The Steel Fraternity World Factbook
Contents
Basic Overview
Geography
History
Government and Political Structure
The Steel Fraternity
Economy
Military
People and Population
Communications
Iron Bay
New Detroit
The Steel Paladins
Skorzenian Law Enforcement
The Skorzenian Imperial Military
The Imperial High Command
Basic Overview
Nation Official Name: The Holy Empire of the Skorzenia and the Protectorate of New Detroit
National Motto: Deus Est Machina
National Antherm: By Atlas' Labor Won
Official Language: English
Primary Ethnic Groups: White, Black, and Latino
Form of Government: Autocratic Empire
Head of State: Brother-Polymath Johnathan Keyes, Emperor of Skorzenia, Protector of New Detroit
Head of Government: The Elder Council (Brother-Militant Thomas Voerman, Brother-Scientific Howard Barnes, and Brother-Scholastic Zachary Lee)
Location: Southeast Aurora Major
Area: 3,250,000 square miles
Population: Initiated Fraternity Members: 25,000,000
Non-Members: Estimated ~225,000,000
Geography
Location: Southeastern Aurora Major
Area: 3,250,000 square miles
Coastline: 4,600 miles
Climate: Mostly tropical, temperate in the north of the country
Natural Resources: Bauxite, gold, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates, platinum, tin, uranium, petroleum, hydropower, timber
Land Use: Arable Land: 6.93 %
Permanent Crops: 0.98%
Irrigated Land: 11,300 square miles
Other: 92.18%
Environmental Issues: The vast rainforests controled by the Steel Fraternity have undergone extremely heavy logging (although the forests are always replanted after harvesting), and the wildlife and ecosystems have been badly damaged by devastating wars and nuclear fallout. Detailed reports are unavailable since the Steel Fraternity is indifferent to the environment, and lack of law enforcement of the lower classes combined with frequent military raids on bordering nations make entering the country a chancy proposition for foreign environmentalists.
History
1809: Atlas Skorzeny is born to a family of German immigrants in New York.
1861: American Civil War begins. Atlas Skorzeny has made himself into an industrial titan in the North, and is now the single largest textile mill owner in the nation, and one of America's wealthiest men. He has also made substantial investments in the firearms and shipbuilding industries.
1861-1864: Skorzeny, a die-hard abolitionist, staunchly supports the Union, exponentially expanding his arms industries over the course of the war. The bitter conflict however, leaves him increasingly convinced that America has lost its way. Mercury poisoning acquired after a factory accident in 1863 causes minor brain damage, leading to delusions of grandeur and a manic obsession with building a "New, Pure, and Ever-Increasingly-Steam-Powered America, free of insidious Trojan influences."
1865: The Lincoln assassination and the spectre of a corruptly administered Reconstruction convince Skorzeny that he must start his new America as another nation entirely, and he begins laying plans. Using smugglers, mercenaries, and spies (all carefully vetted to avoid Trojan infiltration) hired with his personal fortune, Skorzeny begins supplying arms to several small, belligerent nations with promising resources and territory, leading to the eruption of a multi-faceted war south of the Cookish States.
Meanwhile, Skorzeny begins assembling an expedition to conquer these Auroran countries. Driven to paranoia by the fact that he was unable to find any Trojan saboteurs among his force of agitators, Skorzeny is careful not to mention his fear of the Horse-Loving Menace for fear of tipping off a horde of Achilles-trained assassins to his suspicions. Because of this, the people Skorzeny recruits think the steam-powered idea is kind of odd, but otherwise his plan sounds pretty good.
1869 After four years, Skorzeny has recruited an eighty-thousand man army of disgruntled Confederates, unemployed former Union soldiers, and newly freed slaves, while the bitterly devastating multi-sided war is slowly grinding to a halt. Just before peace can be reached, Skorzeny's private army invades.
Some local forces are defeated handily while others, now deprived of supply from Skorzeny, fold. The first city conquered is renamed "Iron Bay" and made the capital of the new nation of "Skorzenia."
1870-1876: Skorzeny, elected the first president of Skorzenia, begins setting up his new government, with democracy, civil rights, and freedom for all. Meanwhile, he sets about expelling the former residents of the nation by any and all means necessary, now convinced that they are all "half-Trojan curs, sent by Guy Fawkes to kill democracy." This effort is only moderately successful, but his unveiling of a new lever-action repeating rifle, one to be given as a gift to each adult male in the country, wins him a reelection in 1874.
1878: Skorzeny, running on a platform of Greek Supremacy, anti-Helenism ("the treacherous hussy!"), and steam-powered pencil sharpeners, loses his second bid for reelection.
1880: Though his journals become fragmentary here, it appears that over the next two years, Skorzeny became convinced that a cabal of Trojan vampires had been pulling humanity's strings from the time of the Roman Republic to the Civil War. He left Iron Bay in the summer of 1880 for Greece, to enlist the help of the sorcerer and monster-slayer Odysseus against the blood-drinking fiends.
1881-1916: Skorzenia adopts a policy of general isolationism, refusing to become entangled in either Auroran geopolitics or American relations beyond trading.
1916-1944: Having better established its economy and military, Skorzenia decides to aid the US when America enters the First World War. Skorzenia essentially exists as a "Little America" from here on, closely following the United States' lead in foreign affairs and politics, and allying itself with the US in all wars. The younger nation is not entirely identical, however, as the wildly diverse political backgrounds of its first settlers (or at least, the first settlers to give the last set of settlers the boot) and its genesis as an industrialist's pet project leave Skorzenia with an even stronger capitalist slant than its motherland, and a strong libertatian leaning.
1945: Immediately after the surrender of Japan, the Skorzenian fleet that had been supporting the US fleet launched an attack on Russia's Pacific fleet. The United States had already refused to join Skorzenia in a war against the Soviets, but the smaller nation hoped that by starting the war on their own, they would force the US to step in on their side.
They had miscalculated, and although the Skorzenian fleet was able to defeat the obsolete Russian navy, the subsequent land invasion proved once and for all that righteous hatred for communism did not trump Siberia's winter and the millions-strong Red Army.
1946: Following the disastrous failure of their invasion of Russia, and facing expulsion from Japan and the other Pacific islands vital to their supply lines by the US, the Skorzenians abandon their war against Russia. The defeat humiliates Skorzenia on the world stage, sours relations with the US, and costs Skorzenia the seat on the Security Council that it had been in line for.
1947: Skorzenia detonates its first atomic bomb.
1948: Skorzenia gets its seat on the Security council.
1949: With Soviet funds and supplies, the descendents of the people expelled by the Skorzenians mount an attempt to retake their homeland. The CIA takes notes.
1950: Skorzenia uses its first atomic bomb.
1951: Skorzenia loses its Security Council seat by unanimous vote, but the attempted reconquest of their nation fails.
1952: Johnathan Keyes (ROTC cadet and engineering student), Heironymous Voerman (atomic science student), and Harold Lee (anthropology student) meet at Iron Bay University. They become friends and, concerned by the possibility of atomic war or other disasters (and outright terrified by the habit of library-burning by the Reconquistas in the recent war) hit upon the idea of forming a society to preserve knowledge, science, and military power in Skorzenia in the event of disaster. Being the scions of three of the richest families in all of Skorzenia, they have no trouble starting the ball rolling, beginning their society as a college fraternity. A Steel Fraternity.
1955: Following a petition from a female atomic science student, the Steel Fraternity officially modifies its charter to guarantee the right of qualified women to join. After this they can no longer operate as a normal college fraternity, but as they had a rather different sort of organization in mind from the beginning, this causes little stir among members. The Fraternity separates itself from Greek organizations and instead becomes a secret society with a special focus on recruiting college students, scientists, soldiers, and academics.
1960: There is now a Steel Fraternity branch in every college and university in Skorzenia, and construction begins on a new fraternity headquarters in Iron Bay. With the influx of new members, many as rich and influential as the founders, there is a minor power struggle inside the Fraternity. Keyes, Voerman, and Lee secure their control of the Fraternity by creating the office of Brother-Polymath. The post is given to Keyes, because he has the broadest educational background.
1965: Skorzenia enters the Vietnam War alongside the US. Meanwhile, construction begins on Fraternity bunkers and fallout shelters across Skorzenia, intended to preserve science, knowledge, and technology in the event of atomic war.
1966: Construction on the Fraternity headquarters is completed.
1967: There is now a Fraternity member on the board of almost every major corporation in the increasingly capitalist Skorzenia. Two of the three Joint Chiefs are also now members of the militarist Fraternity, along with more than half the nation's officer corps.
1968: Privatization of Skorzenia's police and public utilities begins. The Fraternity begins to actively obtain and archive the schematics of all machines and devices built in Skorzenia. Expansion of Fraternity facilities to protect more people and include machining and production facilities.
1969: The government of Skorzenia passes a law requiring all companies to give schematics and blueprints of their products to the Fraternity for archival. Corporations wishing to maintain proprietary secrets defy the government and attempt a coup, but police and security corporations run by Fraternity members ultimately force them to comply.
1970: The Skorzenian military, frustrated by their lack of success against the Viet Cong and acting against the wishes of the US, deploy atomic weapons against North Vietnam. In retaliation, the Soviet Union obliterates South Vietnam with nuclear weapons, taking out almost the entire Skorzenian military (the last bastion of non-privatized government power) and a large part of the US military. All-out nuclear war is barely averted between the US and Russia.
Brother-Scientific Heironymous Voerman, on a business trip in America at the time, is seized by the CIA.
1971: Skorzenian corporations attempt to overthrow the government. The government, on the edge of bankruptcy following the destruction of the military, barely holds on. The economy, already imploding, worsens even further as the fighting drags on.
Voerman dies in prison under suspicious circumstances.
1972-1975: The Skorzenian Civil War, waged between the corporations and the Skorzenian military (backed by loyalist civilians), devastates the nation. Meanwhile, the Fraternity declares itself neutral and focuses on maintaining law and order as the corporate police fight the war.
Brother-Scholastic Harold Lee dies of a heart attack.
1976: The Skorzenian Republic, beset by hyperinflation, a crashing economy, and rapidly dwindling manpower, finally collapses. The corporations take over, replacing it with a laissez-faire capitalist state run entirely by private corporations.
1977-1981: Corporate tyranny, along with a surprisingly strong start toward economic recovery.
1982: Popular uprising against corporate rule, supported by Norvenia and the Cookish States, begins.
1983: The corporatist forces face defeat after defeat as the vast majority of the population turns against them.
1984: One of the corporate enclaves, about to be overrun by socialist fighters, is destroyed by a nuclear explosion. The CEO at the location, knowing he was about to be killed by the mob, had detonated his own weapons in place out of sheer spite. The other corporations, mistaking this for an attack, launch their own weapons at each other, leading to the destruction of all major Skorzenian cities and most of their own populations. The only building in Iron Bay to survive is the reinforced concrete pyramid/bunker complex that houses the Fraternity headquarters.
1985-1986: While the Fraternity remains in its bunkers waiting for at least some drop in radiation levels, a patchwork army of former corpratist soldiers and rebel fighters puts a tyrannical empire in place to take control of what remains of Skorzenia. They are immediately opposed by localized freedom fighters and warlords. The country is thrown into even deeper chaos as a multifaceted civil war ensues. Skorzenia is left in chaos as radioactivity within the nation deters outside efforts at relief or military intervention while warlords arise. Prevailing winds blow the fallout from the 1984 War east, out to sea.
1987: The Fraternity emerges from its bunkers, equipped with pre-nuclear-war military hardware, weapons, and vehicles. The warlords are smashed, and the Fraternity seizes control of the Empire, killing the old emperor and replacing him with Brother-Polymath Keyes.
1988-1993: The Fraternity rebuilds the shattered infrastructure and industry of Skorzenia, putting the equipment and information from their bunkers to good use. There are simply not enough resources available to return everyone to their pre-war standard of living, however, so a new social hierarchy arises, with the Fraternity's members forming the wealthy and educated elite, controlling industry, scientific progress, and technology in the new nation, and the uneducated non-members living in squalor and malnutrition, serving as wage-slaves in the fields and factories and conscripted cannon fodder in the new army.
1994-1996: Supported by the Norvenia and the Cookish States, the same nations that had attempted the First Reconquista try again. The Second Reconquista takes vast swaths of territory, but after several grueling campaigns and millions of deaths, the Fraternity's high-tech elites, massed cannon fodder, and heavy armor turn the tide.
The Fraternity does not settle for merely turning back the Second Reconquista, but ultimately launces a counter-invasion, conquering new territory and increasing its size half again. The new land is made into the province of New Detroit. This also marks the beginning of the Fraternity's tactic of invading its neighboring nations to round up children to brainwash and add to its masses of underclass factory workers and soldiers.
1997: Fallout is released by Interplay.
1998: The Fraternity introduces powered armor for its elite Steel Paladins. Interplay threatens lawsuit over intellectual property. Fraternity threatens countersuit over Fallout's "Brotherhood of Steel." The whole matter is dropped.
1999: Brother-Polymath Keyes' heart fails, and he is placed inside a permanent powered armor/life support suit, retreating to his laboratory inside the bunkers underneath the Fraternity headquarters. From now on he devotes himself to medical research in order to unlock immortality for the Fraternity, making only occassional public appearances and infrequent proclamations. The Elder Council takes over the day-to-day running of the Empire.
2001-2009: Although still considered an international pariah, and maintaining a vaguely bellicose attitude toward most of the region, Skorzenia's recovering industrial base begins supplying low-priced, high-quality manufactured goods which are eagerly snapped up by most Auroran countries to one degree or another. The Empire undergoes an economic boom as it begins supplying industrial goods to its neighbors. Soon, the Fraternity's economy is once again very strong, and its industrial power is now near-unrivaled.
2010: The Steel Fraternity begins taking a more active roll in international relations, marking the beginning of a new era in its history.
Government and Political Structure
Country Official Name: The Holy Empire of Skorzenia and Protectorate of New Detroit
Common Names: The Steel Fraternity, the Holy Empire of the Steel Fraternity.
Government Type: Absolute Monarchy (Run by Steel Fraternity)
Capital City: Iron Bay
Administrative Divisions: Countries (Skorzenia and New Detroit), States
Founded: January 12, 1870
Cliff's Notes Version: The official government is an empire ruled by an absolute monarch, but the government is controlled by the Steel Fraternity and every government official is a Fraternity member. The Fraternity selects the Emperor, and is itself democratically run by its members. The non-members, who make up the vast majority of the population, are kept uneducated, have no rights, live in absolute squallor, and get basically worked to death by Fraternity-run companies and the Empire.
For all practical intents and purposes, the Steel Fraternity has two governments. First, there is the Empire of Skorzenia, which is the official and legal government of the country. The Empire has legal authority over all the people inside the country, technically controls the Skorzenian Army, and maintains relations with foreign powers.
The head and absolute ruler of the Empire is the Brother-Polymath of the Fraternity, currently Johnathan Keyes. Below the Emperor are the Supreme Commander of the military (Brother-Militant Thomas Voerman), the head of the Diplomatic corps (Brother-Scholastic Zachary Lee), Prime Minister of Skorzenia (Brother-Scientific Howard Barnes), and the President of New Detroit (Brother-Scholar Nicholas Carson).
The duties of the head of the Diplomatic Corps and Supreme Commander are mostly self-evident. The Supreme Commander runs the military, while the head of the Diplomatic Corps is in charge of foreign relations. The only unusual part of the setup is that the head of the Diplomatic Corps also serves as Trade Minister. This had been a seperate post under the old Empire, but the two were consolidated when the Fraternity took power in order to keep all the power for the heads of the government within the Elder Council. This didn't work perfectly, as after the conquest of New Detroit they had to place a fourth man in the post of President, choosing one of the Old Guard of Fraternity members from the 60's.
The Prime Minister is charged of maintaining Skorzenia for the Emperor, overseeing the national police, tax collectors, transportation administration, education administration (quite possibly the single most prestigious post at that level of government, given the Fraternity's focus on knowledge and technology), industrial administration (the other candidate for most prestigious post, due to Skorzenia's long-term obsession with industrial and mechanical power), the judiciary, and all the other minutiae of running a country.
Beneath the Prime Minister are the Governors, who each run their states about the same way as their equivalents in the US (a relic of Skorzenia's origins) with the exception that they are appointed by the Prime Minister and in turn appoint their own subordinates rather than running for election.
Each level of Imperial officials are appointed by the level above (i.e., Emperor appoints Prime Minister, who appoints governor, who appoints State Police chief) with the exceptions of the President of New Detroit, Supreme Commander and the Emperor. The Supreme Commander is a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the military who rose to his rank normally, and then is selected by his peers to serve as Supreme Commander. The Emperor is the Brother-Polymath of the Fraternity. The President of New Detroit is elected every four years (with no term limits; Carson was the first President, and is on his fifth consecutive term), and unlike the Empire, has most government officials elected.
This is where the difference between the Fraternity and the Government becomes important; while the Emperor controls the government and the government controls the Fraternity, it is the Fraternity which chooses the Brother-Polymath/Emperor, who is in turn answerable to the Fraternity. So, while the government is an absolute monarchy, it is run by a democratic secret society of academics and soldiers.
All people legally have the right to trial by jury, legal protection, etc., just as in the US, except there are a variety of fees and taxes attached to everything that can be easily payed by Fraternity members, but are beyond the reach of the non-member proles. This guarantees that Fraternity members have full rights, but the proles can be kept uneducated and powerless while they are exploited as dirt-cheap labor by the government and businesses, as well as conscripted cannon fodder by the military.
Education, law enforcement, and public utilites are provided practically for free by the governmnet (but once again with fees that are negligible to Fraternity members and far beyond the reach of proles). Otherwise, everything is privately run, but not necessarilly on a for-profit basis. Hospitals, for instance, are mostly philanthropic organizations supported by private individuals and corporations.
The nation remains aggressively capitalist, but the corporations are kept utterly subordinate to the government. Not only are all business owners, managers, and skilled laborers Fraternity members, but they are legally obligated provide all proprietary information for storage and preservation in Fraternity bunkers, and their facilities can be comandeered for military or government use at any time.
To sum up: the government's power is absolute, it is run by the Steel Fraternity, the Fraternity is run by its members, and ensures rights and education for them.
The Steel Fraternity
The Fraternity completely controls the government, and fills every single government post with its own members. The Fraternity also controls the Brothers-Militant, which includes the officer corps of the Army and Navy, the Army's armored corps, the elite special forces unit VANGUARD, the entirety of the Air Force, and the Steel Paladins.
The Fraternity is legally obligated to obey the laws of the Empire along with everyone else, but also has its own separate sets of rules and laws, that apply to only to Fraternity members and exist outside the government purview.
Most of the Fraternity is not involved with running the government and military, but instead focused on scientific research, engineering, education (not only do the children of Fraternity members receive advanced education, but all members are constantly taking courses to advance their knowledge of their own field of specialty and learn about other fields, and new inductees drawn from those few who advance from the lower classes through the military or industry also receive education), running the nation's industry, or practicing medicine.
The most basic organizational unit of the Fraternity is the local branch, which serves one college, military installation, town, county (in the case of rural areas), or neighborhood (in the case of large cities). Each branch includes fifty to a few thousand members, and is headed by a Magos who oversees meetings and motions. Every member has a vote and can introduce a motion and vote on motions, which can be for anything from a modification to the local elementary curriculum to a bill for the consideration of the whole Fraternity.
Magos also attend bi-annual meetings of regional Convocations, which oversee their respective geographical areas that function much the same as a chapter. Convocations also elect a High Magos to represent their region in the annual meeting of the Fraternity's National Control Board. These make the final decision on nationwide motions, set national rules for the Fraternity, and elect a new Elder to the Elder Council whenever one dies.
An Elder can be removed from his post if a High Magos introduce a motion of No Confidence to the National Control Board, which is then passed by a supermajority of the NCB, and finally a simple majority in a vote by all Fraternity members. The Brother-Polymath (or Sister-Polymath, should one be elected) can be removed by a similar process, except it ultimately requires a supermajority of all members.
New members enter the Fraternity by one of four ways:
1) Children born to existing members enter as Childer as soon as they begin elementary school. When they enter college or (the much lower-status) vocational school, they become Noviciates. After earning a bachelors-level degree, they are Acolytes, and after a doctorate, Adepts. Those who go on to teach others (Which is most; for Fraternity members retirement almost universally means becoming a teacher) are Maesters.
2) Lower-class soldiers or sailors who distinguish themselves through military service may earn induction as Military Engineers, receiving a remedial basic education followed by vocational training to become Noviciates in the Fraternity. After that, any children they have will enter as Childer, and they themselves may advance normally. Relatively few of them do advance however, due to problems adjusting to Fraternal society and fitting in with Fraternity-born students.
3) Soldiers in the Army may alternatively earn entrance into VANGUARD, going through the same remedial basic education and advanced military science education before entering the elite unit as Fraternity Acolytes. From there they may enter the officer corps or, in the case of the extremely ambitious, determined, and capable soldiers, earn a Combat Technologies doctorate and enter the Steel Paladins.
4) Uneducated, unskilled industrial workers may, on their own time, take an Intelligence Aptitude test from their Fraternity managers (the test, of course, is stacked heavily against them) to earn provisional Childer status, go through a remedial basic education, and then take vocational training to enter as full Noviciates. This is the rarest of all avenues into the Fraternity, and is only open at all to ensure that the Fraternity can maintain a monopoly on skilled labor and education.
The spiritual philosophy followed by most members of the Fraternity is the bizarre outgrowth of a strong Protestant tradition and an equally strong obsession with science and technology.
In the Sixties and early Seventies, the Scientific Church of Christ arose within the ranks of the Fraternity, and it has grown over the intervening years among members as a sort of organization-within-the-oranization. It is basically a relatively moderate Protestant Christian denomination, but with a strong philosophical focus on scientific understanding as a way to become closer to God, and a conflation between Christ as a spiritual savior and technological advancement as a path of earthly salvation.
The Scientific Church of Christ has remained popular among members of the Steel Fraternity to this day, and is now the most common religious group among them, alongside other Christian denominations.
The SCC is popular enough that the head of the church was included in the coronation of Brother-Polymath Keyes as the Emperor of Skorzenia. Hence the "Holy Empire."
Economy
The Steel Fraternity has a capitalist economy regulated in the areas of product safety, food safety, drug safety, and work conditions (though that last can only be enforced after an employee files a complaint with the labor department and pays a small fee, so only Fraternity Members are protected). The economy is based primarily around industrial production. A large portion of the gross domestic product comes from the export of industrial goods, and while there is no ban on importing industrial goods, doing so or buying them is basically social and career suicide. Therefore, all industrial products in the Steel Fraternity are domestically produced.
Average Yearly Income: Fraternity Member: 500,000 USD
Non member: Unknown; Estimated 80 USD
Population Below Poverty Line: Unknown; Estimated >90% (More than 225,000,000)
Unemployment Rate: Unkown; Estimated approximately 5-10%
National Government Budget: 900 billion USD
Industry: Automobiles, computers, aircraft, seacraft, electronics, consumer goods, farming machinery, construction equipment, furniture, concrete, paper, petroleum refineries, et cetera.
Electricity Production: Total production classified. Production must meet domestic need however, since nations sharing land borders are all hostile.
Oil Production: Total classified. No exports. Total does not meet domestic need. Difference made up by ethanol use.
Agricultural Products: Almost exlusively corn for ethanol production and sale to proles.
Exports: Industrial good to The rest of Aurora Major, Aurora Minor, and Afrosia.
Imports: Food from the Aurora Major and Afrosia. Raw materials from Aurora Major and Afrosia.
Currency: Ingot
Military
Branches: The Imperial Army, the Imperial Navy, the Imperial Air Force, the Steel Paladins
Manpower: Imperial Army: 2,500,000
Imperial Navy: 150,000
Imperial Air Force: 250,000
Steel Paladins: 10,000
Available Manpower: 60,000,000 Males
60,000,000 Females
Percentage of Total Population: Approximately 1.5%
The military of the Steel Fraternity, were it to be evaluated by a twelve-year-old, would be declared the very epitome of martial prowess, and undefeatable by any foe. That is to say, the Steel Fraternity's military is expensive, impractical, and obsessed with high technology and big warmachines.
The name "the Steel Fraternity" was not chosen at random. Owing to Skorzenia's roots as an industrialist's creation and the Fraternity's obsession with technology, the Imperial military has many of the largest tanks, ships, and aircraft in service in the world, along with more heavy weapons than they know what to do with.
The Imperial Army
Composed primarily of prole conscripts, with cheap and shoddy uniforms and equipment, armed with domestically-produced clones of the AK-47 and S&W Model 19. They are mainly deployed against the enemy in human-wave style attacks.
Commanded by Fraternity officers equipped with high-quality full body armor, armed with the MAR-17 assault rifle chambered for 7.62x51 mm NATO. They usually move along behind the main lines, shooting any conscripts who attempt to retreat.
NCOs are drawn from veteran conscripts, equipped with light body armor, and armed with the heavy weapons (squad automatic weapons, grenade launchers, etc.) of the Imperial Army. Motivated by the possibility of earning Fraternity membership, they aid the officers in maintaining discipline and command squads.
The backbone of the Imperial Army, however, is its Armored Corps. Composed entirely of Fraternity members, they make use of various heavy and super-heavy tanks to support the infantry and obliterate enemy positions.
The crown jewel of the Armored Corps is the Landcruiser P 2000 "Behemoth" super-heavy tank. The latest permutation of the Landcruiser tank series, it has its roots in the German Landkreuzer P 1500 Monster. Following World War II, as the United States and the Soviet Union snatched up Nazi rocket engineers and nuclear scientists, Skorzenia got its hands on various weapons designers of other stripes, including those who had worked on Germany's prototype super-heavy tanks, such as the Monster and the P 1000 Ratte.
Even the Nazis, with their penchant for deploying weapons and vehicles that verged on mad science, considered these prototypes too impractical for use. The Ratte and the Monster could never fit on city streets, would collapse any bridge they tried to cross, and were far too expensive to operate. Even in the darkest days of WWII, as the defeat of Nazi Germany loomed, they were never desperate enough to try using them.
The Skorzenian military, following the Second World War and the inglorious end of the Russo-Skorzenian War, were faced with what looked to be the beginning of a new era of peace. Even those few who feared war with Communist Russia at that point recognized that such a conflict would be fought with planes and atom bombs. The era of the tank, and of conventional warfare in general, was ending.
The Army tweaked the designs and rushed their own version of the P 1500 into production anyway. Why? Because it was the biggest tank in the world.
That tradition has continued, and the tanks have only grown larger, culminating in the modern P 2000, with its total weight of two thousand tons dual 900 mm main guns, four 150 mm cannon turrets, and twenty 15 mm auto cannons. It is too large to be loaded on any ship, cannot pass mountain ranges, and can only be deployed in nations overseas after being completely dissassembled and shipped over on a heavy freighter. There are five hundred of them currently in use, with two hundred more expected to come on-line within the next decade.
And the Behemoth is only the largest of the Fraternity's tanks. The others in use range in size from the seventy-ton BT-67 Harry Lee (modeled after the American Abrams) to the five-hundred-ton BT-500 Soldier Ant (with a 300 mm main gun capable of firing small atomic warheads).
Between the time large-scale tank production was resumed in Skorzenia after the nuclear war in 1990 and the end of the Second Reconquista in 1996, the Armored Corps' petroleum consumption threw the national economy into crisis. In response, all tanks in service were modified to accept ethanol fuel.
Details on the special forces unit VANGUARD are classified. However, VANGUARD is responsible for security at the Skorzenian embassy in the US (currently the only Fraternity embassy), and those seen on guard duty are equipped with the MAR-17 and body armor used by Army officers, along with Skorzenia Arms 1911-type pistols.
It is now estimated that 500,000 proles starve to death every year because of the amount of corn converted to ethanol for Army use.
The Imperial Navy
While the Imperial navy includes two dozen destroyers and sixteen nuclear submarines, not to mention countless cutters for coastal defence, its centerpiece is the six Poseidon-class battle carriers. 2,500 feet long and displacing over 200,000 tons, they are the largest warships currently afloat.
Each Poseidon-class ship is a nuclear powered hybrid between a battleship and a supercarrier. The flight deck and runway are completely internal, with only one opening on the bow of the ship for aircraft to enter and leave. The upper deck is home to eight 20-inch guns, ten 12-inch guns, thirty five 5-inch guns, and one hundred fifty .50-caliber anti-aircraft guns, as well as two hundred Broadside cruise missile launchers.
The six Poseidon-class ships in service are: the Poseidon itself, the original prototype of the class, the Deus Ex Bellum, the Leviathan, the Minnow, the Machina Mortem, and the Pacificatrix.
Each carries seventy Valkyrie fighter-bombers, and up to twenty five Thunderbird tilt-rotor aircraft.
The Imperial navy makes limited use of conscripted prole sailors, but mostly relies on Fraternity members for technical maintenance and their officer corps. All aircraft pilots and mechanics are Fraternity members.
It is estimated that 200,000 proles starve to death every year because of the Navy's ethanol consumption.
Imperial Air Force
The Imperial Air Force is, after the Army's Armored Corps, the place where the Skorzenian obsession with horsepower and firepower comes to the fore. Requiring educated and skilled personnel, it is composed entirely of Fraternity members.
The Imperial Air Force's primary fighter, the MR-12 Valkyrie, has the worst fuel efficiency and shortest operational range of any fighter currently in use in the world, and is also the most expensive. On the other hand, it is also the fastest and most heavily armed.
The primary bomber of the Imperial air force, the HA-3 Mjolnir, is likewise the most expensive and inefficient bomber in use. It does, however, have a much longer operational range, as it was designed to be capable of bombing China, Vietnam, North Korea, and any other Communist nation in the world. It also has the heaviest payload of any bomber in service.
The Steel Fraternity's atomic ICBM program is simultaneously one of the best- and worst-kept secrets in the world. One of the best-kept because operational security and secrecy is incredibly tight, with absolutely no information leaked, and the addition of nuclear silos to Fraternity bunkers was kept completely incognito. One of the worst-kept because when the Empire signed a nuclear non-proliferation treaty while repairing relations with the US in 2001, exactly no-one in the world believed them.
It is estimated that 300,000 proles starve to death every year because of the Air Force's ethanol consumption.
The Steel Paladins
If the Behemoth is the crown jewel of the Armored Corps, the Steel Paladins are the crown jewel of the whole military.
Where the rest of the military is one long love song to gasoline, artillery, and heavy vehicles, the Steel Paladins are a love song to high technology and advanced weaponry.
Each and every Paladin is a Fraternity Adept with at least two doctorates in hard science and engineering. Members do not volunteer, but are instead observed from afar, selected by a board of current Paladin commanders, and offered a chance to compete for entrance. Candidates are either chosen from those who have just completed their second qualifying doctorate or from veterans of VANGUARD. They are then either put through VANGUARD training or a doctorate program (depending on which they lack) before being put through the Sieve.
The Sieve is a fifty-mile course through the jungle and mountain wilderness of backwater Skorzenia which candidates must navigate with only a knife, map, and compass, in under seventy-two hours. Along the way they are opposed by Army conscripts who have been told to guard various pillboxes scattered along the route.
The Paladin candidate must enter each pillbox and retrieve a trinket inside a locker within. They must also bring at least a dozen conscripts' scalps to the end of the route.
After all this, candidates' times will be compared, and those who completed the course the most quickly is allowed to join the elite unit.
From here, the trainees are put through the actual Paladin training, focused on the specialized tactics necessary for fighting in power armor and independent operation behind enemy lines. Following training, each man or woman is inducted and implanted with their neural link, a data port that connects directly to the brain for interface with their armor. Finally, the newly minted Paladins are allowed to build their armor. This is why doctorates are required; each Paladin builds his own set of powered armor. Each suit must fit a certain set of specifications, but there is a high degree of customization.
Every suit must be capable of withstanding direct hits from anything smaller than an anti-tank round, be independently powered, and include jumpjets that allow the Paladin to make up to five-hundred yard "hops." Actual flight is impossible, since the suits are too heavy for prolonged flying.
Each suit is also a fully-sealed environment suit capable of resisting radiation and poison gas, and every helmet includes an informational uplink that downloads communications and tactical information to a Paladin's neural link.
Many Paladins implant blades (fixed or powered) in their armor, and some even put lasers on their suits, but the primary weaponry of the Steel Paladins comes in the form of standardized weaponry separate from their armor. This ranges from personal miniguns to tactical atomic missile launchers (very rare and only used for bunker-busting), but the standard load-out for a Paladin is as follows:
1) .75 caliber minigun with 20,000 round ammo drum underslung (can only be lifted by armored Paladin).
2) 20-round automatic sidearm chambered for .700 Nitro Express rounds, ten extra magazines.
3) 15-round automatic 40 mm grenade launcher, three extra magazines.
4) Five shaped C-4 charges for demolition and anti-vehicle use.
The Paladins are usually deployed to the field in Thunderbird tiltrotor aircraft (essentially Ospreys the size of Chinooks). They stack up in the aircraft's bay like paratroopers, then jump out and use their jump jets to control descent and landing. They are usually used to surgically strike vital targets ahead of the main army's advance, or to slow advancing enemy forces. Between one and ten Paladins might be assigned to hit any one target, depending on its defenses.
The Steel Paladins are the single most advanced, heavily armed, ungodly expensive, and utterly impractical special forces unit in the world.
Their powered armor is so heavy that a combat-ready Paladin cannot enter a normal building without crashing through the floor, they cannot operate in swampy environments at all as they would immediately sink into the mire, and rainy or wet conditions seriously hinder them as they are easily mired in mud.
Their tactics are totally reliant on mobility and use of jumpjets, as their armor is heavy enough to shrug off small-arms fire, but a single solid hit with an anti-armor weapon will reduce a Paladin to mush. If their jumpjets are damaged, they are left very slow-moving on the ground and a relatively easy target (though still much harder to hit than a tank, so there's something). Operating in heavily forested areas restricts them entirely to moving on foot as they cannot jumpjet through close trees, so they must advance slowly and carefully right alongside the cannon fodder.
Further, the horrendous expense of Paladins makes them essentially not worth the effort. They may represent the smartest and most physically capable members of the entire Fraternity, but educating, training, equipping, and deploying a single Paladin costs as much as building a Behemoth tank or fielding an entire brigade of conscripts.
And between their monumental cost and extreme selectiveness, there are very few Paladins to go around; only ten thousand in the entire military. The long time required for education and training further means that new Paladins can only be inducted at an extremely slow pace. Should they need to expand their ranks or make up for heavy attrition, it might take decades.
People and Population
Steel Fraternity Members: 18,000,000
Non-Members: Unkown; Estimated approximately 180 million
Median Age: Fraternity: 35
Non-Fraternity: 25
Net Migration Rate: Fraternity: -0.03%
Non-Fraternity: Unknown. Many try to flee, but the Fraternity makes great efforts to prevent that, and periodically
raids neighboring nation for children.
Life Expectancy at Birth: Fraternity: 95.7 years
Non-Fraternity: Unknown, Estimated 45 years
Ethnic Groups: Fraternity: White: 45%
Latino (generally thought of as white within the Fraternity): 30%
Black: 20%
Asian: 5%
Non-Fraternity: Unknown, Estimated Approximately 50% Latino, 50% White
Religions: Fraternity: The Scientific Church of Christ (45%)
Other Protestant Denominations (10%)
Catholic (5%)
Atheist (30%)
Other/Undecided (10%)
Non-Fraternity: Unknown, Estimated Nominal Catholic (90%), but the Fraternity does not allow entrance by clergy.
Languages: Fraternity: English
Non-Fraternity: Portuguese/Spanish/English pidgin
Adult Literacy: Fraternity: 100%
Non-Fraternity: Unknown, Estimated <5%
Communications
Number of Televisions: 20 million
Number of radios: 25 million
Number of Telephones: 30 million
Number of Cell Phones: 27 million
Internet Users: 18 million
