[Livonia] Apocalypse Public Radio - A Better Tomorrow?

[Bastage]

[A click and a brief burst of static announce the rather unceremonious start of a radio broadcast, followed by a few muffled words]

"Okay, so how do I-- oh, oh, I get it, okay.  Oh shit, I'm broadcasting?  Fuck."

[The broadcast clicks off for a moment, before the voice is heard again]

"Good morning, Livonia!  This is Aiden Park of the Associated Press, broadcasting live from....well, it's probably not best to announce where I am, I guess, but from somewhere in Livonia.  As pretty much the only journalist active around here as far as I know, I've been chasing down stories left and right.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that everyone's got a take on the Corporation out here, but I recently paid a visit to their headquarters in the region to try and get some answers myself.  I wound up speaking with a very polite man who calls himself "Mr. Representative", who agreed to sit down for an interview with me.  Let's hear what he had to say."

[A small click as a button is pressed, and the tinnier sound of prerecorded audio of Aiden and an unidentified English man takes over the broadcast]

Aiden: "Mr. Representative, thank you for agreeing to talk with me.  Could you tell me a bit about what the Corporation is doing here in Livonia?"

Mr. Representative: "Certainly.  We are currently working to prevent the spread of a deadly form of influenza, currently spreading westwards from China into eastern Europe.  This strain of influenza has been ravaging China, as well as every other place where the infection has taken hold."

A: "The fact that you’re working to prevent this, suggests that your organization possesses a level of infrastructure capable of working against that kind of widespread health issue.  Can you elaborate on that?"

R: "We do in fact have the necessary infrastructure to both monitor and combat this.  We are perhaps the only group remaining with the necessary reach and scope to help fight a pandemic like this, as well as the other outbreak that has left the world in the state that it’s in."

A: "Do you believe there’s a link between the two?"

R: "No."

A: "Can you shed any light on the brain disease that’s caused the old world’s descent into anarchy?"

R: "I can’t comment on that."

A: "I know you’ve heard and even responded to at least some of the radio broadcasts about your group.  Could you comment on the allegations made against the Corporation?"

R: "These allegations are completely untrue.  You’ve seen our setup here. You can see for yourself that we are well supplied enough that we have no need to raid other encampments or steal from anyone.  It’s simply not something we have any need to do."

A: "So you deny these accusations categorically?"

R: "I do."

A: "Why do you think that these groups would accuse you of such behavior, then?"

R: "The main problem stems from this Wolfpack, and these are long-running, deep seated conflicts going back for a very long time.  We actually first encountered the Wolfpack in Chernarus...have you been to Chernarus?"

A: "No, though I’ve heard of it."

R: "Well, we used to operate there, and had several run-ins with them there as well.  Always fighting over resources, petty things like that. Simple disputes like any two groups would have in this day and age.  We’ve actually attempted to make peace with them several times, and they’ve slapped that offer away as soon as it was made."

A: "Why would they refuse, do you think?"

R: "I don’t know.  Their leader, Phoenix, would be the one to talk to regarding that."

A: "You understand that, since we’re mentioning them so frequently, I will of course be seeking them out for their side of this as well."

R: "Of course."

A: "Alright, one last question: If you could give one message at all to the people of Livonia about your organization, what would it be?"

R: "Hope.  Hope for a better tomorrow."

A: "Alright, there you have it.  Hope for a better tomorrow. Mr. Representative, thank you for your time."

R: "Of course, Aiden."

[Another click as the Stop button is pressed on whatever device is playing back the recording, before Aiden speaks again]

"Well there you have it, an interview with a genuine Corporation official.  Keep your radios tuned to this channel for the next part in this series, where I interview Phoenix of the Wolfpack for her response to the Corporation's statements."

"And if any of you out there have a tip for a story you'd like to hear me report on, or want to sit down for an interview about your take on the events of the day, please feel free to contact me on my personal frequency, channel 114.5, and maybe you'll be featured on my next broadcast!"

"This is Aiden Park for the Associated Press, signing off."

Edited March 2, 2020 by Bastage

[Fae]

She sniffs audibly into the radio

"Smell that?
Thats the smell of bullshit.
You're being spoon fed it, moron.

You wanted peace then you raided our camp and stole my blood?
Fuck off, dickheads. Stop airing this crap on the radio"

[Bastage]

[A click as Aiden hits his PTT]

In that case, I think you're going to like part two of this, miss.

[He releases the PTT, and listens for more feedback.]

[Calico Jack]

A British accent crackles across the airwaves through a battered radio handset:
 

"God forbid two sides of the story get told. If these chaps are as nasty as you claim, ma'am, then time and action will make that clear.

Good luck to you young man, and stay safe on the roads. It's nice to have a little return to norma-"

The voice fades out and cuts off, the radio handset seemingly deciding to give up.

[Fae]

"Fam they held a gun to my face whilst they literally sucked blood from my body? I have the bruise from where they forced it out of me.
Fuck sake people are fucking retarded.

Stop giving these Call of Duty cosplayers your attention."

[Wulf]

*Wulf chimes in*

"As a man of business, I see great potential in corporations such as Potius"

"Infact I've been sitting on some business i wish to discuss with them"

"Business that would actually ensure a better tomorrow for Livonia"

*Puffs his cigarette*

"However"

*Puffs his cigarette again*

"They have immediately become embroiled in open conflict with an establishment I consider friends... The Soup"

"That i will not tolerate and until the conflict has ceased and a parley is made"

"Wulf Company Limited will not be conducting business with the corporate sector of Potius Cras"

"Which is a shame, not gonna lie"

...

"Also did somebody say Fam? I swear i heard Fam"

*Takes off his jacket before chiming out*

Edited March 3, 2020 by Wulf

[Player 1]

A muffled or modified voice comes over the radio

"Happy Resurgence Day indeed. This is very unusual for y'all to participate in interviews. I wonder what's changed?"

The modifier would sound familiar to the people who knew him. But to others, it's just some unknown voice

[Bastage]

[Several hours later, another broadcast on the same open frequency clicks to life, and Aiden's voice is once again heard]

Good evening, Livonia!  Due to a uh...well...growing concern that people may interpret the previous interview as me supporting one side or another, I'm coming back on a little earlier than planned in order to release part two of my series of reports, which I am calling "A Better Tomorrow?"  A few days after my encounter with Mr. Representative and the Corporation, I managed to catch up with Phoenix, the alpha of the Wolfpack, at the Soup Kitchen in order to get her side of the story surrounding the Corporation.

[A soft click as he hits Play on his recorder, and the tinny, pre-recorded audio of Aiden and Phoenix begins]

Aiden:  "So I guess my first question is, can you kind of tell us a little bit about the Wolfpack and what it is that you do?"

Phoenix:  "Well Wolfpack formed...oh, man, it's almost been a year.  Anyway, Wolfpack formed about a year ago, and we're just a group of people trying to help other people.  Whether that's giving them food, water, protection, shelter, anything like that.  Um, for a little bit, a couple months, we strayed off our path and ended up becoming the bad guys for a little bit.  And uh...I think it's just because we kept getting kicked down so many times and we were at the bottom of the food chain for so long that we wanted to kind of rise up.  And in turn, we did some bad stuff but that's behind us now and we've moved past it and got back on track, and we're just hoping to start over, I guess.  We kind of did start over, but we're back to helping people and doing what we can, right?"

A:  "I'm told you were originally from an area called Chernarus.  What brought you to Livonia?"

P:  "We were in Chernarus and, kind of the last little bit that we know from there is we'd been captured by some people - we don't know who, and we were separated for a long time.  We were together at times too, tortured for information, a bunch of shit.  Some of us wound up here, some of us travelled by car, and we just kind of ended up here."

A:  "Well like I said, I recently spoke with Mr. Representative, and he gave his side of some history with your group in Chernarus, and he described it as something of a -"

P:  "- Ehhhh"

A:  "-a conflict over resources.  Would you say that's accurate?"

P:  "No, not at all, it was never over resources."

A:  "How would you characterize it, then?"

P:  "How would I characterize it?  Us protecting other people from them.  We...oh, man, our conflict starts from all the way back when we lived in Severograd, and there was quite a lot of conflict between us, a group known as the Time, and a group known as the Mafia.  We were allies with the Mafia, and we fought alongside them against the Time and the Corporation, and that's the first time I'd encountered the Corporation.  I mean I'd heard whispers you know amongst other survivors of of these people in all black holding people up and, uh...taking their blood forcefully, taking skin samples, anything they could from survivors.  Just scaring people, right?"

"So we'd heard of them but we've had no action besides teaming up with the Mafia, but our war wasn't with the Corporation.  Our war, really, with the Corporation began when we learned more about what they were doing, and we'd heard radio broadcasts of their death squads being out and attacking civilians.  Then there was a broadcast that leaked that they were taking people's blood to figure out how the infection worked and use it as a weapon against everybody else.  From there, it turned into more...we started fighting them, they started fighting us.  In Polana they broke in several times, fought us with other groups, and used other groups as like a piggyback to start picking us off.  And uh, then they started walling off wells in Chernarus and stopping people having access to fresh, clean water.  So we started tearing down their stuff there, and that's where the resources thing comes from.  But,  it's always been about stopping them, right?  And keeping people safe."

"It's not about resources, I could care less about that.  But if you're going to take away food and water from people then obviously people are gonna fight back, right?"

A:  "Absolutely yeah.  Alright, so...there's a lot to unpack there.  Let's go back to the death squads, can you tell me a little bit more about that?"

P:  "I personally never encountered these squads, but from people I'd talked to who had encountered them, they were like a fully decked out army looking characters, you could say.
They'd roam around in packs of four or five, targeting certain individuals I guess.  But there were tons of radio broadcasts around a certain time, talking about these death squads."

A:  "Okay, um...now, this Mr. Representative I spoke with also claims that the corporation has made several overtures to your group as far as trying to bury the hatchet, end hostilities, and claims that - [the sound of distant gunshots drowns out audio for a second] - claims that your group has denied those.  Can you comment on that at all?"

P:  "Right so, they've never made a peace offering with us um...at all, until we arr9ived in Livonia and we caught three of them breaking into our base in Sitnik, that was handed over from An Pobal.  And we approached them - we didn't even know that they were corporation at all until they drew guns when we told them to put their hands up because they were breaking in and stealing our stuff, and we wanted our stuff back."

"Anyway, we uh...found their armbands, corporation's armbands on these three individuals.  We'd heard rumors about them being here but we thought no, there's no way they're here in Livonia, in the Nadbor region.  No way they came all the way from Chernarus to here.
We'd heard rumors they were located at a windmill farm just, you know, just up there -"
    
A:  "Yeah, that's where I found them too."

P:  "Yeah, and we went there because we heard they'd robbed Soup Kitchen here of tents, cabinets, things the Soup Kitchen uses to help survivors and provide people with things.  I cut to the chase, said I know who you guys are, you know who I am.  I asked for their operator names, because they don't go by real names but by operator names.  And while doing this, they tried to play it off like, "oh, we're not".  And I'm like "C'mon, I know who you are."  And they said "Yeah, we know who you are too."  And I asked, "Hey, how 'bout you just give us back what you took from Soup Kitchen, we don't want to fight.  Guy gets on the radio to his upper, and tells us flat out that they do not care about Civilians or Soup Kitchen, and will not hand things back over.  And I asked why, he said they just don't care."

"So they were like, in return for I guess them taking it...it was really weird how he worded it, he'd "offer us a chance to make peace" with them.  And I can't make peace with people who're gonna sit here and rob soup kitchen, a charity, of things, and impede the survival of people...this camp is mostly just peaceful, you can just see people sitting down there enjoying themselves by a fire, enjoying each other's company.  So I denied their peace offering, I told them "You can suck my dick", actually [laughter] , and we proceeded to have a fight."

"Um..but yeah, they reached out, and they reached out and told me I'm one of their most wanted if I don't make peace with them.  And I told them I can't.  There's no way I can.  If they're gonna continue to attack people here and break into here...like...I woke up one day, and they had two of my friends hostage, right?  They, they claim to be these big people helping others, or say "oh we're here to just help people survive", but they're hiding behind that and trying to make people believe that they're the good guys."

"When in reality, like, did you look around their place?  There's a building, a tin, like, barn and inside there's structures that look like human stalls like that's where they'd hold people captive.  On top of that, they say that they've stopped the blood taking, but I have a Wolfpack member here who was held up by them, and they took her blood.  So there's radio messages upon radio messages saying they're here to help people, trying to wipe their slate clean, but it's all a lie.  I don't know what their intentions are, or if it's the same it was in Chernarus, but they're not good people."

A:  "Okay um...right, well, I can definitely tell you the blood-taking is still going on because mine was taken.  Didn't get much of a chance to look around as I was restrained for most of my time there.  Now, I did hear a recent radio broadcast that you made, implicating a NATO force active in this region as being their security.  Can you comment on that?  You don't have to reveal any confidential sources or anything."

P:  "Oh, no, yeah, there was just some talk amongst people in the soup kitchen that NATO was in the region and uh, I guess, they were standing with the Corporation.  But NATO reached out and said they're not, so I'm kind of confused, I don't know if it's true or not.  I'd heard that NATO reached out and offered to be the Corporation's security because they're some big "good person" now, apparently."

A:  "And you also made mention, I believe, either you or someone else on that same broadcast, made mention about NATO forces engaging in banditry.  Is that something another thing where-" [Inaudible]

P:  "-Yeah, so, they've robbed...I think they robbed one of my people, actually.  And I think they broke into some people from Soup Kitchen, well they live at Soup Kitchen now.  But there's some people at Soup Kitchen now who had their homes broken into by these supposed NATO forces.  Which means, I don't know if they're actual NATO or not but I couldn't see NATO breaking into people's houses and stealing from people, right?"

A:  "Yeah, absolutely.  Alright.  And okay, well, I guess my last question then would be pretty much the same as my last question to Mr. Representative - which is, if you could give one message to the people of Livonia about Wolfpack, about your organization, about your relationship with the corporation - obviously as enemies, what would that be?"

P:  "Don't trust Corporation.  If you see these guys in black NBC suits and pink armbands with triangles on them, don't trust them.  No matter how much they say they're the good guys and they offer you a home, don't trust it.  They've got something going on there, and I don't know what it is, but we're gonna find out.  And if anybody needs help, we're here at Soup Kitchen.  If we move out we'll let people know, but we're always here to provide people with food, water, shelter, protection, you know?"

A:  "Alright.  Well thank you very much."

P:  "No Problem"

[Another click as Aiden presses "Stop" on his recorder.]

"So: are the Corporation friends, or foes?  Are they our last, best hope?  Are they a nefarious, clandestine group that's simply seeking to take advantage of the collapse of civilization?  Or are they taking extreme measures to protect us from an even greater threat?  For my part, while I will confirm that my own blood was taken, I should note that I was asked to consent to it first.  I should also note that I was not free to roam about their facility, and so I can't comment as to the veracity of Phoenix's claims of a makeshift detention center on the premises.  What I can say, is that if the Corporation does wish to make peace with the Wolfpack, then I hope that this interview serves to give them a look into the Wolfpack's grievances through the eyes of a neutral third party."

"And as always, if any of you out there have a tip for a story you'd like to hear me report on, or want to sit down for an interview about your take on recent events, please don't hesitate to contact me on my personal frequency, channel 114.5, and maybe you'll be featured on my next broadcast!"

"This is Aiden Park for the Associated Press, signing off."

 

Edited March 3, 2020 by Bastage

[GaryCash]

“This is Corporal Dundurst, contact Major Pentz, we need the Force Commander on this.”

He nodded at his superior and then he and all the other UN Peacekeepers, with Patches on their clothing and helmets of hammers smashing peace signs, and the interpol agents with them loaded up into the humvees ducking their blue helmets into the vehicles carriages as they did so.

”Let’s roll out!”

One of them called out as they continued to follow the strange string of transmissions coming from Livonia.

Edited March 3, 2020 by GaryCash

[Player 1]

The radio goes from static to live as a man with a Texas accent begins to speak

"I am honestly shocked that the leader of Wolf Pack has acknowledged her wrong doings. I remember them very well in Chernarus. Siding with Legion to attack my people. Partnering with the Time, to enslave innocent people, and the Jackals. Talk about straying off the path. Wolf Pack certainly has a lot of sins to answer for. I remember when y'all were in Chernogorsk, Chernarus. I remember meeting her and even taking a bullet to protect her den when they were attacked by some crazy Florida Police officers, or what ever they were. I remember the Wolf Pack very well. "Puppy Pack" we used to call them. I find it funny that Phoenix places judgement on the Corporation when her people did side with slavers, Anarchists, and Jackals. 

He paused a moment

"I do remember Corporation as well. I lived with Operators from the 2nd Wave and...."

He pauses a moment and sighs

"It doesn't matter anymore. The worst I ever saw Corp do was take blood from random people. They took my blood and even offered medical aid. I don't understand where this rumor comes from that they do horrible things to people but I don't believe them. There are too many liars out there and I don't trust anything I don't witness for myself. Corp has their sins to carry. They don't need Wolf Pack hounding them as well. Stop this fighting and move on."

He gives a heavy and exhausted sigh. The voice sounds familiar to the people who know him. He then goes to holster his radio but it slips off the latch and falls into a puddle 

Edited March 3, 2020 by Father Tiger

[Otto]

:: A cold, tired voice comes over the frequency ::

"You want a story reporter man? Maybe a little somethin' that expands your latest headline."

"Maybe- you should be on the lookout for some, 'Mountain Men'."

"I'm sure they could fill you in on how the Corporation spun them wrong."

"Without a Shadow of a doubt there'll be something to tell."

"Might need some coaxing though."

:: The transmission fades ::