Interview with the General - Part 3 [Tankiverse Fanfic]

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Interview with the General - Part 3
Fanfic in the Tankiverse by Hippin_in_Hawaii

[Editor’s note] Our agreement to publish this entire interview, unedited, forces us to distribute it across several issues as space allows. We apologize for any confusion this may cause.

World News Weekly: A red folder miracle? What does that mean?

General Fred: Oh, it’s a reference to a plan that’s possible but has very little likelihood of success.

WNW: Why red folder?

GF: Back in training, my crew and I spent a lot of time on plans and contingencies. We’d research past training exercises, examine maps of the training areas, memorize details about the capabilities of different tanks, run computer simulations, yadda yadda. You get the idea. And we would craft plans based on different scenarios. Lots and lots of plans.

WNW: That sounds like common sense preparation.

GF: (laughs) Have you ever found common sense to be common?

WNW: (laughs) I suppose not!

GF: But, yes, if you want to put it that way, we exercised common sense preparation. My thing is that I like to subvert expectations whenever possible. Sure, if you have 15 tanks and the enemy has 10 tanks, you can just pound on each other with a reasonable expectation that the superior force will win. But what if one tank, coming from an unlikely direction, could neutralize the entire enemy force? My crew and I spent a lot of time on that type of planning.

WNW: Subverting expectations?

GF: Yep.

WNW: Did you ever get to use any of those plans? Did they ever work?

GF: We used them all the time. Occasionally they would work. Usually they wouldn’t. Sometimes they would fail spectacularly. Once we even lost our tank to quicksand.

WNW: Quicksand?

GF: Long story. But it involved trying to come at things from an unexpected direction. In that case, it was from the southwest. There just happened to be a swamp in the way. Thus…

WNW: Quicksand.

GF: Exactly. Quicksand.

WNW: So those plans were the red folder plans?

GF: Oh, no. But with so many plans being made, it was inevitable that we’d develop a few ideas that, although plausible, were far too dangerous to actually be tried in a practice scenario. The sort of desperation move only to be used in times of actual, erm, desperation.

WNW: And those were the red folder plans?

GF: Yes. Those were the red folder plans.

WNW: Did you ever use a red folder plan successfully?

GF: A few times. I guess it depends on how you define ‘success.’

WNW: Tell me about one.

GF: The first time actually was during training. We were on an exercise against another company. Somehow seditionists had infiltrated the training program and had loaded their tank with live rounds. When the exercise started, they began killing us. Twenty tanks armed only with simunitions trapped in a training arena; they were shooting us like fish in a barrel.

They were perched atop a ridge. One of our red folder plans had involved boosting up the side of that ridge and using our cannon’s recoil to push us onto the top, then praying we could brake before falling off the other side. Like I said, way too dodgy to try in practice. But it was the only thing to try in the circumstances.

WNW: It worked?

GF: We successfully mounted the hill and rammed the enemy, knocking them off the far side. So we were successful in that we stopped the attack and saved the lives of other crews. We, um, weren’t so successful at the braking portion, though. We followed them right down.

WNW: And you survived?

GF: Well, we had their tank to break our fall! But there was a generous round of hospitalization for each of us.

WNW: Sounds like that red folder saved a lot of lives.

GF: At least on that occasion. So always remember, red folder miracle, subvert expectations, and attack from the southwest!

WNW: Um, wasn’t that where the quicksand was?

GF: Moving on!

WNW: I’m really fascinated by this idea of the red folder of desperation plans. Can we go back to that? How many times have you successfully used them?

GF: It’s rare in the extreme. I think you could say that starting the coup was such a desperation plan, but that one never got written into the folder.

WNW: Can we talk about that? How did you decide to stage a coup? How did you plan it? Who helped you?

GF: (laughs)

WNW: Please, let me in on the joke?

GF: You’ll never believe this, but I had no plan. No confederates.

WNW: Seriously? That doesn’t agree with what you were saying earlier.

GF: You’re right, I do love to plan. I make plans for everything, and plans for nothing. I find that nothing takes a lot of planning. But on that day, no. No plan. Just nausea.

WNW: Please, take it from the beginning.

GF: I was commander of the Tank Corps. I was the right hand of Grand Marshal Morrison, who was the right hand of the Leadership. And I hated myself for it. As I had risen through the ranks, by necessity, I had been given access to more and more information. And my worldview had slowly shifted. I began to see that the goals of the Leadership were not only unfounded, but suicidal. There was no growth or glory at the end of the war. We, the Federated States, were certainly doomed. ‘Crushing defeat’ is a term that sounds pretty apt.

One of the more pleasant duties I had was to speak to the new academy graduates. It was my responsibility to congratulate them, motivate them, and send them out to serve. And as I stood there, on that stage, in the middle of my address, I found I could not do it. I could not send those brave young soldiers out to die for no purpose greater than a madman’s lust for power; for no future but the destruction of our nation. So I made a desperate choice.

WNW: A red folder plan?

GF: Well, had it ever been formally crafted as a plan, it certainly would have landed in the red folder. ‘Take advantage of public appearance in front of a military crowd to stage a coup.’ Definitely red folder material! I think I would call it ‘Operation Seat of the Pants.’

WNW: Have you ever considered the irony that, having begun your career by stopping seditionists, you ended it as the greatest seditionist in Federated States history?

GF: That’s a very after-the-fact way of looking at it. What I did in training was a desperate reaction to a horrific situation. That it resulted in saving lives is gratifying to me. What I did with my coup was also a desperate reaction to a horrific situation. I believe, or at least desperately hope, it also saved lives. I am certain it saved my country. But neither of those optimistic self-delusions help me sleep well in here. So, no, I haven’t really spent much time on the ironic aspects of my situation. Maybe I’ll get around to that next decade. I think my schedule is open.

WNW: Do you really think that your sentence is unjust?

GF: I haven’t said it was unjust. I’ve simply said it wasn’t arrived at by just means. Once I’ve finished my life sentence in this Coalition prison, I’m to be turned over to the Alliance, where I was tried in absentia, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. After that, the non-allied nations in question get a crack at me. I think there are about five of those. Assuming the trend holds, I’ll have completed seven life sentences before making it to the courts of my own country. There, most likely, I would be exonerated. Assuming, of course, I hadn’t been dead seven times over.

WNW: Perhaps that is a little over the top.

GF: (Laughs) Or even absurd?

WNW: Absurd. Yes, I think I can agree to that!

GF: I think you’ll agree that it is definitely a pivotal moment in my life.

WNW: Since we seem to have drifted back to the absurd theme, do you recognize how absurd it was to use social media as a vehicle for surrendering?

GF: Yes, that rated high on the absurdity criterion as well, but what choice did I really have? What few diplomatic ties remained to the Federated States were the tools of the former, legally-elected government. Even if we’d had ambassadors to any of our adversaries, there’s no guarantee they would have followed my orders. Which was pretty much a moot point; all our diplomats had long since been evacuated from, or imprisoned by, the countries we were busily invading.

WNW: But social media?

GF: Well, we tried everything we could. Cold calls, television and radio broadcasts, print flyers dropped over combat zones, and social media. Social media was just the one that gained traction.

WNW: The video on FriendFace was particularly effective.

GF: The “Under New Management” piece? Thanks! Personally, I found it ridiculous, but I was a fan of the hashtags.

WNW: Any favorites?

GF: ‘Hashtag Peace Now’ really resonated with me. And, although we didn’t start this one, ‘Hashtag I Believe In General Fred’ certainly warmed my heart.

WNW: You were always the face of the coup.

GF: Well, it was my coup.

WNW: Certainly you had help. Your influence may be widespread, but it’s simply not possible that other high-ranking officials weren't involved. Officials like General Georgina Olsen.

GF: You are like a dog with a bone, you know that? Georgie and I served together for a long time, and it is well known that we were intermittent lovers as well. But when I took the reigns of power, she used that familiarity to stay in my good graces only long enough to escape. She went to ground, and to the best of my knowledge, remains undiscovered. Rumor was that the Alliance is sheltering her, but I haven’t heard anything more since I was locked up here. What’s that been?

WNW: Almost a year now, sir.

GF: Almost a year. Seems longer. Anyway, yes, it was my face on the surrender campaign because it was my coup. One of the secrets to a successful coup is that you don’t share power.

WNW: Since we’re having this conversation in a maximum security prison, can you call your coup successful?

GF: That’s a little harsh, isn’t it? It seems to me that I managed to preserve the Federated States with its pre-war boundaries intact. I organized and held a special election to reinstate the constitutionally-mandated government. I negotiated with the opposing forces to let the Federated States keep some defensive forces. I negotiated with the incoming government to commit to an exhaustive campaign of restitution and reconstruction aid for the countries we invaded. I handed the traitorous members of the former Leadership over for trial. I released terabytes of data and documents to make sure that those people were tried with accurate information. I surrendered myself to the Coalition delegation on the same day our new Leadership took office. And I did it all within a calendar year, just as I promised to in my first addresses. I didn’t leave a single major checkbox unchecked. So, yes, I consider my coup a success.

WNW: How about minor checkboxes?

GF: (laughs) Thousands of those didn’t get checked.

WNW: You make it sound like you’re the hero of the day.

GF: I’m just not getting through to you, am I? All those things I just listed, everything I did as part of the coup, was to try and make up for the harm I helped cause. I was no small part of our success in the war. My subsequent trying to make things right doesn’t change my culpability.

WNW: The guards are coming, sir. I think our time is over.

GF: I want to thank you for your company. You have been a most welcome diversion from my hours of solitude. I look forward to someday seeing if this was, actually, a pivotal moment.

WNW: I hope that it will be, sir!

GF: Again, be careful what you wish for!

As I was escorted from that forbidding place, changing back into my street clothes under the unblinking eyes of security cameras, I was also replaying the interview in my head, trying to preserve nuances of tone and expression. I felt that this was a man who believed what he said, and whose story may deserve a closer look. Sadly, I fear that we may have to wait for a future history to provide that objective clarity; I don’t think we’ll find it today.

[Editor’s note] Any opinions expressed by the writer belong solely to themself and do not reflect the position of this publication.

Mahalo (thank you) for reading; I hope you enjoyed! This story is part of a series. Information on the series, and links to the other stories, can be found here.

[KillerGnat 3,135]

Edits:

• A couple minor grammar edits and mistyped words.
• I could be wrong with this one, but I changed "Your influence may be widespread, but it’s simply not possible that other high-ranking officials were involved." to "Your influence may be widespread, but it’s simply not possible that other high-ranking officials weren't involved." I may be misreading those lines, in which case feel free to change it back to the original, but I feel like given the context, the current phrasing fits best.

Approved!

 

Good stuff once again. Sorry for the delay in approving it  :unsure:.

[ChandlerBing 138]

Well Written !

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Edits:

• A couple minor grammar edits and mistyped words.
• I could be wrong with this one, but I changed "Your influence may be widespread, but it’s simply not possible that other high-ranking officials were involved." to "Your influence may be widespread, but it’s simply not possible that other high-ranking officials weren't involved." I may be misreading those lines, in which case feel free to change it back to the original, but I feel like given the context, the current phrasing fits best.

Approved!

 

Good stuff once again. Sorry for the delay in approving it  :unsure:.

Yep, shoulda been "weren't." I'd love to know what the other minor edits were, that I may incorporate them into the original.

[GrandExecutioner 1,403]

Well done!

[KillerGnat 3,135]

Yep, shoulda been "weren't." I'd love to know what the other minor edits were, that I may incorporate them into the original.

errk, I can't remember the exact spots for the grammar changes. There were two commas that I either added or took out. The typo was "out" and I changed it to "our" (that happens to me all the time too tbh... the t is right next to the r and spellcheck doesn't catch it  :wacko:). Again though, I've forgotten the place where that happened.

 

In the future, I'll make lists of every edit I make on your submissions :). If I can remember at least lol.

[shafter9 156]

"[Editor’s note] Our agreement to publish this entire interview, unedited, forces us to distribute it across several issues as space allows. We apologize for any confusion this may cause."

Lazy author makes use of in-universe excuses for laziness.  :P

[Showbot 819]

Who is next?