Monday, April 1, 2013

The Business

I actually thought about trying to keep everyone's spirits up by doing an April Fool's post today, but I checked it off as a bad idea. Big K was weirdly for it.

But today I watched friends and people I consider family leave our home, and I just can't find it in me to joke around. They're just the first wave of volunteers, but given the scope of the threat coming our way sending them out in constant groups of ten or twelve to keep up a steady flow of reinforcements might be the only real path to victory. Big movements are more easily spotted.

I'm worried for everyone, of course, but I'm done appealing to the better angels of our enemies' nature. It's not that I don't want them to choose a different way--I do--or that I expect every single one of them to follow orders and slaughter our people indiscriminately--I don't--but I've said time and again that when it comes down to the moment of truth, I will give no quarter.

Well, my friends and family are going to be out there fighting for their lives and our safety very soon, and while I hope to see mass defections from the UAS or at least soldiers who refuse to invade without purpose, I don't want to cast any doubt in the minds of my fellow Union citizens. We can maintain our compassion and humanity while also doing what we have to do. Which, in this instance, means killing the people bent on killing or conquering us.

Now that I say that, I do want to bring up a larger point: what is this war about? I don't mean on our part; as it is with the zombie plague, so it is with the UAS aggressors. Survival, plain and simple. No, what I wonder is whether this whole thing is still about controlling and unifying the country under the UAS banner, or if it has devolved into simple revenge. The war in Iraq comes to mind when I think about the situation, given how badly it was bungled and how thin the justifications for it ended up being. Some of them nonexistent, actually.

I have to question the leadership of the UAS for embarking on a war of conquest, if that's what it is, enacted purely through the application of force. Granted, the UAS has tried to entice some people in (one of our communities even joined up) but overall I'd say their efforts have been for form's sake at best. Maybe I'm just especially dense, but I can't stop wondering why open conflict is their method of choice.

It has been established that the UAS has more land than they can possibly utilize for the next twenty years, so it's not about needing space. They have the southern oil reserves and surely the capacity to refine it into new fuel, so it's not about gas. They're clearly better armed than we are. All of that adds up to petty revenge in my mind, and that's just....well, stupid. No one is that stupid.

So maybe there's some mystery there. I mean, even faced with the UAS invading us right now, the Union still has hundreds of groups out there trying to thin and redirect the massive swarms of zombies drifting across our territory. The UAS is choosing to attack people who have the guts to take on 100-1 (or worse) odds fighting the undead. There is no quaking fear left in us, only healthy survival instinct. I've heard zombie body counts in the thousands as teams move around setting traps and sculpting the landscape to send the undead where we want them.

It's driving me crazy not knowing why the UAS would dream of coming after people who've come so close to being able to really live in a world of the dead. We're clearly capable of handling almost any amount of the undead given enough time to prepare (like Batman, who could beat anyone with planning) and are not afraid to defend ourselves.

We're kind of badass. There's really no other way to say it. Three years of practice have made each and every survivor in the Union a killing machine when it comes to zombies, and we don't hesitate if you threaten us and manage to have a pulse when you do it. Look at the history of the world, and you'll see a litany of examples where larger invading forces lost on the offensive, because defending a position is much, much easier. Too, you will notice that open warfare versus guerrilla tactics tends to end up about even, but that in extended campaigns guerrilla organizations can usually keep up the fight while ridiculously outnumbered.

And yeah, the UAS outnumbers us, but it's not by much.

Whatever the motivation, the point is now moot. We're in a state of war on the ground, and no matter the driving force, we're in it to win it. Or die trying, but that's the business of survivors, isn't it?

1 comment:

  1. While not particularly related to the current conflict, I thought I should share something our little group has recently rigged up so that we don't have to keep every avenue of approach under contstant surveilance against the walkers.
    I'm sure that everyone has seen hundreds of fire extinguishers over the last 3 years, but it wasn't until we were supply-hunting that we encountered an extinguisher recharge machine that the idea came to one of us.
    Pressurized ammonia dispersal.
    By attaching a sheet of MDF as a "pressureplate" to the trigger of the extinguisher, you've got an ammonia spray that can be left for weeks or months before it needs recharging. We are experimenting with tripwire triggers and irrigation pipes to extend the effective range of each extinguisher, but with hundreds around, we're not too worried about it yet.

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