What question do you want to ask AU?

[Breizh-Veur]

[snip'd answers]

thanks, yep that explains things!!
/skipme

[Topoliani]

*snip*

Hello, Indecent Anime Empire. I've got a few questions:

1) What is the most popular genre of anime/manga within IAE?

2) I’m slightly lost, sorry…did the IAE exist prior to the invention of anime/manga or do the anime characters you list as leaders and their presumed predecessors exist independent of that? Or do cartoon anime characters just interact in their own world consistently or something?

3) What’s the landmass shaped like a triangle in your maps?

1.) Other than the obvious (capitalism, gender, race relations, etc), what are some things that acted as cultural barriers between the Ahnu and the West?
1.1) Alternatively, what about other nations? I.E the USSR, Tanzania, etc.

2.) What is the Ahnu policy on personal property (AKA "Socialists are here to take your Toothbrushes") both in ownership and usage?
2.1) What about art?

3.) With them being so iffy about not wanting humans to start a nuclear war, did that affect their policy on (Earthling) civilian nuclear energy? Especially in regards to countries like Iran or France operating them?

4.) How do groups communicate with each other? Are there any customs to this communication method (even simple stuff like "over"/"out")?

BN: Lore questions only pls. The flag was made as a way to combine both Western and Byzantine symbolism and my nation was revealed to me in a dream.

[The Saucer Pilots]

You're gonna receive a wall of text for answers...

1) Not all but a lot of people of Nova’s era still had a strong tendency towards isolationism and would’ve seen permanent commitment to allies as a stone in their shoes that muddled their pace in central planning. Hell, even in the post-Contact 3 Star Union era it can be said that the Domain likes to grade its Warsaw Moscow Pact 2.0 allies depending on how complicit they can be to supply Ahnu convoys, showing that the Domain has a tendency to snap in and out of interventionism out of perceived necessity and it sees splendid and assuring isolationism (or “equilibrium”) as an ideal.

Artistic liberties aside, it’s also not hard to imagine that MJ-12 wanted a foot at the door when dealing with the Ahnu to not shake the geopolitical balance or try to leverage trade with them in the USA’s favor. So, both Ahnu isolationism at the time and Majestic wanting the USA to be seen as number one in public (but dealing with aliens in the shadows) contributed a lot to this closed network…and it made the story fit like a tee with the general motifs and themes of IRL conspiracies.

If there had been far less Ahnu they may have been incentivized to get help from Earth ASAP; and I have daydreamed that scenario…but it is most blursed as I envision them landing in Antarctica in the 1920s-1930s and walking into an Anglo-Ahnu Alliance. It was a nice way to sperg about a SR-71/Foxbat-like plane spying on Axis countries and an Ahnu-built super-Concorde with cute stewardesses. Help, not another project...

1.1) I admit that there is significant lack of oversight to that theme, as I originally intended the story to be contained within the USA and to UFO pop-culture that surged in the USA...and even expanding it to the USSR is something I didn't plan for. The original explanation was that the “weirdly dogmatic aliens” only recognized nuclear powers as “real nations”…however, when treated with more nuance, isolationism during Nova’s era sorta solves the issue. The Ahnu aren’t interested in tipping the world balance by trading with the Third World by antagonizing the other 2 major power blocks…though ironically, that’s what they did later on. Be it idealism over non-interventionism or provincialism in not wanting to bother with officially dealing with Earth, the Domain didn’t see officially dealing with under-developed countries (like Tanzania) high on their priority list, even if the Ahnu most definitely took advantage of places like this not having radar or a large media base to get their “genetic samples” without asking or informing the USA or the local government.

Incidentally, Nova’s story and the tensest moments of mistrust between the Ahnu and the USA neatly conflates with the peak moment of IRL US nuclear armament…as in-story, the Ahnu are the real primary cause of the build up behind the scenes. And it’s only after the mid-60s that the USA lowers its numbers as the Ahnu deliver better tech. And to add to the irony, with better relations came better chances at spying. So, Chuck Meyer’s experience with recovering Domain UAVs made him realize that Ahnu tech demonstrations were misleading and that basing assumptions on ci-fi movies was stupid beyond belief…as the Ahnu would focus on saturating attacks and SEAD to gain air dominance. Meyer’s warnings partially led to a diversification and scattering of delivery systems if one likes the Great Man history, though Cold War paranoia and Israel’s Operation Focus during the Six Day War would’ve also done that partially.

When it comes to behind-the-scenes fiction meshed with IRL events –and considering the Soviets (or rather, a KGB faction that serves as a Majestic counterpart) became aware of the Ahnu around 1962 (when they nab Nova and Kat) and formalized something in 1967/68– those countries’ sometimes steady and sometimes lukewarm backing of non-proliferation could be seen as them flimsily trying to appease the Ahnu. And of course, Majestic and their KGB peers, see MAD as both a deterrent and a suicide pact against the hypothetical Ahnu invasion. On the other hand, the mending of Ahnu-American relations and Ahnu recognition of the USSR also neatly align with the timeframe of the Treaty of Tlatelolco (1967) and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (July, 1968). I really need to catch on to write about Ahnu-Soviet relations...at the very least to explain how Nova and Kat got out of the Grand Hotel Lubyanka as I'm stumped there.

2) If you worked enough credits for it and can spend those credits at a storehouse or a supermarket, it’s yours. Common sense dictates you take care of your toothbrush as far as planned obsolescence can drag it on, though. Or that you can juggle and weigh necessities and commodities. The trade or exchange of partially-worn down commodities also leads to a very sizeable grey market, though I highly doubt toothbrushes are on the list.

2.1) This one will be a partial rehash, as the previous person asked this question.

I can picture State-sponsored/commissioned art resembling Italian Futurism’s fixation with youth, vitality, efficiency and speed as stand-ins for the stable yet strong regime and it’d also fall in line with a sort of unofficial but culturally prevalent cult of youth that idealizes healthy bodies and strong willpower heeded only by cool rationality. To be very general, when it comes to art commissioned by top ministries, I see some kind of abstract art thriving, provided it’s occasionally labeled or literally color coded, sort of like Eli Lissitzky geometric works or perhaps aggressively-labeled collage-like depictions of the matter at hand like Rodchenko posters…so, in general, think of the more experimental and avant-garde artwork of the USSR before Socialist Realism.

Ironically, the naturalism to depicting things (in contrast to a more abstract manner) will vary and may even depend on things like consensus of worker-council votes of the organization that depicts them in some contexts or it may be the choice of people at the top when it comes to ministerial levels. So I see the more abstract and pop-artsy stuff being popular at higher levels and folksier art or even office-humor-esque cartoons being at hand at lower levels, when it comes to commissioned art.

When it comes to freelance artists having slots in art galleries, I picture far more varied material and themes when it comes to the plastic arts and paintings. Pretty much anything that doesn’t explicitly criticize or subvert authority or break obscenity laws is fair game. Considering the Ahnu lifestyle, a bias towards the minimalistic might be favored in design of practical objects, with trends that try to balance functionality with elegance and compactness…like Bauhaus or De Stijl mixed with Zen to say it roughly. Though maybe out of popular appeal and demand, kitschier and palpably banal or mythological and quasi-religious themed paintings and posters might also be popular.

To expand a bit more, and to ponder your question, considering living space reductions and minimalism along with superstitions over objects having life…I see arts-and-crafts courses or workshops geared towards small nick-knacks being a thing in community centers and when it comes to non-plastic arts. So, ash trays, pottery, tiny paintings, small-models, a combination of those…likely popular. I also see performance arts and theater being popular as those don’t necessarily need that many supplies and multi-use areas can accommodate them.

3) I’ve actually placed more thought into this one, even if it only fits a narrow timeframe; or at least the implications. At around the 50s and the first half of the 60s, a good deal of contingency and war plans (a good deal of what the Ahnu imagined "relations" would be like) would likely be geared at taking out known nuclear depots, silos, air bases and potential enrichment sites and delivery systems. It would be relatively easy at least compared to future decades, as a good deal of those goodies would be clustered at Sandia Base and Kapustin Yar when it came to the US and the USSR. The dismal success rates of early ICBMs and their small numbers (a few hundred deployed) was an afterthought for the Ahnu, as they feared cruise missiles and theater-level missiles or unguided rockets slipping by way more. Hence the emphasis in going after known depots and barracks before “dumb” atomic weapons went flying in the dozens of thousands.

Other efforts would be spent at using readily deployable autonomous suicide-packages to down SAC (Strategic Air Command) bombers; incidentally, manned saucers would likely only be used to hunt SSBNs of all things.
When SP was originally written, it ended in 1952: with the USA and the USSR being the only big boys on the playground, and the UK just barely setting foot in the nuclear club sandbox in October-November…which changed things very little in terms of planning as the Ahnu lowkey looked down the UK for being a monarchy and regarded it as little more than an extension of the USA as a SAC airstrip. So, long story short, having some French or Israeli depots and “research sites” being added on the hit list would’ve added a little more pressure to the suppression forces’ and relevant recon and intelligence units within the framework of Nova’s story.

In sum, any potential enrichment site is a legitimate target if the gloves are off; the depots and air/missile bases are the short-term target to immediately destroy in a pre-emptive strike or a war, but the Ahnu still have to play by the rules in everyday goings. But now that you mention it though, it’s morbidly funny to imagine the Negev Nuclear Research Site get Operation Opera’d during the Cold War.

4) Unfortunately, I have not thought about Radio Comm protocol and etiquette either. However, I do believe they’d use FTL electron-based technobabble or mini-wormholes to communicate in order to prevent the glaring issue of cultural homogeneity and divergence in the story… that and so that economic planners and exploring parties can send better feedback over what to expect when it comes to extracting raw supplies and manufacturing goods among convoys.

/SKIP, It's Topoliani's turn