skilling to “decrease reliance on foreign oil”, which was indirectly aimed at subsidizing domestic oil producers.

Some commentators, however, were concerned about the increase in the production of nuclear power plants. This included the usual fear-mongering which incorrectly assumed that reactor meltdowns led to nuclear explosions, and the nuking of Islamabad played heavily in the anti-nuclear propaganda championed by groups like Greenpeace. Most Americans, however, realized the discrepancy, and Greenpeace was later chastised for its misinformation campaign. The organization was doomed to obscurity in the aftermath.

Others were concerned due to the fact that many of said power plants were built by French companies. France had a reputation for its reliance on nuclear energy and had many companies in the energy sector specialized solely in nuclear power. Fearmongers and shock-jocks alike lamented this was part of a French takeover of the U.S. power grid, and an attempt to tie the nation’s destiny to that of France. This included known isolationist congressmen, notably including Senator Pat Buchanan. Buchanan claimed that giving French companies a stake in nuclear production would tie America’s fate with France’s, and in case a new regional war flared up, France could commit blackmail against the United States using these power companies as leverage.

These fears were of course, mostly unfounded, and most Americans agreed. While a suspicious amount of lobbying in favor of a proposed bill limiting energy production to American-owned companies, the hysteria came to nothing. While the United States would not shake off its dependence on fossil fuels, many states increasingly began using a mixture of solar and nuclear power, limiting their overall carbon footprint. In some states, including California and most of the American Southwest, the opposite occurred, and local governments doubled down on non-renewable resources.
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The biggest change in civilian communication during the ‘90s was the new devices known as pagers which began to hit civilian markets. They quickly became widespread, with each iteration to hit stores becoming progressively cheaper and advanced.

The first pager only provided a beep or a series of beeps that notified the device owner to call the service center to get a message left there. To send a message, the service center could be called, specifying the subscription number and the desired message. Later devices, developed during the ‘80s, enabled the transfer of numeric codes to subscribers of the service. They would then call the center to receive a detailed message from the sender, or if the numeric code was a phone number, call that phone to contact the person who left the message directly. Later devices included a small text display (usually one line only) on which the message sent to the subscriber appeared. During the ’90s, devices were modified to include a multi-line monitor, an option to send back messages, and the ability to receive multiple frequencies at the same time, thus enabling group messages for anyone on the group subscription. As the technology became widespread, regional and national stakeholders of large companies, and especially public utilities, began using pagers to send and receive information at a faster rate. This expanded to other sectors which required fast access to information, including journalists, police precincts and national guards. They formed paging groups to notify employees about urgent messaging and alerts. The main advantage of the pager technology was that it offered a cheap, reliable communication device, which worked as a convenient, no-frills, mobile communications device.
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An early pager model

This was in sharp contrast to the mobile phone market, whose customers were mainly composed of military technology and executives. They saw phones as more secure and reliable and did not care about their bulky design and costs. (The first mobile phone to be released to the general public, a Sony product, was released to consumers in the year 1990. It had cost $4,000 and lasted for thirty minutes before needing to get charged.) However, both Motorola and Bell company focused more on installing their phones in cars, especially taxis, as it was seen as more manageable than “handheld” phones. Tech analysts assumed that future pager models would include a touchscreen, as some car manufacturers (notably DeLorean, whose target demographic was known for being technophilic) attempted to add a monochrome touchscreen to control the automobile's non-essential functions. Touchscreens, however, were notoriously imprecise, unreactive, and expensive, meaning their applications remained limited. As pagers trickled into the domain of the upper-middle class, new pagers began including primitive services, including simple video games as found in arcades, and calculators, though some complained that adding too many secondary functions would worsen the performance and the speed that it carried them out. While Motorola and Bell still rule the market domestically, they have faced increasing competition from French and Japanese corporations, including Alcatel, France Telecom, Sony, and Panasonic.
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Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire (French: République du Zaïre), is a country located in Central Africa. It is, by area, the largest country in Africa, and the 7th-largest in the world. With a population of over 105 million, Zaire is the most populous officially Francophone country, the most populous country in Africa, and the 8th most populous country in the world.

The country is a dominant-party authoritarian dictatorship, run by Mobutu Sese Seko and his ruling Popular Movement of the Revolution party. Zaire was established following Mobutu's seizure of power in a military coup in 1965, following five years of political upheaval following independence known as the Congo Crisis. Mobutu's government received considerable support from the United States, due to its anti-communist stance during the Cold War, and was one of the founders of the Entebbe Pact. Although the country was created with a strongly centralist constitution, and foreign assets were nationalized, the country went through massive modernization and industrialization streak during the 70s and 80s due to massive Western investment in the Zairean economy and the opening of Uganda’s natural resources to foreign export. A massive process of military expansion and professionalization followed the modernization process, and the country became one of the strongest countries in Africa, both militarily and economically. Mobutu pursued the creation of a more centralized and Africanized national identity, a process named Authenticité, which resulted in the renaming of the nation and several cities, along with mandated Africanization of names and several other policies.

The Entebbe Pact was allied with NATO during the third world war, and Zaire annexed the entirety of Congo-Brazzaville and large swaths of Zambia, including most of the Copperbelt, as a result for their contribution to the war effort. Between world war three to the great southern war, Zaire went through massive infrastructure investment and further integration with the Entebbe Pact nations, which resulted in Zaire giving independence to Hutuland and Tutsiland, both in the territory of former Burundi. Zaire took part in the African scene of the great southern war to a mixed success as the nation gained control over the Cabinda enclave and roughly one-fifth of Gabon's territory but lost the northern bank of the Zambezi river. Mobutu ruled the country with an iron fist until his death in 2005 and was succeeded by [REDACTED].

The Republic of Zaire is extremely rich in natural resources, and is considered to be one of the most developed nations in Africa in terms of infrastructure, but has ongoing problems of high corruption levels and ethnic tensions. The country's economy is heavily reliant on mining and large-scale industry, with massive cities such as Lubumbashi, Mbuji-Mayi, and Kisangani serving as the economic hubs of the country. The capital, Kinshasa, went through a massive renovation and expansion during the late 90s and early 00s in order to erase the differences between Kinshasa proper, former Brazzaville and the recent developments adjacent to the city, and today the city's economy is comprised of advanced industries and retail. The state is a member of the United Nations and one of the leading members of the Entebbe Pact, along with Uganda, Kenia, and Angola.
 
1 Corinthians 15:33
Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character ".


The last name on his list had been checked off. That was it, he hoped. He agonized over each and every name on the list, wondering how they would react, if they had some inner weakness which would reveal itself later on... it could ruin everything. They may have had some sort of hidden loyalty perhaps. What he was doing would have been enough to get a man executed. His life was probably at stake anyways.
Romney looked over the last names on his list, while simultaneously making sure no one was paying any attention to what he was doing. Donald Trump, Donald Rumsfeld, and ‘Ole Nick Modi. Trump seemed trustworthy enough to keep a secret, provided it didn’t make him look good. Rumsfeld was the face of the party, and one of the most popular Republicans in popular memory. The prestige that his presence brought would be a benefit to the plan. Speaker Modi was a window into Congress, of course. He could whip the backbenchers in Congress to make sure everything went to plan. Rogues like Traficant or rivals of the president, like Sanders and Ilyinsky… There might be a problem there, but in the end he considered them non-factors. Besides, they’d only be happy Bundy was gone..or they were too far up their own rears to be much of a threat. Beltway rumors had it that Traficant was as corrupt as a Latin American dictator, so he could be paid off if problems arose. His omission of James Meredith, the Vice President, was what kept him up at night. Was this the right choice? This man was the closest man he could’ve had to the president, and his position as VP meant...

What was he thinking anyways? What evidence was there for Ted being some sort of ax-wielding maniac besides some circumstantial evidence involving the suicide of a Republican donor, an unproven rape allegation by a woman who had an incentive to lie… the fact that he left everyone who knew him personally with a deep-seated unease? Was being a weirdo a crime? He’d been to Washington State, where Bundy grew up. The whole damn darn state was full of weirdos. But nobody was that...unsettling...

That last one was probably why he was doing it. The president must have been wrong in the head. He was wrong in the head to abolish NATO, he was wrong in the head for forsaking an obligation to help America’s first ally to prevent a worldwide war and--It was then that it hit him.


There were reports that there had been gaps in Bundy’s life story, especially during his early twenties before his political career took off. He’d always chalked it up to hard times in his life when he was forced to live off of temporary gig jobs which paid in cash. Most Mormons took part of that time to go do mission, so the idea that someone would go off the books in their formative years never entered Mitt’s mind. Yet, there were no records of where Ted had been or what he had been doing during this time. While this had been mentioned by his opponents from the other major parties, mostly fringe nutcase Congressmen, this never came to much, just like many other scandals the president faced, being particularly gaffe-prone as he was. He had no alibi for his alleged assault of Mrs. Broaddrick. Then again, evidence for her accusations were still on shaky grounds, (which stayed unclear even after sources in the intelligence community did their own private investigation into the matter). It would explain a lot of his weird quirks, like his confrontation with the President of France that day three years ago.

The Secretary of State was back in America after a regional tour of the Russian states, starting up the seeds of various new trade deals which the grunts in the American legation would smooth out themselves. It was hard work fostering relations in a land which nearly ten years before had been in a life-and-death struggle with one’s nation. It was thankless work, mostly important to select special interests groups and think tanks. Now the Secretary was set to make an appointment with the president summarizing the results of the trip, praying that for once, he could ignore domestic issues on one of these meetings. He was waiting in the Oval Office for the chance to meet face-to-face with the president, though he was still receiving a briefing from a confused staffer about the Great Southern War, a war which had ended nearly a year before. He listened as the staffer read off points about democracy in the developing world, health crises in Pakistan as a result of the complete breakdown of infrastructure, a months-long parliamentary crisis in Belgium as a result of separatist parties growing from the anti-war movement, the repressive tactics of the new Nigerian junta, and so on. It made the Secretary's head spin. The staffer signaled that he was finished, which led the president to silently motion Secretary Romney to sit down.
“Good afternoon. First and foremost, I’m upset to say that the attempt to negotiate an arms deal with the Hetman of Ukraine had gone nowhere, as he did not give any signs of committing to a deal. We are monitoring the situation in the Volga region, and the attempts of Aleksander Lebed to--”
Bundy interrupted. “Yes Mitt, it was a shame that we couldn’t change his mind, but there’s no harm in trying. And I was anticipating that Lebed would be a problem, I’ve received reports about his irredentist schemings already, and I’m about to send a small number of troops on the ground to deal with it. Shock and awe usually does these people in. Worked in Burundi.” He shifted in this chair, seemingly uncomfortable. He never looked at Romney directly in the eye, instead staring at the door. “You know, it’s all so boring now. I’ve been inaugurated for my second term already, and a couple of months in, I already feel as if I’m a lame duck. It’s just that I need something exciting maybe.”
The Secretary of State nodded. “I presume you’re already thinking about your legacy?”
“Hmm, something like that. There’s nothing interesting in foreign affairs which I can take advantage of, and on the domestic front there’s not much…I’ve pissed off too many congressdolts anyhow”..somehow this last turn of phrase made Bundy smile in that way only he would. He was about to add his own thoughts when he heard a distinct knock on the door. Bundy stood up. “I’m sorry, I have another meeting soon, though I hope we have a chance to talk tomorrow. I’ve been expecting this for a while.”
In walked Teddy Nguema, the president’s charge d'affaires. He was holding a manila envelope close to his chest as always. Romney thought back to what he knew about the man. The more he thought about it, it seemed no one knew that much about him. Allegedly, he had met Bundy while working as a staffer during his stint as governor of Washington, and had helped formulate the end of the teacher’s strike which had put Bundy into the national spotlight. No one knew why he was so close to the president, though the thought always lay in Romney’s head that it had something to do with that manila envelope.
He lingered outside the Oval Office for a minute, lingering to hear whatever it was that he was talking about.
“It’s just been so boring since--”
“Been a couple months--Camp David.”
“It’s been great to see--a highlight of the week.”
Camp David… That would be something worth paying attention to. During his last meeting with Trump, the connection between Camp David and events in Maryland had been noted. This was the first sign from the president himself which implied something was amiss on this front. He brought out his pager to notify the relevant people. Romney had always hated Camp David, it was so cold, damp, and...
 
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I really hope Alex Jones becomes a hero in this lol I know he works for Bundy rn but if he discovered the horrible truth as well and confirmed it to Romney and Trump that would be awesome. I could also settle for him to find out about it and become Bundys last victim as well tho
 
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Country Profiles: Poland and Ukraine
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The Ukrainian Hetmanate (Ukrainian: Український Гетьманщина, romanized: Ukrayinsʹkyy Hetʹmanshchyna) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by the Timurid Empire and the Caspian Sea to the east, Samara and the Free Russian Republic to the north-east, Belarus to the north; Poland to the west; and Romania, Moldova, Abkhazia, Circassia, Stavropol, Kalmykia and the Black Sea to the south. Its capital and largest city are Kyiv. Ukrainian is the official language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy.
In 1991, the Ukrainian SSR gained its independence from the Soviet Union in the aftermath of its dissolution at the end of the third world war under the Hetmanate system. The young nation immediately took advantage of the second Russian civil war and claimed its ancestral territory in Don-Kuban and the oil-producing territories of the Caucasus. Ukraine managed to solidify its control over most southern Russia, even capturing Volgograd and getting access to the Caspian sea via Astrakhan. Following its independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state; it formed a limited partnership with the Freyist CECU while also establishing partnerships with the United States and with the Timurid empire. In 1997, a religious and ethnic tension between Roman Catholic Poland and Ukrainian Greek Catholic minorities in Galicia resulted in the independence of Galicia from Poland, in return to the Ukrainian ceding of the western part of the Zhytomyr oblast to Poland.
Ukraine is a developing country and ranked medium on the Human Development Index. As of 2018, Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe alongside Moldova and Ruthenia in terms of GDP per capita. At US$40, it has the lowest median wealth per adult in the world and suffers from a high poverty rate. However, because of its extensive fertile farmlands, Ukraine is one of the world's largest grain exporters. The Ukrainian Hetmanate is a unitary powerful monarchy, modeled after the Cossack Hetmanate with a system comprised of a hereditary executive Hetman and a bicameral legislature known as the Rada. The country is a member of the United Nations.

Poland (Polish: Polska), officially the Free Republic of Poland (Polish: Wolna Rzeczpospolita Polska), is a country located in Central Europe. It is divided into 17 voivodeships and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. Poland's capital and largest metropolis are Warsaw. Other major cities include Kraków, Łódź, Białystok, Poznań, and Gdynia. Poland is bordered by the Baltic Sea, Lithuania, and Germany's East Prussia to the north, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Czechoslovakia, Ruthenia, Galicia and Romania to the south, and Germany to the west.
In 1947, the Polish People's Republic was established as a Soviet satellite state. In the aftermath of the third world war, most notably through the reemergence of the Freyist Solidarity movement and the Polish Home Army, Poland reestablished itself as a presidential democratic republic under Freyist influence. Lech Wałęsa, the leader of the Solidarity movement, became the country’s first democratically-elected head of state since the beginning of the second world war.
Following the war, Poland took control over most of the Ukrainian and Belarusian territory that was stripped from them in the aftermath of the second world war while Germany took control over most of their ancestral lands on the eastern side of the Oder-Neisse line. In 1997, Poland became involved in a dispute with Ukrainian residents in the Galicia region on religious and ethnic grounds, which was resolved by German mediation that year through the establishment of Galicia as an independent state and Polish annexation of border regions with Ukraine. Poland maintains close relations with Germany and is one of the "Big Three" of the Central European Customs Union, along with Germany and Italy.
Poland has a developed market and is a regional power in Central Europe. It has the second-largest economy by GDP (nominal) in the CECU and the ninth-largest in all of Europe. It's one of the most quickly-developing economies in the world, going through the massive rebuilding of infrastructure and cities post-World War III along with massive resettlement of citizens from the western regions taken by Germany in the eastern regions annexed to Poland following the war. Poland is a developed country, which maintains a high-income economy along with very high standards of living. The country is ranked as very high on the Human Development Index. Poland is a member state of CECU and the United Nations.
 

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Has Bundy's Cabinet been kept in it's entire composition?
Around 1999, the issue of Skilling's and Enron's status in the Bundy administration came up in public discourse, with Bundy's opponents arguing that Enron was given preferential treatment in working with government officials and public work programs. Unfortunately, Bundy's victory in the 2000 election caused Skilling's stay in office, along with most cabinet members. The notable exception was UN Ambassador Roy Kohn who resigned in 2000. He was replaced by Deputy Secretary of Defense Condoleezza Rice.
 
2 Timothy 3:1-3
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

James Pope knew he was stuck in some real shit. Pure. Shit. And not just from the pouring rain either. He got out of the taxi, gave a rather generous tip to the driver, and rushed inside. Even though he was soaking wet from the deluge outside, he could tell he was sweaty in his suit. What a day. Only he could simultaneously be under investigation by the mayor, only to get out of an interrogation because he was due to meet the President that day. In order to convince him to invest his wife’s fortune into his fund. And for what? Taking a few risks for his hedge fund. It was a hedge fund after all. So what, some of his more philanthropic investments his fund had made, in art, science, and history galleries, sorry, traveling exhibitions of culture, were plain-old money laundering schemes for his buddies in Providence. But it's not like he invested in Northrop-Grumman's failed attempt at a passenger jet! Now there was a risky investment. And one that failed too. He was smart enough to see the tea leaves there.

But he was a respectable figure in the establishment. His hedge fund had pumped millions into the economy, stimulating economic growth. “That’s enough”, he thought. “I even invested in Ford for crying out loud!” He helped to prop up pensions for workers across many industries, albeit in a roundabout way... Well, at least now he’d only have to deal with the President. He’d wasted his entire Saturday yapping with Mayor Bernie, trying to convince him that just because he could dictate that the stock trading floor have energy efficient toilets didn’t mean he could regulate the entire US financial industry. Pope knew he had won though. He was proud, he’d gone one for two. But convincing the President to sign on to something would be difficult. Pope knew he’d need an edge, and he hadn’t made friends with the mob for nothing, and now he was about to learn a thing or two about the President from a man who painted houses.

-a couple of hours later-

“Alright now ‘Johnny’, don’t you be getting into trouble!” He caught a disgusted look on the man’s face as he rode away on his bike. He laughed to himself before heading inside. As soon as he went home, he ripped open the envelope in his hands and examined the contents inside.
“They always deliver...What a sick bastard, but thank God he is one.”

-Monday-

“How good to see you, Mr. President!”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Pope.”

They immediately descended into the specifics of his plan, after some cursory inquisition from Bundy about the state of the economy “from the words of somebody who’s actually on the floor”. After twenty minutes of useless shoptalk, James Pope finally decided that he needed to do something to relieve his boredom. Now was the time to reveal his cards.

“Look, Buddy, let’s cut to the chase, you and I both know why I’m here. I need your legitimacy.. And your wife’s money for my hedge fund. I need more investors, but recently people have been snooping around... it’s scaring the risk-averse sheep..but with your wife, and therefore you, involved in all of this, well I’d do great.”

“What? No really, this is highly illegal. And a stupid idea… You have any idea how stupid that is? You’re playing me and the First Lady for a fool. Y’know, I could damn well bury you alive if you mess up this shit. What you’re telling me is enough to get me impeached.” Bundy’s face was turning red.

Pope smirked. “You could do what? Now now, don’t you do to me what you did to you-know-who.”

Bundy’s face turned white in an instant.

“Yes yes I know. Don’t act so surprised now...But nobody has to know if you listen to me...Look I donated to your campaign, and I’d rather keep the secret. I’m no snitch. Just do as I say and nobody has to get hurt...and I assure you you’ll get rich too. You’ll get a stake in some of the investments I’ve been making in Zaire and Gujarat, and I’m a very good investor. Hey, I’ll do your Secretary of Commerce a favor and pour some money into Enron projects. You will be a rich man once your term ends. Just say the word. ”

“Alright. I assume you have a pen and paper on you?”

“I knew you’d see my way.”

“Let’s go with that.”

-------a couple hours drive away in Maryland-----

Agent Fitzgerald didn’t expect his time to be spent investigating a string of murders in Maryland. It wasn’t haughty to think an assignment to some place in the sticks was not meant for him, it was just below his station. Oh well. Hopefully they would catch whoever was behind the whole mess so that he could get a better assignment.

The victims’ families were able to sit through their interviews, albeit with varying levels of grief. The Caulfields, the family he was interviewing today, were taking their loss stoically, having had two years to grieve the loss of their older daughter. Even still, these assignments were always jarring to take on, no matter how many times one got them. The woman’s father seemed puzzled at his appearance.
“Why are you interviewing us now? The police already asked us most of these questions already. Are you not able to check the transcripts? Why now...You don’t know how hard it’s been to move on..Mary finally stopped asking where her sister is”

Fitzgerald sighed. “I assume that the Department of Justice wants to do another look on the case. The local police are already suspecting a serial killer is behind this, though what’s troubling is its proximity to Baltimore and DC, if some federal employee was in this area and got killed… Alright, I think that’s enough for now. Thank you for your cooperation.”

That was the last one on the list. Hopefully they would catch the killer sometime soon, though he had his doubts. If the killer was able to get away with it for the past couple years, there must have been something about his methods which kept him off the scent of law enforcement for so long. It was rare that a stabbing went unsolved for this long, a bombing sure, but not a stabbing. He was dealing with a professional son-of-a-b***h with a lot of resources at his disposal. If only the cold case unit was being funded as well as the drug-busters that made the news so often.
 
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"He’d wasted his entire Saturday yapping with Mayor Bernie, trying to convince him that just because he could dictate that the stock trading floor have energy efficient toilets didn’t mean he could regulate the entire US financial industry."
This was the best part of it all XD
 
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