The CRA are a cell of political dissidents operating within the larger Molly movement, focused on bringing about violent reforms on behalf of the Bretonian working class. Originating from Planet Nottingham as a breakaway sect of the Chartist movement, the CRA believe that peaceful political reform is impossible while the symbiotic relationship between the Crown and BMM allows for the state-sanctioned abuse of the working class on an industrial scale. The CRA aims to bring about both a popular revolt on Planet Nottingham and the broader destruction of BMM in order to force the Bretonian government to acquiesce to their demands. In order to achieve their objectives, the CRA has resorted to piracy for funding, and terrorist attacks intended to topple the apparatus of state oppression.
2. Mission Statement:
Instigate uprisings on Planet Sprague and Graves Station in order to seize Bretonia’s industrial capacity, collapse the government and abolish the Crown.
Force the adoption of the Bretonian People’s Charter, emancipating the working class from state-corporate predation and political disenfranchisement.
Force the abolition of BMM and Bowex, creating a level playing field for Bretonian citizens to conduct business in a regulated capitalist economy without the competitive distortion of monopoly charters or aristocratic repression.
3. Primary Activities:
We’ll primarily be basing from Lisburn Rock in Cambridge and attempting to instigate RP in the surrounding systems, particularly Omega-3. This can range from light politics, sloganeering and violent activism, to in-depth ideological soapboxing and debate (depending on the preferences of the member in question).
Much of our activity will relate to piracy, either for cargo or credits. We’re primarily focused on disrupting BMM and Bowex ships as our main targets. Foreign shipping is pirated without particular prejudice, except for Daumann and Gallic corps who the CRA particularly loathe.
We’re very much interested in building up a lively and vibrant PVP environment for surrounding hostile groups, including the Corsairs and BAF. We hope to foster an approach of mutual respect, maximum fun and minimal salt.
4. Organisation and Structure:
The CRA originated as a disparate collection of dissident working associations, gatherings, clubs and militias who represented the militant fringe of the Chartist movement. This resulted in a somewhat chaotic and decentralised cell-based structure. This had the side effect of ensuring organisational resilience, as the authorities wiping out one arm of the Alliance would not unduly impact the others.
Following the CRA’s escalation to orbital insurrection as a wing of the Mollys, a more rigid organisation has been imposed owing to the massive cost of necessary equipment and ships. This allows for activists to closely coordinate and support one another’s strikes, minimising the risk of costly assets being destroyed or lost.
Activist: The bulk of the CRA’s pilots who undertake pirate raids and terrorist strikes on Bretonian state infrastructure.
Coordinator: A senior Activist who helps manage Activist strikes, and shape the direction and focus of the Alliance as a whole.
Spokesmen: A figurehead Coordinator who mediates between other Coordinators and acts as a public spokesman for Alliance propaganda and communications.
4. History:
CRA transport extracts activists from Sprague's nightside
Bretonia has a long and storied history of popular agitation owing to the appalling treatment of its working class citizens. This is exemplified by the disastrous pre-war condition of Planet Leeds and the horrifying working conditions associated with Graves Station. This abusive relationship between the state and its poorest inhabitants is embodied by the working practices of BMM: of expedience above all else, even human life. This mentality of corner cutting, corruption and cronyism most prominently led to the Founders Day Revolt in 752 AS. While the explosive formation of the Mollys resulted in a violent insurgency spreading across Bretonia, popular demands for economic and democratic reforms also grew in tempo and volume.
For the most part, the common man of Bretonia had been excluded from holding office by draconian land ownership requirements intended to preserve the power of the Cambridge and New London aristocracy. Even more concerning, true legislative power was held by the unelected House of Lords, leaving the elected House of Commons in a vestigial scrutiny role that was constrained by numerous royal prerogatives. Despite the protestations of being a democratic constitutional monarchy, radicals perceived Bretonian elections as performative and self-serving. Many reformist parties and campaigns would rise after the Dublin Revolt, believing that true reform would come from the mass mobilisation of the electorate in peaceful protest. These movements primarily orbited the vast and marginalised population of Leeds.
Despite electoral victories, radical MPs would invariably fail to effect meaningful change, ensnared by a bloated and byzantine New London bureaucracy designed to impede serious reform. The obvious failure of parliamentary gradualism and the imposition of harsh wartime civil restrictions would lead to a rise in industrial agitation by unions and reformists. This would culminate in the disastrous Leeds Bauxite Miners’ Strike of 818 AS. The state response to the strikes were swift, with BMM firing the miners after securing a replacement contract for aluminium with Daumann. Soon after, the Bretonian Populist Party would be expelled from Parliament and rendered illegal as a prohibited organisation. The riots and protests that erupted in response were forcibly dispersed by the Police Authority; once again, Molly recruitment surged.
CRA raiders strike the Fenland
The Chartist movement would emerge several years later from the grossly overpopulated refugee camps on New London, and the developing colony on Planet Sprague. The delegation of Sprague’s development to the Crown corporations almost immediately resulted in more of the same endemic corner cutting seen on Planet Leeds. Once again, BMM’s state-mandated obsession with industrial output and profit eclipsed all else, including construction quality, living standards and employee treatment. With Sprague rapidly degenerating into an impoverished planetary slum, the Bretonian People’s Charter was proposed - a list of demands for reform to working laws, parliamentary democracy and economic regulation. The petition for the BPC was submitted to Parliament with almost 2.6 billion signatures in 823 AS, but was dismissed on the grounds of “pressing wartime priorities”.
This outright refusal to so much as debate the motion prompted the formation of the Chartist Radicals Alliance, a group of political dissidents from Sprague who saw violent uprising as the only remaining mechanism for change. The ensuing years would see a spate of minor bombing attacks on BMM, BPA and CDI installations across the planet. These actions would largely earn the condemnation of the wider Chartist movement, and result in the castigated Alliance's absorption by local Molly operations. The CRA would claim vindication for their views in 827 AS, following the defeat of the “Swords into Ploughshares” motion in Parliament. This finance amendment would have allocated increased funding to civil programs and reforms strongly desired by Chartist populists. The motion was ultimately defeated following a direct intervention by the aristocrats of the House of Lords, coercing the elected members of the Commons into compliance.
The combination of this failure of mainstream politics to achieve even marginal progress, and a number of industrial accidents caused by corporate negligence spurred on a wave of anger across Sprague. The CRA have capitalised upon this in order to agitate for recruits, demonstrations and strike actions. This surge in manpower and support has allowed the CRA to gather the funding needed to purchase new vessels and equipment for Lisburn Rock, enabling an expansion of their insurgency into orbit. The Alliance now fights alongside other Molly insurgents to instigate the revolt that will topple the Bretonian government. The CRA have taken to indiscriminate piracy of foreign vessels in order to fund their domestic campaigns, and terrorist strikes against Bretonian state assets belonging to the BAF, BPA, BMM and Bowex.
6. Diplomacy:
Friendly:
Neutral:
Hostile:
Extortion:
IMG
Gaians
Gateway Shipping
Junkers
Red Hessians
Zoners
BMM
Bowex
Bretonian law enforcement
Coalition
Corsairs
Enclave
Nomads
Posts: 6,381
Threads: 335
Joined: Aug 2007
Staff roles: Story Dev Economy Dev
Q&A: Q: Why aren’t the CRA primarily focused on Dublin separatism - are you really Mollys?
A: The Mollys have always recruited dissatisfied BMM employees. This has broad implications outside of Dublin in Discovery’s setting, as can be seen from the revolt on Belfast and the establishment of Molly bases across Bretonia. The CRA isn’t aiming to establish a parallel nation, but instead violently tear down and reform the existing Bretonian state. Separatism in Dublin is not seen as an end goal, but a means to the end goal. While the creation of an independent Molly state resonates with existing Molly fighters, it probably isn’t an objective that is particularly popular with the wider Bretonian public (or even disgruntled BMM employees outside of Dublin).
The CRA believe that any Dublin Free State would be a de jure independence in name only - it would be surrounded by Bretonian territory, reliant on Bretonian supplies and forever at risk of Bretonian attack. They consequently maintain that the only route to true emancipation is the wholesale reformation of the Bretonian state through the mass uprising and revolt of the working man. The CRA argue that this armed class struggle is the only route by which the landed interests of the aristocracy can be crushed, and a true republican democracy born that sheds the systemic incentives that led to the Founders Day Revolt.
Q: The Dublin Republican Army appeared yesterday - why not join them? Isn’t this more of the same?
A: I’m very happy to see the DRA’s formation, although it did come as a hell of a surprise. What are the odds of there being no Molly factions for the longest of times, then two being independently created at the same time without either knowing the other was in the works? Amazing! We’re looking forward to playing alongside and supporting them. In terms of the actual roleplay, there are some distinct differences between the CRA and the DRA. The most prominent is the stance on Dublin separatism. The DRA wants to wrest Dublin away from Bretonia and form an independent republic as their raison d'être. As far as I can tell, they see the Mollys as a fundamentally separate population and identity to the Bretonia they broke away from.
The CRA conversely are largely recruited from the refugee populations of Leeds - they’re not second or third generation Mollys. They don’t see Dublin separatism as a viable end goal, but instead an incidental objective towards tearing Bretonia down and rebuilding it as something more just and representative. The CRA aren’t trying to carve out a new cultural identity, they’re trying to galvanise an internal revolution based on the mistreatment and political disenfranchisement of the Bretonian worker. These two diametrically differing approaches can coexist inside the larger Molly movement, as they both converge on the short-to-medium term plan of kicking BMM out of Dublin (for differing reasons).
Q: You say the CRA aren’t tying to carve out a new cultural identity - what does this mean for the stereotypical drunk, Irish Molly character?
A: The CRA (and the Mollys more generally) have their roots as low income Bretonian workers. It’s pretty plausible that there’d be all kinds of ethnicities within Bretonia, including Irish. That said, I don’t think it’s plausible that Graves Station would have exclusively recruited applicants of Irish background. As mentioned above, the CRA are recruits drawn directly from the Bretonian working class population of Sprague - they aren’t generational native Mollys. Any cultural identity or dialect that has organically developed within the movement would not have rubbed off on them (yet).
The end result of this is that our characters will not be required or expected to attempt Irish accents or dialects. Frankly, some find the caricatures of Irish stereotypes people apply to the Mollys uninspired and slightly offensive. This will hopefully allow our members to play a wider range of character backgrounds - why not a Welshman, Scot or Loiner? If our members do still want to play a recruit of Irish background, I would simply ask that the “accent” and mannerisms are dialled all the way down, as these can rapidly become utterly incomprehensible for users who don’t speak English as a native language.
Q: There’s a lot of talk about class struggle and violent revolution - sounds very communist/socilaist. Aren’t you just Coalition-Lite?
A: The CRA is modelled on historic European reformist movements from the 1830-50s, primarily the radicals, liberals and Chartists. The CRA are categorically opposed to the communism and planned economies endorsed by the Coalition. They see this as another mechanism for an elite - whether this is a landed aristocracy, or a self appointed bureaucracy - to suppress the independent enterprise and profit of the working man. The Bretonian experience with nationalised industries has jaded the Chartist movement, with many advocating for the removal of government from the economy altogether, outside of worker protection and market competition regulations.
CRA activists instead envision a Bretonian market democracy (a capitalist free market economy paired with worker protections and democratic reform). They see the abolition of the government-issued Royal Charters that characterise vehicles such as BMM and Bowex as a necessary step, believing they incentivise nepotism, corruption and cronyism. Chartist philosophy strongly emphasizes principles such as “one man, one vote” and “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work”. The prospect of a communist revolution is fundamentally at odds with the Chartists’ economic and democratic views. The Coalition are consequently treated as foreign invaders, in a similar manner to Corsairs and Enclave.
Cool and good sister faction. It's kind of magical how DRA and CRA came up at the same time not overlapping each other conceptually. Perhaps such duo is the best to squeeze all roleplay possible from the Mollys as NPC faction.
Expecting productive cooperation so we defibrillate Mollys and make them live again together.
I don't have much opinion on the Mollies (just reds for sairs, /l1 /l2, right click), but the story is very difficult to read with the keyword highlights done at this density.
@Omicron
It is pretty far from mainline Mollys. It looks like bundies a lot you are right there, but in Bretonia you can start with 2 native unlawful IDs and between Gaians and Mollys, Mollys suit better to start off something like this.
The alternative is to start with generic ID and then FCR, but that's a long and rocky route.
It doesn't change a fact that writeup is cool and it's something Bretonia lacks.
Posts: 6,381
Threads: 335
Joined: Aug 2007
Staff roles: Story Dev Economy Dev
(06-15-2020, 09:06 PM)Dublin Republican Army Wrote: Cool and good sister faction. It's kind of magical how DRA and CRA came up at the same time not overlapping each other conceptually. Perhaps such duo is the best to squeeze all roleplay possible from the Mollys as NPC faction.
Expecting productive cooperation so we defibrillate Mollys and make them live again together.
Thanks, warm wishes to you too fellow insurrectionist friendos. Would be fun to work with the locals and set up some joint combat events, maybe encourage some Corsairs to visit.
Bretonia is fighting the Coalition mainly because of communist propaganda spread to its working class. But if the Bretonian working class continues being anti-communist, I see no reason why this war should continue. The Coalition could be a useful buffer against the Corsairs.
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