Last time we talked about the Foundation after the Cold War. We've talked about the peaceful transformation and the end of bipolar pattern's effect towards the Foundation and other GOIs, so now we will transition the lecture content of the timeline to the year 1990. This also means that you've all came to a important point for the coming Exam. Unfortunately, deal to my absence last week which made the substitute teacher to come and stalled our speed, our class is currently 2 lessons slower then class 103. In order to keep up with the schedule, the lecture is going to be fast and harsh. Therefore, I hope that you'll make more notes in the coming lessons, and remember to be prepared before lessons.
Now, who can roughly repeat the content of last lesson to me?
Student: Em…As the Cold War era comes to an end, the restriction of the Foundation as an NGO reduces significantly, which in summery, is that we can do things much more flexibly. This lead to the sudden increase of the Foundation's comprehensive strength, that lead to the sanction from GOC, which became a certain threat for the Foundation.
I think that the substitute teacher has done a good overview. This is basically the center point of last lesson—I don't know how well has he done last time, but I hope you've all have a rough understanding for this topic. From this lesson onward until the twelfth lesson we are going to talk about a very important historical incident in depth, which happens between 1997 to 2003, the era that was called by us as the "Civil War Era". I'm sure that you've all heard about it within the 3 years in the Foundation Academy.
Student: I heard that within this era the Foundation was splintered into 2 parties, and many bad things had happened?
Basically its all like the thing that you have said. In this lesson, let us outline the event, in order to let you have a clearer understanding of the trend of the "Civil War", which sets the stage for a more detailed lectures in our next lesson. Let us start from the Beginning.
Please the read the first two paragraphs of the reading material. Assistant, you may distribute the reading materials now.
As you've noticed, the core principle of the Foundation "Secure, study and supernatural" have nothing in connection of the source of the crisis. Actually, the reason why the "Civil War" was ignited was a pure problem from a normal human society, which is the "Millennium bug". This is a thing which everyone is familiar with: People are scared that the defect of the circulatory system of the late 20th century will cause a large scale civil unrest.
During this crisis, the Foundation keeps a close eye on the global society about this issue, in the mean time two parties within the Foundation starts to voice their thoughts. One party argues that if the large scale civil unrest were to happen, then the Foundation has the responsibility to use 'Skips' which was explained to keep the society in order; Another party thinks that the Foundation should kept it distance with the normal society, if the social unrest does not involves supernatural phenomenon, then the Foundation are to keep their hands away from intervening the unrest at the cost of the exposure of the Foundation. Though the two parties are tit-for-tat for this issue, this only stays on paper, and the Foundation remain as a spectator in the "Millennium bug" issues.
Of course, as you've all know, this crisis was solved before it really happens. When it finally came to an end in the 90s, the Foundation believes that the issue is over, and made a reflection surrounding the two arguments above. In October 1997, a seminar was held directed by the O5 council with thousand attending it, the topic of the seminar is to discuss about should the Foundation intervene in the affairs of supernatural phenomenon which may cause severe impact on human society. This meeting was held for more than two months, and ends with no united answers from both sides. In the same time, the Foundation falls into a rabbit hole of endless discussion and debates, which formed two factions which will not back down for one another: One are the Principlist, those whom supports the Foundation to keep on with their sole principle of "Secure, Contain, Protect" and the Foundation should not intervene issues which does not involves "Supernatural phenomenon", and the opposing faction is the Protectorist, those who support the Foundation to expand the definition out of the three main principles, the believes that the Foundation should bear the burden of helping all sorts of problems which the human society faces.
The two factions have roughly equal numbers of people, and both gain some support from the Foundation's high senior personnel such as the O5 council and the Ethnics Committee. Both of the factions both sides quarrel over the issue, and the contradictions between the two factions intensifies from day after day, it reaches its peak on the end of 1997. When the meeting was over, the O5 council studies the situation at the moment and the results of the seminar, and created the famous "Christmas Proposal", which lead to the referendum for 2 class personnel or above for whether the Foundation should expand their services to normal circumstances. The result of the referendum, to or not to participate in "Non-abnormal crisis", would be written into the Foundation's General Charter. At last, the Protectorist outperform the Principlist with an extremely small amount of votes in the referendum. This happens in April, 1998.
Student: So how did the civil war happened?
You people have to understand: Back to the cause, the source of the civil war is base on a political question of the qualification of the the Foundation, and this question was never faced by the history of the modern day Foundation. This situation often ends up in an unavoidable crisis.
So I think that this is obvious to everyone. The two faction have roughly the equal amount of support, whatever the result were , there must be a large amount of people who disagrees with the referendum; This is basically the situation for the Principlist. Actually, the Principlist done an assiduous investigation after the referendum, the results that they get were: Several leaders of the Protectorist performs some bribery when the referendum was held. We don't know was this true or not, but it defiantly creates a massive wave in the Foundation. The Protectorist naturally denied this claim, and the argument raises yet another level. At last, a investigation committee which was said to be organised by the Administrator intervene this argument, and got a clear conclusion. Of course, looking back afterwards, the majority of the member of the investigation committee came from the Principlist, it may even be the personnel support of the Administrator towards the Principlist.
So the authticity of this conclusion is still debatable.
Anyway, the from the investigation committee and the Principlist forced 2 Protectorist O5 members which was believed to be involved in bribery to resign from office, with 5 other senior personnel. Later the Protectorist comprises with the Principlist, both decided to hold yet another referendum for the recount of votes; It seems that this incident will end purely as a political dispute. However, on the eve of the preparation for the new referendum, a rather unexpected but vicious incident happened.
Student: Someone broke the pact?
Em…actually, a senior officer of the MTF forces, whom is a radical supporter for the Principlist, assassinated a O5 member irrationally, the O5 member he killed was suspected of bribery within the referendum, later the officer committed suicide. The Protectorist use this as their force and declared the new referendum as invalid, and forcefully adopted the new General Charter in early June, 1998. Using the new General Charter, the Protectorist took control of the Ethnics Committee, and starts attacking the Priciplist.
The Priciplist orginally intended to avoid further disputes over the assassination, but the Protectorist performs extremely explicit behavior, later the Priciplist jointly issued a document entitled the "Declaration" on the 22nd of June. The "Declaration" declares that all Principlist "Will fight for the Foundation's great principle against those despicable tampers until the end", and claimed that this is for the "Protection of the Foundation's purity", in the same time condemning the Protectorist's intervention towards the normal society will "Defiantly lead to Corruption and Autocracy". As a response, the Protectorist also calls "For the personnel in every Site, whether you break the chains, or be defeated as a stale old force." Within weeks, all of the Foundation Sites, Facilities and organisations responded to those calls, forming two separate forces. By mid-July, nearly every Sites was controlled by the Principlist or the Protectorist. Those who's ideology was a minority within that Site was expelled to other Sites which have the same believe; The scale of this migration is extremely large, and truly rare to see.
So that's it, the outbreak of the "Civil War" starts. When we are studying this part of the Foundation history, it is customary to regard the "Christmas Proposal" as the fuse of the Civil War, and the "Declaration" as the ignition of the Civil War. Are we all cleared now?
You have 5 minutes to organize your notes, or take a rest, you can also ask questions in the same time.
Student: Is there no exception within the War? I mean, there must people someone who don't wants to be involved in this incident, and join neither sides, right?
Well. Actually, besides from those unites which perform scientific studies and containment, some periphery organizations isn't all that passionate about this civil war stuff, a clear example of this would be the Laboratory of Aerodynamics, or the Foundation Academy which we are currently in. Generally speaking, these institutions can be into two categories, one are those who provide the necessary technical and informational assistance to the both sides, another one are those who passively avoid any contacts with both sides. In addition, there were also some pacifist who tries to get near to those institutions with all kinds of excuse. But those are still the minority, most institutions were often cut into pieces by different factions, then…
Student: Which side did you support then, professor?
For me…I'm a pacifist which lean towards the Protectorist. At the start of 1998 I was a mobile intelligence officer stationed in Site-CN-71. When the Civil war broke out, I was….having a holiday at Alice Springs. Site-CN-71 was controlled by Principlist, they won't let me back there. So inorder to stay away from this turmoil, I came to the Academy as a temporary lecturer, to teach history and intelligence. That happens twenty-ish years ago.
Student: What is your personnel view of this era, professor?
Madness. This is way too crazy.
Those students that I taught in that time were all naive and young, they just want to do their job; But whenever a new batch of graduates enters the Foundation, there must be someone who forces them to choose a faction to join. Even when they are talking, if it shows the slightest sign of leaning to either faction, they will be seen as hostile by one faction, and absorbed by another…but they themselves haven't recognizes what is happening. It was like everyone in the Foundation takes this political struggle as their main and primary job. The scientific studies and work are halted, our control over the world is slowly dwindling. If it wasn't for that batch of products from Prometheus Labs that the GOC is dealing with, the Foundation may already have been doomed. Who knows.
For those of you who are still organizing your notes, you still have 30 seconds to go.
Student: For the factions which emerged within the Civil War era, what action did they took? Especially direct frontal battles?
Ah, good question. That's the interesting part we're going to discuss in just a moment. Are you all ready?
Overall, though we called it as a "Civil War", in reality the direct armed clashed within the Foundation were pitifully small. It was like the two sides in the Cold War which feared the opposing side's use of large scale nuclear weapons, both faction feared that the opposing side would be risky, and deploy highly dangerous SCP subjects into total war, stretching the conflict all the way into the whole human society, or even causing supernatural disasters. Under this circumstances, the SCP subjects which was held by both sides were produced quite the deterrent effect, which prevented frontal battle from happening. In reality, in order to prevent this supernatural conflict from ripping the world a part, many peer organizations, like the GOC, Church of the Broken God and Marshall, Carter & Dark Company Ltd., have to use various ways to ease the relationship between the two faction of the Foundation to reduce the possibility of a outbreak of total war. So, in this era, using the word of our peer organisation:'The violent clashes decreased dramatically and stays in a relatively stable and peaceful state.'
However, we cannot simply assume that there were real peace within the Civil War era. Not even the tiniest bit. Political turmoil, foreign struggle and local conflict shows no signs of halting within this 6 years. Simply talking about the two factions in the foundation, they have launched espionage missions, economic sanctions, means to cut their opponents usable activity funds and communication destruction, disruption of opponents activities, assassination, decapitation and other 30 more other measures that was adopted by both sides beside direst clashes.
More dangerously, aside from the Foundation, hopes of the conspiracy of taking this opportunity to divide the entire GOI world was also tempting. This is very easy to understand: If the Foundation which had took half of the GOI world can be alienated or even dismembered, the ability if it will defiantly decrease significantly. And everyone can support two opposing puppet Foundation and gain some advantage for themselves. Can you understand? This is the first time that the Foundation was within this precarious state.
The fortress is really easy to be broken from inside.
Student: What happens afterwards?
Well…if you mean how the Foundation recovers to today, that would be a long time later. Let us look at the period between 1998 to 2002, the era we called it the "Deadlock era"; A lot of iconic things happened, we'll slowly discuss in the coming lectures. But today I'm going to teach you about the 3 most prominent events.
Friendly reminder, taking notes here will make your homework next week much more eaier.
Ok. First of all, let us look at "Operation May Day" occurring at the spring of 1999.This operation's target is to annihilate a group of terrorist, whom have gain several lost skips through various means. Both the two factions of the Foundation and GOC are all participants within this operation; The time and scale of this operation is extremely large, it continues for 4 months, the operation area stretches all the way from Sinkiang to Ireland. Looking at the operation itself is tedious. But standing in a historical point of view, the particularity of "Operation May Day" can best embodies the Foundation within this Civil war era.
The copy your currently reading is the old one, the description for this paragraph have some mistakes on it, please cross out the middle two paragraph of page 3, replaced with the content which I'm going to speak about. If the Exam contains this question, the model answer should be the one you've heard on lesson. This has been discussed with other History professors.
Within the period of "Operation May Day", we can see that the Foundation, no matter the Protectorist or the Principlist, is fighting for the same goal, there is no doubt about this: But please be reminded, the two factions mentioned here wasn't like the Allied nations in World War II, which are fighting for a "Common Goal"; Not like that. It means, that the two factions, have completely the same goal and targets, and this target is a serious one, it hinders the safety of more than 50% of the population of the world. So, although the two factions made their own plans, in reality they are forced to conduct a tacit joint operation. When we look back to this operation, we would find some interesting points: The two faction shows the needs of structural independence due to political factors, and due to the actual characteristics of the target, they must work closely. This shows the relationship between factions of the Foundation. The political significance of this operation is far greater then other respects, you can have a hint of what we going to talk about in the coming lessons. If you would like to do preview before the lesson, go ahead and submit the application for file inspection to the Academy Information Security Department.
The second prominent events we are going to look into is the "Adhesion Movement" starting from the New Year's Day of 2000. I think all of you had heard this before: A loose structured organisation within the Foundation which lead to the end of the Civil War, right? Good.
At the time of "Operation May Day", some centrist and moderate faction starts to released the need of reconstruction of the Foundation. They are from every ranks of the Foundation, counting about 2,000 of them, they are spread across all Sites around the globe. The "Adhesion Movement" uses the most neutral Foundation organisation, Laboratory of Aerodynamics, as their activity center, mostly they tries to push for peace activities in various Sites alone. Most of the time, they are will do promotional jobs anonymously: like compilation of the 《Daily Foundation》editorial, releases cutted clips and videos, and negotiate with the GOC about the current situation of the Foundation. In the mean time, in order to prevent from being cleansing, sine would hide their identity as a member of the "Adhesion Movement", and starts to spread their influence around them. Because of the flexibility if their acts, the "Adhesion Movement" has performed a near-perfect action. Some were already know by some students who studies Information Engineering, the information intrusion work conducted by the "Adhesion Movement" at Site-19 is still regarded as a textbook-level case until today. Similarly, the members who are retained in Site-CN-03 skillfully reversed the Site Manager from a radical Protectorist to a moderate one, I used to tell my students in the Intelligence Study about this incident. The two events above is just a peak of the iceberg of the whole "Adhesion Movement".
I personally appreciate the "adhesion Movement". And undeniably, their affect during the reconstruction of the Foundation was undeniable. However, it should be said that they focused too much on the "Adhesion Movement"'s local impact. It is also destined that they have not been able to strive for reconciliation between two sides as they had originally thought. That's also the reason why I hesitated to join the movement in that time.
Student: As it's been said, did the "Adhesion Movement" choose to expose themselves in the Academy? If so, as professor has said, why don't the Academy report this to the two factions of the Foundation?
No, not necessarily like that. As far as I know, the members of the movement controls the Recruitment Office and Office of Human Resources, and select students and lecturers which are the most moderate and neutral out of others to join the Academy. Not to mention, both the Protectorist and the Principlist known of the existence of the "Adhesion movement", as long as the information of the movement's members, then the movement would be safe. And both sides hope to use the move to oppose the others; At some level, the "Adhesion Movement" has its own sorrow.
Ok then, we've arrived at the last event we're going to talk about, today.
Yes, its the event that you think I'm going to say. "Operation Red Dead", the end of the Civil War, and the starting point of peace.
A Site controlled by the Principlist was attacked by the Chaos Insurgency in July, 2002. In order to temporarily strengthen its composition from the extreme measure that they have took, the Principlist transfer 2 mini hydrogen bombs with abnormal technology from their base at Hawaii. The transport plane which carries the bomb stops at Australia to pick up 2 atomic engineering expert which need to go to Europe. But, after their take off at Perth, they got attacked by 6 Protectorist fighter jets sent from South Africa to New Delhi. Of course, the escort flight of the transport was also attacked, and the transport plane's 2 engines and main fuel tank, along side the hydraulic system is damaged in the attack. Under this circumstance, with only half of its momentum left and lack any fuel to fly further, the transport plane was forced to land on an unknown island on South Indian Ocean to wait for rescue.
After the Protectorist analysed the situation and found out that the transport team they are attacking is a hydrogen bomb transportation team. At the time, they choose the unwise option of launching an assault a pond the landing site of the transport craft, which is "Operation Red Dead". According to the original plan of the operation, the Protectorist will sent MTF forces to the island and control all personnel there, and use the rescue operation as a cover up to condemn the Principlist of "Overarming with clear intention" when they found the hydro bomb. Unfortunately, the landing forces of the Protectorist departed 30 minutes late, which when they actually, that met the rescue team of the Principlist. Both starts to fight immediately after first contact. The clash continues for 4 days, and the fighting is fierce on the island, both sides reinforcements kept arriving on the island during the clash. And every battle didn't bought them enough time to retrieve the personnel and hydrogen bombs. The whole island has even been switched hands for 2 times. According to statistics written after the Civil War, it has been estimated that both sides sent at least 6 companies to the clash, plus some more ships that did not participate the battle.
The situation escalated quickly, and on the second day of the battle, which is 17th of July, multiple Sites and facilities around the Indian Ocean enters a state of emergency. At the time, we even Estimated that this will be the precursor to the outbreak of total war. They falls into fear, despair and even pessimism. GOC and MCD Company Ltd. acts quickly, trying to intervene and ease the situation through diplomatic means. But as the battle enters a stalemate, it cannot be stopped. As far as I know, the Protectorist even plans to bomb every Principlist Facilities in Southeast Asia. Everyone was nervous like crazy: No matter for those radicalist who pray for war, desperate centrist or the hastily acting "Adhesion Movement".
A complete mess.
Student: So…How does it end?
We don't know what actually happens; That's confidential. The information that we currently published is as below: Between the midnight of 19th to 20th July, the captain of the transport craft broadcast a incomplete radio message, saying in the message that he dispatched a team to activate the fuse for the 2 hydrogen bomb, and will defend the storage location of hydrogen bombs at all costs. He hopes to use this as a deterrent to disperse Foundation forces in the island, in order to end the battle immediately.
In the 20 minutes afterwards, teams which tries to approach the the landing site, no matter of their sides, were reported to be attacked. Then, evacuation order were suddenly issued to both sides, both retreated from the island quickly. Then, a nuclear detonation was detected by Facilities close to the Indian Ocean.
They are true heroes, damn.
Sorry, let me slowdown.
Students: Does this event directly facilitate the peace to come?
It may be hard to believe, but it did. That 2 hydrogen bomb made the Foundation realized that, a little hit and punch in the world of GOI, may caused really escalate if they are not careful, and if extreme measures were not taken the situation will be packable. And you are all clear about the things afterwards. In 2003, the new O5 council takes office, the senior level personnel was reelected, the General Charter adopted before the Civil War was scraped, and carries out a series of reform. A last, they declared the end of the division of the Foundation, "To continue our tradition of spreading our glory, and commit to protect humanity in the shadow". This is the famous 《Declaration of Solidarity》. Of course, this does not mean that the Protectorist has abandoned they view of reformation; Because of them, the field of activity if the Foundation was expanded considerably, and gain a closer liaison between various governments within the Foundation's controllable range.
This is the result of the compromisation between the two factions.
Regarding its meaning, the reading is clear and plain, so I won't talk too much. However, I hope you will all think about thus issue after the lesson: What has this part of the Foundation history taught us? If nothing else, the final essay may use this as one of its topic, so be prepared.
Starting from next lesson we'll talk about the factors of the Civil War according to the timeline. As usual, I hope that you'll all do some preview before lesson. Please be reminded that this isn't just a important part of the Exam. I will upload the recommendation book list to the class group, you people better pay attention to it, the books will definantly help to boost your knowledge about the Civil War history.
That's all for today. Student of Historical Research Society please find me afterwards; And, student number 8, yes, you. Come and find me after lunch.
OK, thank you all. Thank you, TA.
Class Dismissed.