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Horace

Second Lieutenant
Dec 1, 2006
127
0
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PROLOGUE



Two cities, both alike in ignominy,
In backward Laos, where we lay our scene,
From ancient glory break to new victory,
Wh' uncivilised blood makes civilised lands unclean.
From forth forgotten citadels of East
A pair of starved, cross nutters plot their guile;
Whole misadventure 'gainst the British beast,
Swear by their deaths t' secure the Emerald Isle.

The fearful passage of their hopeless* quest,
And the expansion of their nation's rage,
Which, but this player's end, nought could repress,
Is now the coming traffic of our stage;
The which, if you attend now to the finis,
our toil shall send - so grab yourself a Guinness!

(Profuse apologies, Willy)
*or hopless

luang-ire.png

For... [cue Orchestra]

It's... [cue dancers]

A...
[cue giant buddha descending on wires above the stage, beaming and holding an oversized pint glass of stout]

...Luang way to Tipperary,
It's a Luang way to go.
It's a Luang way to Tipperary
And a very silly idea, I know.

Goodbye Old Kemaltain,
Farewell Kampenpek,
It's a Luang Luang way to Tipperary,
But we'll get there! Will we? Feck!

luang.png
----------------------------------------​



Luang Prabang. VIP 0.3. Normal/Agressive. 1836 - .

Objectives:

  • Rise to power in the East.
  • Take on the British Empire and assume our rightful position as Lord of Ireland.
  • From there, the world!

No cheats, bankruptcies or what I consider to be exploits.

First installment to follow...
 
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Oh my goodness! :D This looks like a wild, fun ride, and I'm in! ... *straps on safety goggles*

And you don't have to apologize to Willy. He had a pretty goofy sense of humor, too ;)
 
Hahahaha, good luck, and have fun.


Talk about original. :rofl: :p
 
That Ireland thingy reminds me of "Take London! Swiss AAR" (or whatever the name was :) ).
 
Akaki said:
That Ireland thingy reminds me of "Take London! Swiss AAR" (or whatever the name was :) ).
It reminds me of Tales of the Gluttonic Knights, in which the King of Bavaria decides to conquer China because he wants to know what Chinese food tastes like. :D
 
PROLOGUE, PART II
(Or Some Attempt To Justify A Ridiculous Storyline.)​


Saravan I, Lord of Laos awoke early on June 1st, 1833. Through the silk hangings between his bed chamber and the large stone balcony beyond had arose a considerable commotion. Looking down, beyond the first extent of the well-kept royal gardens, a large crowd of peasants had gathered in the city's square, gesticulating, shouting and wrestling with something unseen in their midst.
Yawning wearily, Saravan called his guards and personal attendants to investigate. What wild animal, what drunken ignorance had these lazy peasants got up to now? He ambled down to breakfast.

"Who has incited all that?" he called as his entourage re-entered.

"My Lord, the rice-growers East of the city, they have found something in the jungle. A white man in strange clothes. He..."

"A White man? A foreigner?" The king's expression changed in an instant. He had long tried to make ties with nations across the seas, but no diplomats ever came. Even when he had offered to pay them they would not come. Luang Prabang was simply too unimportant. It probably wasn't even on their maps.
"Has he come to see me? He must have come to see me! An emmissary from some great power in the West! At last! It must be! Send him in at once!"

"My Lord", the aide shifted from foot to foot and paused, "the man is very thin. I think he is almost dead. He speaks no language any man can understand.."

"Well. Don't just stand there, then, help him!" snapped Saravan, suddenly aghast at the thought that the first and only diplomat he had received in his ten year reign might die from being mauled by his own subjects before being able to speak to him. "Take him to the palace guest rooms. Summon my best physicks. Report back when this has been done!"

Outside, the stranger, grown faint by hunger, the morning heat and the crowd's ceasless prodding, felt his legs give way under him and slipped into unconsciousness.

------------------

The stranger awoke several days later. He was lying on a straw-filled bed covered with red silk in a dimly lit stone room. On the wall opposite hung a bright red banner depicting three white elephants. He tried hard to think where he was. The shipwreck... trudging through the jungles... the unfriendly natives... being abducted by those funny little bald men in orange... escaping from their odd-looking prison... more jungles... the great river... more jungles... eating lizards... another jungle... bigger lizards... jungle... His memory trailed off. He tried to get up, but found himself too weak to move. The door to the chamber creaked open and a funny little bald man in orange hurried in towards the bed, clutching a brass phial and something looking like some sort of dried animal bodypart of indeterminate origin.
The stranger froze for a moment. "O Begorrah!" he sighed under his breath, and fell back unconscious.
 
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I'll be reading this one with the great interest! Trully, there can be few more hopeless nations to start with than poor, partitioned Luang Prabang.

I trust you'll prove to us all that great things can be accomplished with very little to start with :D And the liberation of Erin thrown into the bargain? What more could an AAR reader want?!

CMcU
 
Loved your opening. Very funny. This only the second Vicky AAR I have followed so I will be very much interested to see how it plays. Good luck and congrats on your award. Yeah, okay, that was part of the reason I checked this out. ;)
 
Comments in the WritAAR of the week thread directed me here and it's an interesting start. And conrats once more on being named this past week's writAAR of the week. Head over to that thread and say a few words (and start thinking about your successor to be named this coming Sunday ;) )
 
PROLOGUE PART III​


Saravan took a keen interest in the progress of 'his' visitor. It was several months before the stranger regained his health, and it was true that he could not speak a word of any known language, but the king remained fondly disposed towards him, still feeling sure that he had come to see him. During his recovery he sent teachers and scholars to the man, wishing them to teach him the Lao language so he might communicate his travels. Having regained his health, the king commanded that they should take him out into the city daily, and bring him to the king as soon as they thought their charge was capable of meaningful conversation.

The months rolled on. As he acquired a grip of the language, the stranger revealed his name to be Paddy, and said much of his origins and stories, some of which might even have been true, although most sounded rather doubtful. Many in the Lao court thought that having a name like 'Paddy' was very odd, and despite Paddy's insistence that it was a common and unremarkble name where he came from, only the presence of the king himself could stop the Head of the royal houshold, Pingpong Poo, from sniggering when it was spoken.

Paddy quickly became a frequent companion of the king, a man who, for all his riches and the deference of his 400,000-odd subjects, was heartily sick of his little patch of the world and held great fascination in all things foreign, strange or alcoholic.
He was told of how he was first mate on a clipper loaded with pale ale, supplies for the British East India Company, bound for Burma. They met with heavy storms off the Siamese gulf, and the vessel was pushed off course. Most of the crew was also drunk, which didn't help matters much. "This was because we had run out of fresh water - we only had processed stuff left" explained Paddy, although the distinction seemed lost on his audience. After several days of being very sloshed, a large wave sloshed him overboard one evening whilst he was leaning over the side of the ship in order to be sick, and the next thing he remembered was being gently awaked by a bevy of beautiful women on the white sands of an idyllic tropical beach. Then he remembered actually waking up in a smelly mangrove, somehow dislodging himself from a jagged rockpool, and removing a large but thankfully harmless jellyfish from the inside of his tunic, before trudging off into the forest in search of beer... erm... food and water.

The King was fascinated by the man and his tales of his country, and decided, after two years in the royal court, to appoint him as his chief advisor. Although honored by this, Paddy could not help but protest both that he would not make a good advisor and that, though extremely grateful for Laotian hospitality, he still wished to return home at some point.
"Back to the British?" Saravan asked. There was a glint in the king's eyes. Paddy hated the British and most of his stories communicated this amply. "Come with me. I want to show you my army! Come!"

---------------------------------​

They stood on the steps of a brightly-coloured pavillion and below them, filling a large, dirt-floored courtyard, were parading troops. Shabby-looking and under-supplied troops, but troops none the less. Randomly scattered amongst them, dozens of ragged red and white elephant banners fluttered delicately in the breeze.

"The Army of Luang Prabang!" gestured the king, with obvious pride, as if the exact nature of several thousand armored men armed with muskets required further explanation. The court officials behind them nodded sagely in well-rehearsed agreement. He turned again to his visitor.
"My friend," he said, "you shall go back to Ire-land, but I first wish to help you. It is the least I can do for all the interest and entertainment you have brought to me. I have a great advantage over you and your countrymen. I have an army."
Again he gestured at the soldiers, in case perhaps they should have been mistaken for a lemon meringue pie. He lowered his voice.
"Take my army with you. I lend it to you. Take it back to your country and drive out the British, for I have no use of it here. Luang Prabang has not had a war for decades."
Paddy wasn't surprised to hear this. What madman would waste his country's blood to conquer this dump?
"Let it be said that I, Saravan I, helped bring freedom to the Ire-land people", the king continued, regally gazing up to the horizon as he finished his sentence.

Paddy studied the king's face for signs of irony, but none could be found. The King glanced back at him with a look of utter seriousness.
The wind picked up a little, and one of the ancient battle flags billowing in front of them ripped from its hoist and floated down to land in a muddy puddle.
'Feck', he thought to himself, 'how can I put this politely...'

---------------------------------​

General Stan-Lee was a short, stout little man. He was rich and his lineage noble and old, and almost 20 years ago had been married with Saravan's niece. It was natural, therefore, that the king should have made him commander of the army, even though he had never seen and battle in his life, and knew nothing of tactics, strategy or actual fighting. After all, it wasn't as if little Laos would ever involve herself in a war, was it? Stan-Lee had never considered the post to be anything other than a sinecure.
It was new year's eve, 1835, the afternoon before the traditional great annual feast. (Although the day held no significance in the Laotian calendar, the king was keen on traditions, and created this one two years ago in honour of the customs his guest had told him of.)
"Splendid!" he beamed meaninglessly at the nervous-lookinbg Irishman, "but we must have more elephants. With elephants you can achieve anything! You know, once my granmother was having a great problem with the weasels stealing her pawpaws, and..."
Paddy looked deeply unconvinced. "How many more men can you raise?" he interrupted. He had resigned himself to Saravan's proposal after the king flew into an uncommon rage and threatened to feed him to some wild aminal he didn't know the translation for the previous evening.
The general's brow furled. He wasn't used to having to think about military matters at all.
"Twenty thousand, perhaps? But that would be at great debt. Surely we could..."
"Forty thousand. No less can do. Raise me forty thousand more men and we might stand a chance, God with us."
The army chief looked unsure of himself, but at the same time felt glad that he wasn't answerable to the treasury. The king had explicitly ordered him not to contradict or argue with his Irish advisor. He nodded wearily and gestured something to a tall, gruff-looking man in a tatty uniform standing behind him. Then, gathering himself up with noticable effort, he gave a false smile and made his way out, his thoughts having turned to the far more pleasent prospect of the evening's feast. Until next morning, at least.
 
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Gave him the whole army. Man, I need to meet a guy like that. And not to nitpick, but I am sure you meant "1835"...maybe. ;)

I gotta think this is not going to be a direct flight to Ireland. I see some layovers along the way that might put a hurtin on the big UK somehow.
 
POST-PROLOGUE​


Some pictures:

When he asked the king for a map of the world, Paddy found China at one end of it and the coast of India at the other. Still, it didn't matter too much for the time being; he knew where he was going, aproximately.
Luang Prabang at the break of 1836 - two discontiguous provinces, the other land historically controlled by the city being split between Annam and Siam. The city had no military access through any of its neighbours (and thus no access to the sea) and its relations with every other nation on Earth were non-existent.
The capital produces a small quantity of reasonably lucrative tropical timber, whereas the other distant province grows corn of very little value.
We are surrounded by nations with more advanced technology (Luang Prabang has none at all) and considerably larger populations. Our country has but one advantage - surprise, for no-one in his right mind would expect an attack from Laos...

pic_357.png


On New Year's Day, orders were placed for supplies. As can be seen, Luang Prabang had very little stockpiled.

pic_362.png


Finally, the pre-tax budget. Not very impressive. Exports would add perhaps a pound or so to daily profit.

pic_359.png
 
OMG, you have nothing. Well...except, like you said, surprise. With only 2 real choices for your first victim, who might it be? ;)