"Operational Districts" Lore Draft

"Operational Districts" Lore Draft

DrPierson 13 Dec 2022 15:44

Hello.

This draft is a continuation of the "Authority Regional Sites" lore, but as a supplementary to that. Here you will find additional information about the regions and "districts" of each Regional Site. From the eldest Western Command to the ethnic tensions of Asia Command, you'll also find a bit of history to one of the Authority's unfortunate dissolution of the Central America Command.

Link to the draft.

Special thanks to TTPY as always for his contribution and support.

- Dr. Pierson

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"Curiosity Always Defines Reasoning"

Re: "Operational Districts" Lore Draft

(account deleted) 04 Jan 2023 18:14

okay boo lets do it

¶ indicates a need for a paragraph break

Overview

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In an effort to prevent future nationalization of Authority institutes, these sub-regions were established as part of the organization's reforms.

Active voice. Switch that sentence around.

These sub-regions were established in an effort to prevent future nationalization of Authority institutes.

¶ As cultural and national movements influenced the growth of branches, linguistic identities spread throughout the Authority hierarchy during the development of operational districts.

This sentence isn't immediately relevant to the previous idea. I'd make it a separate paragraph and expand on it.

Various operational districts within a regional command are led by Regional Directors who are appointed by their respective regional representative.

Various is extraneous here. Unless operational districts may not always be under a regional command that is led by a director, "various" implies exceptions. If there are exceptions, elaborate.

¶ Since 1954, the number of operational districts within a regional command has decreased steadily; the last expansion was authorized back in late 1996.

This also isn't related to the last sentence. Put in a separate paragraph, especially since the next sentence is directly connected to this.

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+ Northern Command

Considered the 'heart' of the modern Authority apparatus, Northern Command is the third oldest regional command, having begun existed prior to the current regional system as the 'Auctoritas New World Interest Group,' predating even Columbus' arrival in the Americas. North America would grow to become one of the Auctoritas', and eventually the Authority's, largest frontiers, with settlements spanning the continent's two coasts.

I think "prior to the current regional system" should be replaced with "prior to the Authority's existence."

A tense rivalry would develop with the rise of the United States, which, under the Jackson administration, kicked off several 'silent wars' with the Authority, which that would never truly be resolved even into the new millennium remain unresolved to this day.

You use the word "which" an awful lot. Try to use other words to avoid repetition. That, thereby, consequently, etc.

There have only been times when interactions with the United States government have been became tenuous, but none more so than after the Fail-Safe Incident of 2019.

Considering that its already been established that there have been silent wars, the reader already knows interactions have been tenuous with the USA.

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+ Southern Command

Uh oh, image broke. Try replacing "http" with "https" in the link.

South America played a significant role in the early development of Authority presence on the continent. Prior to the establishment of a regional-wide command, the Auctoritas influenced many cultural and political actions on the continent the continent's culture and politics with ease, thanks in part to the assistance of the Spanish and Portuguese in establishing governance in the region.

I would add something about the relationship between the Auctoritas and the Iberian boys.

¶ Southern Command faced numerous political and dictatorial retaliations as the twentieth century came to a close as a result of centuries of colonialism and revolutionary movements once the twentieth century came to a close. Dictators, such as Argentina's President Juan Perón, were among those in Latin America who posed a threat to the Authority's mission.

Seperate here because it makes it easier to parse and distinguishes sentences. Also note the sentence restructuring.

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+ Western Command

As the birthplace of its predecessor and eventual founding of the the Auctoritas and the Authority, Western Command is one of the oldest institutions of regional structure. Previously consisting of various centralized commands, Western Command was founded in the 1950s as part of a reformed effort to de-centralize and separate power across the European continent to expand command and control authority capabilities.

¶ Despite its roots to the Catholic Church, Western Command is regarded as a "conservative structure" that holds a mixed perception on religious identity, particularly Catholicism. Catholics within the command, allegedly, are often shown prejudiced in certain regions. This sentiment views has been largely held across many districts since the late 1800s.

For the longest time, Western Command was the Authority's command center until reforms made decentralization a focal policy into the prevailing twenty-first century.

No need for that dash between longest and time.

Central Europe

This district contains mostly eastern-european or balkan countries, while some of the countries that you'd consider "central", like Germany and Austria, are in the Western Europe district. I think there should be a comment on why this is. Something to do with the EU, maybe?

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+ Eastern Command

Previously part of Western Command under "West-East Command" of the prevailing 1950s

You keep using the word "prevailing" like that, but I don't think I've ever heard it used with stuff like decades and centuries. It sounds weird and it's not really needed.

Some within the Authority suspected Eastern Command of harboring Marxism, culminating in an institutional red scare and accusation within the command's early days, though these proved to be unsubstantiated.

Kinda wish we got to spend more time on this subject. Sounds cool.

pushed for a tougher-stance against the Authority

Drop that hyphen, Pierson.

OPDIS.2-EX

I like this. Maybe change it to "OPDIS.EX" instead to prevent confusion? Idk.

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Final Thoughts:

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I like this a lot. Lovely CSS-work and worldbuilding. I can't help but wonder why they bother crediting each command intro if they're all REDACTED. Also, I wish it went a little more into detail about individual operational districts, since it is titled "Operational Districts" but it describes the regional commands at large instead, and there's already a page for that. This isn't to the point where it's distracting, though.

As-is, I'd rate this a 5 for effort and how much it contributes to the site. Great job!

Last edited on 04 Jan 2023 18:37 by (account deleted) Show more

Alaskan Astronaut's Critique (rating: 5/5 stars)

Alaskan Astronaut 30 Jan 2023 17:46

I want to stress that this crit isn't finished. As soon as I do finish it, I will update this post and ping you over Discord. However, I know you wanted this page out there ASAP, and so do I, so here's what I have so far:

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This is a beautiful article, Pierson. Lovely CSS work, great utilization of images, not to mention well-written. I've always liked reading these articles about the inner workings of the Authority, and this is no exception. Five stars out of five.

I have a few suggestions (based on my subjective opinion) that I think would improve the aesthetic of this page. Take them or leave them, it's up to you.

Subjective general critique

Quotebox font size

I think the font size you used for the orange quoteboxes at the beginning of each Operational Districts section is a little too small, which makes it kind of strenuous to read without zooming in. I made a mockup that has the body text size bumped up to 95% and the signature bumped up to 100% size (under "Proposed formatting") so you can decide for yourself:

[+] Current formatting [SOUTHCOM]

[+] Proposed formatting [SOUTHCOM]

Then again, it's not that much of an issue… maybe I just need contacts?

Collapsible formatting (bracketing)

I noticed that for your collapsibles, you format them like this:

+ dickbutt

I prefer putting brackets around my plus/minus signs. I think it makes them look cleaner.

[+] dickbutt

Completely up to you, though. It's just a personal aesthetic preference.

Collapsible formatting (hide="- Close")

This is a ridiculously specific nitpick, so just bear with me here.

When I click on one of the collapsibles in your article, the "hide" text changes to "- Close." It's a little annoying, especially for the longer ones like the "Dissolution of the Central America Command" collapsible, because the text changes size and I have to move my cursor a few pixels to the left to close it. Observe:

+ This is a picture of the popular Internet cartoon character "Dickbutt."

Compare that to:

+ This is a picture of the popular Internet cartoon character "Dickbutt."

The latter example is just ever so slightly more convenient.

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Now, onto the rest of the article.

Overview

[+] Overview critique

Smaller sub-regions within the established regional commands are referred to as "operational districts" (OpDis).

• Dehyphenate "sub-regions." It's a closed compound word, not a hyphenated compound word.

• "Smaller subregions" is redundant - a subregion is by definition smaller than a region. I would replace "smaller" with "strategically important", as this lends some clarification as to why the Authority divides the regional commands into operational districts.

• Change "the established regional commands" to "the Authority's established regional commands." Grammatically speaking, it should be made clear who the regional commands belong to, even if the answer is obvious.

In an effort to prevent future nationalization of Authority institutes, these sub-regions were established as part of the organization's reforms.

I was making a ton of bullet point suggestions here, but I eventually decided it would just be easier to rewrite this sentence entirely (edit: 1/30/2023: I hope that isn't too much of an annoyance! This did miff DoubleDenial a bit, so I'll likely go back and bullet point it later). Change it to:

These operational districts were formally established in 1946 as part of the Authority's post-war organizational reforms, in an effort to safeguard regional branches of the Authority from becoming nationalized by hostile powers in the future.

The new sentence:

• Provides a date for when these operational districts were established.

• Provides a precedent for nationalization of Authority regional branches (GARD).

• Changes the awkward "Authority institutes" to "regional branches of the Authority."

• Changes "sub-regions" to "operational districts", keeping the sentence on track with the rest of this page's theme.

• Crosslinks to the GARD hub.

• Gets that hyphen the hell out of here.

Various operational districts within a regional command are led by Regional Directors who are appointed by their respective regional representative.

• Change "various" to "the various."

• Change "within a" to "within any given."

• Change "are led" to "are each led."

• Change "by Regional Directors" to "a Regional Director."

• Add a comma after "Director."

• Change "who are" to "who is."

• Change "appointed by" to "appointed to their post by."

• Who is their "respective regional representative?" Is it their regional command's designated Global Director? Elaborate.

Since 1954, the number of operational districts within a regional command has decreased steadily; the last expansion was authorized back in late 1996.

• Change "the number of" to "the formation of new."

• Remove "within a regional command," as the operational districts are by definition within a regional command.

• I would say "slowed considerably" rather than "decreased steadily", since the sentence seems to indicate that new operational districts are still being created on rare occasions.

• Replace the semicolon with a comma.

" Replace "the last expansion was authorized back" with "with the most recent expansion being authorized."

While regional representatives have the power to add further districts,

• Say "establish new operational districts" instead of "add further districts."

Operational Districts

[+] Operational Districts [NORTHCOM] critique

Considered the 'heart' of the modern Authority apparatus,

• Change "Considered the" to "Widely considered to be."

• Remove the singular quotation marks around "heart."

• "Apparatus" is a strange descriptor. It's not wrong, technically speaking… but there's better words for it. Maybe change "modern Authority apparatus" to "the modern Authority's global network."

Northern Command the third oldest regional command,

• Add an "is" after Command.

• "third oldest" should be hyphenated.

having begun prior to the current regional system as the 'Auctoritas New World Interest Group,' predating even Columbus' arrival in the Americas.

• Change "begun" to "become established."

• Put 'Auctoritas New World Interest Group' in double quotation marks.

• Change "predating even" to "even predating."

• Change "Columbus' arrival in the Americas" to "the first voyage of Christopher Columbus."

• How many years did the Auctoritas New World Interest Group predate the Columbus expedition by? You should state this at the end of the sentence.

The Calamity of the 80s

[[collapsible show="[+] The Union Strikes (1979-1980) critique" hide="[-] The Union Strikes (1979-1980) critique"]]

• You should change the name of this section to avoid confusion with the GOI of the same name. (I know this will sound kind of dumb, but before I clicked on the collapsible, that's what I thought this section was going to be about.) My suggestion is "Formation of the IURPDW labor union and subsequent strike (1979-1980)" for the collapsible, and then "1980 IURPDW labor strike" for the section header.

• So what the hell is an IURPDW, you may ask? Well, the "Worker's Union" is an unrealistically generic name for a labor union. Take a look at the list of labor unions in the United States, for instance: we've got names like the "International Union of Elevator Constructors (IUEC)," the "Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)," and the "National Football League Players Association (NFLPA)." In each case, the name of the labor union specifies who it caters to (elevator constructors, football players, etc.), and also has a flashy acronym to go along with it. IURPDW would be the acronym for the "International Union of Research & Protection Division Workers", which I believe you'll find sound more realistic.

[+] The Dissolution of the Central America Command (1980) critique

• Change the title of the collapsible to "The dissolution of Central America Command [CENTCOM] (1980)".