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The Flames of the Revolution: One Year in Angermund

Foreword:

The Angermundan civil war has received very little attention in Rutherford, and to this day most people are completely ignorant of the events that took place on Angermund from 331 to 333 AB. This is a natural product of our press’ tendency to focus on local events, and limit the coverage of foreign affairs to the actions of the superpowers, and, of course, our neighbors St. Jeanne and Hampshire. Unfortunately, this ignorance of details of the Angermundan Civil War has been used by certain unscrupulous individuals to further their own political agenda at the expense of the truth. The most common such deception is the interpretation of the Angermundan Civil War as a just struggle of liberation by the working class against their capitalist oppressors, which was eventually crushed by the forces of international imperialism, represented by the Peacekeeping Forces. The Cazimir Gates Alliance, which provided most of the troops for the PKF, usually gets slapped with the accusation of acting only to restore its profits from the traffic moving along the Anderson String, which was severed by the PLN blockade of Angermund. While it is true that Cazimiran economy was suffering from the lack of incoming goods from the worlds along that route, it must be remembered that the Anderson String was only one of the many trade routes terminating at the Cazimir Gates, nor did the blockade of Angermund cut off traffic from the worlds along that string completely. Ships from Anderson, Helmsley, Streiggos, Petropavlovsk, New Athens, even New Africa, could avoid Angermund and still reach the Cazimir Gates by taking the Helmsley- Zurich hypertunnel, then moving through the systems along the Nevermore String, a detour that added 2 Colonial months to the journey, but kept the critical connection intact. Thus, the cessation of traffic from the Anderson String had been largely compensated by the increased traffic from the Nevermore String, and the only systems that had really suffered from the blockades were Equinox and Angermund itself, where the lack of interstellar trade had caused a dire shortage of consumer goods a mere year later. Being present on Cazimir during the summer of 331 AB, I can tell from my own experiences that the loss of trade, while a grave concern, was seen as temporary, and certainly not requiring the massive expense of transporting 75,000 troops across 3 systems, a journey of at least 5 weeks, even in a torchship transport, and landing and supplying them on a planet where most of the infrastructure was destroyed, first by the civil war, then by the PLN bombardment. And it was certainly not worth the risk of antagonizing the Peoples’ Republic, no matter what alliances they have, or the distance between the Peoples’ Republic and Cazimir.

It was the plight of the Angermund people in the wake of the coup and the RNA invasion, as recounted by free traders and refugees from Angermund before the PLN blockade, and the message smuggled out by Hans Reitman in January of 333 AB that prompted the military response. It was the report of the Reds’ and the Simba Wachanga's atrocities against captured prisoners and the civilian population that caused the outrage that led to the military response, not the fact of the Reds’ defeat, as suggested by a certain university professor who shall not be named here. These and other allegations about the nature of and the reasons behind the PKF can easily be destroyed by anyone who has access to official documents, parliament transcripts, and media cut-outs from Cazimir, Zurich, Helmsley, Petropavlovsk and Wilson. It is only the complete ignorance of such allegations made by our academia on these worlds that prevented these rebuttals from being written. Hopefully, the situation will change soon, and the articles of “scholarship” viewing the Angermund Civil War in the light of Marxist class struggle will be relegated to the category of utopian fiction or alternate history, where they rightfully belong.

As for my own contribution to the debate, it was mostly prompted by Johann Tabak’s Blood and Money: Narratives from Hanson, Newfoundland, and Angermund, published by our own University of Rutherford in 338 AB, which tells blood-curling tales of “shocking brutality of the Peacekeeping Forces” towards the civilians of Angermund, most of which are nothing more than second hand claims of dubious veracity, and are contradicted by the numerous accounts of the Civil War written by Angermundans of both sides. Unfortunately, none of these accounts have been translated from the language of Angermund, and thus are inaccessible to most of the inhabited universe. It is this fact, as well as the fact that while there have been Rutherfordian visits to Angermund during the reconstruction, I was, to my knowledge, the only Rutherfordian to be present at the Civil War, and to make it out alive, that led to the writing of the present work. In it, I will not attempt to disprove the claims of Mr. Tabak and others like him, but rather present my own story, free of ideological bias, and let the readers judge for themselves whether my negative reaction to our academia on this matter is justified. I must admit that this has not been an easy book to write, since the memory of the horrors I witnessed is still fresh in my mind. Yet I feel that I have an obligation to present the truth, and to send a warning to those who would in their ignorance do what I tried to do. And if to accomplish that, I must recount the things I have tried to forget these past years, then so be it.

John Henderson,
14 Aquarius, 601 FE
35 Duodecember, 338 AB

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Introduction:

Because of the popular ignorance of the history and society of Angermund, I believe it is appropriate to recount the events leading up to the Civil War, and examine some of its causes. While a detailed study of these matters is outside the scope of this work, some sort of introduction is appropriate.

Angermund is the 4th planet in a system of 12 planets orbiting a G2V class star of the same name. The system contains a large number of asteroids, both free-floating and forming fields, leading to the rise of a large space mining industry. Before the war, the system was home to over 850 million people, over a million of whom lived in various space settlements in asteroids and the moons of the local gas giants.

The history of Angermund begins in the year 58 AB, when the system was connected via hypertunnel to its neighbors by the residents of Cazimir in an attempt to develop what was soon to become the Anderson String. The planet was marked for colonization, but surprisingly enough, settlers from Cazimir opted for Krakow and Lodz instead. The planet was to remain uninhabited for another 5 Martian years. In October of 62 AB, the forces of the Colonial Authority attacked and conquered the Outer colony of New Brandenburg. The refugees from the colony, fleeing outward aboard the ship Angermünde, have made it all the way beyond the Cazimir Gates by December of 63 AB. Reaching what was then the Frontier, they moved to the first available hospitable system, arriving by the end of Undecember. These early settlers have eventually become the ruling class of the colony of Angermund.

Another wave of colonization came during the Downfall Wars. As the Outer Territories fought first the forces of the Colonial Authority, and then each other, the Outback worlds have also been flung into chaos. The Cazimir region has remained relatively stable for the first 6 years of the war, and thus became the destination of billions of refugees fleeing the constant warfare that engulfed most of human space. Angermund has become the home of more than 100 million of new settlers during this period. Eventually, though, even this region has collapsed into warfare as the Alliance of Petropavlovsk, New Athens, and Helmsley-Zurich tried to seize the Cazimir Gates. New Africa was sacked by the invading forces, and so was Angermund despite claims of neutrality. As the invading forces moved beyond Angermund towards Equinox and Cazimir and their deaths at the hands of the Cazimir Stellar Navy, Angermund officially entered the war on behalf of Cazimir, and thus saved itself from the fate of Equinox and New Africa, which were both attacked by the Cazimirans on their way towards the Alliance systems. New Athens and Helmsley fell within 2 months, and Petropavlovsk, the headquarters of the Alliance was bombed from orbit and surrendered on the 40th of November, 145 AB. Millions of refugees fled to the neighboring systems. 40 million fled to Anderson, 11 million to Nevermore, 500 thousand agreed to take part in "Reparation" slavery in exchange for residence in New Africa. Over 20 million, mostly Slavs from Petropavlovsk, settled in Angermund. These newcomers were blamed for the sack of the planet a year earlier, and treated coldly by both the core population and the refugees from outside the region. This refusal to integrate the Slavic minority and the formation of an underclass was later proven instrumental in causing the tensions in Angermund and leading to the Civil War.

By the mid 320s AB, Angermund has become one of the leading second-tier powers beyond the Cazimir Gates. While obviously inferior to powers like the Republic of Helmsley, the Kingdom of Zurich, Anderson, and the Imperium of Nevermore, the Republic of Angermund was known throughout the sector for its asteroid mining industries. The society of Angermund was a curious polyglot mix of the descendants of the original Germanic settlers, the multi-national descendants of the refugees from throughout the Outback and the Outer Territories, and Slavs from Petropavlovsk. The language, Angermundarski, is a curious mix of German, English, and Russian, with some neo-Mandarin, Hebrew, and Polish mixed in, and is completely incomprehensible to most outsiders. The military forces of Angermund have historically been mediocre at best, and although possessing a decent ground army, the Angermund Defense Navy has been famous for using obsolete equipment, some dating back to the Downfall Wars. It was this weakness that was exploited by the sneak attack of New Africa, which had aimed to "destroy the dominance of the White Man" in the sector by crippling Angermund's space mining industries. On the 47 th of February, 330 AB, the space forces of the Republic of New Africa have entered the system and proceeded to disable or destroy 75% of the Angermund Defense Navy, and over 30% of the system's mining stations before being forced to withdraw by AKVs launched from orbit.

On Angermund, the attack has launched a severe government crisis. Lord Benedict's government, which had ignored the warning signs of mounting RNA militarism, had fell on March 15th, and the new government had instituted drastic measures to maintain the war effort, including mass conscriptions and confiscations of property, which had caused massive displeasure from the people, and several near-riots. By mid-April, the situation in the country had become dangerously unstable. It was at this time that Rudolf Radomir Kensington-Plekhanov, the foreign minister, and leader of the Socialist Party, had negotiated a secret agreement with the People's Republic of Utrecht under the terms of which he agreed to organize a socialist coup if the People's Republic sends a squadron of desperately needed warships to protect the crucial mining industries. Under the terms of the agreement, using the panic caused in the government by the arrival of the PLN squadron as a cover, Plekhanov's men were to assassinate the most important members of the government. The ships were to arrive by mid-June of 331, and the conspirators used the time to prepare their forces for an all-out mutiny. They found the most supporters among the urban poor, who constituted the majority of the soldiers.

Unfortunately, the plot was discovered on the 15th of Duodecember, 330, and Plekhanov arrested. In response, the regiments guarding the capital murdered their officers, and moved to seize the government buildings. Many of the leading ministers and military leaders were captured and executed, but some managed to escape. As the revolt began to spread through the forces, one of the generals in command of Angermund's nuclear arsenal panicked and ordered a nuclear strike on the capital. In the resulting explosion, Plekhanov and most of his co-conspirators were killed, and the revolutionary forces were thrown into chaos. Without a definite chain of succession, most of the party's mid-level officials were engaged in a fierce leadership struggle, all the while attacking the remaining loyalist forces. The situation became even ore grave when in January 331 AB, the forces of the Republic of New Africa have destroyed the remaining ships of the Angermund Defense Navy, and landed a force of 300,000 elite Simba Wachanga troops.

When the PLN taskforce arrived in the system on the 40th of June, 331, the forces of the Reds were near collapse from the attacks of both the loyalist forces, and the Simba Wachimba troops, as well as the internal struggle for leadership. Only the advanced weaponry delivered to the Red faction by the PLN was able to turn the tide of the war, and save the Reds from certain collapse. To prevent weapons from reaching their opponents, the PLN had instituted a blockade of the system, seizing any ship that did not have special entry permits issued by the PLN squadron immediately upon their arrival. This had effectively cut off the system from the outside universe, but also had an unfortunate effect of severing the Anderson String trade route between Helmsley and Equinox. While not quite a disaster due to the existence of a detour via the Helmsley-Zurich hypertunnel, the delays in shipment that this action had caused provoked public outrage in many of the neighboring worlds, placing public opinion firmly on the side of the loyalists.

It was at this point, that I, John Henderson of Rutherford, had entered the scene.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Chapter 1

My own involvement in the matter began on the 20th of Gemini, 585 FE, when I had read an article in the Gutenberg Times under the headline of "Is Angermund Going Red? The People's Liberation Navy Arrives at Angermund in Support of the Communist Coup." This is the first time anyone on Rutherford has heard of the events taking place on Angermund, so it struck us like thunder.

At the time, I was 14 Colonial Standard, or 28 local years old, which on Rutherford, as on every self-respecting Terran-descended colony are ignored in favor of “biological” Terran years, by which count I was 25. I was the Deputy Public Relations Officer of the now-defunct Socialist Workers' Party, a small revolutionary group of about 50 core members, and a few thousand "fellow-travelers," mostly brainwashed college students. We were small, but usually put on an appearance of strength, so these numbers may come as a revelation to those who are familiar with the group, but had no detailed knowledge of its workings.

As the news came in, we were surprised at first, but then the geo-political consequences began to dawn on us. If successful, the revolution on Angermund would establish the furthest outpost of communism and the Peoples' Republic would gain a major ally all the way beyond the Cazimir Gates, opening up a wealth of opportunities to spread revolution throughout the region. We had discussed this at an Extraordinary Session of the Central Committee, with 46 of us present, and excitedly passed a resolution praising the workers and peasants of Angermund in their struggle to defeat the capitalist oppressors. Of course, we did not know anything about the matter beyond what was said in the article, but that did not stop us from supporting the revolution out of principle.

The following weeks were spent in trying to gain as much information about the events in Angermund as possible. The local networks yielded nothing, so we passed an amendment to our yearly budget authorizing the spending of money on obtaining information about the matter. About 2 weeks, and 800 Colonial credits later, we had received the requested information, mostly from the Information Bureaus on Cazimir, Helmsley, Equinox, Anderson, and the reports from Angermund, before their relay station was destroyed. For the first time, we had heard about the war with the Republic of New Africa, and were dumbfounded. Their war was claimed to be a war of liberation against their white oppressors, and RNA had a strong socialist bend to its government. We began to wonder whether we chose the wrong side to support, but after another Extraordinary Session, decided to continue to support the communist faction of Angermund, since it was not the government that started the war against RNA, and because we had already passed a resolution supporting the struggle on Angermund. I also believe we had decided against the RNA because we could not access their side of the story, since they refused to "bow to the White Man" by translating their news into Colonial Standard, so it would be harder to garner support for them amongst the people.

At the same meeting, our leader, Chairman Carrie Blackmoor, had suggested that this is a great opportunity for our party to go from words to deeds, and we should contribute to the cause of the workers' struggle. The reaction to this has been mixed, with some eager to do something to help the first revolution in living memory, others doubtful of our ability to do so due to the great distance between Angermund and Rutherford, and the extremely small size of our party. I do not think that a recording or a transcript of the meeting survived to this day, but if it did, I would recommend that people view it, as the arguments, shouting and one fistfight recorded there would prove to be extremely interesting to all. The vote on the proposition was postponed until we had a more specific idea of what we were to do.

For the remainder of the week, we had continued our usual activities in various universities, including the University of Rutherford, stressing the Angermund revolution in light of Marxist theories of class struggle. I had written an article for our publication, the Socialist Struggle, which described the events taking on Angermund, and, as I have discovered later, was almost entirely false. However, since the Rutherfordian media was rather deficient on details, and few people would have the extra time, money, and interest in the matter to contact the Information Bureaus of the Cazimir Gate region nations, and especially since we claimed to get our information from a "secret source inside the Socialist Party of Angermund," no one came out to disprove it. As a result, the article gained a rather surprising popularity, and, I'm embarrassed to say, was even picked up by some mainstream media organizations, which had helped our budget tremendously.

On the next meeting, our Treasurer, Hugh Campen, had thanked me for my contribution to the cause. He then proceeded to make a speech saying that since the publication of the article, our budget has increased by what amounts to 45,000 Colonial Credits, far in excess of our needs. He then suggested that we donate the money to the struggle in Angermund, thus fulfilling our obligation to help our fellow comrades. This idea was received very warmly by our group. It was suggested, however, that we go further: given the warm reception the news have been received with, we could raise even more money for that purpose.

Using one of our most effective tools, the AFPAF (Alliance for Peace and Friendship), a front for our Socialist Workers' Party, we had organized a rally in Central Park on the 25th of Cancer. Over 15,000 attended, and we made quite a profit selling socialist literature proclaiming the evils of rampant profiteering. We also held a fund-raiser for "our revolutionary brothers and sisters." The money was supposed to go exclusively for humanitarian purposes, but we have found the cause too important to bother with such material things. The money, over 300,000 Colonial Credits was to be turned over to the Socialist Party of Angermund, to be spent in "any way necessary for the advancement of the cause of the Workers."

Next came the problem of actually delivering the money to Angermund. Usually, such transfers are a matter of wiring the funds to the local bank, followed by the shipment of gold bullion in a secure transport. Unfortunately, we had reason to believe that all banks on Angermund have been seized, meaning that we would have to deliver the money in person.

The thought of leaving Rutherford behind and actually traveling outside our solar system excited and frightened us at the same time. Space travel, even in this day, is neither safe, nor cheap or particularly comfortable, and very few Rutherfordians have ever been outside the system, mostly to our neighbors, St. Jeanne and Hampshire. To travel over 150 light years to Angermund would be a journey that would give any one who undertook it the reputation of "well-traveled." On the other hand, it would mean leaving one’s home for a period of at least 4 local years, possibly more, most of the time spent in a cabin on a ship, probably with very few entertainment options save for the usual holoporn fare.

I am still not sure what prompted me to volunteer for the mission. Certainly, the opportunity to visit foreign planets had its appeal, and I knew I would put the years spent aboard to good use. However, what I think appealed to me most was not just the desire for new experiences, but the urge to see how things really were. When writing the article, I had operated under my assumption of what a revolution must look like, now I wanted to see what it really was like. Unfortunately, it was, as I had discovered, nothing like I imagined.

To help keep the money secure during the trip, and to keep me company during the voyage and on Angermund, the Deputy Treasurer of our party, Brendan Leopold, had also volunteered for the mission. Our goals, as summarized by the Chairman during another Extraordinary Session, were to a) deliver the money and our best wishes to the leadership of the Socialist party of Angermund and b) use the time spent on Angermund to gain as much experience as possible in the matter of organizing and orchestrating a successful revolution, for possible use here on Rutherford. This task, I approached with all seriousness. I purchased an Anion-Coda micro-camera, and prepared to take extensive mental notes using my NeuroChip. It were these notes that allowed this book to be written.

The next order of business was to transfer the money into hard form, and to arrange passage to Angermund. That proved more difficult than we suspected. In the end, we had settled on getting aboard a passenger ship bound for Gippeswick in the Outer Territories, where we were to transfer to a TransitCorp torchship bound for Cazimir. There, we would have to make our own arrangements for transport during the final leg of our journey. We were supposed to leave on the 15th of Leo, aboard the Noordam.

Then, the first reports of the PLN blockade of Angermund came in.

The news shocked us. If we could not penetrate the PLN blockade, we could not reach the leaders of the Socialist Party, and our mission was over before it could even begin. We had discussed the news with Chairman Blackmoor, but she remained surprisingly calm. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything,” she said with a smile.

The incident that followed had had a great impact on me, and convinced me that there was perhaps something sinister about our party, something that none of our members ever suspected. I still remember it very clearly, despite it taking place over 16 years ago, and despite what happened afterwards.

The next morning, I was woken up by a call from Chairman Blackwood. I was surprised to find her fully dressed, despite the early hour. “How soon can you get to the McKinley airport? Half an hour, 50 minutes maybe, by groundcar?”. “ 70 minutes,” I stammered, confused and not fully awake. “Be there in half an hour.” By forgoing a shower and a shave, and with some creative driving on behalf of the groundcar taxi operator, I was able to make the airport in 67 minutes, only seven minutes late. In the terminal, I found Chairman Blackmoor, and also my companion-to-be on the trip, Brendan Leopold, looking equally disheveled and equally confused. The chairman, on the other hand, was dressed impeccably, although the redness of her eyes suggested that she did not get much sleep that night. Together, we proceeded to board a flight to New Amsterdam.

After a brief time in the air, we landed in the New Amsterdam airport, and proceeded to exit quickly. To my surprise, we did not hire a taxi or a self-drive, but instead, Chairman Blackmoor led us to a brown Helios aircar, completely unremarkable save for tinted windows, greeted the driver, and told us to get in.

To my surprise, the windows were impenetrable both ways, preventing us from looking out, as well as anyone from looking in. I wanted to ask Chairman Blackmoor where we were going, but she stopped my and Brendan’s questions with a gesture. Some 15 minutes later, I felt the aircar begin its descent, and a few more minutes after that we were on the ground. As I exited the car, my eyes adapted to the twilight inside the vehicle, I was blinded by the blue sun.

When I could finally see, I discovered that we were standing in a field of tall grasses. I looked around expecting to see the skyscrapers of New Amsterdam in the distance, but to my surprise, I could not find them. Only the thick trunk of the SkyLift cable going up into the sky as far as the eye could see reminded me that I was still in the vicinity of the city. The last thing I have noticed was a man lying on the grass, who smiled when he saw that he was noticed. The man was, undoubtedly, an agent of the People’s Republic, and I have notified the authorities about his presence here immediately upon my return from Angermund, and although he has probably been captured or fled the planet, I shall nonetheless refrain from describing him in this work.

The man got up and approached us. After exchanging a few words with Chairman Blackmoor, he turned to us. “So these two are the ones, eh?” he asked smiling. “They look trustworthy enough.” He stared at each of us for a few seconds, and I’ve got the feeling that we were photographed somehow. “John Henderson and Brendan Leopold, right? Well, listen carefully, and remember this well, because I’m only going to say this once. You’re going to Gippeswick for the torch to Cazimir, right? Well, when you go down to the planet, send an e-mail with the name of the place where you’ll be staying to an address Comrade Blackmoor will tell you before you leave. You’ll be contacted by a man named Aldberg Sanders. Answer his questions precisely, and you’ll get the entry permissions to Angermund. Oh ,and if you’re smart, you wouldn’t be discussing this with anybody.”

Bewildered, we made our way back into the aircar, and the airport. As we waited for a return flight, we tried to get any information we could out of Blackmoor, but she avoided answering any of our questions, and remained silent save for reaffirming the need for secrecy. . We began to harbor suspicions about Chairman Blackmoor’s ties to the People’s Republic, but it took the events on Gippeswick to make us sure of it.

The return trip to Gutenberg was uneventful, and while the encounter and the discovery that the leader of our party, someone I thought I knew well turned out to be involved in something clandestine had a great impact on me, I had manage to put it aside and focus on my work.

We spent the remaining days on Rutherford preparing for the trip. On the 15th of Leo, we flew to New Amsterdam, took the SkyLift to orbit, and used a shuttle to transfer to the Noordam, a 500,000 ton passenger ship bound for Gippeswick in the Outer Territories.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin