Volksfront

This is a player faction page. For the affiliated NPC faction page, see Bundschuh.

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Origin	Rheinland
Alignment	Unlawful
Profile
Date of founding	697 A.S.
Founder(s)	unknown
Base of operations	Bruchsal Base, Frankfurt

Synopsis

Believed to be founded by a group of New Berlin University students in 679 A.S., the movement had much support among the liberal elite of New Berlin, tired of the corrupt practices of the government that had led them to financial ruin near the end of the 80-Years War.

History

The Bundschuh was founded several decades before the actual revolution of 700AS, that ended the 80-years war, founded by young visionaries in a basement of the first Mitte-Stadt University on Planet New Berlin, who could no longer tolerate the circumstances the people of Rheinland lived in. Their Aim was nothing less but changing the society that made the rich richer and the poor even poorer - the society that dictated your status of a rich and educated aristocrat or a poor and exploited worker from the moment of your birth. It may be a common fact though, that the only thing intellectuals without influence do is discussing situations rather than change them with rough deeds. But over the decades, the Bundschuh turned out to become a well organized socialistic conspiracy that gained more and more influence with propaganda that was passed under the hands of laborours. It was financed by those who had left the halls of the universities behind and gathered wealth to fund the cause they had sworn to assemble for the benefit of Rheinland's people and its society.

And their day came.

On the von Rohe day in 700AS, they initialized their final strike when raging workers, carrying weapons and thoughts of the Bundschuh-Movement, revolted in Dresden as they could no longer maintain the war-machine that was fueled with the laborers blood - the blood of those who worked for more than 16 hours per day with no payment for months, to keep the burned out economy going that backed up the useless efforts in Sigma 13 which kept taking the sons and daughters of Rheinland away from their parents for more than 70 years. Many People claim this day to be the Birthday of the Volksfront (People's Front) even though those people who stood up for their right weren't centrally organized and only sticked together for three weeks until the revolution moved from the mining grounds of Dresden into the Reichstag of Mitte-Stadt. What fallowed were 15 years of a peoples coalition ruling Rheinland, that consisted of the aristocratic, the conservative, the liberal democratic and the Bundschuh Party. But this short period of time wasn't used to solidate the peoples coalition and to finally establish frequent election terms. Instead, those who fought for justice had to witness their young democracy becoming corrupted, as the thirst for more power of the leading party members made them obey the will of the aristocratic upper class that had the most influence in the economy and military forces. As the Bundschuh was the only party that heavily protested against this open corruption, it was prohibited by the parliament they helped to get the power over the house of Rheinland. Those parties who sticked with the power became nothing but pets of the companies they were supposed to control with the parliament's chancellor being the shameful mascot of this exclusive puppet collection.

Shortly after the Bundschuh got forced into the underground again, the Volksfront was founded. Before, the Bundschuh tried on legal ways to become an acknowledged party again. But as they failed every time, the party members realized that they had to fight for their and the people's rights by using force. In the beginning it were normal people who set up a front in the underground against the government. Striking against political institutions and military installations with hit and run tactics. Backed up by the old party members who still stayed in line and supported them with propaganda or financial support. But over the time, they lost more and more influence on the common people of Rheinland who got fed with opinions delivered by the controlled media. By the fallowing years, the Bundschuh movement literally lost more ground as the volksfront started to operate in space as it was the best way for them to deliver the highest damage to the companies with the smallest investment of force.

Things got even worse since the end of the nomad war. The fear of the people was systematically exploited by the government to raise the competences of Rheinland's authorities and to force more control by observation of the people's private sphere, thus a higher level of oppression on them. The government changed from a autocratic regime into a fascistic dictatorship with a cardamine addicted chancellor who claimed to be on a level with god by installing his own church dedicated to him self and trapped the minds of the simple people in nationalistic ritualism. The only ones who we still have a little influence on are the college students of Rheinland's universities. The only kind of people that seeks to have an opinion of their own.

Objectives

The Bundschuh once tried to become an acknowledged party again which hasn't to force the socialistic idea on the people but rather convinced them during free and open election terms. But as we didn't succeed on a peaceful way and things even turned out to become worse after the nomad-war, the armed wing of the Bundschuh, the Volksfront, gained more importance as the party seeks for nothing less but overthrowing the government - again.

To reach this goal, we fallow certain actives to grow, gain more influence and disrupt the economy of the fascist state of Rheinland. We grow by always presenting our selfs in a helpful and idealistic way to our most important allies, the Farmer's Rights Movement and the Red Hessians which are our main source of new recruits. We act on a planetary level by striking against "churches" and government installations. During that process and because of several razzias, we had to suffer high losses as our member of the Bundschuh were captured and brought to the Vierlande prison. The rumors are right, no one ever managed to flee from that blasted hole. Thats why we coordinate attacks on the prison transports to get a hand on our precious members again - sometimes even aided by our allies who seek to free their own people as well. As we are not depending on piracy due to our funders in New Berlin's high society and the financial support of Interspace Commerce (that allows us to supply our selfs at Kreutzberg and Yanagi) we can concentrate on disrupting the economy of Rheinland that only makes the rich ones even richer but doesn't help the poor ones in any way! To cut down reinforcing resources for Rheinland's armament industry we lock down imports of niobium and exports of the famous blood-diamonds of Dresden and Omega-11. As most of the Volksfront members, in contrast to the Bundschuh party basis, were workers at some point, we understand the position of those traders who were hired by the big companies to ship those goods for nothing but a pittance. Thats why we try to get into the minds of those people every time we encounter them, to give them the chance to freely hand the cargo over or sell it at the yanagi depot. If negotiations fail however, we will make sure that the goods that are meant to support the fascistic regime of Rheinland don't stay in the cargo hold of those greedy and inhuman people among the traders. We are not seeking an open conflict with the Police or Military Forces, but we won't run from them either.

Diplomacy

Allies

Red Hessians

Enemies

Rheinland Federal Police

Rheinland Military

Bounty Hunters

Corsairs

Synth Foods, Inc.

Known Bases

• Bruchsal Base, Frankfurt
• Luneburg