Rule of the Colonels

Rule of the Colonels refers to a period in the Baltic Union history ranging from 2060 to 2075, the immediate aftermath of the Great War to the adoption of the Articles of the Union. During this time, the chief legislative, executive and judicials powers were held by a joint military junta of former Baltic States military officers. As most of them ranked Colonel, this period has since become known as the Rule of the Colonels.

## Overview

In the immediate aftermath of the nuclear war of 2054, the communities of survivors centered around fallout shelters in the future Baltic Union were typically governed by the most ranking military officers present. As the nuclear winter began to dissipate, these officers began to organize search parties to set out in the surrounding wasteland and seek out valuable supplies and potential survivors. While the initial contact between isolated groups of survivors was far from unanimously-cooperative, eventually the survivor groups led by the military came to a conclusion that mutual cooperation was necessary for future survival. The leading military officers hence came to establish a loose alliance of independent militarized communities that eventually grew into the contemporary Baltic Union. These leaders are presently known as the Colonels (although they did not necessarily hold the actual rank of Colonel), and regarded much like the Founding Fathers of the United States are.

## Policies

The Colonels adpoted a number of harsh and unforgiving but vitally necessary policies that eventually became ingrained in the broader Baltic Union culture and society. First and foremost among them was universal military preparation - a practical necessity in the immediate post-war world rife with raiders, cannibals and insane cultists. Every citizen was assigned to a military rank at the age of 13, and later a military tier essentially designating his or her duties during wartime, the leading two tiers being professional soldiers, and the rest serving as citizen militias and reservists respectively.

The Colonels also imposed basic eugenics upon society. Irradiated or otherwise unfit offspring was discarded mercilessly, since the early post-war communities did not have the resources to waste on those who would die soon in any case. This principle is still upheld in the present day, albeit less stringently than before.

Another reason for the imposition of such rules was the desire to prevent civilian complaints about military tyranny. By assigning every civilian a role within the military, everyone would be made a member of the military, their complaints essentially being rendered moot. It would also serve to provide a morale boost, giving civilians the idea that they were also actively serving to provide and protect the community, and not just leeching from its more capable members.

The universal militarization system also served to ensure that the existing safe-zone communities and any future members would be capable of defending themselves without having to rely on the nearest garrison.

The Colonels completely redesigned the legal system of the nascent Baltic Union, discarding the elaborate pre-war legal codes entirely and building up a much simpler, more robust code of law that had fewer but stricter rules and regulations fitting for the new world and its specific conditions. The new laws were meant to be upheld in spirit rather than by the letter, so that wrongdoers could not weasel their way out of punishment on a legal technicality. Most notably, the new laws entirely abandoned the concept of incarceration - any crimes that used to merit imprisonment before were now punished by banishment from the safe zones instead. Given the conditions outside safe zone communities during the Colonel era, such punishment was severe indeed as the exodite would have to brave the wastelands rife with dangerous wildlife and various unsavoury characters alone, without the benefit of community protection. Adopting banishment over imprisonment was also dictated by necessity - the communities simply had no resources to spare for unproductive miscreant members who wouldn't be contributing anything if kept imprisoned. The Colonels also instituted outlawry as the ultimate form of punishment in the new Baltic legal code. In lieu of capital punishment, those found guilty of particularly heinous crimes would be stripped from all legal protections that normally also applied to banished individuals, essentially marking them as fair targets for violent retaliation by any who might desire it.

Another cornerstone policy established by the Colonels was the rejection of wars of aggression. The Colonels by no means rejected offensive action on enemy soil if it served to protect the communities, and in fact carried out frequent raiding expeditions to procure valuable resources - they merely renounced permanent territorial conquest. This would become the cornerstone of future Baltic foreign policy and military doctrine - to make no territorial claims of what wasn't rightfully theirs, and to yield to no such claims themselves.

In terms of economy, the Colonels rejected the notions of restoring some semblance of the pre-war market economy, and instead redesigned the nascent Baltic economy in a way that would support a totally-militarized society. Self-sufficiency and even and effective distribution of goods were prioritized over mercantile concerns. All commodities were tightly rationed, any surpluses being stockpiled. Trade was very limited in the immediate post-war world, as were the production capabilities, so there wasn't much in a way of tradable surpluses to begin with.

## Life under the Colonels

To say that life during the Colonel era was tough would be an understatement. Even for a safe-zone resident, life was usually nasty, brutish and short - but then again, the hardships that the denizens of the safe zones had to endure paled in comparison to what those outside them had to deal with.

Collective survival dictated all aspects of life in the safe zone communities. Policies that would have been unthinkable in the pre-war world now became a self-evident norm - ill and deformed babies were immediately discarded, producing children required a breeding permit after a thorough medical examination, suitable individuals often being coupled for breeding regardless of their relationship status. Crippled and elderly citizens were pressured to retire in the wastelands to die, wrongdoers were simply cast out of communities, even basic goods were tightly rationed, and theft became a capital offense. All these policies reflected the extremely-tight resources that the communities simply couldn't afford to squander on the weak, infirm and unproductive in order to survive.

Still, these same rules were what enabled the safe zones to attain a living standard all but unheard of outside them. For all the privations that safe-zone residents had to undergo, they were guaranteed to have a shelter, sufficient nutrition, uncontaminated water, basic healthcare and armed protection of a well-organized military force - something all but unknown in the surrounding lawless wastes.

There were other communities of survivors besides the safe zones established by the Colonels in the Baltic wastes. These communities would now become targets of a ruthless reunification campaign in the post-war era. The larger and more successful ones were given the option to integrate, to accept the Colonel regime and become recognized as safe-zones of their own. Smaller ones not deemed worth expending resources to integrate them and uncooperative larger communities would be mercilessly dismantled, their resources taken and their residents with useful skills forcefully assimilated and dispersed throughout the Colonels' realm, the rest of their denizens being cast out in the wilderness to fend for themselves. Although many of the safe-zone residents and the Colonels themselves were understandably reserved about meting out such treatment to people who had been their fellow countrymen before the war, the survival of the existing safe-zone communities with their established living standard necessitated such cruel measures. Every expedition sent out to procure resources or reclaim territories was a major resource investment from a very constrained pool of resources, so failure to procure something of at least equivalent worth to this expenditure could very well result in the failure of the entire community shortly thereafter as its stocks would become depleted.

That being said, the reclamation efforts of the Colonels generally took place without much violence, as the isolated communities of survivors usually saw the benefit in joining a thriving network of militarized communes, accepting their rules and way of life being a small price to pay for the advantages that access to their shared resources and effective military protection would bring. Even when faced with resistence, the expeditions were usually lenient in selecting which vanquished were to be integrated, applying the same criteria that they practiced within their own communities - healthy people of breeding age with useful skills were prioritized, and the rest taken in if the current resource situation could accomodate them.

The Baltic wastelands during the Colonel era were a lawless and violent place, the rule of law rarely reaching beyond visual range of safe zones. The wastelands were home to dangerous, often mutated wildlife, gangs of raiders and cannibals, bizarre and often violent cults, and other assorted lowlifes. Having amply witnessed the depraved atrocities that these wastelanders would often visit on peaceful communities of survivors, the Colonels adopted an uncompromising policy of extermination towards these dregs of humanity. Military patrols were often sent out with the explicit purpose of hunting down any suspected raiders and cultists, and eliminate them with extreme prejudice. This level of violence eventually achieved the desired results as raider gangs started to become wary of attacking communities under protection of the Colonels, or indeed straying into territory claimed by the nascent Baltic Union at all.

In parallel with their efforts to secure the wastelands, the Colonels also launched an all-encompassing land reclamation effort. Using material from pre-war seed vaults, the communities under their direction embarked on a massive land decontamination and reforestation effort - that there is so much green in the contemporary Baltic Union is largely owing to their efforts. In continuation of these efforts, every Balt still deems a matter of pride to plant 100 trees in his lifetime, and many strive to plant 100 trees every year.

## Contemporary opinion

In the present day, the Colonels are deeply revered as the founding fathers of the Baltic Union. Although many of their original harsh policies have been relaxed to much milder forms, there is little controversy as to their necessity. Baltic and foreign historians alike recognize that these policies were dictated by the circumstances of their time, and the overriding need to survive, and if anything, their implementation demonstrates the Colonels as highly-competent, foresighted and capable leaders able and willing to make tough and unpopular decisions for the benefit of their people.

Students in contemporary Baltic Union schools are taught extensively about the Colonels and their accomplishments. Since most contemporary Baltic cities and towns were originally safe zones established or reintegrated by one of the Colonels, each of them pays particular homage to their founding/reclaiming Colonel, his portrait adorning every government office and his statue standing in the center of the town. Various public buildings like hospitals, schools, libraries and military bases are named after the Colonels, as are city streets and squares. The burial sites of the Colonels have since been encased in lavish mausoleums and serve as pilgrimage sites to Balts wishing to pay their respects.