Sepia Interests

The so-called Scandinationalists have a thousand years of myth in their pamphlets, but are in reality a product of the Atomic War. Racial nationalism has existed in Vekllei for centuries, but was only legitimised as a modern political force by the pre-war junta and materialised as violence by its collapse in the days after the Atomic War. Exploited grievances, hundreds in number but all basically the same, overflowed in the chaos of the war and saw savage criminal instincts acted on by militias called Stanis.

The Stanis were put down by the British occupying forces, but they persist as terror cells. The Floral Government recognises their ideology as criminal, and so any organising around it is simply not tolerated. When you hear of Noshem, the Vekllei intelligence service, killing foreigners in kitchens and bedrooms, it is usually to these ends.

This state of affairs is complicated and often undemocratic, but the thinking is straightforward. The 4th Commonwealth is a multiracial state of disparate, autonomous republics. Nearly half of its population was born overseas, and it recognises its indigenous Algic and Scandinavian populations as a single cultural group. This unity is fragile, and so action in defence of it has to be uncompromising as a matter of routine. To pick up a rifle, or place a bomb, or assist scandinationalist elements is a death sentence served outside of the courts, in a way that privileges this form of terrorism above other terrorist ideologies. This is not just a matter of opinion; this is policy. Anything else is insufficient, so says the state, because the alternative is evidenced by what happened in 2005.

Ross Gosmiosn was sent to Home Office Section 12 from Section 2. In civilian speak, this meant he was moved from organisation security to the operations command, to work under their solemn new director Baron Desmoisnes, who was well-regarded at the Home Office after his successes at the Americas Bureau.

Baron’s promotion from a captain in the Americas Bureau to a HO/NI Section Chief was not particularly unusual for a longtime intelligence agent, but it was obviously strategic. He had a record of hunting former Stanis in Central and North America, and had good contacts at AB/NI. His promotion to HO/NI indicated that his talents were needed at home; that the Home Office was looking to put down emerging threats in Vekllei. Ross knew this when he arrived at Section 12. It was confirmed by his first conversation with Baron in Winter 2063.

“How do you do, Ross?”

“Well, Director.”

“I’ve been recommended you by Alvi, who said you’d served in Africa.”

“That’s true.”

“So you have some tactical experience?”

“Yes. Twice in Africa, and some time in the Rifles, too.”

“That’s good.”