Chronicle of the Restoration

[Black Knight]

From: Reflecting on the Interregnum
By Keegan Cornelius

Preface

This is hardly a definitive work on the late rule of the Junta chaired by General Naim. There are simply too many unknowns for us to reach sweeping conclusions. Too many of the events chronicled here transpired only a handful of years ago and so we lack the perspective to be able to declare to posterity “This is what it all means!” Historiography tells us that posterity will make up its own mind as to What It All Meant.

I wanted to put down at least a firm chronicle of how the Junta came to power, how they maintained power despite the frequency of significant rebellion from within the ranks of their own military, and how they were eventually deposed by forces under the command of General Vincent Garibaldi. This proved impossible.

For reasons known only to himself and to God, General Garibaldi has to date refused to discuss the his actions during the rule of the Junta or those which caused him to move against the Junta. His sole remark on what prompted him to begin his revolution when he did has been the unhelpful “because the time was at hand.”

Worse, the overwhelming majority of Garibaldi’s senior lieutenants have followed his lead, including every single surviving officer who held a position as Mobile Infantry battalion commander or executive officer, every ship captain, and the brigade commanders of all the conventional forces which also sided with Garibaldi. Historians and journalists, and I myself have been accused of being both, are thus left with little first-hand source material delving into the decisions made by Garibaldi and his senior leaders. Many junior officers and men are quite open about what they did, and some are excellent storytellers. But they were not placed in a position allowing them to see into the planning and decision-making which brought the Junta to its knees and unceremoniously executed it.

This lack of the why events unfolded as they did is damnably irritating, and some cause for concern. Many people, used to the underhanded methods of the Junta, see something nefarious in this refusal of Garibaldi and his chief supporters to discuss the events of the Restoration. Curiously, however, General Secretary Armstrong has repeated expressed a remarkable lack of concern over the issue, stating “Anyone who knows General Garibaldi knows better than to question his integrity.” As a politician placed in power largely through the efforts of Garibaldi, this has not swayed all pundits.


From : Personalities of the Restoration

Introduction by Reuben Boyd

Many individuals played a significant role in the events of what many call the Interregnum and the Restoration. A large number of them are still alive. This volume is intended as a basic primer to inform interested parties as to who these men and women are or were, and give an indication of their importance to the Junta or its downfall. These essays will not, naturally, be definitive, as many of the individuals profiled here are reluctant to discuss their role in recent events, and it may be years before academics are able to produce sufficient monographs for detailed, comprehensive study of the Interregnum and Restoration in their entirety.

I hope, however, that this will be a foundation upon which future historians can build, leading to the eventual understanding of these momentous events and the people who struggled through them.


“The Man Himself” by Christopher McGonnall

General Vincent Garibaldi

Often considered the pivotal figure in the Restoration, Vincent Garibaldi has been associated with the Mobile Infantry since its emergence as one of the primary tools of human conflict. Long known for his strict devotion to ethical and moral behavior, his disillusionment with the behaviors of the Junta led to his eventual rebellion against and subsequent overthrow of that repressive regime. Since then, he has remained in uniform as the ‘Grand Old Man’ of the military, the idol of the younger generations of officers and the greatest insurance against another autocracy while his memory lasts.

With roots as a mechanized infantryman, Garibaldi was sidelined by superiors enraged by his testifying in favor of the defendant in a court-martial trial after his superiors reportedly ordered him to lie. His refusal to perjure himself earned him a reputation for integrity and a transfer out of his position as battalion executive officer into what was expected to be a dead-end position in Research and Development. Fortune smiled upon him, however, for within two years that “dead-end” technical position began producing viable prototype machines which, under the deft leadership of then-Major Garibaldi covered themselves in glory on the Korean Front, able to operate in temperatures and weather conditions which severely restricted other implements of war.

Upon completion of the campaign in Korea, Garibaldi was placed in command of the first MI battalion and assisted in organizing three others. Unfortunately for us all, these powerful new machines were not used solely by men Garibaldi’s equal in character, and two of the first four battalions were used as the shock troops of the Junta, their first target being the fourth battalion even as suicide bombers decimated the ranks of Garibaldi’s veteran and apolitical 1st Battalion.

Exactly what transpired next is unclear; initially, the Junta claimed to be acting to suppress anti-government forces, with military commanders moving unilaterally as a result of massive terrorist strikes at the head of the Federal government. As we know now, this was a sham and many of the incidents destroying the fabric of Federal control were plotted by the same military commanders who used them as a pretext for seizing power.

We do know that Garibaldi played almost no role in these events, dedicating his efforts to rebuilding his shattered unit, providing security and governance for the locale surrounding his base and mourning his wife, slain in the explosion alongside many of his close comrades, officers, and men. Though most of the forces involved in the coup d’état were of conventional makeup, the television news coverage focused on the efforts of the Mobile Infantry in “containing the underhanded, immoral and nigh-diabolical plot to overthrow the Federation”, verbiage only now able to be appreciated for its irony. The Mobile Infantry thus became closely and unavoidably linked to the rule of the Junta.

Because of their usefulness in a variety of difficult terrain including urban canyons, which had previously been the purview of leg infantry, the Mobile Infantry were also the focal point of the many uprisings against the Junta which followed, that of Major Joshua Falcon’s MI Test & Evaluation Battalion coming only eighteen months after the ]Junta’s hold on the Federation was sufficient for General Naim to order troops to “liberate” nations from corrupt governments which refused to join the Federation.

Over the years which followed two things became evident: Firstly, that Garibaldi did not believe the military belonged in command of the Federation. Repeatedly Garibaldi formally questioned his superiors as to when elections would be held and power would be returned to a civilan government. In order to keep him busy without making him disappear completely, thus making him a martyr to those who agreed with him, the Junta kept him and his battalion engaged in the growing “peacekeeping” conflicts in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Middle East.

This political exile of Garibaldi brought up the second fact evident about the man: his unparalleled skill in the arts of war. Though rarely able to win decisively in his campaigns due to the scarcity of resources assigned to him, Garibaldi nevertheless made consistent headway and logged the singular distinction of never losing a single battle – a claim made by several others until their inevitable clash with the man himself. It was acting brigade commander Garibaldi and the 1st MI Battalion which eventually ended Falcon’s march up the Italian Peninsula, and nine months later Colonel Garibaldi with two MI battalions and a reinforced mechanized infantry brigade suppressed the revolt of Major Kurt Balck, who had once been a company commander under Garibaldi.

Garibaldi’s name soon became too illustrious for the Junta to make him simply disappear, as happened to many officers equally as outspoken as Garibaldi but lacking his battlefield fame and acumen. The other point in his favor, however, was that Garibaldi might question his superiors, but he followed orders, even when those orders placed him in conflict with his former comrades and students, as in his early campaigns against Falcon and Balck, wherein he fought just as brilliantly as he would later serve against the Knight known unto God, the Galilean Lunar Force, and eventually the Junta itself. His fame and professionalism became his defense against being purged, though the Junta refused to promote him to a rank commensurate with his skill, only grudgingly making him Colonel and later Brigadier General when it was necessary for him to take charge of major troop formations, as during the campaign in space and on the moon against the GLF.

Possibly Garibaldi’s greatest military virtue has been to inspire trust and devotion in others, forming a circle of like-minded officers and men upon whom he could trust unhesitatingly. These men were quite frequently among the most talented the military had to offer, and with few exceptions displayed also the same upstanding character as their leader. The foremost names among them must surely be Sean Phoenix, Mark Towers, David ap Morgan, Douglas Roberts, Kyouya Tanaka and the enigmatic yet lethal Ken Taff. These men served at various times as the key lieutenants of Garibaldi, all rising to at least battalion command, three of them in turn leading brigades. All of them pledged their lives and their honor in concert with Garibaldi, and deserve their places in the pantheon of heroes from the Restoration.

Personally, Garibaldi is something of a recluse. Though now serving as the Chief of the General Staff, he is famous for restricting his public appearances and comments. When once told that as a man whose actions and decisions could cause the deaths of any number of persons without warning and that this justified the press’s investigations into his private life Garibaldi archly remarked that “every automobile driver, train engineer and aerospace pilot has that responsibility, and as they are not the subjects of constant exposes, I fail to see why I should suffer my privacy to be infringed upon. Such intrusions would make me more inclined to abuse my power, not less.”

In addition to his private life, the other subject which has constantly been taboo with Garibaldi is the inner workings of both his time serving the Junta and his rebellion against it. He has categorically refused to discuss his activities publicly or to give interviews on battles and decisions involved with them, before, during or after. His covey of aides, assistants and subordinate have largely followed his lead on this matter, remaining silent in a ratio proportional to how involved they were with the command decisions which are most controversial among pundits, journalists and historians. Perhaps the part of this so-called conspiracy of silence which is most infuriating to inquiring minds (maybe inquisitional is a more apropos word?) is that Garibaldi has repeatedly assured the pubic that at some unspecified time he will open up. When that time will be, no one knows. Until then, we must trust that he will continue to act only for the betterment of humankind. We really have no other choice.


“The Sword-Saint” by Tariq ben Sira

Hailed as one of the consummate aces of the Mobile Infantry, Mark Walter Towers began his military career in the unlikely field of systems integration, where he was expected to do little more than supervise the maintenance of computer and communication networks. As a junior officer with one duty station under his belt Towers was assigned to oversee the technical support requirements for the Robotic Weapons Development Board shortly before then-Major Garibaldi was placed in charge of the organization.

Initially, it was Towers’ skill with complex communications networks – the perennial challenge of forcing different pieces of electronic gear to talk together in the same language – which was of value to the dynamic Garibaldi. An accomplished fencer (having assisted the Norwich Military Institute’s team reach the Federation collegiate finals two years running, personally competing in both sabre and epee), Towers’ well-honed sense of balance was modeled by the researchers at the RWDB when developing the control system for the first successful prototypes, but as the development of the Mobile Infantry proceeded Towers provided the baseline for much of the melee-combat programming, along with experts in Aikido, IMMAP, and singlestick fighting.
Though from a traditionally non-combatant field, Towers was placed in command of a squad of Mobile Infantry (though they were not yet operating under that name) in the company-sized force Garibaldi deployed to Korea. His calm in the firestorm of combat and unconventional tactics (a result, he has often remarked, of his lack of knowledge of conventional military thought) were highly praised by Garibaldi both at the time and in his subsequent service. Having been inexplicably transferred back into a support position in an armored brigade following the establishment of the third MI battalion, Towers was thus absent from Yorkshire when three terrorists gutted the ranks of the 1st MI Battalion. It took several years before he was granted a change in duty back to the Mobile Infantry as a combat officer, but Towers served as a company commander in the 42nd Battalion when it was placed under Garibaldi and, in concert with the 1st MI and a mechanized infantry brigade, used to put down the rebellion staged by Major Balck in Silesia.

In the years which followed Towers rose further in the ranks, serving alongside illustrious personalities such as Sean Phoenix, Jeremy Miller, and David ap Morgan against the Galilean Lunar Force, eventually serving as acting brigade commander in space until captured during operations at LaGrange 1 when Garibaldi launched his campaign against the Junta.

Renowned for his gentlemanly affections, none of his comrades can recall a time when Towers raised his voice or spoke harshly of another; nearly all of them mention his battlefield conduct, the description “chivalric” being commonly heard, though not always as a compliment. A fair man, and just, Towers may have been the most honorable of Garibaldi’s subordinates, in addition to having one of the better, more flexible combat minds.

In a more personal quirk, Towers was widely known as an addicted coffee drinker; he is commonly identified in photographs and videos as “the man holding the coffee mug”. Less well known is his surprising skill with a piano. His long-time friends and confidants – what few of them there are – often say that they had no idea Towers was musically inclined until after difficult battles, when he would seek out an instrument and caress the keys to life. Few have been able to identify specific songs he would play on these occasions, but all remarked that they were imbued with an almost overpowering sense of nostalgia and sadness, making many hardened veterans weep, but that the final selection would always leave the listeners with a sense of hope.

Long paired with the irrepressible Jeremy Miller, the two were nicknamed Dioscouri by Garibaldi in one of his ubiquitous displays of classical education. The name fit the pair, however, as for many years they were inseparable, particularly during their tenure piloting two of the storied Knight machines. Curiously, both of them disappeared from public view for a handful of years, returning to the field and the limelight coincident with Garibaldi’s successful uprising against theJunta. Where the duo were, and what they were up to is a matter of much debate and little consensus among commentators, with theories ranging from retirement or deep space reconnaissance to the Belt tracking the remnants of the GLF to being on some nefarious secret mission assigned by Garibaldi to infiltrate other units in the Junta in the search for allies during his planned revolt. Each of these is as unlikely as the other, and some others border on the laughable.

Clearly a man of multiple faces, Towers comes across as possibly the most dependable of Garibaldi’s lieutenants. Though not as brilliant as David ap Morgan or as unpredictable as Ken Taff, Towers military reputation has fewer blemishes than perhaps any other; his one significant defeat has been judged to not be a result of his own mistakes, rather many students of military theory and performance are amazed at how much of his forces Towers was able to extract from LaGrange 1. Few who served with him believe that the Federation will see his like again.

[GX_Divider]

Goodness, you've been busy, and in an extremely good way, as well. It took me a few minutes to remember, and I still don't remember the actual name you had for the setting, but this is the story that you alone have created, yes? It's been a very long time since I've seen anything related to it.

[Black Knight]

Yes. In its most-worked form this was the story "Mobile Suit Pilot: Sam Carpenter", but it hasn't seen the light of day in almost a decade. For good reasons.

I'd long ago decided that I wanted to preface the entries into this storyline (like most things I want to do, it grew to encompass more than a decade of its internal timeline) with exerpts of pseudo-history from within its universe. Three or four years back I even got several pages into a prologue which would cover a funeral and then Garibaldi would without warning allow interviews into the events, which would be the transition to the novelized version.

Well, that wasn't working, because I find novel-style prose a pain in the ass to write. History-book prose, on the other hand, I can churn out fairly rapidly. And I recently realized that that was the way to tell this story. It will do more to cast Garibaldi as the central figure, which is always how the public in his universe saw him, despite his objections. I think I'll go even lighter on the proof that the many faces of Carpenter are, in fact, all the same person, because that's the way the initial historians would insist things were written down, because few of the potential first-party sources would have realized that, say, Falcon and Ken O. Taff (sorry, couldn't resist; Carpenter was feeling morbid) were in fact the same person.

I've always felt that characters should be evaluated based on their actions, rather than their thoughts, because that's all we have to go with in "real life" interactions with most people; this has been the secret of my making believable characters. By not specifying the motivations behind character actions, the other characters (and the reader) are more free to interpret those actions however they choose, which does suggest what they are thinking, just as all of us look at what other people are doing and use those actions to decide what we believe other people are doing.

I dunno where its going to go from here. I had a nice bit of inspiration for a day or two, and this is what came out rather than another section of AAE, which I started after this came out, but couldn't maintain; just too tiresome to write novel-style after the freedom of academic-style. But this will likely be extremely dry, since it'll lose almost all the human drama. I'll try to sneak some in, and maybe there will be sections where a more dramatic scene can be added in, but if I can avoid writing more small-scale mecha combat, I will; I'd rather write about larger-scale multi-battalion/multi-brigade fights.

One change is that the mecha here are more along the lines of Ryujin's Demi-Shells than mobile suit-sized monstrosities. There may be a greater use of straight-up powered armor suits for leg infantry, too; they were experimented with in the original story, but I'd decided they weren't practical for some reason (probably power supply).

Sadly, I think I finally lost my index-card list of the stats for all of the ~100 mecha variants I had worked up for this universe. Think I still have a text file with most of them, but I don't recall if its complete or not.

[GX_Divider]

Honestly, the academic approach seems a very interesting idea. I look forward to more of it. Plus it'll ease me into reading textbooks again, since I've pretty well decided to stop whining about hating the Navy and work towards getting my degree to be a secondary school history teacher.

[Zinegata]

Bum. You got promoted to 1st Lt, got a $1000 pay raise, and you still managed to write all this?

Will you have a profile for Sam though? Or have you obliterated him from the continuity in favor of Garibaldi?

[Black Knight]

Carpenter will probably not have a profile. He'll have at least four. It'll get mentioned if I ever get to the profiles for Falcon and Phoenix, but in-universe a large portion of the Federation's personnel records were destroyed. I haven't decided if it was the Junta which purged them (they certainly expunged records of specific individuals, including Carpenter under his own name) or if Carpenter did it to hide his various identities. Given that Carpenter was thought to be killed in the initial coup by the Junta, when there were only a handful of MI pilots, very few people alive by the time of the Restoration would know the name. But everyone learned the names of Falcon and Phoenix, the former due to his rebellion in Italy, the latter through his defense of the moon from the Galilean Lunar Force (is that name stupid? Its the best I could come up with and half a place-holder in case I come up with something better). I decided that I didn't want to call him the Black Knight again, as that's too commonly used, so Garibaldi busted out his classical education and christened him the Knight known unto God (a reference to the fact that no on knew who he was, and if they did, he was supposed to be dead); Carpenter, amused, struck back with the moniker Ken O. Taff upon rejoining Garibaldi's forces (because "Noname" or "Nameless" are too cliche).

[Black Knight]

“The Peregrine” by Reuben Boyd

Joshua Falcon

At once both one of the most famous and one of the least known figures of the Interregnum, everyone has heard of Joshua Falcon’s long insurrection in Italy, where with a single reinforced battalion of the Mobile Infantry and a mechanized infantry brigade he survived against three separate suppression forces sent by the Junta, and was only checked and overwhelmed by forces under the command of Vincent Garibaldi. Few, however, know anything about his life before his prominent rebellion.

Clearly, he was a skilled member of the Mobile Infantry, but there is no record of when he underwent his training. Likewise, there is no mention of him in surviving military records until he assumed command of a provisional company intended to field-test new models. This, sadly, is not uncommon, as at several times during the Interregnum military data storage facilities were attacked, and there are also reports that the Junta itself destroyed some files in order to cover their misdeeds.

Though he entered the stage already at the rank of major, and at a time when nearly everyone who held that rank had either been recruited into the Junta or was one of Garibaldi’s disciples, few of the soldiers of the period report having known him. It is possible, given his success integrating his Mobile Infantry with the conventional forces at his disposal, that Falcon was not originally a member of the MI, but rather moved laterally into the field after already achieving success with conventional forces, something common at the time while the Junta expanded the ranks of their MI forces. His posting to a MI development unit argues against this, but the lack of reliable data from the period makes any conclusions the result of more guesswork than research. David ap Morgan, we now know, was a member of the regular MI battalion which, under Falcon’s influence, joined his revolt. But ap Morgan was a fresh-faced subaltern then, and already notorious for his hapless antics with his machine. Though he doubtless saw Falcon numerous times, it is unlikely that he interacted much with the acknowledged leader of such an important uprising. However, a convincing argument can be made that he was influenced by Falcon’s tactics.

As a battlefield commander, Falcon demonstrated a swift learning curve; he started out obviously talented and willing, as the underdog must be, to take great risks with his inferior forces. His risks always paid off, though sometimes in the early stages at a great cost. As time passed, however, he rapidly developed, becoming far more subtle and unpredictable. Much of his success surely rests on his excellent dismounted scouts and the assistance he was given by the Italian people. For although Falcon would declare martial law upon entering town, his swift reaction to disobedience by his own troops was a stark contrast to the great lengths he would go to in order to win over local populations. In particular, many now list his Information Operations campaign announcing strict rules and denial of freedoms under his version of martial law as a brilliant example of military deception, completely fooling the “liberating” troops of the Junta into believing that the civilians living around his troops were under the heel of an oppressor and thus unlikely to be cooperating with him, saving them from punishment by the Junta after Falcon’s men had passed.

In the early stages of his rebellion, Falcon showed himself to be a talented, aggressive commander, quickly recognizing opportunities granted by the relative inexperience of his initial adversaries, and pouncing on them mercilessly. But his skills also improved noticeably as time passed, defeating even the veteran officers of the Junta backed with more than thrice his numbers. Until, finally, he met his match in Garibaldi. Even so, the first two encounters between these men ended in narrow victories for Garibaldi, until, seeming to finally take the measure of his opponent, he dismembered Falcon’s forces at Trebbia. Some have called his battle plans needlessly complex and risky to the point of foolhardiness, yet the results speak for themselves.

Falcon’s rebellion, though never able to muster the force necessary to be an existential threat to the Junta, as few regular forces of the Junta were induced to join him, nevertheless proved that the Junta’s troops were not invincible, and his astonishing victory at Naples using only his dismounted infantry highlighted that even the Mobile Infantry had weaknesses. Many of the later rebellions against the Junta, including that of Kurt Balck less than a year after Falcon’s, were directly inspired by the man whose blinding speed and small force earned him the nickname “Peregrine.”

Personally, little is known of Falcon. He has no past in official documents. No one knows where he was from, though he reportedly spoke English like an American, and though he could not say more than a few phrases in Italian he was known to use an impressive Latin vocabulary with the better-educated priests and scholars he encountered in Italy. What few oral accounts we have of him must be considered suspect, tainted by his posthumous fame, as many of these remembrances seem contradictory. One thing that is common among them, and which appears in many diary entries and letters written by civilians with whom he interacted, is his outraged sense of justice. Falcon’s animus against the Junta was profound, bordering on a nearly irrational hatred, some claim. Others believe that this hatred for the Junta was an affection, a mask put on solely when it suited him and then discarded. Supporting these latter are some dated hearsay statements by ap Morgan (following his later commander, ap Morgan refuses to discuss the Interregnum now, but occasionally spoke of Falcon to his students and comrades before the Restoration), citing as proof Falcon’s solid battle planning, clearly the work of a calm, dispassionate head able to renounce strong emotional elements. Ap Morgan, having seen this at first hand, took pains to inculcate a similar ability to strip away intoxicating emotions into many of his students, with varying levels of success.

Countering the claims of ap Morgan and others are the reports that Falcon, in addition to being the heart and brain of his rebellion, was also its most talented soldier. This is quite probably the result of his rebellion being idealized and romanticised in popular memory, as calculating commanders rarely sway the imagination of the people, but heroic men of action, regardless of how light they are in the brain case, easily capture the heart s of men, particularly when those men are oppressed and the stubbornly heroic man is fighting a losing battle against the oppressors.

Certainly, one of Falcon’s subordinates showed a disturbing ferocity in battle, with an emphasis on hand-to-hand combat, normally as rare in the Mobile Infantry as among traditional leg infantry. Many accounts describe this champion’s Viking machine returning from battle covered in the fluids of dismembered foes, often with an improvised club in hand; in the words of a post-battle assessment by Garibaldi, “foreswearing firearms, he smote his enemies, hip and thigh.” Or, as a young Jeremy Miller was quoted in the media after having been credited with slaying Falcon’s champion in the second confrontation with Garibaldi, “He made the mistake of bringing a club to a gun fight.”

Falcon’s legacy is a confused one. While celebrated as the first to try casting off the shackles of the Junta, his judgment is in question given the slender resources at his disposal when he began. Possibly he thought that the campaigns in the Balkans and the Plate watershed had sufficiently diluted the deployable strength of the Junta to the point where he could stage a popular uprising against the Junta. It is certainly unclear where he was had planned to go from northwestern Italy. Some believe he was en route to Brussels via Paris, as the Junta was meeting in the former and had major headquarters elements in the latter, but it is unlikely that Falcon’s meager forces would have been able to expel the major conventional forces garrisoning those famous cities. Most of those who subscribe to this theory are also ardent promoters of the idea that Falcon was motivated solely by rage.

On the other hand, in terms of how long it survived and how many of the Junta’s pre-coup trained troops it consumed, Falcon’s Italian Campaign can perhaps be judged the as the most damaging to the Junta. Certainly its success inspired the many which followed, though like so many sequels these could not measure up to the quality of the original. Only the Pennsyltucky Rebellion in the Appalachian region of North American can compete with the number of troops consumed during its suppression campaign, but that revolt both lasted longer and gained more support in the form of defecting troops than Falcon’s Italian Campaign, and did not require the services of Garibaldi to put down.

[Black Knight]

Not entirely satisfied with where it ends, but whatever.

From: The Time at Hand by Keegan Cornelius

Introduction

This book has its origin in a funeral. I was visiting Shorncliffe Barracks, conducting more interviews for a history I intended to write about the liberation of Toulon as seen by the common soldier. As a routine matter, I had filed a request to interview General Garibaldi while I was there, though I neither knew his schedule nor expected him to agree. Unexpectedly, I received a phone call from General Garibaldi’s office informing me that the General would grant me an interview, provided I was willing to make a trip with him. I assented without thought in the belief that this would be a short trip, to Wiltshire, or perhaps Paderborn, as I had heard reports that the General was likely to visit either of those units in the near future. A day trip, surely, and the interview would be conducted as we travelled there, back, or split between the two.

I was rather surprised, then, when, in company of the barest staff I had ever seen the General keep in tow, we boarded a suborbital shuttle. As we waited to leave the ground, I remarked to the officer sitting next to me that the shuttle seemed less comfortable than most I had used. Smirking with disdain, the young man incisively noted that I clearly had little experience with combat-landing shuttles, of which this was one. I agreed with him that my experience had hitherto been restricted to writing about them, and asked if the General commonly travelled in one. I was assured that he only used them when he intended to land somewhere lacking an established orbital port, my second indication that all was not as I had thought.

Still, I reassured myself, no one was carrying baggage, so we would surely be back by nightfall. Perhaps we were simply going to make an appearance at some field exercise; the rumored inspection of troops in Paderborn, Germany, resurfaced in my mind, and I was content.

For those who find commercial shuttle reentries terrifying, I have this advice: do not attempt to overcome your feelings of distress by coming down in a military craft. I have ever more respect and admiration for the men and women who volunteer to undergo the experience more than once. Upon exiting the craft, I discovered that the sun was in late morning, while it had been early afternoon when we left Shorncliffe. I was not in Germany. Looking around, I discovered that we were as close to the middle of nowhere as I ever hope to be; there were no permanent structures visible in any direction, though there was a temporary military encampment only a kilometer or so away, and I could see several vehicles moving toward us. I also saw four shuttles identical to the one I had just arrived in, two of them still smoking.

I asked where we were, and the amused officer laconically replied “the Field.” Upon pressing, he claimed not to know, himself, having merely been directed to come along as my watchdog, as the General did not want me to become lost.

As the vehicles from the camp approached, the passengers from the other recently-arrived shuttles congregated with the others from mine. I slowly twigged on to the fact that the majority of them were both remarkably senior in rank and that all of them were long-time cronies of General Garibaldi, of the group many refer to as “the Old Guard,” some with affection, most not. All were attired in formal uniform.

Colonel Tanaka, wearing soiled, stained and threadbare coveralls, dismounted from the vehicles which had driven up and greeted Garibaldi and the Old Guard, and ushered the now-considerable party into the vehicles. Amused by the sight of such august personalities scrambling into the back of logistics trucks in their immaculate uniforms, I snapped a few pictures. My watchdog frowned disapproval, but made no move to stop me. He did assist me into the back of a truck, however, with the help of a rangy, silver-haired sergeant-major I belatedly recognized as the famous Edward Kilroy, who proceeded to push my watchdog up before scrambling into the truck himself.

I expected the vehicles to deposit us in the military encampment, but like all my other expectations for the day it was unceremoniously dashed; we drove past the field base without so much as a pause. Sergeant Major Kilroy, living up to his reputation, asked me if I was comfortable or required anything. I told him that I was fine, though quite confused as to what was going on. “I can tell you that, ma’am,” said the man who had thrice refused awards for valour, “we’re here to bury a man.” I asked who, and Kilroy replied that “if the bastard’d wanted us to know, we wouldn’t be coming like a thief in the night.” Now truly curious, all my attempts to elicit more information from Kilroy were deftly evaded. Perhaps he truly did not know anything more.

We drove along a barely-discernable dirt track for perhaps half an hour before it joined a macadamized road. At the junction a tour bus was parked, a fortyish couple leaning against the shaded side. Our trucks halted, Kilroy jumped off the back and began helping the more infirm of our fellow-travelers disembark. My watchdog attempted to assist, but the Sergeant-Major dismissed him like a pesky child, much to his chagrin and my amusement.

Garibaldi was talking to the couple by the bus, and I wandered that direction while my keeper was still fuming from his treatment by the Sergeant-Major.

“I’m relieved that we were in the area, general,” the man was saying.

“’In the area’ my foot,” the woman remarked sharply, “we were nearly a thousand klicks away twelve hours ago.”

“He’d have gone further for you or me,” the man said. “And we’ll still have time to make the next show. We couldn’t exactly ask him to arrange a more convenient time to die, Alex,” he reproved gently.

“Will you have room for us all, Mark?” Garibaldi asked.

The man glanced at the group of officers and senior enlisted, now almost completely off the three trucks which had brought us this far. “Might get tight, but everyone should fit,” he said. “Father Bob said he’d meet us at the church.”

“How are we on time?”

Tanaka strolled up, a rifle casually carried in his hand, another slung over his shoulder. “General, if the exalted Towers is ready to let us on his horseless carriage, everyone’s off the trucks.”

“Pleased to see you, too, Kyouya,” the man replied with a smile. He gestured at the weapon. “Who else you have packing those?”

“This one’s for you, which I’m sure is what you were really asking,” Tanaka said, reflexively pulling the bolt back to ensure the chamber was empty before passing the weapon, bolt still locked to the rear, to the civilian. “Dave, Eeek, and Wally are here, plus you and me. Guess I’ll have Eek pick out two others.” He shrugged. “I’d still rather be a pallbearer.”

“Father Don says that members of the community should have that honor, but that the only indication they had he was a veteran was his scars. I believe we should defer to his judgment.”

The civilian woman jerked her head in my direction, though she had not yet looked at me. “Was he the one who suggested you bring the Fourth Estate, too?”

“No,” Garibaldi said softly, beckoning me over, “that was my own idea, and I consider it serendipitous that it was Ms. Cornelius who happened to be visiting Shorncliffe and not . . . one of the others.”

Somewhat reluctantly, I joined the group which I had hitherto been eavesdropping. I did not, however, have a comment ready to disarm the clearly-felt animosity directed towards me from the woman. Fortunately, I didn’t need one.

“Ms. Cornelius, I don’t believe you have ever met Mark and Alexandrea Towers.”

“Completely understandable,” the man replied good humor, “since we’ve been pretending to be dead while at the same time pursuing an aggressive concert schedule. That combination doesn’t leave a lot of time for social niceties.” He held out his hand. “I enjoyed your biography of me far more than that of ben Sira, as you were more critical of my many shortcomings,” he said with a genuine smile. “And your critique of my performance at the Upper Ten Mile was as masterful as the tactics of my opponent.”

Tanaka laughed, and Andy Towers punched her husband in the arm, making a face.

“With introductions out of the way, normally we would find somewhere to sit and chat, but we do need to be moving,” Garibaldi said, turning to Tanaka.

The youngest of the general’s key subordinates in the Restoration turned and called out. “Eeek! Load ‘em up.”

“Aye, sir,” I heard Kilroy call back.

As the various officers and senior enlisted began filing to the door of the bus, Garibaldi turned to me. “Ms. Cornelius, I imagine you have a great number of questions at this time. I ask you to please hold on to them. We are here, you have surely surmised, to bury a comrade. Afterwards, we shall answer all the questions you can think to ask, and, no doubt, a number which would be unlikely to occur to you. The time has come,” the general said, “to speak of many things.”

“No kings, however,” the female Towers pointed out, “and unless you boys were up to odd things while I wasn’t looking, no cabbage, either.”

[GX_Divider]

I'm honestly intrigued to learn where this last bit goes, which I suppose is the purpose of the "Snippet from a history book" approach you're using now. Also, nice, if not altogether subtle, Lewis Carroll reference.

[Black Knight]

This sequence as written here is much different from how I'd originally drafted it. At that time, it was going to be a much more serious affair. As it is, my tastes have changed over the ensuing years, and I felt that some of these characters would see it as essential to be cracking jokes at this particular funeral. Alex Towers' seems to have some animosity for the deceased, which I hadn't expected and may try to shade out of the picture, unless I decide to have Garibaldi show off his classical education again with an apt Latin quotation or two. (Unsurprisingly, his penchant for saying things in dead languages is one reason his superiors didn't like him when he was a junior officer).

However, I don't know if I'll continue the scene from where it left off, or jump from there into the history sections. I suspect I haven't done enough setup, and so I'll have to take the scene until the post-funeral drinks.

[GX_Divider]

If there's one thing the military has taught me, cracking jokes at what would normally be deemed inopportune moments (Such as finding out you're staying at work until 8 PM rather than getting off at 4:30 PM) is absolutely crucial to not snapping and doing horrible things.

[Black Knight]

Continuing directly where it left off...

-------------------------------------------

“Just so long as you concede that ships and shoes are viable topics,” I contributed, earning a small smile from Tanaka and a look of approval from Towers. “May I ask whose funeral we are attending?” I asked, guessing that this would be my best opening.

“That is a more complicated question than you perhaps realise,” Garibaldi said heavily. “It will suffice to say that he was once my subordinate, and that I promised him that while he lived I would keep his role in the downfall of the Junta out of limelight as best I could. That duty will shortly be discharged.”

I could hardly believe my ears. In fact, I did not.

“Excuse me, General, but are you telling me that the reason you have declined to talk about the Restoration is because of a promise you made to one man?” I asked, astonished.

“Indeed.”

“And you ordered your subordinates to keep silent as well?” I practically demanded.

“Nonsense,” he replied. “I merely asked them. Each has their own reasons for agreeing. It would be naïve of me to deny that many agreed merely because it was I who asked. A number, however, would have fulfilled this request merely out of respect for the one asking. A few declined to speak for the contrary reason.”

“He was always better at making enemies than friends,” Towers added.

“Being a royal pain in the ass will do that,” his wife noted sourly.

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” Garibaldi chided softly.

“He doesn’t need to defend himself, you lot are doing a fine job for him!”

“You must forgive Alex,” Towers put in, “she did not know him the way most of the rest of us did.”

“What, so I lack the proper respect? Drop dead, Mark,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He may have been a great warrior, but he was a lousy human being. If I was his wife, I’d have killed him, not myself. Doug has every right to hate his guts.”

“He’d have said he was effective, not great,” Kilroy suddenly said from behind me.

“Quite,” Garibaldi agreed, wearing a hint of a smile.

“He did say that war was not something which qualified a person for greatness,” Tanaka said pensively. “I’m fine with that; I don’t need greatness.”

“You can always fake your death and come on the road with us,” Towers said with a touch of false magnanimity, [pomposity?] “we need a trustworthy babysitter.”

“I believe that, sir,” Kilroy said with a straight face, “you were always irresponsible with my children. However, perhaps we should depart before we miss the ceremony?”

Tanaka looked at his timepiece. “He’s right, General, we should get rolling.”

“Tempus fugit, indeed,” Garibaldi said heavily.

General Garibaldi asked me to not reveal the details of the service or the town, in an effort to protect the identity of the man who was buried. The locals who turned out for the service were, naturally, rather surprised when such an impressive collection of senior military personalities filed into the parish church; they had thought they were interring a reclusive but kind victim of an industrial accident. Several of the townspeople clearly recognized members of the military party, and the priest was nervous at the presence of the bishop who joined the military group just outside of town.

Tanaka, still wearing his grimy field overalls, and Towers, in casual civilian attire, were part of the honor guard firing a twenty-one gun salute as the casket was lowered. Garibaldi received the flag, saying that he would deposit it somewhere fitting. The bishop thanked the priest, and left with him for a time, though he rejoined Garibaldi’s group later.

The military party filed back onto the bus, and from there drove back to where the military trucks were waiting, and after switching back to those vehicles, returned to the field encampment, Towers and his wife accompanying the serving personnel.

At the camp, Tanaka and Kilroy corralled everyone into a tent.

“I believe you have questions, Ms Cornelius,” Garibaldi said, taking off his blouse.

“Yes, I do,” I replied, truthfully, for I by this point I had more questions than I could remember, dozens having occurred to me as I attended the ceremonies at the church and grave, where I could not write them down. “I just wish I knew where to start! Who was that man we buried? Why did you agree to keep silent about the Restoration just for him? Why is Towers still alive, and why did he leave the military?”

“I shall let Mark speak for himself – at some later time. I rather suspect I can be forgiven for believing that his survival will seem of lesser import than my breaking silence on the topic of what is commonly termed the Interregnum. It took some time for various and sundry persons, including General Secretary Armstrong, to understand that my ratio decidendi for rebellion was taboo.” At this point, he paused, and the melancholy cast to his face broke momentarily. “I had decided by the time I defeated Kurt’s uprising that Naim and his lot would be unlikely to voluntarily step down from power, as they repeatedly claimed they would. Thus was I obligated opinio juris sive necessitatis due to my oath as an officer to oppose the Junta. The attack of the GLF sidelined my efforts toward this considerably, yet also taught me a number of valuable lessons in regards to my subordinates.

It did, moreover, make me realize that there were two things conditio sine quibus non to fighting the Junta in open combat. Primus,” he said holding up a finger, “a properly trained force of arms, for as time passed the Junta’s regular troops received ever more combat experience disposing of small-scale defections and riots. Secondus, and the thing which no other rebellious military group considered, was to have some member of the civil government structure who would be able to assume the reins of government upon the inevitable deposition of the Junta.”

“You mean Secretary Armstrong?”

“Naturally. Before he was brought to my attention, I possibly had the military wherewithal to overthrow the Junta, but I was unwilling to take power myself, and thus any action which eliminated the Junta would of necessity decapitate the governmental structure of the Federation, with subsequent inevitable chaos ensuing due to the lack of an alternate government. I was unwilling to allow such a state of affairs, and so I kept my peace, and made it clear to my superiors that there were limits to the operations they could order me or my forces to undertake.”

“And so, in your phrase, the ‘time was at hand’ for you to strike down the Junta after you found Secretary Armstrong, as you had spent roughly a decade preparing the forces under your personal control and reaching agreements with other dissatisfied commanders?”

“Yes, but also no,” Garibaldi said, and paused to sip tea. “For I did not find Spencer Armstrong; he was brought to me by Mark, who serendipitously ran into him while on an unrelated assignment. But even had I and Secretary Armstrong discovered each other five years earlier, it would have been ill-advised of me to openly and forcefully break from the Junta at that time, as I probably would not have had the military strength to survive.”

“That seems an odd comment from the undisputed master strategist and commander of the military,” I said. “Particularly as the second rank of skilled personnel were almost entirely your own trusted subordinates.”

“That has oft been said, dear lady, yet neither assertion is quite true.” A pause. “My lieutenants were, indeed, the equal of any officers in the military, yet as I learned painfully in Italy, there existed some few who were my peers. David, there,” he said nodding at ap Morgan, “is the finest tactician alive, as his efforts in Italy make clear; he fought me to a draw twice, and I did not contemplate a third encounter until I had arranged for Falcon’s command post to be raided. David was captured, and without him to direct matters, and with Falcon himself injured from the second fight, there was an argument between Kurt and Mark as to who should assume command, with the well-known results a natural consequence of divided command.”

I was in shock. With a few sentences and without requiring the use of his fund of Greek or Latin Garibaldi had completely overturned much of the research on Falcon’s revolt. The others clearly noticed the effect this had on me, as there were a number of amused expressions, as well as several showing almost as much surprise as my own.

“Excuse me?” I eventually managed to get out. “You’re saying that ap Morgan was the tactical commander of Falcon’s forces? I thought he was only a subaltern at the time! And did you mean that Kurt Balck was involved? But his rebellion was nearly a year later!”

Garibaldi smiled. “When I apprehended them, I arranged for their records to be altered to remove or downplay their roles, though David refused to have his association with the Italian uprising completely excised.”

“I did damn good work there,” ap Morgan said proudly, “and even with all the action I’ve seen since then I still think Falcon was one of the better field commanders. If he hadn’t been incapacitated in the second fight, I think we’d have done okay, even though the General’s dirty tricks company had kidnapped me by that point.”

“You did a fine job in Italy,” Towers agreed, “but I’ll always remember how you refused to have any part in the planning for Naples. You were so convinced that we’d get slaughtered.”

“Well, in my defense,” the younger man said, coloring, “I was only a silly little subaltern, all convinced that the MI were the be-all, end-all of modern combat. I got better. Balck thought that plan was nuts, too, and he was a converted mudbug. But Falcon got his way, and was certainly vindicated by the results.”

“I’m sorry, I’m still struggling to adjust to so many revelations!” said I, my mind still reeling. “This is going to take some time. A lot of time.”

“Time is something I shall shortly have at my disposal, I retire in six days,” Garibaldi said, dropping another bombshell. It might as well have been a nuclear weapon based its effect on those in the room.

And so I was the first to get a glimpse into the mind of the architect of the Restoration. This project was one revelation after another. Over the months which followed, as I conducted countless interviews with Garibaldi and other senior officers who had hitherto been silent, I learned much of what they thought. Diaries, journals and personal correspondence were presented to me. If I live to be a hundred twenty, I do not think I would have sufficient time to digest everything these men and women have to offer. The experience has been at times exhilarating, particularly when I was correct about the reasoning behind some important decision; more often it was humbling, as I began to see how troubled the lives of these heroes had been, and in many cases continue to be. All of them have been scarred by their lives of intermittent warfare, but most of the scars are not visible to a prima facie investigation. There are those still haunted by internal demons; some who refuse to sleep in absolute darkness, having wrestled with it both within and without.

This is not my story, though I translate their experiences into words on paper; it is theirs. Their struggles, their triumphs. Their dreams, and their nightmares. It was their time.

[GX_Divider]

There's very little by way of constructive criticism I can add, aside from I like the way you reinforced that what you're writing is a text about the story you're telling at the end. There was a bit of your standard wit in dialogue in the middle there, but the first person perspective brings it back and reminds you that it's a story about a story. Well played overall, and an enjoyable read.

[Black Knight]

Forward

The span of years which we now label the Interregnum, when the reins of power over much of the world were held by a small group of military officers under the tenuous control of General Rahman Naim, has had its origins shrouded in mystery. While there are many whose memories stretch before the events of the Sangre de September (Bloody September), the root causes of such a calamity are rarely obvious to the participants, and all too frequently hidden even from the careful observer.

Critics delight in noting where the strong man stumbles, where the doers of great deeds did not do them perfectly; they are able to distance themselves from the action. Such a perspective is regrettably not available to the man whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; he has not the luxury of time in which to weigh all options in depth; he is too occupied with his struggle, and so often errs, again and again coming short of his goals. This is the doom of the doer. Most arena-men care not for how they are judged by others; it is their own conscience to which they defer, and which is in the end the master of their fate. The Junta would not have fallen without men and women such as these. To them should we offer all thanks; the tree of our liberty was by their efforts, and at the cost of their blood, once again refreshed.

For the last decade, following my lead, many of the chief architects of the Junta’s downfall have remained silent about how and why events unfolded as they did. Tempus tacendi et tempus loquendi, and now is the time to speak.

I have been both lionized and criticized for my role in the destruction of the Junta. The former for the successful rebellion under my direction, the latter for not destroying it sooner, and indeed for frequently acting to suppress other rebellions against it.

I will not use this forum to attempt to justify specific decisions I made; I always acted in a way which I believed was correct based upon the knowledge I possessed at the time a decision was required. Have I things which I shall always regret? A multitude. Are there things I would have done differently, based upon things I know now, but which were hidden from me at the time? Assuredly. Yet there are very few occasions in which I would act differently were I in the same situation, with the same imperfect knowledge. Some, of course, yet their numbers are not great.

Thus I must ask your forgiveness for the decade-long silence you have suffered. In some ways it has been a tyranny not unlike that which was perpetrated by General Naim. And it shall remain largely unexplained. I had my own reasons for silence, and am grateful that so many acceded to my wish for them to follow suit. Few of my erstwhile subordinates know the reason behind it, and fewer asked me for mine. I have no doubt that this will breed a number of conspiracy theories, but it does not greatly concern me.

I am grateful that now it can be told.

Vincent Garibaldi
General (Retired)


---------------
---------------


The above is tied to the same book as the one before it, this next is a (rough, unpolished) officer bio similar to several other ones above. Its so rough I don't even have an author for it yet.


----------------
----------------

“The Schoolmaster” by XXX XXXX

David ap Morgan

The tactical and operations genius of the Old Guard, ap Morgan was one of the first officers assigned to the Mobile Infantry immediately following initial training in the Army. One might expect a man with this depth of experience to have developed into a famous MI operator. However, within the Mobile Infantry ap Morgan’s reputation as an instructor and staff officer of plans and operations is nearly equaled by his inability to effectively operate even the most forgiving MI suits.

In personality, ap Morgan is surprisingly carefree for a man with his considerable responsibilities and duties. He will act as if he does not have a care in the world, even while developing a cunning battle strategy upon which thousands of lives depend. This happy-go-lucky attitude is an asset in boring garrison routine, but of dubious value on campaign, as others have been only slightly more approving of him and his behavior in the field than disapproving of the same. Nevertheless, this feckless exterior hides one of the most calculating minds in the military today.

Interestingly, it seems that it was ap Morgan’s maladroit piloting which first allowed his other talents to surface, as one of his battalion commanders, it is unclear which, reassigned him to the unit operations section because he was tired of ap Morgan’s accidents. Once there, ap Morgan’s quick mind and gift for composing unambiguous orders came to the forefront.

As a subaltern, ap Morgan served in the XXth MI battalion based in Taranto, Italy. At that time the unit was the Mediterranean rapid-response force and strategic reserve for operations in the Balkans. This was the battalion which was incited to rebellion by Joshua Falcon and it engaged in nearly twenty battles before it was finally cornered and defeated by General Garibaldi at Trebbia. As an extremely junior officer, ap Morgan was cleared of wrongdoing, but also kept under military surveillance for years after.

Nevertheless, he landed an assignment as a junior member of Garibaldi’s staff by the time Major Balck revolted in Silesia, and served there with distinction, receiving a meritorious promotion and letter of commendation from Garibaldi for his efforts, details unknown, during that crisis.

Following that short campaign, ap Morgan was transferred to the Mobile Infantry training school at Camp Currie, Canada. This, and other training installations, would be his home and his life for most of the Interregnum, as ap Morgan quickly gained a reputation for producing highly-skilled graduates. This has long baffled many of his friends, and not a few of his detractors, either. It seems improbable that a man notorious for being unable to safely move a MI armor from one side of a football pitch to the other would produce the superior enlisted and officer operators which have consistently graduated from his courses.

Ap Morgan’s curricula have never been focused solely on the skills deemed necessary to simply operate a Mobile Infantry armor, but have from his first training company incorporated lessons on history, politics, ethics, logic, and philosophy taught alongside and sometimes coincidently with the more traditional courses in military tactics, courtesy, structure, marksmanship, martial arts and discipline.

There was much resistance to ap Morgan’s additional courses, and oral reports from his graduates report that for the first several classes under ap Morgan’s instruction he taught all the additional subjects himself, scheduled whenever he could find time. This meant he would lecture his recruits and candidates while they ate, while they marched to and from classes or in the field, and he even deprived them of an hour or two of sleep at night in order to include all the elements he felt were necessary for proper preparation to the military.

Given the subjects he included, it is perhaps unsurprising that ap Morgan’s graduates, both enlisted and commissioned, joined rebellions at roughly five times the rate of any other instructor. When, as a major, he was given permission to rewrite the curriculum for both the enlisted and officer initial training tracks at Redstone Barracks, this defection rate expanded out of the courses directly overseen by ap Morgan to encompass all those forced to learn his subjects, though the overall proportion who would end up defecting dropped to between three and four times the rate of other instructors and training plans.

It is worth noting, however, that ap Morgan’s instruction not only produced the soldiers most likely to defect and fight against the Junta, but his graduates also dominated meritorious promotion boards, as graduates of his instruction, both those who would eventually rebel and those who served the Junta to the bitter end (of which there were also many), were consistently noted as having better judgment, knowledge, and insight than their peers instructed in other schools of thought. Technical skills of piloting, marksmanship, and parading were not significantly different from any other basic training center, which leaves little doubt that it was the intangible skills of leadership, decisiveness, and charisma which were better developed by ap Morgan’s students than by any other instructor in the modern military.

Operationally, ap Morgan’s style was distinctive for its unpredictability, possibly a lesson he learned from Joshua Falcon, another commander famed for his ability to make his opponents believe one thing, and then do another. Ap Morgan constantly adapted his tactics, unit makeup, and modus operandi to counter the individual preferences of his opponents. Though it is not really possible to denote a favored tactic of ap Morgan, he was known to favor maneuver or travel through rough terrain over direct engagement of enemy forces, only rarely ordering a direct, obvious attack – and those few times catching his adversary off-guard by the very directness of the assault.

Though he spent much of the Interregnum as part of the training establishment, ap Morgan is known to have left the military’s ivory tower to act as Garibaldi’s operations officer during the protracted campaign against the Galilean Lunar Force. During after action reviews and press conferences at the close of operations on the moon Garibaldi gave ap Morgan high praise for contributions to the successful prosecution of the counteroffensive, his language even stronger in appreciation than that used for popular heroes such as Lieutenant Colonel Phoenix and Major Elisabeth du Guesclin.