Post by voxapocrypha on Aug 2, 2021 4:09:33 GMT -6
POST-INAUGURATION DAY
The Greater Federation of Western America
Post-Inauguration of the 34th Prime Executive/President of the Federation
Angel City - District of Los Angeles
Capital of the Federation
Spring, 2120
The Federation President was a position coveted by many a politician. It was a rare position that could be held indefinitely in the Federation government, if you had the popular support to protect that position. One man had indeed held that position for almost sixteen years, four long terms in the office having long allowed for them exert influence over the nation and to lead it down the path it had gone. While push back from political institutions of notable power had held back Hadrian Thule, Hadrian had risen above the maneuvering and seized what he wanted, what he felt he had to take to bring his nation back on the right path out of impending crisis.
As he sat in an office, the remnants of a late night meal gotten from a fast food restaurant remained on his desk, as well as a picture of his family and as well a few other images of him in various parts of his life and places in the world, some of which are of him with a uniform and a rifle. Now he held a pen, compared to the old 'swords' he used to carry around. He had spent the day greeting people, and only really got to the real deal of what he had sought to do when he had finally made it back to his office - and subsequently had to verbally dropkick a man out of it when he saw the old pin for the now defunct old administration on their lapel. He was in no mood, and he didn't buy into threats or coercion. It was moot anyway, if he did he'd be executed if anyone found out, which suited him just fine.
It did not prevent him from full on cheating though, and when he had felt it was the truly best option, he did cheat. Though he had set up a plan to deal with those he had cheated with when he had taken this very seat from the old as fuck Gen-A'er who had held it for so long. Those dominos were in motion as he sat and stared blankly at the screen, his curly red hair a mess and his hat on his desk, while his shirt was unbuttoned for the undershirt to be free and the top to his suit was laid around his chair's back. The Festria had just finished rereading the entirety of his agenda.
Hadrian was an egotist. He was bashful, he was loud, he was prideful, greedy.. he was many of the sins that the Christian religion and others would view as wrong and yet he had reached his position without making false promises, of which was something of a rarity, he had not lied or cheated (much) nor had he made secret backdoor deals. No he reached out to the people and he earned their vote through years of hard work, endeavoring to overthrow a era of political brainwashing that had created turmoil within his nation, his community.
A veteran of every branch of service and several civil service organizations, thanks to his race and its longevity, Hadrian was a man in touch with the worst and best of his people that he now would aim to lead through this new period in world history, as global tensions began again to flare. The president he had ousted had left him a mess, a big one - and he was set to clean that up. He had too. His constituents were expecting that of him. It was really the one 'promise', if one could call his duty a promise and not a responsibility inherent to his title, he had to deliver on, do because it was not only expected of him but it was the right thing to do.
Hadrian had inherited a number of issues and they all had their own challenges that were often so unique and varied that they sometimes overlapped or were entirely leagues apart in their own little areas that required entirely new manners of tackling a problem.
Welfare towns had sprawled to life inside of often big major urban sprawls or as basically isolated communities within a city, where the bare necessities were all that was handed out, and housing was effectively two bedroom, one kitchen, one bathroom apartments with small living spaces that were often old, and made of 'Modulars', structures designed to be used more for short term living arrangements in the colonial zones of Mu that the Federation controlled, not as permanent habitation. Those people were sometimes the genuinely destitute, disabled, those who could not work because they physically or mentally could not. What had happened for a zone intended for the worst off of society was that, alongside there being a monetary allotment each month for these people, was that people had willingly chosen to get onto the system of which amounted to little more than welfare.
They were a labor source and he was going to put them back to work. He had a means to address it but it required time and it would not be a easy task, and their cooperation wasn't expected to come easy but if he had to clear the zones by force he was going to do that and he would make those people back into functional members of society regardless the difficulty in such an act.
Intermixed with them was another issue.
The Augmented.
Not all augmented were shit out of luck or otherwise destitute, most really weren't. The people that were, were often found in these zones. Some were able bodied, most really, and they were part of or formed gangs. But there were ones that were otherwise.. not that good off. It created two different problems in many places - gang wars between the augs and the non-augs, or between augmented gangs that would tear up the ghettos and welfare tenements until police either broke it up by killing the people responsible or driving them away, or the shooting between the gangs stopped because they either didn't hit each other, or they fled in advance of arrest or death by cop.
The Medical crisis, was in the need for Neurostabilizer, the drug that kept augments from being rejected by the body. Augmented citizens that didn't have access to it, gradually lost use of the limbs or implants, and had tissue build up that could, really would eventually lead to organ failure and implant rejection in totality, the heart of those issues being the gambling capital of the Federation, New Reno and New Sparks, though Angel City and other big metros all had these issues. He had to deal with that medical crisis alongside a growing drug epidemic in the Dixie Occupation Zone, or rather the Dixie National Authority as it was being called.
And the drugs were barely a note to him compared to the rioting and likely, the impending race war between the Kithium and Dixie humans in Northern Texas. It had started to escalate, riots turning to fist fights, turning to gun fights, firebombing. He had to find a way to bring that to an end, or in all likelihood, before martial force could be effectively used to stop it, the Kithium would either be forced to fight for their lives, or the humans might get mass murdered. He didn't want either outcome, and it seemed that - while a violation of their sovereign rights - separating the two by force and relocating both further from each other would be the best option. This paired with the insurrection, and as well the migrant crisis from the Mexican civil war were both heavy weights to the south.
Federation foreign policy in the Americas necessitated interventionism, a requirement.
That entire region along the Dixie-Fed border was in turmoil, and it likely would need Martial Law overall to control it.
Foreign policy was as well an agenda that had to be updated, as well as the overarching stance of the Federation economy. He needed to boost it. He needed as well to consider a course of action on the Mexican civil war that the prior president had involved them in, and he had to as well decide on his stance on the Aleutian Islands and the Sunrise Imperium. Terrorism and as well, a number of foreign conflicts of which the Federation had become involved in or at least had some interest in besides Mexico were all ringing in that department, and as well a new overall strategy had to be adopted.. and worst of all of it he figured, would be dealing with the UN. He had to handle that.
All of this and more had ran through his mind as he had stared at a transparent, orange screen, the black bubbles with white text, written by another account he used and left as something of a long series of text messages depicting the massive amount of shit that he would soon have to do within the first few weeks of his presidency to solidify his grasp, and as well begin to address every problem he had to deal with. While it might have needed less time if it were not for politicians, he figured that his estimates were generously in favor of getting what he wanted fast, which he knew the political opposition was not going to take.
Come the morning he had to handle something new.
Getting acquainted with the war he had inherited, and his military staff. Anyone of importance in other fields, he'd met, shook hands with, had dinner with, hell he'd even nearly throat punched one and fucked another, but the military was a different beast and he had a lot of personal experience with that multi-headed Timber Wolf. They were like a pack of the ancient, venerated predator when they wanted to be. He was not going to be intimidated by those men and women. No, he was going to prove to be a power in his own right and demonstrate he did have authority of them like the last admin did, and if they made a peep out of turn he'd throttle them to death by the budget and by the hand of bureaucratic red tape.
Among that though his only real goals were establishing a working relationship with each of them (Again) and then becoming familiar with the state of his nation's armed forces and its involvement in the world's political shitshow.
Mid-day
The Pentagram, Federation Military Planning and Coordination Center
Angel City
In any sense the Federation's military was a behemoth entity, and while it had its tendrils embedded into the soil of five different continents, the Federation's military heart was said to lay within the walls of the Pentagram, the star shaped building built in Angel City with five wings, each dedicated to a branch of the armed forces. North wing, was for the Air and Aerospace Forces. North East, the Army. North West, the Navy. South east was for the Military Police, and South West was for the Marines. In the center, was auxiliary command and then Combined Command, of which respectively Auxiliary handled the Coast Guard, UN Peacekeeper units, National Guard units, and then Combined Command handled all of those units and generally served as the Joint Operations center of the armed forces, where each branch worked together in a coordinated fashion.
Hadrian had been an officer and it was always a hope he'd never enter the building, because he hated officers mostly then and he still did not like desk jockies now, but he had no real choice.
As he would be led down the halls by an aid to the General of the Aerospace Force, he'd be more so taken by the interior design and architecture, and not so much anything else, though he stopped to greet plenty of people along the way and have short chats - much to the annoyance of the aid, despite how well they tried to hide it. He'd eventually though get dragged, all the way by the air practically after a bit, to the door of the elevator that'd take him into the complex part of the way below ground.
He'd accepted his fate, and just let it happen.
When it did arrive, and he was led to the conference room, he would be guided into the room and then left at a seat, where a plate of small sandwiches was supplied and as well, a pitcher of ice water. Annnd.. the waiting began.
He did not have to wait terribly long, the various leaders of the Federation's armed forces began to filter in. His early arrival had surprised most of them, but Admiral Mann had expected it, and as he was last in the room, the Human had nodded his head and made his way to his seat, simply taking a seat and relaxing a bit into the fabric as the others had all done the same, or tried.
Airman General Tanner was a human woman with a pair of feline ears and a tail, a Kithium 'father' and a human mother had made for a interesting snow leopard-human combo. She was also small, but that hadn't made her any less dangerous. She was mostly human, but those catlike features made her deadly in hand to hand, and as well she had keen eyes and a predatory instinct that put his own to shame, he knew that, and it was one of the reasons that the last president had wanted to get her thrown out, but had failed dramatically. Her long white hair was in a regulation pony tail, and her hands were kept together in front of her, her blue uniform being digital camo.
She was the highest ranking member of the Federation's Air Force, and Aerospace Command. The potency of Federation air and space power, diminished only now because of past budget cuts, was thanks to her.
Next to her, Mannerheim, commander and chief of the Federation Army, had taken his seat. He was a grizzled veteran of the biggest war in Federation history, the Dixie-Federation conflict, and he saw action on the Hansiatic front, and the Dixie front. He was Festria, built like a tank despite his age, and for all that muscle he had a brain that could outplay anyone in the room at chess. Or he assumed, given what he had seen on their file. He would watch the silver furred Festria stretch and rest his hands on the table, he and Hadrian sharing a greeting before his eyes drifted a minute later to the next person to enter the room.
General Hyron, a Kithium seaborner with soft and thin grey fur, entered the room. She was smaller than most save Tanner, but she was like her in many ways - formidable and not without claws in any sense. She led the Federation Marine Corps, and had for two decades, a appointee from before the last admin, and she was good at her job - and the political maneuvering that had to be done in the last administration.
She had planted herself in a seat and exchanged greetings, when the leader of the Federation's Military Police force had arrived.
The man was a human named Ushan, Asian by the looks of it, with short black hair and brown eyes. He held out a hand to the president and they shook, the man sitting down. He wore a black and blue suit with white accents, more decorated than others in it, though it wasn't so strong as to be anything beyond simply a noticeable departure from other military uniforms, to signify the difference between that branch and all others. He was like a police chief that administered an army, rather than just a typical general or officer, and he had legal degrees and judicial experience that made him fit for the supreme court. Raised by Festria he was as well disciplined and an honorable individual, albeit he was perfectly willing to let principles falter if it came between him and doing his job.
The last to arrive were the Admiral and Commander of the Coast Guard and Marines.
Admiral Dejanus was a Yun'het, and he was on the tall side as most Yun'het were. He was as well athletically built. He wore a black uniform with white accents and silver anchor emblems on his shoulders to signify his rank. He'd take his seat and cup his hands together after the greetings and then relax a bit, though not much. The coast guard commander was effectively under navy command most of the time, but his service was not a service ignored given that it had been responsible for safe guarding border integrity in more direct fashion than the navy was, especially since the start of the Mexican civil war and the associated mass migrations of refugees. The lightly blue colored fox person would look at the Marine commander as he gave his greeting.
Duran was a Lycan, a wolf-person. He was average height, five feet, eleven inches. Grey and white fur with yellow eyes and a general wolf-ish look that Anthro riftborne generally had. He'd greet the president and sit down, adjusting his green colored uniform in its minimalist design, doing so quickly and efficiently, the stars on his shoulders having anchors beneath them to signify that he too was apart of a navy component service.
"Welcome, everyone." Hadrian would say. "Now that we're all here and introductions are out of the way, I'd like to say it's an honor to finally get to meet some of you face to face. Admiral Mann and I have a long history together, and we both served in the Mu border war and the African Peacekeeping missions. The rest of you I look forward to getting to know otherwise, and especially so given that we are going to be working together quite a lot." He'd say. As they listened, he would continue to speak. "To cut to the chase, and jump over the formalities, I've been doing some reading on the state of the armed forces and our involvement in world affairs on a military level, but I'd like to have up to date reports on the status and readiness of each arm of the armed forces." He'd say.
And so the long meeting began, with Hadrian inviting the unabridged reality from the people who'd at least give it to him straighter than a senator ever would.
The Greater Federation of Western America
Post-Inauguration of the 34th Prime Executive/President of the Federation
Angel City - District of Los Angeles
Capital of the Federation
Spring, 2120
The Federation President was a position coveted by many a politician. It was a rare position that could be held indefinitely in the Federation government, if you had the popular support to protect that position. One man had indeed held that position for almost sixteen years, four long terms in the office having long allowed for them exert influence over the nation and to lead it down the path it had gone. While push back from political institutions of notable power had held back Hadrian Thule, Hadrian had risen above the maneuvering and seized what he wanted, what he felt he had to take to bring his nation back on the right path out of impending crisis.
As he sat in an office, the remnants of a late night meal gotten from a fast food restaurant remained on his desk, as well as a picture of his family and as well a few other images of him in various parts of his life and places in the world, some of which are of him with a uniform and a rifle. Now he held a pen, compared to the old 'swords' he used to carry around. He had spent the day greeting people, and only really got to the real deal of what he had sought to do when he had finally made it back to his office - and subsequently had to verbally dropkick a man out of it when he saw the old pin for the now defunct old administration on their lapel. He was in no mood, and he didn't buy into threats or coercion. It was moot anyway, if he did he'd be executed if anyone found out, which suited him just fine.
It did not prevent him from full on cheating though, and when he had felt it was the truly best option, he did cheat. Though he had set up a plan to deal with those he had cheated with when he had taken this very seat from the old as fuck Gen-A'er who had held it for so long. Those dominos were in motion as he sat and stared blankly at the screen, his curly red hair a mess and his hat on his desk, while his shirt was unbuttoned for the undershirt to be free and the top to his suit was laid around his chair's back. The Festria had just finished rereading the entirety of his agenda.
Hadrian was an egotist. He was bashful, he was loud, he was prideful, greedy.. he was many of the sins that the Christian religion and others would view as wrong and yet he had reached his position without making false promises, of which was something of a rarity, he had not lied or cheated (much) nor had he made secret backdoor deals. No he reached out to the people and he earned their vote through years of hard work, endeavoring to overthrow a era of political brainwashing that had created turmoil within his nation, his community.
A veteran of every branch of service and several civil service organizations, thanks to his race and its longevity, Hadrian was a man in touch with the worst and best of his people that he now would aim to lead through this new period in world history, as global tensions began again to flare. The president he had ousted had left him a mess, a big one - and he was set to clean that up. He had too. His constituents were expecting that of him. It was really the one 'promise', if one could call his duty a promise and not a responsibility inherent to his title, he had to deliver on, do because it was not only expected of him but it was the right thing to do.
Hadrian had inherited a number of issues and they all had their own challenges that were often so unique and varied that they sometimes overlapped or were entirely leagues apart in their own little areas that required entirely new manners of tackling a problem.
Welfare towns had sprawled to life inside of often big major urban sprawls or as basically isolated communities within a city, where the bare necessities were all that was handed out, and housing was effectively two bedroom, one kitchen, one bathroom apartments with small living spaces that were often old, and made of 'Modulars', structures designed to be used more for short term living arrangements in the colonial zones of Mu that the Federation controlled, not as permanent habitation. Those people were sometimes the genuinely destitute, disabled, those who could not work because they physically or mentally could not. What had happened for a zone intended for the worst off of society was that, alongside there being a monetary allotment each month for these people, was that people had willingly chosen to get onto the system of which amounted to little more than welfare.
They were a labor source and he was going to put them back to work. He had a means to address it but it required time and it would not be a easy task, and their cooperation wasn't expected to come easy but if he had to clear the zones by force he was going to do that and he would make those people back into functional members of society regardless the difficulty in such an act.
Intermixed with them was another issue.
The Augmented.
Not all augmented were shit out of luck or otherwise destitute, most really weren't. The people that were, were often found in these zones. Some were able bodied, most really, and they were part of or formed gangs. But there were ones that were otherwise.. not that good off. It created two different problems in many places - gang wars between the augs and the non-augs, or between augmented gangs that would tear up the ghettos and welfare tenements until police either broke it up by killing the people responsible or driving them away, or the shooting between the gangs stopped because they either didn't hit each other, or they fled in advance of arrest or death by cop.
The Medical crisis, was in the need for Neurostabilizer, the drug that kept augments from being rejected by the body. Augmented citizens that didn't have access to it, gradually lost use of the limbs or implants, and had tissue build up that could, really would eventually lead to organ failure and implant rejection in totality, the heart of those issues being the gambling capital of the Federation, New Reno and New Sparks, though Angel City and other big metros all had these issues. He had to deal with that medical crisis alongside a growing drug epidemic in the Dixie Occupation Zone, or rather the Dixie National Authority as it was being called.
And the drugs were barely a note to him compared to the rioting and likely, the impending race war between the Kithium and Dixie humans in Northern Texas. It had started to escalate, riots turning to fist fights, turning to gun fights, firebombing. He had to find a way to bring that to an end, or in all likelihood, before martial force could be effectively used to stop it, the Kithium would either be forced to fight for their lives, or the humans might get mass murdered. He didn't want either outcome, and it seemed that - while a violation of their sovereign rights - separating the two by force and relocating both further from each other would be the best option. This paired with the insurrection, and as well the migrant crisis from the Mexican civil war were both heavy weights to the south.
Federation foreign policy in the Americas necessitated interventionism, a requirement.
That entire region along the Dixie-Fed border was in turmoil, and it likely would need Martial Law overall to control it.
Foreign policy was as well an agenda that had to be updated, as well as the overarching stance of the Federation economy. He needed to boost it. He needed as well to consider a course of action on the Mexican civil war that the prior president had involved them in, and he had to as well decide on his stance on the Aleutian Islands and the Sunrise Imperium. Terrorism and as well, a number of foreign conflicts of which the Federation had become involved in or at least had some interest in besides Mexico were all ringing in that department, and as well a new overall strategy had to be adopted.. and worst of all of it he figured, would be dealing with the UN. He had to handle that.
All of this and more had ran through his mind as he had stared at a transparent, orange screen, the black bubbles with white text, written by another account he used and left as something of a long series of text messages depicting the massive amount of shit that he would soon have to do within the first few weeks of his presidency to solidify his grasp, and as well begin to address every problem he had to deal with. While it might have needed less time if it were not for politicians, he figured that his estimates were generously in favor of getting what he wanted fast, which he knew the political opposition was not going to take.
Come the morning he had to handle something new.
Getting acquainted with the war he had inherited, and his military staff. Anyone of importance in other fields, he'd met, shook hands with, had dinner with, hell he'd even nearly throat punched one and fucked another, but the military was a different beast and he had a lot of personal experience with that multi-headed Timber Wolf. They were like a pack of the ancient, venerated predator when they wanted to be. He was not going to be intimidated by those men and women. No, he was going to prove to be a power in his own right and demonstrate he did have authority of them like the last admin did, and if they made a peep out of turn he'd throttle them to death by the budget and by the hand of bureaucratic red tape.
Among that though his only real goals were establishing a working relationship with each of them (Again) and then becoming familiar with the state of his nation's armed forces and its involvement in the world's political shitshow.
Mid-day
The Pentagram, Federation Military Planning and Coordination Center
Angel City
In any sense the Federation's military was a behemoth entity, and while it had its tendrils embedded into the soil of five different continents, the Federation's military heart was said to lay within the walls of the Pentagram, the star shaped building built in Angel City with five wings, each dedicated to a branch of the armed forces. North wing, was for the Air and Aerospace Forces. North East, the Army. North West, the Navy. South east was for the Military Police, and South West was for the Marines. In the center, was auxiliary command and then Combined Command, of which respectively Auxiliary handled the Coast Guard, UN Peacekeeper units, National Guard units, and then Combined Command handled all of those units and generally served as the Joint Operations center of the armed forces, where each branch worked together in a coordinated fashion.
Hadrian had been an officer and it was always a hope he'd never enter the building, because he hated officers mostly then and he still did not like desk jockies now, but he had no real choice.
As he would be led down the halls by an aid to the General of the Aerospace Force, he'd be more so taken by the interior design and architecture, and not so much anything else, though he stopped to greet plenty of people along the way and have short chats - much to the annoyance of the aid, despite how well they tried to hide it. He'd eventually though get dragged, all the way by the air practically after a bit, to the door of the elevator that'd take him into the complex part of the way below ground.
He'd accepted his fate, and just let it happen.
When it did arrive, and he was led to the conference room, he would be guided into the room and then left at a seat, where a plate of small sandwiches was supplied and as well, a pitcher of ice water. Annnd.. the waiting began.
He did not have to wait terribly long, the various leaders of the Federation's armed forces began to filter in. His early arrival had surprised most of them, but Admiral Mann had expected it, and as he was last in the room, the Human had nodded his head and made his way to his seat, simply taking a seat and relaxing a bit into the fabric as the others had all done the same, or tried.
Airman General Tanner was a human woman with a pair of feline ears and a tail, a Kithium 'father' and a human mother had made for a interesting snow leopard-human combo. She was also small, but that hadn't made her any less dangerous. She was mostly human, but those catlike features made her deadly in hand to hand, and as well she had keen eyes and a predatory instinct that put his own to shame, he knew that, and it was one of the reasons that the last president had wanted to get her thrown out, but had failed dramatically. Her long white hair was in a regulation pony tail, and her hands were kept together in front of her, her blue uniform being digital camo.
She was the highest ranking member of the Federation's Air Force, and Aerospace Command. The potency of Federation air and space power, diminished only now because of past budget cuts, was thanks to her.
Next to her, Mannerheim, commander and chief of the Federation Army, had taken his seat. He was a grizzled veteran of the biggest war in Federation history, the Dixie-Federation conflict, and he saw action on the Hansiatic front, and the Dixie front. He was Festria, built like a tank despite his age, and for all that muscle he had a brain that could outplay anyone in the room at chess. Or he assumed, given what he had seen on their file. He would watch the silver furred Festria stretch and rest his hands on the table, he and Hadrian sharing a greeting before his eyes drifted a minute later to the next person to enter the room.
General Hyron, a Kithium seaborner with soft and thin grey fur, entered the room. She was smaller than most save Tanner, but she was like her in many ways - formidable and not without claws in any sense. She led the Federation Marine Corps, and had for two decades, a appointee from before the last admin, and she was good at her job - and the political maneuvering that had to be done in the last administration.
She had planted herself in a seat and exchanged greetings, when the leader of the Federation's Military Police force had arrived.
The man was a human named Ushan, Asian by the looks of it, with short black hair and brown eyes. He held out a hand to the president and they shook, the man sitting down. He wore a black and blue suit with white accents, more decorated than others in it, though it wasn't so strong as to be anything beyond simply a noticeable departure from other military uniforms, to signify the difference between that branch and all others. He was like a police chief that administered an army, rather than just a typical general or officer, and he had legal degrees and judicial experience that made him fit for the supreme court. Raised by Festria he was as well disciplined and an honorable individual, albeit he was perfectly willing to let principles falter if it came between him and doing his job.
The last to arrive were the Admiral and Commander of the Coast Guard and Marines.
Admiral Dejanus was a Yun'het, and he was on the tall side as most Yun'het were. He was as well athletically built. He wore a black uniform with white accents and silver anchor emblems on his shoulders to signify his rank. He'd take his seat and cup his hands together after the greetings and then relax a bit, though not much. The coast guard commander was effectively under navy command most of the time, but his service was not a service ignored given that it had been responsible for safe guarding border integrity in more direct fashion than the navy was, especially since the start of the Mexican civil war and the associated mass migrations of refugees. The lightly blue colored fox person would look at the Marine commander as he gave his greeting.
Duran was a Lycan, a wolf-person. He was average height, five feet, eleven inches. Grey and white fur with yellow eyes and a general wolf-ish look that Anthro riftborne generally had. He'd greet the president and sit down, adjusting his green colored uniform in its minimalist design, doing so quickly and efficiently, the stars on his shoulders having anchors beneath them to signify that he too was apart of a navy component service.
"Welcome, everyone." Hadrian would say. "Now that we're all here and introductions are out of the way, I'd like to say it's an honor to finally get to meet some of you face to face. Admiral Mann and I have a long history together, and we both served in the Mu border war and the African Peacekeeping missions. The rest of you I look forward to getting to know otherwise, and especially so given that we are going to be working together quite a lot." He'd say. As they listened, he would continue to speak. "To cut to the chase, and jump over the formalities, I've been doing some reading on the state of the armed forces and our involvement in world affairs on a military level, but I'd like to have up to date reports on the status and readiness of each arm of the armed forces." He'd say.
And so the long meeting began, with Hadrian inviting the unabridged reality from the people who'd at least give it to him straighter than a senator ever would.