Quien confrence (Of note to Miokalia, Open)

[Kingdoms of Cal]

[The Quien Party is likely to be interested in this conference as, well the Quien party might hold the balance of power and Miokalia emass may not be recognised by the commonwealth, who due to Realpolitik might start issuing passports to people from the area. Well that and Quien party ignoring the border and party members from there have the same rights as those from the commonwealth.

Up to you if Miokalia views them as a threat or a moderating factor.]

Xinian was sat on a train heading along the north cost of isle of Emass the Quien was looking over papers. He had to admit he had been somewhat remiss in his handling of party matters as he had been doing his best to show that his kind were capable of holding office in the commonwealth. The politicing had taken him sometime to get used to but he had got the hang of it.

He was trying to decipher one of Jackanie's notes, she had effectively elected herself as party chair as the little Chardonna excelled at bossing about the far larger Quien. She got people to do things through pure force of personality, well that, pure arrogance and the Quien not being quite sure how to deal with her. But despite, or perhaps because, of her hyperactive bossy nature she had turned what had been a loose grouping of Quien Mps with local power bases into a functioning political party. This would be their first conference and Xinian was both petrified and exhilarated at the thought of it.

One of Jackanie's personality quirks was you could tell when she got distracted while writing her weekly dispatch as she would continue on a totally different subject and often in a different language. This was OK most of the time as Xinian spoke Quien, Calie and English, however this was a problem when she forgot that he didn't speak the Chardonna French like tong. Well that and her hand writing was appalling him and the Mps of his party had a book on who would figure out what she was on about first.

The Quien Party now had branches all over Emass, a number on inleef and intrestingly a number in Miokalia Emass. The party's balance sheet was also looking healthy as she was a demon at fund raising. It now looked like a 'real' party with and a functional 'party machine' waiting for the upcoming election, primed.

Jackanie had modelled the party structure after that of the United Liberal Party, with the parliamentary party running parallel to the party at large, strictly speaking she out ranked Xinian in the party being it's chair. This did have the advantage that this left Xinian and his fellow Mps free to get on with their work without having to worry about the party back home.

What was odd was she seemed to be spending a lot of time in drew of late and she had organised to share the conference centre with a new party calling itself the Tribal Alliance. This was quite a sensible move as neither party was that big and it cut down on costs.

He looked at his large blackberry like com (well it had to accommodate raptorian thumbs after all) and sighed. They had been issued to all his Mps and their staff by her. They had proved useful in getting the party line straight when an unexpected issue arose at speed. The downside was that she had one and most of the Mps preferred her indecipherable notes to the flood of messages she now sent. Most had it set to dump all her messages into a 'I'll have a look when I get round to it' folder. In his case Xinian forty eight unread messages were in that folder after clearing it the previous day.

The train pulled into the station and Xinian stuffed the notes into his bag with the notes he had for his speech, he had picked up from Salato the tendency to not pre-write a speech. Salato had told him on his first day, before a cabinet meeting, when she had noticed him working on a speech

“If they see you reading from a sheet they will think all their birthdays have come at once. They will throw you off track, make you lose your place or anything to make it impossible. Anyway the words will come to you if you need them, have faith in yourself.”

He hadn't taken her advice and was taken apart by the opposition, well would have been if Salato had not stepped in...that was when he made a note never to be in opposition against her. By the time she was done she had reduced one of the opposition MPs to tears and he was a lupine twice her size, via a vicious tong lashing.

As left the train he noticed Jackanie perched on the railing opposite tapping away on her com, the normal sized blackberry like com was the perfect size for her as she was only about three foot tall. She looked up and nodded, then bashed in a quick message as he walked over to her, there was a surprisingly large number of media types about and a few cameras flashed. He then noticed a short desert fox next to her, his com buzzed, it was from her, for once he read it.

“The head of the Tribal Alliance will be with you shortly, photo op on way to centre.” it read.

He nodded to her, these things were getting increasingly important as the Quien were becoming increasingly urbanised and media aware.

A short desert fox joined him and they shook hand (well paw and claw), as they did the media types went a bit wild. Xinian really now wished he had read jackanie's messages, he had no idea what was going on though he did recall reading that one of the items in-front of the conference was “possible alliance and pooling of resources with other parties”.

The thing about party conferences in cal is they tended to have teeth and actually decide things, the party membership had a real say in party policy. Xinian knew not all votes would go his way, but this was normal, even Salato could grantee that her party's leadership would loose one or, usually, more votes. They did things like agree the party manifesto and in the case of the Quien party more importantly what issues were red lined (not up for negotiation in coalition agreements). The only one they had before was the principal of a united Emass, which had been agreed to on paper, but nothing had been done about it.

Xinian was struck by a very worrying thought, motion five on the agenda was that the party would red line that Miokalia Emass would be claimed as commonwealth territory. Thus all those resident or born there would have the right to a commonwealth passport, he knew the conference would red line that and if they commonwealth government passed the policy the Miokalian were unlikely to like it. It made no request for military action, which wasn't going to happen but...it would not do relations between the two nations any favours.

The two party leaders walked along the sea front making small talk, mostly about who they reckoned would win the rugby on that quarter day*. The drewn seem a nice enough female and the Tribal Alliance seemed a good fit as partners, they valued the tribe and were fairly socially conservative from what he could tell.

Xinian political brain kicked in, the conservatives were in melt down over various things and the libertarians seemed to have lost the plot. The new party had a good chance in Drew and his in Emass, it would be good for both parties to work as one.

Jackanie was running along the guard rail that separated the beach from the boulevard, periodically hopping over the gaps, she appeared to miscalculate a jump and the drewn caught her. The media went mad.

Xinian knew that was a stunt, but most of the media didn't think his party capable of such a trick, it would get them noticed. Jackanie was one of the party's greatest assets, she was a natural at the game.

[Kingdoms of Cal]

ooc: now you know how I post stuff when I can't mind names...sorry....Fixed if you missed.

[miokalia]

ooc: That was actually a good idea, I need to start doing that when I can't come up with a name. Sometimes I get hung up on trying to come up with names and I end up being unable to post.

[miokalia]

Emayshira (Also known as: Miokalian Emass in the Commonwealths), was a strip of Emass which was a place in political limbo. The official stance of the Federal Government of Miokalia considered it a foreign country which may or may not be an unincorporated territory of Cal. However, two of the Miokalian Tajirates (provinces) of the Talarine Isle (on the other side of Miokalia) considered Emayshira to be an unincorporated territory of Miokalia... Much to the chagrin and disapproval of the Federal Government.
Still, Quien-Emayshira sovereignty was a catchy, cultural populist theme on the Talarine Isle even though the Talarine had very little in common with them besides their species and a handful of linguistic similarities with the Kuho. It was something used purely to appeal to the sentiment of the older generations who still held on to reletively conservative, isolationist, "Kohtohcentric" political beliefs. Even though it basically had little or no bearing on real policy whatsoever

However, the Federal Government which they were a part of didn't really seem too interested in indulging them by trying to put up a diplomatic fight for annexation of Emayshira or any of Emass.

Vuela Konig, The Tajir Secretary (Equivalent to Prime Minister in Miokalia) didn't see any reason to make an issue out of who Emass happened to be claimed by at any point in time. And she had already once vetoed a resolution in the lower house having to do with proposed annexation of Emayshira. Her explanation being that it is up to Emayshira to make decisions regarding their sovereignty or to what national government they choose to be associated with.
Emass was a subject she naturally wanted to remain vague on though, for political reasons. Since species-wise, her being a Wolfptor (in Cal, she would be considered a somewhat conspicuous 'hybe') Any unusually focussed intentions she had regarding Emass would attract some very rancorous reactions from pundits, ranging from decrying this special attention as imperialism of some kind all the way to accusations of some kind of unfair, phenotypal preference for Emassen ethnospecies groups.
It was a can of worms she refused to open. And her official reaction to the Quien angling for implied commonwealth citizenship for their region was fairly vague.
She said,
"We support self-determination in Emayshira and it is good that the Quien Party is taking steps in this direction independent from external influence"

Of course, as she was saying this, pundits in the provincial isle of Talarine, who wanted Emayshira to be absolutely Miokalian, called her all sorts of nasty names for her opinion and stance on the matter.

[Kingdoms of Cal]

Xinian approached the conference centre with visible concern, what the hell had he let him self into?

By the main building there was a building site, well they had levelled the area but had yet to build. I was full of drewn tents. The tribal alliance was drewn in nature and they rarely wasted any resource. It was bleak looking being flat rock, but he had seen drew so it was likely like home to the desert drewn.

Jackanie was beside him, her people were of such a small minority that most of the commonwealth and his people tended to forget about them. Jackanie had managed to cause the creation of two seats by getting her forgotten people to admit their existence. The electoral commission had done the rest and had ensured the little sapient raptors were on the roll.

Xinian had quickly realised that the Quien party was not going to be a single race party. The Chardonna could be a small oddity but it seemed that the merger with the desert drewn's could not be...well that and the branches on inleef.

His party was going to have to grow up as the party of the tribe, he was worried as the quien party was a racial party, young and stupid. Most things were black and white to it's members...as far as he knew. Did any of the ones out in the sticks know how things worked? He doubted and as for Miokalia emass he was very worried that they might become extreme.

In Calie Emass no one cared as the commonwealth left them alone, he feared this was not the same in Miokalia Emass. He knew the extremists on the commonwealth side could and would supply weapons to those over the boarder and the extremists on the other side would supply them. There was a mess waiting to happen.

The Unified Emass policy would remain but the party could do nothing without a majority and the action would require force. The first was impossible the second...no party would agree to.

This was not a good situation.

[miokalia]

OIUOIUOIU, paced around his penthouse office. His expression being that one of fake confidence over a situation which was beginning to turn into something which he could not control.
The Quien party threatened to bring civility to a place which his pseudocharity, KuhAid, was transporting arms into. KuhAid's cabal of "benefactors" were actually investing in the organization which would purchase arms and then unscrupulously sell them to seperatist groups on both sides of Emass at a considerable profit which was then distributed amongst the cabal of "benefactors".
KuhAid started out a bit more conspicuous in 1990. Back then, they actually put considerable effort into creating a public relations mechanism to actively distract the public and the government from their real core activity. It helped that the Talbot Administration went out of their way to turn a blind eye on this kind of activity. And thus KuhAid flourished in the environment of the corrupt federal government of early 90's Miokalia.
But OIUOIUOIU's pseudocharity, which had bought this office with it's panoramic overlook of downtown Kohtohkoh, was at risk.

He glowered at the buildings below as he leaned against one of the beton brut concrete block pillars surrounding the steel ribs that supported the tower. It was stylish in some intensely bitter way.
Years of untaxed, undocumented income had afforded him an array of extravagant things which adorned his grand, 58th story office.

After picking up a glass of cognac, dispensed from a brass automated tap which resembled a barfing dragon, a chute placed above the baroque oenoduct would dispense a single, 10 centimeter long, flash-frozen Ortolan bird (non anthro, of course) which would drop into the glass of cognac, completing the beverage.
He would pause a moment, look up at one of his most expensive acquisitions, the 15th century painting The Torment of Rodalaton. From which a painted depiction of the adolescent, Ancient Raptoran Monarch, Iekdato would look outward from the painting in a fixed expression of abject terror and disgust. OOIUOIUOIU would then glower at the painting and say "What the fuck are you staring at? Eat or be eaten. Haven't you ever heard of Nietzche?". Then he would knock back the whole glass of cognac and Ortolan bird whole, in a single, unceremonious gulp which upon completion, he would toss the wine glass against a wall. Some time later, he would pass out somewhere on the marble floor, but not before ritualistically urinating in his many jade vases containing Orchids that are fastidiously cared-for by his often-frazzled housekeeping crew.
Occasionally, he not only urinates in the planters, but sometimes attempts somewhat destructive copulative activities with the flowers. Which is often, among other things, a cause of confusion or slight horror for the staff's decorative horticulturalist.

The first course of action was to try to buy the Quien Party off. Which he promptly had his business associates put together a proposition for.
An offer of 500,000 Meeps for party to do with as they see fit, on the condition that they sit on their claws, and take no steps to resolve the political limbo of Emass.

[Kingdoms of Cal]

Xinian had managed to find his room, he smiled. the rooms in the hotel were spercifically designed for his kind. The nest was well made and the bathroom was very well designed. There was a knock at the door, he answered.

A courior handed him a letter.

he opened it, it contained a cheque made out to him for 500,000 meeps, more than had seen in his life. he held it.

Then there was a smaller knock on the door it was Jackanie she said "I have ze accounts here we have seven million in the fighting fund..but we can only use three million."

Xinian realised just how issultenly low the bribe was and walked over to a table and set fire to the cheque letting it turn to ash, then poured it into and envalope he addresses to the would be briber.

In trurth he couldn't have done what was requested anyway...that and well he was honest.

Jackanie nodded "bribe? had a few."

Jackanie continued "good answer gave zem the zame answer. but to bussiness you speech ."