The fate of Carmichael

kzt wrote:The embassy isn't one guy, it's a whole bunch of people who support the mission and the ambassador, and their dependents. Keep that in mind when thinking about evacuating.

In Cambodia, the U.S. ambassador and his staff leave Phnom Penh when the U.S. Navy conducts its evacuation effort, Operation Eagle. On April 3, 1975, as the communist Khmer Rouge forces closed in for the final assault on the capital city, U.S. forces were put on alert for the impending embassy evacuation. An 11-man Marine element flew into the city to prepare for the arrival of the U.S. evacuation helicopters. On April 10, U.S. Ambassador Gunther Dean asked Washington that the evacuation begin no later than April 12.

At 8:50 a.m. on April 12, an Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service HH-53 landed a four-man Air Force combat control team to coordinate the operation. Three minutes later, it guided in a Marine Corps helicopter with the first element of the Marine security force. Marine and Air Force helicopters then carried 276 evacuees–including 82 Americans, 159 Cambodians, and 35 foreign nationals–to the safety of U.S. Navy assault carriers in the Gulf of Thailand. By 10 a.m., the Marine contingency force, the advance 11-man element, and the combat control team had been evacuated without any casualties.

On April 16, the Lon Nol government surrendered to the Khmer Rouge, ending five years of war. With the surrender, the victorious Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh and set about to reorder Cambodian society, which resulted in a killing spree and the notorious “killing fields.” Eventually, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were murdered or died from exhaustion, hunger, and disease.

saber964 wrote:Whose to say that SEM doesn't have contingency plans. What is the ambassador received instructions to go to the Beowulf Delegation and seek temporary shelter. I'm thinking that the Ballroom (Torch) has a few agents in place, along with BCIA. They could have ways into Chicago's old city were Carmichael & Co and could hide for months without being noticed before smuggling them all off world.

cthia wrote:

saber964 wrote:Whose to say that SEM doesn't have contingency plans. What is the ambassador received instructions to go to the Beowulf Delegation and seek temporary shelter. I'm thinking that the Ballroom (Torch) has a few agents in place, along with BCIA. They could have ways into Chicago's old city were Carmichael & Co and could hide for months without being noticed before smuggling them all off world.

Well, I hope Anton Zilwicki's in on it. Perhaps we'll get that "much bigger hole in the ground" this time that Helen warned us about.

cthia wrote:

saber964 wrote:Whose to say that SEM doesn't have contingency plans. What is the ambassador received instructions to go to the Beowulf Delegation and seek temporary shelter. I'm thinking that the Ballroom (Torch) has a few agents in place, along with BCIA. They could have ways into Chicago's old city were Carmichael & Co and could hide for months without being noticed before smuggling them all off world.

Well, I hope Anton Zilwicki's in on it. Perhaps we'll get that "much bigger hole in the ground" this time that Helen warned us about.

Ed130 The Vanguard wrote:I rather doubt that, a Green Pines style attack on Chicago or even a deep raid in order to pull out Carmichael would be propaganda gold for the Mandarins. If they were to order the ambassador's arrest a quiet extraction would be the order of things and ultimately be more damaging than a bomb.

"Oh Ambassador Carmichael? The man you whipped Chicago into a frenzy with one of the biggest manhunts in Earth history? He's was deployed to Beowulf last week."

An impotent League is a weak League.

ART Ch. 29

"I know. I was watching you watch it.” She smiled slightly. “Impressive, isn’t it?”

“Not as impressive as the fact that Old Chicago’s highly efficient police force seems somehow totally unable to break up this completely un-authorized and spontaneous demonstration.” Carmichael’s tone was poison dry, and this time Hadley actually chuckled.

“The same thought had occurred to me,” she admitted. “Actually, I’ve been wondering whether or not I should add that to my daily indictment on the Assembly floor. It wouldn’t change anything, of course, but it might make me feel a little better.”

Her expression was almost whimsical, and Carmichael shook his head.

“Forgive me, Madam Delegate, but I don’t see how you’ve stood it so long. At best, the Assembly’s turned into some sort of zoo where tourists come to see the exotic animals. Or maybe the term I really want is the endangered species!”

“Not the most tactful of descriptions, perhaps, but to the point,” she said judiciously. Then she shrugged, and her expression turned more serious. “Actually, it’s not a bad description at all, but, you know, I honestly believed—once, at least—that I might be achieving something worthwhile. Even if it was only to be the voice of the past, a reminder of what the League was once supposed to be. Now”—she stepped past Carmichael to look out his window—“all of that seems as foolish as it was pointless.”

-SNIP-

He stepped up beside her, looking back out the window himself at the screaming mob. They were beginning to throw things at the residence’s ground-floor walls and windows. The security fields were stopping the tide of rocks, eggs, over-ripe vegetables, and occasional old-fashioned molotov cocktails, but the symbolic acts of vandalism seemed to please the crowd. Not as much as the little knots of people who were burning the Manticoran and Beowulf planetary flags and dismembering—or igniting—effigies dressed in what they fondly believed were Manticoran and Beowulfan naval uniforms, though. As Carmichael watched, one flashily dressed, wildly tattooed flag-burner—he looked like one of the millions of longterm unemployed who collected their stipends from the planetary government every month—held onto a burning Manticoran flag just a moment too long. It was impossible to hear his howls, but the way he started leaping about and waving his hand frantically said volumes, the ambassador thought with a certain satisfaction.

“Frankly,” Hadley said, “what astonishes me, even though I ought to know better after all this time, is that anyone would take Education and Information’s word for anything.” She grimaced. “Like I say, I ought to know better. In fact, I do know better. But it still seems so incredibly brainless. It’s like they want to be lied to because it’s so familiar, or because it keeps them in their comfort zone by absolving them of the need to actually think about things. Apparently nobody on Old Terra ever heard that cliché about ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’”

cthia wrote:Ahem, now that you've turned on the front burner, as is the case of the US, wouldn't it be the policy of Manticore to have Manticoran protection on planet to protect its embassy? Wouldn't a Manticoran embassy be considered Manticoran soil? Hence, the Manticoran - and in the case of Beowulf, Beowulfan - flags flying?

Carmichael moved into the Beowulf embassy with seemingly zero fuss over moving a large amount of people. And given the mechanics of hyper travel, having large embassies anymore is almost counter-productive, anything you can do with an official ambassador and perhaps a dozen aides is all you need. A few clerks to handle paperwork filing, since that's a little more specialist than generic aide is. Call it no more than two dozen for the official staff of the embassy, that would rise considerably depending on how many brought their families with them.