IBBW Gaza Solution
Oct. 7th, 2023 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyIBBW Gaza Solution
(This story is during the Terrors, at the very dawn of Protocol.
Of particular interest: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc.htm )
I'd made it through the Brazil operation. Once it had become inevitable that the rainforest would be protected, and that Protocol forces would keep destroying Brazilian infrastructure - and more to the point, eliminating Brazilian officials _and their families_, the surviving fragments of the government sued for peace.
Even as we left, Protocol resources were already arriving. Not to wage further war, but to rebuild and to protect. Those peasants that had survived our drop would have new lives as farmers on brownlands - or factory workers, or slum dwellers with their children educated and fed and housed.
Those that survived.
More importantly, the damage to the rainforest had been arrested. Restoration - tropical forestry - would take generations. But we would have the time.
I now had a scar on my face and some things in my head that really shouldn't be. The splash as a mercenary sniper's breasts were flung in opposite directions as her chest exploded. What a farmer looked like after being set on fire with a plasma torch. A burning village as we cleaned our weapons nearby and hummed and ate the rations we had earned by surviving one day. A woman clinging to her dead child. Not a deliberate target, but in war accidents happen.
Protocol doesn't wage war. Protocol goes killing. Protocol is to end war, and when Protocol fights, the obligation is to win.
The Israelis and Palestinians were at it again. There'd been a vote. We'd even voted, from our battlefield. 21st century datalinks don't let you be disconnected.
I'd voted in favor of a Protocol Intervention.
That, by strict law, meant that I was liable to being a soldier in that Intervention, just as I had been in Brazil.
So when the hyperjet landed in Turkey, we were immediately scanned in detail. Our measurements.
Portable forges were spitting out power armor as quickly as the new armor could be moved out of the hoppers. One of them had literally been made for me.
There were literal acres of rations. More acres of bottled water. They were counting medical supplies not in pallets, not in truckloads, but in _hospitals_. Two hundred and twenty one hospitals, at last count.
Three million angry people in and around the Gaza Strip.
The Protocol mission was very simple.
- Respect local law in force, unless it is a threat to Protocol security or to international law.
- Restore and ensure public order and safety.
- Ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population.
- Destroy or seize local property only if required by Protocol necessity.
- Protect cultural property.
- Provide Protocol rights to those accused of criminal offenses.
- Protect humanitarian operations by the Red Cross, Red Crescent and other Protocol signatory humanitarian movements.
The lead Protocol elements were already on the ground, in the air, and most importantly in space.
I skimmed headlines.
/ NAVAL INTERDICTION, NO APPROACH TO GAZA COAST
/ Fishermen killed by space debris, claims Palestinian Authority.
/ Protocol takes credit for destroying unauthorized vessels approaching Gaza coast. Regrets. Protocol drones now individually tagging and warning all watercraft in Mediterranean Ocean.
/ Israeli military protests 'no fly' zone over Gaza Strip. Protest filed.
/ NOTICE TO AIR PERSONNEL. Eyeblinders are in active use in the Gaza operational area. Failure to acknowledge and to follow Protocol ATC instructions on 121.5 and 243 mHz will result in immediate lasing of the violator aircraft. Unauthorized use of force by aircraft in prohibited airspace may result in destruction without further warning.
/ NEWS FLASH! Massive explosion reported on Egyptian coast. Nuclear? More to follow.
/ Protocol press release: to disrupt underground tunnel complexes, Protocol has deorbited a limited size meteor. This was NOT repeat NOT a nuclear explosion. This was a kinetic weapons system estimated at ten (10) megaton equivalents of conventional explosives. Trespass into Egyptian territory is regretted and indemnity will be paid for this operation.
Things were getting spicy.
I stepped into my armor. It immediately started training me on how to use it, as it walked me towards the transport.
Just like Brazil, except that now we had armor. Hadn't been needed in the jungle.
Was definitely needed in Gaza.
Fortunately, I could sleep in the armor. Because we would be busy the moment we hit the beach.
The Beach
Gaza Strip
As is not uncommon, Protocol forces had started by sending out polite notices in French and local languages. "Hi, we're Protocol, we're here to help, don't fuck with us."
Locals had taken rockets and RPGs to the first Protocol landings. That hadn't gone well for them.
So now we had a razor ribbon fence ten meters tall all around what had been a relatively empty strip of beach. It was now chock full of Protocol equipment, looking a lot like our staging area in Turkey except that so many of us in armor were standing around.
My shoulder mount pew pew swiveled and spat at a high angle, without my orders. I noticed this was happening a lot. Anti rocket integrated defense array. When there's ten thousand people in power armor, that's ten thousand repeaters.
I had been appointed a squad leader. Apparently someone had liked my performance in Brazil.
It gets complicated. I'm sure there was an organization chart and a chain of command somewhere online, if I cared to look. But that was not how Protocol worked. At my level, I was little more than a robot. Get order, confirm order, execute order. Door Dash for extreme violence.
Our mission was to guard a grocery store.
So we walked, simply walked, out the gates labeled in ten languages "PROTOCOL RESTRICTED AREA DEADLY FORCE REQUIRED" to our assigned post, less than half a mile away.
First was the terrified storekeeper and his family. He leveled an AK at me.
That was fine, I shrugged.
"Protocol Enforcement," I introduced myself. "You can't hurt any of us with that. Please point it some other way."
The app picked Arabic at first, then halfway through switched to English.
He lowered the rifle.
"We are here to help you re-open your store."
His eyes bugged out.
"Let me know what you need to order, and it will be received. You will sell it. In some cases, you will issue it as rations. No one is allowed by Protocol law to go hungry or thirsty in this country now."
Once I repeated it several ways, and he clearly still did not understand, I sighed and placed an order for 10,000 HUMRATS and forty pallets of bottled water.
HUMRATS, or Humanitarian Rations, are not bad. They are an eye hurting pink, but the food tastes OK.
They are just barely flavored. Spices and seasonings are not a life essential.
Someone way above my pay grade in Log reduced my request to 5K HUMRATS but provided 5K of Indian prepackaged rice and vegetarian tetrapak rations. Someone in Med added eight hundred bottles of infant formula, nipples included.
It arrived within the hour, on motorized pallets. Our power armor made short work of unloading, to free the pallets for their next mission.
Emboldened, the shopkeeper's family started breaking bulk to put items on shelves.
That is what I had been waiting for.
My shoulder repeater, which I'd taken out of the interdict net despite repeated requests not to do that, spoke once.
The HAMAS sniper, who had been waiting for his moment to kill one of his own for the temerity of helping us, gushed blood from the stump of his neck and fell flat.
Two of my soldiers retrieved his body, ignoring efforts at resistance, and dumped it in front of the store.
Everyone stared. I made sure two of my soldiers were on anti-sniper interdict before speaking.
"HAMAS can't hurt us. We won't let anyone hurt you."
Then I took off my helmet and exposed my own bare skull to the world. Clipped it into the holder slot.
Two more sniper bodies soon joined the first.
I was such a tempting target, they could not pass it up. But apparently didn't understand what a modern sensor net could do.
I was actually safer than I had been at any time in Brazil. And I could clip that helmet back on in a second and a half. I'd practiced, with expert system assisted muscle feedback.
They would evolve their threat profile. Maybe bombs, maybe drones. Maybe pre-concealed threats, but we had made a careful seismic sweep to back up the remote sensor analysis. Drugs, poisons, nanos. There were many tricks.
Protocol had many tricks too.
Soon a line formed in front of the store, and another squad arrived to assist us. Our task, to protect the store. Their task, to protect the line.
One of our many, many tricks was embedded in our generosity.
Every single ration and every single tetrapak contained a tiny microchip, too large to be a nano but easily overlooked unless one had a scanner and knew how to use it.
If you were nearby in sight, Protocol generosity took your biometrics - face and retina. If you held it, your fingerprints.
If you ate or drank, you gave Protocol a DNA sample.
And if Protocol had you on her shit list, sooner or later, you would drink a bottle of Protocol Water or eat a HUMRAT, and some time later you would die convulsing of a tailored poison that looked a lot like allergic reaction.
It was. Protocol was allergic to YOU.
It took a lot to get that status. The easy way was a confirmed video of you committing murder, reviewed by a panel of judges. Obviously with precautions against deep fakes, etc.
Way above our pay grades.
But occasionally, our face plates would caret someone. Someone of interest to Protocol. Just quietly humming along collecting data, building our population maps.
The protected. The ordinary. The to be swayed. The dangerous. And... the allergic.
Protocol did not wage war.
Protocol waged peace.
(This story is during the Terrors, at the very dawn of Protocol.
Of particular interest: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc.htm )
I'd made it through the Brazil operation. Once it had become inevitable that the rainforest would be protected, and that Protocol forces would keep destroying Brazilian infrastructure - and more to the point, eliminating Brazilian officials _and their families_, the surviving fragments of the government sued for peace.
Even as we left, Protocol resources were already arriving. Not to wage further war, but to rebuild and to protect. Those peasants that had survived our drop would have new lives as farmers on brownlands - or factory workers, or slum dwellers with their children educated and fed and housed.
Those that survived.
More importantly, the damage to the rainforest had been arrested. Restoration - tropical forestry - would take generations. But we would have the time.
I now had a scar on my face and some things in my head that really shouldn't be. The splash as a mercenary sniper's breasts were flung in opposite directions as her chest exploded. What a farmer looked like after being set on fire with a plasma torch. A burning village as we cleaned our weapons nearby and hummed and ate the rations we had earned by surviving one day. A woman clinging to her dead child. Not a deliberate target, but in war accidents happen.
Protocol doesn't wage war. Protocol goes killing. Protocol is to end war, and when Protocol fights, the obligation is to win.
The Israelis and Palestinians were at it again. There'd been a vote. We'd even voted, from our battlefield. 21st century datalinks don't let you be disconnected.
I'd voted in favor of a Protocol Intervention.
That, by strict law, meant that I was liable to being a soldier in that Intervention, just as I had been in Brazil.
So when the hyperjet landed in Turkey, we were immediately scanned in detail. Our measurements.
Portable forges were spitting out power armor as quickly as the new armor could be moved out of the hoppers. One of them had literally been made for me.
There were literal acres of rations. More acres of bottled water. They were counting medical supplies not in pallets, not in truckloads, but in _hospitals_. Two hundred and twenty one hospitals, at last count.
Three million angry people in and around the Gaza Strip.
The Protocol mission was very simple.
- Respect local law in force, unless it is a threat to Protocol security or to international law.
- Restore and ensure public order and safety.
- Ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population.
- Destroy or seize local property only if required by Protocol necessity.
- Protect cultural property.
- Provide Protocol rights to those accused of criminal offenses.
- Protect humanitarian operations by the Red Cross, Red Crescent and other Protocol signatory humanitarian movements.
The lead Protocol elements were already on the ground, in the air, and most importantly in space.
I skimmed headlines.
/ NAVAL INTERDICTION, NO APPROACH TO GAZA COAST
/ Fishermen killed by space debris, claims Palestinian Authority.
/ Protocol takes credit for destroying unauthorized vessels approaching Gaza coast. Regrets. Protocol drones now individually tagging and warning all watercraft in Mediterranean Ocean.
/ Israeli military protests 'no fly' zone over Gaza Strip. Protest filed.
/ NOTICE TO AIR PERSONNEL. Eyeblinders are in active use in the Gaza operational area. Failure to acknowledge and to follow Protocol ATC instructions on 121.5 and 243 mHz will result in immediate lasing of the violator aircraft. Unauthorized use of force by aircraft in prohibited airspace may result in destruction without further warning.
/ NEWS FLASH! Massive explosion reported on Egyptian coast. Nuclear? More to follow.
/ Protocol press release: to disrupt underground tunnel complexes, Protocol has deorbited a limited size meteor. This was NOT repeat NOT a nuclear explosion. This was a kinetic weapons system estimated at ten (10) megaton equivalents of conventional explosives. Trespass into Egyptian territory is regretted and indemnity will be paid for this operation.
Things were getting spicy.
I stepped into my armor. It immediately started training me on how to use it, as it walked me towards the transport.
Just like Brazil, except that now we had armor. Hadn't been needed in the jungle.
Was definitely needed in Gaza.
Fortunately, I could sleep in the armor. Because we would be busy the moment we hit the beach.
The Beach
Gaza Strip
As is not uncommon, Protocol forces had started by sending out polite notices in French and local languages. "Hi, we're Protocol, we're here to help, don't fuck with us."
Locals had taken rockets and RPGs to the first Protocol landings. That hadn't gone well for them.
So now we had a razor ribbon fence ten meters tall all around what had been a relatively empty strip of beach. It was now chock full of Protocol equipment, looking a lot like our staging area in Turkey except that so many of us in armor were standing around.
My shoulder mount pew pew swiveled and spat at a high angle, without my orders. I noticed this was happening a lot. Anti rocket integrated defense array. When there's ten thousand people in power armor, that's ten thousand repeaters.
I had been appointed a squad leader. Apparently someone had liked my performance in Brazil.
It gets complicated. I'm sure there was an organization chart and a chain of command somewhere online, if I cared to look. But that was not how Protocol worked. At my level, I was little more than a robot. Get order, confirm order, execute order. Door Dash for extreme violence.
Our mission was to guard a grocery store.
So we walked, simply walked, out the gates labeled in ten languages "PROTOCOL RESTRICTED AREA DEADLY FORCE REQUIRED" to our assigned post, less than half a mile away.
First was the terrified storekeeper and his family. He leveled an AK at me.
That was fine, I shrugged.
"Protocol Enforcement," I introduced myself. "You can't hurt any of us with that. Please point it some other way."
The app picked Arabic at first, then halfway through switched to English.
He lowered the rifle.
"We are here to help you re-open your store."
His eyes bugged out.
"Let me know what you need to order, and it will be received. You will sell it. In some cases, you will issue it as rations. No one is allowed by Protocol law to go hungry or thirsty in this country now."
Once I repeated it several ways, and he clearly still did not understand, I sighed and placed an order for 10,000 HUMRATS and forty pallets of bottled water.
HUMRATS, or Humanitarian Rations, are not bad. They are an eye hurting pink, but the food tastes OK.
They are just barely flavored. Spices and seasonings are not a life essential.
Someone way above my pay grade in Log reduced my request to 5K HUMRATS but provided 5K of Indian prepackaged rice and vegetarian tetrapak rations. Someone in Med added eight hundred bottles of infant formula, nipples included.
It arrived within the hour, on motorized pallets. Our power armor made short work of unloading, to free the pallets for their next mission.
Emboldened, the shopkeeper's family started breaking bulk to put items on shelves.
That is what I had been waiting for.
My shoulder repeater, which I'd taken out of the interdict net despite repeated requests not to do that, spoke once.
The HAMAS sniper, who had been waiting for his moment to kill one of his own for the temerity of helping us, gushed blood from the stump of his neck and fell flat.
Two of my soldiers retrieved his body, ignoring efforts at resistance, and dumped it in front of the store.
Everyone stared. I made sure two of my soldiers were on anti-sniper interdict before speaking.
"HAMAS can't hurt us. We won't let anyone hurt you."
Then I took off my helmet and exposed my own bare skull to the world. Clipped it into the holder slot.
Two more sniper bodies soon joined the first.
I was such a tempting target, they could not pass it up. But apparently didn't understand what a modern sensor net could do.
I was actually safer than I had been at any time in Brazil. And I could clip that helmet back on in a second and a half. I'd practiced, with expert system assisted muscle feedback.
They would evolve their threat profile. Maybe bombs, maybe drones. Maybe pre-concealed threats, but we had made a careful seismic sweep to back up the remote sensor analysis. Drugs, poisons, nanos. There were many tricks.
Protocol had many tricks too.
Soon a line formed in front of the store, and another squad arrived to assist us. Our task, to protect the store. Their task, to protect the line.
One of our many, many tricks was embedded in our generosity.
Every single ration and every single tetrapak contained a tiny microchip, too large to be a nano but easily overlooked unless one had a scanner and knew how to use it.
If you were nearby in sight, Protocol generosity took your biometrics - face and retina. If you held it, your fingerprints.
If you ate or drank, you gave Protocol a DNA sample.
And if Protocol had you on her shit list, sooner or later, you would drink a bottle of Protocol Water or eat a HUMRAT, and some time later you would die convulsing of a tailored poison that looked a lot like allergic reaction.
It was. Protocol was allergic to YOU.
It took a lot to get that status. The easy way was a confirmed video of you committing murder, reviewed by a panel of judges. Obviously with precautions against deep fakes, etc.
Way above our pay grades.
But occasionally, our face plates would caret someone. Someone of interest to Protocol. Just quietly humming along collecting data, building our population maps.
The protected. The ordinary. The to be swayed. The dangerous. And... the allergic.
Protocol did not wage war.
Protocol waged peace.
