Mainland Lesva - Beyond the Line (IC, TWI Only)

[Lesva]

OOC

Map of Lesva.

Please refrain from OOC posts here. There is a separate OOC thread for that.

The Lesvan Revolution overthrew the one-party regime of the Throngist Movement Party of Lesva (TMPL) and replaced it with the communal ochlocracy under the new regime's leader Marshal Iuna Scadi, formally categorizing itself as a "unitary de jure direct social democracy under a de facto personalist dictatorship." This new reality has existed in Lesva since the beginning of 2024, as the Revolution achieved its' goal by the end of January, whereas previously the country had to endure Throngism from 2021 to 2024. While the 2010's were not golden in Lesva either, as that was the decade of democratic backsliding and a transition to dominant party authoritarianism, the new decade that came after brought Lesva from authoritarianism into full-blown totalitarian territory. And even with the regime change, the country, or at least the territory that the new regime controls, remains in that reality, just a different flavor of totalitarianism - from one political party's ideological tyranny to mob tyranny. And yet, despite not just regime change but also ideology change, one thing that managed to survive the Revolution, was isolation and the isolationist approach, which seems to be shared by the regime that came before and one that exists today.

The Throngist Republic of Lesva was closed off and its' international interactions were limited to the United Federation of Gael, which is a supranational union with Balnik, and fellow member states of the Eastern Tripartite (ET). Arguably, a breakdown of that crucial relationship with Balnik is what greatly contributed to the fall of the Throngist system in the end and set the spark for the flame of the Lesvan Revolution, as Balnik's "safety pillow" and key support was gone for the collapsing regime, which was once similar and fraternal. The new regime that rose from the ashes, retained the isolationism and arguably doubled down on it, despite being different from the previous regime and hostile to it, giving the predecessors the label of the previous tyranny that the new regime overthrew and "freed the people from." Even with some belief system and policy overlap, the two ultimately different regimes that are mutually exclusive to each other, retain a key feature and that is isolationism. It goes to show that even with different ideologies, isolationism is one of key traits of totalitarianism as a whole because in order to trully build an alternative reality within the borders of the territory you now control, you need to cut it off from outside influences that could corrupt the ideological experiment. And this approach is what the previous Throngists and the current Scadiists share the most, apart from some policies from the Throngist era, which the Scadiists seem to have "retained" from the same people they deposed.

Setting foot in the Peopledom of today is not illegal, except for the citizens of the United Commonwealths of Great Altera. But anybody obtaining a visa and travelling to the Peopledom is a brave soul, because if you do not share the beliefs of the alternative reality you are about to witness by setting foot there, then you risk a lot. And yet, those brave souls, undeterred by danger, end up appearing, which is its' own phenomena of the human psyche and spirit.

[Ioudaia]

Allied Forces Training Corps 2nd Battalion, Gamek Company Headquarters
Shariyath, Ioudaia
19 July 2026

Javid was just about to leave his office for the day when his desk phone rang. An LED on it lit: a secure call. The display said the call was from the Ministry of State, a number he didn't recognize. He sat back down at his desk, pulled out his one time pad from a drawer, and picked up the phone. He typed in his identity number and passcode, and an automated voice read him a challenge; he replied with the response and crossed it off the pad.

There was a click and three chimes on the line indicating it was now secure. Javid hesitated for a moment, then answered with the usual military greeting: unit, rank, and name.

"Congratulations on the promotion, Javid!" Anteia sounded genuinely happy for him. "I got a strange message on my phone and it seems to have something to do with the Training Corps. I'm supposed to report to an address in Dahibat, and as far as I can tell, the only thing there is a Training Corps building. Then I'm supposed to do something. All I've got are three long numbers." She read them to him. "What's going on?"

"Somebody found something for us to do. You're supposed to get a full briefing first thing in the morning." Javid stopped and did a little mental arithmetic. "Isn't it just before 02:00 there?"

"Yeah. I woke up to pee, found the message, and went to the embassy to check into it. But what do the numbers mean? C'mon, Javid, don't hold out on me."

"Act surprised when you're briefed. The first is a military physical, then a physical fitness evaluation, and the last is dive training."

"You're damn right I'll act surprised! What's going on and why do you know about it??"

"You'll have to get most of the story from your people, but part of this is that your performance with the Pathfinders, along with some other things female operatives, sailors, and aircrew have done recently, has the Expeditionary Forces considering admitting women to the special forces. If you qualify and are interested in joining--"

"And I'm a lab rat to see how that goes. Wonderful, just wonderful! Lemme guess: you're one of the people running us rats through the maze?"

"I told them putting us in these roles was a bad idea, but we don't have a lot of people who've trained women, and I'm one of them. So, I've been ordered to do it."

"And the dive training? Is that our first test? 'cause I'm not going to do well: I can barely swim. I have to bust my ass to pass our swim test to stay rated for fieldwork."

"Sort of. Your briefing will explain that as well, but let me say that I'm not the dive trainer. I'll be a student too."

"Say again?"

"It's a refresher class for me, but..." He sighed: Anteia was asking for too much. "Call me back after your briefing. I'll come back on base so we can talk."


Later

"This is a weird mission, Javid. I understand the government's interest, but the methods make it very complicated, and not a little dangerous. Trying to check us out for the special forces at the same time makes it worse. At least it's on familiar territory for me. Do you know the Pathfinder?"

"Nope. I probably have the same information you do. Do you know the other operative?"

"No, but I'll see if Loxias does. They might have worked together. What's the deal with the dive training? I didn't get an explanation of that. Is that being evaluated for women special forces, too?"

"Sort of. It's something we've never tried before. We're evaluating the bunch of you, and also evaluating how we teach dive ops. If we need to change the class, we'll change it; it won't be held against you. We want you, personally, and the other woman on the mission to pass. Otherwise, we need another backup exfil plan, and all the rest are much hairier. So, don't worry if you struggle with the class. We'll do our best to make sure you get it."

"Thanks. I've got a request for you: the military wants to see how fit I am. I want to see how fit you are. Let's see if you can keep up with me on a 3K."

"On a track? You're faster than I am, but I can do 3K. You're probably faster in town too. Cross country? Well, we'll see."

"You mean like steeplechase?"

"Yeah. Non-violent protesters aren't the only ones who sometimes have to run from contact. But we'll show you how to do that too."


Allied Forces Training Corps 1st Battalion, Dal Company Training Area
Dahibat, Ioudaia
22 July

Anteia smiled with satisfaction as she closed in on Javid, now just a few meters ahead of her on the track. "I'm going to lap you!"

"We'll see about that!" Javid didn't even turn his head to shout back at Anteia. To her surprise, he started pulling away, slowly but noticeably. How can a guy that big keep enough for a final push?? He's not the runner type.

She lengthened her stride to keep pace, but Javid sped up to match, and in fact, was now opening the distance between them faster. She kept her current pace; no choice if she was going to finish the race. He'll tire soon.

Near the end of the back stretch, Javid's "lead" stabilized: he was about 70 meters ahead of Anteia on the track, which meant that he was trailing by over 300 meters, since he was nearly a lap behind. The race stayed that way until Anteia won, but Javid was intent on finishing the 3K himself. She watched him run: his form wasn't the greatest, but he was too beefy to run properly anyway.

Anteia heard him huffing and puffing as he turned down the straightaway to the finish. He crossed the finish line nearly out of breath, walked around for a few seconds, then all but collapsed to sitting on the track.

Anteia offered Javid a hand to help him up. "I didn't think you'd finish. You've got the wrong build for distance running."

Despite not needing help getting up, Javid took her hand to show he appreciated the offer. "Fear of the enemy is a good way to learn." He paused for a second. "Convinced I'm fit to judge you?"

"Convinced."


16:00 23 July

Anteia walked up to Javid at the end of the day's testing. "Why didn't you guys turn the running tests into a race?"

"We want to try to get some idea of where everybody is now. Adding competition clouds that."

"OK, so how did I do?"

"I'm not sure. I can give you my opinion, but in the interests of fairness, I'm not one of the people who kept score. And nobody here will see what turned up on your physical, either.

"Look... we, uh, the Training Corps, need to know where we're starting from. In the field, this is what I'd be doing: running people through different tests to see where to start training them. Because this is a little different, and because we're back home, we're all working from anonymized data. For everything the nine of you did, you're grouped into high, middle, and low groups with averages and variability scores. That's all we have. And you'll see the whole set of results at the same time everybody else does, instructors included."

"Wow, you guys are working hard at this!"

"There's a bunch of people with stars on their shoulders who are very interested in the results of this trial."

"A bunch of men, you mean."

"Air Admiral Rhene bat Nemerte Gila is especially interested in how this turns out. She was watching earlier." Javid pointed to a reviewing stand in the distance; Anteia couldn't remember seeing anybody being there before.

"Shit! This isn't just you guys messing around. I'll bet Froggy or Prymneus are driving this."

"That's what I'm afraid of. You guys aren't being graded, but we probably are."

Anteia looked across the training ground. Four other women were talking in a group; one of them was also going on the mission. Two more were talking to other instructors. The last two were looking back at her, but quickly looked away. "If they didn't know before, they know we know each other now."

"They knew. I got dragged around to explain that last night, and to tell all the rest of them that they're free to talk to any of the instructors, including me.

"But I have to go now. The results will be discussed at the 17:00 briefing, and I need to talk to the other trainers about how we're presenting them."

As Javid turned to leave, Anteia tugged on his sleeve. "Hey, what about those opinions?"

"You're the fastest at the 3K. It's that obvious. Top group for the 6K, too. But work on those arms and shoulders." He winked at her, and left.