[Earth] “District, No More” Asks Vietnamese

"District, No More” Asks Vietnamese

by Anita Wu, Vox Populi

EARTH - Placards, posters, and pickets have defined life just outside the the Alliance’s regional administrative zone in the port city of Haiphong, the center of SATAE’s provisional authority in Vietnam. Every day, the thirty nine soldiers guarding its’ single checkpoint look out at an ever-growing crowd of students, veterans, and nationalists waving signs boldly condemning Hackett, condemning the Systems Alliance, and demanding that SATAE’s military administration in the region be disintegrated.

“No one was asked. No one was consulted,” said an anonymous former civil servant, as he aired out his frustrations with Vox Populi. “Vietnam liberated Vietnam. When the Reapers came, the Alliance did not rescue us. When we fought, we fought for a nation, and as a nation. On our own blood, sweat, and tears. And when the war came to an end, it was only then that the Alliance came with troops and tanks, and only then to make our decisions for us - to unmake the nation we thought we were fighting for.”

Despite that, the Alliance has not budged; and business continues as usual, unmoved by mounting discontent just outside the gates of the city’s administrative zone and throughout the former nation.

“I know how they must feel, and it’s regrettable, but we can’t just pack up and leave. Hanoi is still a complete mess, and we’re still pulling out bodies from Ho Chi Minh City. Expecting them to recover without Alliance resources is insane,” said Staff Commander Nguyen Quan when asked for a statement.

“They keep saying five more years, five more years. Why do we need to wait?” Phan Thị Yin complained - a veteran of the Reaper War, who’d spent five months engaged in the costly urban war in Hanoi. A war she firmly believes was fought by the Vietnamese People’s Army. “Why should we believe them? They think we’re children, unable to take responsibility for ourselves, unable to make our own decisions. Every day, people wake up, look out their apartment and they don’t see Haiphong, they see a district. If we want to go it alone, why should they stop us?”

You mean the Eden Prime governor who refused Earthling immigration or aid, equating them with Reapers?

Discrimination is alright as long as it's those filthy Earthlings. I mean seriously. They might make the colonies Earthier. It's a contagious disease I say!

As I said, being an asshole isn't a crime, if it was, we'd be in the same prison froggy.

Speak for yourself, Snow. :[

Okay, here I have to admit defeat – mostly because I cannot for the life of me see things from your perspective. You see, had any salarian politician with such tiny political inertia tried that stunt, they would have been replaced in half the time it took for Governor Hat to leave. Make an idiotic enough, bass-ackwards enough announcement to the galaxy at large, particularly in the immediate face of galactic reconstruction, and your own clan will feed you to your enemies.

So good job, Snow, you “win” that point. Enjoy the victory.

What? Gov Stetson doing right by the people that ELECTED him? A dick move, but it was that or the 'bend over and take it routine'. You're right froggy, he is a menace by that standard. Just glad that the Primers are rediscovering their balls.

Bloody hell, your sarcasm is so irritating. You stick around speaking in a smartassed tone while offering no damned alternatives.
No, you're content with running the government's name through the gunk on the extranet. You're like a teenage boy that refused to grow up.

If we're getting into prostitute language, then "doing that" was worse as it is the emergency-aid equivalent of whispering sweetly that you're a walking STI plague. You know, after "bending over and taking it."

It was a toxic, suicidal move, and instead of "going turian" on them like you're so paranoid they'll do, they turned the situation into one that is (though you may not be able to see it) mutually beneficial.

Mutually beneficial? Have you even been on the colonies? People are pissed that SATAE is raping the colonies for all they're worth, and expect to be thanked for it. Hell, on Benning Alliance marines don't dare frequent colonial bars. Not as publicised as Eden Prime, but every bit as tense.

You're really going for the Alliance is evul!11! aren't you?

I was more referring to your paranoia that we are for some EVUL reason going to orbitally bomb our own colonies. And 'sides, guess what? hate-speech is a crime. It's inciting violence against Earthers.

And true, there's some tensions. I've had a few people think about going at me when in bars, but they are a small minority. I've had Eden Primeans thank me for what we're doing. Even the majority of those upset with us don't think we're 'raping' them.

Seriously mate?

Half my job is handing out supplies to Primeans who lost a lot during the war or sending out patrols to keep the streets safe. None of that is oppression in any shape or form. If we were oppressors, do you reall think we'd allow people to protest outside our compounds? Allow the press to trash talk us?

Look into history. If we were serious about the dictatorship, we'd be crushing resistance by gagging the media and dispersing any sort of protest.

For someone with nearly four times my lifespan, you seriously need to learn about the "long-term."

Yeah, it was crazy when the Vietnamese army built the crucible, pushed through London to get troops on the Citadel then took on the reaper fleet until it fired!

About Hackett I don't worry about him giving back the power after 5 years (by now it's 3 more years to go by the way). I can't see how he would want to keep watch over the fraking whiny short-term seeing spoiled children we are. The only question is, will he give us all the finger before he retires in a remote asari island or not.

@Mr Snow : Alright, so you're commander in chief, and you learn that one of the colonies decided that the supplies you were asking of them that were on their way to allow dozens of millions people to survive would stop coming, and that their new policy about all those starving people they very well could help was "Well, sucks to be you". Of course other colonies could follow in their wake, escalating drastically the prospective death toll. What do?

Maybe they think you just really suck at being a dictatorship.

Yes, because the Vietnamese were totally aware that this was going on. I think the sentiment is pretty clear: they didn't get any material aid from the Alliance, fought for their country on the presumption that they were fighting for their country and when Alliance aid did come, it came after Vietnam suffered through a war that, as far as they were concerned, were fighting by themselves - and only then to impose yet another foreign military government that they don't have any voice in. Vietnam's history has practically been defined by domination by foreign powers for literal centuries. Legally, Vietnam doesn't even exist under SATAE's regime. It's a bloc of districts organized under a bunch of provinces organized under a bunch of regions. I don't see how anyone can be surprised by this sort of rhetoric by the strong sense of nationalism and desire for independence in the country. They've suffered for that desire for generations and generations, and no one has any trust that a 'provisional government' is going to stop being 'provisional' and no one feels like they owe the Alliance anything.

As an aside, I really hate the 'just wait five years' argument. I don't even care if the Alliance means what it says or not, because more important than anything is how much it kills discussion. Practically no one is interested in actually arguing the ethics because of classic deflection like 'it takes time' or 'it's called the Five Year Plan' for a reason, and the discussion moves onto dismissive rhetoric over how the media is unfairly representing the Alliance, how x group are just whining, high-fiving each other or laughing at the latest strawman. It's just the most brainless way to put down a debate.

Why don't you approve of protest anyways? If people don't start asking questions about the leadership, the leadership is going to be all the more convinced to turn the Five Year Plan to the Fifteen Year Plan to the Fifty Year Plan. These people, the media that you complain about so much in how unfairly they portray the Alliance play an important role in keeping eyes on the Alliance and making sure they remember the kind of ice they stand on. These questions should be out there. They should be asked. And they should be answered if the Alliance wants to hold onto moral authority as well as its' obvious military authority. Anything less tells me either you don't want to have to answer those questions, are unwilling, or just unable to do so without deferring the argument to some far-flung date that ensures you will never have to argue about it with that specific person for any reasonable amount of time.

It's boring and while the fact that one particular side on a extranet debate has a lease on a trump card for at least five years, has an appeal, I'm sure, it dooms any actual thoughtful discussion.

Here, I'll start: people for the Alliance object to colonies staking their own independence because the needs of the majority outweigh the needs of a minority. Thus policies like the 'net neutral colonial economy', funnel of resources towards the reconstruction of Earth, its' low tolerance for colonial autonomy, installation of a military government on Eden Prime, all of which is (incredibly) arguable but whatever, people have made good points in regards to it.

What happens when a country on Earth, one that post-war Alliance economic policy is centralized on, like, Vietnam (although it's pretty obvious where the priorities are) or any country or nationality (there is a lot of them, humanity is a mosaic), doesn't want all that aid from SATAE? Why should SATAE prevent them from forming their own countries? Why is SATAE preventing them? Because it's "for their own good"? Is this patronizing or not? Certainly, there are a great amount of people in Vietnam that stake a lot in their nationalism and their desire to see a 'Vietnam for Vietnam'? What's wrong with this? More importantly, if a country on Earth were to elect to cede from Alliance control, wouldn't that free up the resources that the Alliance has been funneling from the colonies and elsewhere towards countries that would prefer Alliance aid?

Or, y'know, 'we'll be proven right in four years so let's never ever talk about the ethics and motivations of one side or the other'.

How about that SATAE took over a terminus colony and is strangling it to death by illegally denying it access to its own resources?

How about that SATAE has forced every colony into 0 economic growth and is stealing our resources with no compensation?

How about Bloody Fucking Sunday?

How about ignoring every civilian request and protest made over the last two years?

SATAE is getting its name run through the dirt because SATAE is fundamentally pretty shit.


This is bullshit. If SATAE meant to give up power in three years then the yoke would be getting lighter. They wouldn't be beating the shit out of protestors and tightening the fucking yoke.


How about we start complaining if they start tightening the yoke, ignoring the populace and begin to act like an oppressive military junta-

Wait, they already did that.

Seriously, the turians literally nuked their own homeworld on a grand scale and they aren't doing half the shit that SATAE is.

Way I see it, people keep bringing up the Five Year Plan under the hope that the end scenario will be that the Alliance returns to its pre-war function where it served as a diplomatic and military representative for humanity, while everything else was relatively hands-off.

The thing is, I don't think that's the Alliance's intention. Yeah, they'll hand over power from the military back to a civilian government, but which civilian government? Granted, all I have to go here is regarding the Alliance having taken direct administration of the colonies and Earth states. But if there is a pattern emerging from all this, then what I think is happening here is that SATAE is not the "provisional government" its purported to be, but a transitional phase for the Alliance to become a more centralized government, one where the Parliament has much more of a say than colonies and sovereign nations, as opposed to being merely a supranational representative body.

In other words, a global government.

I understand why the SATAE is taking control of earth for five years - it now holds the capitol of the galaxy in its orbit, and the damage across the planet was so widespread that centralizing rebuilding efforts was the only logical option.

However, I certainly see where these Vietnamese people are coming from. In times of great stress, a return to tradition is completely expected. If the Vietnamese have a history of resisting occupation, resisting the Systems Alliance only makes sense.

I realize that this post was almost entirely pointless, but I just wanted to articulate my thoughts about the whole Individual Nation vs. Alliance debate. So, best efforts that this is resolved peacefully. Perhaps give the Vietnamese more regional power, even if it is ceremonial at best?

Cool, a puppet government with no real power and entirely subject to the whims and demands of a foreign superpower which holds it's strings while it pays lip service to it's ostensible independence. The Vietnamese have never heard that before.

By the way, your 'understanding' of the Vietnamese would be ridiculously offensive if you weren't an alien (if I'm assuming right). The implication that they're a bunch of idiots afraid of change and clinging to what they know under duress speaks for itself.

The Alliance is bloated, and if knuckledragger marines don't get that then fine. The only fruits the Alliance will reap are those grown from fields drenched in more bloodshed if they keep this up. It's pretty damn obvious that the "need" and "circumstances" following the completion of the Five-Year Plan will lead the Alliance to gain more and more control over the affairs of the colonies and Earth. People need to put up a fight to let the officials know they aren't as submissive as they were before the war.

Also, no shit SATAE isn't announcing it's intention to stake a claim on global management. You finalize the process of dictatorship after easing the populace into the "changes" the Alliance has made. If people don't want help, then don't force them. It's honestly not a hard question, but then again governments aren't known to respect sovereignty of those they control.

Frankly (and these are my personal opinions as a publicly Alliance affiliated individual so everyone this may offend take as much salt with it as you need to unbunch your panties) the way that I see the Alliance's actions is through the lens of simple practicality.

To go point by point:

What happens when a country on Earth, one that post-war Alliance economic policy is centralized on, like, Vietnam (although it's pretty obvious where the priorities are) or any country or nationality (there is a lot of them, humanity is a mosaic), doesn't want all that aid from SATAE?

Too bad (and yes I'm going to get to the actual explanation in later answers, right now I'm just being witty).

Why should SATAE prevent them from forming their own countries? Why is SATAE preventing them?

Honestly? Self interest and utilitarianism.

Either:

a. said nations do alright on their own, rebuild their country to their satisfaction, in which case the rest of the system is destabilized. SATAE is still largely tolerated by earth's population, mainly because there are enough people who feel that it works; that it's improving their quality of living (which, again my opinion, it is). If they see another nation succeed without the aid of SATAE suddenly the benefits provided to them by the administration look oh so much less impressive and the burdens so much more intolerable. They will also want to strike out on their own, to reestablish their own states, citing one or two other instances as precedents and, in doing so, utterly fail to take into account that what holds true for, say, Vietnam will not hold true for Russia or Great Britain. This brings me to eventuality

b. said nations fail. The result? Public outcry blaming SATAE for letting the country throw itself off the cliff, a media nightmare for the Systems Alliance that calls into question their stability and effectiveness, refugees pouring into administrative districts, regional instability, possible conflict, etc. etc. All necessitating the commitment of additional resources into cleaning up the mess due to the simple fact that, even if they formally declare it "No longer my problem", SATAE's position is precarious enough that they can't simply afford to ignore a humanitarian crisis right next door.

Either way SATAE loses. Either way they look weak which, in turn, impairs their ability to fulfill their necessary function; it limits the aid and structure they can bring to the nations who genuinely need and want it. Scattered discontent is preferable to the entire system falling apart.

Is this patronizing or not?
Yes. But again, it's my view that, above all, this remains a necessary evil.

More importantly, if a country on Earth were to elect to cede from Alliance control, wouldn't that free up the resources that the Alliance has been funneling from the colonies and elsewhere towards countries that would prefer Alliance aid?
Ostensibly yes, but in reality I think that said resources would quickly be sapped by maintaining an increasingly strained system rather than be freed to devote to more receptive regions.



...Okay first things first.

SATAE (the Systems Alliance Transitional Administration on Earth, yes that would be Earth the planet) is not the entirety of the SA. Granted this is a minor, nagging, point but seriously people? Not exactly difficult to grasp.

And second things second,

1. Governments seizing valuable and potentially potent ancient tech before every other power in the area can do the exact same thing? How shocking. I am shocked. Seriously, this is my shocked face.
2. Cut a deal with a private entity for future concessions on your part in turn for immediate aid if the current situation is so unbearable.
3. Yes, underarmed Systems Alliance marines clashing with rioters on a colony that had gone out of its way to provoke the garrison before. More "Boston Massacre" than "Purge of Yal Ordi" frankly but I'll give you the catchy name.
4. There is a subtle, but distinct, difference between "I'm ignoring your request because I could not care less about the suffering of mere plebeians" and "I cannot fulfill that request because it would hamper our overall effectiveness".


Edit:
Criticizing the Alliance for hypothetical "bloodshed" in one sentence while advocating violent revolution in the next.

You are adorable.