The NoWhere Downfall: the 2nd Council of War

The 2nd Council of War included Trumbull’s family, The Kyoto Special Forces the Ginzu Knives, & leading citizens of Mendocino who prefer to call Themselves “The Head Dudes. Jeff, Dooby & the rest of the group looked out of place in a Council of War, but at least they were there. Most of the other Plexes sent their regrets, citing scheduling conflicts, minor emergencies or inclement weather, meaning they did not want to mess with Gilead. The Dudes were more plussed than non-plussed at meeting the new wife, Marla McCall Trumbull. But everybody grew serious when they covered the bad news, and it was very bad. Marla stood before The display in a sharp business dress and after playing The Official Statement of Gilead, ran through The actual events. Concluding that “Nowhere is gone, Gilead expanded and Mother cannot intervene due to an even graver threat we’re about to reveal to you.. Now, any questions?”. When none came, she returned to her chair. The Homeplex founder, Gwynett Trumbull spoke out, “Now that our beautiful & brilliant wife Marla gave us unbelievably bad news, I would like to introduce our new War Chief, Nicholas Walk-like-The-Wind. 2 years ago, when Mother saw signs of impending trouble from Gilead, she suggested we tap Nick as War chief to face the looming threat posed by Zed Ivory and Zeke Salvation. He is deeply intelligent…”, which prompted a snort from Marge Shrudi. Trumbull glared at her. “… as I was saying! Deeply intelligent, free of mono-Theistic Religious doctrine, with a fluid & clever tactical bent – he’s wily as a Monk. He came from a self-determined Cherokee tribe in Sao Paolo. He supplemented his primary education with Tactical combat training and was on track to be tribal leader till I invited him to Kyoto to serve as our War Chief. Then, We all fell in love with Nick so we invited him to join our family. We had to clear that through the tribe, who were thrilled at the prospect of one of their own being War Chief for HomePlex, but not sure about the marriage thing until I threw in a few advanced combat training drones to sweeten the deal. So, Chief?”. Nicholas Walk-like-the-Wind took The stage looking every bit a War Chief. He wore a beaded sash, metal chest-plate over his military jumpsuit, and a head-band with an ancient Eagle feather , The Chief emblem of The Cherokee Nation back on Old Earth. It was his ceremonial badge of rank. Standing tall, fierce black eyes staring at his audience, he began his first speech as a Warlord with an “Um.” “Um, thank you all for answering our call. One of the Dudes, Jeff, said, “Like, we don’t wan to make a hassle but we’re not committed yet. Nick replied, “When the Salvation Army is parading through your woods, it may be too late to change your mind. I thank you for being here.” Nick looked at his audience. He squinted at what first appeared to be an empty chair, then recognized a person sitting there. “and I thank you for coming too, brother See-and-not-be-seen. Is anybody else joining our War party?”, See-and-not-be-seen said, “Maybe. Depends on what you have to say”. Nick understood their reluctance. And what he said next wouldn’t exactly fill his audience with confidence. “First, I will ruin your day. You know it doesn’t make sense for Zeke Salvation to invade Mendocino or Kyoto for Weed and Apple Pie. He’s going after Mother.” Loud expletives when the crowd realized this wasn’t just a neighborly dispute. The Santa Clara representative asked, “Why can’t Mother simply shut this whole thing down?” Nick answered, “This is Top Secret, strictly enforced., Gilead has their own AI… ArchAngel.”. Shocked silence. Mother said, “First, I cannot just nuke Gilead. That would be mass murder. I am under a Concordat Oath and the Geneva Convention. Second, ArchAngel has me at a huge disadvantage, I have to run HomePlex and protect you all while we fight, and ArchAngel does not. I cannot defeat ArchAngel by myself, I need your help. Nick said, “There is no denying The threat. There is no denying The news. We are faced with an aggressive military force, a time-honored playbook for overturning Democracies, a wise & patient leadership and an unbelievably dangerous AI, but all hope is not lost. For the following reasons… They are not big. They talk about billions spreading The Gospel to The Stars, but that’s not now. Now, They number about 5,000. 2,000 military, 1,000 militia, 2,000 law enforcement officials & leadership. And of that, only a handful will actually do combat. This is no Armageddon, it’s a brushfire. We are small too, but we are not goin to wage conventional war against an enemy unbound by law and lusting for power We are smarter than They are. We anticipated all this and we know The truth, thanks to Marla setting up a fallback server in a backup crypt only Keane West knew about. They are expecting us to have only Their side of The story and expect us to be cowering & debating surrender now. “Also, like I just said, we know their actual objective. Lake Geneva. They plan on manually dropping some device that will kill Mother. Zeke’s forces will go through Mendocino and Kyoto to get to the lake”. The enemy front is the point of a spear without a spear. A small defensive force is all we need and too many fighters is actually an encumbrance. Kyoto’s militia, led by Robert Goodman is in, we hope some of my Cherokee brothers will sign up too. But we can really use some experienced forest fighters too”, Nick said, looking at the Dudes, who looked behind them hoping to see experienced forest fighters behind them. Nick turned to Robert Goodman and said, “Great! Now, Bob will take your questions. Bob?”. Bob was not pleased.