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aberrantangels...of Roland's Thompson gun and bought it.
— Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"
Seven years from then, four from now, that clip will be used to torment Byron "Saxon" Graham, who has spent all the time since Angie's death looking for a lover who wouldn't be crushed by his caresses. But I'm getting ahead of the story.
The Equatorial Wars were a series of brushfire conflicts that swept through sub-Saharan West Africa from May to November of 2001. Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the Sudan used nova mercenaries as their proxies; this was where and when, thanks to usage by the press, "elites" went from a DeVries Agency trademark to a generic term for hired novas. While fewer than a dozen elites died in the conflicts, hundreds of civilians became "collateral damage," and the political borders of Africa were redrawn several times throughout the months of conflict. Team Tomorrow takes peacekeeping actions on behalf of the UN and finally negotiates a ceasefire. Press coverage of the conflicts became the highest-rated television event of the decade, so far. Various conspiracy theorists claimed that the conflicts were instigated by the US and other major powers so they could see how effective novas were when used as military operatives; later on, we'll be hearing just that from our old friend Jordan McDevitt. (Other conspiracy nuts, further out than I could ever dream of being, claim it was all done to bring the cameras.)
The Equatorial Wars prompted international negotiations concerning the use of novas in military applications. While the talks were never formalized, the UN and Project Utopia openly supported discussion on the issue. International consensus eventually fell short of outright banning the use of novas in the military, but there was general agreement that due to the unpredictable nature of nova powers, they shouldn't be used against civilian or normal military targets except in all-out war. Strategists and academics quickly devised a new school of military deterrent thought based around novas and formalized the idea of limited-scale conflicts fought by nova proxies. General acceptance of this idea, as an economical alternative to certain types of conventional conflicts, would lead to large numbers of elites being contracted by world governments in the following year.
Through sixty-six and 'seven they fought the Congo war
With their fingers on their triggers, knee-deep in gore
For days and nights they battled the Bantu to their knees
They killed to earn their living and to help out the Congolese
— Zevon, quoted by Ken (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
princeofcairo) Hite in his Suppressed Transmission Heart of Weirdness: The Congo
That epigraph might have been better suited to a post on Lambert Asani, but here it is now, and I think it fits nicely. I'm sure there's an elite (or maybe even an Elite™) who calls himself Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner. I know the Wild Cards world has a barkeep named Roland who runs a bar called the Headless Thompson Gunner and claims to be Zevon's Roland. (His claim is suspect, though. His ace drinking buddy J. Bob "The Mechanic" Belew insists that Roland must have been born with the head he's got on his shoulders, as nobody would take that particular melon voluntarily even as a replacement for a lost one.)
Shrapnel, already a cold killer, served in the Equatorial Wars, taking great pleasure in tormenting the baselines she was supposedly there to save. The following year (2002), she went on the run from the Crown, hooking up (in more than one sense of the term, if rumors be true) with fellow rogue Natalya "Swarm Queen" Dornova; both eventually found their way to the Teragen.
— Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"
2001
[Aberrant] A CNN news report on the Equatorial Wars' beginning mentions that T2Mer Angie "Luna" O'Connor was among Utopia's casualties.
Seven years from then, four from now, that clip will be used to torment Byron "Saxon" Graham, who has spent all the time since Angie's death looking for a lover who wouldn't be crushed by his caresses. But I'm getting ahead of the story.
The Equatorial Wars were a series of brushfire conflicts that swept through sub-Saharan West Africa from May to November of 2001. Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the Sudan used nova mercenaries as their proxies; this was where and when, thanks to usage by the press, "elites" went from a DeVries Agency trademark to a generic term for hired novas. While fewer than a dozen elites died in the conflicts, hundreds of civilians became "collateral damage," and the political borders of Africa were redrawn several times throughout the months of conflict. Team Tomorrow takes peacekeeping actions on behalf of the UN and finally negotiates a ceasefire. Press coverage of the conflicts became the highest-rated television event of the decade, so far. Various conspiracy theorists claimed that the conflicts were instigated by the US and other major powers so they could see how effective novas were when used as military operatives; later on, we'll be hearing just that from our old friend Jordan McDevitt. (Other conspiracy nuts, further out than I could ever dream of being, claim it was all done to bring the cameras.)
The Equatorial Wars prompted international negotiations concerning the use of novas in military applications. While the talks were never formalized, the UN and Project Utopia openly supported discussion on the issue. International consensus eventually fell short of outright banning the use of novas in the military, but there was general agreement that due to the unpredictable nature of nova powers, they shouldn't be used against civilian or normal military targets except in all-out war. Strategists and academics quickly devised a new school of military deterrent thought based around novas and formalized the idea of limited-scale conflicts fought by nova proxies. General acceptance of this idea, as an economical alternative to certain types of conventional conflicts, would lead to large numbers of elites being contracted by world governments in the following year.
Through sixty-six and 'seven they fought the Congo war
With their fingers on their triggers, knee-deep in gore
For days and nights they battled the Bantu to their knees
They killed to earn their living and to help out the Congolese
— Zevon, quoted by Ken (
princeofcairo) Hite in his Suppressed Transmission Heart of Weirdness: The CongoThat epigraph might have been better suited to a post on Lambert Asani, but here it is now, and I think it fits nicely. I'm sure there's an elite (or maybe even an Elite™) who calls himself Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner. I know the Wild Cards world has a barkeep named Roland who runs a bar called the Headless Thompson Gunner and claims to be Zevon's Roland. (His claim is suspect, though. His ace drinking buddy J. Bob "The Mechanic" Belew insists that Roland must have been born with the head he's got on his shoulders, as nobody would take that particular melon voluntarily even as a replacement for a lost one.)
Shrapnel, already a cold killer, served in the Equatorial Wars, taking great pleasure in tormenting the baselines she was supposedly there to save. The following year (2002), she went on the run from the Crown, hooking up (in more than one sense of the term, if rumors be true) with fellow rogue Natalya "Swarm Queen" Dornova; both eventually found their way to the Teragen.
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Date: 2004-05-03 09:50 am (UTC)I had that song stuck in my head for a whole month, which ain't a bad thing!
Chuck