11-15-2020, 02:28 PM
Sandra Pavía rushed into the room that already contained Josephine Alvarez and a number of national security officials and advisers. There was an air of distress and worry in the room, with Alvarez pinning up her untidy hair as personnel in military uniforms dashed around, squeezing past Pavía as she stood in the doorway taking in the scene in front of her. It was just after midnight, fortunately she hadn’t been ready for bed yet, but she was exhausted and afraid of what the emergency may be. She caught Alvarez’s eye.
“Xiomera again?” Pavía asked.
“Tangentially,” replied Alvarez, only serving to confuse the tired Foreign Minister more. Alvarez gestured for her to take a seat and she did so, as people gathered around the table to listen to the General whose name escaped Pavía for the moment.
“At 23:37 yesterday,” the General began, referencing a time less than an hour ago, “the group calling themselves Watchdogs of Our Earth seized control of the offices of the Governor of Butterfly Island and issued an ultimatum to the Federal Government. No shots were fired in this takeover and it appears there has been no injuries or violence – yet. The members of WOE appear to have been granted entry to the building by an insider and have locked all entrances after ejecting those not part of their group from the building. I will now play the video sent by WOE.”
The General gestured to the side, where a relatively young man sat with a laptop. The man pressed play on the video that was displayed on a large screen on the wall.
“Hello Prime Minister, we are the Watchdogs of Our Earth, and we are watching you. The planet is under threat and the powerful stand by and do nothing. A war was being fought to secure our future on Manauia Island and you sat by and did nothing. You arrested our volunteers who were willing to risk their lives for the future of humanity. And now you will sit aside while Kerlians and Xiomerans decide the future of Manauia. We will not.
You have two options. You will appoint one of our members as a diplomatic official to attend the conference to end the war in Huenya as part of a Lauchenoirian delegation. You did not intend to go to this conference; it’s not like we’re asking you to replace someone. Or, if you fail to meet our demand, Butterfly Island will declare independence. We know how much your claim to power rests upon your ability to keep Lauchenoiria peaceful and whole. Well, there are two options to end this conflict: the peaceful way, or the violent way. You choose.”
The video ended, the image of the woman who was no older than 25 with streaks of purple in her hair freezing. Pavía groaned and looked up at the ceiling. This was, everyone in the room knew, the last thing they needed. Keeping Lauchenoiria at peace was the number one goal of the Lauchenoirian government, and would be for years to come. If war broke out once more, it would be a threat to Lauchenoirian independence itself.
“We need to end this peacefully, and quickly,” Pavía said. “Ideally… forgive me for saying this, but ideally before anyone notices anything is amiss.”
“We won’t be able to keep this under wraps, WOE will publish it on their social media, I’m surprised they haven’t already,” Alvarez groaned. “We should get ahead of the storm and contact the Sanctarian ambassador.”
“This is not evidence that the Haven Accords aren’t working,” Pavía stated sharply. “It is an isolated incident, without any violence. Every country has terrorists – even Sanctaria, if you recall the death of Jasmine Eddington. WOE has crossed the line, here… is it not time to consider proscribing them as a terrorist organisation?”
“Okay, Sandra, that’s a little too far,” Alvarez replied, alarmed, holding her hands out in the universal gesture for ‘please calm down’. “The vast majority of WOE is non-violent and we’ll have riots on our hands if we start outlawing activist groups.”
“The vast majority are not the ones going to fight abroad, blowing up Xiomeran helicopters, and seizing government buildings at home. WOE is seen as the radical wing of Climate Alliance but they’re not a homogenous whole themselves. They have an internal group that approves of violence while the rest just want to blockade things. Surely we know what that internal group is called?”
“Warriors of Our Earth,” one of the national security advisers informed Pavía and the others. “They are a subgroup of the main Watchdogs of Our Earth. WOE has no official leaders, they operate a decentralised system, but there are primary organisers we have identified. The Warriors do not check in with these people, the organisation is in internal turmoil about the use of deadly force.”
“Are the Warriors responsible for this specific act?” Pavía asked.
“We have as yet been unable to ascertain which subgroup of WOE is responsible for the occupation of the Butterfly Island offices,” the adviser replied.
“Find out,” Alvarez instructed. “I know what you’re thinking, Sandra. If the Warriors are responsible for this, we can classify their subgroup as a terrorist organisation. But that would still open a can of worms.”
“I assume the Warriors are those behind the Manauia involvement?” Pavía asked, and received a nod in response. “Well then there is at least one other state who would agree with us on the terrorist classification – Calhualyana’s Xiomera. Likely Iskiram as well, potentially Shuell as they had mercenaries on the island.”
“Authoritarian regimes,” Alvarez noted sceptically.
“If enough of them call them terrorists, it’ll spread throughout the international community. The media will have to refer to them at least as being classified as such in multiple nations and from there the association will spread. And we can shut down any social media accounts that support the Warriors, and call the office occupation an isolated terrorist incident – hell, even an isolated attempted incident since nobody was hurt.”
“Can of worms,” Alvarez muttered under her breath. “We can consider our options, if it is confirmed that the Warriors are behind this. For the time being, we need to consider how we are going to get them out of that building. The moment anyone standing in that building utters the words ‘declaration of independence’ to the media we’ve lost control. Options, General Ortega?”
“We could storm the building by force, but reports indicate they are armed and we would be unable to guarantee zero casualties. We can attempt to block their outgoing signals so they are unable to broadcast, but they have demonstrated the ability to circumvent blocks in the past. We could try to gain access to the building covertly and disable them from inside.”
“Or the option of acceding to their demands,” Alvarez added, half-joking. “Set up the jamming equipment, if they circumvent it then we can reassess. I’d like a full description of the covert-access proposal as soon as you get it. And I’d like to be informed the moment we find out if it is indeed the Warriors.”
“Yes, Prime Minister.”
“Excellent, I’ll be in my bed, fully dressed and not managing to achieve a wink of sleep,” Alvarez smiled grimly.
“Xiomera again?” Pavía asked.
“Tangentially,” replied Alvarez, only serving to confuse the tired Foreign Minister more. Alvarez gestured for her to take a seat and she did so, as people gathered around the table to listen to the General whose name escaped Pavía for the moment.
“At 23:37 yesterday,” the General began, referencing a time less than an hour ago, “the group calling themselves Watchdogs of Our Earth seized control of the offices of the Governor of Butterfly Island and issued an ultimatum to the Federal Government. No shots were fired in this takeover and it appears there has been no injuries or violence – yet. The members of WOE appear to have been granted entry to the building by an insider and have locked all entrances after ejecting those not part of their group from the building. I will now play the video sent by WOE.”
The General gestured to the side, where a relatively young man sat with a laptop. The man pressed play on the video that was displayed on a large screen on the wall.
“Hello Prime Minister, we are the Watchdogs of Our Earth, and we are watching you. The planet is under threat and the powerful stand by and do nothing. A war was being fought to secure our future on Manauia Island and you sat by and did nothing. You arrested our volunteers who were willing to risk their lives for the future of humanity. And now you will sit aside while Kerlians and Xiomerans decide the future of Manauia. We will not.
You have two options. You will appoint one of our members as a diplomatic official to attend the conference to end the war in Huenya as part of a Lauchenoirian delegation. You did not intend to go to this conference; it’s not like we’re asking you to replace someone. Or, if you fail to meet our demand, Butterfly Island will declare independence. We know how much your claim to power rests upon your ability to keep Lauchenoiria peaceful and whole. Well, there are two options to end this conflict: the peaceful way, or the violent way. You choose.”
The video ended, the image of the woman who was no older than 25 with streaks of purple in her hair freezing. Pavía groaned and looked up at the ceiling. This was, everyone in the room knew, the last thing they needed. Keeping Lauchenoiria at peace was the number one goal of the Lauchenoirian government, and would be for years to come. If war broke out once more, it would be a threat to Lauchenoirian independence itself.
“We need to end this peacefully, and quickly,” Pavía said. “Ideally… forgive me for saying this, but ideally before anyone notices anything is amiss.”
“We won’t be able to keep this under wraps, WOE will publish it on their social media, I’m surprised they haven’t already,” Alvarez groaned. “We should get ahead of the storm and contact the Sanctarian ambassador.”
“This is not evidence that the Haven Accords aren’t working,” Pavía stated sharply. “It is an isolated incident, without any violence. Every country has terrorists – even Sanctaria, if you recall the death of Jasmine Eddington. WOE has crossed the line, here… is it not time to consider proscribing them as a terrorist organisation?”
“Okay, Sandra, that’s a little too far,” Alvarez replied, alarmed, holding her hands out in the universal gesture for ‘please calm down’. “The vast majority of WOE is non-violent and we’ll have riots on our hands if we start outlawing activist groups.”
“The vast majority are not the ones going to fight abroad, blowing up Xiomeran helicopters, and seizing government buildings at home. WOE is seen as the radical wing of Climate Alliance but they’re not a homogenous whole themselves. They have an internal group that approves of violence while the rest just want to blockade things. Surely we know what that internal group is called?”
“Warriors of Our Earth,” one of the national security advisers informed Pavía and the others. “They are a subgroup of the main Watchdogs of Our Earth. WOE has no official leaders, they operate a decentralised system, but there are primary organisers we have identified. The Warriors do not check in with these people, the organisation is in internal turmoil about the use of deadly force.”
“Are the Warriors responsible for this specific act?” Pavía asked.
“We have as yet been unable to ascertain which subgroup of WOE is responsible for the occupation of the Butterfly Island offices,” the adviser replied.
“Find out,” Alvarez instructed. “I know what you’re thinking, Sandra. If the Warriors are responsible for this, we can classify their subgroup as a terrorist organisation. But that would still open a can of worms.”
“I assume the Warriors are those behind the Manauia involvement?” Pavía asked, and received a nod in response. “Well then there is at least one other state who would agree with us on the terrorist classification – Calhualyana’s Xiomera. Likely Iskiram as well, potentially Shuell as they had mercenaries on the island.”
“Authoritarian regimes,” Alvarez noted sceptically.
“If enough of them call them terrorists, it’ll spread throughout the international community. The media will have to refer to them at least as being classified as such in multiple nations and from there the association will spread. And we can shut down any social media accounts that support the Warriors, and call the office occupation an isolated terrorist incident – hell, even an isolated attempted incident since nobody was hurt.”
“Can of worms,” Alvarez muttered under her breath. “We can consider our options, if it is confirmed that the Warriors are behind this. For the time being, we need to consider how we are going to get them out of that building. The moment anyone standing in that building utters the words ‘declaration of independence’ to the media we’ve lost control. Options, General Ortega?”
“We could storm the building by force, but reports indicate they are armed and we would be unable to guarantee zero casualties. We can attempt to block their outgoing signals so they are unable to broadcast, but they have demonstrated the ability to circumvent blocks in the past. We could try to gain access to the building covertly and disable them from inside.”
“Or the option of acceding to their demands,” Alvarez added, half-joking. “Set up the jamming equipment, if they circumvent it then we can reassess. I’d like a full description of the covert-access proposal as soon as you get it. And I’d like to be informed the moment we find out if it is indeed the Warriors.”
“Yes, Prime Minister.”
“Excellent, I’ll be in my bed, fully dressed and not managing to achieve a wink of sleep,” Alvarez smiled grimly.
LIDUN President 2024 | she/her | Puppets: Kerlile, Glanainn, Yesteria, Zongongia, Zargothrax