The Devil's Doorknob BBS Capture (1996-2003)

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ The Devil's Doorknob BBS Capture (1996-2003) / devilsdoorknobbbscapture1996-2003.iso / Dloads / TEXTFILE / MAGE.ZIP / CONTIN.ZIP / SOUTHRON.TXT < prev

Wrap

Text File | 1980-01-16 | 45KB | 791 lines

Southron Republic By Arthur-Trevor D.M. Laster (atlasher@ix.netcom.com) for Constantine Thomas's [1]Continuum Tradition. (Also see: [2]Nexus and [3]Shelby Babb's additions). Virtual 1-2-3I(U)-2-E-3S-E-1-2-STH1 (Southron Republic) A similar idea was presented by S.M. Stirling in his "Draka" series of books. Mine, I believe, has a much 'happier' ending and the details of the society--indeed, how it started--are quite different. Don't think of it as derivative, but as a parallel proposal. Prelude August 15, 1870 New Orleans...in flames... General Robert E. Lee, late of the Army of Northern Virginia, wept silently as the CSS Charleston floated out to sea. Beyond the horizon, bright orange flames licked at the French Quarter as Major-General Butler took his revenge out on the poor souls still left in the city. Acrid smoke wafted up into the air for as far as the eye could see and at high-noon, the sun was obscured and the water as black as pitch... He'd held out as long as he could, knowing full well that all was lost, that there would be no more reinforcements, that a denouement to guerrilla warfare would be met with even more brutality than he'd witnessed thus far. The last boat had left the harbour and the HMS Defiant was within sight of Lee's blurred vision, there to escort the Charleston to her final destination, the port of Cape Town at the tip of Africa. A fitting end, he thought darkly. It's a whole continent's revenge against us, against the same policies which brought her sons and daughters to this land laid low now by the conqueror's sword. We are being swallowed by Destiny... A Short and Secret History of the Southron Republic By Andrew de Wit, Nephilim 10th Generation from Lilith Archivist-Historian Nth Class, Imperial Academy of History Cape Town, Southron Republic "Who would create a future for himself, may not lose sight of the past." -- Pres. Paul Kruger, the last president of the Transvaal Republic 5 July, 1867: The Sacking of Richmond. After six long and bitter years of warfare, the Union Army, under U.S. Grant, finally crashes through the valiant defenders of the Confederate capital. Enraged at the defiance of the Southern troops, he orders the city put to torch... but not before the victorious Northern forces loot and plunder it. Thus begins the collapse of Southern resistance after a closely fought and barely lost war. After the loss of President Lincoln to General McClellan in the 1864 election, many had expected the North to sue for peace. In fact, President McClellan's first speech seemed to indicate that he could live with a continent divided between the two nations. That thought, however, was stillborne as an assassin's bullet laid low McClellan on 3 March, 1865. The perpetrator, the Copperhead Democrat and actor John Wilkes Boothe, immediately caused an electrifying sensation across the mourning nation. The North offered peace and the South (or so it was thought; Boothe's ties to Richmond were tenuous at best) gave them war. And so, the newly ascended President Douglas gave the people what they sought for: a Jihad. Total war. City after Southern city fell, all burned to the ground and looted, the vengeful Yankees seeking to seemingly drive the Southerners into the sea. Millions were displaced and untold atrocities occurred. By late '69, the Confederate Army was relegated to a swiftly tightening corridor of land from Galviston to New Orleans. The world powers, particularly the British, who'd passed the opportunity to recognise the Confederacy when Richmond seemed to be winning, were horrified. The Royal Navy was ordered to help evacuate any Southern family that could reach portcall. Officials--Confederate and British--scrambled to organise this unprecendented evacuation. With the Yanks apparently desiring nothing to do with their erstwhile countrymen, something needed to be done to save what could be saved of Dixie's children. 3 November, 1870: The British Parliament, mirroring the public outrage (fueled by at least two Clans; the Ventrue and the Lasombra [the latter in hiding]) at the Union's Carthage-like conquest of the Confederacy, passes the "Confederate Refuge and Settlement Act" at the urging of Prime Minister Gladstone and opposition leader Disraeli. Rumour is that Disraeli suggested the Act to Gladstone after reading in the Times of the Siege of New Orleans, the final bastion of the South, in which nearly seventeen thousand men, women and children were alleged to've been slain. The reality is only slightly divergent. Viscount Manning, Lasombra Archbishop of Greater London, successfully implanted the suggestion into Benjamin's mind, where it found fertile ground and flowered into something quite larger than even Manning anticipated. 13 January, 1872: The "Cape Colony Self-Government Act of 1872" passes the British Parliament, amending a similar law passed barely a year earlier. This act expands the authority of the Cape Colony Parliament and further loosens the ties between London and Cape Town, bestowing Dominion status on the region on par with Canada. Once more, the hand of Archbishop Manning is behind this act, particularly amongst the House of Lords, where he maintains at least two in Ghouldom. Manning's ultimate goal, the unification of all British colonies in southern Africa for use as a base of operations for the Sabbat, begins to gel. By this juncture, the refugee crisis spawned by the influx of nearly 17 million settlers over the course of the last few years is beginning to abate as the Cape Colony and Natal economies take off. 14 April, 1895: Bowing to the inevitable -- and after a series of blistering raids out of the Cape Colony and Natal which devastated the Boers' major settlements -- the Orange Free State and the Transvaal agree to a federation with the British colonies. At 12:00 on that day, Cecil John Rhodes becomes the first Prime Minister of the Southron Republic. It wasn't as easy as it sounded. The Afrikaaners were by no means militarily defeated, even though the British Army and the colonial militias held most of their cities in thrall. Guerrilla warfare was an option, but Pres. Krueger of the Transvaal recognised that the overwhelming demographic superiority of the Cape and Natal would inevitably overwhelm the Boers shortly. They extracted a price, however. Afrikaans was elevated to official language status on par with English in the federation and the Witwatersraand (an area of vast gold and diamond reserves) was allocated to the Boers for exploitation, something which Rhodes had long coveted for his own use. Behind the scenes, Archbishop Manning had already set in motion wheels that would lead to eventual Southron domination of the subcontinent and, ultimately, the entirety of Africa. He pressed for subsidised immigration packages to the Southron Republic, Dominating a slew of MPs from the Unionist (later, Tory) slate, angering not a few Ventrue and Toreador, who considered Parliament their fiefdom. Unable to openly act against the Sabbat mastermind and unaware of the sect's major areas of control, the Camarilla conspirators -- already engaged in fratricidal warfare amongst themselves -- were rendered impotent. Additionally, all tariffs between Britain and the Republic were eventually phased out or lessened, thus allowing an even greater expansion of the Southron economy over the next decade. In Britain, Cape wines became all the rage, dominating the market. 2 April, 1903-13 March, 1905: Matabele War. The Matabele tribe in Southern Rhodesia, allied with several other minor tribes on both sides of the border of the Southron Republic, rebels against British rule, very nearly causing the collapse of the settler regime in Salisbury. After watching -- with increasing horror -- the rebellion for more than a year, Cape Town (up until then only interested in keeping the Venda and the Gazankulu tribes pacified in the northern Transvaal area) orders in the untested Praetorian Guard, the nascent army of the Southron Republic. A series of bush wars ensues, and the rebellion collapses. Cape Town is then left with a great amount of influence over Salisbury. Manning watched with interest the sequence of events which led to the war in Matabeleland. There was indirect evidence of werebeast activity and not a few instances of outright Camarilla involvement (particularly when the Guard entered the conflict). In the end, however, everything went according to plan and this conflict set the stage for the coming referendum. 19 November, 1905: A grateful Southern Rhodesia, still reeling from the aftereffects of the Matabele War, votes in a referendum to join the Southron Republic, becoming the nation's fifth province. The first Sabbat pack enters Salisbury on this night, originally hailing from the northern Transvaal. Archbishop Manning prepares to evacuate most of the Sabbat presence from southern England and Wales, leaving only the scattered country packs of Scotland and northern England to make a mess of the already convoluted Kindred politics in the nation. His plan is to set up Sabbat strongholds, called 'Garrison Houses' in the major cities of the Southron Republic, from which the sect could extend their control over the region. Houses in Cape Town, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Durban, New Richmond, New Atlanta and Salisbury are set up. 4 August, 1914: The Great War begins in Europe. After nearly twenty years as a self-governing state, the Southron Republic is forced to make a difficult choice. As a member of the British Empire, Cape Town would nominally have been expected to join in the hostilities. However, a sizeable portion of both the Confederate and Afrikaaner population were leery of getting too deeply involved in 'their (the Europeans') war'. A delicate three-way ethnic balance ensued. With the population, as a whole, numerically in favour of the Confederates, the mining economy dominated by the Afrikaaners, and the bureaucracy by those of British descent, no mistakes could be made that wouldn't risk intercommunal strife. Prime Minister Anderson, a Confederate himself and the first to hold such a post, made the most important decision in the nation's history. He declared the Republic's policy to be that of 'self-defense at the expense of all' and set about prosecuting his own war, his way, independent of London or the Allies. Laying claim to Rhodes' old dream of a community from 'Cape to Cairo', Anderson presented a programme to Parliament outlining a vast and breathtaking vision. The Republic would immediately annex the British protectorates of Bechuanaland, Basutoland and Swaziland as areas 'integral to the stability of the Southron nation'. Following this up would be the London-requested land invasion of German South-West Afrika... with an added goal of seizing Portugese Angola and Mozambique. At the conclusion of hostilities, Cape Town would offer provincialhood to Nyassaland and Northern Rhodesia (though with the strong implication that there really wasn't all that much of a choice in the matter). Eventually, the Republic would buy, barter or seize any and all land she possibly could, making her way through the Belgian Congo, German East Afrika, and British Kenia. Behind the scenes, the Sabbat were fast at work, mustering up the needed industrial output to sustain such grandiose visions, softening the local populace to the measures and dealing with the increasing interference from Camarilla operatives, particularly in Northern Rhodesia and British Kenia. 15 December, 1914-22 October, 1922: The Great Northern War. Acting upon Anderson's vision and spurred on by an increasingly confident and growing number of Sabbat operatives, the Southron Republic marches to war. The Praetorian Guard, long the fiefdom of the Confederate majority, finally gets a chance to stretch her wings as they conquer one region after another in a lightning set of raids across vast swathes of land from the Orange river to the Sahel in the southern reaches of north Africa. Colony after colony collapses as one of the largest armies the world has ever seen -- some four million strong -- drives inexorably northward. Behind the lines, preternatural warfare ensues. Caught almost completely unawares by the ferocious nature of the fighting, the Camarilla -- weak in Africa as it is and fighting against the werebeasts and Mages in most areas -- swings into action to fight a desperate rear-guard battle to prevent the entirety of the continent from coming under the dark sway of the Sabbat. The first meetings between the Sabbat and the Technocracy are held in Salisbury on a combined effort to crush both the Camarilla and the Tradition Mages which plague both conspirators. After years of painful deliberation -- and much mistrust -- the Pact of Salisbury is signed and sealed on January 1, 1920, sealing the fate of many a valiant Kindred and Mage. Technocratic Conventions will openly ally themselves with Sabbat Clans in support of joint operations to flush our and eliminate their competitors inside Southron-held territory. The Sabbat would allow the Progenitors tissue and blood samples in an effort to duplicate the success of Clan Tremere in creating a vampiric mage. New World Order and Virtual Adepts [note: the Pact stemmed the secession of the Adepts to the Traditions] were allowed to begin work on a massive bureaucracy to run the empire Cape Town was in the process of creating, one which would allow quick and efficient communication across vast distances, thus allowing greater control over far-flung regions. In the end, though, it was Manning who'd achieved the most of what he wanted: the virtual elimination of Camarilla influence from the continent. Africa was now a base of operations from which to accomplish two things: make further forays into Camarilla-held land and to begin the search and eventual destruction of the Antediluvians before the latter arose from Torpor. 19 May, 1922: After careful consultation between Convention and Clan leaders alike, the Virtual Adepts are allowed to release a variation of Charles Babbages' Difference Engine to the Sleeper public. Using scientists at the University of the Witwatersraand at New Richmond under the ghouldom of a noted Tzimisce in the region, the Adepts begin the 'Difference Revolution', an era where computational machines -- exclusively made in the Republic -- will begin to ease the burden off the Sleepers (thus making them more susceptible to further influences of the Conventions and their allied Clans in the Sabbat). Day-to-day bureaucracies will grow ever larger and more powerful, bringing citizens closer together and maintaining a greater amount of control over the local paradigm. 22 May, 1923: Years of bitter and protracted diplomatic infighting between London and Cape Town lead to a final break. Parliament passes the "Act of Separation" by an overwhelming majority, officially ending ties with the British Empire. This Act sets the stage for the final push to secure the northern reaches of Africa, under British and French suzerainty. Behind the scenes, the NWO and the Syndicate were undermining the local colonial administrations by undercutting the local hemp and opium markets with cheaply made (synthesised in Progenitor vats) Southron products, causing a region-wide epidemic of drug use and the concurrent crime and poverty problems normally associated with said habits. Additionally, select members of the colonial apparatus were replaced by Progenitor clones or ghouled by the Sabbat (mostly Tzimisce, though a few Lasombra were allowed to ensnarl select officials) in preparation for the final assault. 4 February, 1923: The Conventions task the Sabbat to hunt down and eliminate the renegade Sons of Ether, a Convention of Mages which had rebelled against the Technocracy and sought refuge within the Traditions. Eager to solidify the union of the two allies, the Sabbat pass the tasking down to the Sicariot for execution, beginning the decades-long and semi-successful "Mad Hunt" as the Sabbat's subsect of assassins swing into action. 14 March, 1923-23 May, 1923: The Maghreb War. Sufficiently rendered ungovernable by the undermining of the preternatural forces to the south of them, the north African colonial regimes in Egypt, Tripolitania, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco sustain a massive frontal assault by Southron troops as the final push to fulfill the late PM Anderson's vision is executed with cold efficiency. Ignoring threats of intervention from London, Rome, Paris and Madrid, Cape Town quickly seizes the colonies and begins mop-up operations in the hinterlands of the Sahara, the Atlas mountains and the Upper Nile area. Cape Town quickly mollifies the frightened colonial populace by offering expanded infrastructure and economic opportunities in addition to a resumption of law and order (tacitly omitting the fact the current crime wave was of their manufacturing). Behind the scenes, key leaders in the expatriot communities are Dominated, cloned or otherwise enthralled to mobilise the population in support of the new regime. In the Berber and Arab-populated hinterlands, efforts are made to lure them into more urbanised (and easily controlled) settings as the campaign against the last remaining Tradition mages and werebeasts comes to a satisfactory close. 'The Golden Twenties' With Africa under the Sabbat and the Conventions' co-dominium, the Southron Republic became a hotbed of economic, technological and social ferment as both forces found the area the perfect setting for all sorts of experiments on a grand scale. An area of massive proportions, hermetically sealed off from preternatural influence outside of theirs', the allies allowed themselves free reign. Among the more noteworthy advances of the era, allowed to leak out from Convention laboratries: + Artificial rubber + Advanced antibiotics (needed against the subtropical environments the Southron settlers met while consolidating their hold on the central girth of the continent). + Television (in addition to advanced monitoring techniques through two-way televised transmissions...) + Fuel efficient internal combustion engines (lessening the need for petroleum in the relatively oil-poor central and southern zones of the continent as exploration/exploitation was redirected in the northern reaches) and so on... October 4, 1929: The Great Depression begins. However, effects in the Southron Republic were almost minimal as the nation had little contact with the outside world save in export trading (and no currency or stock trading ties with anyone). A surreal gloom descended over the rest of the planet while Africa bloomed as planters, industrialists, engineers and settlers spread out to the farthest reaches of their new lands, building a magnificent infrastructure... all the while directed by the silent puppet masters of the Technocracy and the Sabbat. New immigrants, refugees from the Depression, pour into the Republic from all nations, though most of them hail from Britain, Germany and, ironically, America. This wave of new blood only increases the viability of the new borders and pushes the economy to feverish heights. During this era, the Southron Republic becomes the world's third largest economy, barely outstripped by the US and the UK. October 11, 1930: After years of failure and disappointing results, the Progenitors and the Tzimisce finally end up creating a unique species of Revenant: [4]the Manichaen. Springing from earlier attempts at duplicating Clan Tremere's feat, the Manichaen is a compromise between the full immortality of the Kindred and the need to keep the Awakened Avatar untainted to use True Magicks. The end result would be the final staple in the Pact, a true union between the two forces which had, heretofore, kept much of their autonomy in spite of their joint efforts. 1 September, 1939-22 July, 1944: The Second Great War. Spurred on in part by the activities of the German Camarilla factions, Europe is, once more, engulfed in flames as the Nazis stream across borders in a mad quest for a 1,000 year Reich. The West uniformally lines up to fight the barbaric regime in Berlin...but ends up getting much more than what they bargained for. Convinced that the time for eliminating his enemies is now, Gustav, the Prince of Berlin, begins overt preternatural efforts to aid the German cause, in blatant violation of the Masquerade. He Embraces Hitler and Himmler and adds the full weight of his influence to the ongoing conflict. The world, already horrified by the lightning-fast advances, is even further terrified as stories leak out of high ranking Soviet officers on the Eastern Front being found totally drained of blood. Rumours run rampant and even the more incredulous of papers begin to print the rising toll of active vampires--or beings believed to be vampires--in the war. The efforts are not in vain. Leningrad falls in late December of '42 and Moscow soon follows a month later, in January of '43. Astonished by the apparent meltdown of authority amongst the Camarilla in Europe -- and knowing a good opportunity when it saw it -- the Cabal (as the Technocracy and Sabbat have come to call themselves when referring to their united efforts) swings into action, moving the Southron Republic into position to wrest Europe from the Camarilla and out of Hitler and Gustav's mad dreams. The Republic officially declares war on 1 March, 1943. Eager to keep Washington out of the war in Europe, the Cabal ups the ante in the Pacific, secretly assisting Berlin's ally, Japan, during key naval battles. They secure themselves fully when Tokyo successfully lands on Australia on December 11, 1943, thus tying up America for the remainder of the war, leaving Europe to the Republic. With all preternatural factions at each other's throats in Europe, Lupines being the latest to covertly enter the fray, the Cabal play their trump card as Southron armies stream across the Mediterranean towards Italy, the Balkans and the south of France. From dark and secret complexes deep within the veld, Progenitor and Tzimisce technicians begin the mass production of a myriad of ghoul and recombinant variants for integration into the Praetorian Guard. The secrets of recombinant DNA are publically announced to the Sleepers within the Southron Republic, ostensibly stemming from government-sponsored research at the University of the Witwatersraand at New Richmond. Cape Town embraces the 'new' technology and the engines of war are given a deadly weapon with which to combat the menace of the Reich. The entire political and social landscape of the Republic changes almost overnight as various companies rush to cash in on the limitless applications for the technologies stemming from the announcement. All of this carefully planned to mask the activities of both the Cabal in matters internal and the misadventures of Gustav to the north, which threaten to bring down the wrath of humanity on the once securely covert preternatural denizens of the planet. With that cover in place and the whole world now complacent with the notion that the 'vampires' in earlier reports were simply the Nazi's own covert recombinant experiments, the Cabal has very nearly secured for themselves total control over the planet's paradigm. Tradition Mages, world-wide, are finding it harder not to court Paradox as the repercussions of 'fake supernatural' drive the realsupernatural even furtherfrom the Sleepers' dulled minds. Finally, after brutal town-to-town fighting and untold devastation, the Second Great War is brought to an abrupt end with the surprise assassination of Adolf Hitler and Gustav Breidenstein...allegedly by the latter's own Childe, Wilhelm Waldburg...on 20 July, 1944 in a massive explosion that obliterated both completely. Two days later, the remnants of the Reich, with Gustav's other Nazi-Childe, Heinrich Himmler, in command, sued for peace against the odd-couple coalition of the British, Free French, Free Soviet and Southron forces. Two months following that, the war officially ended with forcing Germany to return much of her gains (though not all; Poland, as a state, was returned only in a truncated form and Austria and the Sudetenland remained with Berlin). The settlement also set in motion the interlinking and massive set of anti-partisan and nationalist conflicts which sprang up with the Nazi's swift defeat of the Soviet government in Moscow. Called collectively the Bush Wars by Cape Town and, later, much of the world, they spread across most of the eastern portions of Eurasia, from the constant Polish-German shellings across the new and unstable border, the Transylvania War between Rumania and Hungary over the aforementioned region, the implosion of the Balkans following the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the myriad of nationalist and partisan wars over the carcass of the dying and decaying Soviet Union. The Post-War World... Since the Settlement, ending the Second Great War, three Great Powers have vied for control over the hearts and minds of humanity, though not all with equal success. The Southron Republic is, arguably, the strongest of the three. She sits atop her primary powerbase on the continent of Africa, a paragon of high tech and advanced bioengineering. Her armies are staffed by a mixture of Sleepers and vat-grown Biorgs (the official term for the creations of the Progenitor/Tzimisce labs), her bureaucracy and political classes are more and more represented by ghouls and Manichaens and the everyday Southron has a chance at limited immortality... Cape Town's reach extends over much of the Eastern Hemisphere. Her primary satrap is the vampire Himmler's Germany, still going strong after decades of power. In Berlin, the first Manichaens appeared in the late '70s and it probably won't be long before the Land of the Eternal Fuehrer sees a societal transformation along the Southron model. Other satraps include Croatia, Rumania, Turkey, and the largest successor-state to rise out of Stalin's dystopia, the Grande Duchy of Rus. The United Kingdom still actively contests the Republic's European dominance and stands as the primary counter-weight to Southron (and Cabal) domination of world affairs. Close alliances with France, the Benelux nations and Scandanavia have knit western Europe closer as they eschew much of what the Republic stands for. Though appreciative of the technological advances, much of the UK's sphere has little use for the bioengineering sciences and, indeed, it is at that point where the two nations disagree most vehemently on. The Bioecofundamentalist Movement began in Manchester when a group of so-called 'Beefers' (their name for themselves) rioted against engineered produce being shipped in from Liverpool in the late '60s. Since then, the Beefers have made major political gains and their party, which merged with Labour in '72, has been in charge of the British government for nearly twenty years. Other UK satraps include the remaining nations of her truncated Empire, the largest of which are the hypermassive Raj of British India, Canada and Australia. The United States stands alone from the fray, an introverted and isolationist nation too large to be ignored and too dangerous and unpredictable to court by either the British or the Southrons. She's been something of an enigma since the end of the hard-fought Pacific War (the Asian phase of the Second Great War). After nearly a decade of fighting, from 1941-1950, the US finally defeated the Japanese and sought to make sure they never expanded their aggressive energies elsewhere. And so, for forty-five years, America has been digesting the Japanese home islands, annexing them officially after much heated political debate in '61. The ensuing merger of the two cultures created a synergy not seen since the cultural diffusion founded upon the ashes of the Confederacy and the Afrikaaner republics. America's vast reach stretches across the Pacific, from the State of Chosun, adjacent to China and the Empire of Siberia, down to her satraps in the south Pacific: the American East Indies and New Zealand. Curiously, the US has managed to eschew both the high tech and the bioengineering in the traditional, Southron-defined senses, and instead has become something of an anomaly. Her technologies are incompatible with Cape Town's. Television formats are encrypted and maser-directed beam communications make it difficult to keep tabs on her advancements. Bioengineering, too, has advanced along nearly totally different paths from that which the Cabal has directed Cape Town to pursue. An emphasis on intercompatibility with the environment is valued, a Zen-derived philosophy of advancement. Industrial technologies are being phased out in favour of a bizarre nuclear recombinant tech called 'Splicing', a process which basically is controlled fusion and fission, allowing for molecular rearrangement on a vast scale. Though horrifically expensive, the political and societal will is there to keep it going, making the choices necessary to keep America apart from the rest of the world and unique. Behind the Scenes... The Cabal, for all its seemingly monolithic uniformity, is actually in the process of fission. As the line between Technocracy and the Sabbat continues to blur, some Conventions are beginning to feel that the Pact was perhaps not a good idea. Such feelings began shortly after the end of the Second Great War and are now on the verge of boiling over. The Virtual Adepts and a portion of the Void Engineers, in particular, felt the union of the Technocracy with the Sabbat had harmed the quest for Ascension in general as the former's goals of a non-supernatural paradigm were being compromised by the presence of the supernatural at their dinner table, in the office and even their beds. So began the Schism as the Adepts, those Engineers who agreed with them, a few Iteration Xers and a handful of Syndicates joined forces with the few remaining Sons of Ether left after the Sicarii hunted most of their kind down. They based their operations out of America and set about defining themselves -- and American culture and society -- in opposition to the corrupted paradigm of the Cabal, with their Biorg servants, Manichaen politicians and necrotek magicks. Since then they've slowly built up their dominance in society, waiting for the moment when they could openly challenge the Cabal. For now, though, they are far too weak. For the Cabal's part, they allowed the Schism to occur bloodlessly, hoping to divest themselves of elements not useful to the whole of their operations. The Cabal is aware of the Schismatics' attempts at redefining the dominant pardigm as enforced by the authorities at Cape Town, but they know that the rebels have nearly no chance of succeeding. The best they can hope for is enforcing a local paradigm shift, one which will fall apart outside the borders of the Americans' reach. Even then, that works in the Cabal's favour for all the Schismatics are doing is tweaking the already accepted paradigm, not wholly replacing it. Relativity still rules and Thermodynamics is king. Nothing will change that. Internally, the Cabal is further blurring the line between the preternatural and the Sleeper worlds. Southron (and, soon, German) citizens are being offerred engineered bodies and the select elite are cashing in on Manichaen necrotek, girding themselves in the limited immortality of the serial cloned Revenant. The Camarilla, at least in Eurasia and Africa, are all but extinct. Some fiesty and decidedly mad Kindred can still be found in more out of the way areas, like the steppes of the Siberian Empire or the isle of Madagascar, but they are few and far far in between. Even in North America, there is the looming danger of the Sabbat, though with the Schism and the importation of the Schismatics, that threat is a lot less than it was a few decades earlier. Now the areas encompassing the United States, Canada and much of Central America are free of Sabbat influence. South America, however, is another story. Since the '50s, they've fallen under the sway of the Republic and are now prime breeding grounds for the Cabal. The real adventure for any Camarilla sect memeber in search of it is to be found on the streets of Rio or Sao Paulo, where Southron megacorps are tightening their grip on the South American economies and tying them ever-closer to Cape Town's orbit. Extinction looms for the world's Lupines and other werebeasts not in league with the Cabal. Africa is, for all intents and purposes, denuded of lycanthropes, save for the Bastet, who surrendered en masse during the Maghreb War in return for eternal service to Cape Town's whims. It is from that stock, in fact, that the Progenitors and Tzimisce have created the Satrina Biorg, the pleasure model. In Europe, the situation isn't much better, though vaster distances and lesser direct political control equates to a much larger lycanthropic population. Still, Cabal-orientated industries and governments are running a campaign to flush the shapeshifters out into the open, using whatever means they can to do it. In particular, the Bratovitch ghouls are being put to use, hunting down their ancient adversaries. North America, however, seems to have become a haven for displaced lycanthropes from all continents. Even the few Bastet who managed to escape capitulation are welcomed with open arms here. As the Schismatics begin their 'deconstruction' of industrial-age technology, the lycanthropes' numbers and, more importantly, their ideology, has increased. If there be a last stand for the werebeasts' line, it will be here. Nothing much can be said for South America except that, for the lycanthropes, it is a lost cause. As the Cabal continue to increase their influence on the local governments, more and more of them emigrate to North America...or die in the attempt. It is rumoured that the Sicarii or at least a portion of them are being prepared for an all-out assault on the few remaining werebeast fortresses deep in the Amazon. Facts And Figures Southron Republic Population: 305,784,988 (1993 Census) Urban: 47% Ethnic Groups: Caucasian--47% Confederates--52% Afrikaaners--26% British--10% Arab Or Berber--9% Other (Primarily German)--3% Blacks--37% Bantu (Primarily Zulu And Xhosa)--43% Hausa-Fulani/Yoruba/Ibo-Western Africa--40% Oromo/Amhara/Tigrean-Eastern Africa--12% Other--5% Asians--9% Indians (Incuding Cape Malays)--78% Chinese--11% Japanese--8% Other (Predominantly Chosunese [Korean])--2% Mixed Race--7% Cape Coloureds--47% Alexandrians--22% Maghrebs--21% Others--20% Languages: English And Afrikaans (Both Official) Religions: Episcopalianism, Dutch Reformed Church, Catholic, Islam, Indigenous Beliefs Capital: Cape Town (1,845,878) Principle Cities: Johannesburg (4,875,893), Alexandria (4,788,988), New Richmond (3,749,821), New Atlanta (3,700,877), Leesburg (3,659,812), Cairo (3,608,783), Algiers (2,984,783), Carthage (2,909,785), Leptis Magna (2,809,844), Nova Roma (2,008,877), Davisville (1,812,946), Durban (1,812,788), Pretoria (1,809,788), Salisbury (1,803,844) Government: Strong Democratic Confederation (Similar To Canada) Head Of State: Praetor Pretorius [5]De Nant, In Office 1 Oct., 1990 Head Of Government: Prime Minister Andrew Davis Ii, In Office 4 Nov., 1994 Major Political Parties: Ruling: National Party (The Nats) Patriot Party Movement For Democratic Action Opposition: Labour Party National Front Liberal Party African National Union Monetary Unit: Solidus Per Capita Income: $12,349 Natural Increase: 1.2% Annual Literacy: 97% Note on Race Relations and Population Demographics... Initially, there were hardly any inhabitants in the Cape area. A few odd tribes who would eventually be moulded into the Zulu were there and a smattering of Bushmen but not much else. In our timeline, a massive influx of Bantu tribes came as they were alternately pushed down by more aggressive northern tribes in what is now Zaire and by the economic opportunity found in the Cape Colony and the Natal. In this timeline, however, the advent of such a vast number of settlers makes that scenario untenable. No mass migration of Bantus occurred here. Instead, the Cape remained (and still is, predominantly) a white enclave. Race relations back then were, typically, appalling. No apartheid policy was ever instituted, however. With no Afrikaaner majority, there was no desire for it in society. Mind you, the ex-Confederates and the British didn't desire to separate the races (in fact, miscegenation rates were rather high), they simply felt (wrongly) that the Caucasian race was superior. As the years and decades went by and the Southron Republic conquered the rest of Africa, the Cabal knew they needed allthe citizens of the land if they wanted to secure domination over the planet's paradigm. So, the races were never officially segregated (though natural economic and social pressures did cause some segregation) and no stigma was ever attached to the 'natives' as the Afrikaaners did in our timeline in the 1940s. Now, a prime reason for overpopulation is the need for large families to cultivate the land and do the day-to-day items to keep said families afloat. Industrialised nations do not have this problem and have smaller families as reproductive rights and lower infant mortality rates change the way society views having children. In the Southron Republic, such a thing happened early on so there isn't the burgeoning black population spinning out of control. Instead, there's a large black middle class fully integrated into society. The same is true of the Arabs in the Maghreb area. When you think of a Republic city, think not of ourCape Town, but of, say, Richmond of today. Integrated and no problems (none apparent, anyway) as far as race relations goes. It's simply notan issue here. Demographically-speaking, then, the only reason for a larger white population than black is because the initial biotech advances went to the whites. When the blacks and the Arabs were brought into the system, in the late 1800s, they had very high infant mortality rates and low birth rates overall, while the whites were in that transition zone where fertility was high and infant mortality was going down but society stillsaw a need for large families. Hence, the odd (to us at least) notion of a white plurality in the continent of Africa. View the [6]Manichaen and [7]De Nant Revenant lines.