The Updates

Subversives

Democratic Congress of Horizon

In theory, the Congress holds monthly meetings, the purpose of which is to vote on motions relating to the policies of the government of Horizon. The intent is for the Congress to effectively act as an "alternative legislature" for Horizon, a people's counterpart to the Goodly Chamber, a viable alternative government which could take the reins of power just as soon as the Mayor is peacefully convinced to hand them over.

It doesn't quite work that way.

The Congress is a giant talking shop, and really doesn't serve much function except to give people an opportunity to publicly air their grievances with the government (until their alloted speaking time runs out, or until they are interrupted by a point of order, or until the meeting chairman's gavel falls because the speech has breached a subsection of the rules, or...). The policy of egalitarianism, and the unwillingness of the members to accept the notion that some DCH members could be given more responsibilities than others, means that the Congress is a disorganised rabble. Meetings are frequently cancelled because nobody got around to booking the venue. Motions are debated for weeks and then quietly fall off the agenda and die.

Depressingly often, those motions which do get passed don't help the Congress's credibility much. Either they are patently unworkable, because they were forced through via an awful lot of chicanery involving quoracy, voting procedures, and so forth, or they are awfully close to the current policies of the Mayoralty. Motions in the first category tend to be repealed swiftly, but not until the newspapers have had a field day (the Congress will never live down the "this house proposes the dismantling of the Steam and the return to a communal, agricultural way of life" debacle); motions in the second category tend to stay on the Statement of Policies for a long time, as Congress members struggle to think up a plan which is a) better than the current regime's policy and b) will get enough Congress votes to be passed.

On the other hand, a stirring speech delivered at the Congress often grabs the attention of the newspapers, and can help one establish a reputation as a man of the people. Recruiters for the HPLF (and even the Imperialists) have been known to operate in the DCH, but they tend to be wary: it's widely suspected that the Congress is stuffed with spies from Colonel Zero.

Horizon People's Liberation Front

• Horizon is a dictatorship. Mayoral elections consist of the elite choosing one of their own to look after the elite's interests and keep the people down. The more rabid cells portray Colonel Zero as a bloodthirsty military dictator who is desperately searching for any excuse to impose martial law; more reasonable cells consider him a symptom of a wider problem, just one more corrupt man in a corrupt system. There are even some cells who think he's alright, just somewhat misguided. Nobody trusts those cells - words like "moles" and "spies" and "Mayor's little bitches" often pop up when they are discussed, often with a little violence to back them up.

• The rulers of Horizon will not be convinced to back down through negotiation. It simply isn't in their interest, and you can hardly expect people to willingly agree to relinquish the power they possess. Violent revolution is the only viable solution.

• After the revolution, we will institute a government which brings true freedom and prosperity to all the people of Horizon, not a limited minority. (As you might expect, the exact form this utopian future will take is the subject of a hell of a lot of debate within the HPLF.)

• Indiscriminate violence is not in the interests of the cause. Bombing civilian targets is unacceptable; only legitimate combatants should be targeted. Of course, the definition of "legitimate combatant" changes from cell to cell. Just about all HPLF members regard the Watchdogs and the Legions as legitimate targets. Government ministers, the nobility, and the merchantile elite are also high on many hit lists. Low-level bureaucrats and those who do business with the government or a nebulously-defined elite sometimes creep their way in. And rabid cells lump in civilians who are not actively supporting the cause of revolution.

• The Imperialists would impose a situation even more repressive than the status quo. We will oppose them absolutely. (Some cells consider the flaws of the system to stem, ultimately, from entrenched Imperialist attitudes.)

A number of underground newspapers are operated by HPLF cells - the most famous and widely-distributed being The Liberator (or The Lirbarote, as critics of its lax spelling and grammar record call it); however, unlike the DCH they do not restrict their actions to peaceful protest and propagandising. Attacks on government offices and assassination attempts on government ministers are a major security issue (although they are not very frequent - think "IRA during the 1980s" as opposed to "Iraqi insurgency"). The Watchdogs regard arresting members of the HPLF as a high priority, although the emphasis is on arresting them and putting them on trial as opposed to summarily executing them.

The Emperor's Front (AKA the Imperialists)

The dogma of the Emperor's Front is simplistic, and barking mad - mainly because they take the ridiculous rantings of the Emperor during his last days as objective fact. They regard the Four Nations as rebellious provinces, they consider any citizen of Horizon who doesn't join the Imperialists and fight for the Emperor as a traitor deserving only of death, they want to put the whole world under martial law and they want to bring back the Emperor (who, remember, is missing, presumed dead).

The members of the Emperor's Front can be divided into two categories. On one hand, you have an ever-dwindling number of high-ups from the old regime, desperate to restore the power and respect they feel is theirs by right and unwilling to accept the loss of the Emperor. On the other hand, you have people stupid enough to believe the old wartime Imperial propaganda, xenophobic enough to want Horizon to conquer the world again, or mad enough to support the tactics of the Emperor's Front.

Ah yes, their tactics: the other reason why they are universally hated. Since they regard every citizen of Horizon who is not a member of the Front to be a traitor to the Emperor, the Front has no qualms about placing bombs in crowded places full of civilians. In fact, they seem to exclusively attack civilian targets; they declare that only through creating a climate of terror can they rouse the people into action. "The people of Horizon will fear our very name!" they declare. "They will cease their resistance and they will join our glorious struggle! Then and only then will we take the fight to the Mayor!"

The tactics actually have the opposite effect. The EF's attacks are not frequent (again, think IRA in the 80s, not Iraqi insurgency), but they do make people angry and strengthen the already-pervasive anti-Imperial sentiment of the general public. Just about everyone has at least a friend of a friend who's been hurt in an Imperialist attack; the vast majority of the people who remember the Imperial era spend a great deal of time telling their children and grandchildren about the horrific oppression that marked the Third Age. The Front are useless relics; everybody knows this, except the Fronts themselves.

The Future

The Democratic Congress of Horizon's main problem is that there is an excess of enthusiasm and a scarcity of competance. It is stuffed with the sort of people who regard writing "LOVE IS SUBVERSIVE" on alley walls to be a bold act of defiance. What they desperately need is for the more sober heads within them to pull themselves together and begin guiding the movement away from immature silliness, so the DCH can start to look like a viable alternative government.

The Horizon People's Liberation Front's problem isn't so much competance as policy. They might be able to revolt and take over, if they were able to get their hands on enough supplies, resources, and backers. However, if they don't have a pretty impressive alternative to the current system in the pipeline, the city will just slide into anarchy, and the armies of the Four Nations will just roll in, declare martial law, and either carve up the city between themselves or reinstate the Mayoral system. On the flipside, if the Liberation Front comes up with a set of policies designed to mollify the Four Nations, they'll have kind-of abandoned their original aim of fighting on behalf of the people of Horizon. It is a dilemma.

There really isn't much hope for the Imperialists. Their leadership isn't getting younger, the old guard who remember the Emperor is dying out, and the barking loonies who comprise most of the new guard couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery which had a devoted Office of Piss-Ups and a dedicated Piss-Up Consultant devoting his time to helping them organise the piss-up. They are a decaying movement whose figurehead is either dead or dribbling and wetting himself in senile exile.

Rumours

Colonel Zero doesn't actually have any spies in the Democratic Congress - it's such a ridiculous farce that his spies don't bother wasting their time on it.

There is no "Emperor's Front". It's an operation by the Mayoral Legions to keep the people afraid and unwilling to fight Colonel Zero.

The Steam Union and the Horizon People's Liberation Front are best buddies: the HPLF is a Richterist outfit intending to impose socialism on Horizon.

The Emperor's Front is led by the Emperor. The reason they aren't very effective is because the Emperor was a senile old madman with a habit of forgetting which century it was by the end of the War.