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Gallan Motors Corporation 'Antelope' Armored Security Vehicle (ASV), City of Hyssna Metropolitan Police Department, KRASH Team
Antelope ASV Mark III with a .60-caliber machine gun during the CaTS raid, A.D. 2080.
In the aftermath of the Dorestad Incident, the Gallic National Police Service found itself overwhelmed and undermanned to handle the problem of local city concerns. Bolstered by martial law, and with manpower provided by the conscription of "anyone who can stand", the NPS and the Home Guard worked together during the Alarian War to maintain some modicum of productivity. However, this would be inadequate going into the reconstruction phase, and the NPS found itself re-rolled as an administrative and standards agency rather than an operational field force under the Instrument of Government of 2053. In Gallic historiography, this marks the end of the Alarian War, although the actual combat phases of the war had been terminated for nearly two weeks at the time of its announcement in December of 2053.
Under the IG53, the NPS was responsible for maintaining the cybernetic police commandos of the Public Security Service, the uniformed detectives and Special Assault Teams of the SÄST, and the military police of the Royal Guard. In its official capacity, the NPS assists the now local and municipal police forces of the Gallic state in the arrest of criminals and liquidation of "terrorists, subversives, and anti-social elements" with these four organs, concentrated primarily in the three most major urban areas of Metropolitan Gallia: Hyssna, Kiruna, and Kivik. As part of this, the largest metropolitan police agencies received massive funding increases from local tax collection, allowing them to procure advanced weapons and equipment from lists provided by the NPS. New models of internal security vehicles, once exclusive to the wartime Home Guard and their peacetime cousins in the Constabulary, trickled into the urban areas that survived the nuclear exchange. Poorer urban areas often had to make do with the hand-me-downs of the wartime forces, refitting nearly hundred-year old
Patgb 95s with commercial bus engines when possible, and equipping strike teams with surplus automatic rifles.
The Metropolitan Police Department is different. Hyssna MPD belongs to the most prosperous of the Gallic cities, having near fully recovered to pre-war standards of living within a decade, and is fully capable of flexing its prodigious muscle throughout its demesne. The KRASH (yn.
Communal Resources for Attacking anti-Social Hooligans) unit of the HMPD is second only to the Home Guard in its prowess in crushing urban riots, and when pitted against corporate or foreign influence, or anti-social elements, is second only to the Army itself. Organized as a joint operations unit of the HMPD and the NPS, the KRASH team incorporates the NPS's cybernetic Special Assault Teams, SMASK (yn.
Special Militaresque Assault Forces Command) special weapons teams, and (rarely)
the battlesuits of the Royal Army's Ranger regiments. Formed in the aftermath of the Pihl Tunnel Incident of 2076, where a makeshift cybertank nearly liquidated a SMASK response team to a man and killed almost two dozen officers of the HMPD during a three hour rampage, KRASH teams allow the HMPD to tackle the problem of heavily armed criminal elements before they grow too large.
First stood up in 2078, HMPD KRASH's baptism by fire occurred in 2080 when corporate security troops, attempting to cover up several illicit financial transactions regarding a Port Authority automated forklift scheme, botched the simultaneous assassinations of three kingpins of the Hyssna Gunsmiths' Guild, International Association of Alarian Firefighters - Gallia (IAAFF-G), and the Programmers' Guild. In a series of somewhat unbelievable events, all three union leaders survived their assassination attempts, and were qualified to testify after major reconstructive surgeries (a cyberbrain transplant from a bullet-riddled body to a full prosthetic; full facial transplant and laryngeal prosthetic, as well as skin grafts over 40% of the burned body; and replacement of paraplegic lower legs with a detachable mechanized mobility unit). Investigation led to Lao Electronics Ltd. DBA Cybertronics and Technical Specialists, Incorporated (CaTS, Inc.), which had a large office in the Port of Hyssna. After being ordered to serve a warrant to recover the datavaults contained within the building, local police were rebuffed by aggressive actions by the armed corporate police forces, including a medium machine gun, submachine guns, and several rifle grenades. An assault team of KRASH, comprising a AMV 'POP' section (3 tanks), a singular AMV 'Antlion', SAT cyborg assault team, and three SMASK squads in 'Antelope' armored cars, which eventually brought the corpo cops under control and secured a majority of the datavault's contents. The supposed wrongdoing of the union leaders, brought as the main legal defense by CaTS, led to a further investigation that resulted in the internal ouster of the Programmers' Guild's union president, forced retirement of the IAAFF president, and the disappearance of the Gunsmithing Guild's president under mysterious circumstance, all due to pending financial misconduct investigation from the Crown Attorney's Office.
Craft-built Ambulance, Duchy of Virdois, Peninsular Gallia, A.D. 2097
Ambulance of the Special Administrative Region of Virdois of the Principality of Gallia.
Not to be confused with:
Virdois (country).
The metropolitan cities of Gallia, with the exception of the Chtimi SAR, remained largely politically homogeneous in the aftermath of the Alarian War. The same cannot be said for Peninsular Gallia, which over the decades has become fractious and politically disunited. The Free Territories, although nominally part of Gallia, are a de facto independent collection of despotisms, anarchists, cults, and city-states which exist in a constant flux of lawlessness and civil warfare. South of this zone lies the Sapmi Republic, a loyal but ethnically homogeneous region of the Sami peoples, with the primary demarcation between this and "proper" Peninsular Gallia being the Duchy of Blaahuslan: a fairly backwards quasi-feudal state in its own right.
The Duchy of Virdois represents a similar transitional area between Peninsular Gallia and the Kingdom of Vepsia. Again, both in ethnic-national and political boundaries, and in technology itself. Under the Instrument of Government of 2053, Gallic leaders were granted some manner of autonomous rule from the national government. Now,
de facto federalized yet
de jure unitary, Damocles' Sword of "civil warfare" hangs over the monarch. Organized as boroughs, counties, duchies, and lands rather than towns, districts, provinces, and regions as in the preceding IG 1907, the new organization brought back feudalistic titles to go with the autonomy, and the majority of regions are organized with single figureheads. Every officer of government from count to grand duke attends to the court of the prince when they are called.
Naturally, this has led to an increase in wealth disparity, as some leaders prefer to pilfer wealth rather than invest it, c'est la vie.
Although the "cozy city on the sea" retains its rustic charms, the outskirts are oft miserable. Warm and wet in spring and summer, cold and wet in Winter. Much of the population lives without electricity, even to this day, and in a chronic state of fear of Socialist invasion by the Verdant Army across the border. During the closing of the Alarian War, "ultranationalist hooligans" of the Union State marched across the border, instigating a low-level nuclear exchange between the UZR and Gallia that lasted for nearly a month, and saw the destruction of an entire SSR and Field Army's respective worth of armored vehicles. Millions of refugees, seeking shelter in the north from the atom-blasted insular heartland, found themselves fleeing south to Virdois, or briefly into Vepsia, until the latter imposed strict border controls using automatic weapons and mortars.
Now, escarped around a city whose pre-war population barely exceeded 100,000, the small duchy found itself needing to feed nearly a million mouths. Food rapidly dwindled, and with the Free Territories in the south and west, the Vepsians to the east, and the mangled remains of the Gallic Third Army in the north (now, rather presumptively, calling itself the "Provisional Reconstruction Authority"), there was precious little of it to go around. Rumors of cannibalism, always present even into the decades after the war, give the image of a city of ghouls waiting to devour the precious thing they've surrounded, were it not for their inability to move due to lack of calories and emaciated bodies. The truth is somewhat harsher: Virdois employs these meek indigents as
de facto slave laborers to exploit economic resources surrounding them, often exporting iron and importing fresh food for the Third Army. The rail junction, maintained by the better educated and categorized indigents, is often seen as a pathway to success for the poorest of the Duchy. Due to its necessity as a economic pipeline, being the only port on the Vepsian Sea that the Provisional Reconstruction Authority has direct access to, these railroad technicians often receive "premium" housing, typically upgrading from a shanty to communal barracks with indoor heating and electric showers, or a shared two-family condominium-type home.
Given land for a closet-sized shanty in the maze of rickety wooden, tin, and steel structures simply for arriving, albeit huddled around burning barrels, and often found eating "bread" made from maize or rye flour and melted snow, the majority of Virdois lives in crushing poverty. Evidenced by this, however, is a certain level of resourcefulness. These scrappy, hard people living by their work alone, who constitute the largest, most densely populated northern city in Gallia, have become the subject of romantic art in neo-Impressionist paintings and naturalistic melodrama films. As a result, pressure on the Duke of Virdois to improve their living standards has grown, although this seems unlikely to occur provided there is economic incentive or pressure. Virdois's primary income, aside from its trade, is from its status as a Special Exemption Zone from H.M. Customs and Excise allowing for exceptionally low tax rates, functioning as an "interior tax haven" for Hyssnite and Kirunite trillionaires.
The ambulance depicted is typical of the povertous countryside of Virdois, being a cart converted from spare automobile parts by local artisans, and pulled by one or more "oxen". These oxen are most often draught animals, such as the Gallan Genetics Aurox® Highland GMO cattle. Rarely, they are recovered robotic units such as the Gallan Cybernetics' Big Box®, as in this case. The latter were usually found in old military depots in the outlying areas of the Free Territories, although as these have grown increasingly scarce they are more often imported, or found in scrapyards, nowadays. There is typically sufficient room for an attendant, driver, and paramedic, doctor or shotgun, and one or two emergency litters. Vehicle speed with draught oxen is around 6 miles per hour, while ordinary vehicle speed with robotic oxen is closer to 10 mph, on average. A small
Alarian Motors Corporation 'Gremlin' Firefighting Vehicle, H.M. Forestry Service, Peninsular Gallia, A.D. 2074
'Gremlin' high mobility rescue vehicle, H.M. Forestry Service, A.D. 2074.
Prior to the Alarian War, a number of high-speed tracklayers were procured by the Border Guard Troops (Graansvakt) and Forestry Service for purposes of patroling and high speed mobility. Based on a high-speed robotic tracklayer, developed by the defunct Alarian Motors Corporation for the Royal Army, and used in the Alarian War in a variety of roles. The Gremlin was the firefighting rescue variant.
Other versions were the gun carrier 'Goblin', the Forestry Service utility/park warden vehicle 'Gnome', and the Graansvakt utility/radar carrier 'Gancanagh'. Due to the alliterative nature of the AMC naming scheme, they were known as the "G-wagon", due to their tracklaying nature.
The Gremlin depicted is in service with one of the H.M. Forestry Service's rural fire departments, and remains so today nearly five decades after the Alarian War, typically sustained on surplus parts acquired from the Royal Army stockpiles. Many G-wagons had been liquidated due to the imminent introduction of the Type 72 Autonomous Mobile Vehicle (AMV) in the 70's, resulting in a surge of spare tracks and mobility components.
