To: BSRArowing: I prefer the frontal assault approach for that.
to: strategymad3500: I want the entire America's secure first before I do anything further away. I might not even go for Europe first anyways, as there are going to be alot of other places to secure first.
to: Sakura_F: attacking the Chinese navy will not be easy, they are not exactly a pushover. As for the Royals, all will be revealed in due time.
to: IconofEvil: No Kane, no Yuri in this scenario.
to: Captain Julius: Thanks!
to: everyone else: thanks for the comments!
Been a long while since my last update, but I have been rather busy recently. As I am sure many of you know, Canada has just finished going through Federal elections, and I have actually been working as part of those. Anyways, with the election now over, I have alot more free time again! So here is an update.
The White House, September, 2016
*bang, bang, bang*, *bzzzzzzzzzzzzttt*, *bang, bang*.
President Harling was getting a bit of a headache at the constant noises ringing throughout the White House. Reconstruction of the building was progressing rapidly but it would still be a while before the whole building was back to its old self again. While most of the West Wing and the Main Building had been fixed, there was still alot of work to do on the East Wing. Army Corps of Engineers personnel, along with a plethora of civilian contractors had been working day and night to get everything put back together, all under unprecedented security. The President could always see out of the Oval Office window a battery of Patriot anti-air missiles, capable of not only shooting down enemy jets but even ballistic missiles, sitting in an intersection near the building. Marines and Secret Service personnel were always patrolling, and there were even a couple of M1A1 tanks, courtesy of the army, stationed just on the edge of the White House property. This place was not just being rebuilt, it was essentially turning into a fortress. President Harling wasn't sure if he liked that idea, his main job was to serve the people of this country, a representative of those people and its values, not some emperor lording over his kingdom from behind big fortress walls. He was looking forward to the day when the war was over, when all of this security could be scaled back, and a much warmer perception of the building being restored.
The phone on his desk rang, through the speaker his secretary spoke. "Mr. President, your guests for the 1:00pm meeting have arrived." "Okay, send them in." He responded. The President liked having his meetings in the Oval Office, it was a nice small space, he felt more comfortable here, even though it wasn't as decorative as it used to be. But he had made sure some work had been done to liven up the place a bit. There were new books on the shelves, a new Presidential floor rug on the floor, and another neat addition. That big Russian machine gun that was mounted in the window from the battle to liberate the building (he had heard one of the Marines call it a "Kord") now sat proudly in a display case, right here in the Oval Office. He figured it would make an interesting topic of conversation for future presidents when other world leaders came here on state visits.
The door to the Oval office opened, and in walked the President's chief of staff, as well as his domestic advisory team, including not only the relevant cabinet secretaries but also in this case some of his best constitutional lawyers. Joining them were also the provisional House and Senate majority leaders, as well as the provisional leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties. He admittedly hadn't spent much time talking about domestic issues, up until recently all of the government's energies had been directed towards carrying out the war effort. Politics had gone right out the window as the country directed all of its efforts into the war effort, with the only real domestic issues being to insure that utilities stayed working, government services still operated, and that food rations had been distributed fairly and efficiently. It took alot of government oversight to make it happen, and involved a very heavy emphasis on military needs over civilian ones. That was starting to slowly change now. With the homeland United States liberated, domestic issues were taking more prominence again, as work was taking place around the clock to not only physically but socially reconstruct the areas that had fallen under SCO occupation. Today's meeting was going to be about something that needed to be addressed urgently: the plans for Presidential Elections in November.
After everybody sat down, the president spoke. "Good afternoon everyone, thank you all for coming out this afternoon. I am looking forward to hearing about the report that was finished by the special electoral committee this morning." Back when the tide of the ground war had turned decisively in the favour of the United States, President Harling had ordered the creation of a special committee to look at the feasibility of holding Presidential elections on schedule, November 2016, as there was alot of questions whether or not those elections could still go ahead. "I understand the report is not too encouraging."
"Mr. President", it was his chief of staff, "to say its discouraging is a vast understatement. We had anticipated the results not to be good, but we far underestimated just how bad things could be." "Uh oh" thought the President to himself. The chief of staff continued. "Mr. President, as you know, we have suffered major human and material losses in the course of the enemy's invasion, occupation, and during the military's counteroffensives to push the enemy back. Current numbers are as high as 400,000 civilian casualties, not to mention many hundreds of thousands of our troops. Many cities took heavy damage during the fighting, and its going to take months to clean up all of the damage done. But more relevant to our purpose here today, is the damage done to our political system, which I must say, is very significant."
"How bad is it." the President asked. "Mr. President, we have come to the realization that holding the presidential elections as scheduled will be impossible under current conditions." The President looked around the room, and noticed everyone's very disappointed facial expressions. "But...we are the United States, are you telling me that our country wont be able to hold its own elections?!?!?" The chief of staff spoke again. "Mr. President, the damage to our political system is so immense that everything needed to carry out elections has been disrupted. First, there is the damage done to the system of governance in areas that had been under SCO occupation."
"Sir, when the enemy came ashore, and took over large parts of our territory, one of their major objectives was to gain control of local administrative functions, in order to lessen the burden of direct military occupation. They had lists, lists of people in positions of authority, everyone from individual city Councillors to state Governors and Congressional representatives. SCO troops worked hard to track these people down, and give them an ultimatum: cooperate with the new military authorities, or face extreme consequences. The vast majority refused to collaborate. Of those, we can only account for a handful still being alive. Most disappeared, either being executed by the SCO military authorities or being taken captive, the CIA has been getting intelligence of many top level American officials being held in prison camps in places like the Gobi Desert in China or near Irkutsk, in Siberia. As for the ones who did collaborate, the ones our forces could reach first are in federal custody pending trial for high treason. They are the lucky ones, many of the rest were killed by local American resistance members, some of them in rather....grim fashion."
"Jesus Christ." the president thought to himself. He still couldn't believe that at the time of the country's greatest need, there were those who turned against their fellow countrymen. But that was war, he couldn't think of any time in human history when there weren't collaborators. Hell, even the damn Nazi's had collaborators! "What this all comes down to Mr. President, is that alot of those people were not just political party members or administrators, many were those who we believe had been planning to run for president in the elections that had been scheduled for this November. Now, there is nobody TO run for office."
The provisional leader of the Republican party now spoke. "This doesn't stop at the systems of government either. My party, and the democrats organizational structures have been utterly dismembered. The enemy's forces raided our respective headquarters, and looted everything. They destroyed the lists of party membership, killed many staffers, completely upended our organizations. They destroyed our financial records as well, rendering both parties bankrupt. Even if we could have the elections continue on schedule, we wouldn't be able to pay election workers, pay for advertising. We are literally having to rebuild both major political parties from scratch here, at every level."
The secretary of industry began to speak. "Quite frankly sir, the majority of people have much bigger problems right now than voting in an election. Millions of our people are living day to day, their lives have been utterly upended. Their homes are either badly damaged or completely gone. They have no money, only basic provisions, and a war still left to fight. Lots of internally displaced refugees are still making their way back home as well. The challenges we are facing today make the post Civil War reconstruction of the South look like a picnic. And in that case, it took several years to get things back to some kind of normality."
"There is another issue to consider as well" said one of the legal advisors. "two entire US states are still under enemy occupation: Hawaii and Alaska. The military wont have those states liberated for a while yet, and we could be opening a constitutional can of worms if we hold a national vote while not taking into consideration voters in those two states. What happens if we have a vote, and the electoral college ends up as a tie, with the tie breaking votes coming from two American states which cannot vote due to being in occupied territory?"
"God damnit, alright alright I get the picture." said the President. "So, what are our options?"
"I believe I may have a solution to our problem Mr President." spoke his chief of staff. "I would like to suggest that we postpone the 2016 elections for another 2 years, until 2018. This would put the presidential elections as the same time as the House and Senatorial ones that should be able to go ahead as scheduled. However, the trick here will be that these Presidential elections will only be for a special 2 year term, in order to return the cycle of presidential elections back to its normal order in 2020. This way, the Republican and Democratic parties will have enough time to rebuild their organizational structure, hold nominations, and have candidates ready for the next elections. By then the domestic situation should be largely back in order, so disruptions or problems with the vote should be at their minimum. This would also mean that you would remain as US president until 2018." The people at the meeting nodded their heads in agreement.
"I don't like this, but it appears its our best option." said President Harling. "I think this will make me the first American President to ever cancel a Presidential election, god forgive me." The Senate majority leader now spoke. "Mr. President, nobody is going to blame you for this. We will all make sure the message is understood among all parties involved. The senate, and I am sure the house will both support you in this."
"Very well" the President spoke. "I will accept this course of action, but you all better damn well be ready for the voting in 2018. I am going to break this news to the American people in an address tonight. This meeting is dismissed."
"Thank you Mr. President, I believe you are making the right choice." said the chief of staff. The President responded, "I hope our people think the same way my friend." As the participants left the room, the President sat back at his desk. As he called his speechwriter to tell him to have a draft of his speech prepared within the hour, he hoped he was in fact making the right call here. These were unprecedented days for the country indeed.
Well, that took a long time to write! I hope all my American readers will forgive me as I am sure I am utterly trampling on American constitutional regulations here.
