Kalistan

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Empress Discusses National Service and current affairs
"We are attempting to complete our degree" says Her Imperial Majesty
Geothermal Station 14, Green Mountains, Grand Duchy of Ananto
July 16, 5693


C1C, Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Carolina II Ananto is as studious as she is industrious

Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Carolina II Ananto, officially designated Conscript First Class in the NSP, welcomed The Republic to her station at Geothermal Station 14 high on Mt. Schmee in Ananto to discuss her plans for the next two years and beyond. Official protocols for addressing the Empress are for the most part waived by law during National Service, and in this environment, it seems Her Imperial Majesty was more relaxed than under the few normal informal audiences she has held since reaching her majority almost exactly two years ago.

(The Republic's) A(nnie) S(iboney): I want to make sure that I note for the record that Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Carolina II Ananto, has chosen to waive the House Laws on addressing Her Imperial Majesty. She has opted to maintain pronoun usage for herself, but has asked me to address her directly, as I would the Princess Regent. And throughout the remainder of the interview, I will address her by her NSP rank, which is Conscript Ananto, for the record, and not her informal style.

(Her Imperial Majesty, Empress) C(arolina II) A(nanto): Yes, this is correct, it is exactly as we have requested.

AS: Conscript Ananto, first of all, it is a treat to meet you.

CA: Thank you. Everyone tells us this. It is a pleasure to meet you as well.

AS: First I have to ask: You have not been in National Service for two full years yet. And yet you have been promoted, meritoriously, I believe, to C1C early. How did you earn your meritorious promotion?

CA: Oh well, getting promoted to C1C was a very proud moment for us. We were promoted just a month and a half ago, so, so we are just a couple months ahead. But in our case, we were promoted for setting an example for the other Conscripts regarding off duty education.

AS: Could you tell our readers a bit about that?

CA: As all your readers, over 22 we suppose, know, the National Service Program makes off duty education available for conscripts, who want to go to school while they do their national service. Most of the conscripts do not ever take advantage of that program. We believe they intend to either go to school after NSP, or not at all, or maybe they want to go learn a trade which is not related to their job or something. But it was always our intention to take credits while we did our National Service. We are attempting to complete our degree before we leave the Service, and up here, there's not a lot to do. So we have taken the opportunity to go to school when the work day is done and study on the weekends and are about done with 38 Credit Hours.

AS: So Your Majesty was promoted for completing so many credits?

CA: Oh. No. We guess being so remote as we are up here, conscripts like to waste their off time doing things that are kind of harmful to morale, things like getting drunk and gambling their winnings and fighting and things like that. But Station 14 is special: We were acknowledged for having 95% of our base's conscripted and enlisted strength enrolled in off duty education. We were able to convince our other conscripts and also our shop Commissioners to take classes. And now four of us conscripts are on the path to complete our degrees before we even get out of the Service. That's pretty unheard of. The Battalion Commander was so impressed with the enrollments and the numbers that he not only promoted us, but also began requiring one off duty course every six months of all the Conscripts.

AS: Conscript Ananto, what will you get your degree in?

CA: We are excited to report that we will have a bachelors' degree in Philosophy when we complete the NSP in just about two years, if we can pass our classes.

AS: I am sure that will inspire a lot of people coming through the NSP.

CA: That is our hope. We were blessed with a good mind and have no desire to waste our time. There are numerous responsibilities waiting for us when we are mustered out of Service, so even though we work very hard each day, both at our job, and also to keep up with our studies, this will be the easy part. The hard work starts when we leave service.

AS: For our foreign readers, can you tell them the difference between a C2C and a C1C?

CA: Sure. We all enter Service at the rank of Conscript Second Class. We go through basic training, where we learn a kind of modified regimental discipline and professionalization. All the soft skills that will serve us not only in our National Service, but out in the world. Things like how to keep our areas tidy, personal hygiene, how to report to meetings on time, how to endure through things that are just hard and will make one want to give up. We also get the opportunity to practice confidence and discipline to overcome obstacles and challenges that they put in front of us. We learn to think as a unit, we learn to get rid of our individuality, we get broken down through physical conditioning, and we get built back up into a sense of community and unit cohesion. This not only serves us in the NSP, but also forms the basis of our society. We move together, we eat together, we sleep together, we shower together, we suffer together. All to build the notion of a unit and devalue the notion of the individual. Everyone is the same rank, everyone is miserable together and fails or succeeds together.

Most conscripts will remain C2Cs throughout their time in and that's fine. The C1Cs are kind of our bosses: They work with the Shop Commissioners, and execute directives. They get to lead maybe 14 Conscripts. Most C1Cs pick it up after 2 years, but the most recent 365 days has to be incident free. This teaches attention to detail and discipline and meticulousness in execution. And it is pretty easy to mess up and get an incident. Nobody is perfect, and most people get an incident pretty quick: they're late for something, they miss something, they break something, they don't ask questions or take responsibility... those are all difficult to avoid. It doesn't really count against their service, they just don't end up with 365 days of no incidents, and each time they have an incident, they start the promotion clock over again. After 1 year, the clock starts, and then if they have a year of "good behavior" or no incidents, they will pick up C1C.

We get about 50 Imperial more a month and C1Cs don't have to share a room in the Barracks, but there is also more responsibility, because while the C2Cs have two Conscripts per room, that means there are 2 people to clean, while C1Cs not only have to clean their own room weekly and have it be spotless, but also oversee the C2Cs' cleaning and the oversee the common areas cleaning as well. This is what the NSP asks of its leaders. And the Weekly barracks cleaning has to be done before we can secure for the weekend. The Commissioner will come through and spot any little problem and then, that's an incident... We gotta fix the problem and whoever got the incident, the clocks starts over for them... The C1Cs can get incidents too, but when it comes time to muster out, the only people who can go career are the C1Cs who have another year before their muster out date of no incidents. So the Commissioners are the best of the best... it's really very strict.

AS: Yeah, well, as you said, you almost can't screw up at all or you stay a C2C. If you are never interested in getting promoted, that's fine. I never got promoted the entire time I was in the NSP. And I got out a slick collar.

CA: No shame at all. We were not expecting to be promoted our own selves. But this sort of life really is just a game really, and we figured out how to play it so we can do our time and get on with our lives. But if we didn't have another job waiting for us, we might consider going career. But this is really good work up here. We do our job on our shift, and then we go home. There's nothing like what we hear of other regiments doing where they have to do their shifts are weird hours or have to work out in the elements year round, or work in hot kitchens. Working up here, the only problem is that is it freezing cold and icy and snowy about 4 months of the year and can be thick fog any day of the year. But we work inside and the walk between work and the barracks and the messhall is thankfully very short.

AS: Conscript Ananto, I am sure you have been following world events even up here on the Mountain. Do you have any comments on things that are going on in Kalistan Proper or the world in general?

CA: We are very pleased at the work that our Government is doing with regard to the criminals in Sulari and in Port Swedes. Perhaps you can confirm: was that fellow who was stealing whole shipping containers full of stuff in Port Elga, and selling what he found out the back of a truck, was he ever caught?

AS: Danielovich...

CA: Yes him. We were particularly interested in that case.

AS: Madame, he was just convicted yesterday as a matter of fact.

CA: Ah, yes that guy was quite bold. We can easily see a day in our Nation where the movie companies make movies about some of these exploits. It boggles the mind how much these people were stealing and just getting away with, for so many years...

AS: Do you endorse the methods they have employed in fighting crime in Kalistan Proper?

CA: We would like our Aunt, the Princess Regent, to let up on the more harsh policing methods they are using in Sulari and Port Swedes. Some of the violations of civil rights some of the activists are complaining about are troubling. But we have, we think, correctly left that timing and the quickness to roll back the qualified immunity provisions to the Regent and the Chancellor: They have a better idea of what the situation is on the ground, and they are working with the Sulari Free City Government to determine which of those police powers are appropriate to roll back and when. While we are in National Service, we are willing to trust those who are governing in our name and doing our work for us in Kaliburg, because they are more experienced and have much better information than we do.

AS: Conscript Ananto: I can tell you the people of Sulari would appreciate it if you communicated your reservations about the police powers directly to the Chancellor and the Regent. I have heard the word "tyrant" circulating among some I've interviewed for different stories: Like, you are up here kept incommunicado while your government is trampling on the liberties of your people, and I think a direct statement from you would be very welcomed.

CA: We understand what you are asking us, Ms. Siboney. And we are troubled by this, but we also wish to state that neither our Aunt nor our Chancellor should be referred to as a "tyrant". As you know, the gangsters who were responsible for this crime wave which has been plaguing our nation for years now, acted with complete impunity, and we felt that our Chancellor wasn't going far enough to effectively combat that. This is not a nation where our citizens may violate the law with impunity, and yet, these same people who were doing that were abusing their freedoms to do so. Civic Order and observance of the law is a priori to freedom and liberty. You do not get the latter without strict performance of the former.

We are not some liberal shipwreck of a state where people are supposedly born with rights that are "inalienable", supposedly handed them by some invisible and absentee deity who himself is conveniently the only one they will allow themselves to be judged by, but he will never happen to be around to judge them while they are still here ruining everyone else's lives. In Kalistan criminals can and do very easily alienate themselves from their rights: We all know this. So if our Government is repressing law abiding citizens, that is a problem. They paid for their rights with their performance of their civic duties and their observances of our Law. That would be tyranny. Nothing our Aunt or Chancellor have asked our nation's people to endure rises to that level.

AS: Conscript Ananto, I don't mean to argue this point with you, but I do have to ask: Do you feel that arbitrary arrest and extrajudicial killing in shootouts is not a violation of people's civil rights to due process?

CA: There doesn't need to be any argument, Ms. Siboney. We appreciate your question, and we know it was asked in good faith, so we will answer it in that spirit. The answer to you is no. We have asked our police force to do something that is very dangerous, and that is to remove criminals from our streets so our people may live in peace without gang members blowing up cars. Our society expects this from our police force, and the police do that for them. So when some criminals start shooting at the cops to avoid capture and to prevent our police force from doing its job in the service to our society, to all of our citizens, you had better believe we would like our police to fire back. If those criminals will not come peacefully, they will come unalive. One way or another , our law always supersedes the freedom of criminals.

As we said: We do not live in a liberal society. Kalistan requires the people themselves to perform civic duty as a prerequisite for their liberties. And if they opt to not perform their duties and follow our laws, they do not earn their liberty. If they do not like our laws, they may petition us to change them. But this quid pro quo at the heart of our social contract is not going to change, as long as an Ananto rules this nation. It just is not: without it, our society just turns into some weird lawless dystopia, and people are free to get up to whatever nonsense they set their hearts onto, without regard to anyone or anything else, and with no way to effectively protect our society from those anarchists.

AS: I am sympathetic to what you say here, Conscript Ananto. Of course.

CA: Let's hope the Gangsters themselves choose to end the war and surrender, because they will not win. We can not allow them to do so, under any circumstance. And then we can talk about how your friends may feel less oppressed by our government.

AS: Very well. Can I ask for your comments on the Hutorian situation, with the new King?

CA: You may know this, but Prince James... please excuse us, that was an error. Now we suppose he will be called King William, King William has spent a lot of time in Kalistan. He has taken regular residency at Ravens' Head in Green County (If you go over to Station 5, and climb the rise behind the station and look to the south, you can almost just barely make out the manor home on Ravens' Head). He's also been a regular guest with us in both Eveari and Kaliburg when we have been in residence at Cliff House. We have always seen him kind of as another little brother, and then when we lost our brothers, he filled that role even more for us.

He's a teenager, you know, and the loss of his mother and now his grandmother, thrusting him into this role: It's something we know something about. And so our Aunt has made the offer that he is welcomed to come and stay with her in Kaliburg for a while to train as the future King of Hutori. And then when we leave National Service, we will take up his training, whatever of it he and his family decide to do in Kalistan, ourselves. His Government will be under a regency for a while until he can reach his majority, and his grandfather, while an excellent golfer will have a lot on his plate with trying to train this young man when that was never originally intended. David is a good man, and with help, he will make an excellent regent. But we feel that Kalistan, the young Monarch's home away from home, will be an excellent opportunity to prepare him for his own patrimony.

So, our Aunt forwarded the offer to the Government of Hutori to consider. The young Steuart is welcomed in our home and wherever we are for as long as he would like to stay, and as a matter of fact, when he reaches his Majority, due to his title as Knight Commander in the Ancient Order of the Gray Smoke, he will formally hold the status of an adopted sibling to us, and will serve his Barony as the Viscount of Ravens' Head. We hope the Hutorians say he can come stay with our Aunt and then remain to finish his training while he is still a minor. Even so, if he is not able to train with us in Kaliburg, we still wish to see him and grieve the loss of the Queen with him, and we are planning to take leave in September to visit Hutori on a personal visit.

AS: Well, Conscript Ananto, it is 1730, and we are about a half hour over time. You have been more than generous with your time this afternoon, but I know your weekends are very important, with your studies.

CA: Well, tonight, it was different. They are serving pepperoni pizza in the Messhall. The NSP makes their pepperoni out of turkey, and We have eaten the pork kind before, but the turkey has less salt in it, and I think its way better because the pig kind, that's just all you taste, you know? We don't have that very often, so pizza night is always a very popular night, and we would like to make it to the messhall before they stop serving supper at 1800.

AS: I've never had pork on a pizza before. That sounds like it might be a bit much.

CA: We suppose its an acquired taste. We had it when we went to Valruzia. It is far more common there. Now, lamb sausage, that is perhaps our favorite.

AS: I happen to like chicken alfredo and garlic on my pizza.

CA: Also delicious.

AS: I'll let you get to it, Your Imperial Majesty.

CA: Thank you for talking with us today.

AS: It was a once in a life time honor.

CA: Please... (She laughed). You know, since you're up here, you should come with us to the Messhall. Nobody will stop you, you are with us. We can talk more, off the record.

AS: I would like that, Conscript Ananto.

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