Letter Bee

Fallout: Montana (Accepting new characters)

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

I like the idea but sadly that won't fit into the RP. =(

HOWEVER, you can RP a NCR Sergeant.

@Andromedai

1.) Hey, at least you like the idea.

2.) Thanks! Can I still help dig a new well?

Fallout: Montana (Accepting new characters)

@udonoodles, @Andromedai:

Is it okay if I make a Sergeant for the NCR who is also Jimmy's superior and has a small squad of NPCs, including engineers and doctors?

Their job is to build up goodwill for the NCR by helping people around Montana by digging new wells, improving sanitation, and introducing new technologies and farming techniques.

The Ghosts of Napoleon

@Letter Bee

Yes it's OK to send 6,000 men to die for nothing because it should be very much expected that this is what Muhammad Ali Pasha does. He responded to a mutiny of his own soldiers by sending them on a suicide mission to Libya to pursue rumors of gold. If they die, so what; if they find gold, great!

Though why the fuck does Egypt have trains they're only just starting out. Let alone why would they send a train to Ethiopia there are no railroads to Ethiopia. Never mind the engineering to strap a fuck off huge gun to a train is a few decades away still

@Dinh AaronMk

'Siege Train' is a term for supplies and baggage meant specifically for siege equipment; cannons and gunpowder and ammo.

Same also for 'Baggage Train' being used to describe wagons.

The Ghosts of Napoleon

@Letter Bee

Saudi grievances aren't really grievances anyone else is willing to address because also the Caliphate is the Ottoman Empire and part of the flex is part of the show of piety. And a class thing everyone from Muhammad Ali to the Sultan to every Emir in Syria and Mesopotamia would believe is their right to show flash and bling. They are the only ones who can afford to make Hajj.

Also you do realize Ethiopians have beaten armies at home with a much wider technology gap and you're going to go stomping off into Ethiopia with muzzle loading muskets, and not even much later European breach loading rifles and expect this to be anything but a punitive expedition on the people doing it? Because really: they're not going to do anything or get anywhere. The Ethiopian highlands are notoriously brutal and for the most parts roads will not exist to allow a massive army to adeptly navigate. Never mind Ethiopian coffee at this stage is notoriously low quality and in some cases lethal, because the primitive way dry processing works anywhere in the 19th century can make a cup of coffee poison. The Dutch have the market cornered on real high quality, modern wet processed coffee from Indonesia way, and theirs absolutely will not kill the drinker because wet processing coffee was a 100 fold safer than dry processing at this time (even if more bitter)

@Dinh AaronMk

1.) Understood. This means that there will only be some swatting around, then.

2.) Damnit. Should this be voided, or is it okay to send 6000 men and a siege train to die for nothing?

Fallout: Montana (Accepting new characters)

Currently tired out right now, but I might make an NCR Soldier if @udonoodles is okay with that.

The Ghosts of Napoleon

@Letter Bee

The Saudis have a historical trait making them comparable to cockroaches and they never disappear. And the Ottomans and Egyptians ways of handling the House of Saud has always been to swap them around, only for another branch of the Saud family to come back and take revenge for their father/brother being killed.

The basis of the Saudi family, Wahhabism isn't really even unique to them and based primarily on the popular jealousy of the Hedjazi Bedouin of many of all the other Muslim nobles who go on Hajj, their pilgrimage marked by then playing boastful music to flex their power and wealth over the Arabs. The House of Saud is just one of the most powerful cliques in Central Arabia.

They're not strictly a heresy bent on exploiting pilgrims. Robbing and exploiting pilgrims has been a time honored tradition since the middle ages. Their iconoclastic movement is just being mad at Egyptians, Syrians, and Turks coming in with their drip and massive entourages and playing music which was considered bad at the time for many of those Bedouin tribes.

@Dinh AaronMk

Understandable. I spent almost every summer in Saudi Arabia from eight to twenty-one back when my Dad had a job there (he has since been mandatorily retired), and what you said agrees with the Saudi view of themselves and their country's history.

This means that for the current expedition to succeed long-term (even with the Ottoman Sultan's approval, whether tacit, open, or grudging), those grievances need to be addressed.

Also, do you know anything about Sahle Dengel of Ethiopia, the Emperor of that country in 1836? In my post, I had Muhammad Ali send a force to prop him up in exchange for access to Ethiopian coffee...

The Ghosts of Napoleon

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

The Muhammad Ali dynasty was more aligned with that of the Turks who positioned themselves closer to Europe than to the Arabs. From what I can tell many of the wives of Muhammad Ali were themselves either Turkish, Albanian, Bulgarian, or Muslim-Caucasian and not strictly Egyptian or Arab. It's possible an opportunistic marriage could be pursued as an option, but the first thing Muhammad Ali and his heirs seem to go to was a military expedition. The long term for the Hashemites would be eventually their traditional holdings being absorbed by the Egyptian state. This also interferes with the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire, and affecting the imbalance of the area would make the Ottomans mad.

The Egyptian-Saudi Wars were not carried out as an independent act of the Egypt of Muhammad Pasha, but by order of the Ottoman court to their fellow Turkish court in Egypt to put down what they considered was an Arab rebellion.

@Dinh AaronMk

Can that state of affairs still apply as the House of Saud is still rebelling and threatening pilgrim routes?

The Ghosts of Napoleon

The Hedjaz, Summer of 1836

The Saudis and their heresy had angered the Ottoman Sultan, and for once, he shared common cause with the Governor of Egypt, his over-mighty subject. Now Tusun Pasha, a younger son of said Governor, marched south to enforce both their wills, with an army of conscripts and volunteers, young men chasing glory or dreading punishment. With them were the superior weapons and tactics of the 'Frankish' Christians, adapted for use by righteous Muslims, which the Pasha and his family most assuredly told them that the Wahhabi Saudis were not.

To Khalid al-Misr, newly-promoted officer in the army marching south to save the Hashemites of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina from the heresy of the House of Saud, it also meant advancement, promotion, and eventually, a chance to let the seeds of 'Nationalism' planted in the fertile soil of his soul blossom.

He owed the elder Pasha everything; his plucking from the madrasas and their stagnant teachings, the training in the arts of war and the awakening of his mind to the beauties of science, technology, and philosophy... And his realization that for thousands of years, Egypt was not ruled by its own people, but by foriegners. Imagine; the one he owed his life and fortune to was also the one who continued put his people under a yoke!

But as he rode his horse, leading the platoons of infantry behind him to the new camp set up near Medina itself, where the House of Hashim's men were already sending fresh supplies and provisions, Khalid realized that he needed to be patient, that men twice his age would have fallen into intrigue and conspiracy at the moment of realization... and failed.

So he would continue to serve Ibrahim Pasha, until like most foriegn dynasties who had set themselves up in Egypt, his seed and the seed of his family dried up. After all, he was yet young - Twenty-five was a young age when an officer in this sort of army. Besides, there were Wahabbis to slaugther.

Cairo, Summer of 1836

"Send a message to the secret police; have them put an end to the rumors that we're closing overland transfers through the Sinai to the British," Muhammad Ali Pasha, Governor of Egypt, said to his aide as he sat on the Governor's chair, a chair which would have been a throne if he had his way. "And if there is any truth to the rumors, have a contingent of cavalry sent to arrest the local governor. Now... for the next object of business."

Into the audience chamber of the Citadel of Cairo, the site of one of his greatest triumphs, walked his eldest son, Ibrahim. Without any sign of disrespect, but with every sign of confusion, on his face, his favored child, the Hero of Konya, bowed before him and said in a puzzled tone, "Why are we sending 6000 men and a siege train to Ethiopia? They won't be enough to hold the lands of the Christians there, even if they slaugther every army which comes their way. Add the risk of heat and disease -"

The Pasha, the Governor of Egypt, who wished the title of Sultan one day, answered in a wry tone, "They're not coming to conquer, they're keeping the infidel's rightful Emperor on his throne."

Ibrahim looked up, his eyebrow raised, "Gigar the powerless?"

He shook his head and said, "The current Emperor is one Sahle Dengel, a heretic denounced by his own sect. We will break him free from his regent, a man whose own beliefs are inconsistent and unclear, and put him on the throne in Gondar, on the condition that once order is restored in his 'Empire', he will dedicate his personal lands to the plantating and harvest of coffee, which he will sell exclusively to us at a price high to him but low compared to the world market."

His son still had doubts, "This will be seen as perfidious; we must move swiftly lest the Europeans catch wind of our actions; the latest news from France and Russia risks paralyzing our protectors against the British and their damned fleet. Then again, what do they know of Ethiopia?"

Muhammad Ali Pasha nodded and said, "Very little, and that is our defense."

The Ghosts of Napoleon

All right. Got a burst of inspiration. I'm gonna be overrunning the Hedjaz soon.

@Dinh AaronMk, would asking for a Hashemite in marriage to my dynasty be impolitic as well as unrealistic?

Also, I'm going to send troops to prop up Emperor Gigar Sahle Dengel of Ethiopia. Why? Because Egyptians love coffee.

Fallout: Montana (Accepting new characters)

@Andromedai, Note that I won't be available to make my Sheet today due to a grocery trip.